100
Patriarchs and Prophets
God’s displeasure, broke off the upper portion of the tower and cast it
to the ground. Men were made to feel that there is a God who ruleth
in the heavens.
Up to this time all men had spoken the same language; now those
that could understand one another’s speech united in companies; some
went one way, and some another. “The Lord scattered them abroad
from thence upon the face of all the earth.” This dispersion was the
means of peopling the earth, and thus the Lord’s purpose was accom-
plished through the very means that men had employed to prevent its
fulfillment.
But at what a loss to those who had set themselves against God!
It was His purpose that as men should go forth to found nations in
different parts of the earth they should carry with them a knowledge of
His will, that the light of truth might shine undimmed to succeeding
generations. Noah, the faithful preacher of righteousness, lived for
three hundred and fifty years after the Flood, Shem for five hundred
years, and thus their descendants had an opportunity to become ac-
quainted with the requirements of God and the history of His dealings
with their fathers. But they were unwilling to listen to these unpalat-
able truths; they had no desire to retain God in their knowledge; and
by the confusion of tongues they were, in a great measure, shut out
from intercourse with those who might have given them light.
The Babel builders had indulged the spirit of murmuring against
God. Instead of gratefully remembering His mercy to Adam and His
gracious covenant with Noah, they had complained of His severity in
expelling the first pair from Eden and destroying the world by a flood.
But while they murmured against God as arbitrary and severe, they
were accepting the rule of the cruelest of tyrants. Satan was seeking to
bring contempt upon the sacrificial offerings that prefigured the death
of Christ; and as the minds of the people were darkened by idolatry, he
led them to counterfeit these offerings and sacrifice their own children
[121]
[122]
[123]
upon the altars of their gods. As men turned away from God, the divine
attributes—justice, purity, and love—were supplanted by oppression,
violence, and brutality.
The men of Babel had determined to establish a government that
should be independent of God. There were some among them, how-
ever, who feared the Lord, but who had been deceived by the pre-
tensions of the ungodly and drawn into their schemes. For the sake