Article September 20, 1947 Issue

"AND THE WHOLE EARTH WAS OF ONE LANGUAGE"

ISRAEL PICKENS

A Story in the book of Genesis sets forth a lesson fraught with significance, and its import may be translated to the needs of our own time. We read in the eleventh chapter that "the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech." But in those primitive days the weeds of materiality, selfishness, and greed had overgrown the people's devotion to the God who had preserved their forebears in the flood.

In this state of material thinking they set forth upon a task that must needs be a failure, namely, the building of the tower of Babel, which is typical of all structures built upon material ambition. Their avowed purpose was to build a tower and so make a name for themselves, lest they be scattered abroad upon the face of the earth. But there ensued a confusion of tongues, so that no one understood another, "and they left off to build the city."

The story of Babel is the story of humanity under the mesmerism of vanity, self-love, disobedience; of self-righteousness, egotism, ambition, godlessness. It is the story of disunity, as indicated in the scattering of the people over the face of the earth and in the confusion of their language. In subsequent Biblical narratives there is no record of this confusion of tongues being silenced until, following Jesus' ascension, his disciples were together on the day of Pentecost. Those who built the tower of Babel had sacrificed their sense of unity with God and were thereby disunited; but Jesus' faithful disciples were manifesting such oneness of thought and purpose that, as their Master had promised, the Holy Ghost came upon them and they spoke to the gathered peoples in their own languages. Was it that the many nations of different tongues heard them speak the language of Spirit, God, and therefore could in a measure understand the unity of good?

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