Nebuchadnezzar

VIEW:47 DATA:01-04-2020

tears and groans of judgment
(same as Nebuchadrezzar)
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary


NEBUCHADNEZZAR.—See next article.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909

In the monuments Nabu-juduri-utsur, the middle syllable being the same as Kudur or Chedor-laomer. Explained by Gesenius "the prince favored by Nebo"; Oppert, "Nebo, kadr ("power"), and zar ("prince")"; Rawlinson, "Nebo his protector (participle from naatsar "protect") against misfortune" (kidor "trouble".) His father Nabo-polassar having overthrown Nineveh, Babylon became supreme. Married his father's Median ally, Cyaxares' daughter, Amuhia, at the time of their alliance against Assyria 625 B.C. (Abydenus in Eusebius, Chronicles Can., i. 9). Possibly is the Labynetus (Herodotus i. 74) who led the Babylonian force under Cyaxares in his Lydian war and whose interposition at the eclipse (610 B.C.) concluded the campaign. Sent by Nabopolassar to punish Pharaoh Necho, the conqueror of Josiah at Megiddo. Defeated Necho at Carchemish (605 B.C.) and wrested from him all the territory from Euphrates to Egypt (Jer_46:2; Jer_46:12; 2Ki_24:7) which he had held for three years, so that "he came not again any more out of his land."
Became master of Coelo-Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine. Took Jerusalem in the third year of Jehoiakim, and "carried into the land of Shinar, to the house of his god (Merodach), part of the vessels of the house of God" (Dan_1:1-2; 2Ch_36:6). Daniel and the three children of the royal seed were at that time taken to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar mounted the throne 604 B.C., having rapidly re-crossed the desert with his light troops and reached Babylon before any disturbance could take place. He brought with him Jehovah's vessels and the Jewish captives. The fourth year of Jehoiakim coincided with the first of Nebuchadnezzar (Jer_25:1). In the earlier part of the (year Nebuchadnezzar smote Necho at Carchemish, Jer_46:2). The deportation from Jerusalem was shortly before, namely, in the end of Jehoiakim's third year; with it begins the Babylonian captivity, 605 B.C. (Jer_29:1-10). Jehoiakim after three years of vassalage revolted, in reliance on Egypt (2Ki_24:1). Nebuchadnezzar sent bands of Chaldees, Syrians, Moabites, and Ammonites against him (2Ki_24:2).
Next, Phoenicia revolted. Then in person Nebuchadnezzar marched against Tyre. In the seventh year of his reign he marched thence against Jerusalem; it surrendered, and Jehoiakim fell, probably in battle. Josephus says Nebuchadnezzar put him to death (Ant. 10:6 section 3). (See JEHOIAKIM.) Jehoiakim after a three months' reign was carried away to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar with the princes, warriors, and craftsmen, and the palace treasures, and Solomon's gold vessels cut in pieces, at his third advance against Jerusalem (2Ki_24:8-16). Tyre fell 585 B.C., after a 13 years' siege. Meantime Zedekiah, Nebuchadnezzar's sworn vassal, in treaty with Pharaoh Hophra (Apries) revolted (Eze_17:15). Nebuchadnezzar besieged him 588-586 B.C., and in spite of a temporary raising of the siege through Hophra (Jer_37:5-8) took and destroyed Jerusalem after an 18 months' siege (2 Kings 25). Zedekiah's eyes were put out after he had seen his sons slain first at Riblah, where Nebuchadnezzar "gave judgment upon him," and was kept a prisoner in Babylon the rest of his life. (See GEDALIAH; NEBUZARADAN; JERUSALEM.)
Phoenicia submitted to him (Ezekiel 26-28; Josephus, Ap. 1:21), and Egypt was punished (Jer_46:13-26; Eze_29:2-10, Josephus, Ant. 10:9, section 7). Nebuchadnezzar is most celebrated for his buildings: the temple of Bel Merodach at Babylon (the Kasr), built with his Syrian spoils (Josephus, Ant. 10:11, section 1); the fortifications of Babylon, three lines of walls 80 ft. broad, 300 ft. high, enclosing 130 square miles; a new palace near his father's which he finished in 15 days, attached to it were his "hanging gardens," a square 400 ft. on each side and 75 ft. high, supported on arched galleries increasing in height from the base to the summit; in these were chambers, one containing the engines for raising the water to the mound; immense stones imitated the surface of the Median mountain, to remind his wife of her native land. The standard inscription ("I completely made strong the defenses of Babylon, may it last forever ... the city which I have glorified," etc.) accords with Berosus' statement, and nine-tenths of the bricks in situ are stamped with Nebuchadnezzar's name.
Daniel (Dan_4:30) also records his boast, "is not this great Babylon which I have built by the might of my power and for the honour of my majesty?" Sir H. Rawlinson (Inscr. Assyr. and Babyl., 76-77) states that the bricks of 100 different towns about Bagdad all bear the one inscription, "Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabopolassar, king of Babylon." Abydenus states Nebuchadnezzar made the nahr malcha, "royal river," a branch from the Euphrates, and the Acracanus; also the reservoir above the city Sippara, 90 miles round and 120 ft. deep, with sluices to irrigate the low land; also a quay on the Persian gulf, and the city Teredon on the Arabian border. The network of irrigation by canals between the Tigris and Euphrates, and on the right bank of the Euphrates to the stony desert, was his work; also the canal still traceable from Hit at the Euphrates, framing 400 miles S.E. to the bay of Grane in the Persian gulf. His system of irrigation made Babylonia a garden, enriching at once the people and himself.
The long list of various officers in Dan_3:1-3; Dan_3:27, also of diviners forming a hierarchy (Dan_2:48), shows the extent of the organization of the empire, so that the emblem of so vast a polity is "a tree ... the height reaching unto heaven, and the sight to the end of all the earth ... in which was meat for all, under which the beasts ... had shadow and the fowls dwelt in the boughs and all flesh was fed of it" (Dan_4:10-12). In Dan_2:37 he is called "king of kings," i.e. of the various kingdoms wheresoever he turned his arms, Egypt, Nineveh, Arabia, Phoenicia, Tyre. Isaiah's patriotism was shown in counseling resistance to Assyria; Jeremiah's (Jeremiah 27) in urging submission to Babylon as the only safety; for God promised Judah's deliverance from the former, but "gave all the lands into Nebuchadnezzar's hands, and the beasts of the field also, to serve him and his son and his son's son."
The kingdom originally given to Adam (Gen_1:28; Gen_2:19-20), forfeited by sin, God temporarily delegated to Nebuchadnezzar, the "head of gold," the first of the four great world powers (Daniel 2 and Daniel 7). As Nebuchadnezzar and the other three abused the trust, for self not, for God, the Son of Man, the Fifth, to whom of right it belongs, shall wrest it from them and restore to man his lost inheritance, ruling with the saints for God's glory and man's blessedness (Psa_8:4-6; Rev_11:15-18; Dan_2:34-35; Dan_2:44-45; Dan_7:13-27). Nebuchadnezzar was punished with the form of insanity called lycanthropy (fancying himself to be a beast and living in their haunts) for pride generated by his great conquest and buildings (Daniel 4). When man would be as God, like Adam and Nebuchadnezzar he sinks from lordship over creation to the brute level and loses his true manhood, which is likeness to God (Gen_1:27; Gen_2:19; Gen_3:5; Psa_49:6; Psa_49:10-12; Psa_82:6-7); a key to the symbolism which represents the mighty world kingdoms as "beasts" (Daniel 7).
Angel "watchers" demand that every mortal be humbled whosoever would obscure God's glory. Abydenus (268 B.C.) states: "Nebuchadnezzar having ascended upon his palace roof predicted the Persian conquest of Babylon (which he knew from Dan_2:39), praying that the conqueror might be borne where there is no path of men and where the wild beasts graze"; a corruption of the true story and confirming it. The panorama of the world's glory that overcame Nebuchadnezzar through the lust of the eye, as he stood on his palace roof, Satan tried upon Jesus in vain (Mat_4:8-10). In the standard inscription Nebuchadnezzar says, "for four years in Babylon buildings for the honour of my kingdom I did not lay out. In the worship of Merodach my lord I did not sing his praises, I did not furnish his altar with victims, nor clear out the canals" (Rawlinson, Herodotus, ii. 586). It was "while the word was in the king's mouth there fell a voice from heaven ... thy kingdom is departed from thee" (compare Herod, Act_12:19-20).
His nobles cooperated in his being "driven from men" (Dan_4:33); these same "counselors and lords sought unto him," weary of anarchy after the "seven times," i.e. a complete sacred cycle of time, a week of years, had passed over him, and with the glimmer of reason left he "lifted up his eyes unto heaven," instead of beast like turning his eyes downward (compare Jon_2:1-2; Jon_2:4), and turned to Him that smote him (Isa_9:13), and "honoured Him" whom before he had robbed of His due honour. Psa_116:12; Psa_116:14; Mar_5:15; Mar_5:18-19; compare on the spiritual lesson Job_33:17-18; 1Sa_2:8; Pro_16:18. Messiah's kingdom alone will be the "tree" under whose shadow all nations, and even the dumb creatures, shall dwell in blissful harmony (Eze_17:23; Mat_13:32; Isa_11:6-9). Nitocris was probably his second queen, an Egyptian (for this ancient name was revived about this time, as the Egyptian monuments prove), for he lived 60 years after his marriage to his first queen Amuhia (625 B.C.).
Herodotus ascribes to Nitocris many of the works assigned by Berosus to Nebuchadnezzar. On his recovery, according to the standard inscription, which confirms Scripture, he added "wonders" in old age to those of his earlier reign. He died 561 B.C., 83 or 84 years old, after reigning 43 years. Devotion to the gods, especially Bel Merodach, from whom he named his son and successor Evil Merodach, and the desire to rest his fame on his great works and the arts of peace rather than his warlike deeds, are his favorable characteristics in the monuments. Pride, violence and fury, and cruel sternness, were Nebuchadnezzar's faults (Dan_2:12; Dan_3:19; 2Ki_25:7; 2Ki_24:8). Not to Daniel but to Nebuchadnezzar, the first representative head of the world power who overcame the theocracy, the dreams were given announcing its doom.
The dream was the appropriate form for one outside the kingdom of God, as Nebuchadnezzar and Pharaoh (Genesis 41). But an Israelite must interpret it; and Nebuchadnezzar worshipped Daniel, an earnest of the future prostration of the world power before Christ and the church (Rev_3:9; 1Co_14:25; Php_2:10; 1Co_6:2; Luk_19:17). The image set up by Nebuchadnezzar represented himself the head of the first world power, of whom Daniel had said "thou art this head of gold." Daniel was regarded by Nebuchadnezzar as divine, and so was not asked to worship it (Dan_2:46). The 60 cubits' height includes together the image, 27 cubits (40 1/2 ft.), and the pedestal, 33 cubits (50 ft.). Herodotus, i. 183, similarly mentions Belus' image in the temple at Babylon as 40 ft. high. Oppert found in the Dura (Dowair) plain the pedestal of what must have been a colossal statue. Nebuchadnezzar is the forerunner of antichrist, to whose "image" whosoever will not offer worship shall be killed (Rev_13:14).
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.

Nebuchadnez'zar. (may Nebo protect the crown). Nebuchadnezzar was the greatest and most powerful of the Babylonian kings. His name is explained to mean, "Nebo is the protector against misfortune". He was the son and successor of Nabopolassar, the founder of the Babylonian empire. In the lifetime of his father, Nebuchadnezzar led an army against Pharaoh-necho, king of Egypt, defeated him at Carchemish, B.C. 605, in a great battle, Jer_46:2-12, recovered Coele-Syria, Phoenicia and Palestine, took Jerusalem, Dan_1:1-2, pressed forward to Egypt, and was engaged in that country, or upon its borders, when intelligence arrived, which recalled him hastily to Babylon.
Nabopolassar, after reigning twenty-one years, had died and the throne was vacant. In alarm about the succession, Nebuchadnezzar returned to the capital, accompanied only by his light troops; and crossing the desert, probably, by way of Tadmor or Palmyra, reached Babylon, before any disturbance had arisen, and entered peaceably on his kingdom, B.C. 604.
Within three years of Nebuchadnezzar's first expedition into Syria and Palestine, disaffection again showed itself in those countries. Jehoiakim, who, although threatened at first with captivity, 2Ch_36:6, had been finally maintained on the throne, as a Babylonian vassal, after three years of service, "turned and rebelled," against his suzerain, probably trusting, to be supported by Egypt. 2Ki_24:1.
Not long afterward, Phoenicia seems to have broken into revolt, and the Chaldean monarch once more took the field in person, and marched first of all, against Tyre. Having invested that city, and left a portion of his army there to continue the siege, he proceeded against Jerusalem, which submitted without a struggle.
According to Josephus, who is here our chief authority, Nebuchadnezzar punished Jehoiakim with death, compare Jer_23:18-19 and Jer_36:30, but placed his son, Jehoiachin, upon the throne. Jehoiachin reigned only three months; for, on his showing symptoms of disaffection, Nebuchadnezzar came up against Jerusalem for the third time, deposed the son's prince, whom he carried to Babylon, together with a large portion of the population of the city, and the chief of the Temple treasures, and made his uncle, Zedekiah, king in his room.
Tyre still held out; and it was not till the thirteenth year, from the time of its first investment, that the city of merchants fell, B.C. 585. Ere this happened, Jerusalem had been totally destroyed. Nebuchadnezzar had commenced the final siege of Jerusalem, in the ninth year of Zedekiah ? his own seventeenth year, (B.C. 588) ? and took it two years later, B.C. 586.
Zedekiah escaped from the city, but was captured near Jericho, Jer_39:5, and brought to Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah, in the territory of Hamath, where his eyes were put out by the king's order, while his sons and his chief nobles were slain. Nebuchadnezzar then returned to Babylon with Zedekiah, whom he imprisoned for the remainder of his life.
The military successes of Nebuchadnezzar cannot be traced minutely beyond this point. It may be gathered from the prophetical Scriptures, and from Josephus, that the conquest of Jerusalem was rapidly followed by the fall of Tyre, and the complete submission of Phoenicia, Ezekiel 26-28, after which the Babylonians carried their arms into Egypt, and inflicted severe injuries on that fertile country. Jer_46:13-26; Eze_23:2-20.
We are told that the first care of Nebuchadnezzar, on obtaining quiet possession of his kingdom, after the first Syrian expedition, was to rebuild the temple of Bel, (Bel-Merodach), at Babylon, out of the spoils of the Syrian war. The next, proceeded to strengthen and beautify the city, which he renovated throughout and surrounded, with several lines of fortifications, himself adding one entirely new quarter.
Having finished the walls and adorned the gates magnificently, he constructed a new palace. In the grounds of this palace, he formed the celebrated "hanging garden," which the Greeks placed among the seven wonders of the world.
But he did not confine his efforts to the ornamentation and improvement of his capital. Throughout the empire at Borsippa, Sippara, Cutha, Chilmad, Duraba, Teredon, and a multitude of other places, he built or rebuilt cities, repaired temples, constructed quays, reservoirs, canals and aqueducts, on a scale of grandeur and magnificence surpassing everything of the kind recorded in history unless it be the constructions of one or two of the greatest Egyptian monarchs.
The wealth, greatness and general prosperity of Nebuchadnezzar are strikingly placed before us in the book of Daniel. Toward the close of his reign, the glory of Nebuchadnezzar suffered a temporary eclipse. As a punishment for his pride and vanity, that strange form of madness was sent upon him , which the Greeks called Lycanthropy, wherein, the sufferer imagines himself a beast, and, quitting the haunts of men, insists on leading the life of a beast. Dan_4:33.
(This strange malady is thought by some to receive illustration from an inscription; and historians place, at this period, the reign of a queen, to whom are ascribed the works, which, by others, are declared to be Nebuchadnezzar's. Probably, his favorite wife was practically at the head of affairs, during the malady of her husband. Other historians, Eusebius and Berosus also confirm the account. See Rawlinson's "Historical Illustrations." ? Editor).
After an interval of four, or perhaps seven years, Dan_4:16, Nebuchadnezzar's malady left him. We are told that, "his reason returned, and for the glory of his kingdom, his honor and brightness returned;" and he "was established in his kingdom, and excellent majesty was added to him." Dan_4:36. He died in the year B.C. 561, at an advanced age, (eighty-three or eighty-four), having reigned forty-three years. A son, Evilmerodach, succeeded him.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863

Towards the end of the seventh century BC, the ancient nation Babylon rose again to international prominence, largely through the new dynasty that had been established by Nabopolassar. The greatest king of this dynasty was Nabopolassar’s son and successor, Nebuchadnezzar (or Nebuchadrezzar).
Nebuchadnezzar became king soon after he led Babylonian forces to victory over Egypt at the Battle of Carchemish in 605 BC (2Ki_24:7; Jer_46:2). One outcome of this was that Judah fell under Babylonian power. After a series of Babylonian attacks over several years, Jerusalem was finally destroyed and its people taken captive to Babylon (587 BC). Nebuchadnezzar was the Babylonian king throughout this time, and the books of 2 Kings, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel mention him by name repeatedly. (For details of his dealings with Judah and his military successes among the nations of the region see BABYLON.)
Through his contact with Jews at his court in Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar learnt about the Jews’ God, Yahweh. Upon seeing how this God revealed mysteries and miraculously saved people from death, he concluded that Yahweh must have been the greatest of all the gods (Dan_2:47; Dan_3:29). However, he was a proud man, whose empire-building achievements led him to believe that he could ignore God and take no notice of the warnings given him by God’s messenger Daniel. The result was that God punished Nebuchadnezzar with a disease of temporary madness, till he learnt that God was the sovereign ruler over the kingdoms of the world (Dan_4:27-33).
The Bible gives no clear indication whether Nebuchadnezzar’s acknowledgment of the sovereign rule of God had any lasting effect on his behaviour. Babylon proved to be an arrogant nation, and God’s prophet saw all its pride and evil embodied in its king (Isa_14:4-11). There is no certainty that the prophet had Nebuchadnezzar or any other king specifically in mind, but his warning has a timeless relevance. Those who ambitiously desire the highest place, the greatest honour and supreme power are in danger of being brought down to the lowest place, the greatest shame and complete weakness (Isa_14:12-20).
Nebuchadnezzar was undoubtedly the greatest king of this period of Babylonian supremacy. He reigned more than forty years and died in 562 BC. He was succeeded by his son Evil-merodach (Jer_52:31).
Bridgeway Bible Dictionary by Don Fleming
PRINTER 1990.

Nebuchadnez?zar (Kings, Chronicles, and Daniel; Jeremiah 27; Jeremiah 28; Jer_34:1; Jer_39:1; Eze_26:7; and Ezr_5:12; written also Nebuchadrezzar, generally in Jeremiah, and in Eze_29:18) was the name of the Chaldean monarch of Babylon by whom Judah was conquered, and the Jews led into their seventy years' captivity. The name of this monarch has been commonly explained to signify the treasure of Nebo, but according to some it signifies Nebo the prince of gods.
The only notices which we have of this monarch in the canonical writings are found in the books of Kings, Chronicles, Daniel, and Ezra, and in the allusions of the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
From 2Ki_23:29, and 2Ch_35:20, we gather that in the reign of Josiah (B.C. 610), Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt, having approached by sea the coast of Syria, made a friendly application to King Josiah to be allowed a passage through his territories to the dominions of the Assyrian monarch, with whom he was then at war (2Ch_35:20-21). The design of Pharaoh-Necho was to seize upon Carchemish (Circesium or Cercusium), a strong post on the Euphrates; but Josiah, who was tributary to the Babylonian monarch, opposed his progress at Megiddo, where he was defeated and mortally wounded [JOSIAH]. Necho marched upon Jerusalem when the Jews became tributary to the king of Egypt. Upon this, Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon (2Ki_24:1; 2Ch_36:6, where this monarch's name is for the first time introduced), invaded Judah, retook Carchemish, with the territory which had been wrested from him by Necho, seized upon Jehoiakim, the vassal of Pharaoh-Necho, and reduced him to submission (B.C. 607). Jehoiachim was at first loaded with chains, in order to be led captive to Babylon, but was eventually restored by Nebuchadnezzar to his throne, on condition of paying an annual tribute. Nebuchadnezzar carried off part of the ornaments of the Temple, together with several hostages of distinguished rank, among whom were the youths Daniel and his three friends Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael (Daniel 1). These were educated at court in the language and sciences of the Chaldeans, where they subsequently filled offices of distinction. The sacred vessels were transferred by Nebuchadnezzar to his temple at Babylon (Isaiah 39; 2Ch_36:6-7) [BABYLON].
After the conquest of Judea, Nebuchadnezzar turned his attention towards the Egyptians, whom he drove out of Syria, taking possession of all the land between the Euphrates and the river (2Ki_24:7): which some suppose to mean the Nile, but others a small river in the desert, which was reckoned the boundary between Palestine and Egypt.
The fate of Jerusalem was now rapidly approaching its consummation. After three years of fidelity, Jehoiachim renounced his allegiance to Babylon, and renewed his alliance with Necho, when Nebuchadnezzar sent incursions of Ammonites, Moabites, and Syrians, together with Chaldeans, to harass him. At length, in the eleventh year of his reign, he was made prisoner, and slain (Jeremiah 22) [JEHOIAKIM]. He was succeeded by his son Jehoiachin, who, after three months' reign, surrendered himself with his family to Nebuchadnezzar, who had come in person to besiege Jerusalem, in the eighth year of his reign (2Ki_24:10-12) [JEHOIACHIN]. Upon this occasion all the most distinguished inhabitants, including the artificers, were led captive [CAPTIVITIES]. Among the captives, who amounted to no less than 50,000, were Ezekiel (Eze_1:1) and Mordecai [ESTHER]. The golden vessels of Solomon were now removed, with the royal treasures, and Mattaniah, the brother of Jehoiachin, placed on the throne by Nebuchadnezzar, who gave him the name of Zedekiah, and bound him by an oath not to enter into an alliance with Egypt. Zedekiah, however, in the ninth year of his reign, formed an alliance with Pharaoh-Hophra, the successor of Necho. Hophra, coming to the assistance of Zedekiah, was driven back into Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar, who finally captured Jerusalem in the eleventh year of Zedekiah's reign (B.C. 588) [ZEDEKIAH]. The Temple, and the whole city, with its towers and walls, were all razed to the ground by Nebuzaradan, Nebuchadnezzar's lieutenant, and the principal remaining inhabitants put to death by Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah. Jeremiah was, however, spared; and Gedaliah appointed governor. He was shortly after murdered by Ishmael, a member of the royal family, who was himself soon obliged to take refuge among the Ammonites. Many of the remaining Jews fled into Egypt, accompanied by Jeremiah; those who remained were soon after expatriated by Nebuchadnezzar, who depopulated the whole country.
He next undertook the siege of Tyre, and after its destruction proceeded to Egypt, now distracted by internal commotions, and devastated or made himself master of the whole country from Migdol to Syene (according to the reading of the Seventy, Eze_29:10; Eze_30:6), transferring many of the inhabitants to the territory beyond the Euphrates.
We have referred to the captivity of the prophet Daniel, and have to turn to the book which bears his name for the history of this prophet, who, from an exile, was destined to become the great protector of his nation. In the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel, who was found superior in wisdom to the Chaldean magi, was enabled not only to interpret, but to reveal a dream of Nebuchadnezzar's, the very subject of which that monarch had forgotten [DREAMS]. This was the dream of the statue consisting of four different metals, which Daniel interpreted of four successive monarchies, the last of which was to be the reign of the Messiah. Daniel was elevated to be first minister of state, and his three friends were made governors of provinces. The history of these events (Dan_2:4; Dan_2:8-9) is written in the Chaldee language, together with the narrative which immediately follows (Daniel 3), of the golden statue erected by Nebuchadnezzar in the plan of Dura, for refusing to worship which, Daniel's three friends were thrown into a furnace, but miraculously preserved. Daniel 4, also written in Chaldee, contains the singular history of the judgment inflicted on Nebuchadnezzar as a punishment for his pride, and which is narrated in the form of a royal proclamation from the monarch himself giving an account to his people of his affliction and recovery. This affliction had been, by the monarch's account, predicted by Daniel a year before, in the interpretation of his fearful dream of the tree in the midst of the earth. While walking in his palace, and admiring his magnificent works, he uttered, in the plenitude of his pride, the remarkable words recorded in Dan_4:30, 'Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?' He had scarce uttered the words, when a voice from heaven proclaimed to him that his kingdom was departed from him; that he should be for seven times (generally supposed to mean years, although some reduce the period to fourteen months) driven from the habitations of men to dwell among the beasts of the field, and made to eat grass as an ox, until he learned 'that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.' The sentence was immediately fulfilled, and Nebuchadnezzar continued in this melancholy state during the predicted period, at the end of which he was restored to the use of his understanding (Dan_4:36). We have no account in Scripture of any of the actions of this monarch's life after the period of his recovery, but the first year of the reign of his successor Evil-merodach is represented as having taken place in the thirty-seventh year of Jehoiachin, answering to B.C. 562 (2Ki_25:27).
The difficulties attending the nature of the disease and recovery of Nebuchadnezzar have not escaped the notice of commentators in ancient as well as modern times. Origen supposed that the account of Nebuchadnezzar's metamorphosis was merely a representation of the fall of Lucifer. Bodin maintains that Nebuchadnezzar underwent an actual metamorphosis of soul and body, a similar instance of which is given by Cluvier on the testimony of an eye witness. Tertullian confines the transformation to the body only, but without loss of reason, of which kind of metamorphosis St. Augustine reports some instances said to have taken place in Italy, to which he himself attaches little credit; but Gaspard Peucer asserts that the transformation of men into wolves was very common in Livonia. Some Jewish Rabbins have asserted that the soul of Nebuchadnezzar, by a real transmigration, changed places with that of an ox; while others have supposed not a real, but an apparent or docetic change, of which there is a case recorded in the life of St. Macarius, the parents of a young woman having been persuaded that their daughter had been transformed into a mare. The most generally received opinion, however, is, that Nebuchadnezzar labored under that species of hypochondriacal monomania which leads the patient to fancy himself changed into an animal or other substance, the habits of which he adopts. To this disease of the imagination physicians have given the name of Lycanthropy, Zoanthropy, or Insania Canina [DISEASES OF THE JEWS].




The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.

Nebuchadnezzar
(Heb. and Chald. Nebukadnetstsar', נְבוּכִדְנֶאצִּר, 2Ki_25:22; 2Ch_36:6; Jer_27:6; Jer_27:8; Jer_27:20; Jer_28:3; Jer_29:1; Jer_29:3; Jer_34:1; Jer_39:5; Dan_1:1; also in the shorter forms, נְבֻכִדְנֶאצִּר, 2Ki_24:1; 2Ki_24:10-11; 2Ki_25:1; 2Ki_25:8; 1Ch_6:15; Jer_28:11; Jer_28:14; Dan_1:18; Dan_2:1; נְבוּכִדְנֶצִּר, the usual form; and נְבֻכִדְנֶצִּר, = Dan_4:37; Dan_5:18; Sept. Ναβουχοδονόσορ), or (in Jeremiah and Ezekiel only, but in them always except the passages noted above) NEBUCHADREZZAR SEE NEBUCHADNEZZAR (q.v.) (which Hitzig [Jerem. page 191] rightly considers the original form), called by Berosus (ap. Josephum), Ναβουχοδονόσορος; by Abydenus (ap. Eusebium, Prcep. Evang.), Ναβουδρόσορος ; and by Strabo, the only writer among the Greeks by whom he is named (15:687), Ναυκοοκοδρόσορος, besides Ναβοκολάσαρος, which appears in the Canon of Ptolemy. This name, Nabuchodonosor, has passed from the Septuagint into the Latin Vulgate, and into the authorized English version of the books of Judith and Tobit. This monarch was the greatest and most powerful of the Babylonian kings. His name, according to the native orthography, is read as Nabukuduri- utsur, and is explained to mean "Nebo (q.v.) is the protector against misfortune," kuduri being connected with the Hebrew כַּידוֹר, "trouble" or "attack," and utsur being a participle from the root נָצִר, "to protect." (According to others, the middle term kudur is connected with the Perso- Greek κἐδαρις, "a crown;" Oppert refers it to an Arabic kudur, "a young man;" while Sir H. Rawlinson thinks it means "a landmark.'") The rarer Hebrew form, used by Jeremiah and Ezekiel —Nebuchadrezzar is thus very close indeed to the original. The Persian form, Nabukudrachara (Beh. Inscr. Colossians 1, par. 16), is less correct. This (also written Nabokhodrossor) is supposed to be the assumed name of one of the rebels subdued by Darius Hystaspis. It is there easily read, being transcribed in another column, and hence is readily recognised elsewhere when found in the pure Babylonian writing, as it often is on bricks and fragments from the ruins near Hillah (Lavard, Nineveh, 2:141).
1. Nebuchadnezzar was the son and successor of Nabopolassar, the founder of the Babylonian empire. (See No. 5 below.) He appears to have been of marriageable age at the time of his father's rebellion against Assyria, B.C. 625; for, according to Abydenus (ap. Euseb. Chron. Son_1:9), the alliance between this prince and the Median king was cemented by the betrothal of Amuhia, the daughter of the latter, to Nebuchadnezzar, Nabopolassar's son. Little further is known of him during his father's lifetime. It is suspected, rather than proved, that he was the leader of a Babylonian contingent which accompanied Cyaxares in his Lydian war, SEE MEDES, by whose interposition, on the occasion of an eclipse, that war was brought to a close, B.C. 610. (Herodotus terms this leader Labynetus [1:74]; a word which does not rightly render the Babylonian Nabukuduriuzur, but does render another Babylonian name Nabu-nahit. Nabopolassar may have had a son of this name; or the Labynetus of Herod. 1:74 may be Nabopolassar himself.) At any rate, a few years later, he was placed at the head of a Babylonian army, and sent by his father, who was now old and infirm, to chastise the insolence of Pharaoh-Necho, king of Egypt. This prince had recently invaded Syria, defeated Josiah, king ofJudah, at Megiddo, and reduced the whole tract, from Egypt to Carchemish on the upper Euphrates, SEE CARCHEMISH, which in the partition of the Assyrian territories on the destruction of Nineveh had been assigned to Babylon (2Ki_23:29-30; Beros. ap. Josephus, c. Rev_1:19). Necho had held possession of these countries for about three years, when (B.C. 606) Nebuchadnezzar led all army against him, defeated him at Carchemish in a great battle (Jeremiah 66:2-12), recovered Coele-Syria, Phcenicia, and Palestine, took Jerusalem (Dan_1:1-2), pressed1 forward to Egypt, and was engaged in that country or upon its borders when intelligence arrived which recalled him hastily to Babylon. Nabopolassar, after reigning twenty-one years, had died, and the throne was vacant; or, as there is some reason to think, Nebuchadnezzar, since he appeared to be the "king of Babylon" to the Jews, had really been associated with his father (Jer_4:1; Dan_1:1). In some alarm, however, about the succession, he hurried back to the capital, accompanied only by his light troops; and crossing the desert, probably by way of Tadmor or Palmyra, reached Babylon before any disturbance had arisen, and entered peaceably on his kingdom (B.C. 604). The bulk of the army, with the captives — Phoenicians, Syrians, Egyptians, and Jews — returned by the ordinary route, which skirted instead of crossing the desert. It was at this time that Daniel and his companions were brought to Babylon, where they presently grew into favor with Nebuchadnezzar, and became persons of very considerable influence (Dan_1:3-20). SEE DANIEL. The sacred vessels taken from Jehovah's house were transferred by Nebuchadnezzar to his temple at Babylon (Isaiah 39; 2Ch_36:6-7). SEE BABYLON; SEE CAPTIVITY.
Within a few years after Nebuchadnezzar's first expedition into Syria and Palestine, disaffection again showed itself in those countries. Jehoiakim — who, although threatened at first with captivity (2Ch_36:6), had been finally maintained on the throne: as a Babylonian vassal-after three years of service "turned and rebelled" against his suzerain, probably trusting to be supported by Egypt (2Ki_24:1). Not long afterwards Phcenicia seems to have broken into revolt; and the Chaldaean monarch, who had previously endeavored to subdue the disaffected by his generals and allies (2Ki_24:2), once more took the field in person, and marched first of all against Tyre. Having invested that city in the seventh year of his reign (Josephus, c. Ap. 1:21), and left a portion of his army there to continue the siege, he proceeded against Jerusalem, which submitted without a struggle (B.C. 598). According to Josephus, who is here our chief authority, Nebuchadnezzar punished Jehoiakim with death (Ant. 10:6, 3; comp. Jer_22:18-19; Jer_36:30), but placed his son Jehoiachin upon the throne. Jehoiachin reigned only three months; for, on his showing symptoms of disaffection, Nebuchadnezzar came up against Jerusalem for the third time, deposed the young prince (whom he carried to Babylon, together with a large portion of the population of the city, and the chief of the Temple treasures), and made his uncle, Zedekiah. king in his place. Tyre still held out; and it was not till the thirteenth year from the time of its first investment that the city of merchants fell (B.C. 585). Before this happened, Jerusalem had been totally destroyed. This consummation was owing to the folly of Zedekiah, who, despite the warnings of Jeremiah, made a treaty with Apries (Hophra), king of Egypt (Eze_17:15), and on the strength of this alliance renounced his allegiance to the king of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar commenced the final siege of Jerusalem in the ninth year of Zedekiah — his own sixteenth year (early in B.C. 589) — and took it nearly two years later (latter part of B.C. 588). One effort to carry out the treaty seems to have been made by Apries. An Egyptian army crossed the frontier, and began its march towards Jerusalem; upon which Nebuchadnezzar raised the siege, and set off to meet the new foe. According to Josephus (Ant. 10:7, 3) a battle was fought, in which Apries was completely defeated; but the scriptural account seems rather to imply that the Egyptians retired on the advance of Nebuchadnezzar, and recrossed the frontier without risking an engagement (Jer_37:5-8). At any rate. the attempt failed, and was not repeated; the “broken reed, Egypt," proved a treacherous support, and after an eighteen months' siege Jerusalem fell. Zedekiah escaped from the city, but was captured near Jericho (Jer_39:5), and brought to Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah in the territory of Hamath, where his eyes were put out by the king's order, while his sons and his chief nobles were slain. Nebuchadnezzar then returned to Babylon with Zedekiah, whom he imprisoned for the remainder of his life; leaving Nebuzar-adan, the captain of his guard, to complete the destruction of the city and the pacification of Judaea. Gedaliah, a Jew, was appointed governor, but he was shortly murdered, and the rest of the Jews either fled to Egypt or were carried by Nebuzar-adan to Babylon (B.C. 582).
The military successes of Nebuchadnezzar cannot be traced minutely beyond this point. His own annals have not come down to us; and the historical allusions which we find in his extant inscriptions are of the most vague and general character. It may be gathered from the prophetical Scriptures and from Josephus that the conquest of Jerusalem was rapidly followed by the fall of Tyre and the complete submission of Phoenicia (Ezra 26-28; Joseph. c. Ap. 1:21); after which the Babylonians carried their arms into Egypt, and inflicted severe injuries on that fertile country (Jeremiah 66:13-26; Ezra 29:2-20; 30:6; Joseph. Ant. 10:9, 7). But we have no account of these campaigns on which we can depend. Josephus adds that Megasthenes, in his fourth book, refers to the same subject, and thereby endeavors to show that Nebuchadnezzar exceeded Hercules, and conquered a, great part of Africa and Spain. Strabo adds that "Sesostris, king of Egypt, and Tearcon, king of Ethiopia, extended their expedition as far as Europe, but that Navokodrosor, who is venerated by the Chaldeeans more than Hercules by the Greeks,... marched through Spain to Greece and Pontus." Our remaining notices of Nebuchadnezzar present him to us as a magnificent prince and beneficent ruler rather than a warrior; and the great fame which has always attached to his name among the Eastern nations depends rather on his buildings and other grand constructions than on any victories or conquests ascribed to him.
2. We are told by Berosus that the first care of Nebuchadnezzar, on obtaining quiet possession of his kingdom after the first Syrian expedition, was to rebuild the temple of Bel (Bel-Merodach) at Babylon out of the spoils of the Syrian war (ap. Joseph. Ant. 10:11, 1). He next proceeded to strengthen and beautify the city, which he renovated throughout, and surrounded with several lines of fortification, himself adding one entirely new quarter. Having finished the walls and adorned the gates magnificently, he constructed a new palace, adjoining the old residence of his father — a superb edifice which he completed in fifteen days! In the grounds of this palace he formed the celebrated "hanging garden," which was a plaisance, built up with huge stones to imitate the varied surface of mountains, and planted with trees and shrubs of every kind. Diodorus, probably following Ctesias, describes this marvel as a square, four plethra (four hundred feet) each way, and fifty cubits (seventy-five feet) high, approached by sloping paths, and supported on a series of arched galleries increasing in height from the base to the summit. In these galleries were various pleasant chambers; and one of them contained the engines by which water was raised from the river to the surface of the mound. This curious construction, which the Greek writers reckoned among the seven wonders of the world, was said to have been built by Nebuchadnezzar for the gratification of his wife, Amuhia, who, having been brought up among the Median mountains, desired something to remind her of them. Possibly, however, one object was to obtain a pleasure-ground at a height above that to which the mosquitoes are accustomed to rise. This complete renovation of Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, which Berosus asserts, is confirmed to us in every possible way. The Standard Inscription of the king relates at length the construction of the whole series of works, and appears to have been the authority from which Berosus drew. The ruins confirm this in the most positive way, for nine tenths of the bricks in situ are stamped with Nebuchadnezzar's name. Scripture also adds an indirect but important testimony in the exclamation of Nebuchadnezzar recorded by Daniel, "Is not this great Babylon which I have built?" (Dan_4:30).
But Nebuchadnezzar did not confine his efforts to the ornamentation and improvement of his capital. Throughout the empire, at Borsippa, Sippara, Cutha, Chilmad, Duraba, Teredon, and a multitude of other places, he built or rebuilt cities, repaired temples, constructed quays, reservoirs, canals, and aqueducts, on a scale of grandeur and magnificence surpassing everything of the kind recorded in history, unless it be the constructions of one or two of the greatest Egyptian monarchs. "I have examined," says Sir H. Rawlinson, "the bricks in situ, belonging perhaps to a hundred different towns and cities in the neighborhood of Bagdad; and I never found any other legend than that of Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabopolassar, king of Babylon" (Corn. on the Inscr. of Assyria and Babylonia, pages 76, 77). "Nebuchadnezzar," says Abydenus, "on succeeding to the throne, fortified Babylon with three lines of walls. He dug the Nahr Malcha, or Royal River which was a branch stream derived from the Euphrates, and also the Acracanus. He likewise made the great reservoir above the city of Sippara, which was thirty parasangs (ninety miles) in circumference, and twenty fathoms (one hundred and twenty feet) deep. Here he placed sluices or flood-gates, which enabled him to irrigate the low country. He also built a quay along the shore of the Red Sea (Persian Gulf), and founded the city of Teredon on the borders of Arabia." It is reasonably concluded from these statements that an extensive system of irrigation was devised by this monarch, to whom the Babylonians were probably indebted for the greater portion of that vast network of canals which covered the whole alluvial tract between the two rivers, and extended on the right bank of the Euphrates to the extreme verge of the stony desert. On that side the principal work was a canal of the largest dimensions, still to be traced, which left the Euphrates at Hit, and skirting the desert ran south-east a distance of above four hundred miles to the Persian Gulf, where it emptied itself into the bay of Grane.
The wealth, greatness, and general prosperity of Nebuchadnezzar are strikingly placed before us in the Book of Daniel. "The God of heaven" gave him, not a kingdom only, but "power, strength, and glory" (Dan_2:37). His wealth is evidenced by the image of gold, sixty cubits in height, which he set up in the plain of Dura (Dan_3:1). The grandeur and careful organization of his kingdom appear from the long list of his officers, "princes, governors, captains, judges, treasurers, counsellors, sheriffs, and rulers of provinces," of whom we have repeated mention (Dan_3:2-3; Dan_3:27). We see the existence of a species of hierarchy in the "magicians, astrologers, sorcerers," over whom Daniel was set (Dan_2:48). The “tree, whose height was great, which grew and was strong, and the height thereof reached unto the heavens, and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth; the leaves whereof were fair, and the fruit much, and in which was food for all; under which the beasts of the field had shadow, and the fowls of heaven dwelt in the branches thereof, and all flesh was fed of it" (Dan_4:10-12), is the fitting type of a kingdom at once so flourishing and so extensive. It has been thought by some (De Wette, Th. Parker, etc.) that the Book of Daniel represents the satrapial system of government (Satrapen-Einrichtung) as established throughout the whole empire; but this conclusion is not justified by a close examination of that document. Nebuchadnezzar, like his Assyrian predecessors (Isa_10:8), is represented as a "king of kings" (Dan_2:37); and the officers enumerated in chapter 2 are probably the authorities of Babylonia proper, rather than the governors of remoter regions, who could not be all spared at once from their employments. The instance of Gedaliah (Jer_40:5; 2Ki_25:22) is not that of a satrap. He was a Jew; and it may be doubted whether he stood really in any different relation to the Babylonians from Zedekiah or Jehoiachin; although, as he was not of the seed of David, the Jews considered him to be "governor" rather than king.
3. Towards the close of his reign the glory of Nebuchadnezzar suffered a temporary eclipse. As a punishment for his pride and vanity, that strange form of madness was sent upon him which the Greeks called lycanthropy (λυκανθρωπία); wherein the sufferer imagines himself a beast, and, quitting the haunts of men, insists on leading the life of a beast (Dan_4:33). Berosus, with the pardonable tenderness of a native, anxious for the good fame of his country's greatest king, suppressed this fact; and it may be doubted whether Herodotus in his Babylonian travels, which fell only about a century after the time, obtained any knowledge of it. Nebuchadnezzar himself, however, in his great inscription appears to allude to it, although in a studied ambiguity of phrase which renders the passage very difficult of translation. After describing the construction of the most important of his great works, he appears to say, "For four years (?)... the seat of my kingdom... did not rejoice my heart. In all my dominions I did not build a high place of power, the precious treasures of my kingdom I did not lay up. In Babylon, buildings for myself and for the honor of my kingdom I did not lay out. In the worship of Merodach, my lord, the joy of my heart, in Babylon the city of his sovereignty, and the seat of my empire, I did not sing his praises, I did not furnish its altars with victims, nor did I clear out the canals" (Rawlinson's Herod. 2:586). Other negative clauses follow. It is plain that we have here narrated a suspensionapparently for four years of all those works and occupations on which the king especially prided himself his temples, palaces, worship, offerings, and works of irrigation; and though the cause of the suspension is not stated, we can scarcely imagine anything that would account for it but some such extraordinary malady as that recorded in Daniel. It has often been remarked that Herodotus ascribes to a queen, Nitocris, several of the important works, which other writers (Berosus, Abydenus) assign to Nebuchadnezzar. The conjecture naturally arises that Nitocris was Nebuchadnezzar's queen, and that, as she carried on his constructions during his incapacity, they were by some considered to be hers. It is no disproof of this to urge that Nebuchadnezzar's wife was a Median princess, not an Egyptian (as Nitocris must have been from her name), and that she was called, not Nitocris, but Amyitis or Amyhia; for Nebuchadnezzar, who married Amyitis in B.C. 625, and who lived after this marriage more than sixty years, may easily have married again after.the decease of his first wife, and his second queen may have been an Egyptian. His later relations with Egypt appear to have been friendly; and it is remarkable that the name Nitocris, which belonged to very primitive Egyptian history, had in fact been resuscitated about this time, and is found on the Egyptian monuments to have been borne by a princess belonging to the family of the Psammetiks.
The nature of Nebuchadnezzar's disease and recovery has been much debated. Origen strangely allegorizes the story (ap. Hieron. in Dan.) as a representation of the fall of Lucifer. Bodin (in Demonol.) maintains that Nebuchadnezzar underwent an actual metamorphosis of soul and body, a similar instance of which is given by Cluvier (Append. ad Epitom. Hist.) on the testimony of an eye-witness. Tertullian (De Poenit.) confines the transformation to the body only, but without loss of reason, of which kind of metamorphosis St. Augustine (De Civ. Dei, 18:18) reports some instances said to have taken place in Italy, to which he himself attaches little credit; but Gaspard Peucer asserts that the transformation of men into wolves was very common in Livonia. Some Jewish rabbins have asserted that the soul of Nebuchadnezzar, by a real transmigration, changed places with that of an ox (Medina, De recta in Deum fid.); while others have supposed not a real, but an apparent change, of which there is a case recorded in the life of St. Macarius, the parents of a young woman having been persuaded that their daughter had been transformed into a mare. The most generally received opinion, however, is that Nebuchadnezzar labored under that species of hypochondriacal monomania which leads the patient to fancy himself changed into an animal or other substance, the habits of which he adopts. Jerome probably leaned to this opinion: "Who does not see," he observes, "that madmen live like brute beasts" (in Dan_4:4). To this disease of the imagination physicians have given the name of Lycanthropy, Zoanthropy, or Insania Canina. SEE DISEASE.
In Dan_4:15 (Dan_4:12, according to the Latin) there seems to be an allusion to some species of insanity in the expression, "Even with a band of iron and brass" (alligetur vinculo ferreo et ereo,Vulg.); and the loss and return of reason is very clearly intimated in Dan_4:34, "Mine understanding returned to me, and I blessed the Most High." (See also Virgil, Eclog. 6; Drummond Hay, Western Barbary, page 65; B. Reckenberger, De Nebucadn. ab hominibus expulso, Jen. 1733; Bertholdt, Daniel, 1:290; Heinroth, Seelenstor. 1:65; Ader, De cegrotis in Evang. page 31, etc.; Meade, Med. Sac.; Muller, De Nebuchadnezz. μεταμορφώσει, Lips. 1747.)
The idea of an allegory has been revived in modern times, especially by De Wette (Einleitung, page 257), who considers the accounts in Daniel too improbable, if literally understood, although he admits that they may have been founded on historical traditions. He considers the whole of the narrative in Daniel as referring to Antiochus Epiphanes, who he asserts is also signified by Belshazzar. This hypothesis assumes that the Book of Daniel is spurious, contrary to the New Testament and other ancient testimony (Hengstenberg, Authent. des Dan. page 100 sq.). SEE DANIEL.
Some have fancied that there was an allusion to the disease of Nebuchadnezzar in the passage of Berosus quoted by Josephus (c. Apion. 1:20): "Nabuchodonosor, after he had commenced the aforesaid wall, falling into a sickness, died." Abydenus (ap. Eusebium. Prcepar. Evang. 9:41), having cited the passage from Megasthenes already referred to, adds, upon the authority of the same writer, a speech of Nabuchodonosor, wherein, having been struck by some god, he foretold the destruction of Babylon by a "Persian mule," assisted by a Mede, the former boast of Assyria, after which he instantly vanished. A reference has been supposed to exist in these words to Nebuchadnezzar's madness and consequent disappearance, but there is at most, as De Wette observes, only a traditional connection between them. Jahn (Hebrew Commonwealth) conceives the whole to be a tradition made up from his prophetic dreams, his insanity, and from Daniel's explanation of the well-known handwriting in the banqueting-hall of Belshazzar.
After an interval of four, or probably seven years (Dan_4:16), Nebuchadnezzar's malady left him. As we are told in Scripture that "his reason returned, and for the glory of his kingdom his honor and brightness returned;" and he "was established in his kingdom, and excellent majesty was added to him" (Dan_4:36), so we find in the Standard Inscription that he resumed his great works after a period of suspension, and added fresh "wonders" in his old age to the marvellous constructions of his manhood. He died in the year B.C. 561, at an advanced age (83 or 84), having reigned forty-three years. A son, Evil-Merodach (q.v.), succeeded him.
4. The character of Nebuchadnezzar must be gathered principally from Scripture. There is a conventional formality in the cuneiform inscriptions, which deprives them of almost all value for the illustration of individual mind and temper. Ostentation and vainglory are characteristics of the entire series, each king seeking to magnify above all others his own exploits. We can only observe as peculiar to Nebuchadnezzar a disposition to rest his fame on his great works rather than on his military achievements, and a strong religious spirit, manifesting itself especially in a devotion, which is almost exclusive, to one particular god. Though his own tutelary deity and that of his father was Nebo (Mercury), yet his worship, his ascriptions of praise, his thanksgivings, have in almost every case for their object the god Merodach. Under his protection he placed his son, Evil-Merodach. Merodach is "his lord," "his great lord," "the joy of his heart," "the great lord who has appointed him to the empire of the world, and has confided to his care the far-spread people of the earth," "the great lord who has established him in strength," etc. One of the first of his own titles is, "He who pays homage to Merodach." Even when restoring the temples of other deities, he ascribes the work to the suggestions of Merodach, and places it under his protection. We may hence explain the appearance of a sort of monotheism (Dan_1:2; Dan_4:21; Dan_4:32; Dan_4:34; Dan_4:37), mixed with polytheism (Dan_2:47; Dan_3:12; Dan_3:18; Dan_3:29; Dan_4:9), in the scriptural notices of him.
While admitting a qualified divinity in Nebo, Nana, and other deities of his country, Nebuchadnezzar maintained the real monarchy of Bel- Merodach. This deity was to him "the supreme chief of the gods," "the most ancient," "the king of the heavens and the earth." These expressions are all applied to Merodach by Nebuchadnezzar in his inscriptions. It was his image, or symbol, undoubtedly, which was "set up" to be worshipped in the "plain of Dura" (Dan_3:1), and his "house" in which the sacred vessels from the Temple were treasured (Dan_1:2). Nebuchadnezzar seems at some times to have identified this, his supreme god, with the God of the Jews (ch. iv); at others, to have regarded the Jewish God as one of the local and inferior deities (chapter 3) over whom Merodach ruled. The genius and grandeur which characterized Nebuchadnezzar, and which have handed down his name among the few ancient personages known generally throughout the East, are very apparent in Scripture, and indeed in all the accounts of his reign and actions. Without perhaps any strong military turn, he must have possessed a fair amount of such talent to have held his own in the east against the ambitious Medes, and in the west against the Egyptians. Necho and Apries were both princes of good warlike capacity, whom it is some credit to have defeated. The prolonged siege of Tyre is a proof of the determination with which he prosecuted his military enterprises. But his greatness lay especially in the arts of peace. He saw in the natural fertility of Babylonia, and its ample wealth of waters, the foundation of national prosperity, and so of power. Hence his vast canals and elaborate system of irrigation, which made the whole country a garden; and this must have been a main cause of the full treasury, from which alone his palaces and temples can have received their magnificence. The forced labor of captives may have raised the fabrics; but the statues, the enamelled bricks, the fine woodwork, the gold and silver plating, the hangings and curtains, had to be bought; and the enormous expenditure of this monarch, which does not appear to have exhausted the country, and which cannot have been very largely supported by tribute, must have been really supplied in the main from that agricultural wealth which he took so much pains to develop. We may gather from the productiveness of Babylonia under the Persians (Herod. 1:192, 193; 3:92), after a conquest and two (three?) revolts, some idea of its flourishing condition in the period of independence, for which (according to the consentient testimony of the monuments and the best authors) it was indebted to this king.
The moral character of Nebuchadnezzar is not such as entitles him to our approval. Besides the overweening pride which brought upon him so terrible a chastisement, we note a violence and fury (Dan_2:12; Dan_3:19) common enough among Oriental monarchs of the weaker kind, but from which the greatest of them have usually been free; while at the same time we observe a cold and relentless cruelty which is particularly revolting. The blinding of Zedekiah may perhaps be justified as an ordinary Eastern practice, though it is the earliest case of the kind on record; but the refinement of cruelty by which he was made to witness his sons' execution before his eyes were put out (2Ki_25:7) is worthier of a Dionysius or a Domitian than of a really great king. Again, the detention of Jehoiachin in prison for thirty-six years for an offence committed at the age of eighteen (2Ki_24:8), is a severity surpassing Oriental harshness. Against these grave faults we have nothing to set, unless it be a feeble trait of magnanimity in the pardon accorded to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego when he found that he was without power to punish them (Dan_3:26).
It has been thought remarkable that to a man of this character God should have vouchsafed a revelation of the future by means of visions (Dan_2:29; Dan_4:2). But the circumstance, however it may disturb our preconceived notions, is not really at variance with the general laws of God's providence as revealed to us in Scripture. As with his natural, so with his supernatural gifts, they are not confined to the worthy. Even under Christianity, miraculous powers were sometimes possessed by those who made an ill use of them (1Co_14:2-33). And God, it is plain, did not leave the old heathen world without some supernatural aid, but made his presence felt from time to time in visions, through prophets, or even by a voice from heaven. It is only necessary to refer to the histories of Pharaoh (Gen_41:1-7; Gen_41:28), Abimelech (Gen_20:3), Job (Job_4:13; Job_38:1; Job_38:1; Job_40:6; comp. Dan_4:31), and Balaam (Numbers 22-24), in order to establish the parity of Nebuchadnezzar's visions with other facts recorded in the Bible. He was warned, and the nations over which he ruled were warned through him, God leaving not himself "without witness" even in those dark times. In conclusion, we may notice that a heathen writer (Abydenus), who generally draws his inspirations from Berosus, ascribes to Nebuchadnezzar a miraculous speech just before his death, announcing to the Babylonians the speedy coming of the " Persian mule," who with the help of the Medes would enslave Babylon (Abyd. ap. Euseb. Prep. Ev. 9:41).
5. The Canon of Ptolemy the mathematician, who flourished about the commencement of the Christian aera, consists of a catalogue, arranged in chronological order, of the kings of Babylon, commencing with Nabonassar, who reigned B.C. 747, and ending with Nabonned, B.C. 556. According to this catalogue, Nabopolassar (Ναβουπολάσαρος), who died B.C. 625, was succeeded by Nabocolassar (Ναβοκολάσαρος), B.C. 605. This Nabocolassar is therefore presumed to be the Nebuchadnezzar of Scripture (for the Canon of Ptolemy, see Table Chronologique des Regnes, etc., par l'Abbe Halmy, Paris, 1819). Nabopolassar, the father of Nabocolassar, is supposed to have been the first Chaldaean monarch of Babylon, and to have disunited it from the Assyrian empire, of which it had hitherto formed a part (Jahn's Hebrew Commonwealth). According to a fragment of Alexander Polyhistor, reported by Syncellus in his Chronographia, it was this sovereign who destroyed the city of Nineveh, B.C. 612, which, according to Eusebius (Chronicles page 46), he effected in conjunction with Astyages, the eldest son of Cvaxares, king of the Medes (see also Tob_14:15, where the latter is named Assuerus).
The following extract, preserved by Josephus, from the lost Chaldaean history of Berosus, priest of the temple of Bel (B.C. 268), will be found to throw considerable light on the Scripture narrative: "When his father Nabuchodonosor heard that the governor whom he had set over Egypt and the places about Coele-Syria and Phoenicia had revolted from him, while he was not himself able any longer to undergo hardships, he committed to his son Nabuchodonosor, who was still but a youth, some parts of his army, and sent him against the enemy. So when Nabuchodonosor had given him battle, and fought with the rebel, he overcame him, and reduced the country from under his subjection and made it a branch of his own kingdom. But about that time it happened that his father Nabuchodonosor fell ill, and ended his life in the city of Babylon, when he had reigned twenty-one years; and when he learned that his father Nabuchodonosor was dead — having settled the affairs of Egypt and the other countries, and also those that concerned the captive Jews, and the Phoenicians, Syrians, and Egyptians, and having committed the conveyance of them to Babylon to certain of his friends — he hastily crossed the desert, with a few companions, into Babylon. So he took upon him the management of public affairs, and of the kingdom which had been kept for him by one of the chief Chaldaeans, and he received the entire dominions of his father, and ordered that when the captives came they should be placed in colonies in the most proper places of Babylonia" (Ant. 10:11; see also Apion. 1:19; Euseb. Chronicles Armen. 1:59; Volney, Recherch. Nouv. sur l'hist. Ancienne, 3:151 sq.). It will be observed that both Nebuchadnezzar (styled by some the Great) and his father are here equally named Nabuchodonosor, but in the citation of the same narrative from Berosus by Josephus (c. Apion. 1:19) the father of Nebuchadnezzar is called Nabolassar (Ναβολάσσαρος), corresponding nearly with the Nabopolassar of Ptolemy; which has induced some to suppose the name Nabuchodonosor in the former citation to be an error of transcription. Some consider the Nabuchodonosor of the Book of Judith to be the same with the Saosduchin of Ptolemy, who was contemporary with Manasseh. Some foundation has thus been afforded for considering Nebuchadnezzar as a general name for Babylonian sovereigns (Prideaux, Connect.); this, however, is considered by Whiston as a groundless mistake (Whiston's Josephus, note on chapter 9). The similarity of the two names may have led to their being sometimes confounded. The conqueror of Nineveh is also called by the name of Nebuchodonosor in Tob_14:15 (in the Greek, for the Latin ends with Tob_14:14), and is on this account styled by some Nebuchadnezzar the First, a designation first applied to him by rabbi David Ganz, in the age of the world 3285.
According to Ptolemy's Canon, the reign of Nabocolassar is made to commence two years later than that of the Nebuchadnezzar of Scripture. Probably the first capture of Jerusalem (Dan_1:1) took place during the last years of the reign of Nabopolassar, in the expedition mentioned by Berosus (ut sup.), but the Canon of Ptolemy dates the commencement of his reign from the death of his father, when he became sole king of Babylon (De Wette's Introd. § 253, note). SEE CHRONOLOGY.
Although Herodotus does not name Nebuchadnezzar, he is supposed by some to allude to the expedition of Pharaoh-Necho against Babylon, when he observes that "Necho, after an engagement at Magdolus in Egypt, took Cadytis, a great city of Syria." It is conjectured that he may have confounded Migdol, in Egypt, with Megiddoo, and that Cadytis was the same with Jerusalem (El Kadosh, “the holy city") (Jahn's Hebrew Commonwealth).
6. One other point in the life of Nebuchadnezzar, connecting it with Scripture, may be glanced at. In the Book of Daniel (chapter 3) there is abruptly introduced an account of a golden image which Nebuchadnezzar set up in the plain of Dura, its inauguration being heralded in solemn pomp to all parts of the kingdom. The image was probably one of his patron-god, Bel-Merodach; and the dedication of such a statue is in perfect keeping with his intense religiousness, which is apparent from his numerous and cordial inscriptions of thanks and homage to the same divinity, after whom also he named his son and successor. The adoration paid to the image was a test of loyalty. To worship the king's god simply at the king's command was such a spectacle of national conformity as an Oriental despot would naturally delight in. Some have supposed that the image represented the king himself, who, in this way, claimed divine honors — an insanity found in Persian, Egyptian, and Seleucid monarchs — in the Grecian Alexander and the Roman Caligula. This is not a likely conjecture. The Jews as a body, it would seem, were not invited to the festival, being aliens and captives. But it is said that the image itself was out of all shape-sixty cubits high, and only six cubits broad — that is, in the proportion of ten to one. Now it is evident from the story that its height was for the sake of its being visible to an immense concourse gathered on a plain, and it is therefore probable that a tall pedestal is included in the measurement; or it may have been an obelisk with a bust on the summit of it (Minter, Relig. d. Bab. page 59; Hengstenberg, On Daniel). Diodorus Siculus (lib. 2) informs us that one of the images of massy gold found by Xerxes in the temple of Bel measured forty feet in height, which would have been fairly proportioned to a breadth of six feet, measured at the shoulders. Prideaux supposes that this may have been the identical statue erected by Nebuchadnezzar, which, however, Jahn conceives was more probably only gilt, as a statue of gold could scarcely have been safe from robbers in the plain of Dura; but this conjecture of Jahn seems by no means necessary. Dur-Dura signifies a plain, and in such a plain, yet vulgarly called Dowair, to the south-east of Babylon, M. Oppert found the pedestal of what must have been a colossal statue. There is no hint that the image was of solid gold, as some objectors imagine. Anything plated with gold was, in popular phrase, called golden (comp. Exo_30:1-3; Exo_39:8, etc.). The description of the process of forging idols in Isa_40:19 shows us the plating of the figures. Herodotus mentions a large golden statue of Bel, and then refers to another and much smaller one, which, in contrast, he says, was of "solid gold." The grand demonstration, and the assemblage of "princes, governors, captains, judges, treasurers, counsellors, sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces," must have markJer_22:25ed some important epoch — the conclusion of some great wars or works, followed by such prosperity and repose as is indicated by the phrase, "I Nebuchadnezzar was at rest in mine house, and flourishing in my palace." It is a strange rationalistic freak on the part of Lengerke, Bleek, and De Wette to regard all this chapter of Daniel as a mere legend, dimly picturing out the cruelties and idolatries of Antiochus Epiphanes,
7. Literature. — See Schroder, Nebuchadn. Chaldacor. rex (Marb. 1719); Schroer, Imper. Babyl. page 260 sq.; Lochner, De Nino Nebuchadnezare (Stadse, 1736) Maier, Statua Nebuchadnezaris (Jen. 1693); Miller De Nebuchadnezaris μεταρμορφ. (Lips. 1747); Offerhaus, De rebus sub Nebuchadnezare gestis (Groning. 1734); Seelen, De stipendiariis Nebuchadnezaris (Lubeck, 1737); Jour. Sac. Lit. April 1853, page 32; Rawlinson, Evidences, pages 127, 133; Ancient Monarchies, 2:50 sq. SEE BABYLONIA.

CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.

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