What Was the Tower of Babel? Understanding Genesis 11:1–9
By Tremper Longman III
The Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1–9) is a well-known story from the Bible, but it raises questions: What was wrong about building the tower? Where do we see God’s grace in the story? Was the tower a ziggurat? Here’s what the story means in the context of Genesis and the ancient Near Eastern context.
“Let’s build a great city for ourselves with a tower that reaches into the sky”
The accounts after the Genesis 3 story of the Fall follow the same pattern. They recount human sin, followed by God’s pronouncement of judgment, then a token of grace, followed by the execution of God’s judgment. The Tower of Babel is the final story in this series and follows the pattern with one notable twist.
Why Did People Build the Tower of Babel?
The story begins with a migratory group of people settling and deciding to build a city and a tower. The sin is gathering together to build a city and a tower. God had dispersed humans as part of his earlier punishments, causing them to wander (Gen. 3:23–24; 4:12), but here they gather together.
They build a tower that “reaches into the sky” with the intention of making a name for themselves (11:4). Rather than calling on God and honoring his name, they want to ascend to heaven and make a name for themselves. Here we see a parallel with Adam and Eve who ate the forbidden fruit so they would “be like God” (3:5). Humans are made in God’s image, but they are not God. To aspire to be God involves tremendous pride.
What Was God’s Judgment at Babel?
God then announces his judgment on humans to his angelic council (“let’s go down,” Gen. 11:7; see chap. 4). Up to this point in the story, there has only been one language, but God determines to “confuse the people with different languages. Then they won’t be able to understand each other” (11:7). The narrator then immediately reports the execution of the judgment, which leads to the new name for the location—Babel. The name bears a resemblance to, though is not derived from, the verb balal, “confused.” But notice what is missing: the token of grace. Or is it? We might see grace related to this story in two ways. First, the judgment results in scattering and multiplication of languages, making human communication much more difficult but still possible. God does not completely remove humans’ ability to communicate with each other. Interestingly, the previous chapter, Genesis 10, gives a kind of language map with different people groups and their languages. By not completely removing the possibility of communication, God provides an element of grace. The story also shows that bad things can happen when a bunch of sinners get together, so there may also be grace in scattering them again.
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A Guide to Problem Passages from Genesis Through Deuteronomy
Preaching certain passages of the Bible comes with challenges for even the most experienced of pastors. In this book, a respected Old Testament theologian dives deep into some of the most difficult passages from Genesis to Deuteronomy, illuminating how they can be used to share God’s plan and wisdom.
Why Mention Languages (Gen. 10) Before the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11)?
But why isn’t the language map of Genesis 10 placed after the story of the confusion of the languages in the tower story of Genesis 11? Since the different languages result from the tower story, that would be expected. However, by moving the map before the tower, the narrator positions the call of Abraham as the next story (Gen. 12:1–3). In God’s call for Abraham to go to the land he will show him and in the promises God gives him, a whole new chapter of God’s grace opens for humanity. That is, the call of Abraham is the token of grace that follows the sin and judgment of the tower story.
Was the Tower of Babel a Ziggurat?
Before we leave this story, we make a final comment about the tower. What does the text invite us to picture? If we read it as we should, in its ancient Near Eastern context, the tower is a ziggurat, the Babylonian version of a pyramid. It is a stepped pyramid, with its top thought to be a sanctuary in the heavens. The ziggurat in the ancient city of Babylon (the Akkadian name being not “confusion” but rather bab-ili, “the gate of the gods”) was called Etemenanki (“the house of the foundation of heaven and earth”).
This article has been adapted from Tremper Longman III’s Navigating Tough Texts of the Old Testament, Volume 1: A Guide to Problem Passages from Genesis Through Deuteronomy, published by Baker Books. In it, veteran scholar and translator Tremper Longman III guides readers and pastors through difficult passages in the Torah.
Tremper Longman III is distinguished scholar and professor emeritus of Biblical Studies at Westmont College. He is a senior translator in the Bible Translation Committee for the New Living Translation and the author of more than thirty-five books on how to interpret the Bible. His work has been translated into eighteen languages.
