The native, Akkadian name of the city was Bāb-ilim, meaning "gate of God". The original derivation of the name Babel (also the Hebrew name for Babylon) is uncertain.
The phrase "Tower of Babel" does not appear in the Bible it is always "the city and the tower" ( אֶת-הָעִיר וְאֶת-הַמִּגְדָּל) or just "the city" ( הָעִיר). And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.Ĥ 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.ĥ And the L ORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.Ħ And the L ORD 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.ħ Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.Ĩ So the L ORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.ĩ Therefore is the name of it called Babel because the L ORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the L ORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth. 1370s) depiction of the construction of the towerġ And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.Ģ 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.ģ And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly.