According to the story, a united human race speaking a single language and migrating eastward, comes to the land of Shinar (שִ נְעָר ; Σενναάρ). There they agree to build a city and a tower with its top in the sky. Yahweh, observing their city and tower, confounds their speech so that they can no longer understand each other, and scatters them around the world.

Some modern scholars have associated the Tower of Babel with known structures, notably Etemenanki, a ziggurat dedicated to the Mesopotamian god Marduk in Babylon. A Sumerian story with some similar elements is told in Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta.