Depicting Difference: The Tower of Babel and the Language of Sacred Art

Depicting Difference: The Tower of Babel and the Language of Sacred Art

“For form is only the manifestation, the shape of content.”
Ben Shahn, The Shape of Content, p. 72

Genesis chapter 11 presents the narrative of the Tower of Babel, detailing how, contrary to the divine directive to disperse and populate the earth, the descendants of the flood’s survivors congregated in a single city and commenced construction of a substantial tower. God intervened to prevent further cooperation among them by disrupting their shared language, thereby introducing linguistic diversity, which ultimately ceased the building process and resulted in the broad dispersal of the population.

The account of the Tower of Babel offers a unique context for exploring what characterizes an image—and, by extension, a work of art—as Jewish. In Christian artistic traditions, from medieval illuminations to Renaissance paintings, the tower is often portrayed as a symbol of pride and serves as a cautionary emblem against human ambition. In contrast, Jewish philosophy and visual culture do not treat the tower as an important iconographic motif or as a warning against aspiration. Where the story does appear in Jewish art, it offers an alternative interpretation, and in certain instances, it recasts the tower motif in a more positive light.

The Architecture of Arrogance: Bruegel’s Tower and the Christian Moral Imagination

Figure 1: Pieter Bruegel, The Tower of Babel, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Among the most celebrated representations of the Tower of Babel is Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s painting housed in Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum (we previously discussed another painting from the museum, Samuel van Hoogstraten’s Old Man at a Window, and whether it is a Jewish painting, its subject a famous Rabbi). Measuring over three feet wide and five feet high, this work features a monumental spiral structure composed of arches and tiers that ascend unevenly into the clouds. The immense scale of the tower stands in stark contrast to the small human figures depicted throughout—hundreds of workers engaged in various tasks. Bruegel’s paintings are notable for their comprehensive and detailed portrayal of subjects. (This site allows you to zoom in on all the details.) In this scene, each trade and stage of construction is rendered with meticulous attention; some laborers transport massive stone blocks along ramps, while oxen-pulled carts bear heavy loads of building materials. Human-powered treadwheel cranes lift supplies upward, and scaffolding constructed from poles, planks, and ropes clings to the sides of the tower. Masons apply mortar and lay bricks, carpenters reinforce beams, and overseers direct operations, attempting to manage the complexity and activity inherent in such an undertaking.

In the foreground, King Nimrod, adorned in elaborate robes and a crown, oversees the construction as the principal architect of the tower. He reviews architectural plans with his attendants while laborers kneel. Surrounding him, foremen gesture towards the ascending walls, effectively conveying his directives to the assembled workforce. Beyond the imposing structure of the tower, ships are visible entering the harbor, their masts prominent on the horizon.

Bruegel often used allegory in his work. By integrating contemporary construction methods and maritime elements into the depiction of the ancient story, he placed Babel in the context of his own time. The painting presents examples of human innovation alongside the risks associated with ambitious endeavors, making its observations applicable from the 16th century to the present day.^[1]

Figure 2: 13th Century Manuscript of Rudolf von Ems Poetry

Figure 3: 14th Century York Manuscript

Earlier artistic portrayals commonly focused on Babel’s height and grandeur. Medieval manuscripts and Church paintings often depicted it as upright, rectilinear, and monumental, resembling a fortress or cathedral spire. In contrast, Bruegel presents the tower as unstable, leaning, and showing deterioration at its foundation, while construction continues at the upper levels. The structure appears to challenge natural order by being built atop a mountain and using brick, which leads to rock formations that affect its stability. Bruegel incorporates Roman arches reminiscent of the Colosseum, suggesting parallels to historical architecture that had fallen into decline by the time of his visit in 1560. Some areas are already inhabited; for example, a woman is seen hanging laundry. The residents appear unaware of the structural issues beneath them, blinded by their hubris. Nimrod’s prominence in the foreground, with the workers genuflecting to him and his plans that he holds in his hands, further emphasizes the fetishization of human ambition.

At the time, Bruegel’s audience didn’t have to look far to see a potential Babel in the making: Antwerp was booming, expanding, and building like never before, and its populace risked falling into the sin of pride. In 1563, when Bruegel painted the Tower of Babel, the city was Europe’s busiest port and a magnet for wealth, with goods and materials streaming in daily through the Scheldt River. Massive new fortifications were under construction to secure the city’s growth, while the Cathedral of Our Lady still stood unfinished, its single soaring spire a symbol of grandeur halted midstream. Cranes, treadwheels, scaffolding, and teams of laborers were familiar sights on Antwerp’s skyline, all details Bruegel carefully folded into his painting. Even the ships visible in the harbor of his Babel recall Antwerp’s bustling docks, tying the biblical story directly to his contemporaries’ lived experience. For Bruegel’s viewers, the tower was not just a monument to ancient pride but a mirror of their own city’s dazzling ambition and its underlying fragility.

Bruegel does not show the dramatic aftermath, the confusion of tongues, and the scattering of peoples across the earth. Instead, he arrests the narrative at the moment of construction, filling the canvas with the feverish activity of workers and the looming mass of the tower itself. In doing so, he lets the architecture bear the weight of the story: the leaning walls, the buckling arches, and the crumbling base foreshadow the enterprise’s futility. The punishment is absent because the tower already embodies it, an image of human ambition that carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction.

Bruegel’s legacy is twofold. On the one hand, he fixed Babel’s appearance for centuries: spiraling, leaning, and crumbling, the visual template repeated in paintings, engravings, church murals, and biblical illustrations well into the modern era. From 16th-century Flemish workshops to 18th-century Bibles, from church frescoes to Romantic illustrations, and even into 20th-century literature and contemporary art, Bruegel’s leaning Tower of Babel has been endlessly reimagined as the enduring image of human ambition and collapse.^[2] On the other hand, he reshaped its meaning. Earlier images celebrated human pride by showing the tower upright and impregnable. Bruegel’s version, and the generations of artists and authors who followed, transformed it into a parable of fragility, a monument doomed to collapse even as it rose.

Buildings Fall Books Endure: The Jewish Reading of Babel

Within the Jewish exegetical tradition, the story of Babel carries a different emphasis than in Bruegel’s Christian retelling. The tower itself is a bit player in a larger story, a catalyst and not the focus, less important than the human decision it symbolizes. In Genesis 9:1, God commands Noah’s descendants to “be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth.” Yet instead of dispersing across the world, humanity chooses to settle in one place and build a city and tower “lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth” (Gen. 11:4). In this reading, the sin is not arrogance against heaven but resistance to God’s plan of dispersal. The tower becomes a narrative device, a means of dramatizing humankind’s determination to remain unified, sedentary, and secure.^[3]

Seen from this perspective, the confusion of languages and scattering of peoples is not so much a punishment as a necessary correction. The multiplicity of tongues is God’s way of ensuring that His will for humanity, for it to spread, diversify, and populate the earth, is carried out. The Jewish interpretation, therefore, reads the story as a lesson about human attempts to thwart divine design, not Bruegel’s Christian vision, which centers on pride and monumental ambition. What matters is not the tower’s collapse but humanity’s refusal to scatter, and the way God ultimately enforces the order of creation.

This contrast is confirmed by the way Jewish tradition titles the episode “Dor Haflagah,” meaning “the Generation of Division,” rather than “Migdal Bavel,” the Tower of Babel. (Sanhedrin 10:3; Baba Metziah 4:2). The Hebrew name shifts attention away from architecture altogether and toward the human drama: the refusal to scatter, the divine act of dividing languages, and the dispersal across the earth. In other words, where Christianity made the tower a visual icon, Judaism made the generation itself the lesson.^[4]

This approach was not only in Jewish exegesis but also in Jewish art. There are only five identified examples of the tower in Jewish art, but in all of them, it is illustrated in a uniquely Jewish manner.

Figure 4: Tower of Babel, Khirbet Wadi Hamam Mosaic, c. 3rd century, source.

Figure 5: Tower of Babel, Huqoq Synagogue, c. 5th Century

The earliest two examples are synagogue mosaics, a third-century synagogue in Wadi Hamam, and a recently discovered fifth-century mosaic on the floor of the Huqoq Synagogue in northeastern Israel. Only a part of the Wadi Hamam scene has survived, though it is the largest intact biblical scene found. It shows workers and a tower on the left. In the center, two workers are hitting each other. The Huqoq mosaic is larger and illustrates all stages of construction, including detailed depictions of hoists, levers, and various chiseling and cutting tools. At the center of the scene, two workers are engaged in conflict—one wielding a hammer and the other a saw.^[5] Similarly, three medieval manuscripts feature this theme; in two, the depiction of violence is the central focus, while in the third, it forms part of a broader image, akin to the mosaic. ^[6]

Figure 6 Golden Haggadah, fol. 3r

Although these examples feature the tower, they can be distinguished from the Christian perspective. Firstly, the labeling of the images aligns with Jewish tradition, specifically referencing Dor Haflagah. Secondly, Bruegel’s comprehensive visual representation notably omits any mention of violence. The interpretation that linguistic confusion led to violence is exclusive to Jewish sources, appearing in Genesis Rabba and various other texts, but not in Christian writings.^[7] Given that the mosaic dates to the third century, this seems to potentially point to an earlier codification of Genesis Rabba than is currently assumed or that this approach was already was an oral legend.^[8] The only known medieval Christian manuscript featuring a descent into violence, The Bedford Book of Hours, has prompted one scholar to assert that it “is undoubtedly based on a Jewish legend.”^[9]

While Jewish manuscript culture preserves the uniquely Jewish interpretation of the iconography of the Tower of Babel, Jewish print culture would transform Bruegel’s symbol of pride and sin into a fortress of divine protection.

The Soncino family was the first great dynasty of Hebrew printers, active in northern Italy from the late 15th to the early 16th century.^[10] Originating from the town of Soncino in Lombardy and operating intermittently between roughly 1483 and 1527, they established presses in a succession of Italian cities, including Soncino, Brescia, Fano, Pesaro, and Rimini, as well as in Turkey. The founder, Joshua Solomon Soncino, and his nephew, Gershom ben Moses Soncino, expanded the enterprise into one of the most respected printing houses of Renaissance Italy. Gershom issued one of the earliest dated Hebrew books, a Talmudic tractate printed at Soncino in 1484. This work, with its unique layout, is the first of its kind to become canonized, combining the source text with two surrounding commentaries, and is itself a work of art. Their editions combined typographic precision with decorative sophistication equal to the best contemporary Latin and vernacular presses, and their name became synonymous with the art of Hebrew printing itself. They did not just print for a Jewish audience, but also printed over 100 non-Jewish titles, outdoing their Jewish output of 64 titles.

Figure 7: Joseph Albo, Sefer Ikkarim, Rimini, 1522

The Soncino family was active from 1483, but in books printed from 1522, first in Rimini and subsequently in Salonika and Constantinople, Gershom incorporated a new printer’s mark – essentially a printer’s coat of arms.^[11] This first appeared in R. Joseph Albo’s Sefer Ikkarim and depicts a traditional Renaissance-style solid stone tower rising above a crenellated wall, accompanied by the verse ‘מִגְדַּל עֹז שֵׁם יְהוָה, בּוֹ יָרוּץ צַדִּיק וְנִשְׂגָּב” “the name of the Lord is a mighty tower; the righteous runneth into it, and is set up on high,’ (Proverbs 18:10) on the left and right sides of the image. Gershom chooses to highlight the tower, unlike other possible symbols such as the rainbow, clouds of glory, or King David, which could have served a similar purpose.

Figure 8: Kol Bo, Rimini, 1525, Gross Family Collection

In the Sefer Kol Bo, published in Rimini circa 1525 and considered Gershom’s most distinguished work from that period, a prominent introductory statement appears above the tower: “In You I place my heart and you will help me, and I will raise my heart and with song I will praise you: ‘the name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runs into it, and is safe.’” This clearly presents the tower as an icon of divine protection and intervention. Notably, Gershom’s tower does not correspond with any physical structure in Soncino or Rimini; instead, the tower symbolizes a spiritual rather than an earthly construct.^[12] There is one small, but somewhat strange, detail about Gershom’s tower: the doors are latched on the outside, making the locks useless. This oddity reinforces that the tower is divine, as it does not need a locked door. We reenact this belief annually during the Pesach seder. Gershom’s tower, rooted in Mishlei rather than Bereishit, represents divine protection in contrast to retribution. For a Jewish printer deeply engaged with Renaissance book art, this choice offered a thoughtful reinterpretation, reclaiming the tower as a symbol of resilience and trust in God’s safeguarding of the Jewish community people.^[13]

The story of the “tower,” whether Bruegel’s collapsing monument or Soncino’s enduring emblem, reminds us how difficult it is to define what makes art “Jewish.” The same image can signify pride or faith, sin or sanctity, depending on the hands and the heart that shape it. Jewish art, then, is not confined to subject or style, but often lives in subtler places — in the design of a page, the mark of a printer, or the choice of a verse. Ultimately, even art speaks in different languages.

Notes: 

1. For background on the creation of the painting see Margaret A. Sullivan, Bruegel and the Creative Process, 1559-1563 (Ashgate: England, 2010), 191-204. For a direct comparison of the painting with the biblical narrative see Ruth Dorot and Edna Langenthal, “Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s The Tower of Babel (1563). From Art to Architecture,” Journal Education Culture and Society, 2, (2023), 380-400. ↑

2. See Diána Kulisz, “The Tower of Babel Motif in the Art of the Low Countries,” in Mesopotamia Kingdom of Gods and Demons, ed. Zoltán Niederreiter, (Budapest: Museum of Fine Arts, 2024), 424-439. ↑
3. See Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, Part II, trans. Israel Abrams, (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1974), 225-226. Abarbenal, however, interprets the section much more in line with Bruegel’s themes. See Nehama Leibowitz, Studies in Bereshit, trans. Aryeh Newman, (Jerusalem: World Zionist Organization), 95-97. ↑
4. See Cassuto, id. at 203. ↑
5. See Karen Britt and Ra’anan Boustan, “Artistic Influences in Synagogue Mosaics: Putting the Huqoq Synagogue in Context,” BAR, May/June 2019, 40-41. They note that these are the only two known examples of synagogue mosaics to depict the Tower of Babel. ↑
6. The Golden Haggadah, Bezalel Narkiss ed. (England, 1996) 24-25; Marc Michael Epstein, The Medieval Haggadah: Art, Narrative & Religious Imagination (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011), 157-158. ↑
7. For a collection of the various sources see M.M. Kasher, Torah Shelemah, vol. 1, 515, no. 60 and 517 no. 73. ↑
8. See Anat Reizel, Introduction to Midrashic Literature, (Tevunot: Alon Shevut, 2011), pp. 105–106. ↑
9. See Mira Friedman, “The Tower of Babel in the Bedford Book of Hours,” in The Old Testament as Inspiration in Culture, Jan Heller, ed. (Trebenice: 2001), 113-114. ↑
10. See generally, A.M. Haberman, Perakim be-Toldoth Hamdpissim ha-Ivrim (Jerusalem: Rubin Mass, 1978),15-101; Moses Marx, “Gershom Soncino’s Wander Years in Italy, 1498-1527” in HUCA XI (1936), reprinted as a stand alone work with many examples of Soncino illustrations, in 1969, by the Society of Jewish Bibliophiles. ↑
11. Abraham Yaari, Hebrew Printers’ Marks: From the Beginning of Hebrew Printing to the End of 19^th Century (Jerusalem: Hebrew University Press, 1943), 4-5, 123-124. Gershom once used a different mark with a tower in the 1505 Fano edition Mashal ha-Kadmoni. Id. 124. ↑
12. Yaari, Printers Marks, 124. ↑
13. Gershom’s prayer may have been tied to a conflict with a Jew who had converted to Christianity. In the end, perhaps because of this conflict, although it remains unclear, Gershom was forced to flee Italy soon after. See Marx, “Wandering Years,” 55-59. ↑