Texts in Conversation
Isaiah reverses the Tower of Babel story into a vision of hope, using the same language of collective journey and reaching the highest point, but now the nations ascend to learn from God rather than to challenge him.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Genesis 11:4
Hebrew Bible
1 The whole earth had a common language and a common vocabulary. 2 When the people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. 3 Then they said to one another, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” (They had brick instead of stone and tar instead of mortar.) 4 Then they said, “Come, let’s build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens so that we may make a name for ourselves. Otherwise we will be scattered across the face of the entire earth.”
Isaiah 2:2
Hebrew Bible
2 In future days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will endure as the most important of mountains and will be the most prominent of hills. All the nations will stream to it; 3 many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the Lord’s mountain, to the temple of the God of Jacob, so he can teach us his requirements, and we can follow his standards.” For Zion will be the center for moral instruction; the Lord’s message will issue from Jerusalem. 4 He will judge disputes between nations; he will settle cases for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations will not take up the sword against other nations, and they will no longer train for war.
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Notes and References
"... Isaiah shaped his prophecy according to the story in Genesis 11. The story of the tower opened with the image of humanity's unification after the Flood — "Everyone on earth had the same language and the same words" (Genesis 11:1) — and their departure for their common journey — "they migrated from the east" (verse 2). Isaiah's prophecy, in a mirror-image of that story, assumes the existence of different nations, all of whom depart from their various locations toward a common destination: "And the nations shall flow towards it." In both story and prophecy, the people voice their initiative and encourage one another, saying, "Come, let us build us a city, and a tower with its head in the heavens" (Genesis 11:4); "Come, let us go up to the Mount of the Lord, to the House of the God of Jacob" (Isaiah 2:3). Both groups want to reach the uppermost point: the top of the tower that will touch the heavens, or the summit of the highest mountain that towers above the hills. But here we arrive at the enormous difference between the two endeavors: in Genesis 11 the people aim to make a name for themselves, to be like God; in Isaiah, the people wish to learn from God and walk in His ways. ..."
Shinan, Avigdor and Yair Zakovitch
From Gods to God: How the Bible Debunked, Suppressed, or Changed Ancient Myths and Legends
(p. 86) The Jewish Publication Society, 2012
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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