Genesis 11:6 - the Lord said, “they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them

God told Noah how to live:

Genesis 9:1 - Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth

The Babylonians said, “No! We will not fill the earth. We’ll stay in one place!”

Genesis 11:4 - “let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”

Before The Flood was a problem:

Genesis 6:11 - the earth was filled with violence.

Humans, in one group, on their own, have huge capacity for evil - a wrong filling. God breaks them up to prevent this for he has in mind a different filling:

Numbers 14:20 - the Lord said, “truly, as I live… all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord”

Habakkuk 2:14 - For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

What was scattered, he now gathers - from everywhere. In Matthew alone, 14 times does Jesus use the imagery of gathering to describe his mission, using analogies of farming, fishing, weddings, and motherhood:

Matthew 3:12 - His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

Matthew 13:47–48 - “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad.

Matthew 22:10 - And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests.

Matthew 23:37 - “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing”

He asks us to gather now:

Matthew 28:19 - “Go… and make disciples of all nations”

He says:

Matthew 12:30 - Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

May he cause us to obey! God will bring one group together in the end - those who have put faith in him:

Matthew 24:31 - And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

A party awaits. It sounds like a concert with thanksgiving to a God who saved the people from evil - evil in the world and themselves. May we all be found in this number God has gathered:

Revelation 7:9–10 - I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”