THE TOWER OF BABEL.

: Old Testament Stories

Babel means confusion. Was it not a strange name to give a tower? How

did it get this?



After Noah left the ark, God made a promise to him that He would no

more destroy the earth by a flood, and blessed him and his sons. In

course of time many little children were born, baby boys and girls,

who grew up to be fathers and mothers having children also. In this

manner a great many people dwelt again on the ear
h. For more than one

hundred years they all spoke the same language, and as, in course of

time, they journeyed onward, they came to a large plain in the land of

Shinar, near to where Babylon was afterwards built. Here they said

they would remain and build a great city, with a high tower ascending

to heaven.



Now God, when he blessed Noah, had said to him, "Be fruitful, and

multiply, and replenish the earth;" meaning that the people were to

scatter abroad, so that the world might become inhabited again. But

these men wanted to keep together, and found one great empire, the

centre of which should be the great city with the lofty tower. So they

made bricks and burnt them, and took a kind of pitch for mortar, and

began to build. Some learned men say they took three years in getting

the materials, and were twenty-two years building the tower. It was

very great and high, but it was never finished. The people did

wickedly in building it, and God, who saw all they were doing,

confounded their language, so that one could not understand another.

Thus they left off building the tower, and that is why it is called

Babel. Then God scattered them abroad to re-people the earth.



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