Sample Story

This chapter from The Family Bible Story shows how author Ruth Brand makes the Bible come alive for children. See notes about this story at the end of this document.

What Did You Say?

Waraza, tall, sun-bronzed, and with a mane of silver hair, stood before the citizens of Shinar.

The crowd buzzed like bees in a giant beehive. "What do you think Waraza has to say?" they asked each other. "Why do you think he called this special meeting of the town council?"

At last Waraza raised one majestic hand, and silence filled the room.

"My friends," Waraza spoke in the warm, deep tones the people loved, "I have asked you to meet today because I have an idea I want to share with you!"

The people leaned forward expectantly. As leader of the town council, Waraza constantly surprised them with his ideas.

"You all know," he continued, "how great we have become! Our shops are busy, our barns bulge with grain, our artists and craftsmen produce the finest work in the world! We are powerful and rich. In fact, we are the greatest people that ever were, or ever will be. Am I right?"

The people roared their agreement, clapped their hands, and laughed. The more Waraza talked, the more they understood just how great they really were, and their chests puffed out with pride.

"But, friends," Waraza lowered his voice to a stage whisper, a note of sorrow delicately edging his words, "when we die as others before us have, who will remember our greatness? Who will speak your name or mine and remember the days when we ruled the earth? No one, my friends, no one!" Waraza's words lingered in the air, and his listeners clutched their hearts at the fearful vision.

Waraza knew that he had their attention and that they liked his every word. He smiled a secret inner smile at how easily he could get these people to do anything he wanted just by his skillful use of words. He continued. "The gods have been good to us. Let us build a tower to reach into the heavens! We must build a tower worthy of us! We shall construct a tower whose top will swim in the clouds, so that our children, and their children, and all generations to come may know that we who live this day are the greatest mortals ever to have walked the earth?"

The crowd could hardly stand it, so moved were they by the idea of a tower reaching to the sky, telling everyone how great they were.

"Let's build that tower! Let's build that tower!" they cried.

Waraza smiled and again held up one majestic hand. "My friends," he purred, "I knew you would want to build a tower that will last forever so that our names will always be remembered!"

God looked down on the foolish, proud people. In spite of the Flood, now many years past, people had chosen to forget Him. They worshiped ugly statues, and little ornaments that they made with their own hands.

And now they proposed to build on the plain of Shinar a mighty tower that would say, "We don't need God. We're greater than He is." God whispered to Himself, "Oh, when will people return My love and let Me make them happy?"

Waraza called the best architect to draw the plans for the tower.

"This is how we'll build it," explained the architect. "We will build it in seven stages. The first stage will be a huge square. Each of the following squares will be higher and smaller than the one below it. A wide ramp will lead to the top of the tower, and on each side of the ramp will be a set of stairs. Climbing right up the center of the tower will be another set of stairs!" (Today we know those ancient tower temples by the name ziggurat.)

The people's eyes grew round and shiny as they pictured the huge tower, reaching for the sky.

Everyone got busy. They formed bricks from the clay soil. They baked them in a fire to make them extra hard, and gathered bitumen, a sticky oil-a kind of tar-to use as mortar. It may have taken a year just to make the bricks.

If people grew a little tired, Waraza lifted their spirits with honeyed words. If some became discouraged, he stirred them with an inspiring speech and thrilled them with a vision of their own greatness.

Finally the day came to lay the first brick. Children crowded in front of their parents so they wouldn't miss anything! Waraza strutted around, smiling kindly at the children, basking in the admiring looks from the citizens of Shinar. Then he stepped forward, his silver hair shining in the sunlight. Moving gracefully, he picked up a brick as a prince might pluck a flower. Then, with a flourish, he laid it on the corner of the foundation. The people clapped wildly.

Then the work began in earnest. Workmen scurried back and forth, carrying baskets of tar and loads of bricks. Foremen shouted messages to runners. "Go over to the east side and tell them we need more bricks!" "Don't send any more tar; we have enough!"

The tower began to take shape. Soon it could be seen for miles around. It climbed higher and higher, and from the ground the workers at the top looked like little moving statues.

As the tower grew higher the people grew prouder. But some, a very few, still loved God and worshiped Him. They were afraid of what a proud, powerful people might do to those who were weaker.

All this time God had been watching the plans and actions of these people who had turned their backs on Him. He had seen their pride and their cruelty toward others. He had seen how they cheated one another to get what they wanted. He had watched as their government grew stronger and stronger until it had finally turned into one big city of rebellion.

And He saw the plain of Shinar with its tower sticking up toward heaven. It was like a foolish child sticking out its tongue at God!

God saw one other thing. He saw how easily people passed along their wicked ideas to one another. Everyone in the world spoke the same language at that time, and God saw that understanding each other's words stuck these rebellious people together just as mortar or tar stuck their bricks together.

The Bible says that God came down to see what they were doing. He no longer simply watched, but decided to act. The God who created all things now created new languages, and in a flash the proud builders of a heathen tower were helpless to continue.

Waraza was strolling around an upper level of the tower when he heard a foreman yell, "Irrush ummane eli sha um pani!"

Everyone within earshot stopped and stared at the foreman. The foreman's face turned red. "I said I need more workers over here!" he yelled in a language that no one could understand. The workers stared at him with their mouths open.

"What did you say?" some called, but they couldn't even understand each other's question.

Waraza cleared his throat. "Harummph! Harummph!" It seemed some of these laborers were having trouble communicating. Well, he would soon straighten out the trouble. As soon as he spoke to them in his silken tones and eloquent words, everyone would get back to work.

Holding up his famed and majestic hand, he began to speak. "Sulummu ina birinni lishakin!"

Why was everyone staring at him so strangely? Why were they not smiling as the light of understanding dawned? Why were they looking at him as if they hadn't the slightest idea what he was talking about?

He tried once more. "Nimdaggara lahamesh!"

No one listened to him! Workers on the tower began to scream and throw things. Baskets of tar came tumbling down. Fights broke out. In anger, fear, and despair, people ran down the steps of the tower, searching, crying in a strange new language for someone to understand them.

The confused people did find those who understood them, for God lovingly gave families the same language. Those who spoke the same language banded together and moved far away from those whom they could not understand. A kind God gave people the opportunity once again to make a new start in new parts of the world. He hoped that at last they would turn to Him!

And left behind on the plain of Shinar was the deserted tower. The tower of pride had become a monument to the foolishness of people who rebel against God.

Notes: Waraza was the name of a real man talked about in an Old Babylonian document. He is not mentioned in the Bible. Like a movie "extra," he and the unnamed architect have been added to the story and given words to speak. The words that he speaks are actual sentences from Ancient Near East languages that were prepared by Dr. Leona Running.

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