Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“Yahweh came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men built. Yahweh said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do. Now nothing will be withheld from them, which they intend to do. Come, let’s go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.””
(Genesis 11:5-7)

God is so just, He doesn’t rely on what He sees from Heaven (which is everything – Hebrews 4:13). He gets down in the trenches with us. He comes to us hidden and sees for Himself, experiences for Himself, what it is that we are doing (Genesis 18:20-21; Hebrews 13:2). That is a just God. Not relying on reliable reports, but truly examining for Himself. No one will get anything they don’t deserve when judgment comes. Nothing escapes God’s attention.

This unity was NOT a positive unity. It was united rebellion against the will of God AND His direct commands to humanity. God stepped in not out of a desire to smite and cause heartache (families no longer able to communicate with each other, friends torn apart, maybe even relationships, etc). He stepped in because if humanity stayed in ungodly unity, all the Earth would be corrupt. The disunity the confusion of languages created was a direct attack on the devil’s plans. When godly people are in control, unity is a good thing because they are directed by, led by, and corrected by God Himself. When ungodly people are in control, unity is a terrible tool of oppression, immorality, and restricted freedoms.

God connects humanity’s ability to perform, create, and build to their imagination. When their imagination was turned wholly to evil, God destroyed the world with a flood to stop it. Here, when their imagination was turning to a unified rebellion, He confused their languages so that their imaginations would not wholly turn to evil. Sadly, that will be the condition at the end of all things and another destruction is in store (Matthew 24:37-39).

This is also a VERY clear demonstration of the power of WORDS (Proverbs 18:21). The influence of the imaginations of humanity was centred in their WORDS. Language is powerful. How we choose to phrase things is powerful. It is so powerful the Lord is merciful and does not imbue all our words with the same power that all His words have. Imagine the terrible things that could be brought about by casual words. But when WE align with GOD and agree with HIS words, HIS way, according to HIS will (the Word of God); then there is nothing that cannot be accomplished. But here we see that even humans who lack that absolute power of God have influence in their words to bring about their imaginations. This is a serious lesson we all need to think about. Are our words consistently negative, selfish, or ungodly? Do we will our mouths with idle talk, gossip, and curses? Or do we speak in alignment with God’s point of view? Do we weigh what we say before we say it? Do we think about whether we really want the thing that we are about to say – even when it is in jest? Our words matter. They help to shape what happens around us and to us because they are the default permission switches that order what we will and won’t accept. Be careful what you let in. Be more careful about what you keep out. Speak in accordance with God’s point of view and moral character in ALL things. It takes effort. It takes consistent watching. But the rewards are incalculable. EVERY WORD is a seed. Be mindful of the harvest you’re planting.

The sage Rashi writes: ”וירד ה לראות AND THE LORD CAME DOWN TO SEE — He really did not need to do this, but Scripture intends to teach the judges that they should not proclaim a defendant guilty before they have seen the case and thoroughly understand the matter in question. This is to be found in Midrash of R. Tanchuma. These people, also, were ungrateful, rebelling against the One who had showered kindness upon them and had rescued them from the Flood (Genesis Rabbah 38:9).’

The sage Sforno writes: ‘וירד ה’ לראות, The Torah uses the expression “G’d descended to see, etc.,” only when the sins committed by the people concerned were not yet ripe for severe punishment but would become so if left unchecked. Retribution which results from G’d “descending,” must be viewed as a kind of preventive medicine, designed to avoid the need for more drastic action at a later stage. One well known example of G’d’s preventive retribution is the בן סורר ומורה, a thirteen year old who stole a little meat and wine from his parents, and whose punishment is execution if the parents brought him to court as an unmanageable teenager (Deut. 21,18, see Rashi, and Sanhedrin 72 on this). In the case of Sodom, where G’d is also reported as “descending,” (Genesis 18,21) this also occurred at a time when their sin had not yet been greater than that of other surrounding nations, so that only these cities had to be singled out for punishment at that time. What distinguished the Sodomites was only the cruelty with which they committed the same kind of sins as those committed by other nations. This would eventually have led to such a corrupt world that the need for G’d to intervene on a global rather than a local basis, would have become unavoidable. Ezekiel 16,49 also describes the sin of the Sodomites in such terms when he wrote הנה זה היה עון סדום אחותך…ויד עני ואביון לא החזיקה”This was the sin of Sodom your sister…..but the hand of the poor and the needy she did not support.” Similarly, the punishment of the Israelites when they were exiled was brought forward out of concern that something worse might become their fate if G’d did not intervene at that time and exile them so that He would not eventually have to punish them even more harshly. (Deut 32,20) “I can see what would be their ultimate end.”’

Sfnorno goes on to write: ‘הן עם אחד, the only way I can stop them from carrying out their unanimously approved plan is to sow the seeds of discord between them. The instrument of bringing this about is to confuse their language. Basically, people’s disagreements are either religious, (philosophical) in nature, or they result from misunderstanding what they mean when they speak. These people had been of one mind in matters of religion, seeing that they had all agreed with the mistaken idolatrous philosophy shared by mankind at that time. In spite of such apparently good reasons for disagreeing with one another, they did not misunderstand each other. וזה החלו לעשות, and yet they all agree to begin this project. ועתה לא יבצר מהם, in view of these circumstances, if left alone, they would complete what they have set out to do, so that this form of idolatry they have agreed on would henceforth be something embraced by all of mankind. Not a single one of them would turn to the Creator of the universe and realise that He, and He alone, is the Creator of the entire universe. On the other hand, the opposite will occur if discord will break out among them regarding the supremacy of any of the deities versus the competing ones. In such a scenario, every nation would believe that there is one deity that is superior to all the various national deities, whose concern is only with the particular nation worshipping that deity. All the minor deities would have to subordinate themselves to the power of that super-deity. The prophet Maleachi 1,11 expresses this in the following words: ”for from where the sun rises to where it sets, My name is honoured among the nations;” כי ממזרח שמש ועד מבואו גדול שמי בגוים.’

The sage Steinsaltz writes: ‘The Lord said: Behold, they are one people, and there is one language for them all. They are united like a nation, a single unit with a shared idea; and this is what they have begun to do. The unity of the people and language has urged on their ambitions. Now nothing of all that they plotted to do will be prevented from them. It is now in their power to do everything. Since the inclination of the heart of man is evil, in such a state of unity, evil is liable to develop in this society without constraints.’