GENESIS

The Tower of Babel

Genesis chapter eleven

"There!" shouted Terah, the leader of the group. He was pointing towards a huge area of land .

Finally, after months of travel, we finally found a plain land we could stay in. All the land was still uneven even after years had passed since the great flood.

Our backs ached and the sand had scarred our feet. All of us, carrying our possessions on our backs. The children, even though they were still very young, had to walk.

We all travelled in hundreds from the east for a habitable land and now we've finally found it in the land of Shi'nar.

Without hesitation, everyone cheered in long awaited relief. My best friend, Admah, hugged me tightly and I couldn't help but hug him back.

"Finally Cush..." he said, still smiling from ear to ear " we made it. I thought I was going to die from this" always the joker. I thought and smiled at him.

I guess I was more of the reserved type. The total opposite of Cush. I had wondered why we were different when I was younger but my mum told me God created each one of us uniquely.

But I agree with him, I thought I was going to die too. In these past few months, we had had three deaths. Although they were fully grown adults, it was still enough to put us on edge.

When the cheers had died down, we all walked over to the land and made tents for ourselves. My mum and his dad were from the same mother, so we had known each other our whole lives. Naturally, we camped beside each other.

The next morning, we were all called together by our leader, Terah.
"Good morning everybody" he said once we all settled down on the ground and he had stood in front of us.

"After all this time we finally have a place to rest our head" cheers emerged from the crowd and he smiled at us.

Terah, always had this aura surrounding him. One that deserves respect, he was brave and talented. He led us all here eventhough we wanted to give up a long time ago.

Without him, we would have continued to live a hard life and died earlier than we should.

When the second person died, everyone began to doubt him. We were scared and uncertain but he continued to urge us on. I could never be like him, I didn't even want to imagine it.

"So why don't we build us a city..." he continued, standing tall " let us make this land ours. And let us build a tower that will reach the heavens!" He said in a loud voice and cheers erupted again.

"We've got good soil and all we need at our fingertips " he grinned triumphantly " but I understand how tried we must be" people began to murmur in agreement.

"A tower to reach the heavens" Admah whispered in excitement " we may be able to even meet God"  when he said this, a suddenly became said.

Meet God? I thought

" so we will start after the night of the moon less sky" Terah continued and the  whole crowd applauded him.

It wasn't long before that time came and they began to build the tower and the city. Everybody had to do one thing or the other.

The women cooked to feed us while we did the work. The men built while we children were their helpers. We had bricks for stones and slime for mortar.

The work seemed like it would never end but soon the city and tower began to take shape. After a long day of delivering materials to the builders and collapsed in my family tent from exhaustion and slept like a baby.

The next day, I woke up feeling weird, different, I couldn't really understand the feeling. I ran out knowing I must have been late only to see everybody wandering about looking confused.

What's wrong? I thought why haven't we started work already.

"Cush!" Admah shouted behind me and I turned to face him.

"What's going on?" I asked

"Jjdioevvkieyg..." he said and I became confused

"What?"

"Hsjjeid  bdjieke sjudj" he kept on rambling, panick clearly displayed in his eyes. He sounded like he was saying utter nonsense, I couldn't understand a thing he was saying.

"Hhsuinzb!" Someone shouted from a far. I turned only to hear people rambling and uttering nonsense everywhere " it was like they'd run mad.

Everybody began running about shouting at each other like mad dogs.

"Do you understand me! Do you understand me!" I vaguely heard someone, I followed to voice with Admah close beside me.

I saw a girl that looked my age going from person to person saying the same thing.

"Ripha!" I said remembering her name. He quickly turned towards me with a tear stained face, eyes wide. She ran towards me and repeated herself.

"Do you understand me?"

"Yes" she sighed in relief and continued sobbing

"What's happening? " she asked " I've been trying to find someone who understands me for a long time now. Even my parents didn't " tears rolled down her eyes once more when she mentioned her parents.

I turned back to Admah only to see him talking to another much older person. They both responded to each other, completely understanding themselves.

I looked around only to see the same happening to other people while the others kept running around trying to find someone that could understand them.

Suddenly I saw Terah run into the path followed by a younger man, both with frightened expressions on their faces. Terah tried to call everyone's attention but nobody listened to him. They didn't understand him.

"Come let's find others that understand us" I said holding Ripha's hand. I turned to call Admah but he was too confused to get the message. Reluctantly I ran away without him.

It took us a few days but we finally found our groups. We weren't more than twenty in each each group of people who actually understood each other.

There was no way we could do anything anymore so every group began to depart from the city we all worked hard to build. My dad was in my group but my mum was in Admah's.

I ran towards them and hugged my mum who was crying, she said something to me but I still couldn't understand her. Admah walked towards me and hugged me too but we couldn't say anything to each other.

I guess this is the end. After all these months... all our work was for nothing.

Terah's group stayed in the city while everybody else left. We didn't know where we were going, we just knew if we stayed together, there was no way we could have peace...

***

So the Tower of Babel is the origin of all the different languages in the world. I guess, it'll have been better if we could all understand ourselves and didn't have to learn these languages in school but ... 🤷‍♀️

I think God must have felt if He left them like that, there would be a repeat of Noah's time, and He already promised Himself He wasn't going to destroy humanity again so this must have been the best choice.

But now, we are still in sin sadly, 😞. I can't imagine what God must be feeling. I mean He did create us but some of us aren't even obeying Him as much as we obey the government. If not for Jesus where would we be now 😪.

Anyway 😁, if you liked it please vote and share and tell me what you think about this chapter.  👍let's fear God and try to make the world a better place.

Till next time 👋😄