At this site it was decided to build a "city and a tower with its top in the sky," so that the builders would be able to make a name for themselves and avoid being scattered over the entire world. However, their building project was frustrated by the Lord who confounded their language. As a result, mankind was distributed over the face of the earth. The unfinished tower was called Babel, a name which was explained by its resemblance to the Hebrew verb bll ("to confuse"), since here the Lord "confounded the speech of the whole earth.