After the worldwide flood, the waters had dried up, “God spoke to Noah, saying, “Go out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. “Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you, birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, that they may breed abundantly on the earth, and BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY ON THE EARTH.” (Gen. 8:15-17)
“Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and there he sacrificed as burnt offerings the animals and birds that had been approved for that purpose. And the LORD was pleased with the aroma of the sacrifice and said to himself, “I WILL NEVER AGAIN CURSE THE GROUND because of the human race, even though everything they think or imagine is bent toward evil from childhood. I will never again destroy all living things.” (Gen. 8:20-21) “Then God blessed Noah and his sons and told them, “BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY. FILL THE EARTH.” (Gen. 9:1) God said, “When I send clouds over the earth, the rainbow will appear in the clouds, and I will remember my covenant with you and with all living creatures. Never again will the floodwaters destroy all life. When I see the rainbow in the clouds, I will remember the eternal covenant between God and every living creature on earth.” (Gen. 9:14-16)
After a while the Lord said, “…the people are one and they all have ONE LANGUAGE AND ONE SPEECH…as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain and they dwelt there. Then they said, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly…let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, LEST WE BE SCATTERED ABROAD over the face of the whole earth.(God’s commandment was, “BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY. FILL THE EARTH.”(Gen. 9:1)) ” But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the LORD said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now NOTHING THAT THEY PROPOSE TO DO WILL BE WITHHELD FROM THEM. Come, let Us go down and there CONFUSE THEIR LANGUAGE, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city.” (Gen. 11:1-8)
Up until the time of Genesis 11, the whole world had ONE LANGUAGE and a common speech. However, the people unified under a common, but SINFUL AND SELFISH PURPOSE to try to build A STAIRCASE TO GOD and to DOMINATE all of creation. God punished the people by CONFUSING THEIR COMMON LANGUAGE so that they couldn’t understand each other. Our English word babble comes directly from the Hebrew word (bâbel) in this story. Then He scattered the people from Babel all over the earth and from this scattering came all the different nations. At Pentecost, God reversed what He had done 2,500 years earlier. He BROUGHT TOGETHER the same scattered nations that had different tongues and dialects and brought them back together so they could once again UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER. On this occasion, they came together and WERE UNIFIED for the correct reason, to PRAISE AND EXALT THE GOD OF THE UNIVERSE. “Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, “Look, are not all those who speak Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each IN OUR OWN LANGUAGE in which we were born?” (Acts 2:7-8)
THE HOLY SPIRIT BRINGS US ALL TOGETHER ONCE AGAIN!
-Bill Stockham