CHAPTER III

FROM THE FLOOD TO BABEL

WHEN Noah and his family left the ark, Noah built an altar and offered a sacrifice of thanks­giving to God for their deliverance. So deep was his gratitude that he offered of every clean beast and every clean bird. It was the one way in which he could show his thankfulness, and God accepted it; He “smelled a sweet savour,” and gave a promise that has never failed, “while the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and sum­mer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease.” These changes still take place, and every time day follows night, and summer succeeds winter, it is a reminder of the promise which God made that never again should there be a flood to destroy man and beast from all the earth.

God also gave another sign; He “set His bow in the cloud” as a reminder that He had made an “everlasting covenant” with man. To-day when the rain falls, and the heavens are cloudy, the many coloured rainbow is sometimes seen arching the heavens. It reminds those who know the Bible story, of the promise that guarantees the future of the earth, because God has made an everlasting covenant to that effect.

After the flood Noah adopted the life of a husband­man; he planted a vineyard, and made wine from its grapes. Some years afterwards he partook too freely of the wine and became drunk. In that state he lay naked in his tent. As he lay there Canaan, the son of Ham, came in and saw his grandfather. He told his father, who also went in and looked at the old man. He in turn told Shem and Japheth. They were men of a different type; they were sorry for their father, and, walking backwards so that they should not see him, took a garment and covered him. When the effects of the wine had worn off Noah realised what had happened, and in the spirit of prophecy pronounced these words,

“Cursed be Canaan;
A servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem;
And let Canaan be his servant.
God enlarge Japheth,
And let him dwell in the tents of Shem;
And let Canaan be his servant.”

This is the first prophecy, though not the first promise, in the Bible; and it is a brief epitome of the main lines of the history of the world.

People scattered

More years passed by, and as the descendants of Noah increased in numbers they spread abroad. Some journeyed eastward and came to a plain in the land of Shinar, in Mesopotamia. It was a place of great fertility, with a soil that yielded abundant harvests. Here they determined to stay. They said “Let us make brick and burn them.” It was a country with practically no stone, and if they desired to live in settled communities, instead of in tents as Noah had done, they had to build with bricks.

Then they said, “Let us build us a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make a name.” They wanted a central organiza­tion in which they could develop the arts of govern­ment. The leader in this attempt was Nimrod, a descendant of Ham, who desired to establish himself as a mighty one in the earth, like the great men who had lived before the flood. He desired to be an autocrat to rule over men for his own benefit.

It is probable that the tower which was built at Babel (Babylon), the beginning of Nimrod’s king­dom, was a Ziggurat, a number of which have been found among the ruins of the country. They were the religious centres of those who left the worship of the God of the Bible. They named the place Babel, or Babilu. Nimrod’s was a despotism opposed to all that was connected with the God who had delivered Noah from the waters of the flood. Such a design was altogether opposed to the purposes of God, and He took steps to thwart the aims of Nimrod and his followers.

It is recorded that God came down and confounded the language of the people so that they might not understand one another’s speech. It was the begin­ning of another new order of things on the earth. Hitherto the people had been a more or less united community, able to converse with one another with-out difficulty. From that time they became divided into separate peoples, each speaking its own language. They had called their city Bab-ilu, which meant the Gate of God; it has since been known as Babel, which means confusion. The confusion of tongues put an end to their efforts to make a name and to establish themselves as a strong central power. Nations and peoples began to arise and the earth was divided.