Further Illustration of the Antagonism--Idolatry a Counterfeit
Rival System in opposition to the Messiah and the True
Worship--Its Origin and Nature--Satan the God of it--The Tower
of Babel devoted to his Worship--That Worship extended thence
over the Earth at the Dispersion.
The illustration of this mighty and ceaseless conflict requires
particular reference to the system of idolatry by which, in opposition
and rivalship to the worship and service of Jehovah, Satan organized his
followers under Nimrod; and on their dispersion to different regions of
the globe, enslaved and held in bondage all the tribes and nations which
they planted, and to which he at length seduced the kings, princes,
priests, and all but a remnant of the chosen people. It was one
comprehensive antagonist rival system, copied and counterfeited in all
its leading features from the doctrines and ritual revealed to the race
at first, and renewedly taught and practised by Noah, on his egress from
the ark. In what forms the great Adversary had instigated the corruption
and wickedness, and led on the masses of the race before the Deluge to
their total destruction by that instrument of Jehovah's power, is but
faintly intimated. The earth was filled with violence; and it is not
unlikely that Cain's example in presenting, contrary to the Divine
command and the ritual prescription, an offering not of blood, not
typical of the expiatory sacrifice of Messiah, the promised Son, but an
offering intended for the occasion, by its nature, and in contrast to
that of Abel, to express his denial and rejection of the typical
sacrifice and its antitype; and his sullen and arrogant denial of his
being in the wrong, and needing an atonement and forgiveness; and the
example of his persecuting malevolence, in killing his brother, may
furnish a clue to the theory and practice of his party afterwards.
But while Noah, conformably to the earlier practice, erected an altar to
Jehovah, offered typical offerings, and otherwise complied with the
ritual, professed the doctrines, and exercised the faith of the revealed
system of religion, and was a preacher of righteousness; his early
descendants, like those of Adam, were soon separated into opposite
parties of true and false worshippers.
The false or idolatrous party, originally characterized as the seed of
the serpent, the followers and servants of Satan, having, under
Nimrod--a name signifying rebel--united in their antagonist scheme,
commenced the erection of the tower of Babel--otherwise Bel, Belus, or
Baal--in Babylon.
From a comparison of the terms employed with reference to this
structure, and the object and nature of the idolatry to which it was
devoted; its history and that of the structures and idolatry of other
countries which were copied from the model here furnished; the
descriptions in the Scriptures of that idolatry, both as practised by
the heathen and by the Israelites, and the references to it by
Herodotus, Thucydides, and other secular historians, the following
summary statement in the present and two succeeding chapters is believed
to be well founded.
This tower or temple was originally destined, as it was afterwards
devoted, to the worship of the great Adversary, who palmed himself upon
his followers as god of this world, god of providence, bestower of
benefits and blessings; the good principle or intelligence of the
Babylonians, Persians, and other heathen nations, by whom he was
regarded as a creature intermediate between the supreme, self-existent,
invisible Being, and the human race, and in that character as creator
and ruler of the world; having his residence in the sun as his
tabernacle and shekina, and manifesting himself locally and at pleasure
to his votaries in fire, as his element, and as the medium of their
worship, sacrifices, incense, &c., and in light, and in the effects of
the solar heat upon vegetation, and otherwise as causing the chief
blessings and comforts of life. These visible objects and benefits
appealed directly to the senses and the unrestrained passions of his
followers, who, being at enmity with the righteous party, and
irreconcilably opposed to the doctrines, duties, and restraints of their
religion; and yet, as well from social considerations as from their
natures as dependent creatures, requiring a substitute, a rival
antagonist system, and a head and leader consistent with it, may well be
supposed to have entered into this system with a zeal, a pertinacity and
desperateness, not exceeded by their successors in Babylon or elsewhere,
nor even by that of the apostate Jews, who, in direct opposition to the
doctrines and worship of Jehovah, established in his temple this idol
system, with its emblems and rites, and the public and formal worship of
its god in the sun, most boldly and impiously turning their faces to the
East, and their backs to the visible Shekina in the holy place.
The system of corruption, delusion, and bondage, by which the great
Adversary commenced his second experiment of lordship over his party,
and of renewed and perpetual hostility towards the righteous, and
treason, rebellion, impiety, and insult towards Jehovah their Elohe,
required not only to be such as would gratify their depraved hearts and
grovelling passions, so as to insure success to his craft and subtlety,
but to be contrived, adopted, and put in practice so as to unite,
combine, and govern them, as soon as possible after the repeopling of
the earth commenced.
That it was in fact contrived, adopted, and practised prior to the
dispersion, is proved by the resumption and practice of it by the
dispersed tribes and nations both in the Eastern and Western
hemispheres: and that the nature, object, doctrines, rites, bearings,
and ends of it, were originally well understood, and matter of common
intelligence and notoriety, is proved by the close resemblance of the
system, as established in other quarters of the world, to the model
metropolitan establishment in Babylon.
This original tower or temple--which there is no reasonable ground to
doubt continued near two thousand years, till Xerxes pillaged and
destroyed it, together with the structures around it which had been
added by Nebuchadnezzar--was six hundred feet square at the base, and
six hundred feet in height, its cubic contents far exceeding those of
the largest of the pyramids. It was devoted to the worship of the god of
their idolatry, the intelligence to whom they ascribed the works of
creation and providence, under the names Bel, Baal, Beelzebub, and other
designations of Satan; and also to astronomical observations, which
appear to have led to the appropriation, subsequently, of the moon to
Astarte, consort of Baal and Queen of heaven, the prototype--not in
respect to her moral character, which was wholly opposite, but to her
mediating office--of the deified Mary of the Papists; and of the
planets and stars, to subordinate auxiliary mediating demons of
different species.
The projectors and architects of this great paragon and wonder of the
world were not a horde of ignorant, wandering nomades. They had
knowledge and arts adequate to an undertaking, whether considered merely
as a physical undertaking, or in connection with the stupendous and
enduring system of imposture, impiety, and misery it was devoted to,
which has not been equalled since: and which may well be conceived of as
sufficient to occasion the local and special interposition of the
Messenger Jehovah to confound their language and scatter them abroad
upon the face of all the earth. Their astronomy, and probably their
geometry and other abstruse branches of knowledge, were, at least in
respect to their leading principles, not inferior to those of the
present day. Prideaux, speaking of this tower, which he holds to be the
same with that destroyed Xerxes, observes, that "when Alexander took
Babylon, Callisthenes the philosopher, who accompanied him thither,
found they had astronomical observations for nineteen hundred and three
years backward from that time, which carrieth the account as high as the
one hundred and fifteenth year after the flood, which was within fifteen
years after the Tower of Babel was built. For the confusion of tongues,
which followed immediately after the building of that tower, happened in
the year wherein Peleg was born, which was an hundred and one years
after the flood, and fourteen years after that, those observations
began. This account Callisthenes sent from Babylon into Greece, to his
master Aristotle," &c. (Book II., part 1.)