The Divided Monarchy – 13 / Fall of Jerusalem

Nebuchadnezzar probably intended to follow up his victories at Carchemish and Hamath by continuing to march south into Palestine, but he was prevented from doing so by the death of his father, Nabopolassar, which required him to return to Babylon in August 605 BCE, and accept the crown as Nebuchadnezzar II (605–562 BCE), the second king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Within a year, however, Nebuchadnezzar was back in the field, marching through Syria-Palestine and encountering minimal resistance, since Necho was now back in Egypt licking his wounds and rebuilding his forces. In this western campaign of 604 BCE Nebuchadnezzar concentrated on Philistia, especially Ashkelon, which he sacked in December 604, capturing its king, Aga. Judah was understandably intimidated by having the Babylonian army relatively nearby. A fast was proclaimed in Jerusalem (Jeremiah 36:9), and Jehoiakim, despite his pro-Egyptian leanings, submitted to Nebuchadnezzar and, according to 2 Kings 24:1, became his vassal for three years (604–602 BCE).

Nebuchadnezzar suffered one of his few setbacks in the winter of 601/600 BCE, when he attempted to invade Egypt and was repulsed, probably at Migdol (Magdolos, according to Herodotus), a fortress that guarded the entry into Egypt at a point not far south of Pelusium in the eastern Delta. Nebuchadnezzar was forced to withdraw to Babylon, where he remained for a full year, rebuilding his army. This gave Necho the opportunity to campaign along the southern coast of Palestine, capturing Gaza (cf. Jeremiah 47). Jehoiakim, sensing that the balance of power had shifted again, ceased to pay tribute to Babylon and tried to restore himself in the favor of Necho, who was attempting to build a coalition against Babylon.

Nebuchadnezzar returned to Palestine in 599 BCE without much show of force, contenting himself with bivouacking at Riblah, as the Babylonian Chronicle seems to imply, and sending out razzias (raiding parties) to attack and plunder the camps of the Kedarites and other Arab tribes (cf. Jeremiah 49:28–33). On his next visit, however, he returned with his forces fully restored. Intent on reprisal against Jehoiakim for having withheld tribute, he marched on Jerusalem in the winter of 598/597 BCE and put the city under siege in January. Not long before this, in 598 BCE, Jehoiakim had died, possibly by foul play, and was replaced by his 18-year-old son Jehoiachin. Jerusalem capitulated with no great resistance on the second day of the Babylonian month of Adar in the seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar—that is, March 16, 597 BCE Nebuchadnezzar, apparently content with the removal of Jehoiakim, followed a policy of relative leniency and ordered no general destruction of the city. He did, however, take Jehoiachin into exile, along with much of the royal family, many members of the court and other leading citizens and artisans.

According to 2 Kings 24:14, this first deportation from Jerusalem involved 10,000 people; according to 2 Kings 24:16 the number was 8,000 (7,000 prominent people and 1,000 skilled craftsmen); and according to Jeremiah 52:28, it was 3,023, a number that may include only the male heads of households. Nebuchadnezzar made vassalage treaty with a third son of Josiah, Jehoiachin’s uncle Mattaniah, whom he placed on the throne, changing his name to Zedekiah.

Over the immediately succeeding years, Nebuchadnezzar conducted repeated campaigns in Syria-Palestine, but with the memory of the Babylonian defeat of 601/600 BCE still fresh, Judah and the other Palestinian states do not seem to have been entirely intimidated. Egypt remained ambitious and formidable under the successors of Necho—Psammetichus II (595–589 BCE) and Apries, the biblical Hophra (589–570 BCE). In these circumstances, anti-Babylonian plotting began almost immediately, and, in 594, probably emboldened by news of an uprising in Babylon in 595/594 BCE, Zedekiah seems to have convened an international group of conspirators in Jerusalem to plan a revolt, with representatives from Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre and Sidon (cf. Jeremiah 27:3). This conspiracy collapsed quickly when Nebuchadnezzar marched into Palestine in his 11th year (594/593 BCE), and Jehoiachin sent word to him assuring him of Judah’s loyalty; but the events foreshadowed what was to come.

In 592 BCE, Psammetichus II, flush with a victory in Nubia where he had suppressed the remnant of the XXVth Dynasty, marched into Palestine and conducted a peaceful show of force, encouraging anti-Babylonian sentiment in Judah, Philistia and as far north as Phoenicia. Though a cause-and-effect relationship is difficult to demonstrate, Zedekiah rebelled against Babylon (2 Kings 24:20) soon after Psammetichus’s “triumphal progress.” Zedekiah’s revolt may have occurred as early as 591 BCE and certainly by 589 BCE, when Hophra had come to the throne in Egypt and was encouraging anti-Babylonian revolts even more aggressively than Psammetichus. Though Nebuchadnezzar did not respond immediately, he eventually dispatched a Babylonian army, which reached Jerusalem in January 587 BCE There followed an 18-month siege, interrupted only briefly by the arrival of Egyptian aid (Jeremiah 37:5; cf. Jeremiah 37:11).

The walls were breached in July 586 BCE Zedekiah was captured while trying to escape under the cover of night and was led before Nebuchadnezzar, who put the Judahite king’s sons to death before his eyes, then blinded the king and sent him into exile. The Babylonian leader commanded that the city and its Temple be razed, and the order was carried out in August 586 BCE According to Jeremiah 52:29, there was an additional deportation of 832 people, a number that may include only male heads of households. There was no immediate plan to rebuild the city or repopulate it with foreign captives (which was not, in any case, Babylonian policy), and there was no plan for Jerusalem to become a provincial capital, probably because of its long history as a center of rebellion.

Nebuchadnezzar installed a cadre of pro-Babylonian Jews, led by a Judean aristocrat named Gedaliah son of Ahikam, in a governance role at the town of Mizpah, 8 miles northwest of Jerusalem (2 Kings 25:23). The prophet Jeremiah, who had previously been incarcerated for his persistent warnings against resisting Babylon, was part of the new leadership (Jeremiah 40:1–6).

Not surprisingly, Gedaliah’s regime was not popular. Many of the Jews who remained in the land regarded him and his colleagues as collaborators. Probably less than a year after his appointment as governor, Gedaliah was assassinated by a Davidide named Ishmael (2 Kings 25:25; cf. the much more detailed account in Jeremiah 41). Though Ishmael seems to have been supported by the Ammonite king Baalis (Jeremiah 40:14, 41:10), the assassination was hardly part of an anti-Babylonian conspiracy, which would have been completely futile; it was a terrorist act of revenge against a man perceived as a quisling. Members of Gedaliah’s regime, fearing Babylonian reprisals, fled to Egypt (2 Kings 25:26), taking Jeremiah with them, while Ishmael and his followers fled to Ammon to escape the vengeance of Gedaliah’s remaining supporters (Jeremiah 41:15).