The Voice of Babylon
The Sermon on the Mount paints a mosaic of a kingdom that stands in direct contrast to the city built at Babel. In Genesis 11, people gathered to make a name for themselves by building toward heaven. In Matthew 5, Jesus sat on a mountain and announced that the kingdom of heaven belonged to the poor in spirit. One mountain was raised by people seeking their own name. On the other, Jesus spoke blessing over people the powerful could easily overlook.1
His listeners knew what it meant to live under the power of others. On that history making mountain side, many of His listeners knew poverty, grief, exclusion, and the daily weight of Roman occupation. Jesus did not call their hardship good, He called them blessed because the Father’s kingdom was coming near to them and infact was available in that moment. The mourners would be comforted, those who hungered for righteousness would be filled, peacemakers would be called children of God.2
Jesus challenged the way people understood power. When someone harms us, revenge can feel like the only way to recover what was taken. When someone threatens us, hatred can feel like wisdom. We may begin to believe that peace will come once we have enough power to make another person afraid.
This is what I mean by the language of Babylon. It is a way of naming the habits of a world that tries to secure life through pride, domination, and fear. Babylon says: Protect yourself at any cost, return every wound, make them feel what they made you feel. The deceiver makes that language sound necessary, even righteous.3
Jesus speaks a different language. He tells his listeners to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them. He calls them to tell the truth without manipulation and to seek peace without surrendering what is right. In an occupied land, he invites them to live as children of their Father rather than letting the empire form their hearts.4
That invitation reaches our speech. The stories we rehearse shape how we see other people. If we keep calling someone an enemy beyond grace, we may stop seeing a human being made in God’s image. If we answer cruelty with cruelty, cruelty begins to shape us too. When one of his companions drew a sword at his arrest, Jesus told him to put it away: “All who draw the sword will die by the sword” (Matthew 26:52). He saw the danger before him and still refused to let violence teach him how to respond.5
Job faced a different kind of temptation. After devastating loss, he tore his robe, fell to the ground, and worshiped. Later, when he was physically afflicted, his wife—also carrying terrible grief—urged him to curse God. Job refused to speak that language. After his first losses he had said, “The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.”6
The accuser’s question at the beginning of Job is whether Job fears God only because life has been good to him. Job’s suffering makes that question agonizingly real, yet he will not reduce God to the pain of his present circumstances. He refuses to curse the One to whom he can still bring his sorrow.
Job’s faith does not make him silent. He laments, questions, and protests. He keeps speaking to God even when he cannot understand God. His words about the Lord giving and taking away are his worship amid loss; they are not a ready-made explanation to impose on someone else’s tragedy.7
Jesus calls us to bring that same honesty to the Father, then to consider how we will live toward one another. He does not ask us to pretend evil is good. He teaches us to tell the truth, seek righteousness, and refuse to give revenge authority over our hearts.
At the cross, Jesus suffers the violence of the world. His resurrection and ascension expose the lie that the powers which condemned him hold ultimate authority. They can still do harm, and their defeat has not yet reached its fullness, yet they cannot determine creation’s future. Jesus is Lord. A kingdom built on coercion may appear secure for a time; it cannot produce the life he gives.8
The language of Babylon offers quick results. Retaliation can bring a moment of satisfaction. Control can bring a moment of relief. Violence can impose a temporary quiet, but none of these can heal a heart or create the peace Jesus calls us to embody. The fruit eventually reveals the kind of power we have trusted.
This is where Jesus’ teaching meets our ordinary lives. Someone speaks against us, and the reply forms before we have listened. Someone disappoints us, and we begin rehearsing a story in which they are beyond grace. Fear tells us to strike first, hold tighter, or withdraw our kindness until we feel safe.
The way of Jesus may begin with a small act of resistance: a truthful answer without contempt; a necessary boundary without revenge; a question before an accusation; a prayer for someone we would rather resent. These choices do not make suffering painless. They keep suffering from deciding who we must become.
Every person we meet bears God’s image. In Christ, the Spirit is renewing us to reflect his life. That is reason enough to listen carefully, to seek understanding, and to look for a path toward peace. Unity does not require us to abandon truth, it calls us to speak truth while remembering the person before us.9
So today, bring Jesus what is true. Bring your anger without dressing it up. Bring your grief without apologizing for it. Bring the name of the person you struggle to love. Then listen again to the voice on the mountain, seek first the Father’s kingdom, and trust the Holy Spirit to form its life within you and to keep working in the lives of others.10
The deceiver’s language tells us that fear and force hold all the power. The crucified, risen, and ascended Jesus tells a truer story. We are free to put down the sword, refuse the lie, and speak the language of his kingdom. This, is Tov.
Footnotes
1. Genesis 11:1–9; Matthew 5:1–3. The contrast between Babel and Jesus’ mountain sermon is a theological reading, not an explicit comparison in Matthew. BibleProject, “What’s So Bad about Babel?” and “What Is the Sermon on the Mount?” https://bibleproject.com/podcasts/whats-so-bad-about-babel/ | https://bibleproject.com/articles/what-is-the-sermon-on-the-mount/
2. Matthew 5:3–12. BibleProject situates Jesus’ hearers amid Roman occupation while explaining the hope and demands of the Beatitudes. BibleProject, “What Are the Beatitudes?” https://bibleproject.com/guides/the-beatitudes/
3. Genesis 11:4; Revelation 13; 17–18. “The language of Babylon” is a devotional metaphor. The Babel builders, the accuser in Job, and Revelation’s beast should not be flattened into one figure. BibleProject, “Cities in the Bible” and “Revelation 1–11.” https://bibleproject.com/guides/cities-in-the-bible/ | https://bibleproject.com/videos/revelation-1-11/
4. Matthew 5:9, 33–48. BibleProject describes Jesus’ teaching here as honest speech, creative nonviolence, and enemy love. BibleProject, “Oaths, Retaliation, and Enemy Love.” https://bibleproject.com/guides/oaths-retaliation-and-enemy-love/
5. Matthew 26:47–54; Genesis 1:26–27; James 3:9–10. Jesus’ command to put away the sword takes place during his arrest. James links the ethics of speech to the fact that humans are made in God’s likeness.
6. Job 1:20–22; 2:9–10. Job’s worship follows his first losses. His wife urges him to curse God later, after his physical affliction.
7. Job 1:9–11; 3; 42:7. Job’s lament and protest belong to the story. God rebukes Job’s friends for how they have spoken of him.
8. Luke 24:46–49; Acts 1:9–11; Philippians 2:5–11; Colossians 2:13–15. N. T. Wright connects Jesus’ death, exaltation, and lordship with the powers being put in their place, while acknowledging their continuing capacity to harm. Wright, “How Jesus Went From Political Nuisance to Apocalyptic King.” https://www.ntwrightonline.org/jesus-went-political-nuisance-apocalyptic-king/
9. Genesis 1:26–27; Colossians 1:15; 3:9–10; 2 Corinthians 3:18. BibleProject discusses humanity’s image-bearing vocation and renewal in Christ through the Spirit. BibleProject, “God and Humanity’s Makeover.” https://bibleproject.com/podcasts/image-god-part-2/
10. Matthew 6:33; Romans 12:17–21; Galatians 5:22–23. BibleProject connects seeking the kingdom with learning God’s wisdom instead of securing ourselves at any cost. David P. Seemuth also identifies mercy, enemy love, and the rejection of retribution as marks of Jesus’ kingdom. BibleProject, “What Matthew 6:33 Means”; Seemuth, “Did You Realize You Are a Signpost?” https://bibleproject.com/articles/what-matthew-6-33-seek-first-the-kingdom-of-god-means/ | https://www.ntwrightonline.org/did-you-realize-you-are-a-signpost/
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