Not certainly, as some have supposed, as a place of refuge in apprehension of a second deluge; for in that case, it is probable, they would have built it on an eminence, rather than on a plain, whereas the Bible expressly tells us they had selected the latter.
Much less could it be, what the poets have imagined, for the purpose of scaling the celestial abodes, and disputing with Jehovah the composure of His sovereignty.
What, then, was it intended for?
Undoubted as an acknowledgment, however vitiated and depraved, of dependence upon that Being, whose acts shine forth in universal love, but whose spiritual adoration was now partially lost sight of, or merged in the homage thus primarily tendered to the lucid offspring of his omnipotent fiat.
This tower, so erected by Nimrod, in opposition to the established system of religious belief, and which, therefore—but from a nobler reason than what was generally imagined, viz. his researches in astronomy, and the application thereto of instruments—procured him the appellation of rebel from nemh, heaven, and rodh, an assault, was, I hesitate not to say, a temple constructed to the celestial host, the sun, moon, and stars, which constituted the substance of the Sabian idolatry.[79]
Shinaar, in Mesopotamia, was the theatre of this dread occurrence—this appalling spectacle at once of man’s weakness and God’s omnipotence:—Here the Noachidæ had been then fixed; and the name by which this innovation upon their previous usages is transmitted, viz. Ba-Bel, corroborates the destination above assigned.[80]
The word “Baal,” in itself an appellative, at first served to denote the true God amongst those who adhered to the true religion; though, when it became common amongst the idolatrous nations, and applied to idols, He rejected it. “And it shall be in that day that you shall call me Ishi, and shall call me no more Baali.”[81] Another name by which the Godhead was recognised was Moloch. The latter, indeed, in accuracy of speech was the name assigned him by the Ammonites and Moabites—both terms, however, corresponded in sense, “Moloch” signifying king, and “Baal” Lord, that is, of the heavens; whence transferring the appellation to the Sun, as the source and dispenser of all earthly favours, he was also called Bolati, i.e., “Baal the bestower,” as was the moon, Baaltis, from the same consideration: whilst the direct object of their internal regard was not, undoubtedly, that globe of fire which illumines the firmament and vivifies terrestrials, but, physically considered, nature at large, the fructifying germ of universal generativeness.
The Sun, it is true, as the source of light and heat, came in as representative for all this adoration. Thus viewed, then, it would appear that the origin of the institution may have been comparatively harmless. God being invisible, or only appearing to mortals through the medium of His acts, it was natural that man, left to the workings of unaided reason, should look on yon mysterious luminary with mingled sentiments of gratitude and awe. We have every reason, accordingly, to think, that solar worship at first was only emblematical, recognising, in the effulgence of the orb of day, the creative power of Him, the
“Father of all, in every age,
In every clime adored,
By saint, by savage, and by sage,
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord”—
who sent it forth on its beneficent errand.