30
En Sarai was onvruchtbaar; zij had geen kind.
True Christian Religion #122
122. The Lord's rescue of the spiritual world, and His forthcoming rescue by this means of the church from complete damnation can be illustrated by a comparison with a king, who, when his sons, the princes, have been captured by an enemy, cast into prison and held in chains, frees them by victories over the enemy and brings them back to his court. We may also use as a comparison a shepherd, who, like Samson or David, snatches his sheep from the jaws of a lion or bear, drives away the wild beasts that come out of the forests to raid the meadows, and pursues them to the furthest reaches, finally driving them into lakes or deserts; and then he comes back to his sheep and pastures them safely, and gives them drink from springs of limpid water. Another comparison might be with a person who sees a snake coiled up lying on a road, waiting for a chance to strike at the heel of a traveller; he grasps its head, and although it twists its head around to bite his hand, carries it home and there cuts its head off, throwing the remains into the fire. Another illustration would be a fiancee or husband, who, seeing an adulterer trying to force his fiancee or wife, attacks him, and either wounds his hand with his sword, or showers his legs and back with blows, or has his servants throw him into the street and chase him home with cudgels, so that he is able to bring the rescued woman to the bridal chamber. Bride and wife in the Word also mean the Lord's church, and adulterers mean those who do violence to it; these are those who adulterate His Word. It is because the Jews did this that the Lord called them 'an adulterous nation.'
Genesis 11:1-9
1
The whole earth was of one language and of one speech.
2
It happened, as they traveled east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they lived there.
3
They said one to another, "Come, let's make bricks, and burn them thoroughly." They had brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar.
4
They said, "Come, let's build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top reaches to the sky, and let's make ourselves a name, lest we be scattered abroad on the surface of the whole earth."
5
Yahweh came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men built.
6
Yahweh said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is what they begin to do. Now nothing will be withheld from them, which they intend to do.
7
Come, let's go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech."
8
So Yahweh scattered them abroad from there on the surface of all the earth. They stopped building the city.
9
Therefore its name was called Babel, because there Yahweh confused the language of all the earth. From there, Yahweh scattered them abroad on the surface of all the earth.
