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• Thus, Babel, or Babylon, is intimately associated with rebellion against God. Babel is a play on the word balal, which means to mix, or mix up, or confuse. Bab-El in Semitic languages also means the Gate of God. In their idolatrous minds, they were building a tower, a stairway, thinking they could reach the gods that ruled heaven itself.
• As we continue to go through the Holy Scriptures, we find almost 300 references to Babylon. Jeremiah the prophet pleads with the people, telling them that the Babylonians will soon be coming, that they will conquer Jerusalem, that they will be taken away to Babylon for 70 years (an event known as the Babylonian exile) but at the end of the 70 years, they will return to Jerusalem, to Israel once again.