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BABEL

(Heb. bāḇel),

TOWER OF

A “city and a tower” at the center of a clash of divine and human wills portrayed in Gen. 11:1-9. Babel (Gen. 11:9) means “gate of God” (Akk. bab-ilu). The biblical writer, however, opts for a play on the sound of the word and explains the name by using the Hebrew verb “to mix” (bālal): Babel is the place where Yahweh “mixed up” the language of all the earth.

Although popular interpretation has focused on the “tower,” this word never appears in the text by itself, only in the expression “a city and a tower,” a figure of speech known as hendiadys in which two nouns joined by “and” express a single idea: “a city with a tower” or “a towering city.” The biblical text speaks explicitly of “the city” that “was called Babel” (Gen. 11:8-9).

The story is notable for its apparent familiarity with Babylonian building techniques and technical terminology in building inscriptions. Kiln-baked bricks were used for the outer layers of monumental architecture, and hot bitumen was employed as mortar (Gen. 11:3). Extant Babylonian building inscriptions frequently contain the standard phrase, “with bitumen and baked brick” (cf. “asphalt and bricks” in proverb 44, ANET, 425). In addition, “a tower with its top in the heavens” (Gen. 11:4) is quite similar to frequently attested expressions of the same idea, as in the date formula for the 36th year of Hammurabi, in which it is reported “he built the temple tower . . . whose top is sky-high” (ANET, 270; cf. also the description of the Canaanite cities in Deut. 1:28; 9:1). Finally, the idea of securing a “name” for oneself through great building projects such as temples and cities is a common royal ambition.

The tower image in view in the biblical text is almost certainly the Mesopotamian ziggurat, an imposing “stair-tower,” usually of seven levels with a temple on its ground floor and a chapel-sanctuary at its peak. The famed temple of Marduk in Babylon, Etemenanki, was ca. 90 m. (300 ft.) tall. According to Babylonian religious conception, the temple stair-tower was the place where heaven and earth meet (the same idea is reflected in Gen. 28:17, where Jacob dreams of a staircase or ladder that is designated “the gate of heaven”).

Commentators have variously identified the “sin” at Babel. In traditional Jewish interpretation, it is humankind’s refusal to obey the command to fill the earth (Gen. 1:28). Others have seen the building project as yet another human attempt “to be like gods” (Gen. 3:5, 22), or as an effort to secure the future apart from God. Arrogance and pride or, variously, distrust and fear (even fear of diversity) have been proposed. Read in the light of the great city-building tradition of Mesopotamia on which it clearly draws and the call of Abraham which follows in Gen. 12, , the story of Babel is a critique of the urban cultic center and an affirmation of the name and the blessing that Yahweh intends “through the wandering of an obedient people” (Patrick D. Miller, 243).

Bibliography. P. D. Miller, “Eridu, Dunnu, and Babel: A Study in Comparative Mythology,” HAR 9 (1985): 227-51; N. Sarna, Understanding Genesis (New York, 1966).

Jeffrey S. Rogers

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

BABEL

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)