The tower of Babel, found in Genesis 11:1-9, is one of the most fascinating passages in the Bible. As people read about the people, the tower, and the languages, imaginations are ignited. Important questions arise, such as: How tall could this tower have been? Where was Babel? Was this how the story really happened?
The ruins of Babel, correctly pronounced bay-bul, are potentially buried under the ancient city of Babylon, in what is currently modern-day Iraq, in addition to being under 5-6,000 years of history, making archaeological discovery and research difficult for what could be Babylon’s initial foundations.
Moreover, despite the popular way of saying Babel as babble – due to the word babble meaning confusion, the location of Babel, and the confusion that occurs there – the name Babel itself is not actually related to, nor does it mean, confusion. It actually means “Gate of/to God.” It was here that God encountered people and scattered them; therefore, while the people were attempting to build a gate to God, God met them instead, making it his gate – the gate of God. However, there is a poetic wordplay on the part of the Hebrew authors, who use babel or babil – a word with Akkadian roots for gate of God – and balal – a Hebrew word for confusion, to literarily show the relationship with the confusion that occurred at God’s gate. Though they are similar words, they are not related.
Finally, neither is humanity’s pride the main reason for God’s destruction of the tower and the ensuing confusion, but rather multiple failures by humanity to obey God’s command to multiply and spread throughout the earth.
I encourage you to read the following paper I wrote a few years back. It may help uncover this buried confusion: The Tale of the Babbling Brutes of Babel.
For more summary, see “The Babbling Brutes of Babel”.
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