The Beginning:
After the flood, humanity shares “one language and the same words” and migrates until settling on a plain in Shinar. There the people decide to build a city and a tower “with its top in the heavens.” Their stated goal is to make a name for themselves and avoid being scattered over the earth.
The Middle:
They begin construction using baked bricks and bitumen (as mortar), materials well-suited to Mesopotamian building. The LORD comes down to see the city and the tower the people are building. Observing their unified purpose, the LORD declares that their single language enables them to pursue what they have planned. He decides to confuse their language so they will not understand one another’s speech.
The End:
With communication disrupted, the building project halts. The LORD scatters the people from that place across the face of the earth, and the city is called Babel because there the LORD confused (or “mixed”) human language. The story closes with dispersal, explaining the spread of peoples and languages in the world.
This account portrays God as sovereign over human history, limits, and social order. Human unity and creativity are shown as powerful, yet the narrative highlights a collective ambition aimed at self-exaltation (“make a name”) and resistance to being dispersed, set against God’s ordering of the earth. God’s intervention restrains a unified project that, in context, represents human autonomy pursued apart from reverence for God. The scattering also advances the broader biblical movement from one human center of power toward the development of nations, through which God’s later covenant purposes with Abraham will unfold.
The description of building with baked brick and bitumen fits Mesopotamian construction practices, where stone was scarce and mudbrick architecture was common. Ancient Near Eastern cities also featured temple-towers (often called ziggurats) that functioned as prominent religious structures within a city, providing a cultural backdrop for the story’s setting in Shinar.
“Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” — Genesis 11:7
Answer the questions below. When you choose an option, you will see the result and an explanation.
1. What was the people’s stated goal in building a city and a tower with its top in the heavens?
2. Why was the city called Babel?