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Expositor's Bible Commentary Genesis 11:1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. Genesis 11:27 Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot. THE CALL OF ABRAHAM Genesis 11:27-32 ; Genesis 12:1-5 WITH Abraham there opens a new chapter in the history of the race; a chapter of the profoundest significance. The consequences of Abraham’s movements and beliefs have been limitless and enduring. All succeeding time has been influenced by him. And yet there is in his life a remarkable simplicity, and an entire absence of such events as impress contemporaries. Among all the forgotten millions of his own time he stands alone a recognisable and memorable figure. But around his figure there gathers no throng of armed followers; with his name, no vast territorial dominion, no new legislation, not even any work of literature or art is associated. The significance of his life was not military, nor legislative, nor literary, but religious. To him must be carried back the belief in one God. We find him born and brought up among idolaters; and although it is certain there were others besides himself who here and there upon earth had dimly arrived at the same belief as he, yet it is certainly from him the Monotheistic belief has been diffused. Since his day the world has never been without its explicit advocacy. It is his belief in the true God, in a God who manifested His existence and His nature by responding to this belief, it is this belief and the place he gave it as the regulating principle of all his movements and thoughts, that have given him his everlasting influence. With Abraham there is also introduced the first step in a new method adopted by God in the training of men. The dispersion of men and the divergence of their languages are now seen to have been the necessary preliminary to this new step in the education of the world-the fencing round of one people till they should learn to know God and understand and exemplify His government. It is true, God reveals Himself to all men and governs all; but by selecting one race with special adaptations, and by giving to it a special training, God might more securely and more rapidly reveal Himself to all. Each nation has certain characteristics, a national character which grows by seclusion from the influences which are forming other races. There is a certain mental and moral individuality stamped upon every separate people. Nothing is more certainly retained; nothing more certainly handed down from generation to generation. It would therefore be a good practical means of conserving and deepening the knowledge of God, if it were made the national interest of a people to preserve it, and if it were closely identified with the national characteristics. This was the method adopted by God. He meant to combine allegiance to Himself with national advantages, and spiritual with national character, and separation in belief with a distinctly outlined and defensible territory. This method, in common with all Divine methods, was in strict keeping with the natural evolution of history. The migration of Abraham occurred in the epoch of migrations. But although for centuries before Abraham new nations had been forming, none of them had belief in God as its formative principle. Wave upon wave of warriors, shepherds, colonists have left the prolific plains of Mesopotamia. Swarm after swarm has left that busy hive, pushing one another further and further west and east, but all have been urged by natural impulses, by hunger, commerce, love of adventure and conquest. By natural likings and dislikings, by policy, and by dint of force the multitudinous tribes of men were finding their places in the world, the weaker being driven to the hills, and being schooled there by hard living till their descendants came down and conquered their conquerors. All this went on without regard to any very high motives. As it was with the Goths who invaded Italy for her wealth, as it is now with those who people America and Africa because there is land or room enough, so it was then. But at last God selects one man and says, "I will make of thee a great nation." The origin of this nation is not facile love of change nor lust of territory, but belief in God. Without this belief this people had not been. No other account can be given of its origin. Abraham is himself already the member of a tribe, well-off and likely to be well-off; he has no large family to provide for, but he is separated from his kindred and country, and led out to be himself a new beginning, and this because, as he himself throughout his life said, he heard God’s call and responded to it. The city which claims the distinction of being Abraham’s birthplace, or at least of giving its name to the district where he was born, is now represented by a few mounds of ruins rising out of the flat marshy ground on the western bank of the Euphrates, not far above the point where it joins its waters to those of the Tigris and glides on to the Persian gulf. In the time of Abraham, Ur was the capital city which gave its name to one of the most populous and fertile regions of the earth. The whole land of Accad, which ran up from the sea-coast to Upper Mesopotamia (or Shinar), seems to have been known as Ur-ma, the land of Ur. This land was of no great extent, being little if at all larger than Scotland, but it was the richest of Asia. The high civilisation which this land enjoyed even in the time of Abraham has been disclosed in the abundant and multifarious Babylonian remains which have recently been brought to light. What induced Terah to abandon so prosperous a land can only be conjectured. It is possible that the idolatrous customs of the inhabitants may have had something to do with his movements. For while the ancient Babylonian records reveal a civilisation surprisingly advanced, and a social order in some respects admirable, they also make disclosures regarding the worship of the gods which must shock even those who are familiar with the immoralities frequently fostered by heathen religions. The city of Ur was not only the capital, it was the holy city of the Chaldeans. In its northern quarter rose high above the surrounding buildings the successive stages of the temple of the moon-god, culminating in a platform on which the priests could both accurately observe the motions of the stars and hold their night-watches in honour of their god. In the courts of this temple might be heard breaking the silence of midnight one of those magnificent hymns, still preserved, in which idolatry is seen in its most attractive dress, and in which the Lord of Ur is invoked in terms not unworthy of the living God. But in these same temple-courts Abraham may have seen the firstborn led to the altar, the fruit of the body sacrificed to atone for the sin of the soul; and here too he must have seen other sights even more shocking and repulsive. Here he was no doubt taught that strangely mixed religion which clung for generations to some members of his family. Certainly he was taught in common with the whole community to rest on ‘the seventh day; as he was trained to look to the stars with reverence and to the moon as something more than the light which was set to rule the night. Possibly then Terah may have been induced to move northwards by a desire to shake himself free from customs he disapproved. The Hebrews themselves seem always to have considered that his migration had a religious motive. "This people," says one of their old writings, "is descended from the Chaldeans, and they sojourned heretofore in Mesopotamia because they would not follow the gods of their fathers which were in the land of Chaldea. For they left the way of their ancestors and worshipped the God of heaven, the God whom they knew; so they cast them out from the face of their gods, and they fled into Mesopotamia and sojourned there many days. Then their God commanded them to depart from the place where they sojourned and to go into the land of Canaan." But if this is a true account of the origin of the movement northwards, it must have been Abraham rather than his father who was the moving spirit of it; for it is certainly Abraham and not Terah who stands as the significant figure inaugurating the new era. If doubt rests on the moving cause of the migration from Ur, none rests on that which prompted Abraham to leave Charran and journey towards Canaan. He did so in obedience to what he believed to be a Divine command, and in faith on what he understood to be a Divine promise. How he became aware that a Divine command thus lay upon him we do not know. Nothing could persuade him that he was not commanded. Day by day he heard in his soul what he recognised as a Divine voice, saying: "Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee!" This was God’s first revelation of Himself to Abraham. Up to this time Abraham to all appearance had no knowledge of any God but the deities worshipped by his fathers in Chaldea. Now, he finds within himself impulses which he cannot resist and which he is conscious he ought not to resist. He believes it to be his duty to adopt a course which may look foolish and which he can justify only by saying that his conscience bids him. He recognises, apparently for the first time, that through his conscience there speaks to him a God Who is supreme. In dependence on this God he gathered his possessions together and departed. So far, one may be tempted to say, no very unusual faith was required. Many a poor girl has followed a weakly brother or a dissipated father to Australia or the wild west of America; many a lad has gone to the deadly west coast of Africa with no such prospects as Abraham. For Abraham had the double prospect which makes migration desirable. Assure the colonist that he will find land and have strong sons to till and hold and leave it to, and you give him all the motive he requires. These were the promises made to Abraham-a land and a seed. Neither was there at this period much difficulty in believing that both promises would be fulfilled. The land he no doubt expected to find in some unoccupied territory. And as regards the children, he had not yet faced the condition that only through Sarah was this part of the promise to be fulfilled. But the peculiarity in Abraham’s abandonment of present certainties for the sake of a future and unseen good is, that it was prompted not by family affection or greed or an adventurous disposition, but by faith in a God Whom no one but himself recognised. It was the first step in a life-long adherence to an Invisible, Spiritual Supreme. It was that first step which committed him to life-long dependence upon and intercourse with One Who had authority to regulate his movements and power to bless him. From this time forth all that he sought in life was the fulfilment of God’s promise. He staked his future upon God’s existence and faithfulness. Had Abraham abandoned Charran at the command of a widely ruling monarch who promised him ample compensation, no record would have been made of so ordinary a transaction. But this was an entirely new thing and well worth recording, that a man should leave country and kindred and seek an unknown land under the impression that thus he was obeying the command of the unseen God. While others worshipped sun, moon, and stars, and recognised the Divine in their brilliance and power, in their exaltation above earth and control of earth and its life, Abraham saw that there was something greater than the order of nature and more worthy of worship, even the still small voice that spoke within his own conscience of right and wrong in human conduct, and that told him how his own life must be ordered. While all around him were bowing down to the heavenly host and sacrificing to them the highest things in human nature, he heard a voice falling from these shining ministers of God’s will, which said to him, "See thou do it not, for we are thy fellow-servants; worship thou God!" This was the triumph of the spiritual over the material; the acknowledgment that in God there is something greater than can be found in nature; that man finds his true affinity not in the things that are seen but in the unseen Spirit that is over all. It is this that gives to the figure of Abraham its simple grandeur and its permanent significance. Under the simple statement "The Lord said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country," there are probably hidden years of questioning and meditation. God’s revelation of Himself to Abram in all probability did not take the determinate form of articulate command without having passed through many preliminary stages of surmise and doubt and mental conflict. But once assured that God is calling him, Abraham responds quickly and resolutely. The revelation has come to a mind in which it will not be lost. As one of the few theologians who have paid attention to the method of revelation has said: "A Divine revelation does not dispense with a certain character and certain qualities of mind in the person who is the instrument of it. A man who throws off the chains of authority and association must be a man of extraordinary independence and strength of mind, although he does so in obedience to a Divine revelation; because no miracle, no sign or wonder which accompanies a revelation can by its simple stroke force human nature from the innate hold of custom and the adhesion to and fear of established opinion: can enable it to confront the frowns of men, and take up truth opposed to general prejudice, except there is in the man himself, who is the recipient of the revelation, a certain strength of mind and independence which concurs with the Divine intention." That Abraham’s faith triumphed over exceptional difficulties and enabled him to do what no other motive would have been strong enough to accomplish, there is therefore no call to assert. During his after-life his faith was severely tried, but the mere abandonment of his country in the hope of gaining a better was the ordinary motive of his day. It was the ground of this hope, the belief in God, which made Abraham’s conduct original and fruitful. That sufficient inducement was presented to him is only to say that God is reasonable. There is always sufficient inducement to obey God; because life is reasonable. No man was ever commanded or required to do anything which it was not for his advantage to do. Sin is a mistake. But so weak are we, so liable to be moved by the things present to us and by the desire for immediate gratification, that it never ceases to be wonderful and admirable when a sense of duty enables a man to forego present advantage and to believe that present loss is the needful preliminary of eternal gain. Abraham’s faith is chosen by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews as an apt illustration of his definition of Faith, that it is "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." One property of faith is that it gives to things future, and which are as yet only hoped for, all the reality of actual present existence. Future things may be said to have no existence for those who do not believe in them. They are not taken into account. Men do not shape their conduct with any reference to them. But when a man believes in certain events that are to be, this faith of his lends to these future things the reality, the "substance" which things actually existing in the present have. They have the same weight with him, the same influence upon his conduct. Without some power to realise the future and to take account of what is to be as well as of what already is, we could not carry on the common affairs of life. And success in life very greatly depends on foresight, or the power to see clearly what is to be and give it due weight. The man who has no foresight makes his plans, but being unable to apprehend the future his plans are disconcerted. Indeed it is one of the most valuable gifts a man can have, to be able to say with tolerable accuracy what is to happen and what is not; to be able to sift rumours, common talk, popular impressions, probabilities, chances, and to be able to feel sure what the future will really be; to be able to weigh the character and commercial prospects of the men he deals with, so as to see what must be the issue of their operations and whom he may trust. Many of our most serious mistakes in life arise from our inability to imagine the consequences of our actions and to forefeel how these consequences will affect us. Now faith largely supplies the want of this imaginative foresight. It lends substance to things future. It believes the account given of the future by a trustworthy authority. In many ordinary matters all men are dependent on the testimony of others for their knowledge of the result of certain operations. The astronomer, the physiologist, the navigator, each has his department within which his predictions are accepted as authoritative. But for what is beyond the ken of science no faith in our fellow-men avails. Feeling that if there is a life beyond the grave, it must have important bearings on the present, we have yet no data by which to calculate what will then be, or only data so difficult to use that our calculations are but guesswork. But faith accepts the testimony of God as unhesitatingly as that of man and gives reality to the future He describes and promises. It believes that the life God calls us to is a better life, and it enters upon it. It believes that there is a world to come in which all things are new and all things eternal; and, so believing, it cannot but feel less anxious to cling to this world’s goods. That which embitters all loss and deepens sorrow is the feeling that this world is all; but faith makes eternity as real as time and gives substantial existence to that new and limitless future in which we shall have time to forget the sorrows and live past the losses of this present world. The radical elements of greatness are identical from age to age, and the primal duties which no good man can evade do not vary as the world grows older. What we admire in Abraham we feel to be incumbent on ourselves. Indeed the uniform call of Christ to all His followers is even in form almost identical with that which stirred Abraham, and made him the father of the faithful. "Follow Me," says our Lord, "and every one that forsaketh houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for My name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life." And there is something perennially edifying in the spectacle of a man who believes that God has a place and a use for him in the world, and who puts himself at God’s disposal; who enters upon life refusing to be bound by the circumstances of his upbringing, by the expectations of his friends, by prevailing customs, by prospect of gain and advancement among men; and resolved to listen to the highest voice of all, to discover what God has for him to do upon earth and where he is likely to find most of God; who virtually and with deepest sincerity says, Let God choose my destination: I have good land here, but if God wishes me elsewhere, elsewhere I go: who, in one word, believes in the call of God to himself, who admits it into the springs of his conduct, and recognises that for him also the highest life his conscience can suggest is the only life he can live, no matter how cumbrous and troublesome and expensive be the changes involved in entering it. Let the spectacle take hold of your imagination-the spectacle of a man believing that there is something more akin to himself and higher than the material life and the great laws that govern it, and going calmly and hopefully forward into the unknown, because he knows that God is with him, that in God is our true life, that man liveth not by bread only, but by every word that cometh out of the mouth of God. Even thus then may we bring our faith to a true and reliable test. All men who have a confident expectation of future good make sacrifices or run risks to obtain it. Mercantile life proceeds on the understanding that such ventures are reasonable and will always be made. Men might if they liked spend their money on present pleasure, but they rarely do so. They prefer to put it into concerns or transactions from which they expect to reap large returns. They have faith, and as a necessary consequence they make ventures. So did these Hebrews-they ran a great risk, they gave up the sole means of livelihood they had any experience of and entered what they knew to be a bare desert, because they believed in the land that lay beyond and in God’s promise. What then has your faith done? What have you ventured that you would not have ventured but for God’s promise. Suppose Christ’s promise failed, in what would you be the losers? Of course you would lose what you call your hope of heaven-but what would you find you had lost in this world? When a merchant’s ships are wrecked or when his investment turns out bad, he loses not only the gain he hoped for, but the means he risked. Suppose then Christ were declared bankrupt, unable to fulfil your expectations, would you really find that you had ventured so much upon His promise that you are deeply involved in His bankruptcy, and are much worse off in this world and now than you would otherwise have been? Or may I not use the words of one of the most cautious and charitable of men, and say, "I really fear, when we come to examine, it will be found that there is nothing we resolve, nothing we do, nothing we do not do, nothing we avoid, nothing we choose, nothing we give up, nothing we pursue, which we should not resolve, and do, and not do, and avoid, and choose, and give up, and pursue, if Christ had not died and heaven were not promised us." If this be the case-if you would be neither much better nor much worse though Christianity were a fable-if you have in nothing become poorer in this world that your reward in heaven may be greater, if you have made no investments and run no risks, then really the natural inference is that your faith in the future inheritance is small. Barnabas sold his Cyprus property because he believed heaven was his, and his bit of land suddenly became a small consideration; useful only in so far as he could with the mammon of unrighteousness make himself a mansion in heaven. Paul gave up his prospects of advancement in the nation, of which he would of course as certainly have become the leader and first man as he took that position in the Church, and plainly tells us that having made so large a venture on Christ’s word, he would if his word failed be a great loser, of all men most miserable because he had risked his all in this life on it. People sometimes take offence at Paul’s plain way of speaking of the sacrifices he had made, and of Peter’s plain way of saying "we have left all and followed Thee, what shall we have therefore?" but when people have made sacrifices they know it and can specify them, and a faith that makes no sacrifices is no good either in this world’s affairs or in religion. Self-consciousness may not be a very good thing: but self-deception is a worse. Here as elsewhere a clear hope sprang from faith. Recognising God, Abraham knew that there was for men a great future. He looked forward to a time when all men should believe as he did, and in him all families of the earth be blessed. No doubt in these early days, when all men were on the move and striving to make a name and a place for themselves, an onward look might be common. But the far-reaching extent, the certainty, and the definiteness of Abraham’s view of the future were unexampled. There far back in the hazy dawn he stood while the morning mists hid the horizon from every other eye, and he alone discerns what is to be. One clear voice and one only rings out in unfaltering tones and from amidst the babel of voices that utter either amazing follies or misdirected yearnings, gives the one true forecast and direction-the one living word which has separated itself from and survived all the prognostications of Chaldean soothsayers and priests of Ur, because it has never ceased to give life to men. It has created for itself a channel and you can trace it through the centuries by the living green of its banks and the life it gives as it goes. For this hope of Abraham has been fulfilled; the creed and its accompanying blessing which that day lived in the heart of one man only has brought blessing to all the families of the earth. The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Of one language. Genesis 11:1-3 God's gift of speech G. Hughes, B. D. 1. Language or speech God hath allowed to men as men. 2. One language did God vouchsafe to all for good. It was mainly to keep them to the Church. 3. Sin perverts the sweet blessing of one speech to conspiracy against God (ver. 9). ( G. Hughes, B. D. ) Two kinds of unanimity J. Parker, D. D. Men may do wrong things unanimously, as well as things that are right. We must distinguish between union and conspiracy; we must distinguish between identity and mere association for a given object. Twelve directors may be of one language and of one speech, but the meaning of their unity may be self-enrichment, at the expense of unsuspecting men, who have put their little all into their keeping and direction. It is nothing, therefore, to talk about unanimity in itself considered. We must, in all these things, put the moral question, "What is the unanimity about?" "Is this unanimity moving in the right direction?" If it be in a wrong direction, then unanimity is an aggravation of sin; if it be in a right direction, then union is power, and one-heartedness is triumph. But it is possible that unanimity may be but another word for stagnation. There are words in our language which are greatly misunderstood, and unanimity is one of them; peace is another. When many persons say peace, what do they mean? A living, intelligent, active cooperation, where there is mutual concession, where there is courtesy on every hand, where there is independent conviction, and yet noble concert in life? Not at all. They say that a Church is unanimous, and a Church is at peace, when a correct interpreter would say it was the unanimity of the grave, the peace of death. So I put in a word here of caution and of explanation: "The whole earth was of one language and of one speech"; here is a point of unanimity, and yet there is a unanimous movement in a wrong direction. ( J. Parker, D. D. ) One language and one speech J. Vaughan, M. A. What that language was it is not necessary on the present occasion to examine. The arguments are very strong that it was Hebrew. But the fact that all men did use the same tongue, and the way in which the fact is recorded, lead us to infer that there was something much more than identity of dialect. For we all well know how language is connected with thought and feelings, and how our words react and determine our feelings. So that a oneness of expression will go a great way to produce oneness of soul. Have we not all proved its effect to unite and bind us one with another? Is not that the charm of the familiar language of co-patriots in foreign lands? Is not this one of the secrets of the bliss of song? So that a real and perfectly "one language and one speech" might be expected to have a most united result on the minds of all who used it, and a most favourable influence on the spirit of true religion. But it is a thing which now is not. No one country has it within itself. No two persons that ever meet have it. It is a lost thing. There is not, truly, upon this earth, in any fraction of it, "one language" and "one speech"; and hence a very great part of our sin and our misery! And even if there were a language perfectly the same, yet until there was a setting to rights of disorders which have come into human thought, and until minds were themselves set in one accord, there could not be unity. So that, indeed, there must be something which belongs to a higher dispensation than this. For if the thoughts were disordered, they would themselves give disordered senses to the words spoken. And remember one other thing. In that age, it was not so long after the flood, nor had people been so divided, nor truth so lapsed, but that all must have known the faith of the one true God. And, therefore, their worship must have been one, the same thoughts and the same expressions going up to the same God everywhere. But the world was evidently not yet ripe for unity. Unity is a beautiful flower, but it can only grow in its own proper soil. Then the Fall cropped up, and at once poisoned human nature. They could not use even their one language or their one mind without its unity becoming sin. So they took occasion, by their very oneness, to determine to do two things, which real unity never does. They resolved to make a great monument to their own glory, and they thought to frustrate an original law of God and to break a positive rule of our being. For the primary principle of all religion is that we should seek first the glory of our Maker. Therefore God breathed upon their work, and it was crushed. It was a false unity. They sought their own praise, and it ran contrary to the mind of God. And God Himself at once traced the sin to that root — an unhallowed and unsanctified oneness of mind and language; and God proceeded to punish them in that very thing which they thus misused, and to take away from them that privilege and blessing for which man was not yet educated and prepared. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth. Said I not right they were not ripe for this precious gift — the omnipotence of unity? Generations must pass; new eras must unfold; Christ must come down and suffer; the Holy Spirit dwell amongst us; the Church must live and work; missionaries must preach; martyrs must die; the whole earth must be regenerate before men could hear their own, their higher, their destined unity. And so the unity, the profane unity, was dashed into hundreds of divergent atoms, and was carried by the four winds to the four corners of the earth. And what was the consequence of this judicial scattering, and this division of the human race which began on the plains of Shinar, and has been increasing ever since, and which we see all around us now? God never does a work, how purative soever it may be, in which there is not a mercy and some purpose or another. Doubtless this scattering of the early post-diluvians carried the knowledge of the true God and of the one faith into all the lands whither they went, even as the early Christians, when they fled from Jerusalem, bore the seed of the gospel into every land. And that knowledge, diluted, indeed, and marred, would go down from generation to generation; and hence, perhaps, the fact — the remarkable fact — that there is no instance in the history of the whole earth of a people, even in the remotest islands of the Pacific, who had not some vestige of the knowledge and worship of a god. And once more there was a plea for prayer, an argument for hope, a pledge of promise — "We were all one once, Lord. Thou didst scatter us. Bring back again Thine own image. Give us, give the whole earth, its unity again." I will not now speak of the evil results of that broken language and these severed interests of the family of man. They are too large and too patent to be catalogued here. I will proceed with the unfolding, as it seems to me, of God's great means for the restitution of unity. From that moment God has steadily, progressively, uniformly carried on His great design to restore the unity which man then fulfilled. Just as He set Himself at once to give back the lost paradise — a better than the first was — has He graciously worked in His working to repair, and much more than repair, the fractured oneness. It became necessary by this dispersion that God should select one family and one race which He should make a special and secure depository of His one truth. Otherwise probably the truth, split and scattered, would not have survived in the earth. And therefore the next fact in history is the call of Abraham. And when God elected Abraham and his descendants to be the stewards of revelation, it was for this very end — that truth might continue one in the world. But in that act of electing grace God did not choose Abraham only, but in Abraham that "Seed" which was to gather together not only all truth, but all people into Himself. Accordingly, "in the fulness of time" Christ came. And by His life, death, resurrection, and ascension He became the Head into which all members — thousands and millions of members — were to be gathered and united, and so to make a oneness — oh! how different from all before! how glorious! how entire! — the oneness of one body and one life, the oneness of God. To give effect to, to supplement and complete that unity, the Holy Ghost came as at Pentecost. And at once — mark the fact — He dealt with language, that lost gift — the "one language" and the "one speech"; language, doubtless a gift to man at the creation, but now how much more better a gift by the redemption. So it came to pass that the gulf of separation — unknown speech — that great gulf of separation, was, at that moment, taken away. But it was not only in tongue and in speech that they assimilate, but in mind and heart. For the theme and interest of all are one — "We do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God." Observe, then, the effects. At that moment all the Church was really and truly of one heart and one soul; and that union expressed itself in the gift of speech which made all language one. So that the unity was the same, only greater and purer than that before judgment fell upon Babel. And why was it, why was it at Pentecost? It was a beautiful thing, but it did not last. It was a bright rift in the cloud of separation. Why was it, and why did some retain the power of language while in the Church by the gift of tongues, why was it? I have no doubt in my own mind that it was the first drop in the shower — a pledge of what is to be. And will it not one day come — one pure language on the whole earth, one worship, and one service with one consent? But this, I conceive, is the order: First, the body of Christ made one, made one by the individual embodiment into Him of each one of His elect, in His own proper season. Then the mind, made one by the indwelling and inworking of the same Holy Spirit. And then the language, made one by some infusion of the power of the Holy Ghost in the latter days. You have read, perhaps, of two heathen men of different countries, both converted, who met, but could not understand each other's speech, when one by chance or providence said "Hallelujah," and the other, taking up the formulary, said "Amen." And they ran into each other's arms. The story may be true or not, but it is a pretty allegory, and a true type of what I believe shall one day be. ( J. Vaughan, M. A. ) Go to, let us build us a city and a tower. Genesis 11:4 The tower of Babel Dean Goulburn. I. Three motives may have led to the building of the tower of Babel. 1. A feeling that in union and communion lay the secret of man's renown and strength; that to disperse the family was to debilitate it. 2. A remembrance of the deluge, and a guilty dread of some similar judgment, leading them to draw close to each other for support. 3. Man was awaking to self-consciousness and a knowledge of his own resources. He was gaining a glimpse into the possible progress of civilization. The tower was to be a focus where the rays of his power would be concentrated. II. To all philanthropists this narrative preaches this simple and sublime truth — that genuine unity is not to be effectually compassed in any other manner than by striking at the original root of discord. Every scheme for the promotion of brotherhood which deals only with the external symptoms of disunion, and aims at correcting only what appears on the surface of society, is ultimately sure of frustration. III. In His own good time and manner God realized the presumptuous design of the Babel builders, and united in one central institution the scattered families of man. In the mediation of His Son He has reared up a Tower whose top reaches to heaven. It was in order to gather the nations into this world-embracing community that the apostles of Christ went forth charged with a message of peace and love. When the Spirit descended at Pentecost the physical impediment obstructing union — that difference of language which the sin of Babel had introduced — was removed. The apostles spake with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. ( Dean Goulburn. ) The tower of Babel The Pulpit Analyst. The events connected with the building of the tower of Babel forcibly illustrate the power and the weakness of man. There is great power of scheming, great power of working, ending in an ignominious failure. So it is in all the ways of life; there is a way of spending force for naught, and there is a way of turning every effort to good account; there is a scheming that is nothing but inflation, and there is a purposing which gives shape and strength to one's daily life. The courses of Providence, as revealed in the history of the world, enable us now to judge programmes by anticipation; before we begin to build we can now tell how we shall finish, or whether we shall finish at all. Poor self-deceiving heart! How many bricks has it made, and burnt thoroughly, and yet how few towers it has ever finished! The people constitute themselves into a community of builders, and they propose to themselves a city and a tower. In this plan there are three things which men generally account laudable — 1. There is self-reliance. The loudest cry of today is, Help yourselves! It is thought that the man who trusts his own arm trusts a good servant. So far, therefore, there is nothing amiss in these builders. 2. There is a desire for self-preservation — "lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." Self-preservation is held to be the first law of nature. If a man will not take care of himself, who will take care of him? Still, therefore, the builders have not trespassed. 3. There is ambition — a city, and a tower, and a name! No man can make much headway in life who is not ambitious. The finalist grows weaker every day; the progressionist strengthens with every encounter. The whole work was within man's own sphere. They wanted more than a city and a tower; they wanted a name, "let us make us a name." That has been the ruin of many a man: anything for a name — any price for renown! This is not the ambition which is commended; this stands to a true ambition as presumption to faith. One thing is clear, viz., that God is observant of human plans. He knows our purpose, He overhears our secret communings. He allows men to build for awhile, and in the time of their rejoicing over the work of their hands He throws the city and tower to the dust. The error of these people was not in having a plan, but in having a plan without God.(1) Carefully examine the quality and meaning of every new plan of life. Many a man has been ruined by ideas which he deemed necessary to the success of his fortune; (a) Appearances; (b) Miscalculations; (c) Oversights; have contributed their share to his disasters.(2) Beware of the sophism that heaven helps them that help themselves. The doctrine is true only in so far as men may by helping themselves in accordance with the will of heaven.(3) Regulate ambition by the Divine will.(4) If we make great plans let us make them in God's name and carry them out in God's strength. See the folly of planning without God. ( a ) God has all forces at command. ( b ) God has set a limit to every man's life. ( c ) God has pronounced Himself against those who dishonour His name. All these considerations have also a reflex bearing on those who plan in a right spirit.(5) Let us learn what is meant by all the unfinished towers that we see around us. "This man began to build," etc. Job said, "My purposes are broken off." Look at disappointed men, etc.; ruined men, etc.(6) Cooperation with God will alone secure the entire realization of our plans. Application: ( a ) We all have plans. ( b ) Examine them. ( c ) Remember the only foundation, on which alone men can build with safety. ( The Pulpit Analyst. ) The builders of Babel T. H. Leale. It is a melancholy fact that the evil of our nature tends continually to increase, and assume a sad variety of forms. As men abide under the power of evil they wax worse and worse. We have an instance of this downward tendency in the builders of Babel. Since the flood the course of sin may be thus traced; 1. In the form of sensual indulgence. The type was drunkenness, of which Noah has given a sad example. 2. Disregard of parental authority. Ham. 3. In the form of ambition. Builders of Babel. I. LOVE OF GLORY. They would indulge the passion for fame at all costs. 1. The boldest schemes of ambition are generally the work of a few. 2. Such ambition involves the slavery of the many. II. FALSE IDEAS OF THE UNITY OF THE RACE. 1. They thought that it was external "City." "Tower." 2. They held that the individual must be sacrificed to the outward grandeur of the State. This is the genius of all Babel-building, to make the city supreme, and to sink the individual. All must be sacrificed to one idea: the nation — State — Constitution. It is not within the province of worldly ambition to recognize the sublime importance of the individual soul. Hence the conflict between the policies of statecraft and the interests of true religion. This exaltation of the State above the individual has — (1) A political form; (2) an ecclesiastical form. III. PRESUMING TO PLACE THEMSELVES ABOVE PROVIDENCE. 1. God interferes in all matters which threaten His government. 2. God often interferes effectually by unexpected means. These foolish builders imagined that they were safe in the unity of their speech, yet it was here that they were vanquished. IV. A PREMATURE ATTEMPT TO REALIZE THAT BETTER TIME COMING FOR HUMANITY. ( T. H. Leale. ) Babel bricks W. Adamson. These emigrants to Shinar were evidently dissatisfied with a patriarchal life, and desirous of founding a great monarchy. I. AMBITION, or the perversion of the divinely-implanted principle, "Excelsior." I. — 1. Cautions us to beware of our own hearts; and — 2. Counsels us to be careful of the Divine will. II. ASSUMPTION, or the presupposition of man's independence of God. It — 1. Cautions us to remember our entire dependence; and — 2. Counsels us to regard the Divine preeminence as essential to our happiness. III. ASSOCIATION, or the persuasion that human unity means human perpetuity. It — 1. Cautions us against forgetting that God must come into any scheme after unity; and — 2. Counsels us about fulfilling the Divine ideal of unity in Him.Lessons: 1. Moral towers of Babel (great or small) should be erected in God's name, and carried through in God's strength. 2. Moral towers of Babel (great or small), if not so attempted and accomplished, tend to dishonour God's name, and to disown God's strength. 3. Moral towers of Babel (great or small), thus dishonouring Him, are sure, sooner or later, to be overthrown by God, who has all forces at His command; and — 4. Moral towers of Babel (great or small) conceived in God's name, constructed by God's strength, and contributing to God's glory, are certain of the Divine permission and permanence. ( W. Adamson. ) Human labour Homilist. I. HUMAN LABOUR ALWAYS DEVELOPS THE NATURE OF MAN. 1. The constructive element. 2. The ambitious element. 3. The social element. 4. The cooperative element. II. HUMAN LABOUR GENERALLY ILLUSTRATES THE PATIENCE OF HEAVEN. 1. Their enterprise from the beginning was rebellion against heaven. 2. They were allowed to go on almost to its final accomplishment. III. HUMAN LABOUR MUST ULTIMATELY MEET WITH THE JUST TREATMENT OF GOD. 1. He discloses its purpose. 2. He arrests its progress. 3. He frustrates its design. ( Homilist. ) The tower of Babel Homilist. I. THAT SELF-RENOWN IS AN OBJECT TOO LOW FOR MAN TO AIM AT. 1. Because he has duties to perform towards others. 2. Because man's highest and best powers cannot be properly developed by having this as the only object in view. (1) The sense of right cannot be quickened. (2) Self is a sphere too limited for a man's sympathy to be fully manifested. (3) Self is an object too cold and limited to strengthen and intensify man's love. 3. Because there is no true happiness in the pursuit, nor actual attainment of the object. II. THAT UNION PRODUCES STRENGTH. 1. It concentrates the powers of many towards one object. 2. It is recognized in heaven. (1) For evil ( Psalm 2:1-5 ). (2) For good (Mark 18:20). 3. The more Divine the union, the greater will be its reality and strength. III. THAT HUMAN EFFORTS ARE FRUITLESS WHEN NOT IN HARMONY WITH THE DIVINE INTENTIONS. 1. A higher intelligence is opposed to them. 2. A greater power. 3. A purer love. They deserved to be destroyed, but were only scattered. 4. This failure was — (1) Humiliating. (2) From an unexpected source. (3) Complete. Conclusion: 1. In every undertaking, let us endeavour to know if it be according to God's will. 2. Let us have God's glory as the sole object of life. ( Homilist. ) Universal monarchy A. Fuller. But why, it may be asked, should it be the will of God to prevent a universal monarchy, and to divide the inhabitants of the world into a number of independent nations? This question opens a wide field for investigation. Suffice it to say at present, such a state of things contains much mercy, both to the world and to the Church. With respect to the world, if the whole earth had continued under one government, that government would, of course, considering what human nature is, have been exceedingly despotic and oppressive. The division of the world into independent nations has also been a great check on persecution, and so has operated in a way of mercy towards the Church. If the whole world had been under one government, and that government inimical to the gospel, there had been no place of refuge left upon the earth for the faithful. From the whole we may infer two things — 1. The harmony of Divine revelation with all that we know of fact. If all that man can be proved to have done towards the formation of any language be confined to changing, combining, improving, and reducing it to a grammatical form, there is the greatest probability, independent of the authority of revelation, that languages themselves were originally the work of God, as was that of the first man and woman. 2. The desirableness of the universal spread of Christ's kingdom. We may see in the reasons which render a universal government among men incompatible with the liberty and safety of the world abundant cause to pray for this, and for the union of all His subjects under Him. Here there is no danger of tyranny or oppression, nor any need of those low motives of rival. ship to induce him to seek the well-being of his subjects. A union with Christ and one another embraces the best interests of mankind. ( A. Fuller. ) Lessons G. Hughes, B. D. 1. Sinful apostates are active in drawing each other to sin. 2. Wickedness is studious for means to effect its ends. 3. No difficulties usually hinder sin from its undertakings. 4. It is but brick and slime wherewith wickedness builds (ver. 3). 5. Wicked ones are much encouraging one another to evil. 6. Cities and towers, ornament and strength, are sinners' trophies. 7. Sin's structure would be as high and stately as heaven. 8. Sinners are ambitious of a name on earth. 9. Dispersion is the evil which sinners fear. 10. Sinners resolve to provide their own security against God's judgments by the works of their own hands (ver. 4). ( G. Hughes, B. D. ) Right building J. Parker, D. D. There are times in life when lucky ideas strike men; when there is a kind of intellectual springtide in their nature; when men rise and say, "I have got it! Go to, this is it!" And in the bright hours when such ideas strike one the temptation is to be a little contemptuous in reference to dull men who are never visited by conceptions so bright and original as we deem them. A man has been in great perplexity, month after month, and suddenly he says, "Go to, the solution is now before me; I see my way right out of this dark place"; and he heightens his tone as the joy swells in his heart. That is right. We could not do without intellectual birthdays; we could not always be carrying about a dead, leaden brain, that never sees light or shouts victory. We like these moments of inspiration to break in upon the dull monotony of such a lifetime as ours. So it is perfectly right that men should express their new conceptions — their new programme — and lay out a bold policy in a clear and confident tone. But are all our ideas so very bright? When we see our way to brick making, is it always in the right direction? When we set our mind upon founding a city and building a tower the top of which shall rest against the stars, is it right? You see that question of "right" comes in again and again, and in proportion as a man wishes to live a true Divine life he will always say, before going to his brick making and his city founding and his tower building, "Now, is this right?" Many of us could have built great towers, only we knew we should be building downwards if we set our hands to such work as has often tempted us. Do not let us look coldly upon apparently unsuccessful men, and say, "Look at us; we have built a great city and tower, and you, where are you? — stretching in the dust and grovelling in nothing." They could have built quite as large a tower as ours; they could have been quite as far up in the clouds as we are, only we had perhaps less conscience than they had. When we saw a way to burning bricks, we burned them; and a way to establishing towers, we founded them; and they, poor creatures, unsuccessful men, began to pray about it, and to wonder if it was right, and to ask casuistical questions, and to rack themselves upon conscience; and so they have done no building! And yet they may have built. Who can tell? All buildings are not made of brick; all men do not require to lay out brick fields, and burn clay, in order to build. It may be found one day, when the final inspection takes place, that the man who has built nothing visible has really built a palace for the residence of God. It may be found, too, that some successful people have nothing but bricks — nothing but bricks, bricks, bricks! Then it will be seen who the true builders were. What I pause here to say is this: We may have bright ideas, we may have (to us) new conceptions; there are, to our thinking, original ways of doing things; now and again cunning plans of overcoming difficulties strike us. Do I condemn this intellectual activity? No; I simply say, Let your intellect and your conscience go together; do not be one-sided men; do not be living altogether out of the head, be living out of your moral nature as well; and if it be right, then build the tower with all industry and determination. Let it be strong and lofty, and God shall come down upon your work and glorify it, and claim it as His own. ( J. Parker, D. D. ) Ambition J. Parker, D. D. Bold men — men of vigorous mind, striking out something that is very definite, and about which there could be no mistake. We, too, are doing just what they did; we are following the god Ambition — the restless god Ambition, who never sleeps, never pauses, never gives his devotees vacation, but is always stirring them up to more and more furious desires. Do I condemn ambition? Nothing of the kind. I praise ambition; I say to every young man who may today accept me as his teacher, Be ambitious; build loftily; let your aspirations be confined only by the limits which God Himself has set to human power and human capability; but — but — that old question comes in again, Is it right? Is it right? Our ambitions may be our temptations; our ambitions may be stumbling blocks over which we fall into outer darkness; our ambitions may be the cups out of which we drink some deadly intoxicant, poisoning the mind and destroying the heart's life. Therefore I pause again to ask, Is it right? Then, too, we pronounce some men ambitious who are really not ambitious. All men do not understand the word ambition. Ambition has been vulgarized, taken out altogether from its refined and beautiful associations, and debased into something that is intensely of the earth, earthy. I call men to intellectual ambition; to spiritual ambition; to the ambition which says, "I count not myself to have attained; this one thing I do, I press." Alas! there are ten thousand men in our city streets today who are "pressing"; but the question is, Towards what do they press? The apostle says, "I press towards the mark for the prize of my high calling of God in Christ Jesus." That is better than saying, "Let us build a tower whose top shall reach even unto heaven"; and yet it is true tower building — it is palace building. ( J. Parker, D. D. ) Bad advice soon taken Bishop Babington. It must needs be that one man gave his counsel first, saying to the rest, "Come, let us build," etc. But when once it was broached not one man allowed it, but even all full quickly yielded to it. Whereby we see, first, the vileness of man, not only to devise that which is naught, but to set it full greedily abroad when it is devised, and to labour to persuade others to embrace and follow the same. Again, to consent to that which is wickedly devised of others, and to make a particular conceit a general judgment, action, and work at last. Great cause, therefore, that men's lewd devices should be restrained from being published, since both the deviser's wish and man's great corruption is so prone to yield a wicked consent and following of the same. Caiaphas's counsel, when it once sounded of Christ's death, was quickly hearkened unto, and from that day forward consultation had together how they might accomplish the same. Whosoever broached it first that the people should ask Barabbas and refuse Jesus, it was soon received, liked, and followed of such ignorant spirits and giddy heads. That a sort should combine together and kill the apostle had a beginner, and how quickly pleased the plot such other bloody minds and spiteful hearts! How soon embraced Lot's younger daughter the counsel of the elder to do so vile a thing! That unbrotherly conspiracy against Joseph was soon yielded unto when once it was uttered. Do you remember the murmuring against Moses and Aaron, in the Book of Numbers? How began it? Had it not a captain, then a second, then a third, then a number? Once broached that Moses and Aaron took too much upon them; that others were equal with them, and therefore should be in like authority; that the people were wronged, and so forth — soon was it liked, soon was it caught, soon was it prosecuted of proud minds, that would be aloft, and knew not to obey. Conclude we, then, upon all those that sin, some be wicked to broach a wickedness, and thousands weak to follow the same when once they hear it; yea, though it be to build a tower against God. It never was, nor ever shall be, either godly policy or Christian duty to suffer men's brains to broach what they list, and others to follow unquiet devices, hateful to God and hurtful to His Church in a high degree. ( Bishop Babington. ) The tower of Babel Things Not Generally Known. In Babylonia there are at present the remains of three stupendous ruins, each of which have been claimed by different travellers as occupying the site of the tower of Babel. One of these especially has much to support its claim. The temple of Belus was in all probability erected on the site of the tower of Babel, so the arguments which settle the position of one of these erections serve to fix the other. Rawlinson says of these particular ruins: — "It is an oblong mass, composed chiefly of unbaked bricks, rising from the plain to the height of one hundred and ten feet, and having at the top a broad flat space with heaps of rubbish. The faces of the mound are about two hundred yards in length, and thus agree with Herodotus' estimate. Tunnels driven through the structure show that it was formerly covered with a wall of baked brick masonry: many such bricks are found loose, and bear the name of Nebuchadnezzar." The difficulty of identifying the site of the scriptural Babylon arises chiefly from the fact that the materials of which it was built have at various times been removed for the construction of the great cities which have successively replaced it. Nebuchadnezzar either repaired Babylon, as many suppose, or built it anew upon a neighbouring site with the remains of the more ancient Babel. The kind of building which was erected, and known as the tower of Babel, may be best understood by the description of the great temple of Nebo at Borsippa, known to moderns as the Birs-Nimrud. It was a sort of oblique pyramid, built in seve

11:1-4 How soon men forget the most tremendous judgments, and go back to their former crimes! Though the desolations of the deluge were before their eyes, though they sprang from the stock of righteous Noah, yet even during his life-time, wickedness increases exceedingly. Nothing but the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit can remove the sinful lusts of the human will, and the depravity of the human heart. God's purpose was, that mankind should form many nations, and people all lands. In contempt of the Divine will, and against the counsel of Noah, the bulk of mankind united to build a city and a tower to prevent their separating. Idolatry was begun, and Babel became one of its chief seats. They made one another more daring and resolute. Let us learn to provoke one another to love and to good works, as sinners stir up and encourage one another to wicked works. 11:5-9 Here is an expression after the manner of men; The Lord came down to see the city. God is just and fair in all he does against sin and sinners, and condemns none unheard. Pious Eber is not found among this ungodly crew; for he and his are called the children of God; their souls joined not themselves to the assembly of these children of men. God suffered them to go on some way, that the works of their hands, from which they promised themselves lasting honour, might turn to their lasting reproach. God has wise and holy ends, in allowing the enemies of his glory to carry on their wicked projects a great way, and to prosper long. Observe the wisdom and mercy of God, in the methods taken for defeating this undertaking. And the mercy of God in not making the penalty equal to the offence; for he deals not with us according to our sins. The wisdom of God, in fixing upon a sure way to stop these proceedings. If they could not understand one another, they could not help one another; this would take them off from their building. God has various means, and effectual ones, to baffle and defeat the projects of proud men that set themselves against him, and particularly he divides them among themselves. Notwithstanding their union and obstinacy God was above them; for who ever hardened his heart against him, and prospered? Their language was confounded. We all suffer by it to this day: in all the pains and trouble used to learn the languages we have occasion for, we suffer for the rebellion of our ancestors at Babel. Nay, and those unhappy disputes, which are strifes of words, and arise from misunderstanding one another's words, for aught we know, are owing to this confusion of tongues. They left off to build the city. The confusion of their tongues not only unfitted them for helping one another, but they saw the hand of the Lord gone out against them. It is wisdom to leave off that which we see God fights against. God is able to blast and bring to nought all the devices and designs of Babel-builders: there is no wisdom nor counsel against the Lord. The builders departed according to their families, and the tongue they spake, to the countries and places allotted to them. The children of men never did, nor ever will, come all together again, till the great day, when the Son of man shall sit upon the throne of his glory, and all nations shall be gathered before him. 11:10-26 Here is a genealogy, or list of names, ending in Abram, the friend of God, and thus leading towards Christ, the promised Seed, who was the son of Abram. Nothing is left upon record but their names and ages; the Holy Ghost seeming to hasten through them to the history of Abram. How little do we know of those that are gone before us in this world, even of those that lived in the same places where we live, as we likewise know little of those who now live in distant places! We have enough to do to mind our own work. When the earth began to be peopled, men's lives began to shorten; this was the wise disposal of Providence. 11:27-32 Here begins the story of Abram, whose name is famous in both Testaments. Even the children of Eber had become worshippers of false gods. Those who are through grace, heirs of the land of promise, ought to remember what was the land of their birth; what was their corrupt and sinful state by nature. Abram's brethren were, Nahor, out of whose family both Isaac and Jacob had their wives; and Haran, the father of Lot, who died before his father. Children cannot be sure that they shall outlive their parents. Haran died in Ur, before the happy removal of the family out of that idolatrous country. It concerns us to hasten out of our natural state, lest death surprise us in it. We here read of Abram's departure out of Ur of the Chaldees, with his father Terah, his nephew Lot, and the rest of his family, in obedience to the call of God. This chapter leaves them about mid-way between Ur and Canaan, where they dwelt till Terah's death. Many reach to Charran, and yet fall short of Canaan; they are not far from the kingdom of God, and yet never come thither.