Genesis 11:1-9

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

3 They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."

5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. 6 The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."

8 So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel--because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth. (NIV)

 

  1. What is the main thing that the people set out to build?
    • The city, or the tower?

       

  2. Why are they building the city?
    • HINT: Genesis 11:4 "so that we man make a name for ourselves"
    • HINT: Genesis 9:7 & Genesis 11:4

       

  3. What was the purpose of the tower in an ancient city?
    • HINT: Judges 9:46-52 protection.

       

  4. Who was the tower to protect them from?

     

    • HINT: Genesis 11:4 Tower that reaches into heaven.

       

  5. Who made the stone that they did not use?

     

  6. Who made the bricks?

     

  7. What spiritual statement are the people making when the say "Come let us make a name for ourselves by building a city that will supply our needs with our own false religion, (tower), to protect is from God?

     

  8. Where was this city and tower located?
    • Babylon
    • NOTICE: In Revelation 17:18 that the woman, the Harlot of Babylon is called a city.
    • The city that was started in Genesis 11:1-9 is the same city that is thrown down in the book of Revelation. Not the literal city, but the spiritual. The idea that man would make a society in which he would not have to depend upon God for anything was started back then, and has progressed to this day. It is this ideology that will be thrown down along with everything and everyone involved with this city. We must heed the warning in Revelation 18:4-5
      Revelation 18:4-5
      Then I heard another voice from heaven say:
      "Come out of her, my people,
      so that you will not share in her sins,
      so that you will not receive any of her plagues;
      5 for her sins are piled up to heaven,
      and God has remembered her crimes.
    • NOTICE: That today there is much talk of English being the language of business the whole world over. This is not a coincidence. This too corresponds to the city built in Genesis 11:1-9.

       


Previous Study More Information Quiz Next Study