Babel (Land of Shinar)

Babel stood in the land of Shinar, the broad plain of southern Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Genesis first names it as the beginning of Nimrod's kingdom, and then tells how the people of the earth, all speaking one language, settled in that plain and began to build a city and a tower whose top would reach unto heaven, so that they might make a name for themselves and not be scattered. The LORD came down, confounded their language, and scattered them across the face of the earth, and the place was called Babel because there the LORD did confound the language of all the earth. In Hebrew, Babel is the same name later used for Babylon, and Shinar appears again when Nebuchadnezzar carries the temple vessels into 'the land of Shinar' in the opening verses of Daniel. The city where human pride first reached for heaven became, throughout Scripture, a picture of every kingdom that sets itself against God.

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Details

Region: Mesopotamia
Modern Location: Southern Iraq. Babel is traditionally identified with the site of Babylon, near Hillah, in the plain between the Tigris and Euphrates (the ancient land of Shinar).

Strongest connections in Scripture

Genesis 10 Genesis 11 Daniel 1

Journey Paths

Nimrod's Journey

Babylon → Nineveh → Assyria → Babel (Land of Shinar)

Key Passages

Nimrod's Kingdom Begins at Babel

Genesis 10:8-10

Babel is the first city named in the kingdom of Nimrod, the mighty hunter, in the land of Shinar.

A⁸nd Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth.

⁹ He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD. ¹⁰ And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.

The Tower of Babel

Genesis 11:1-9

A united humanity builds a tower to make a name for itself, and God scatters the nations by confounding their speech.

A¹nd the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

² And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. ³ And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. ⁴ And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. ⁵ And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. ⁶ And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. ⁷ Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. ⁸ So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. ⁹ Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

Temple Vessels Carried to Shinar

Daniel 1:1-2

Centuries later the vessels of God's house are carried to the land of Shinar, the old plain of Babel, as the exile begins.

I¹n the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon unto Jerusalem, and besieged it.

² And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God: which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he brought the vessels into the treasure house of his god.