NEBUCHADNEZZAR nĕb’ ə kəd nĕz ər (נְבֻכַדְנֶאצַּ֖ר, possibly Aram. [or dissimulated] form from Akkad. Nabū-kudurri-usūr—“[the god] Nabu has protected my inheritance.” So Gr. Ναβουχοδονοσόρ. The Akkad. is closely transliterated by Heb. נְבוּכַדְרֶאצַּ֥ר as NEBUCHADREZZAR). King of Babylon, 605-562 b.c.
1. Sources. In addition to 2 Kings 23-25, Jeremiah 22; 32-40; 2 Chronicles 36, Daniel and Ezra, a Babylonian Chronicle (BM 21946) outlines the events of his first eleven regnal years. Otherwise two brief historical inscrs., building texts and some 800 contracts are the only external contemporary sources for this reign.
2. Family. Nebuchadnezzar was the eldest son of Nabopolassar, founder of the Chaldean or Neo-Babylonian dynasty of Babylon. He married Nitocris whose daughter may have married a son Nabonidus, who eventually succeeded him on the throne. He also married Amytis (Amuhia), daughter of Astyages, king of the Medes, possibly as part of the ratification of a political alliance. He had at least three sons, Amēl-Marduk (Evil-Merodach) who immediately succeeded him, Marduk-šum-uṩur and Marduk-šum-lišir. His brother was Nabu-šuma-lišir.
3. History. Crown prince Nebuchadnezzar personally led the Babylonian army in the place of his aging father into the northeastern mountains in 607 b.c. and again, two years later, when the Babylonians revenged their defeat by the Egyptians at Kimuḫu through the capture of Carchemish after bloody hand-to-hand fighting in the city in late spring 605 b.c. He pursued the stragglers as far as Hamath so that “not a single man escaped to his own country.” “At that time,” he recorded, “he conquered the whole area of Hatti” (i.e. Syro-Pal.), and penetrated to the Egyp. border to prevent further encroachment from that source (2 Kings 24:7; Jos. Antiq. X. 6. 1, 2). At this time Daniel and his companions were prob. dispatched as hostages. The only evidence that the Babylonians entered Judah itself in this year is Daniel 1:1, which might equally be interpreted as applying to the events of the following year. Nebuchadnezzar established himself at Riblah or Kadesh where he learned of the death of his father on the eighth of Ab (15/16 August 605 b.c.). With a few close friends he rode directly across the desert in twenty-three days to take the throne of Babylon on the first day of Elul (6/7 September 605) and be recognized as king throughout the land. His position was strong enough for him to resume his campaign in Syria almost at once and to stay in the field until February of the following year. It was prob. during this campaign in which he claimed to have received tribute from “all the kings of Hatti” that Jehoiakim of Judah submitted to him and began a vassalage which was to last for three years (2 Kings 24:1). Ashkelon, which refused to bow to the Babylonians, was sacked, and taken as a dire warning by Jeremiah of the effect of rebellion (Jer 47:5-7). In the following years Nebuchadnezzar besieged an unnamed city in Syria and mastered some event at home which appears to have involved his younger brother Nabu-šuma-lišir.
In 601 b.c. the Babylonians clashed in open battle with the Egyptians under Necho II. Since Nebuchadnezzar had to spend the next year reequipping his army it must be judged that Babylonian prestige fell sufficiently at this time for Jehoiakim to feel it safe to revolt despite the prophet’s warnings (Jer 27:4-11; 2 Kings 23:33-35). But once again the Babylonian army was on the march in a campaign begun in December 599 to exact the annual tribute from the Syrian city-states and to raid the restless Arab tribes who were controlled by the removal of their deities. Echoes of this expedition against Qedar and the E Jordan area are found in Jeremiah 48; 49:28-33. The way was now open for direct reprisals on rebellious Judah (2 Chron 36:6). Nebuchadnezzar chronicled that “in his seventh year, the month of Kislev, the Babylonian king mustered his troops and marched to the Hatti-land. He encamped against the city of Judah (Jerusalem) and on the second day of the month of Adar he seized the city and captured the king. He appointed there a king of his own choice, received its heavy tribute and sent (them) to Babylon.” This text gives the exact date for this capture of Jerusalem and for the beginning of the exile as 16 March 597 b.c. The capture of Jehoiachin, son and successor of Jehoiakim, is confirmed by ration tablets from Babylon which name him together with Judaeans, and others from Pal., dated in various years of this reign (596-569 b.c.). The replacement of Jehoiachin by a Babylonian nominee Mattaniah-Zedekiah accords with the history of 2 Kings 24:10-17 and the removal of the Temple vessels (2 Chron 36:7; Ezra 6:5). The exiles were moved off about April 597; that is, “in the spring of the year” (2 Chron 36:10), at the beginning of Nebuchadnezzar’s eighth regnal year (2 Kings 24:12). In the next year the Babylonians were once more in Syro-Pal. and thereafter suppressed a revolt instigated by Elam (Jer 49:34).
In 589 Zedekiah rebelled, once again trusting in Egyp. promises of aid. The countryside throughout Judah was ravaged, Lachish sacked, and Tyre besieged for what was to be thirteen years (c. 587-574 b.c.; Ezek 29:18). In 587 Jerusalem fell and the Temple was demolished. Further deportees were carried off to Babylon. Nevertheless, resistance was strong enough to require further operations against the Arabs and the remnant of Judah in 582 and yet another deportation (Jer 52:30). Historical sources are lacking for the last years of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, though one fragmentary text implies an invasion of Egypt in 568/7 b.c. (as Jer 43:8-13; Ezek 29:19). Since Herodotus calls both Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus by the same name of Labynetus, it is not yet clear which of them acted as mediator between the Lydians and Medes at the Halys River. That it was Nebuchadnezzar himself is possible, for he had marriage ties with Astyages and as yet the Medes were not in a position to dominate the W. Absence of contemporary texts means that there is no direct reference to his death in August-September 562 b.c. This might have been preceded by lycanthropy, the madness which lasted for seven months (or “times,” Dan 4:23-33). Nothing so far known of the retreat of Nabonidus to Teima’ supports the view that this episode is a confused account of events in the latter’s reign.
4. Religion. In his inscrs. Nebuchadnezzar invokes the major Babylonian pantheon and recorded his devotion to the gods Marduk, Nabu, Shamash, Sin, Gula and Adad among others. At the principal shrines he furnished regular offerings of meat, fish, grain and drink. Like his predecessors he claims to have had an image of his royal figure set up in the “plain of Dura” as a reminder of his power and responsibilities (cf. Dan 3:1).
5. Building. Nebuchadnezzar’s boast as a citybuilder and planner is not hollow (Dan 4:30). He extended Babylon by building a new quarter and palace for his own use. Within the citadel he rebuilt the sacred Procession Way decorated with 120 flanking lions passant leading from the Ishtar gate, itself adorned with enameled brickwork depicting 575 dragons and bulls, almost a mile to the temples of Esagila of Marduk and Ezida of Nabu. These lay at the foot of the ziggurat or temple-tower of Babylon called Etemenanki, “the House which is the foundation of Heaven and earth.” The base, constructed of kiln baked brickwork around a mud-brick core, measured c. 130 yards square rising with seven stories topped by a small temple to an estimated height of about 300 ft. Near the Ishtar Gate he built the Temple of Ninmah (recently reconstructed). Tradition also ascribes to him the “Hanging Gardens” said to have been created on terraces overlooking the palace to remind his wife of her native Media (Jos. Apion 1. 19; Jos. Antiq. X. 11. 1). The vast city was given a series of double defense walls covering seventeen m. and further safeguarded to the SW by an immense artificial lake. The city was supplied by canals bringing water from the River Tigris, while the River Euphrates, which bisected it, was spanned with bridges. All these building activities, which extended to other cities to the N and S, were marked by inscribed and stamped bricks. While the survival of these buildings at least until the time of Xerxes did much to insure the later fame of Nebuchadrezzar, it is noteworthy that he himself had prob. taken the throne-name from an illustrious predecessor who had successfully freed Babylonia from the domination of Assyria and Elam (1124-1103 b.c.). Two later usurpers, Nebuchadnezzar III (Nidintu-Bel) in the time of Darius I ruled October-December 522 and Nebuchadnezzar IV (Araka) from Augu st to October 521 b.c.
Bibliography S. H. Langdon, Die neubabylonischen Königsinschriften (1912), 18-45; D. J. Wiseman, Chronicles of Chaldaean Kings (626-556 b.c.) in the British Museum (1956), 18, 37; 64-75; A. Malamat, “A New Record of Nebuchadrezzar’s Palestinian Campaigns,” IEJ, VI (1956), 246-256.