Genesis 11:1-9·~1 min

The Tower of Babel

Humanity shares one language, settles in Shinar, and organizes a city and tower project. Their aim is to make a name for themselves and resist being scattered across the earth.

N¹ow the whole world had one language and a common form of speech. ²And as people journeyed eastward, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. ³And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” So they used brick instead of stone, and tar instead of mortar. ⁴“Come,” they said, “let us build for ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens, that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of all the earth.”

The Lord comes down to inspect the city and answers human unity with confused speech and dispersion. The city is left unfinished, and Babel is named for the confusion that spreads from that place.

⁵Then the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the sons of men were building. ⁶And the LORD said, “If they have begun to do this as one people speaking the same language, then nothing they devise will be beyond them. ⁷Come, let Us go down and confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” ⁸So the LORD scattered them from there over the face of all the earth, and they stopped building the city. ⁹That is why it is called Babel, for there the LORD confused the language of the whole world, and from that place the LORD scattered them over the face of all the earth.

Section summaryAll humanity settles together in Shinar and builds a city and tower to secure its own name and prevent its scattering. The Lord comes down, confuses their speech, and scatters them across the earth, so Babel becomes the mark of broken human unity.

Role in the chapterThis opening section closes the early stories of humanity with a final act of collective pride and divine judgment. It explains how the peoples are scattered and sets a sharp contrast with the family line that follows.