From the book Thy Kingdom Comes
Section 2. Two kingdoms
The generations of Cain and the generation of Seth to Noah walked different paths until the flood. After that great deluge the first we hear of a city state is the one called Babel built by Nimrod.
He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the hunter before the LORD. (Genesis 10:9)
The word hunter is from tsayid which is more often translated ‘provision, food, food-supply, or victuals’. This verse would be better translated to the effect that Nimrod was a mighty provider instead of the LORD.
And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower1, whose top2 [may reach] unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. Genesis 11:4
The word tower in the above should be the subject of interest and controversy. Tower is translated from ‘migdal’ which would be the same as the word ‘Magdala’ as in Mary Magdaleen in the New Testament. Although it does mean ‘a tower’ it also has an elitist or elevated concept to its meaning and use. It can be used as we use the word tree in family tree. A similar association is also with the word top translated from ‘rosh’ which takes many forms in other verses such as head, chief, beginning, company, captain, sum, first, principal, and rulers. None of this insinuates that a tower was not built but that the infrastructure that supplied the organization, funding and planning to construct a tower is more significant than the particular building itself.
Nimrod had amassed a gigantic political bureaucracy to perpetrate such public works. He had gathered people to labor and commit vast wealth into a centrally controlled government. With these monumental institutions also came politicians, bureaucrats, clerks and lawyers. It is clear from the present use of such elite classes in society that the people subject to Nimrod’s government were undoubtedly introduced to doublespeak, red tape and legalese. These factors alone can confound whole societies so that no one knows what anyone is saying.
The people sought to possess the benefits of the City State and the City States sought to possess the people or at least a portion of their rights. The people became the laboring asset of the State, as Israel was for Egypt. In more modern times this statutory labor was called a corvee which was nothing more than the compelled contributions or servitude of the people.
The system was predicated on the desire of each person, through the agents of their government leaders, to force their neighbors to contribute equally. When the burden and demands of the political contributions brought a threat of rebellion, the City State often placated the people with promises of gifts, gratuities and benefits, often financed by debt or conquest. The Imperial State also reached out to rob the citizenry of their future and even attach their children with debt. They some times took from their neighbor what they could no longer safely extract from the blood and flesh of its enfranchised members. Such states often became roaring beasts enlarging their borders in colonial and imperial expansion.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that [is] thy neighbour’s. Exodus 20:17
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1 migdal 1) tower 1a) tower 1b) elevated stage, pulpit 1c) raised bed
2 07218 ro’sh head, top, summit, upper part, chief, total, sum, height, front, beginning