Genesis 11:9

9. Babel Confusion; בבל , contracted from בלבל , derived from the verb בלל , to pour together, to confound . (Gesenius . ) So the Septuagint . But the local tradition concerning the modern Babil, so generally identified with Babel, is, that it signifies the Gate of Il, that is, Gate of God . Perhaps this name was originally imposed by Nimrod in defiance, and after the judgment described in the text, it changed its meaning, since originally the tower was a symbol of human pride and subsequently of the divine wrath . This would be entirely natural, and both etymologies are equally admissible . What Nimrod meant as a monument of despotic power became a memorial of his discomfiture and shame. It would hardly seem possible that any relics of this ancient structure could now be discovered; but the researches of modern travelers render it highly probable that this edifice was afterwards completed by the kings of Babylon, who have left in the cuneiform inscriptions a record of their work. Oppert, the eminent orientalist, is confident that the modern Birs-Nimrud, at Borsippa, on the west bank of the Euphrates, about six miles from Hillah, is the ruin of this ancient tower, which, he thinks was finished by Nebuchadnezzar, whose name is found stamped upon its bricks, and upon the clay cylinders buried at its angles. It was a temple to Nebo, or Nabu, a deity of the Babylonian kings, whose names are often compounded from Nabu, as Nebuchadnezzar, which was in their orthography Nabu-kuduri-uzur.

Oppert, in his restoration of Babylon, locates this tower near the southwest corner, between the inner and outer walls. At present Birs-Nimrud is a huge pyramidal mound, 153 feet high, rising in solitary grandeur from a vast plain, appearing like a natural hill crowned with a ruin of solid brickwork which rises 37 feet from the summit. This tower-like ruin is rent about halfway down, and vitrified, as if by lightning. Immense masses of fine brickwork, which seem to have been molten, strew the mound, which square, the angles facing the four cardinal points seems to indicate an astronomical or astrological purpose. Aside from what seems to have been the vestibule, the main ruin is about 400 feet square at the base. It was, according to Oppert, the temple of Belus, described by Herodotus (i, 181) as a square pyramid in seven receding stages, coloured so as to represent the seven planetary spheres, each stage 25 feet in height, the whole resting on a vast substructure 75 feet in height, and a stadium, or over 600 feet, square.

Nebuchadnezzar named it the Temple of the Seven Lights of the Earth, that is, the sun, moon, and planets. Herodotus says that the basement stage was coloured black with bitumen, to give it the hue of Saturn, the most distant planet known to the ancients; the next stage orange, or raw sienna, the hue of Jupiter, which was the natural colour of the burnt brick; the third was colored bright red, by the use of half-burnt bricks of a peculiar red clay, the bloody hue of Mars; the fourth was cased with golden plates, to represent the sun; the fifth stage was built of pale yellow bricks, to represent Venus; the sixth was tinted blue, the colour of Mercury, by vitrifying the bricks to a slag; and the seventh was cased in silver, to give it the colour of the moon. (RAWLINSON, Her., App., book 3.)

Oppert agrees with the Talmudists in making Borsippa the true site of the tower of Babel, and explains the word as meaning, in Babylonian, Tower of Tongues. But the most remarkable thing of all is the cuneiform inscription here found, as by him deciphered. We extract from Oppert’s note, in Smith’s Dictionary, giving a few lines of the inscription to show its character.

“Nabuchodonosor, king of Babylon, shepherd of peoples, who attests the immutable affection of Merodach, the mighty ruler-exalting Nebo; the saviour, the wise man who lends his ears to the orders of the highest god, the lieutenant without reproach, the repairer of the Pyramid and the Tower, eldest son of Nabopolassar, king of Babylon.

“We say: Merodach, the great master, has created me; he has imposed on me to reconstruct his building. Nebo, the guardian over the legions of the heaven and the earth, has charged my hands with the sceptre of justice.”

we have this account of the Borsippa edifice: “We say for the other, that is this edifice, the house of the Seven Lights of the Earth, the most ancient monument of Borsippa. A former king built it, (they reckon 42 ages,) but he did not complete its head. Since a remote time people had abandoned it, without order expressing their words. Since that time the earthquake and the thunder had dispersed its sun-dried clay, the bricks of the casing had been split, and the earth of the interior had been scattered in heaps. Merodach, the great lord, excited my mind to repair this building. I did not change the site, nor did I take away the foundation stone,” etc.

The allusion to the Babel catastrophe in the lines italicised is too plain to be mistaken. It is proper to say, in further explanation of this wonderful monument, that this famous King Nebuchadnezzar came to the throne of Babylon in B.C. 604, and built or rebuilt cities, temples, and all manner of public works, on a scale of magnificence unsurpassed in all history.