NOTES for Gen 11:1-32
The parable of the Tower of Babel resembles a parable less than the other parables of the Prologue of Genesis. This is understandable: it is a parable built on historical realities, not on mythological traditions, as in the case, for example, of the parable of Noah. Yet history is history, and we are still dealing with a parable, not because the realities are unreliable, but because history here becomes only the starting material for a generalization. That generalization is connected with the image of the Tower of Babel precisely as a historical reality. Today no historian doubts that the parable is speaking of ziggurats, stepped pyramidal temple structures that existed in the cities of Sumer as early as the third millennium B.C.
They could not fail to make an absolutely indelible impression on the Semitic nomads who first appeared in Mesopotamia around the twenty-fifth century B.C. From this came traditions about towers "up to heaven" that entered legends, and the legends about towers that had existed in complete reality became the basis of the parable. To complete the picture, it remains only to add that the chief ziggurat of Ur, the capital of the confederation of Sumerian city-states that existed in those times, was called Etemenanki, which translated literally from Sumerian means "foundation of heaven and earth."
This image of the Sumerian ziggurat, which entered legend, became the basis of the parable. Its meaning would be incomplete if we did not take into account that ziggurats were built not only in Sumerian cities, but also in the cities of Babylonia, which succeeded Sumer, and in particular in its capital, Babylon. A ziggurat existed there during the writing of the Book of Genesis; its first readers could see the Tower of Babel with their own eyes. Yet another tower. The parable of the Tower of Babel is a parable about a tower that constantly collapses and that people rebuild again and again with a persistence worthy of a better use. They rebuild it in order to "make a name for themselves," in order "not to be scattered over the earth."
So there would be something to hold together "one people of one language." The matter here is not linguistics, but politics: in Akkadian, the language of ancient Babylon, "to make one language" means to subject people to a single authority, while "to confuse languages" means to destroy such single rule. It is not God who destroys it, as it may appear at first glance. God merely comes near, and the languages are confused, and the tower is simply abandoned unfinished. This is understandable: a great construction project requires a great idea and presupposes a great empire, a strong state, and firm authority.
But God does not need empires; He needs a human being with whom He can communicate. When He is near, all the "great ideas" invented by human beings lose their value, great empires stagger and fall apart, and "great construction projects" remain unfinished. But fallen humanity cannot live without "great ideas" and "great construction projects"; for their sake, people are ready to endure the rule of great empires over them. That is why ever new towers of Babel are built. They are built and they collapse; this is how the history of fallen humanity flows.