Time and again throughout these early chapters of Genesis, these humans prove to be the kind of creatures who give in to their fears and insecurities. And even though God stands by them in faithfulness and proves his resolve to put the world back together, they still just can’t quite manage to trust him, and instead they keep on resorting to violence and oppression, hiding their weakness behind veils of pride. But it’s no accident that Genesis 11 comes right before Genesis 12. Because when we turn the page, we find a man name Abram who is shown to be the exact opposite of these Babylonian builders in pretty much every way.

I don’t think Babel is a picture of God coming down in wrath and judgement. I think it’s a picture of the same God as all the rest of the Bible who works in love and mercy. He intervenes against the prideful, fear-driven schemes of man in order to keep them from becoming a monster. And when that fear and insecurity keeps his people from joining in on the work of putting a broken world back together, God takes that work into his own hands and says, “I’ll do it for you.”

I think this is one of the most potent effects of the curse the Fall. Outside the Garden of Eden, without the fruit of its trees to sustain us, we think we have to watch out for ourselves. And that need for self-preservation contaminates everything else, especially the way we relate to one another. We know that we can’t really take care of ourselves, but we can’t risk letting anyone else know that. So we try to cover up our fear and insecurity with false pride, and other people end up getting torn down as we try to lift ourselves up. And so it traps us in this world and system of survival of the fittest, eat or beaten, always driven by fear.

Remember, the thing that made humans special from the rest of the creation was that they were made in God’s image. That’s what made them matter. That’s where their identity was supposed to be. But instead, these people at Shinar want to make an identity for themselves. And they think that if they do that, then they can work their way back to God. That’s what they mean by a tower that reaches into the heavens.

Within these stories, or rather within this one unfolding story, they would find answers to questions like, who are we? Where did everything come from? How did we get here? Why is the world the way that is? And what are we supposed to be doing with our lives? Because the story of Genesis is our story too, because the Bible is one united story about Jesus saving the world, I think we find in these first chapters of Genesis at least some pieces of answers to these questions for ourselves too.