Place · Region
Shinar
Named in 8 verses across 5 books, first in Zechariah 5:11.
In these stories
In the Bible
All 1 verse in Zechariah, in Bible order. Text from the Berean Standard Bible; verse numbers follow the KJV.
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 BCNimrod's kingdom begins
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.