The Tower of Babel

The entire earth possessed one language and a single set of words. As people journeyed from the east, they located a plain in the land of Shinar and established a residence there (Genesis 11:1-2). They spoke to one another regarding the manufacture of building materials, deciding to bake bricks thoroughly to serve as stone and using bitumen for mortar. Their stated intent was to construct a city and a tower with its top in the heavens to make a name for themselves, lest they be dispersed across the face of the earth (Genesis 11:3-4).

God descended to see the city and the tower that the children of man were building. Upon observation, God noted that the people were one and shared one language, concluding that this project was only the beginning of what they would do; the text indicates that nothing they proposed to do would be impossible for them (Genesis 11:5-6). The text does not say how many people were involved or how long the construction had lasted before this intervention.

God proposed to go down and confound their language so that they could not understand one another's speech. Consequently, God scattered them from that location over the face of all the earth, and the participants ceased building the city (Genesis 11:7-8). The location was named Babel because it was there that God confounded the language of the entire earth and from there dispersed the population (Genesis 11:9). The text does not say what happened to the tower itself after the abandonment of the city.