The Tower of Babel stands as the clearest example of humanity’s attempt to seize heaven on its own terms. Ancient creation stories told of gods at war with one another—trampling, binding, and scattering rivals to build new worlds. Babel follows that same pattern of conquest. Humanity builds its own tower, a ziggurat of self-made glory, longing to “make a name” for themselves and unify heaven and earth without God. In the ancient world, the enthroned king was to be the one who joined heaven and earth. At Babel, humanity tried to crown itself.

So, God confused their language (a word play on Babel), breaking the illusion of a single, powerful empire. The Tower is human engineering that crumbled into fragments of speech, and the great city scattered across the earth. Yet their scattering was not the end of the story. Out of the nations, God called one man, Abraham, through whom He would bless all the families of the earth. Babel’s rebellion would one day be answered by divine restoration. This moment at the Tower of Babel marks the breaking point where human pride confronted divine sovereignty.

Tower of Babel: Tabernacles will Reverse it and Bring them Home

That restoration comes into focus at Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, the Feast of Ingathering, also called the Festival of the Nations. During Sukkot, Israel offered seventy bulls, symbolically interceding for the seventy nations of Genesis 10, the very nations scattered at the Tower of Babel. What pride had divided, worship would gather. Zechariah foresaw the day when all nations would go up to Jerusalem to celebrate Tabernacles, when every tongue would once again speak one language—the language of praise to Yahweh. The harvest of the nations, the reunion of languages after the Tower of Babel, the restoration of communion with God all converge in this feast.

It was a tower of pride vs Sukkot as a booth of humility.

It reached upward to grasp heaven while Sukkot welcomes heaven coming down to dwell with us.

It divided the nations while Sukkot gathers them in worship under one King.

What began as rebellion at the Tower will be reversed when all nations gather again under one King. This Sukkot, we celebrate the great reversal of Babel in Yeshua, the true dwelling of God among humanity. “The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us” (John 1:14). In Him, heaven and earth are joined again, and the scattered are coming home.