The Tower of Babel

Babel means confusion. Is it not a strange name to give a tower? How did it get this name?

After Noah left the ark, God made a promise to him that He would no longer destroy the earth by a flood, and He blessed him and his sons. In time, many little children were born, baby boys and girls, who grew up to be fathers and mothers themselves. In this way, a great many people lived again on the earth. For more than one hundred years they all spoke the same language, and as they journeyed onward, they came to a large plain in the land of Shinar, near where Babylon was later built. Here they said they would stay and build a great city with a high tower reaching to heaven.

Now God, when He blessed Noah, had said to him, "Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth," meaning that the people should scatter so the world would be inhabited again. But these men wanted to stay together and found one great empire, whose center would be the great city with the lofty tower. So they made bricks and burned them, and used pitch for mortar, and began to build. Some learned men say they spent three years gathering materials and twenty-two years building the tower. It was very large and high, but it was never finished. The people acted wickedly in building it, and God, who saw all they were doing, confused their language so that one could not understand another. Thus they stopped building the tower, and that is why it is called Babel. Then God scattered them across the earth to fill it with people.