In Mormonism, the tower of Babel is taught as an almost fictional story that was so long ago that even if it was true then it doesn’t really matter today. It is seen as nothing more than a good explanation for why we have so many different languages. However, it was one of the most pivotal moments in history concerning our relationship with God and his dealings with mankind. It was at the Tower of Babel that God disinherited the people and turned them over to the members of his divine council who were already largely rebelling against him.
History
Just as a brief refresher, immediately after the flood, Noah and his posterity were told to go forth and to multiply and replenish the earth. This seemed to be the case for a long time, until people decided to no longer spread out, but to consolidate instead. Beginning in Genesis 11, it is described that some people found a nice plain and started to build a large city there. It was in this city that the people started to build a tower and adopt a formal name to prevent themselves from being separated like God wanted them to be. The record reads:
And they said, “Come, go to, let us build us a city, and a tower whose top will be high, nigh unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” And the LORD came down, beholding the city and the tower which the children of men were building; … this tower they begin to build, and now, nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined, except I, the LORD, confound their language … And they were confounded, … and they hearkened not unto the Lord
Genesis 11: 4-9
In Genesis 11, we can see that the people specifically wanted to go against the will of God by consolidating into a city. God knew that this would be the start of many evil intentions, so God had to intervene and force them to separate by changing their language. As far as the record itself, in Genesis, we have very little information. However, we can see much more information written almost in passing later in the Bible. This is one challenge when understanding the scriptures. There is so much assumed knowledge that it makes someone from a completely different cultural background have a very hard time fully understanding the intended meaning of the authors.
Scattering
In order to get a better understanding of this scattering event at the Tower of Babel, then we can see what it meant to the Jewish people. In Deuteronomy 32, Moses mentions that each scattered group was assigned to a different divine being, yet Israel was God’s chosen group. It reads:
When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. But the LORD’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.
Deuteronomy 32:8, 9 – ESV
Other translations make this even more apparent. For instance, in the New Living Translation, the phrase “sons of God” is translated as “heavenly court”. The New Revised Standard Version also translates the phrase “sons of God” as being instead the “number of the gods”. We can see though, from Deuteronomy 32 that it seems each scattered group from the Tower of Babel was assigned a different geographical boundary and each a different divine being, from the Divine Council, to oversee them. At first this is kind of confusing, at least it was to me. However, it helps to understand Genesis 10, and Genesis 12 which is immediately before and after the story about the Tower of Babel.
In Genesis 10, we can see the entire list of Noah’s descendants which interestingly enough comes out to 70 in total. This list of descendants is sometimes referred to as the Generations of Noah, or the Table of Nations. In Jewish mythology, it was believed that every unique group of people was a descendant from a different person in the lineage of Noah.
It is also interesting, that according to Jewish belief, God chose 70 nations to separate the people into. There were 70 Israelites, in Genesis 46, that came into Egypt, and 70 elders of Israel, in Exodus 24, to ascend the Mount Sinai. Essentially God broke people into 70 groups that were cast out of his presence, who then went into the world and then rose from the world to meet him once again. It is all very remarkable when you really analyze things.
If we look at the other side of this though, then immediately after the scattering at the Tower of Babel, Genesis 12 records that God calls Abram and tells him to flee Egypt as he is going to be used by God to reestablish his people. This link between the Tower of Babel and Abraham is easy to overlook since we don’t commonly think of this. The people had rebelled against God again at the Tower of Babel. They were then turned over to Satan as God has mentioned more than once, we would be if we didn’t follow him. However, with Abram, God was ready to begin his work once again with a new set of people.
This was the world view of the Old Testament writers. God needed to restart his people and he was going to do it with someone that was well past the age to conceive naturally. Therefore, everything pertaining to Israel was a result of direct and divine intervention and no one, including the lessor gods, could deny this fact. God was going to play a trump card that only he could play.
In looking at Jewish mythology, it is important to keep in mind that there was a belief at the time that God was the supreme God of 70 lessor gods and each nation was overseen by one of the lessor gods. Israel itself was overseen by the supreme god which we would refer to as God, or the Father. All these lessor gods were part of God’s Divine Council as we have previously seen. Anytime that Israel would depart from God then they were in fact seeking after one of these lessor divine beings instead.
Of course, many of these nations were good, however none were like Israel. None were led by the true God, and none had the level of divine intervention that Israel did. Many of the nations or lessor gods, tried to match Israel in their own ways. However, none was remotely successful as God ultimately knew would be the case. A scholar named Michael Heiser, has done immense research into this concept and I would highly recommend his research when studying this topic further. He has a few books on this subject which are very illuminating.
Gathering
In disinheriting the 70 nations of the world, God continued to work with his people and support them directly. However, things drastically changed with the life and death of Christ. During the life of Christ, we can read in Luke 10 that 70 disciples were chosen to bring the gospel to all the world alongside the apostles. It was these 70 that represented the nations of the world and were going to bring the gospel to them directly.
After the death of Christ, the apostles were told to wait for an endowment of the spirit in order to gain the full power that they needed to spread the gospel the way that God wanted them to do so. As described in Acts 2 it was during the day of Pentecost that this gift was given them in a very remarkable way. This day of Pentecost was a sign that God was now ready to reclaim the nations of the earth from the lessor gods that the people had been turned over to. He was ready to make the entire earth his people, not just the people of Israel. The record reads:
And when the day of Pentecost was fully come … suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. … And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.
Acts 2:1-6
Acts 2 continues by describing the nations various people were from and how each of them heard the gospel in their own language. The described list in Acts 2 was essentially the entire known world at the time and matches this Table of Nations we saw earlier in Genesis 10.
Essentially, God was reversing the splitting of the languages at the Tower of Babel and recombining them again as they once were. He was calling all people to him with the good news of the gospel and reclaiming his children from the false gods who they were serving. This was very confusing to the people during the apostle’s time. However, it was a great testament that the God of Israel was the supreme god of gods. It was immediately after this day of Pentecost that the true missionary work really began.
Conclusion
As I mentioned previously, the divine council concept is all over the scriptures. However, it is not as clear that the nations of the earth were disinherited with the Tower of Babel and then inherited again with the life of Christ. As we have seen in so many ways, the life and death of Christ was the great turning point in the work of God. This is why everything revolves around Christ. It also becomes far more symbolic, because the Book of Mormon makes it very clear that Christ was God made flesh. Therefore, God himself came down, as Mosiah 15 mentions, to reclaim his lost and fallen people and to jumpstart his work once again.
When the people rebelled against God and built the Tower of Babel, God knew they were not ready to accept what he had to offer. As a consequence, he removed his divine guidance and protection from them and allowed the lessor gods to have dominion. These lessor gods sometimes did good things and sometimes did not. In Mormonism we believe that God controls everything down to the last detail, however this is certainly not a scriptural worldview.
As we have seen in Psalms 82, God is going to “inherit all nations” and reclaim them from the wayward Divine Council members. This pattern fits so many things in the scriptures. For instance, this is exactly the pattern described in 1 Nephi 13, Book of Commandments 4, and D&C 101. We can choose to be God’s people however if we don’t want that then God will leave us to a lesser god. In the scriptures this is sometimes translated as “Satan”, however it is functionally the same. After we have been in the wilderness for a while then God attempts to reclaim us if we are willing.
This is also exactly the pattern that is going to happen in the future, when the true servants of God return. As of right now, God is calling everyone to his banner however it is slow and steady. In the future this global call to God will be much louder and impossible to deny. The true servants of God will make a final push to reclaim all who are willing to be numbered among God’s people just the same as the false gods will make a final push to reclaim all their people.
There is a spiritual war currently among the supreme God of heaven and lesser gods who were given immense divine powers. We must choose today who we want to align with, who we trust, and which god we want to obey. As Matthew 8 mentions, the gods know their time is short. Yet they also know that as long as they can delay the inevitable then they will continue to have their power as a Divine Council member. When all the nations of earth return to God and are accepted by him. Then we can finally see the true happiness found in God, and the false happiness found in the lessor gods that sought their own wisdom and learning.
