5.1.1 Gen. 11: The Tower of Babel

With the Tower of Babel, prehistory now comes to its sad climax and  conclusion. 

The expression that the top of the tower reaches to the sky is not to be  understood as meaning that the goal is to storm the sky (as in pagan  sagas). Rather, it is meant to emphasize the special height of this “skyscraper”. Correspondingly, then, there is a biting irony in the powerful  anthropomorphism 11, 5: This huge tower is so small that Yahweh has to  make an extra effort from heaven to get it in front of his eyes at all. So it  is not about the 

“eritis sicut Deus” of the Fall. Nevertheless 11, 6 reminds of 3, 22 (Delitzsch). Here it is about vain glory-seeking, “secret titanism” (vRad).  The same motif then runs through the entire further history of the church  (e.g. St. Peter’s Cathedral, Ulm Cathedral, Speyer Cathedral, Christ  Church in Mainz) as well as the profane buildings (Chrysler-Building, and many others). So, the phenomenon is really spreading all  over the world. And so it is not surprising if also quite other peoples and  tribes know a similar history of the language confusion (see Delitzsch). 

The surprising plural in 11:7 is naturally interpreted trinitarian by us  Christians. 

Especially heavy is the fact that at the end of the story of the building of  the tower, unlike in all other parts of the prehistory, this time there is no  conciliatory conclusion, no blessing and no possibility to turn back etc..  Thus the primeval history ends, so to speak, black in black. This is a  fine, though easily overlooked, intention. Because only on this  background the blessing and the promises of the story of the fathers really  shine. 

From a Christian point of view, however, even this is still too short. We  read the story of the confusion of languages, of course, as the prologue  of the Pentecost story.