After the Flood
After the great Flood (Genesis 6-9), Noah’s family began to grow and move across the earth. Yahweh had told them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Genesis 9:1). But one group went east and settled in a wide plain called Shinar (Genesis 11:2). This land, later called Babylonia, sat between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in what is now Iraq. Its rich soil and steady rivers made it perfect for farming and building the first cities.
The Bible names four early cities in Shinar: Babel, Erech (Uruk), Akkad, and Calneh (Genesis 10:10). A strong leader named Nimrod started these cities. He was Noah’s great-grandson through Ham and Cush (Genesis 10:8-10). The Bible calls him “a mighty hunter before the Yahweh.” Bible scholars say Shinar was the same as the ancient lands of Sumer and Akkad. People there invented cuneiform, one of the first kinds of writing, on clay tablets. They built tall, stepped temples called ziggurats and made canals to control river water and grow plenty of food.
The decision to build (Genesis 11:3-4)
One day, the people said, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them hard.” They used baked brick and bitumen (a sticky tar) to hold the bricks together. These materials were much stronger than sun-dried mud. Then they said, “Come, let us build a city and a tower with its top in the heavens. Let us make a name for ourselves, so we are not scattered over the earth” (Genesis 11:4). They had two goals: to become famous and to stay in one place. But this went against Yahweh’s command to spread out and fill the earth.
Confuse their language (Genesis 11:5-7)
Yahweh came down to look at the city and tower. “Look, they are one people with one language. This is only the start of what they will do” (Genesis 11:6). Because they spoke the same language, nothing could stop them. Yahweh continued, “Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they cannot understand each other” (Genesis 11:7). In an instant, one language turned into many. Workers who once worked together now heard only strange sounds. Confusion filled the air. The building stopped.
The name “Babel” (Genesis 11:9)
The half-finished city and tower were named Babel. The word comes from the Hebrew balal, which means “to confuse.” The Bible explains, “That is why it was called Babel - because there Yahweh confused the language of the whole world. From there, He scattered them over the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11:9). His plan was complete: people spread out and formed many nations with different languages.
After the scattering at Babel, families spread out from the land of Shinar into many parts of the world. Yet Shinar and the nearby region of Mesopotamia continued to play an important role in Bible history. Abraham, the father of the Hebrew people, was born in Ur of the Chaldeans, a city in this same area. His relatives, including Nahor and Laban, also lived there. Isaac and Jacob - later called Israel - were Abraham’s descendants, and from Jacob’s twelve sons came the twelve tribes of Israel. Many generations later, other famous people such as Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego lived in Babylon, another city built in this region.
The tower in the Bible may be based on a real building: the Etemenanki ziggurat in Babylon. Its name means “House of the Foundation of Heaven and Earth.” This seven-level tower, built for the god Marduk, was about 300 feet high. The Greek writer Herodotus (around 450 BC) described it: “A tower of solid brick… eight stories high, with a great temple on top” (Histories 1.181). Old records show how huge and grand it was. Was Etemenanki the real Tower of Babel? What do you think? Could this massive temple / tower be the one that reached for the heavens?
Learn more about the Tower of Babel in our Torah Time Traveler Activity Book (Volume One).
