Can you show someone Jesus from this?

When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of man, He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel.
For the Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob is the allotment of His inheritance.

Deuteronomy 32:8–9

This is Moses instructing the Israelis on their history. The history of the Jewish people includes them being chosen and set aside for the Lord by the Lord.

What many do not quite track in this passage… The “children of Israel” did not yet exist when the nations were formed. It helps to understand the background of this text. With that understanding, we gain some surprising insights into what an ancient Israeli might have known.

Now the whole earth had one language and the same words As the people journeyed from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.

Genesis 11:1–2

Yes, it’s the Tower of Babel event. It is at the time of the first world leader.

They said to each other, “Let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone and tar for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top will reach to heaven, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”

Genesis 11:3–4

Babel means the gate of the gods. (See page 170 here.) Many were not taught the real significance of this particular event. The popular teaching is that the people were trying to reach up to God. But that is not the purpose of the tower.

To understand the tower’s purpose, we need a bit more background. And that comes a few chapters back in Genesis.

When men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair and took as wives any they chose. The Lord said, “My Spirit will not always strive with man, for he is flesh; yet his days will be a hundred and twenty years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.

Genesis 6:1–4

Before the flood, angels came down to men. They took women in exchange for technology. That idea we pick up from the account of Cain’s progeny in the latter part of Genesis 4. It is my thinking that it was the progeny of Cain that commiserated with the fallen angels. That’s another discussion. For the idea at hand, it suffices that Angels came down to men and had progeny called Nephilim.

It didn’t work out well for those angels who did that. Those angels that came down and took women were then locked away.

Likewise, the angels who did not keep to their first domain, but forsook their own dwelling, He has kept in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day.

Jude 6

It would seem to follow that the severity of punishment for coming down to take women and create progeny would serve as a deterrent.

Our text in Genesis 6 says this occurred before the flood… And would occur after. I would assert that things also changed after the flood, and it wasn’t so easy for angels to just come down to men as if they were instigating the exchange. The idea wouldn’t be attractive.

Then this tower, or gate of the gods, would be humans asking for the exchange. Humans would be the ones granting permission of rights. Hence the idea of building the gateway.

Concurrent with the incident here, we are introduced to another character important to Babel.

Cush was the father of Nimrod. He became a mighty one on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Therefore it is said, “Even like Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord.” The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Uruk, Akkad, and Kalneh in the land of Shinar. From that land he went to Assyria and built Nineveh, the city Rehoboth Ir, and Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah (that is the principal city).

Genesis 10:8–12

Nimrod, the first world leader… Became a mighty one. The underlying Hebrew text seems to indicate that he became like those Nephilim of old. The Hebrew also indicates that he wasn’t a mighty hunter of game, but one that assailed other humans.

I would say that the construction of the tower was to provide a place to perform rituals. These rituals would extend rights and permissions from humans to angels.

The tower was also believed to have a bed chamber in it. Almost always, these types of rituals are sexual in nature. It would seem to be the case here, and given the mighty hunter of men, I would also offer that is necessary (meaning a particularly sanguine fluid in human bodies.)

I know it’s macabre. I know it’s dark. But there is a real Hero, a real Man to defeat all of this.

The end purpose of the tower was to call the gods down to commiserate with men. What happened next?

But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the sons of men built.

Genesis 11:5

Well, the gods don’t come. But the Most High God over all the other gods (see Psalm 82) comes down. It’s like an unexpected plot twist.

The Lord said, “The people are one and they have one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do; now nothing that they propose to do will be impossible for them.

Genesis 11:6

This text needs no explanation. The ingenuity of humanity is explained. It is a powerful force because humans work together with one language and can do extraordinary things. With one language, what can be imagined can be accomplished.

So what does God do?

Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.”
So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they stopped building the city. Therefore the name of it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. From there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

Genesis 11:7–9

This is the establishment of the nations as explained by Moses in Deuteronomy 32 above. God gave 70 nations, established their lands, and assigned that as an inheritance. An inheritance to who?

Deuteronomy 32:8 says the children (or sons) of Israel. But Abraham wasn’t even born yet. How can that seeming conundrum be resolved?

Back before Jesus came, the common language was early Greek. Most Israelis at the time would know Greek but not Aramaic or Hebrew. At the behest of Ptolemy II, the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek by 72 Hebrew translators. There were six chosen from each tribe of Israel. That translation is commonly called the Septuagint.

I was always taught that the Septuagint was a post-Jesus forgery. A bit of pursuit in truth revealed that probably is not the case. Many of the quotations of the Hebrew Scriptures in the New Testament were from the Septuagint. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls also exposes the folly of what I was taught. Besides, the very line a virgin shall conceive comes to us from the Septuagint Greek and not the Tanakh’s original Hebrew.

How does the Septuagint help our conundrum?

With the understanding of the Hebrew translators and the ideas they held from the Tanakh, it came in the translation. Our passage in Deuteronomy 32 is no different.

When the Most High distributed nations as he scattered the descendants of Adam, he set up boundaries for the nations according to the number of the angels of God.

Deuteronomy 32:8, Lexham English Septuagint

Angels of God does also mean sons of God. In other words, God put angels in charge of physical property and humans to populate that property. They were to be stewards… But it is easy to infer that didn’t happen. It is probably the impetus for the plethora of religions. Again, that’s another idea for another time.

The nations were given as inheritance to the sons of God. That is the important thing. It follows that sons inherit their father’s things. In this case, the sons of God inherited the nations from the Father.

For the Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob is the allotment of His inheritance.

Deuteronomy 32:9

There is the 71st nation, Israel. It is allotted as an inheritance to the Lord given by the Most High.

Fathers do not inherit. Sons do. Moses is pointing directly to Jesus.

So, when someone tells you that Jesus never claimed to be God. They are wholly incorrect and do not grasp the weight of Scriptural evidence that undergirds what Jesus says to the Pharisees

Jesus answered them, “Though I bear witness of Myself, My testimony is true. For I know where I came from and where I am going. But you do not know where I came from or where I am going. You judge according to the flesh. I judge no one. Yet if I do judge, My judgment is true. For I am not alone, but I am with the Father who sent Me. Even in your law it is written that the testimony of two men is true. I am One who bears witness of Myself, and the Father that sent Me bears witness of Me.”

John 8:14–18

The Pharisees then pose another question to Jesus. They believe what they know.

Then they said to Him, “Where is Your Father?”
Jesus answered, “You know neither Me nor My Father. If you knew Me, you would know My Father also.” Jesus spoke these words in the treasury, as He taught in the temple. No one arrested Him, for His hour had not yet come.

John 8:19–20

John adds the commentary that nobody attempted to arrest Jesus. In this exchange, the Pharisees reveal that knew the identity of Jesus. This is evidenced by the addition of the personal pronoun your… “Where is Your Father?”

They knew Who He is, the Son of Inheritance. Tragically, they didn’t know Him or His Father.