Shinar

Shinar was the ancient name for the great alluvial plain of lower Mesopotamia through which the Tigris and Euphrates pass before reaching the sea — the region later known as Babylonia or Chaldea. The land is characterized in Genesis as a flat plain where brick replaced quarried stone and bitumen replaced mortar, conditions accurately describing the geology of the Mesopotamian floodplain. Among its cities were Babel (Babylon), Erech (Uruk), Accad (Akkad), and Calneh (Genesis 10:10). The territory thus encompasses the cradle of the world's earliest urban civilization.

Shinar appears at three pivotal moments in biblical history. It is the setting of the tower of Babel, where humanity gathered "on the plain in the land of Shinar" to build a city with a tower reaching to the heavens, resulting in the divine confusion of languages and the scattering of the nations (Genesis 11:2–9). It is the realm of Amraphel king of Shinar, one of the four kings who raided Canaan and captured Lot, prompting Abraham's rescue mission (Genesis 14:1). And Daniel places the beginning of Judah's exile in Shinar: Nebuchadnezzar brought the temple vessels "to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god" (Daniel 1:2). Isaiah prophesied a second exodus in which God would recover his scattered people "from Shinar" (Isaiah 11:11).