Anyone who has even the slightest acquaintance with the Bible knows the story of the Tower of Babel.1 That story is so simple, so concrete, and so clear, that if you only heard it once when you were a child you could never forget it. No subtlety here. No obscure doctrines, as in some of the Epistles, just a short clear narrative, but of transcendent import.

It is, of course, a parable. The word “Babel” means confusion and, to put it briefly, this parable teaches that when you deny the omnipotence of God, and you do this whenever you give power to anything else, to matter, to climate, to fear, and so forth, only confusion and trouble can follow. To be guilty of that mistake or sin is really to have many gods, and that was the characteristic fault of the heathens. As soon as you lose the unity of God, you have lost God in your heart. Those who knew the truth about God worshiped Him and Him alone, and they received the protection and the inspiration that only the Truth can give, and as long as they were faithful to the Truth, everything went well with them. At times, however, many of those who had known the Truth, forgot it for a season, and inevitably things began to go wrong. Yet if they remembered the one God again and turned to Him wholeheartedly things would come right once more. “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.”

If you who read this should be in difficulties of any kind it is certain that (quite unintentionally, no doubt) you have been committing the sin of the heathen in some way or perhaps several ways—you have not been putting God really first in your life, you have been giving power to some outer conditions by fearing them. It may be that at some point you have seen the higher and deliberately chosen the lower; but in any case the explanation is the same. Now if you will turn back to God once more, in your heart, and reaffirm your faith in Him, all will be well again.

The story begins by saying that The whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. That is to say, there was unity of thought and expression. That represents the time when your faith was firm and dynamic. Then you allowed your thought to slip away more or less from the Truth. Technically, you allowed your consciousness to fall. The second verse expresses this by saying, And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.

The plain always means fear, doubt, and any kind of negative thinking in contradistinction to the hill or mountain which stands for prayer or the spiritual thought. These people allowed their thoughts to fall to a low level of selfishness and fear, and the Bible mentions the fact that this was not a momentary lapse but that they dwelt on that plain (or state of mind). Like the word “Babel” the word “Shinar” also means confusion. It is a very interesting fact that most names in the Bible, whether personal or geographical names, have an inner meaning that lies below the text.

The point in saying that they dwelt in Shinar is to stress the fact that it is not an occasional negative thought that does the harm, it is the thought or the false belief that is frequently entertained that causes your trouble.

Habitual wrong thinking, false beliefs, long entertained, not only produce fear, but they build up a conviction both conscious and subconscious that we have to rely upon ourselves. Of course, nothing could be more discouraging than such an idea, and in its turn it produces more fear, and so on. In that state we think less and less about God and we usually make desperate though forlorn efforts of will power.

  In the parable these people got the absurd idea that they could reach heaven (regain harmony) by building a material tower which would actually reach from the earth to the sky where they supposed heaven to be. Naturally, heaven is to be reached only within one’s own heart by prayer and right thinking. There is no outer road to heaven, but these people were so terrorized that they were afraid of being scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

This describes perfectly that sense of insecurity and apprehension that has always beset the greater part of mankind because they have not known or even partially realized the All-Presence and All-Power of God, and of their essential unity with Him. Jesus did not say build a material tower to the sky; he said that one should go into the secret chamber of his own heart, and close the door and realize the Presence of God.

It is easy for us to see that these people were acting in an absurd and futile way, but have we not done virtually the same thing ourselves many, many times? And, after studying this parable, we must resolve to avoid this mistake in the future as far as we possibly can.

An important point to be noted is that they decided to make their tower of brick. In the Bible, certain materials are considered noble, and certain others are considered base. Among stones, marble is the noble one and brick is the base one; and so, of course, they built their tower of brick. Brick itself, it will be noted, is an artificial product and is made of clay (of the earth earthy), whereas marble is not made by man. Also, instead of real mortar they used some kind of slime, which could hardly be expected to hold the tower together for very long. Naturally, all this is purely symbolical and it does not imply for a moment that we are not to use bricks in building our material houses or towers.

The parable also says that one of their objects in building their Babel tower was to make a name for themselves. In the Bible the name of anything signifies the nature of that thing, and in that sense, our “name” must come from God; for He alone can change one’s nature or character for the better. I will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written.2

After this the account goes on to say that the Lord was angry, that He scattered the people abroad, and confounded their language so that they could not understand one another’s speech. In this sense the word “Lord” means law, or rather what the people believed to be the law. It does not refer to God. Whatever we really believe is what governs our lives. We can, and we all do, make laws of limitation for ourselves, and then we have to live under them. The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh.3 This text does not mean that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart for such is not the nature of God. It means that Pharaoh hardened his own heart, and told himself that he was doing the will of God. Many people throughout history have done just this, inflicting cruelty and injustice on others, and soothing their consciences by saying that it was the will of God.

The confusion of tongues is a graphic description of the state of mind of those who have not yet begun to center their lives on God, for only fear and chaos can come to them until they do.

Do not waste your time and energy in building Babel towers. They will always collapse before long and leave you worse off than ever. Babel towers are built from the ground up and with great labor; first in making the bricks themselves and then slowly piling them one on top of another. The true building or city, the new Jerusalem, is not built from the ground upward by labor, but it comes down out of heaven complete and perfect, the gift of God Himself.4 In other words, it comes as the result of your prayers, and of your faith in the goodness of God and His unfailing providence, and the new Jerusalem brings with it harmony, peace, lasting success, and great joy.

1. Genesis 11:1-9.

2. Revelation 2:17.

3. Exodus 9:12.

4. Revelation 21:12.

EMMET FOX