What Does the Bible Say About Different Languages?

Posted by Worldview Warriors On Monday, March 19, 2018 0 comments


by Katie Erickson

I love languages. I didn’t always realized I loved them, but apparently I did. When I was in 7th grade, I made up my own language, both an alphabet and a spoken language (though I was really the only one who spoke it, since no one else wanted to really learn it). In high school, I excelled in Spanish class and even took a year beyond what was required. I took more Spanish classes in college and pondered a minor in the language, but then decided against it so I could focus more on my engineering classes. A few years later, when I was headed to seminary, I was afraid of Greek since a relative of mine struggled with it a few years prior to that. By the end of the term, I was still waiting for it to get difficult! That was when it finally occurred to me that God had given me a gift for languages, and since then I have immensely enjoyed learning and teaching Biblical Hebrew as well.

Not everyone enjoys languages like I do, but what does the Bible say about them? To start, we should look at where different languages came from, which can be found in Genesis 11:1-9. That is the story of the Tower of Babel, which starts by telling us that “the whole world had one language and a common speech” (verse 1). Just when humanity had a good thing going with just one language, they had to go and mess it up. They got together and tried to build a tower that would reach God. So that they wouldn’t succeed, God confused their languages and scattered them to different places.

The cool thing is how God tends to bring things full circle. A few centuries later, Jesus had come to earth, lived His life, died, was raised again, then ascended to heaven. Shortly after that, the disciples received the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost and began to speak to a large crowd, full of people who spoke a variety of different languages. Every person in the crowd was able to understand them! The same God who confused the languages back in Genesis 11 also un-confused the languages in Acts 2 to share the gospel message of Jesus with thousands of people all at one time.

Another story that has to do with language in the Bible is in Judges 12:1-7. For the details on that, you can check out this blog post. In that story, a simple pronunciation difference determined which side you were on in a civil war among Israel.

Of course, the whole Bible is made up of language as well. The Bible is God’s Word given to us in written form, and anything written has to be in a language. The Old Testament was originally written mostly in the ancient Hebrew language with some Aramaic, while the New Testament was originally written in Koine Greek. Today, the Bible has been fully translated into over 670 languages (and the New Testament into over 1500 languages), thanks to the work of many people and organizations, but it is still God’s Word. I would encourage everyone to learn it in its original languages as there is so much depth and richness there, but if that’s not a skill you have, then praise God for those who do enjoy languages and have provided you with multiple English translations for you to read and to bring you closer to God!

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