The inhabitants of Sumer in the biblical parable of the Tower of Babel are haunted by the "achievements" of their ancestors who lived before the flood. They were the "giants" of whom the sacred writer speaks as "mighty men of old, men of name" (in the Synodal translation they are called "glorious," but the corresponding Hebrew word means...
The inhabitants of Sumer in the biblical parable of the Tower of Babel are haunted by the "achievements" of their ancestors who lived before the flood. They were the "giants" of whom the sacred writer speaks as "mighty men of old, men of name" (in the Synodal translation they are called "glorious," but the corresponding Hebrew word literally means "men of name," that is, "well-known," "people with a name"). And the inhabitants of the Sumerian valley mentioned in the parable (by which the Mesopotamian lowland is evidently meant) also want to "make a name for themselves," to "become people of name," so that they "may not be scattered over the face of the earth."
And they begin a "great construction project," the first, but by no means the last, in the history of fallen humanity, which will end as ingloriously as all those that follow (the irony of the parable, by the way, also lies in the fact that when it was written, and according to the data available today this was in Babylon during the years of exile, those who read it there in Babylon could see another tower like the one described in the parable). As is clear, the builders were driven not simply by a desire for fame; they wanted to build something that would unite them, that would become a symbol of national unity and state power. It is no accident that the prerequisite for the "great construction project" was precisely the unity of the inhabitants of that land: "one people and one language" in Akkadian usage (and here we evidently have a calque from Akkadian) meant one-man rule.
And so, in order to strengthen unity and, accordingly, increase state power, a grandiose project is undertaken, which in the end fails quite thoroughly. Why is that? Is it only because strong power that carries out projects of this kind always becomes repressive, violating all the laws given by God? No doubt, for that reason too. But perhaps not only for that reason. In the existence of every people, as in the life of every person, there is a meaning connected with God's design for that people or that person. But can that design be seen and understood if the goal is not that design, but greatness, power, and fame? The answer is obvious.
And the repressiveness of power generated by a society that is not seeking meaning is only a consequence. It is no wonder that such a society and such power are doomed. Here one can only ask God to minimize the consequences of the inevitable collapse.
