From Babel to translation.babylon.com
Wow! I love the Bible's living nature and the Holy Spirit for teaching me new things through ancient text! Thank you, God, for your Word.
Today, I picked up a few nuggets in Genesis 10-13. First, as a lover of language, I must acknowledge the Tower of Babel and God's work there. Again, I find myself wondering over God's nature when reading direct quotes about His thoughts.
Genesis 11:6-7 actually says, "The Lord said, 'If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.'"
I realize the the writing of Genesis is attributed to Moses, who wasn't alive at the time of the Tower of Babel, however, I trust God and his ability to speak through Moses long after so that these truths could be recorded. (Along with the oral traditions attributed to maintaining accurate historical events to people groups before written language was introduced by the Egyptians...I think.) The real question I had when I read this again was, "Did God really think that man could do the impossible?"
If God knew that this tower exemplified the power of mankind, what does he think of us now? Was the language barrier all that was needed to thwart man's possibilities of accomplishing the impossible? I also wonder if this story of spreading out the people means a diverse spread of culture and tradition. I feel as though the world will not prove to accomplish its full capabilities unless we are united as one people group. Did the Tower of Babel secure God's position of power because He knew that a unified people would be impossible if we were set apart by language and culture? I see this diversity as a major hindrance to the unification of mankind. I know that in our generation, we are seemingly bringing the world and its people closer, but can't ignore the violence and division that separates more clearly today than perhaps ever before.
Okay, enough wondering...now for the acknowledgement of God's awesome creativity. My family is spread throughout the globe. I have an Asian sister-in-law. I have nephews from my twin sister that are growing up and learning words with Latin and Manderine root words/sounds. I have cousins in Africa and even one native South Sudanese cousin by marriage. Our family reunions are fascinating (well, when we can get together!). I have learned in my personal experiences that our language differences are perhaps God's most extraordinary display of creativity. There are sets of sounds that don't exist in our language, yet halfway around the globe, those sounds are flowing from Asian, Russian, and Arabic lips billions of times per day. There are words and phrases in our language that don't have meanings in other languages and feelings that cannot be expressed in English but have labels in other languages! There are countless different languages and even more dialects and pigeon languages. And what's even more fascinating is the beauty of each one. God is a creative genius.
I was going to list a few more things I've gleaned from this small portion of Genesis, but my post is long and I'm getting short on time! Oh well, God knew I needed to camp out admiring his Creativity yet again today!
And so I say with a heart full of wonder (thanks to translation.babylon.com):
Praise God for His creation!
하나님은 그의 창조에 대한 찬양! (Korean)
Dieu d'éloge pour sa création! (French)
Alabar a Dios por su creación. (Spanish)
Lob-Gott für seine Schaffung! (German)
Благодарить Бога за Его создания! (Russian)
สรรเสริญพระเจ้าสำหรับการสร้างของเขา (Thai)
Today, I picked up a few nuggets in Genesis 10-13. First, as a lover of language, I must acknowledge the Tower of Babel and God's work there. Again, I find myself wondering over God's nature when reading direct quotes about His thoughts.
Genesis 11:6-7 actually says, "The Lord said, 'If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.'"
I realize the the writing of Genesis is attributed to Moses, who wasn't alive at the time of the Tower of Babel, however, I trust God and his ability to speak through Moses long after so that these truths could be recorded. (Along with the oral traditions attributed to maintaining accurate historical events to people groups before written language was introduced by the Egyptians...I think.) The real question I had when I read this again was, "Did God really think that man could do the impossible?"
If God knew that this tower exemplified the power of mankind, what does he think of us now? Was the language barrier all that was needed to thwart man's possibilities of accomplishing the impossible? I also wonder if this story of spreading out the people means a diverse spread of culture and tradition. I feel as though the world will not prove to accomplish its full capabilities unless we are united as one people group. Did the Tower of Babel secure God's position of power because He knew that a unified people would be impossible if we were set apart by language and culture? I see this diversity as a major hindrance to the unification of mankind. I know that in our generation, we are seemingly bringing the world and its people closer, but can't ignore the violence and division that separates more clearly today than perhaps ever before.
Okay, enough wondering...now for the acknowledgement of God's awesome creativity. My family is spread throughout the globe. I have an Asian sister-in-law. I have nephews from my twin sister that are growing up and learning words with Latin and Manderine root words/sounds. I have cousins in Africa and even one native South Sudanese cousin by marriage. Our family reunions are fascinating (well, when we can get together!). I have learned in my personal experiences that our language differences are perhaps God's most extraordinary display of creativity. There are sets of sounds that don't exist in our language, yet halfway around the globe, those sounds are flowing from Asian, Russian, and Arabic lips billions of times per day. There are words and phrases in our language that don't have meanings in other languages and feelings that cannot be expressed in English but have labels in other languages! There are countless different languages and even more dialects and pigeon languages. And what's even more fascinating is the beauty of each one. God is a creative genius.
I was going to list a few more things I've gleaned from this small portion of Genesis, but my post is long and I'm getting short on time! Oh well, God knew I needed to camp out admiring his Creativity yet again today!
And so I say with a heart full of wonder (thanks to translation.babylon.com):
Praise God for His creation!
하나님은 그의 창조에 대한 찬양! (Korean)
Dieu d'éloge pour sa création! (French)
Alabar a Dios por su creación. (Spanish)
Lob-Gott für seine Schaffung! (German)
Благодарить Бога за Его создания! (Russian)
สรรเสริญพระเจ้าสำหรับการสร้างของเขา (Thai)
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