When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces.
Genesis 15:17 (NIV)
When you see this text as an echo of Genesis 1 and 2, you’ll understand that “let there be light” doesn’t have to be a blinding light. It can be a torch, just bright enough to know which direction to look.
And behold: God is in the space between the things that are separated.
As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him.
Genesis 15:12 (NIV)
The rabbis say that sleep is a microcosm of death. How would Adam have known to fear death until he was terrorized with unnatural sleep?
And here in Genesis 15, we see it plainly. Darkness hasn’t been mentioned since Genesis 1. This is an echo of Genesis 2.
From death to life. From darkness to light. From hell to heaven.
No sinners’ prayer.
No commandments.
Only faith in a God who makes Promises and keeps them.
The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
Genesis 12:1 (NIV)
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
Genesis 1:1-3 (NIV)
If you’ve been following along, you’ll notice that Genesis 12 starts out like Genesis 1.
“Your country” is the dark land of Shinar. Babylonia.
“Your relatives and father’s house” is the idleness of Haran. A vast sea of nothingness.
But God says, “Here, let me show you something. Follow Me.”
And it came about, as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
Genesis 11:2 (NASB)
The Tower of Babel story starts with humanity settling in the plain of Shinar. Babylonia.
Therefore it was named Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.
Genesis 11:9 (NASB)
God scatters them after they begin building the Tower of Babel. One could argue that God doesn’t want us to settle, but I suspect that this is actually a deliverance story. Shinar is a place of darkness and bondage. He is saving us from it.
They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.
Genesis 11:3 (NIV)
The sages highlighted the bricks of Babel and point us to the bricks of slavery in Egypt. They also point us to the furnaces of Babylon.
There is a rabbinical teaching: “There are no stones in Babylon.” The story of the Tower of Babel is much darker than it first appears.
Now, you might think that this is strange, but it turns out that the rabbis weren’t simply giving us a metaphor or esoteric teaching about stones. In fact, the region of Babylonia simply has such few rocks that even pebbles were considered precious.
From the Wikipedia article on Babylonian ancient art:
In addition, the want of stone in Babylonia made every pebble precious and led to a high perfection of the art of gem-cutting.
So when Israel was told that they could only make altars from uncut stones (Exodus 20:25), this must have created an ache in the heart of God’s faithful during the Babylonian Exile: no temple, and no stones for altars.
All they had was the scriptures.
In land without stones, the Empire of Babylon grew from their invention of kiln-fired bricks – bricks that were “baked thoroughly,” according to Genesis. In Hebrew, they were “לִשְׂרֵפָ֑ה וְנִשְׂרְפָ֖ה.”
“Burned until burnt.” Totally engulfed with flames.
For the student of the scripture, this should make one’s ears perk up. It was meant to.
Where else have we heard about a furnace —in Babylon— with a fire so hot, the Hebrew word for “burning” is used multiple times to give emphasis?
It’s in Daniel. God’s faithful men were thrown into a giant Babylonian furnace for refusing to bow to the King’s statue.
A furnace meant to product the bricks of slavery. A furnace big enough to be fueled by humanity.
Then Nebuchadnezzar was furious with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and his attitude toward them changed. He ordered the furnace heated seven times hotter than usual.
Daniel 3:19 (NIV)
The Tower of Babel, which means “confusion,” provides us with a key to unlock understanding: the bricks of Egypt… the furnaces of Babylon… they both point to slavery. Captivity. And they both provide a starting point.
The darkness of the Egyptian empire. The darkness of the Babylonian empire.
But then God said, “Let there be Light.”
Not the light from the flames of humanity’s furnaces, fueled by our efforts, but the very Light of God, which comes to set His people free.
“There are no stones in Babylon.”
Without a temple and stones to build an altar, God’s people longed for deliverance.
When Abraham was first called away from his Babylonian home, God gave him a Promise, and there he built an altar. With stones.
The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.
Genesis 12:7 (NIV)
Friend, God calls us away from Babylon, from the place without stones of remembrance, away from reliance on Empire, and away from the furnaces built to consume you.
Abraham and his family departed “Ur of the Chaldeans.”
“Ur” means flames.
God is delivering you from this.
Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Harran, they settled there.
Genesis 11:31 (NIV)
The writers want you to see something that isn’t plainly obvious in this story. It’s subtle.
As people moved eastward, they found a plain in [a] Shinar and settled there.
Genesis 11:2 (NIV)
The [a] footnote tells us that this is Babylonia.
Babylonia is Nimrod’s Empire:
He was a mighty hunter before the Lord; that is why it is said, “Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord.” The first centers of his kingdom were Babylon, Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar.
Babylonia is the region that housed the great city of Babylon. This isn’t obvious in the text yet, but the translators want to preserve this understanding for you later. This would be the place that the Jews lived during the Babylonian exile.
Babylon is linked to wickedness, captivity, and darkness. It’s the place where Israel was held captive for about 70 years, and it was perhaps during this time that the Jewish sages began refining/organizing their scriptures.
One thing that stands out is how much anti-Babylonian messaging show up in the newly articulated scriptures, starting with “Shinar.”
The meaning of “Shinar” is unclear. It might mean “two Rivers,” or “the land between two rivers,” perhaps referring to the Tigris and Euphrates.
However, the root of Shinar is שער (s’r), which is associated with violence in various forms:
Noun שער (sa’r), means horror.
Verb שער (sa’ar) means to sweep or whirl away, like a storm.
Verb שער (sha’ar) means to break
Adjective שער (sho’ar) means horrid or disgusting
The sages of the Midrash include even more thoughts on this, saying that “Shinar” sounds like “she’ein ne’or,” which means “no one is awake” at night because they have no candles (Midrash HaMevo’ar)
It is a place of darkness.
At the time when Amraphel was king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Kedorlaomer king of Elam and Tidal king of Goyim…
Genesis 14:1 (NIV)
Later, when Shinar is introduced to us again in Genesis 14, we’ll meet Amraphel, the King of Shinar.
Amraphel means “Speaker of Darkness.”
Shinar is the bad place.
Perhaps Genesis 1 isn’t an account of things being created, but an account of things being revealed.
Darkness isn’t mentioned in Genesis 2. Or Genesis 3. In fact, we don’t get this word again until Genesis 15, when God makes covenant with Abram. It starts in darkness, and then God shows up. That is the story of our relationship with God.
Some of our Christian theologies argue that nothing “not good” could have existed before the fall. But here, the text points out that the man was alone, and that being alone was “not good.”
But also, Gen 1 says it was dark and chaotic. God made that, too.
The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
Genesis 2:18 (NIV)
Some of our Christian theological perspectives are broken.
The text says God created the heavens and the earth in Genesis 1:1, but God also created the chaos and the darkness in Genesis 1:2. Fortunately, He brings light and order in Genesis 1:3. That’s the correct framework.
Some of our theologies teach “God made it good, but we broke it with sin, so now we have to repent in order to be forgiven,” but this idea doesn’t flow from Genesis. I don’t think this teaching is correct.
Believing that God will heal us and bring us light is the good news.