latter expression recurs in an inscr. of Nebuchadnezzar (BA, iii. 548) with reference to the same zikkurat, and is thought by Gu. (2 86) to have been characteristic of E-temen-an-ki; but that is doubtful, since similar language is used by Tiglath-pileser I. of the towers of the temple of Anu and Ramman, which had been allowed to fall gradually into disrepair for 641 years before his time (KIB, i. 43). The zikkurat of E-zida was called E-ur-imin-an-ki ('house of the seven stages (?) of heaven and earth'); its restorer Nebuchadnezzar tells us, in an inscr. found at its four corners, that it had been built by a former king, and raised to a height of 42 cubits; its top, however, had not been set up, and it had fallen into disrepair (KIB, iii. 2. 53, 55). The temple of Borsippa is entombed in Birs Nimrûd—a huge ruined mound still rising 153 feet above the plain (see Hil. EBL, 13, 30 f.)—which local (and Jewish) tradition identifies with the tower of Gn. 11. This view has been accepted by many modern scholars (see EB, i. 412), by others it is rejected in favour of E-temen-an-ki, chiefly because E-zida was not in but only near Babylon. But if the two narratives are separated, there is nothing to connect the tower specially with the city of Babylon; and it would seem to be mainly a question which of the two was the more imposing ruin at the time when the legend originated. It is possible that neither was meant. At Uru (Ur of the Chaldees) there was a smaller zikkurat (about 70 feet high) of the moon-god Sin, dating from the time of Ur-bau (c. 2700 B.C.) and his son Dungi, which Nabuna'id tells us he rebuilt on the old foundation "with asphalt and bricks" (KIB, iii. 2. 95; EBL, 173 ff.). The notice is interesting, because, according to one tradition, which is no doubt ancient, though it cannot be proved to be Yahwistic, this city was the starting-point of the Hebrew migration (see below, p. 239). If it was believed that the ancestors of the Hebrews came from Ur, it may very well have been the zikkurat of that place which figured in their tradition as the Tower of the Dispersion.
2. In regard to its religious content, the narrative occupies the same standpoint as 320. 22 and 61-3. Its central idea is the effort of the restless, scheming, soaring human mind to transcend its divinely appointed limitations: it "emphasises Yahwe's supremacy over the world; it teaches how the self-exaltation of man is checked by God; and it shows how the distribution of mankind into nations, and diversity of language, are elements in His providential plan for the development and progress of humanity" (Dri.). The pagan notion of the envy of the gods,—their fear lest human greatness should subvert the order of the world,—no doubt emerges in a more pronounced form than in any other passage. Yet the essential conception is not mere paganism, but finds an obvious point of contact in one aspect of the prophetic theology: see Is. 212-17. To say that the narrative is totally devoid of religious significance for us is therefore to depreciate the value for modern life of the OT thought of God, as well as to evince a lack of sympathy with one of the profoundest instincts of early religion. Crude in form as the legend is, it embodies a truth of permanent validity—the futility and emptiness of human effort divorced from the acknowledgment and service of God:
