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END TIME NEWS
P.O. Box 455
Rutherford College, NC 28671
Tel/Fax (828) 874-0987
October - 2000 Edition
REVIVING BABEL
The Bible predicts that Israel and the Arab bloc
will some day do battle tooth and nail. Just as they have
done on numerous occasions. With the recent uprisings in
Israel it appears that the time is drawing frightfully close.
It was the writer of Ecclesiastes who once wrote:
"The thing that hath been, if is thai which shall
be; and that which is done is that which shall be done:
and there is no new thing under the sun" (Eccl 1:9).
As the old saying goes, "History repeats itself."
The coming down of God to destroy man's evil
intentions at Babel points forward to His fature
intervention to judge the wickedness of men. The record
of this in Genesis 11 is set against the background of
Genesis 10.
"As they journeyed from the east... they found a
plain..." (Gen. 11:2).
This passage is in the context of the record of the
growth and rapid expansion of the Arab tribes in Genesis
10. That chapter spotlights particularly the greatness of
Nimrod "the mighty hunter against the Lord" (Gen
10:9). The Hebrew for Nimrod is related to Gibbor, the
title of Christ used in Isaiah 9:6. Nimrod appears to_be^a
'prototyj?e~anti-God and anti-Chnst, and for this~ne was
well known even then (Genesis 10:9).
Genesis 10:10-11, shows Nimrod's characteristic
of building cities in the Babylon/Assyria area. Seeing that
"the beginning of his kingdom -was Babel" (Gen. 10:10),
it seems quite likely that when a man said to his neighbor,
"Go to, let us make brick" to build the tower of Babel,
this is m fact referring to Nimrod (Gen 11:3).
At this time, "the whole earth was of one
language, and of one speech" (Gen- 11:1).
The Hebrew for "speech" used here is not the
same word used for "speech" later on in this record. This
word more suggests a purpose/desire, and often a wrong
one. The implication is that this one desire was to build
the tower of Babel. Truly it was a tower "which the
children of men builded" (Gen. 11:5) and they were
bound together in unity by a common allegiance to this
renowned king of Babylon - Nimrod.
"Go To"
Three times in this record (Gen. 11:3, 4, 7) we
read the phrase, "Go to" in the contexts of the men
"going to " in the building, and of God "going to " in His
dramatic intervention, ft cannot be coincidence that this
rare idiom occurs twice close together in James 4:13 and
5:1. The context there is of warning believers not to build
their own "Babels" of weahh and monuments to human
achievement, seeing that they would be suddenly
destroyed by the Lord's coming. TOs in itself points to a
latter-day application of this Genesis record - indicating
that weak believers will get caught up in the latter day
Nimrod's unity movement, and will even benefit from it
materially.
The Tower of Babel
A Babylonian description of the tower of Babel
discovered in 1876 indicates there was a grand court 900
x 1,156 ft and a smaller one, 450X 1,056 feet inside of
which was a platform with walls about it having four
gates on each side. In the center stood the tower with
many small shrines at the base dedicated to various gods.
The tower itself was 300 feet high with decreased width
in stages from the lowest to the highest point. Each was
square. The 1st foundation stage measured 300 feet square
and 110 feet high; the 2nd measured 260 feet square and
60 feet high; the 3"1 200 feet square and 20 feet high; the
4th 170 feet square and 20 feet high; the 5th 140 feet
square and 20 feet high; the 6th 110 feet square and 20
feet high; and the 7th 80 feet long, 60 feet wide and 50
feet high.
On the top platform measuring 60 x 80 feet was a
sanctuary for the god Bel-Merodach. ft also displayed the
heavenly signs of the Zodiac.
REVIVING BABEL Page 1
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