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Place · Region

Shinar

Named in 8 verses across 5 books, first in Genesis 10:10.

In these stories

Daniel and his friends in Babylon

In the Bible

All 8 verses, in Bible order. Text from the Berean Standard Bible; verse numbers follow the KJV.

Genesis

Genesis 10:10
His kingdom began in Babylon, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.
Genesis 11:2
And as people journeyed eastward, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
Genesis 14:1
In those days Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of Goiim
Genesis 14:9
against Chedorlaomer king of Elam, Tidal king of Goiim, Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar—four kings against five.

Joshua

Joshua 7:21
When I saw among the spoils a beautiful cloak from Shinar, two hundred shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. They are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath.”

Isaiah

Isaiah 11:11
On that day the Lord will extend His hand a second time to recover the remnant of His people from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.

Daniel

Daniel 1:2
And the Lord delivered into his hand Jehoiakim king of Judah, along with some of the articles from the house of God. He carried these off to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, where he put them in the treasury of his god.

Zechariah

Zechariah 5:11
“To build a house for it in the land of Shinar,” he told me. “And when it is ready, the basket will be set there on its pedestal.”

Events here

Events the dataset sets at Shinar. Dates follow its Ussher–Jones reckoning (one of several traditional counts), not established history.

c. 1822 BC
Nimrod's kingdom beginsGenesis 10:8–12

Dictionary

From Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897), as attached to this record by Theographic. Its geography and “modern” descriptions date from the 1890s. Easton wrote in 1897, and some of his views are now debated.

Read Easton’s entry

LXX. and Vulgate “Senaar;” in the inscriptions, “Shumir;” probably identical with Babylonia or Southern Mesopotamia, extending almost to the Persian Gulf. Here the tower of Babel was built (Gen. 11:1-6), and the city of Babylon. The name occurs later in Jewish history (Isa. 11:11; Zech. 5:11). Shinar was apparently first peopled by Turanian tribes, who tilled the land and made bricks and built cities. Then tribes of Semites invaded the land and settled in it, and became its rulers. This was followed in course of time by an Elamite invasion; from which the land was finally delivered by Khammurabi, the son of Amarpel (“Amraphel, king of Shinar,” Gen. 14:1), who became the founder of the new empire of Chaldea.