A brief history of Babylon

Babylon, which means “the Gate of God(s)”, was the capital of Babylonia, in southern Mesopotamia. Some claim that it was also the site of the Bible’s “Tower of Babel.”

Today, we most often associate Babylon with its leaders Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar, as well as the the Epic of Gilgamesh.

HAMMURABI

Babylon was the most important Middle Eastern city during the reign of Hammurabi (ca. 1792-1750 BCE), remembered for the Code of Hammurabi.

Hammurabi’s code of laws, found on a black stone monument in Persia in 1901, are the earliest-known public declaration of laws by a ruler.

The code began and ended with prayers to the gods, and many were curses on anyone who disregarded the laws.

After Hammurabi’s death, Babylon survived many centuries of oppression and war, but was restored to glory by King Nebuchadnezzar II. This king is usually referred to as simply “Nebuchadnezzar”, pronounced “nebb-yoo-kuhhd-NEZZ-urr”.

NEBUCHADNEZZAR

Under Nebuchadnezzar — famous for the Hanging Gardens of Babylon — the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and took the Jews captive.

However, after casting three Jews into a “fiery furnace” (See the Bible, Dan. 3), Nebuchadnezzar was cursed for four years with depression and lycanthropy.

Nebuchadnezzar (ca. 630 BCE – ca. 560 BCE) was following in the footsteps of his father, the warrior-king Nabopolassar.

Nabopolassar freed Babylonia from the control of its northern neighbor, Assyria, and destroyed the Assyrian city of Nineveh, which is today known as Mossul.

(In ancient times, Assyria was composed of today’s northern provinces of Iraq, and parts of Turkey, Syria, and Iran.)

Nebuchadnezzar restored Babylon to glory, and created a legendary network of canals, aquaducts, and reservoirs. He was boastful of how he rebuilt Babylon, perhaps with good reason. It’s estimated that nine-tenths of the bricks found in Babylon’s ruins were stamped with Nebuchadnezzar’s name.

But, as in previous centuries, Babylon continued to war with its neighbors, especially Assyria and Persia.

MARDUK AND BABYLONIAN RELIGION

While Assyria is proud to say that it was the first country to accept Christianity in 33 CE, the Babylonians worshipped several gods, the chief of whom was Marduk, “lord of Justice”, also known as Bel-Marduk or Marduk Bal. He is also linked with Merodach, “lord god of heaven and earth” as well as “lord of Babylon”.

Marduk, according to Babylonian tradition, created heaven and earth. Babylon was his city.

Babylonians and others in that region may have believed that statues of deity really were that deity. Further, a city had its own gods. (Babylon was sometimes associated with Ishtar as well as Marduk.) Therefore, when a city prospered, other cities and countries might try to “capture” the god of that city (perhaps in statue form) to bring him or her to their own land.

This may be why Nebuchadnezzar, after destroying the Temple in Jerusalem, brought the “sacred vessels” of the temple back to Babylon, along with a large portion of the city’s population.

THE DEMISE OF BABYLON

Within 25 years of the death of Nebuchadnezzar, around 538 BCE, Babylon fell to Cyrus II of Persia.

(Persia is known today as Iran, which gets its name from the Indo-European Aryans who settled there. Their early prophet — thousands of years before Jesus Christ — was Zarathustra.)

Cyrus II — also called Cyrus the Great by some historians — allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem. When American President Harry Truman supported the nation of Israel in 1948, he declared, “I was Cyrus.”