THE LAND OF SHINAR.

The name Shinar occurs 8 times in the Hebrew Bible: Genesis 10:10; 11:2; 14:1,9; Isaiah 11:11; Daniel 1:2; and Zechariah 5:11. In addition, Achan, in Joshua 7:21, sinned in taking a beautiful Shinarish garment from the forbidden loot in the destruction of Ai.
The four Genesis verses all refer to 'Shinar' as the 'place where the Tower of Babel was built. The meaning of the name 'Babel,' is defined right in the Genesis passage as 'confound' (11:9).
Isaiah 11:11 is a reference to the gathering of the children of Israel from far places; and Zechariah 5:11 sees a vision, in which an angel tells him that a House for the 'ephah' will be built in the 'land of Shinar.'
The Daniel reference to Shinar is when Nebuchadnezzar took part of the vessels of the House of God from Jerusalem and carried them into 'Shinar to the house of his god,' the one in whose honor he was named, 'Nabu,' also spelled 'Nebo,'
The Bible describes two different expeditions to Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, the first one took place in the 3rd year of Jehoiakim's reign in Judah (Daniel 1:1), and the second took place after Jehoiakim had reigned for 11 years (2 Chronicles 36:5). There was also a third plundering trip to Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, as detailed in 2 Kings 24:13, when Jehoiachin was king. This time Nebuchadnezzar gathered up everything that he had missed previously, from both the temple and the king's palace. In addition to more vessels, this lot included the pillars, sea, and bases that Solomon had made for the temple, that Jeremiah 27:19 tells about.
We hear about all those temple vessels later on when Belshazzar gave a great banquet in the city of Babylon and commanded that they be brought out for his guests to drink from (Daniel 5:2-3).
The ancient name 'Shinar' in a simply Semitic language means 'two rivers,' closely related to the Greek 'Mesopotamia.' The ancient name was given to the great alluvial tract which the Tigris and Euphrates pass before reaching the sea. The tract was known in later times as 'Chaldea' or 'Babylonia.'
In the Book of Genesis 10:10 the beginning of Nimrod's kingdom is said to have been Babel, Akkad, Erech, and Calneh in the 'land of Shinar.'
According to Genesis 11:2, 9 Shinar is parallel to Babel, and states that 'Shinar' enclosed the plain that became the site of the Tower of Babel after the Great Flood.
After the biblical Flood of Genesis 7-8, Noah and his family came out of the Ark in the mountains of Ararat to start new lives in a very strange world. Genesis 11: 1-2 says that the whole earth had only one language and 'few words.' And as men migrated from the East, they found a 'plain' in the 'land of Shinar', opposite to the East, and settled there. All appear to indicate that the Ark and "Shinar' were East-West of each other.
In Shinar they rebelled against God and set out to build a city and tower to make a 'name' for themselves and keep from scattering. There, two of the greatest of ancient empires, Assyria and Babylon, were centered.
In Zechariah 5:11 Shinar is Babel, where Nimrod first built his great empire based upon idolatrous covetousness, thence to become the earth's 'mother of harlots.'