Wednesday, June 24, 2009

The Tower of Babel and Abraham

The Tower of Babel is the story that precedes the call of Abraham with some genealogy in between. The stories are connected.

The people of Babel want to build a tower for three purposes:
1. To reach heaven
2. To avoid scattering (God had given the commandment for all of humanity to spread out and populate the earth)
3. To make a name for themselves

Although their attempt is foiled, with Abraham:
1. Heaven reaches down
2. God tells Abraham to go out into the world
3. God promises Abraham that He will make Abraham's name great

These two stories placed close together in Genesis for this reason - to show us the difference between human goals and achievements and God's.

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