Babel: the city and the tower

11:1–9 opens with one language and a common form of speech over all the earth (BSB “the whole world”; the Hebrew is “all the earth”). The people journey miqqedem, find a plain in Shinar, and settle there. They make bricks and burn them, and use bitumen for mortar: the Hebrew plays khemar against khomer, as the language note records. They plan a city and a tower, “and its top in the heavens,” a name for themselves, and a stay against being scattered over the face of all the earth. The Lord comes down, confuses their language, and scatters them; the place is called Babel, the same word as in 10:10, where the BSB has “Babylon,” and the name is tied to balal, “he confused.” The Greek of 11:2 reads “from the east”; 11:8 adds “and the tower,” and 11:9 names the place “Confusion.” Shinar is the Babylonian region already named in 10:10. The project has been read as pride in a self-made name, a refusal to fill the earth (9:1), a temple-tower whose top is “in the heavens,” a unified political center, or a mix; each fits one clause of 11:4, and none is adopted here. Miqqedem may mean “eastward” or “from the east.” No ancient text is adopted as “the” background of the tower; see the historical note on city, tower, and one language. The wording is treated in the Hebrew language notes on 11:1–9.