11/30/23
Babylon:
Scripture represents the “beginning of the kingdom” of Babylon as belonging to the time of Nimrod, the grandson of Ham, Genesis 10:6-10.
Babylon or Babylonia was the name given in ancient times to the flat country about the lower course of the Euphrates. In the OLD TESTAMENT, it is called Shinar, Babel, and also “land of the Chaldees,” and by the later Greek and Roman writers, Chaldea. During the broader extension of the Babylonian dominion, the name also comprehended Assyria and Mesopotamia. The country forms a perfect plain, which is a continuation of that of Assyria. The two rivers, Euphrates and Tigris, approach each other until their waters fall into the Persian Gulf.
For centuries, the early history of Babylon was doubtful and, for the most part, unknown. The only sources were a few incidentals mentioned in the Bible and from the writings of Berosus, a Babylonian priest who had translated the annuals of his country into Greek. Also, the Greek writer Herodotus. As time passed, archeologists uncovered many brick tablets stamped with cuneiform characters. The bricks found in the ruins of the great cities that once stood on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates spoke of events some 3000 years before the Christian era, restoring to us a page of history that had been lost.
Every day, archeology is bringing to light new evidence of the influence of the people upon the civilization of the Semitic nations and, through them, upon that of Europe. Every large city had its library. In the royal library of a Babylonian monarch, Sargon (about 200 B.C.), every tablet was numbered, so the reader only had to write down the number of the tablet he wanted, and it would be handed to him by the librarian. Among them, there were found hymns to the gods similar to the Hebrew psalms, and in a long mythological poem, there is an episode giving an account of the Deluge somewhat identical to that of Genesis.
The Accadians were great in magic, and the Greek Magos, meaning magician, is derived from an Accadian word equivalent to “reverend.”
The city of Babylon was not the first seat of power. The records discovered of a monarch whose capital was Ur, the place of Abram’s (Abraham’s) birth, and the source of the monarch’s wealth found in the ruins of the temple of the sun god built by him. It has been calculated that thirty million bricks were used in its construction. Centuries would pass before an Elamite conqueror named Cudar-mabug extended his sovereignty over Israel. Eventually, the seat of power was fixed at Babylon, and the Semitic tongue began to supersede the Accadian.
In time, the country’s Northern division was founded by colonists from the south. In time, it grew into the independent kingdom of Assyria, and in the 14th century B.C., an Assyrian monarch captured Babylon. From that time, the position of the southern state became more and more subordinate to the northern and finally sank into the province of Babylonia. However, it was not always a submissive vassal.
Under the leadership of Chaldean chiefs, many attempts for independence took place. The Chaldeans were first heard of in the ninth century before Christ as a small Accadian tribe on the Persian Gulf, but they became so prominent in these struggles that they later gave their name to the whole province of Babylonia and came to be styled Chaldea. The name of one of these Chaldean chiefs, Merodach-Baladan, occurs both in Scripture and in the inscriptions. From the former, we know that this king sent a message to Hezekiah, king of Judah, ostensibly to inquire about his recovery, probably with a view to an alliance against Assyria. From the latter, Merodach was expelled by Sargon, the king of Assyria, who made several attempts to recover his throne but was eventually dethroned again by Sennacherib.
The Babylonian king’s line becomes known to us from 747 B.C. The “Canon of Ptolemy” gives us the succession of Babylonian monarchs, with the exact length of each reign.
The complete subjection of Babylon to Assyria at this time, 680 B.C., is proved also from the Scripture account, which states that Esarhaddon, son of Sennacherib, reigned in Babylon. About 50 years later, Nabopolassar, governor of Babylon for the Assyrian king, proved faithless to his trust. He would ally with the Median king, Cyaxares, to overthrow the ruling state. This undertaking was successful, and Babylon in 625 B.C. became, for a short time, an independent and conquering power. The son of Nabopolassar, Nebuchadnezzar 2ed, defeated the Egyptian king, Necho, at the battle of Carchemish, annihilating the Egyptian dominion in Asia, compared with 2 Kings. 24:7
Upon the death of Nebuchadnezzar’s father, Nebuchadnezzar was acknowledged king in 605 B.C. He then subdued Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and in consequence of repeated revolts, destroyed Jerusalem and ended the kingdom of Judah under Zedekiah in 588 B.C., who carried the inhabitant’s captive to Babylon. He died in 561 B.C., having reigned for 43 years, then succeeded by Evil-Merodach, who held the crown for two years and then was murdered. The crown was then passed on to Neriglissar, his brother-in-law. Evil-Merodach, Neriglissar, the Nerigassolassar of the Scriptures is (apparently identical with the “Nergal-shar-ezer, Rab-Mag” of Jeremiah 34:3, 13.
Neriglissar built the palace in Babylon, initially on the right bank of the river. Neriglissar reigned for four years and left the crown to his son Laborosoarchod, who reigned for nine months and then became a victim of a conspiracy. Nabonidus, one of the conspirators, succeeded in the year 555 B.C. As head of his army, Nabonidus left his son Belshazzar to command the city.
Belshazzar guarded the city but, during a festival, allowed the enemy to enter the town by the river channel. Belshazzar was defeated and forced to shut himself up in Borippas till the fall of Babylon. Babylon was thus taken by surprise, as Jeremiah had prophesied Jeremiah 51:31 by an army of Medes and Persians, as written 170 years earlier by Isaiah 21:1-9. Jeremiah 51:39. In the carnage which ensued upon the taking of the city, Belshazzar was slain, Daniel 5:30.
According to the book of Daniel, it would seem as if Babylon was taken, not by Cyrus, king of Persia, but by a Median king, named Darius, Danial 5:31. It’s indicated that “Darius the Mede” was not the real conqueror. Still, a monarch with a specific delegated authority, Daniel 5:31, 9:1. With the conquest by Cyrus commenced the decay and rule of Babylon. However, it continued as a royal residence throughout the entire period of the Persian Empire.
After the death of Alexander, the Great, who died in that city in 323 B.C., the removal of the seat of the empire to Antioch under the Seleucidae gave the finishing blow to the place’s prosperity. It came into the hands of the Romans only temporarily, first under Trajan 114 B.C. under Septimius Severus in 199 A.D. and again under Julian 363 A.D. In 650 A.D., the successors of Mohammed ended the new Persian monarchy of the Sassanides, the province of Babylon, where Bagdad was built in 762-766 and became the seat of the Califs till 1258. In 1638, the Turks, for the second time, took it from the Persians; it has been under the dominion of Turkey, divided into the pashaliks (meaning it was turned over to a Turkish viceroy, governor, or commander) of Bagdad and Basra.
War and turmoil have fallen upon this place up until this day. This great city, the beauty of the Chaldees’ Excellency, had emphatically “become heaps Jeremiah 51:37. Her walls have altogether disappeared; they have “fallen” Jeremiah 51:44. Been “thrown down” Jeremiah 50:15, been “utterly broken.”
Jeremiah 51:58. “A drought is upon her waters: Jeremiah 50:39; for the system of irrigation in Babylonia, fertility dependence had been laid aside; “her cities” are everywhere “a desolation.”
Jeremiah 51:43; her “Land a wilderness,” “Wild beasts of the desert” (Jackals), “Lie there,” and “Owls’ dwell there.” The native people regarded it as a site haunted, and neither did the “Arab pitch tent, not the shepherd fold sheep there:” Isaiah 13:20.
“O Lord, thou hast spoken against this place, to cut it off, that none shall remain in it, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate forever. And it shall be, when thou hast made an end of reading this book, that thou shalt bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of Euphrates: And thou shalt say, thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil that I will bring upon her: and they shall be weary, thus far are the words of Jeremiah.”
Phil LaSpino www.seekfirstwisdom.com