“That is why it is called Babel”
Genesis 11:9
Foreign wordSettledNarrator
That is why it is called Babel, for there the LORD confused the language of the whole world, and from that place the LORD scattered them over the face of all the earth. (Genesis 11:9 BSB)
* Babylonians read Bab-ilu as 'gate of god'; Genesis instead links it to Hebrew balal, 'to confuse,' turning the city's proud name into a pun on babble.
What it sounds like today
A folk explanation of how the city of Babel got its name.
The cultural key
Babylon's own citizens read their city's name as Bab-ilu, 'gate of the god,' the proud claim that theirs was the place where heaven met earth. Genesis makes a devastating pun: it ties 'Babel' instead to the Hebrew balal, 'to confuse,' so the 'gate of god' becomes the city of babble. And the outcome is exactly what the builders had tried to prevent: they built to avoid being 'scattered' (11:4), and scattering is precisely the judgment that falls.
Recovered meaning
The proudest name in the ancient world is turned into a joke about confused speech. Babel meant to be heaven's gateway and a monument against dispersion; it ends as a byword for babble and the very scattering it feared.
Parallels: Genesis 11:4; Acts 2:6