A WORD FOR TODAY, October 6, 2025
Peggy Hoppes
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Blessings. Peg
A WORD FOR TODAY, October 6, 2025
“The whole earth was of one language and of one speech. As they traveled east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they lived there. They said to one another, ‘Come, let’s make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.’ They had brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar. They said, ‘Come, let’s build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top reaches to the sky, and let’s make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad on the surface of the whole earth.’ Yahweh came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men built. Yahweh said, ‘Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is what they begin to do. Now nothing will be withheld from them, which they intend to do. Come, let’s go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.’ So Yahweh scattered them abroad from there on the surface of all the earth. They stopped building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there Yahweh confused the language of all the earth. From there, Yahweh scattered them abroad on the surface of all the earth.” Genesis 11:1-9, WEB
I recently watched a show about the building of the last Frank Lloyd Wright house. A woman bought a property that was the sight of another Wright house. The original owners wanted a second house a few hundred feet away because the property was threatened by plans for an interstate road, but Wright rejected the idea. Plans for a project on that property were discovered shortly after he died, and they were given to the owner of the property. The woman and her daughter discovered the plans after they purchased the property and decided to follow Wright’s plans to build that house exactly as it had been designed.
Frank Lloyd Wright was very detailed about the design of every aspect of the houses he designed. It was difficult to follow the specifications exactly, because after more than fifty years, some of the products in his plan were no longer available. They did the best they could, and created a beautiful building that was truly “The Last Wright: Building the Final Home Design of America’s Greatest Architect.” Whenever they had a problem, they asked the question, “What would Frank do?” They met other Wright homeowners or experts, toured several properties, and learned from the past to recreate the plan as best they could. On several occasions, they discovered that the details really did matter, and they were happy at the end that they stayed as close to the plan as they could.
Frank Lloyd Wright did not just design houses. He was the brilliant mind behind the Guggenheim Museum in New York. People thought he was crazy, but it is an iconic property which includes a spiral ramp inside which makes viewing the artwork a continuous path without interruption. Despite building in a big city, Wright always incorporated nature into his designs, and spirals are found throughout nature.
His design for the Guggenheim is not the first time that the spiral was used in architecture. Many buildings include spiral staircases. What wasn’t common, however, is to use spirals for the design of a building. Spiral buildings were wasteful because they required a large amount of material and labor to make it happen, and they were not as strong as they needed to be. The building of large tower-temples dates back some 5,000 years; some were large, mountain-like temple structures meant to help the people connect with their gods and history and history suggests that at least some included a spiral design.
The Greek writer Herodotus described the Etemenanki, the tower of Babylon, which was possibly the highest ziggurat ever built. He wrote, “The temple is a square building, two furlongs in each way, with bronze gates, and was still in existence in my time; it has a solid central tower, one furlong square, with a second erected on top of it and then a third, and so on up to eight. All eight towers can be climbed by a spiral way running around the outside, and about half-way up there are seats and a shelter for those who make the ascent to rest on. On the summit of the topmost tower stands a great temple...”.
The Bible doesn’t give us details about the shape of the Tower, but many artists make the Tower of Babel a spiral building. This design symbolizes humanity’s ambition, hubris. One of the most famous paintings was by Pieter Bruegel, who gave the town unstable arches and an incomplete foundation. It is a “half-finished disaster zone.” His design created an unstable, unfinished, and morally questionable structure that mimics real-world civic and economic ventures. This spiral motif, with its visible ramp and architectural instabilities, visually represents the story’s moral message of man’s overreach and foolish pursuit of god-like heights. The upward spiral reaching toward heaven embodies humanity’s desire to achieve the highest goal and reach the heavens. This design represents hubris and pride. Bruegel’s tower is instable and imperfect, foundationless and unsteady, which is a warning against the arrogant foundation of material ambition.
A flawed, crumbling tower serves as a commentary on the inherent flaws and potential for disaster in human endeavors driven by pride and material concerns. The people of Babel were the first agrarians. When humans were hunter gatherers, they spent all their time and energy on the business of survival. But when they learned how to plant seeds, they didn’t need to travel so far to support a community. They learned how to harvest water, to tame the land, to work together to have food enough for a large group.
They were no longer nomadic. They settled down and stayed in one place. They had time to do things other than survive. They built permanent homes and other buildings. They were beginning to form business methods, writing, art, government and religion. They established temples for their gods. This freedom gave them time to ponder life, the universe, and everything. They believed in the gods, but they also began to see themselves in a new way. They were not only stronger than the animals, but they were also intelligent. They could build things. They could create things. They could transform things. They began to think like gods.
God confused the language of the world because mankind was trying to be like Him. It is a rerun of the original sin. They joined together as one body with one voice to build a city that would bring glory to themselves. They worked together to build a tower to heaven. The tower was more than just a ladder. The people wanted to make a name; they wanted a reputation. Archaeologists have found ziggurats throughout the Middle East, towers that were designed to reach toward the heavens to impress the gods so that they would bless the people with prosperity, health, and wealth. Yet in the story of the Tower of Babel, we get the impression that they were building it for another reason. They were afraid that they would lose it all and that they would be scattered. The sad part is they missed the point of the flood. After Noah and his family left the ark, God told them to replenish the whole earth. They just wanted to settle in one place. They were afraid to go our into the world to do God’s will.
The Tower of Babel must have been an extraordinary accomplishment because God saw what they did, and He knew that it was not good for the people to reach too high. He is pleased when we use our gifts and develop our talents. He created man to be co-creators with Him in this world. He commanded the first people to be fruitful and multiply. He sent Noah and his family to replenish the whole earth. He wants us to reach the sky.
Unfortunately, the original sin is innate in human beings. We want to go our own way, do our own thing, walk our own walk, ignoring God’s will for our lives because we want to be our own gods. But we can’t become gods, and we shouldn’t try. Fear manifests as ambition. If only we could become great, then we wouldn’t have to worry about losing everything. If only we could become immortal, then we would own the world. But we can’t become immortal by our own human deeds, so God scattered the people and confused their language so that they could not become something that they were never meant to be. It is only by the power of Jesus that we can become everything God created and redeemed us to be.
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