Babel

VIEW:19 DATA:01-04-2020

confusion; mixture
(same as Babylon)
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary


Babel (Hebrew) means Babylon; so that "the tower" should be designated "the tower of Babel." Capital of the country Shinar (Genesis), Chaldea (later Scriptures). The name as given by Nimrod (Gen_10:10), the founder, means (Bab-il), "the gate of the god Il," or simply "of God." Afterward the name was attached to it in another sense (Providence having ordered it so that a name should be given originally, susceptible of another sense, signifying the subsequent divine judgment), Gen_11:9; Babel from baalal, "to confound; .... because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth," in order to counteract their attempt by a central city and tower to defeat God's purpose of the several tribes of mankind being "scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth," and to constrain them, as no longer "understand one another's speech," to dispel The Talmud says, the site of tower of Babel is Borsippa, the Bits Nimrud, 7 1/2 miles from Hillah, and 11 from the northern ruins of Babylon.
The French expedition found at Borsippa a clay cake, dated the 30th day of the 6th month of the 16th year of Nabonid. Borsippa (the Tongue Tower) was a suburb of Babylon, when the old Babel was restricted to the northern ruins. Nebuchadnezzar included it in the great circumvallation of 480 stadia. When the outer wall was destroyed by Darius Borsippa became independent of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar's temple or tower of Nebo stood on the basement of the old tower of Babel. He says in the inscription, "the house of the earth's base (the basement substructure), the most ancient monument of Babylon I built and finished; I exalted its head with bricks covered with copper ... the house of the seven lights (the seven planets); a former king 42 ages ago built, but did not complete its head. Since a remote time people had abandoned it, without order expressing their words; the earthquake and thunder had split and dispersed its sun-dried clay."
The substructure had a temple sacred to Sin, god of the mouth (Oppert). The substructure is 600 Babylonian ft. broad, 75 high; on it Nebuchadnezzar built seven other stages. God had infatuated His will that "the earth should be divided," the several tribes taking different routes, in the days of Peleg ("division"), born 100 years after the flood (Gen_10:25; Gen_10:32; Deu_32:8). Another object the Babel builders sought was to "make themselves a name"; self-relying pride setting up its own will against the will of God, and dreaming of ability to defeat God's purpose, was their snare. Also their "tower, whose top (pointed toward, or else reached) unto heaven," was designed as a self-deifying, God-defying boast. Compare Isa_14:13; God alone has the right to "make Himself a name" (Isa_63:12; Isa_63:14; Jer_32:20).
They desired to establish a grand central point of unity. They tacitly acknowledge they have lost the inward spiritual bond of unity, love to God uniting them in love to one another. They will make up for it by an outward forced unity; the true unity by loving obedience to God they might have had, though dispersed. Their tower toward heaven may have marked its religious dedication to the heavens (sabeanism, worship of the tsaba, the hosts of heaven), the first era in idolatry; as also the first effort after that universal united empire on earth which is to be realized not by man's ambition, but by the manifestation of Messiah, whose right the kingdom is (Eze_21:27). "The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded," i.e. (in condescension to human language), Jehovah took judicial cognizance of their act: their "go to, let us," etc. (Gen_11:3-4), Jehovah with stern irony meets with His "Go to, let us," etc.
The cause of the division of languages lies in an operation performed upon the human mind, by which the original unity of feeling, thought, and will was broken up. The one primitive language is now lost, dispersed amidst the various tongues which have severally appropriated its fragments, about to rise again with reunited parts in a new and heavenly form when Jehovah will "turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of Jehovah, to serve Him with one consent" (Zep_3:9). "And the Lord shall be king over all the earth; in that day shall there be one Lord, and His name one" (Zec_14:9). The fact that the Bible names in Genesis 1-10 are Hebrew does not prove it the primitive tongue, for with the change of language the traditional names were adapted to the existing dialect, without any sacrifice of truth.
The earnest of the coming restoration was given in the gift of tongues at Pentecost, when the apostles spoke with other tongues, so that "devout men out of every nation under heaven" heard them speak in their own tongues "the wonderful works of God." The confusion of tongues was not at random, but a systematic distribution of languages for the purpose of a systematic distribution of man in emigration. The dispersion was orderly, the differences of tongue corresponding to the differences of race: as Gen_10:5; Gen_10:20; Gen_10:31, "By these were ... Gentiles divided in their lands, every one after his tongue, after their families in their nations."
ORIGIN. Genesis (Gen_10:8-10) represents Nimrod as the son of Cush (Ethiopia), and that "the beginning of his kingdom was Babel (Babylon)" Bunsen held that there were no Cushites out of Africa, and that an "Asiatic Cush existed only in the imagination of Biblical interpreters," and was "the child of their despair."
But the earliest Babylonian monuments show that the primitive Babylonians whose structures by Nebuchadnezzar's time were in ruins, had a vocabulary undoubtedly Cushite or Ethiopian, analogous to the Galla tongue in Abyssinia. Sir H. Rawlinson was able to decipher the inscriptions chiefly by the help of the Galla (Abyssinian) and Mahra (S. Arabian) dialects. The system of writing resembled the Egyptian, being pictorial and symbolic, often both using the same symbols. Several words of the Babylonians and their kinsmen the Susianians are identical with ancient Egyptian or Ethiopic roots: thus, hyk or hak, found in the Egyptian name hyksos or shepherd kings, appears in Babylonian and Susianian names as khak. Tirkhak is common to the royal lists of Susiana and Ethiopia, as Nimrod appears in those of both Babylon and Egypt.
As Ra was the Egyptian sun god, so was Ra the Cushite name of the supreme god of the Babylonians. Traces appear in the Babylonian inscriptions of all the four great dialects, Hamitic, Semitic, Aryan, and Turanian, which show that here the original one language existed before the confusion of tongues. The Babylonian and Assyrian traditions point to an early connection between Ethiopia, S. Arabia, and the cities on the lower Euphrates near its mouth. A first Cushite empire (Lenormant quoted by G. Rawlinson) ruled in Babylonia centuries before the earliest Semitic empire arose. Chedorlaomer (or Lagomer, an idol), king of Elam, is represented in Genesis 14 as leader of the other kings including the king of Shinar (Babylonia). Now Assyrian cuneiform inscriptions show that Elam (Elymais or Susiana, between Babylonia and Persia) maintained its independence through the whole Assyrian period, and that at a date earlier than that commonly assigned to Abraham (2286 B.C.) an Elamite king plundered Babylonia.
About this date a Babylonian king is designated in the inscriptions "ravager of Syria." Originally "the gate of the god's" temple, whereat justice used to be ministered, Babel or Babylon was secondary in importance at first to the other cities, Erech, Ur, and Ellasar. The earliest seat of the Chaldaeans' power was close on the Persian gulf; as Berosus, their historian, intimates by attributing their civilization to Oannes the fish god, "who brought it out of the sea." Naturally the rich alluvial soil near the mouth of great rivers would be the first occupied. Thence they went higher up the river, and finally fixed at Babylon, 300 miles above the Persian gulf, and 200 above the junction of the Tigris with the Euphrates.
SIZE AND GENERAL FEATURES. So extensive was it that those in the center knew not when the extremities were captured (Jer_51:31). Herodotus gives the circumference as 60 miles, the whole forming a quadrangle, of which each side was 15 miles. M. Oppert confirms this by examinations on the spot, which show an area within the wall of 200 square miles. The arable and pasture land within was enough to supply all its inhabitants' requirements. The population has been conjectured at 1,200,000. The wall was pierced with 100 gates of brass, 25 gates on each side (Isa_45:2). The breadth and height of the walls (the latter almost as great as that of the dome of Paul's Cathedral; 350 ft. high, 87 broad) are alluded to in Jer_51:58; Jer_51:53. A deep wide moat of water surrounded the wall, the 30 lower courses of bricks were wattled with reeds, and the whole cemented with hot asphalt from Is (Hit). The streets crossed at right a angles, the cross streets to the Euphrates being closed at the river end by brazen gates.
The temple of Belus was a kind of pyramid, of eight square towers, one above the other, the basement tower being 200 yards each way, and a winding ascent round the tower leading to the summit, on which was a chapel sacred to the god but containing no statue. (Does not this favor the view that the words "whose top ... unto heaven" mean that it was dedicated to the visible heavens, to which it pointed, and of which therefore it needed no symbol or image?) The "hanging gardens" were a square of 400 ft. each way, which rose in terraces, the topmost being planted with large trees. So the monuments of Nineveh speak of the mounds of the palaces being planted with rows of fir trees. Compare Nah_2:3, "the fir trees shall be terribly shaken." Oppert thinks that the lesser measurement of the interior of Babylon given by Strabo, Ctesias, etc., is due to their giving the measurement of Herodotus' inner wall, which alone remained in their day; Herodotus speaks of the outer wall which could be traced in his time. Movable platforms of wood, stretching from stone pier to stone pier, formed a bridge uniting the two parts of the city. Ctesias says there were 250 towers on the walls to guard the weakest parts. In the midst of each half of the city were fortifications, in one the palace, in the other the temple, of Belus.
On the W. of the city was an artificial lake, into which the river was turned during the erection of the bridge; when the river was brought back the lake as a marsh defended the city. Herodotus says the Greeks learned from Babylon the pole, the sundial, and the division of the day into twelve parts. The first eclipse on record, a lunar one, was accurately observed at Babylon, March 19th, 721 B.C. Ptolemy has preserved an account of lunar eclipses as far back as this date. Numerous canals intersected the country for drainage and irrigation. Psa_137:1, "By the waters of Babylon ... we hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof." The largest, the royal canal, navigable to merchant vessels, connected the Euphrates and Tigris.
SITES AND PRESENT STATE. Five miles above Hillah, on the left bank of the Euphrates, enormous mounds mark the site of the capital of S. Babylonia. The principal are three of unbaked brickwork; Babil, the Kasr or palace, and a high mound now surmounted by the tomb of Amram ibn Alb; two parallel lines of rampart, on the E. and parallel to the river, and enclosing between them and it the chief ruins; lower lines immediately on the river (which runs from N. to S.) and W. of the ruins, also a line on the N.; a separate heap in a long valley (perhaps the river's ancient bed); two lines of rampart meeting at a right angle, and forming with the river a triangle enclosing all the ruins except Babil. On the W. or right bank of the river the remains are few. Opposite the Amram mound there is a kind of enclosed building. Scattered mounds of the same date with the general mass upon the river exist throughout the region.
The Birs Nimrud (by G. Smith regarded as the tower of Babel) six miles S.W. of Hillah, and six from the Euphrates, is the most remarkable, 153 1/2 ft. high and 2,000 ft. around the base; surmounted by a tower. It is torn in two nearly the whole way down, and bears traces of fire. G. Smith reads an Assyrian fragment of writing in columns to the effect that "wickedness of men caused the gods to overthrow Babel; what they built in the day the god overthrew in the night; in his anger he scattered them abroad; their counsel was confused."
Sir H. Rawlinson found by excavation the tower consisted of seven stages of brickwork on an earthen platform three feet high, each stage of different color. The temple was devoted to the seven planets: the first stage, an exact square, was 272 ft. each way, and 26 ft. high, the bricks black with bitumen, probably devoted to Saturn; the second stage 230 ft. square, 26 ft. high, orange bricks, devoted probably to Jupiter; the third, 188 ft. square by 26 ft. high, red bricks, probably devoted to Mars; the fourth, 146 ft. square by 15 ft. high, probably plated with gold and devoted to the sun; the fifth, guessed to be 104 ft. square; the sixth 62 ft. ; the seventh 20 ft.; but these three, probably dedicated to Venus, Mercury, and the Moon, are too ruinous for measurement. The whole was probably 156 ft. high. The slope with the grand entrance faced N.E.; the steeper was S.W. It was called "the temple of the seven spheres." It is thought from the inscriptions to mark the site of Borsippa, beyond the bounds of Babylon.
The palace of Nebuchadnezzar, E. of the river Sippara, the ancient course of the Euphrates, and that of Neriglissar on the W. of the river, are still distinguishable. The Shebil canal anciently interposed between the Kasr and Babil. Babil is probably the ancient temple of Belus; 140 ft. high, flat at the top, 200 yards long, 140 yards broad (the temple towers of lower Babylonia had all this oblong shape). It was originally coated with fine burnt brick; all the inscribed bricks bear the name of Nebuchadnezzar, who rebuilt it. The shrine, altars, and priests' houses were at the foot within a sacred enclosure. Kasr is Nebuchadnezzar's great palace, a square of 700 yards each way. The pale yellow burnt bricks are stamped with Nebuchadnezzar's name and titles; "Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabopolassar, king of Babylon." The enameled bricks found bear traces of figures, confirming Ctesias' statement that the walls represented hunting scenes in bright colors.
The Amram mound is the ancient palace, as old as Babylon itself; its bricks containing the names of kings before Nebuchadnezzar; that king mentions it in his inscriptions. The separate heaps close upon and W. of the river's ancient bed answer to the lesser palace, connected with the greater by a bridge across and a tunnel beneath the river (Ctesias). A mound in the middle of the ancient channel marks the site of the piers of the bridge. The inscription of the bricks with Neriglissar's name marks him as the founder of the lesser palace. The two lines of rampart parallel to the river are probably embankments of the great reservoir mentioned by Nebuchadnezzar in the monuments, and lying E. of his palace. With only "brick for stone," and at first only "slime for mortar," the Babylonians by the forced labor of multitudes erected monuments of genius so vast as to be still among the wonders of the world.
HISTORY. For the last 3,000 years the world has owed its progress manly to the Semitic and the Indo-European races. But originally the Hamitic races (Egypt and Babylon), now so depressed, took the lead the arts, sciences, and power. The first steps in alphabetical writing, sculpture, painting, astronomy, history, navigation, agriculture, weaving, were taken by them. Berosus, their historian's account of their traditions of the flood, and of the confusion of tongues at Babel, accords with Scripture in most points. Nimrod the son of Cash carne over in ships to lower Mesopotamia, and built Ur on the right of the Euphrates near the mouth. Its inhabitants were Chaldi, i.e. moon worshippers. Hur means "the moon goddess." Its vocabulary is Cashite or Ethiopian. A dynasty of 11 monarchs followed. One Orchamar Urkhur, in the inscriptions, was the builder of gigantic works. Chedorlaomer of Elam established a short-lived empire, extending to the mountains of Elam and to Palestine and Syria.
This early Babylonian empire, which subsequently to Chedorlaomer's reign in Elam lasted 458 years, fell by the revision of barbarian hordes, probably Arabs. For seven and a half centuries it was depressed, during which time it became gradually assimilated to the Semitic stock. Nimrod is not mentioned in the Babylonian remains; he probably answers to their god Bel. He united tribes previously independent. The cuneiform inscriptions often designate the people of the lower Euphrates region Kiriath Arbol, "the four nations;" such a confederacy appears in Genesis 14, of which the king of Shinar was one. The southern tetrarchy (arba lisun, "the four tongues," or kiprat 'arbat, "the four nations") consisted of Ur, Huruk, Nipur, and Larsa or Laruncha, answering to the scriptural Ur of the Chaldees, Erech, Calneh, and Ellasar. The northern tetrarchy consisted of Babylon, Borsippa, and Sippara (Sepharvaim): Gen_10:10-12.
The Assyrians adopted the Babylonian number on their emigration to the N. The "four tongues" and the fourfold league of Chedorlaomer answer to the fourfold ethnic division, Cushite, Turanian, Semitic, and Aryan. Erech (Warka) and Ur (Mugheir) were then the capitals; the land was Shinar, and the people (according to the monuments) Akkadim (Accad, Gen_10:10). The remains from these two cities date about 2000 B.C. Writing had begun, for the bricks are stamped with their kings' names. The bricks, rudely molded and of various sizes, are some kiln-burned, others sun-dried; buttresses support their buildings: mortar is unknown, clay and bitumen being substituted. Reed matting compacts the mass, that it may not crumble away.
The first dynasty of 11 kings probably lasted from 2234 B.C. to 1976 B.C.; the dynasty succeeding Chedorlaomer's short lived Elamitic empire from 1976 B.C. to 1518 B.C., 458 years. Then it fell under Semitic influence, Arabia for two and a half centuries, and then (about 1270 B.C.) under Assyria for five. At the close of the earlier and the beginning of the later Assyrian dynasties it again rose to the importance which it had when it colonized and gave letters and the arts to Assyria, and had the supremacy during the second or great Chaldean dynasty. Rawlinson completes Berosus' chronological scheme.
DYNASTY - YEARS OF CONTINUANCE - B.C.
I. of Chaldean kings 2286
II. of 8 Median kings 234 - 2052
III. of 11 Median kings 48 - 2004
IV. of 49 Chaldean kings 458 - 1546
V. of 9 Arabian kings 245 - 1301
VI. of 45 Arabian kings 526 - 775 Pul, a Chaldean 28 - 747
VII. of 13 kings 122 - 625
VIII. of 6 Babylonian kings 87 - 538 Urukh is mentioned earliest on the monuments after Nimrod; his bricks are the lowest down and the rudest in make. Next comes Elgi, "king of Ur." Kudur Nakhunta of Elam, whose court was at Susa, in 2286 invaded Chaldaea and carried off the Babylonian images. He is identified with Zoroaster (Ziru-Ishtar). Kudur Lagomer (Chedorlaomer, the Cushite) is next in the dynasty, having as vassals Amraphel (Semitic), Arioch (Aryan), Tidal (Turanian or Scythic, or Turgal, "the great chief") reigning over nomadic races (goim, "nations.") Kudur Mabuk enlarged the dominions of Ur, and was, according to the monuments, Apda Martu, "conqueror of the west."
The early monarchs reign at Ur, and leave traces no further N. than Niffer. Sin-shada holds court at Erech 25 miles to the N. of Ur; Naram-sin, further N., at Babylon. Kara-Indas was contemporary with Asshur-bel-nisisu, 1440 B.C. Purna-puriyas with Buzur-Asshur, 1420-1400. Urukh was the Chaldaean builder to whom belongs the credit of designing the Babylonian temple, with its rectangular base facing the four cardinal points, its receding stages, buttresses, drains, and sloped walls, external staircases, and ornamental shrine crowning the whole. No trace of the original Babylon exists in our day. The oldest structures are Urukh's. Kudur Lagomer was the great conqueror, subduing distant Palestine and Syria, a feat not again achieved until Nebuchadnezzar, 1,600 years later. Tiglathi-Nin (1300 B.C.) conquered Chaldea. Thenceforward, Semitic superseded Cushite influences and the Babylonian kings have Assyrian instead of Turanian or Cushite names.
The "canon of Ptolemy" gives the succession of Babylonian kings and their lengths of reign, from 747 B.C. (when Nabonassar began to reign) to 331 B.C. (when the last Darius was dethroned by Alexander). Twelve monarchs and two interreigns interpose between Nabonassar and Nabopolassar; then come consecutively Nebuchadnezzar, Illoarudamus, Nerigassolassarus, Nabonadius, Cyrus. Nabonassar destroyed all his predecessors' annals, that the Babylonians might date from himself. There was a Semiramis at this time, a Babylonian queen (Herodotus says) five generations before Nitocris, mother of the last king. Assyrian monuments also place her at this date, but do not expressly connect her with Babylon. Hence, some guess that Nabonassar was her son or husband, Mardocempalus, the fourth king after him, is the Merodach or Berodach Baladan of Scripture; he reigned twice first for 12 years, contemporaneously with the Assyrian Sargon, and the second time for six months only.
During the first year of Sennacherib his sons and grandsons were at war with Esarhaddon and his successor. He shows his independence of Assyria in his embassy to Hezekiah; and his inquiry as to the astronomical wonder done in the land of Judah, the sun's shadow having gone back on Ahaz' dial, is characteristic of a prince of the Chaldees whose devotion to astronomy is well known. Sargon, according to the inscriptions deprived him of his throne after his first reign of 12 years. Arceanus was made viceroy, and held the post five years. Two years of anarchy followed. Then one Acises reigned a month, and Merodach Baladan held the throne six months, and was then supplanted by Belibus whom Sennacherib made his viceroy for three years and then placed his oldest son Aparanadius on the throne. Two followed, then a second interreign of eight years, and Asaridanus or Esarhaddon followed, son and successor. of Sennacherib.
He held his court alternately in Nineveh and Babylon, which explains the difficulty and shows the accurate propriety of the Scripture statement that Manasseh, king of Judah, was carried by the captains of the king of Assyria to Babylon (2Ch_33:11). A new era begins with Nabopolassar, appointed ruler of Babylon by the last Assyrian king just when the Medes were making their final assault on Nineveh. Nabopolassar deserted to the enemy, arranged a marriage between his son Nebuchadnezzar and the Median leader's daughter, and joined hi besieging the Assyrian capital. (See NEBUCHADNEZZAR.) On the capture of the city (625 B.C.) the S. W. of Assyria was assigned to Nabopolassar in the division of the spoil. So the Babylonian empire was extended over the whole Euphrates valley to the Taurus range, over Syria, Phoenicia, Palestine, Idumaea; and the Jews passed as tributaries under Babylon, as they had been under Assyria. Pharaoh Necho, son of Psamatik I (608 B.C.) in the later years of Nabopolassar conquered the whole region between Egypt and the Euphrates.
Josiah, as ally of Babylon, met him in spite of warning and was slain at Megiddo (2Ch_35:20-25; 2Ki_23:29). Nabopolassar sent Nebuchadnezzar; and the latter at the battle of Carchemish, on the Euphrates, regained all the lost territory for Babylon (2Ki_24:7; Jer_46:2-12.) Nebuchadnezzar was already at Egypt when news of his father's death recalled him, and he ascended the throne 604 B.C. He reigned 43 years, during which he recovered Syria and Palestine, destroyed Jerusalem, and carried away the Jews to Babylon, reduced Phoenicia and Tyre, and ravaged Egypt; above all he was the great builder of the most beautiful monuments of his country and city. His palace with threefold enclosure, plated pillars, enameled brick, and hanging gardens, was celebrated throughout the civilized world.
The ruins of ancient temples repaired by him, and cities restored and adorned, still attest his genius, with their bricks inscribed with his name. How appropriate the language assigned to him in Dan_4:29-30, as he walked in the palace of the kingdom of Babylon, possibly on the highest terrace of the hanging gardens: "Is not, this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power and for the honor of my majesty?" Evil Merodach, his son, succeeded in 561 B.C., who in the beginning of his reign "did lift up the head of Jehoiachin, king of Judah, out of prison" (2Ki_25:27; Jer_52:31). After a two years' reign, in consequence of bad government he was murdered by Neriglissar, his brother-in-law, the Nergal Sharezer, Rabmag (chief of the magi, or priests, a title assigned to Neriglissar in the inscriptions) of Jer_39:3; Jer_39:13-14. He calls himself in the inscriptions "son," i.e. son in law of the "king of Babylon." He built the palace on the right bank of the ancient bed of the Euphrates.
Nabonidus the last king was an usurper who seized Laborosoarched, Neriglissar's son, after a nine months' reign, and tortured him to death. He only claims for his father the rank of Rabmag. Herodotus makes him son of a queen Nitocris and Labynetus; but the inscriptions do not directly support his having any connection with Nebuchadnezzar. Probably Balshazzar was grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, as indeed is asserted by Scripture (Jer_27:7; Dan_5:2; Dan_5:11; Dan_5:13), and was suffered by the usurper Nabonahit (as Nabonidus is called in the inscriptions), who adopted him as son, to be subordinate king and his acknowledged successor, in order to conciliate the legitimate party; perhaps Nabonahit married Nebuchadnezzar's daughter or granddaughter (Nitocris) to strengthen his throne, and by her was father to Belshazzar. Nabonahit (as Berosus records) having allied himself to Creeses, king of Lydia, Cyrus' enemy, brought on himself Cyrus' assault of Babylon in 539 B.C. He headed the forces in the field, while Belshazzar commanded in the city.
Shut up in Borsippa (Birs-i-Nimrud, the sacred city of the Babylonians, containing their most revered objects of religion and science) he surrendered and was spared, and Cyrus gave him an estate in Carmania. Belshazzar (from Bel the idol, and shat, a prince), by a self confident careless watch and unseasonable and profane revelry (Daniel 5), allowed Cyrus' forces on a great Babylonian festival to enter by the bed of the river which the invader had drained into another channel, and was slain. Babylon's capture by surprise during a festival was foretold in Jer_51:31; Jer_51:39, and that the capture should be by the Medes and Persians, 170 years earlier in Isa_21:1-9. Thus, Berosus' account of the king not being slain, and Daniel's account of his being slain, supposed once to be an insurmountable difficulty, is fully cleared up by the monuments.
Rawlinson found clay cylinders in Umqeer (Ur of the Chaldees), two of which mention Belshazzar as oldest son of Nabonahit. Berosus gives the Chaldaean account, which suppresses all about Belshazzar, as being to the national dishonor. Had the book of Daniel been the work of a late forger, he would have followed Berosus' account which was the later one. If he gave a history different from that current in Babylonia, the Jews of that region would not have received it as true. Darius the Mede took the kingdom at the age of 62, upon Belshazzar's death. Rawlinson thinks that he was set up by Cyrus, the captor of Babylon, as viceroy there, and that he is identical with the Median king Astyages, son of Ahasuerus (Cyaxares), whom Cyrus, the Persian king, deposed but treated kindly. The phrase (Dan_9:1), "Darius, son of Ahasuerus (Cyaxares), of the seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldaeans," implies that Darius owed the kingdom to another, i.e. Cyrus.
Herodotus makes Astyages the last king of the Medes, and that he was conquered by Cyrus and left no issue. Josephus, on the contrary (Ant. 10:11, section 4), makes Darius = Cyaxares II, son of Astyages (Ahasuerus). Able critics (Hengstenberg, etc.) think his reign was ignored by Herodotus, etc., because through indolence he yielded the real power to his nephew Cyrus, who married his daughter and received the crown at his death. Xenophon, in his romantic story (Cyropaedia), mentions Cyaxares II. Thus, Cyrus, in assaulting Babylon, acted in his name, which accounts for the prominence given to Darius the Median, and for the Medes being put before the Persians in the capture of Babylon (Isa_13:17; Isa_21:2; Dan_5:31; Dan_6:28). Future discoveries may decide which is the right view.
DECLINE. The Persian kings held their court at Babylon a large part of each year. In Alexander's time it was the second city of the empire. Twice in Darius' reign (Behistun inscriptions), and once under Xerxes, Babylon rebelled and suffered severely for it. Alexander's designs for restoring its architectural beauties were frustrated by his death. The seat of empire under his Syrian successors, the Seleucidae, was removed to Antioch. Seleucia rose subsequently near it and carried away both its population and much of its materials.
Ctesiphon, Bagdad, Kufa, Hillah, etc., are mainly built of its old bricks. Thus, "the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency" has "become heaps" "without an inhabitant" (Jer_51:37; Jer_50:39). "A drought is upon her waters," the irrigation which caused Babylonia's fertility having long ceased. "Wild beasts of the desert," "doleful creatures," and "owls (or, ostriches) dwell there" (Isa_13:20-22). The "wild beasts of the islands" (rather "of the howlings," i.e. jackals) and "dragons" (serpents) abound; so that "neither the Arabian pitches his tent, nor the shepherd folds his sheep there," as believing the whole region haunted.
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.

Ba'bel. (confusion). Bab'ylon, (Greek form of Babel), is properly the capital city of the country, which is called in Genesis, Shinar, and in the later books, Chaldea, or the land of the Chaldeans. The first rise of the Chaldean power was in the region close upon the Persian Gulf; thence, the nation spread northward up the course of the rivers, and the seat of government moved in the same direction, being finally fixed at Babylon, perhaps not earlier than B.C, 1700.
I. Topography of Babylon. — Ancient description of the city. — All the ancient writers appear to agree in the fact of a district of vast size, more or less inhabited, having been enclosed within lofty walls and included under the name of Babylon. With respect to the exact extent of the circuit, they differ. The estimate of Herodotus and of Pliny is 480 stades, (60 Roman miles, 53 of our miles), of Strabo, 385 stades, of Q. Curtius, 368 stades, of Clitarchus, 365 stades and of Ctesias, 360 stades (40 miles).
(George Smith, in his "Assyrian Discoveries," differs entirely from all these estimates, making the circuit of the city, but eight miles). Perhaps Herodotus spoke of the outer wall, which could be traced in his time. Taking the lowest estimate of the extent of the circuit, we shall have for the space within the rampart an area of above 100 square miles — nearly five times the size of London! It is evident that this vast space cannot have been entirely covered with houses.
The city was situated on both sides of the river Euphrates, and the two parts were connected together by a stone bridge, five stades (above 1000 yards) long and 30 feet broad. At either extremity of the bridge was a royal palace, that in the eastern city, being the more magnificent of the two. The two palaces were joined, not only by the bridge, but by a tunnel under the river. The houses, which were frequently three or four stories high, were laid out in straight streets crossing each other at right angles.
II. Present state of the ruins. — A portion of the ruins is occupied by the modern town of Hillah. About five miles above Hillah, on the opposite or left bank of the Euphrates, occurs a series of artificial mounds of enormous size. They consist chiefly of three great masses of building, — the high pile of unbaked brickwork which is known to the Arabs as Babel, 600 feet square and 140 feet high; the building denominated the Kasr or palace, nearly 2000 feet square and 70 feet high, and a lofty mound upon which stands the modern tomb of Amram-ibn-'Alb.
Scattered over the country, on both sides of the Euphrates, are a number of remarkable mounds, usually standing single, which are plainly of the same date with the great mass of ruins upon the river bank. Of these, by far the most striking, is the vast ruin called the Birs-Nimrud, which many regard as the tower of Babel, situated about six miles to the southwest of Hillah. See Babel, Tower of.
III. Identification of sites. — The great mound of Babel is probably the ancient temple of Beaus. The mound of the Kasr marks the site of the great palace of Nebuchadnezzar. The mound of Amram is thought to represent the "hanging gardens" of Nebuchadnezzar; but most probably, it represents the ancient palace, coeval with Babylon itself, of which Nebuchadnezzar speaks in his inscriptions as adjoining his own more magnificent residence.
IV. History of Babylon. — Scripture represents the "beginning of the kingdom" as belonging to the time of Nimrod. Gen_10:6-10. The early annals of Babylon are filled by Berosus, the native historian, with three dynasties:
one of 49 Chaldean kings, who reigned 458 years;
another of 9 Arab kings, who reigned 245 years;
and a third of 49 Assyrian monarchs, who held dominion for 526 years. The line of Babylonian kings becomes exactly known to us from B.C. 747. The "Canon of Ptolemy," gives us the succession of Babylonian monarchs from B.C. 747 to B.C. 331, when the last Persian king was dethroned by Alexander. On the fall of Nineveh, B.C. 625, Babylon became not only an independent kingdom, but an empire.
The city was taken by surprise B.C. 539, as Jeremiah had prophesied, Jer_51:31, by Cyrus, under Darius, Daniel 5, as intimated 170 years earlier by Isaiah, Isa_21:1-9, and, as Jeremiah had also foreshown, Jer_51:39, during a festival. With the conquest of Cyrus, commenced the decay of Babylon, which has since been a quarry from which all the tribes in the vicinity have derived the bricks with which they have built their cities. The "great city" has thus emphatically "become heaps." Jer_51:37.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863

the tower and city founded by the descendants of Noah in the plain of Shinar. The different tribes descended from Noah were here collected, and from this point were dispersed through the confusion of their language. The time when this tower was built in differently stated in the Hebrew and Samaritan chronologies. The former fixes it in the year 101 after the flood, which Mr. Faber thinks encumbered with innumerable difficulties. This writer then goes on to show, that the chronology of the Samaritan Pentateuch reconciles every date, and surmounts every difficulty. It represents Shem as dying nearly a century and a half before the death of Peleg, instead of more than that number of years afterward, and almost four centuries and a half before the death of Abraham; whom, in accordance with the history, it makes to survive his father Terah precisely a hundred years. It removes the difficulties with which the Hebrew chronology invests the whole history, by giving time, while it allows the dispersion to have taken place in the latter part of Peleg's life, for the thirteen sons of his younger brother Joktan to have become heads of families; for Noah and his sons to have died, as it is proved they must have done, prior to the emigration from Armenia; for Nimrod, instead of being a boy, to have been of an age suitable to his exploits, and to have acquired the sovereign command, not, in the face of all probability, while the four great patriarchs were living, but after their decease; and for the families of mankind to have multiplied sufficiently to undertake the stupendous work of the tower. It explains also the silence respecting Shem in the history of Abraham, by making the former die in Armenia four hundred and forty years before the latter was born, instead of surviving him thirty-five years; and, lastly, it makes sacred history accord with profane; the Babylonic history of Berosus, and the old records consulted by Epiphanius, both placing the death of Noah and his sons before the emigration from Armenia.
The sum of the whole is as follows: All the descendants of Noah remained in Armenia in peaceable subjection to the patriarchal religion and government during the lifetime of the four royal patriarchs, or till about the beginning of the sixth century after the flood; when, gradually falling off from the pure worship of God, and from their allegiance to the respective heads of families, and seduced by the schemes of the ambitious Nimrod, and farther actuated by a restless disposition, or a desire for a more fertile country, they migrated in a body southwards, till they reached the plains of Shinar, probably about sixty years after the death of Shem. Here, under the command of their new leader, and his dominant military and sacerdotal Cuthites, by whom the original scheme of idolatry, the groundwork of which was probably laid in Armenia, was now perfected; and, with the express view to counteract the designs of the Almighty in their dispersion into different countries, they began to build the city and tower, and set up a banner which should serve as a mark of national union, and concentrate them in one unbroken empire; when they were defeated and dispersed by the miraculous confusion of tongues. All this probably occupied the farther space of twenty or twenty-one years; making eighty-one from the death of Shem, and five hundred and eighty-three after the flood. All of which also will come within the life of Peleg, who, according to the Samaritan Pentateuch, died in the year 640. The tower of Belus in Babylon, mentioned by Herodotus, was probably either the original tower of Babel repaired, or it was constructed upon its massive foundations. The remains of this tower are still to be seen, and are thus described by Captain Mignan, in his Travels in Chaldea:—
“At daylight I departed for the ruins, with a mind absorbed by the objects which I had seen yesterday. An hour's walk, indulged in intense reflection, brought me to the grandest and most gigantic northern mass, on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, and distant about four miles and a half from the eastern suburb of Hillah. It is called by the natives, El Mujellibah, ‘the overturned;' also Haroot and Maroot, from a tradition handed down, with little deviation, from time immemorial, that near the foot of the ruin there is a well, invisible to mortals, in which those rebellious angels were condemned by God to be hung with their heels upward, until the day of judgment, as a punishment for their wickedness. This solid mound, which I consider, from its situation and magnitude, to be
the remains of the Tower of Babel, (an opinion likewise adopted by
that venerable and highly distinguished geographer, Major Rennell,) is a vast oblong square, composed of kiln-burnt and sun-dried bricks, rising irregularly to the height of one hundred and thirty- nine feet, at the south-west; whence it slopes toward the north-east to a depth of one hundred and ten feet. Its sides face the four cardinal points. I measured them carefully, and the following is the full extent of each face: that to the north, along the visible face, is two hundred and seventy-four yards; to the south, two hundred and fifty-six yards; to the east, two hundred and twenty-six yards; and
to the west, two hundred and forty yards. The summit is an uneven flat, strewed with broken and unbroken bricks, the perfect ones measuring thirteen inches square, by three thick. Many exhibited
the arrow-headed character, which appeared remarkably fresh. Pottery, bitumen, vitrified and petrified brick, shells, and glass, were all equally abundant. The principal materials composing this
ruin are, doubtless, mud bricks baked in the sun, and mixed up with straw. It is not difficult to trace brick work along each front, particularly at the south-west angle, which is faced by a wall, composed partly of kiln-burnt brick, that in shape exactly resembles a watch tower or small turret. On its summit there are still considerable traces of erect building; at the western end is a circular mass of solid brick work, sloping toward the top, and rising from a confused heap of rubbish. The chief material forming this fabric appeared similar to that composing the ruin called Akercouff, a mixture of chopped straw, with slime used as cement; and regular layers of unbroken reeds between the horizontal courses of the bricks. The base is greatly injured by time and the elements; particularly to the south-east, where it is cloven into a deep furrow from top to bottom. The sides of the ruin exhibit hollows worn partly by the weather, but more generally formed by the Arabs, who are incessantly digging for bricks, and hunting for antiquities.”
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.

Babel was one of three important towns founded by the great warrior-hunter, Nimrod, in the land of Shinar. The other two towns were Erech and Accad. Shinar was the ancient name for the land of Babylon, or Babylonia. Babel was the ancient name for the city of Babylon, which later became the nation’s capital (Gen_10:8-10).
The early settlers around Babel found that by combining their abilities and manpower they could achieve progress; but with their progress came an attitude of arrogant self-sufficiency. They considered themselves socially and technically more advanced than their neighbours, and as a symbol of their achievements they erected a towering structure in the town. The structure may have been a fortress, though more likely it was a temple built on a series of stepped platforms, similar to the Sumerian ziggurats. Whatever it was, God saw it as a symbol of the people’s pride in trying to show themselves independent of him. Since they had used their united abilities to defy God, the divine response was to smash their ungodly unity decisively (Gen_11:1-9). See also BABYLON.
Bridgeway Bible Dictionary by Don Fleming
PRINTER 1990.

Babel
(Heb. Babel', בָּבֶל, confusion; and so the Sept. Σύγχυσις, Gen_11:9), originally the name applied to the Tower of Babel (Gen_11:9), but afterward extended (in the Heb.) to the city of Babylon (Gen_10:10), which appears to have grown up around it, and finally to the whole province of Babylonia (Eze_23:17, margin), of which this was the capital. For these latter, SEE BABYLON; SEE BABYLONIA.
1. Origin of the Tower. — From the account in Gen_11:1-9, it appears that the primitive fathers of mankind having, from the time of the Deluge, wandered without fixed abode, settled at length in the land of Shinar, where they took up a permanent residence. As yet they had remained together without experiencing those vicissitudes and changes in their outward lot which encourage the formation of different modes of speech, and were therefore of one language. Arrived, however, in the land of Shinar, and finding materials suitable for the construction of edifices, they proceeded to make and burn bricks, and using the bitumen, in which parts of the country abound, for cement, they built a city and a tower of great elevation. A divine interference, however, is related to have taken place. In consequence, the language of the builders was confounded, so that they were no longer able to understand each other. They therefore “left off to build the city,” and were scattered “abroad upon the face of all the earth.” The narrative adds that the place took its name of Babel (confusion) from this confusion of dialect. SEE CONFUSION OF TONGUES.
2. Its Design. — The sacred narrative (Gen_11:4) assigns as the reason which prompted men to the undertaking simply a desire to possess a building so large and high as might be a mark and rallying-point in the vast plains where they had settled, in order to prevent their being scattered abroad, and thus the ties of kindred be rudely sundered, individuals be involved in peril, and their numbers be prematurely thinned at a time when population was weak and insufficient. The idea of preventing their being scattered abroad by building a lofty tower is applicable in the most remarkable manner to the wide and level plains of Babylonia, where scarcely one object exists different from another to guide the traveler in his journeying, and which, in those early days, as at present, were a sea of land, the compass being then unknown. Such an attempt agrees with the circumstances in which the sons of Noah were placed, and is in itself of a ‘commendable nature. But that some ambitious and unworthy motives were blended with these feelings is clearly implied in the sacred record, which, however, is evidently conceived and set forth in a dramatic manner (Gen_11:6-7), and may wear around a historical substance somewhat of a poetical dress (Bauer, Mythol. 1, 223). The apostate Julian has attempted to turn the narrative into ridicule; but even if viewed only as an attempt to account for the origin of diversity of languages, and of the dispersion of the human family, it challenges consideration and respect. The opinion of Heeren (Asiatic Nations, 2, 146) is far different and more correct: “There is,” says he, “perhaps nowhere else to be found a narrative so venerable for its antiquity, or so important in the history of civilization, in which we have at once preserved the traces of primaeval international commerce, the first political associations, and the first erection of secure and permanent dwellings.” A comparison of this narrative with the absurd or visionary pictures which the Greeks and Romans give of the primitive condition of mankind, will gratify the student of the Bible and confirm the faith of the Christian by showing the marked difference there is between the history contained in Genesis and the fictions of the poet, or the traditions of the mythologist. (See Eichhorn, Diversitatis linguaram ex traditione Semitica origines, Goett. 1788; also in the Biblioth. d. bibl. Lit. 3, 981 sq.)
3. Traditions concerning it. — Versions more or less substantially correct of this account are found among other nations. The Chaldaeans themselves relate (Abydenus, quoted by Eusebius, Prepar. Evang. 1, 14 comp. Chron. Armen. 1, 38 and 59) that “the first men, relying on their size and strength, raised a tower reaching toward heaven in the place where Babylon afterward stood, but that the winds, assisting the gods, brought the building down on the heads of the builders, out of the ruins of which Babylon itself was built. Before this event men had spoken the same tongue, but afterward, by the act of the gods, they were made to differ in their speech.” Plato also reports (Polit. p. 272) a tradition that in the Golden Age men and animals made use of one common language, but, too ambitiously aspiring to immortality, were, as a punishment, confounded in their speech by Jupiter. In the details of the story of the war of the Titans against the gods may also be traced some traditionary resemblance to the narrative of the Bible (see Pliny, 7:1, 11 and 112; Hygin. Fab. 143). “The sibyl,” says Josephus (Ant. 1, 4, 3), “also makes mention of this town, and of the confusion of language, when she says thus: ‘When all men were of one language, some of them built a high tower, as if they would thereby ascend up to heaven; but the gods sent storms of wind and overthrew the tower, and gave every one his peculiar language; and for this reason it was that the city was called Babylon'” (comp. Philo, Cpp. 1, 406). The. same writer (ib. 2) assigns as the reason of this overthrow and confusion the displeasure of God at seeing them act so madly under the influence of Nimrod, “a bold bad man,” who, in order to alienate the minds of the people from God, and to take revenge for the Deluge which had destroyed their forefathers, induced them to build a tower too high for the waters to be able to reach. Aben Ezra (in loc. Gen.) has given a more probable explanation. “Those,” he says; “who built the Tower of Babel were not so insensate as to imagine they could by any such means reach to heaven; nor did they fear another Deluge, since they had the promise of God to the contrary; but they wished for a city which should be a common residence and a general rendezvous, serving in the wide and open plains of Babylonia to prevent the traveler from losing his way; in order that while they took measures for their own convenience and advantage, they might also gain a name with future ages.” SEE NIMROD.
4. Its subsequent History. — The “Tower of Babel” is only mentioned once in Scripture (Gen_11:4-5), and then as incomplete. No reference to it appears in the prophetic denunciations of the punishments which were to fall on Babylon for her pride. It is therefore quite uncertain whether the building ever advanced beyond its foundations. As, however, the classical writers universally, in their descriptions of Babylon, gave a prominent place to a certain tower-like building, which they called the temple (Herod. ut inf.; Diod. Sic. 2:9; Arrian, Exped. Alex. 7, 17, etc.), or the tomb (Strabo, 16, p. 738) of Belus, it has generally been supposed that the tower was in course of time finished, and became the principal temple of the Chaldaean metropolis. SEE BEL.
Certainly this may have been the case; but, while there is presumption in favor of it, there is some evidence against it. A Jewish tradition, recorded by Bochart (Phaleg, 1, 9), declared that fire fell from heaven, and split the tower through to its foundation; while Alexander Polyhistor (Frag. 10), and the other profane writers who noticed the tower (as Abydenus, Frs. 5 ‘and 6), said that it had been blown down by the winds. Such authorities, therefore, as we possess, represent the building as destroyed soon after its erection. When the Jews, however, were carried captive into Babylonia, struck with the vast magnitude and peculiar character of certain of the Babylonian temples, they imagined that they saw in them not merely buildings similar in type and mode of construction to the “tower” (מִכְדָּל) of their scriptures, but in this or that temple they thought to recognize the very tower itself. SEE BABYLON.
5. The “Tower of Belus,” presumed to occupy its site. — Herodotus describes the temple in his own simple but graphic manner (i. 181). “In the other division of the city is the temple of the god Belus, with brazen gates, remaining till my own time, quadrangular, and in all of two stadia. In the middle of the sacred enclosure there stands a solid tower of a stadium both in depth and width; upon this tower another is raised, and another upon that, to the number of eight towers. An ascent to them has been made on the outside, in a circle extending round all the towers. When you reach about half way you find resting-places. In the last tower is a large temple, and in the temple lies a large bed well furnished, and near it stands a golden' table; but there is no image within; nor does any one remain there by night, only a native female, one whom the god has chosen in preference to all others, as say the Chaldseans who are priests of that god. And these persons also say, asserting what I do not believe, that the god himself frequents the temple and reposes on the couch. And there belongs to the temple in Babylon another shrine lower down, where there stands a large golden image of the god, and near it is placed a large golden table, and the pedestal and throne are gold, and, as the Chaldaeans say, these things were made for eight hundred talents of gold. And out of the shrine is a golden altar; and there is another great altar where sheep-offerings are sacrificed, for it is not permitted to sacrifice upon the golden altar, except sucklings only; but upon the greater altar the Chaldaeans offer every year a thousand talents' worth of frankincense at the time when they celebrate the festival of the god. And there was at that time in the temple a statue of twelve cubits of solid gold; but I did not see it, and relate merely what was told me by the Chaldaeans. Darius Hystaspis wished to have this statue, but did not dare to take it; but Xerxes, his son, took it, and slew the priest who forbade him to move the statue. Thus is this sacred place adorned; and there are also in it many private offerings.” These offerings, made by individuals, consisting of statues, censers, cups, and sacred vessels of massive gold, constituted a property of immense value. On the top Semiramis placed three golden statues of Jupiter, Juno, and Rhea. The first was 40 feet high, and weighed 1000 Babylonish talents. The statue of Rhea was of the same weight: the goddess was seated on a golden throne with lions at each knee, and two serpents of silver. The statue of Juno was erect like that: of Jupiter, weighing 800 talents; she grasped a serpent by the head with her right hand, and held in her left a scepter enriched with gems. A table of beaten gold was common to these three divinities, weighing 500 talents. On the table were two goblets of 10 talents, and two censers of 500 talents each, and three vases of prodigious magnitude. The total value of the precious articles and treasures contained in this proud achievement of idolatry has been computed to exceed six hundred millions of dollars.
From the Holy Scriptures it appears that when Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem and levelled most of the city with the ground, “he brought away the treasures of the temple, and the treasures of the king's house, and put them all into the temple of Bel at Babylon” (2 Chronicles 37:7). The brazen and other vessels which Solomon had caused to be made for the service of Jehovah are said to have been broken up by order of the Assyrian monarch, and formed into the famous gates of brass which so long adorned the superb entrances into the great area of the temple of Belus (comp. Hecataeus ap. Joseph. Ant. 1, 4, 3).
The purposes to which this splendid edifice was appropriated may be partly gathered from the preceding statements. These purposes varied in some degree with the changes in opinions and manners which successive ages brought. The signal disappointment inflicted on its original founders show that even in its origin there was connected with it something greatly displeasing to God. It seems, indeed, always to have existed in derogation of the divine glory. Consecrated at the first, as it probably was, to the immoderate ambition of the monotheistic children of the Deluge, it passed to the Sabian religion, and thus, falling one degree from purity of worship, became a temple of the sun and the rest of the host of heaven, till, in the natural progress of corruption, it sank into gross idolatry, and, as the passage from Herodotus shows, was polluted by the vices which generally accompanied the observances of heathen superstition. In one purpose it undoubtedly proved of service to mankind. The Babylonians were given to the study of astronomy. This ennobling pursuit was one of the peculiar functions of the learned men denominated by Herodotus Chaldaeans, the priests of Belus; and the temple was crowned by an astronomical observatory, from the elevation of which the starry heavens could be most advantageously studied over plains so open and wide, and in an atmosphere so clear and bright as those of Babylonia.
To Nimrod the first foundations of the tower are ascribed; Semiramis enlarged and beautified it (Ctesias ap. Diod. Sic. 2:7); but it appears that the temple of Bel, in its most renowned state, was not completed till the time of Nebuchadnezzar, who, after the accomplishment of his many conquests, consecrated this superb edifice to the idolatrous object to whom he ascribed his victories. That the observatory on the tower was erected in remote times there is good reason to believe. Prideaux mentions (Connection, 1, 123) the circumstance that when Alexander made himself master of Babylon, Callisthenes, the philosopher, who attended him thither, found astronomical observations ascending upward 1900 years. SEE ASTRONOMY.
6. Evidence as to its present Remains. – After the lapse of so many centuries, and the occurrence in “the land of Shinar” of so many revolutions, it is not to be expected that the identification of the Tower of Babel with any actual ruin should be easy, or lead to any very certain result. The majority of opinions, however, among the learned, make it the same as the above-described temple of Belus; and as to its modern locality, the predominant opinion has been in favor of the great temple of Nebo at Borsippa, the modern Bits Nimrud, although the distance of that place from Babylon is a great difficulty in the way of the identification. When Christian travelers first began to visit the Mesopotamian ruins, they generally attached the name of “the Tower of Babel” to whatever mass, among those beheld by them, was the loftiest and most imposing. Rawulf, in the 16th century, found the “Tower of Babel” at Felugiah; Pietro della Valle, in the 18th, identified it with the ruin Babil near Hillah; while early in the present century Rich and Ker Porter revived the Jewish notion, and argued for its identity with the Birs. There are, in reality, no positive grounds either for identifying the tower with the temple of Belus, or for supposing that any remains of it long survived the check which the builders received when they were “scattered abroad upon the face of the earth,” and “left off to build the city” (Gen_11:8); yet the striking general similarity of its form and construction to those structures, taken in connection with its evidently great antiquity, create a presumption in favor of the identification that it is difficult to resist. SEE SHINAR. Nor, indeed, does the Birs Nimrud lie much, if any, farther distant from Hillah (the modern representative of Babylon) than do (in an opposite direction) some other ruins (e.g. especially the mound called Babil, the only other rival to the honor of representing the ancient Tower of Babel and temple of Belus in the vicinity), which were yet undoubtedly included within the ample circuit of the ancient walls; in fact, the Birs itself will fall within the line of the outer walls of Babylon, if laid down of the extent de, scribed by Herodotus. SEE BABYLON. Its pyramidal structure, also, with the numerous contractions of its successive stages, still traceable in the ruins, favors the identification (see below).
7. Description of “Birs Nimrud,” its supposed modern Relic. — The appearance of this massive ruin is deeply impressive, rising suddenly as it does out of a wide desert plain, with its rent, fragmentary, and fireblasted pile, masses of vitrified matter lying around, and the whole hill itself on which it stands caked and hardened out of the materials with which the temple had been built. Its dreary aspect seems to justify the name which the remnant of the captivity, still abiding among the waters of Babylon, give to the place, namely, “Nebuchadnezzar's Prison;” an appellation which may have been assigned from the circumstance of that monarch's being confined there, under the care of the priesthood, during the period of his madness, or from the King of Israel's having been incarcerated within its precincts by Nebuchadnezzar after his last conquest of Jerusalem (2 Kings 25). A very considerable space round the tower, forming a vast court or area, is covered with ruins, affording abundant vestiges of former buildings, exhibiting uneven heaps of various sizes, covered with masses of broken brick, tiles, and vitrified fragments — all bespeaking some signal overthrow in former days. The towerlike ruin on the summit is a solid mass 28 feet broad, constructed of the most beautiful brick masonry. It is rent from the top nearly half way to the bottom. It is perforated in ranges of square openings. At its base lie several immense unshapen masses of fine brickwork, some changed to a state of the hardest vitrification, affording evidence of the action of fire which seems to have been the lightning of heaven. The base of the tower at present measures 2082 feet in circumference. Hardly half of its former altitude remains. Of the original pyramidal form, the erections of Semiramis and Nebuchadnezzar appear to have begun at the stage of the former overthrow. From its summit, the: view in the distance presents to the south an and desert plain; to the west the same trackless waste; toward the north-east marks of buried ruins are visible to a vast distance. The bricks which compose the tower are mostly stamped with several lines of inscription, in the cuneiform or Babylonian character. Some extend to four, or even seven lines, but the dimensions of all are the same. The bricks of Babylon are of two kinds, sun-dried and fire-burnt. The former are larger and of a coarser make than the latter. Their solidity is equal to that of many kinds of stone. They are composed of clay mixed with chopped straw or broken reeds, in order to increase their compactness. This is the sort of brick which the children of Israel made while in Egyptian bondage. The unburnt bricks commonly form the interior or mass of a building. This is the case with the great tower, while it was faced with the more beautiful fabric made in the furnace or kiln. See full particulars in Rich's Memoir of Babylon and Persepolis; Ker Porter's Travels in Persia; comp. Ritter, Erdk. 11, 876 sq.
8. Type and Character of the Building. — It must be allowed that the Birs Nimrud, though it may not be the Tower of Babel itself, which was at Babylon (Gen_11:9), yet, as the most perfect representative of an ancient Babylonian temple-tower, may well be taken to show, better than any other ruin, the probable shape and style of the edifice. This building appears, by the careful examinations recently made of it, to have been a kind of retreating pyramid built in seven receding stages. “Upon a platform of crude brick, raised a few feet above the level of the alluvial plain, was built of burnt brick the first or basement stage-an exact square, 272 feet each way, and 26 feet in perpendicular height. Upon this stage was erected a' second, 230 feet each way, and likewise 26 feet high; which, however, was not placed exactly in the middle of the first, but considerably nearer to the south-western end, which constituted the back of the building. The other stages were arranged similarly, the third being, 188 feet, and again 26 feet high; the fourth 146 feet: square, and 15 feet high; the fifth 104 feet square, and the same height as the fourth; the sixth 62 feet square, and again the same height; and the seventh 20 feet square, and once more the same height. On the seventh stage there was probably placed the ‘ark, or tabernacle, which seems to have been again 15 feet high, and must have nearly, if not entirely, covered the top of the seventh story. The entire original height, allowing three feet for the platform, would thus have been 156 feet, or, without the platform, 153 feet. The whole formed a sort of oblique pyramid, the gentler slope facing the N.E., and the steeper inclining to the S.W. On the N.E. side was the grand entrance, and here stood the vestibule, a separate building, the debris from which, having joined those from the temple itself, fill up the intermediate space, and very remarkably prolong the mound in this direction” (Rawlinson's Herodotus, 2, 480-3).
The Birs temple, if the same called the “Temple of the Seven Spheres,” was ornamented with the planetary colors (see the plan), but this was most likely a peculiarity The other chief features of it seem to have been common to most, if not all of the Babylonian temple-towers. The feature of stages is found in the temples at Warka and Mugheir (Loftus's Chaldcea, p. 129 and 168), which belong to very primitive times (B.C. 2230); that of the emplacement, so that the four angles face the four cardinal points, is likewise common to those ancient structures; while the square form is universal. On the other hand, it may be doubted whether so large a number of stages was common. The Mugheir and Warka temples have no more than two, and probably never had more than three, or at most four stages. The great temple of Belus at Babylon (if Babil) shows only one stage; though, according to the best authorities, it too was a sort of pyramid (Herod., Strab.). The height of the Birs is 153.5 feet, that of Babil 140 (?), that of the Warka temple 100, that of the temple at Mugheir 50 feet. Strabo's statement that the tomb of Belus was a stade (606 feet in height) would thus seem to be a gross exaggeration. Probably no Babylonian tower ever equaled the Great Pyramid, the original height of which was 480 feet. SEE PYRAMIDS.
9. Its Materials and Manner of Construction. — On these points more light is to be obtained from the Warka and Mugheir buildings than from the Birs. The Birs was rebuilt from top to bottom by Nebuchadnezzar, and shows the mode of construction prevalent in Babylon at the best period; the temples at Warka and Mugheir remain to a certain extent in their primitive condition, the upper stories alone having been renovated. The Warka temple is composed entirely of sun-dried bricks, which are of various shapes and sizes; the cement used is mud; and reeds are largely employed in the construction. It is a building of the most primitive type, and exhibits a ruder style of art than that which we perceive from Scripture to have obtained at the date of the tower. Burnt bricks were employed in the composition of the tower (Gen_11:3); and though perhaps it is somewhat doubtful what the chemar ( חֵמָר “slime”) used for mortar may have been (see Fresnel in Journ. Asiatique for June, 1853, p. 9), yet, on the whole, it is most probable that bitumen (which abounds in Babylonia) is the substance intended. SEE BITUMEN. Now the lower basement of the Mugheir temple exhibits this combination in a decidedly primitive form. The burnt bricks are of small size and of an inferior quality; they are laid in bitumen; and they face a mass of sun-dried brick, forming a solid wall outside it ten feet in thickness. No reeds are used in the building. Writing appears on it, but of an antique cast. The supposed date is B.C. 2300, but little later than the era commonly assigned to the building of Babel. Probably the erection of the two buildings was not separated by a very long interval, though it is reasonable to suppose that of the two the tower was the earlier. If we mark its date, as perhaps we are entitled to do, by the time of Peleg, the son of Eber, and father of Reu (see Gen_10:25), we may perhaps place it about B.C. 2400. SEE DISPERSION OF NATIONS.
10. Advantages of this form. — It is not necessary to suppose that any real idea of “scaling heaven” was present to the minds of those who raised either the Tower of Babel, or any other of the Babylonian temple-towers. The expression used in Genesis (Gen_11:4) is a mere hyperbole for great height (comp. Deu_1:28; Dan_4:11, etc.), and should not be taken literally. Military defense was probably the primary object of such edifices in early times; but with the wish for this may have been combined further secondary motives, which remained when such defense was otherwise provided for. Diodorus states that the great tower of the temple of Belus was used by the Chaldaeans as an observatory (2, 9), and the careful emplacement of the Babylonian temples with the angles facing the four cardinal points would be a natural consequence, and may be regarded as a strong confirmation of the reality of this application. M. Fresnel has recently conjectured that they were also used as sleeping-places for the chief priests in the summer time (Journ. Asiatique, June, 1853, p. 529-31). The upper air is cooler, and is free from the insects, especially mosquitoes, which abound below; and the description which Herodotus gives of the chamber at the top of the Belus tower (1, 181) goes far to confirm this Ingenious view.
11. Confirmation from other Pyramidal Temples. Mr. Taylor (Fragments to Calmet's Dict.) has given views of several similar structures now extant, of which we copy two. The first, rising in several steps or stages, is at Tanjore, in the East Indies; and affords, it is presumed, a just idea of the Tower of Babel. It is, indeed, wholly constructed of stone, in which it differs from that more ancient edifice, which, being situated in a country destitute of stone, was, of necessity, constructed of brick. On the top of this pyramid is a chapel or temple, affording a specimen of the general nature of this kind of sacred edifices in India. These amazing structures are commonly erected on or near the banks of great rivers, for the advantage of ablution. In the courts that surround them innumerable multitudes assemble at the rising of the sun, after having bathed in the stream below. The gate of the pagoda uniformly fronts the east. The internal chamber commonly receives light only from the door. An external pathway, for the purpose of visiting the chapel at the top, merits observation.
The next is an ancient pyramid built by the Mexicans in America; it agrees in figure with the former, and has on the outside an ascent of stairs leading up one side to the upper story, proceeding to the chapels on its summit. This ascent implies that the chapels were used from time to time, and no doubt it marks the shortest track for that purpose, as it occupies one side only.
12. Literature. — Kircher, Turris Babel (Amst. 1778); Zentgravius, De turri Babel (Vitemb. 1774); Hoynovius, De turri Babylonica (Regiom. 1694); Colombus, De causis tur. Bab. (Regiom. 1675); Cyrill. Alex. De Turri (in his Opp. 1, 44); Heidegger, De Turri Babel (in his Hist. Patriarch. 1); Saurin, Tour de Babel (in his Disc. 1, 135; and Dissert. p. 75); Calmet, Le Tour de Babel (in his Commentaire, 1, pt. 1, diss. 34); Delany, Of the Building of Babel (in his Rev. Examined, 2, 79); Berington, The Tower of Babel (in his Dissertations, p. 407); Drew, Babel (in his Script. Studies, p. 39); Deyling, De ortu Babelis (in his Observat. 3, 24); Dietric, Turris Babylonica (in his Antiq. p. 116); Perizonii Origg. Babylon. c. 9; Hezel, Ueb. d. Babyl. Stadt-u. Thurmbau (Hildb. 1774); anonymous, Tractatus de locis quibusd. difcil. (Frcf. 1839); Kurtz, Hist. of the Old Covenant, § 29.

CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.

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