Nebuchadnezzar II

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Cameo of Nebuchadnezzar in the Florence Museum

Nebuchadnezzar II (635 BC-vr. 607 BC-r. 605 BC-562 BC) (Nabu-Kudduri-Usur Nebo, Protect My Eldest Son or Nebo, Protect the Border), or "Nebuchadnezzar the Great," was King of the Chaldeans and Emperor of the Babylonian Empire. He it was who finally conquered the Southern Kingdom of Israel, called "Judah." He was the first of many heads-of-state of foreign superpowers to come to a possibly salvific knowledge of God.

The prophet Jeremiah spelled his name "Nebuchadrezzar," and at least one more modern leader (see below) has used that variant spelling. The Septuagint spells his name as Ναβουχοδονοσορ (Nabouchodonosor).

Early Life

Different sources variously report the year of Nebuchadnezzar's birth as 630 BC or 635 BC. He was married, or at least betrothed, in 626 BC, to Amyitis, daughter of Astyages, who was the son of Cyaxeres I, King of the Medes. This was part of a military treaty that his father Nabopolassar made with Astyages. This union produced at least one son, named Amal-Marduk or Evil-Merodach, and a daughter, whose name is unrecorded.

Nabopolassar and Astyages attacked the Assyrian empire and reduced its capital of Nineveh to a ruin, as the prophets Isaiah and Nahum had predicted. In addition to the effective destruction of the Assyrian Empire as an independent power, it made Babylon independent once again. Nabopolassar reigned for twenty-one years after this.

The Military Leader

General Staff

In 610 BC, while still quite young, Nebuchadnezzar became a ranking staff officer, probably equivalent to a modern adjutant general. He also actively supervised the restoration of the temple of Marduk, king of the gods in the Babylonian pantheon and the god in charge of the weather.

Viceroy

In 607 BC, Nebuchadnezzar became viceroy of Babylonia and also became a major military theater commander (the equivalent of a Commander-in-chief in the joint-command structure of the United States armed services). The Babylonian Chronicle states that this occurred in the nineteenth year of the reign of Nabopolassar, and backs this with an astronomical reference.

The new viceroy's first mission was to head westward and recapture certain lands near Lebanon, including the western provinces of Syria, from the Egyptians. Three years earlier, Pharaoh Necho II had met and vanquished an Assyrian army at Carchemish (and also met and killed King Josiah of Judah in action.) Nebuchadnezzar met Necho and his forces at Carchemish and routed them. Nebuchadnezzar marched on into Judea, and solidified Babylonian hegemony over the Mediterranean region. Pharaoh Necho would never venture out of Egypt again (II_Kings 24:7 (KJV)).

In 605 BC, which was the fourth year of the reign of King Jehoiakim, Nebuchadnezzar accepted the surrender of Jerusalem and the pledge of vassalage of Jehoiakim. (Daniel 1:1-2 (KJV); see also II_Chronicles 36:6 (KJV)). This is the beginning of the seventy-year exile, or "captivity," of Israel, also called the "desolation."

Lone Reign

On August 15, 605 BC by the Julian calendar, Nabopolassar died. Nebuchadnezzar returned to Babylon as swiftly as he could, to solidify his rule. With him he brought back a great many captives from Judah, Syria, Lebanon (Phoenicia), and Egypt. He left behind a token garrison in the region.

Among his captives were four young men who were probably minor Judean royalty: the prophet Daniel and his three friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. He ordered that each of the four be given a new name; these names were Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego. But upon their arrival in Babylon they presented Nebuchadnezzar with a minor challenge: they refused the rich foods that were the standard Royal diet, because they were not in accord with the dietary strictures of the Torah. Daniel made a bold proposition to the chamberlains in charge of Daniel and his three friends: that he and his three friends would do better on a diet following Levitican precepts than on the Royal diet. The proposition proved true. When Nebuchadnezzar received the four men at court, they proved more intelligent and better able than anyone else present. Nebuchadnezzar allowed them to continue their diet.

Nebuchadnezzar probably at this time ceremonially consummated his marriage to Amyitis, who now would carry the title of "queen." Persistent legend credits him with building a magnificent garden, called the Hanging Gardens of Babylon to this day. The Hanging Gardens were supposed to be a present to Amyitis, who would at least have something to remind her of her girlhood in the hill country of the Medes. A number of written references attest to the Gardens, but all were written after the fact. Archaeologists have never found any artifacts from the Gardens, nor even any record of them contemporary to their alleged building.

In any event, Nebuchadnezzar could confidently ignore his northern frontier, because Amyitis' grandfather Cyaxeres I would prove not only a faithful ally but also a powerful one. James Ussher's Annals of the World says that Cyaxeres had hundreds of Scythians slaughtered at a banquet, an act that sent the rest of them fleeing northward and, apparently, not attempting another invasion of the Middle East. Centuries would pass before their apparent descendants the Russians would again attempt to dictate events in the Middle East.

The Statuary Dream

Main Article: Nebuchadnezzar's Statuary Dream

In the second year of his lone reign (604 BC), Nebuchadnezzar had a strange and troubling dream. In it, Nebuchadnezzar saw a great statute that had a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, abdomen and thighs of bronze, lower legs of iron, and feet of iron mixed with clay. As he was watching this, a great rock struck the statue, ground it into dust, and remained as a tall mountain.

He then summoned his wise men--and at this point, some troublemakers in his administration suggested that he should execute any who presumed to interpret his dream, unless that person could repeat the dream back to the king without his telling him, and then interpret it! When no wise men could be found to recount the dream (they all made excuses), Nebuchadnezzar ordered all wise men to be summarily executed.

Daniel heard about this order and prayed about it--whereupon God revealed to him the details of the dream and its meaning. Daniel sought an audience with the king and described the statue in detail. Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar that he was the head of gold, and proceeded to give Nebuchadnezzar a summary of the future history of the world until what most evangelicals would describe as the Second Coming of Christ. Nebuchadnezzar rewarded Daniel with a high council seat, and with similar high office for Daniel's three friends.

The Fiery Furnace Incident

Main Article: Fiery furnace

A number of years later (neither Ussher nor any other historian gives a firm date for this) Nebuchadnezzar set up a golden statue, either of the god Marduk (which we may infer from his earlier activity in rebuilding Marduk's temple), or an all-gold replica of the statue he had seen in his earlier dream. He then commanded that whosoever would not worship that image would be thrown into a "burning fiery furnace." Daniel was away from the city at the time, but Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were denounced, arrested, and brought before the king. The king, at first incredulous and then uncontrollably furious with their refusal, had the three thrown in--and they walked out alive. Witnesses, furthermore, described a fourth man in the furnace with him--probably Jesus Christ Himself. According to Daniel's own account, Nebuchadnezzar abruptly reversed his policy on the statue--we are not told exactly what he did with it--and decreed that no one in his empire would be allowed to say anything against "the God of Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego" (which were the Babylonian names of the three prisoners).

Rebellion in Judea

Jehoiakim, against the advice of the prophet Jeremiah, rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar in 604 BC. Nebuchadnezzar dealt decisively with this upstart. His campaign did not proceed completely without problems; various sources say that he suffered a setback in his campaign against the Egyptians in 600 BC (or perhaps two years earlier). In any case, in 599 BC, his army recaptured Jerusalem, and his theater commander took Jehoiakim off to prison and apparently executed him and denied him a proper burial. (See Jeremiah 22:18-19 (KJV) and Genesis 36:30 (KJV).) Three months later, Nebuchadnezzar returned personally to Jerusalem to deal with the rebellion of Jehoiakim's son Jehoiachin. Nebuchadnezzar took this man and all his family hostage to Babylon and placed his uncle Zedekiah on the throne in Judah.

Destruction of Jerusalem

Main Article: Fall of Jerusalem

Again, against the advice of the Prophet Jeremiah, Zedekiah himself rebelled after "reigning" for eleven years. Zedekiah had drawn a moral from the actions of Pharaoh Hophra, or Apries, who had attempted another invasion of Lebanon in 594 BC, in which he captured Sidon. Nebuchadnezzar came to Jerusalem again at the head of an army and laid siege to Jerusalem in 590 BC. Aphris tried to raise the siege, but Nebuchadnezzar crushed his army and then returned to Jerusalem, which he eventually captured. Nebuchadnezzar executed Zedekiah's offspring, blinded Zedekiah, tossed him into prison, and sent his chief of staff to burn the city and the Temple of Jerusalem, exactly as Jeremiah predicted. James Ussher reckons this as happening in 588 BC, while Edwin R. Thiele believes it happened in 586 BC.

Further Campaigns

Nebuchadnezzar then laid siege to Tyre beginning in 585 BC. Thirteen years later (572 BC) his troops took the city and sacked it. Nebuchadnezzar also, as he had done earlier at Jerusalem, removed the regnant king and placed a vassal king on the throne instead. A year later, in 570 BC, Nebuchadnezzar completed the conquest of all of Egypt.

Final Years

Bas-relief from the Ishtar Gate

Nebuchadnezzar then returned to Babylon and set about building it into the greatest capital city he could imagine. He might have built the famed Ishtar Gate at this time. The image at the right shows lions, which Nebuchadnezzar had adopted as his symbol.

However, about this time he dreamed of a tree destined to be cut down. Daniel tried to tell him that Nebuchadnezzar himself was that tree, but the king did not listen. Very soon thereafter, Nebuchadnezzar came to suffer the delusion that he was an animal, and to eat grass. (Some secular sources claim that this actually happened to Nabonidus, his second son-in-law.) This extreme humbling was the final lesson Nebuchadnezzar needed to convince him of God's Truth and Power. He held Daniel in the highest esteem until the day of his death, and trusted him implicitly. Daniel includes, as the fourth chapter of his work, Nebuchadnezzar's testimony to his people about his experiences as a lycanthrope.

Nebuchadnezzar died in 562 BC, after reigning forty-five years altogether, including his two-year viceroyship under his father. His son Evil-Merodach reigned in his stead.

Nebuchadnezzar's experiences with God and His servants

Nebuchadnezzar as lycanthrope, by William Blake

Nebuchadnezzar is highly regarded both in the Bible and by secular historians who "rate" the ancient superpower emperors. By all accounts he carved out and built up one of the largest, happiest, wealthiest, most advanced, and most powerful civilizations of his day. But the most remarkable thing about him is that he actually came to profess a belief in God.

Prior to Nebuchadnezzar, God had never seen fit to remove the Davidic dynasty completely from the throne of Judah--though the Northern Kingdom of "Israel" had gone through several different dynasties before Shalmaneser V of Assyria finally conquered Samaria and essentially replaced its population. But Nebuchadnezzar was the first king essentially to replace a Judaean dynasty as its governors--and ironically, Gentile though he was, was the first among them to "measure up" to God's desires.

Nebuchadnezzar in modern culture

In the news

Beginning in 1979, Saddam Hussein, the long-time dictator of the Republic of Iraq, began to propagate the notion that he was a direct lineal descendant of Nebuchadnezzar. He called himself "Nebuchadrezzar III" and had coins struck showing his own likeness and that of Nebuchadnezzar. In these coins the two likenesses are uncannily similar, though Hussein might have had the two likenesses altered to make them similar.

In 1982 Saddam Hussein began to "restore" Babylon. He rebuilt Nebuchadnezzar's palace directly over the site of the old one, using bricks stamped with a message glorifying Saddam himself as the "heir" to Nebuchadnezzar. Archaeologists were aghast. (By one account, the bricks began to crack within ten years.) He created a massive tourist attraction from the ruins of the city. He even created a special unit of his Republican Guards and outfitted it as Nebuchadnezzar might have outfitted his own army, with ancient-looking weapons and uniforms--though whether those weapons and uniforms were authentically similar to Nebuchadnezzar's "government issue" has never been shown.

Saddam Hussein built his grandest palace directly adjacent to his "restored" palace of Nebuchadnezzar. In the ensuing invasion of Iraq by the United States, United States Marines used it as a barracks.

On July 10, 2007, Prof. Michael Jursa University of Vienna, while working at the British Museum, succeeded in translating a cuneiform tablet, dating to the tenth reign of Nebuchadnezzar II, that makes a direct reference to one Nabu-sharrussu-ukin.[1][2] This Nabu-sharrussu-ukin made a payment of an amount of gold that would weigh 0.75 kg today, to the temple of Esangila in Babylon.[3] Nabu-sharrussu-ukin is also none other than the man named by the prophet Jeremiah and variously identified as Nebo-Sarsekim[4] and Sarsechim,[5] one of three ranking generals who were present at the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar.[6]

In fiction

In the motion picture The Matrix, a rebel force builds a hovercraft that they use as a pirate television station. They name their craft after Nebuchadnezzar, on the theory that Nebuchadnezzar had a "great awakening," which they hope to achieve.

Nebuchadnezzar also figures often in Christian fiction, usually in reference to his "statuary dream," the place of Babylon in ancient prophecy, and the alleged place of Babylon in prophecies said to be yet-unfulfilled.

Related References

  1. ↑ Alberge, Dalya. "Museum’s tablet lends new weight to Biblical truth." The Times (London, England, United Kingdom), July 11, 2007. Retrieved July 13, 2007.
  2. ↑ Reynolds, Nigel. "Tiny tablet provides proof for Old Testament." The Daily Telegraph (London, England, United Kingdom), July 13, 2007. Retrieved July 13, 2007.
  3. ↑ Barney, Kevin. "Evidence for the Historical Existence of Nebo-Sarsekim." By Common Consent, July 11, 2007. Retrieved July 13, 2007.
  4. ↑ {[Bible ref|book=Jeremiah|chap=3|verses=3|version=NIV}}
  5. ↑ {[Bible ref|book=Jeremiah|chap=3|verses=3|version=KJV}}
  6. ↑ Mariottini, Claude. "The Book of Jeremiah and A New Archaeological Discovery." Dr. Claude Mariottini - Professor of Old Testament, July 10, 2007. Retrieved July 13, 2007.
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