The Tower of Babel
Genesis 11:1–9; 10:8–10; Acts 2:1–11
Humanity united in Shinar to build a city and tower instead of filling the earth; God confused their language and scattered them.
Therefore its name was called Babel, because there Yahweh confused the language of all the earth. From there, Yahweh scattered them abroad on the surface of all the earth.
Genesis 11:9 (World English Bible)
After the Flood everyone spoke one language. Instead of spreading out as God had commanded, they settled on a plain in Shinar (southern Mesopotamia) and began a city with a tower reaching to the sky, to make a name for themselves.
God came down, confused their speech so they couldn't understand each other, and scattered them across the earth. Genesis 10, the Table of Nations, lists the families that spread out from Noah's three sons, the roots of the world's peoples and language groups.
At Pentecost the Holy Spirit let the apostles speak in many languages so every nation could hear the gospel (Acts 2), a picture of Babel's scattering being reversed in Christ.
Places
Ancient witnesses outside the Bible
Historical sources, not Scripture.
- Antiquities 1.4.3 — the Sibyl and Hestiaeus on the tower and the scattering
Dating notes
Primary date 2242 BC (AM 1762): Ussher cites an ancient source (the Book of Sothis, via Syncellus) placing the dispersion five years after Peleg's birth. Alternates: 2247 BC (Peleg's birth itself; some cite Ussher this way), and about 2234/2233 BC (an Answers Research Journal study's reading of Ussher's Annals). Other conservative writers place Babel roughly 100–200 years after the Flood.