Meaning of BABEL

"gate of God."
This term appears twice, and only in the book of Genesis. In the first mention (Gen. 10:10) it is the name of the place first mentioned as the beginning of Nimrod's kingdom; In the second mention (Gen. 11:9) the name "Babel" is given to the tower and the city, because the language of men was confused there, and they did not understand each other.

Here "Babel" is taken as a contraction of "balbel", of "balal", to confuse (Keil and Delitzsch, "Commentary on the Old Testament", vol. 1, p. 176).

There is no basis for affirming that the tower was to "reach" to heaven (Gen. 11:4), since the verb "reach" is not found in the original, but has been supplied to give meaning to the translation. It was a tower "for" or "towards" the sky.

Possibly the meaning was that of an observation tower and worship of the heavens, like a "ziggurat", which was the unifying religious center of that city under construction, in a united human enterprise of defiance against God and rebellion against Him.

This attempt merited the judgment of God with the consequent confusion of languages and their forced dispersion into diverse and divided groups, instead of the great unitary confederation against God planned by Nimrod.