In the beginning, all people lived in one place. As the land grew crowded, families migrated and eventually settled between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. There, they discovered how to make bricks from the soil and harden them with fire, making it easy to build houses.
They then aspired to build a great city to rule over others. They said to one another, "Let us build a tower whose top reaches to the heavens. Let us give our city a name, so we may stay together and not be scattered across the earth."
So they began constructing their great tower, piling bricks story upon story. However, God did not wish humanity to live so closely united. He knew that if they remained together, the wicked would lead the good astray, and the world would become evil again, as it was before the flood. Therefore, as they built, God changed their speech.
At that time, everyone spoke the same language. Suddenly, they could no longer understand each other. People from one family could not comprehend those from another—much as today, an English speaker cannot converse with a French speaker without learning French.
Consequently, the people scattered to the north, south, east, and west. The earth became populated with people living in many lands and speaking many languages. The tower remained forever unfinished. The city they had built was named Babel, meaning confusion, because it was there that God confounded the language of all the earth. The city was afterward known as Babylon, and the tower as the Tower of Babel.