Biblical literature has a different perspective to offer the historian. In narratives,
chronicles, and prophecies we hear the voices of the threatened and beleaguered, of
the defeated and conquered; aspects of history that are often absent from the plentiful
sources that speak for the major powers, themselves. There is an additional insight
to be gained from biblical literature in this regard: it exposes conflicts within the
Judean society, itself, usually between prophets and kings (also, “true prophets” versus
“false prophets”!), with the true prophets assuming the posture of opposition to royal
policy, not that of sanctioning it. The tension of such encounters, in the vortex of
national tragedy, is not muted. To the contrary, the relevant issues are dramatized,
thereby producing the outlines of a domestic debate on foreign policy.
We will zoom-in on the busy period of twenty-three years, from the death of
Josiah, king of Judah, at the hand of Pharaoh Necho II at Megiddo in 609 BCEto
the final destruction by the forces of Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylonia in 586
BCE. The principal biblical sources to be explored here are Second Kings, followed
by Jeremiah and Habakkuk, with some attention to other texts, as well. Biblical texts
have been subjected to redaction and rearrangement, and contain later and/or secondary
material. The interest here is not, however, in the formation of biblical literature,
but primarily, in Sitz-im-Leben, in the posture and frame of mind that can account
for the versions of the events and their interpretation, as these are presented in the
Hebrew Bible. The intention is to allow the Hebrew Bible to tell its story, supplying
historical information from other sources where available.
The presence of Babylonia continues to be felt in biblical literature covering the
period after 586 BCE, up to the downfall of Babylonia in the mid-sixth century BCE,
and during the decades of the Babylonian Exile. In the oracles of Ezekiel and those
of the post-exilic period as well as in Chronicles, we encounter a good deal of hindsight
and reflection. Thus it is that the life and fate of the last king of Babylonia, Nabonidus,
continued to fascinate biblical and post-biblical writers for centuries to come, and
tales about the last days of Babylon inform the Book of Daniel.^2
BABYLONIA IN THE BOOK OF KINGS:
HISTORY FILTERED THROUGH IDEOLOGYSome biblical backgroundIn Genesis, chapters 1 – 11 , the so-called “Primeval History,” Babylon is numbered
among the most ancient towns in the land of Shinar (Sˇina ̄r), a traditional name
for Babylonia (Gen 10 : 10 , 11 : 2 ; cf. Gen 14 : 1 , 9 , Isa 11 : 11 , Zech 5 : 11 , Dan 1 : 2 ).
Babylon is listed alongside such venerable sites as Akkad, Uruk, Asˇsˇur, and Nineveh.
We are told that the post-diluvian humans undertook to build a town with a tower
in the land of Shinar, which they named Babel, indicating that in the Israelite
consciousness Babylon symbolized the beginnings of urbanization. Genesis 14 : 1 – 17
relate that Amraphel, king of Shinar, was one of four foreign kings, among them the
king of Elam, who attacked the five kings with whom Abram was allied. This biblical
account, which shows signs of great antiquity, portrays pre-Israelite Canaan as a
battleground that attracted foreign armies.
The first historiographic reference to Babylonia, albeit tangential, comes in 2 Kings
17 : 24 , 30 – 34 a, where we read that the king of Assyria, after exiling large numbers
— Baruch A. Levine —