[the tower’s] head shall be in the heavens. Did they really think they could raise a structure high enough to gain access to God’s dwelling place? In this early period, perhaps they did; perhaps they did not. It is possible this way of stating their grandiose intentions was merely hyperbole; Deut 1:28, for example, speaks of cities fortified to the heavens (baššāmayim, the same phrase used here), and it clearly is intended as hyperbole there. Even if, as we probably should, we read it as hyperbole,