Concise Bible Dictionary:
Nimrod’s BABEL was doubtless in some way connected with the renowned city of Babylon and of the kingdom of which it was the capital. The Hebrew is Babel, the same for Babel and Babylon. In Genesis 11:2 it speaks of Babel being built in a plain in the land of Shinar, which they reached by traveling from the east; this reads in the margin traveling “eastward,” a reading preferred by many and by the Revisers. This direction agrees well with the locality of Babylon on the river Euphrates.
Historians speak of the great size of the city, though they are not agreed as to its dimensions. It had 25 gates on each side, and from the gates were streets which crossed one another at right angles. The houses were not built close together, so that there was ample room inside the city for gardens and even fields and vineyards. The walls were said to be 75 feet thick and 300 feet in height; and the gates were of brass. The river Euphrates ran through the city; but on the banks of the river strong walls were built with gates of brass; there was also a bridge from side to side near the center of the city. A lake was formed outside the city into which the waters of the river could be turned when the water rose too high, and deep ditches filled with water surrounded the walls of the city.
We also read of “hanging gardens” which Nebuchadnezzar built for his wife Amyitis, or Amyhia, daughter of a Median king, to give the place a measure of resemblance to the mountains and wooded hills of her native country. These gardens are supposed to have been built in terraces of different heights.
In several particulars scripture corroborates the statements of the historians. In Jeremiah 50:11 of Babylon it is said, “O ye destroyers of Mine heritage, because ye are grown fat as the heifer at grass, and bellow as bulls;” its broad walls are mentioned (Jer. 51:12,58); its gates of brass and bars of iron (Isa. 45:2); and Nebuchadnezzar boasted of the “great Babylon” which he had built by the might of his power, and for the honor of his majesty (Dan. 4:30).
Among the relics recovered from the various mounds of ruins are some bricks with the names of the kings Neriglissar and Labynetus stamped upon them, but the great majority of those found bear the name of Nebuchadnezzar. Babylon was built with bricks, there being no stone at all near, and in later years the mounds were ransacked for bricks for other cities.
Of the early governments in Babylon but little is known with certainty. Berosus, as arranged by Rawlinson, gives from B.C. 2458 to 625 various dynasties of Medes, Chaldaeans, Arabs, and Assyrians; and lastly Babylonians from B.C. 625 to 538.
Babylon and Assyria are much blended together in history, sometimes being independent one of the other, and at other times being tributary to one another. In B.C. 745 Tiglath-pileser may be said to have founded the later kingdom of Assyria, and among his victories he became master of Babylonia, as the kingdom of Babylon was called. About 721 Merodach-baladan became king of Babylon, and in 712 he sent ambassadors to Hezekiah on hearing of his sickness. This is recorded in 2 Kings 20:12, where he is called Berodach-baladan. In B.C. 702 Sennacherib king of Assyria expelled Merodach, and Babylon was governed by viceroys from Assyria. In B.C. 681 Esar-haddon became king of Assyria but held his court at Babylon, to which place Manasseh king of Judah was carried prisoner about B.C. 677 (2 Chron. 33:11). About B.C. 625 Nabo-polassar revolted from the king of Assyria and established the later kingdom of Babylon. He with Cyaxares (the Ahasuerus of Dan. 9:1) founder of the Median kingdom, attacked and took Nineveh, and put an end to the Assyrian rule. Nebuchadnezzar, co-regent with Nabo-polassar, took Jerusalem, and carried many captives and the holy vessels to Babylon, about B.C. 606. In B.C. 604 Nabo-polassar died and Nebuchadnezzar reigned alone. In B.C. 603, Jehoiakim revolted and in 599 Nebuchadnezzar again took Jerusalem, and Ezekiel was carried to Babylon: this is called the great captivity (2 Kings 24:1-16). Mattaniah was left as king in Jerusalem, his name being changed to Zedekiah: he reigned 11 years (2 Kings 24:17-20). Having rebelled against Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, after a siege of eighteen months, once more took Jerusalem, destroyed the city and burnt the house of the Lord, bringing the kingdom of Judah to an end (B.C. 588) (2 Kings 25:1-26). For the personal history of the king see NEBUCHADNEZZAR. In B.C. 561 Nebuchadnezzar died. He was the “head of gold” in Daniel’s great image. The glory of the later Babylonian Empire virtually began and ended with him. The succession of kings was somewhat as follows:
KINGS OF BABYLON.
B.C.
625 Nabo-polassar.
606 Nebuchadnezzar, co-regent.
604 Nabo-polassar dies. Nebuchadnezzar reigns alone.
561 Evil-Merodach succeeds. He raises up Jehoiachin in the 37th year of his captivity (2 Kings 25:27).
559 Neriglissar succeeds. Perhaps the same as one of the princes called Nergal-sharezer in Jeremiah 39:3,13.
556 Laborosoarchod succeeds. Reigned 9 months and is slain.
555 Nabonidus, or Nabonadius (also called Labynetus), a usurper: Belshazzar his son afterward reigning with him.
538 Babylon taken, and Belshazzar slain. End of the Empire of Babylon.
Babylon has a large place in the Old Testament with reference to its interactions with Israel, in nearly every chapter of Jeremiah, from Jeremiah 20-52, Babylon is mentioned. Babylon is also of note as being the first of the four great empires prophesied of by Daniel. The kingdom of the Lord, established in the house of David, and maintained in Judah, had for the time come to an end because of iniquity, and the “times of the Gentiles” had begun. Of Nebuchadnezzar it was said, “Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength and glory.... Thou art this head of gold” (Dan. 2:37-38). Babylon was God’s instrument by which Judah was punished; and then because of the pride and wickedness of the king of Babylon he also was brought under the rod of the Almighty.
The destruction of Babylon was fully foretold in scripture, though some of these prophecies may refer also to still future events, namely, the overthrow by the Lord (typified by Cyrus) of the last holder of Nebuchadnezzar-like authority, namely, the beast, the last head of the revived Roman empire (Isa. 13:6-22; Isa. 14:4-23; Isa. 21:2-9; Isa. 47:1-11; Jer. 25:12-14 and Jer. 50-51). Its downfall was unexpected. For 24 years after the death of Nebuchadnezzar Babylon continued the seat of the imperial court. In B.C. 538 the city was taken in a remarkable way. A night was chosen when the inhabitants were about to hold a festival, when the whole city would be given up to drunkenness and debauchery. The water of the river was diverted from its bed so as to render it shallow enough to let the troops pass along. The gates were opened, and the city was taken.
This also was prophesied of in scripture: it specifies that Cyrus was God’s shepherd, and He had holden him to subdue nations: God would loose the loins of kings to open before him the two-leaved gates; and the gates should not be shut: the gates of brass should be broken, and the bars of iron be cut asunder (Isa. 45:1-2). Again the suddenness and unexpectedness of the attack is also mentioned: “evil shall come upon thee; thou shalt not know from whence it riseth: and mischief shall fall upon thee; thou shalt not be able to put it off: and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know” (Isa. 47:11). We also find that it was on the night of the revelry of Belshazzar’s feast that the king was slain (Dan. 5:30).
The monuments show that Babylon was taken by Gobryas the general of Cyrus, and that the capture of the city was, as some think, aided by treachery among its inhabitants. Daniel 5:31 Says, “Darius the Median took the kingdom.” This king has not been found mentioned by name on the monuments, but he is well accredited as king in Daniel. He was probably ASTYAGES, who was a Median king. He had been conquered by Cyrus, who may have found it to his advantage to let him reign at Babylon as long as he lived. Astyages being a Mede and Cyrus a Persian agree with the second great empire being called by the two names. Persia gained the ascendancy, and Babylon was a royal residence during part of the year. There were occasional revolts, in the putting down of which the city was more and more destroyed. In the year B.C. 478 Xerxes returning from his inglorious invasion of Greece passed through the city, robbed the temple of Belus of its wealth and left its lofty towers a heap of ruins. In B.C. 324 Alexander the Great attempted to rebuild that edifice, and employed 10,000 men; but his sudden death, before the ruins had been cleared away, left it still in desolation.
Scripture is very decisive as to the utter destruction of the city: “Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there: but wild beasts of the desert shall lie there, and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces” (Isa. 13:19-22).
Now vast mounds extend for miles. If Hillah (about 32° 27’ N, 44° 25’ E) be taken as a center, the mounds extend northward about 3 miles. About 6 miles S.W. of Hillah stands the celebrated heap known as Birs Nimrood, supposed to be the site of the ancient temple of Belus. There are three large piles on the east of the river: the Mujelibe or Mukallibe, the Kasr or palace, and the Amran.
Birs Nimrud
The moral features of Babylon were idolatrous corruption and worldliness, which will be seen in full manifestation in Babylon the Great. It is the place where the people of God get into captivity through dalliance with the world.
In the New Testament Babylon is mentioned in 1 Peter 5:13. There is evidence in Josephus that there were many Jews in the district forty years after Christ. On the occasion of the gathering at Jerusalem in Acts 2:9-11 mention is made of the Parthians, Medes and Elamites; and when Peter commences his epistle, supposing he was in the district of Babylon, he naturally puts Pontus first and then passes on to Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. There can be no reason therefore to doubt that the ancient district of Babylon is alluded to by Peter, where, through God’s grace, there were some of the “elect.”
Bible Handbook:
The Chaldean kingdom, the oldest on record, of which Babylon was the capital, lay between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, and was about 400 miles in length and about 100 in breadth.
Babylon was undoubtedly the grandest city ever built by man. “Of all the seats of empire — of all the cities that the pride or power of man has built on the surface of the globe — Babylon was the greatest. Its greatness, as it was originated so, in large measure was secured by its natural position. Its founders took advantage of the huge spur of tertiary rock, which projects itself from the long inclined plain of the Syrian desert into the alluvial basin of Mesopotamia, thus furnishing a dry and solid platform on which a flourishing city might rest, whilst it was defended on the south by the vast morass or lake, if not estuary, extending in that remote period from the Persian Gulf. On this vantage-ground it stood, exactly crossing the line of traffic between the Mediterranean coast and the Iranian mountains; just, also, on that point where the Euphrates, sinking into a deep bed, changes from a vast expanse into a navigable river, not wider than the Thames at London; where also out of the deep rich alluvial clay it was easy to dig the bricks, which from its earliest date came floating down the rivers from the springs in its upper course.”
The founder of Babylon was Nimrod, also the founder of the Assyrian monarchy (Gen. 10), and the original strength of both kingdoms consisted of four cities each (Gen. 10:10-12). Babylon, the first and ancient of all cities, occupies a large place in the Word of God, and is there viewed as the representative of man in his pride, glory, power, and idolatry, and we might add wickedness. It was out of Egypt that Israel was redeemed, but it was into Babylon the people were sent for their sins; they were slaves in the one and captives in the other. The historical connection of Babylon with the national history of Israel, and of the mystical city with the professing church (Rev. 17; 18), are subjects of very great importance, the former of which is largely developed in the Old Testament Scriptures. “The times of the Gentiles” took their rise from the downfall of Judah and the ascendancy of Babylon. Soon all that now represents Babylon historically and figuratively, which is ever viewed as the dominant power on the earth, acting in proud independence of and in opposition to God and His people, will crumble into dust: “For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land: and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob. And the people shall take them, and bring them to their place: and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord for servants and handmaids: and they shall take them captives, whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors. And it shall come to pass in the day that the Lord shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve, that thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased! The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked, and the sceptre of the rulers” (Isaiah 14:1-5). Thus restored, Israel in the day of her gladness, celebrates the doom of Babylon. The mystical city is no less doomed to full and final judgment, and the church thus celebrates the event: “Alleluia; Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God: for true and righteous are His judgments: for He hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of His servants at her hand. And again they said, Alleluia. And her smoke rose up for ever and ever” (Rev. 19:1-3).
Babylon was founded by Nimrod in self-will and independence of God; the love of power and conquest characterized its sad origin, and stamped their features on its after history. All this culminated in Nebuchadnezzar, “the head of gold,” who, proudly surveying the magnificent city, exclaimed, “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” (Dan. 4:30). Alas! Alas! God has doomed all flesh, and the glory of man to wither as the grass. When the star of Israel sank behind the clouds of wickedness and idolatry, there arose in splendour the day star — Lucifer (Isa. 14), and on the ruins of Judah and Jerusalem — Babylon the “golden city.” When the church ceased to be a reflector of Christ’s glory and God’s grace in this dark scene, then the mystical Babylon arose surely on a ruined corporate testimony, but Israel will rise and shine, and Babylon will sink to rise no more, and the church in the glory of God (Rev. 21), will shine through the everlasting ages of a bright millennial and eternal day — a day without an evening, while the false and corrupting system — the mystical Babylon will sink into gloom and darkness, settled and eternal — a night which will never know a morning.
Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar attained its highest degree of splendor and magnificence, of size and strength. For long it was a mere city of no great pretension, and belonged to the Assyrian empire, of which Nineveh was the capital. But the Babylonians, aided by the Medes, threw off the yoke of Assyria, and reduced Nineveh almost to ashes. Rapidly the new and vigorous kingdom spread her wings, and extended her power over the known kingdoms of the east. Egypt, her southern rival, was completely overthrown, followed by the subjugation of Judah. Then, on the destruction of Jerusalem, the Divine center of earthly government, Babylon found her power all victorious, and an absolute monarchy founded on the plains of Shinar. Herodotus, the earliest historian extant, and who saw Babylon soon after the zenith of her glory, gives a glowing description of the size and magnificence of the city and her buildings. There has been considerable discussion in reference to some of the details, especially as to the height and breadth of the city walls. Probably the description Herodotus gives may be somewhat exaggerated, but certainly Scripture, which is always reliable, and history, which in a measure may be depended upon, would warrant us in saying that Babylon must have been the grandest and largest city built or witnessed by man; to be exceeded in magnificence surely by the future Jerusalem, the metropolitan city of the millennial earth; as the Temple of Belus, in Babylon (said to have been the grandest structure of the kind ever erected) will as certainly be as nothing compared to the New Temple in Jerusalem, which will be built according to Divine plan and measurement.
Babylon stood in a large plain, and formed a square of about fifty-six miles. The Euphrates flowed through the center of the city from north to south, spanned by a wonderfully built bridge, on one side of which stood the magnificent Temple of Belus, of enormous dimensions, containing numerous images of pure gold, and which was plundered by the famous Xerxes; and on the other side of the bridge stood the grand palace of Nebuchadnezzar — the largest and most magnificent, probably, ever built. The hanging gardens, one of “the seven wonders of the world,” were truly wonderful as a work of art. They were constructed as terraces, and rose to the height of the walls. Every kind of fruit, flower tree, and vegetable, were grown to perfection in these gardens, and must have immensely delighted Nebuchadnezzar’s Median Consort Amyte, on whose account they were built, in order to remind her of her own country’s beautiful gardens and forests. The walls of the city are said to have been about 335 feet high, and about 87 feet broad, thus allowing abundant space for chariots to run on the top of the walls, and even to turn at any point they choose. There were also 100 gates of solid brass, and enormously strong, twenty-five on each side of the city, besides numerous other gates inside, and all of brass and of great strength. From each gate to the other opposite there was a straight street the whole length or breadth of the city, these in turn were intersected, until, in all, there were formed 676 squares.
The capture of the city by Cyrus is detailed at length in the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah. The ancient historians who so graphically and circumstantially describe the overthrow of Babylon — the “praise of the whole earth” — are not more minute, and certainly neither so exact nor reliable as the Hebrew prophets already named. The cities Babylon and Nineveh — the respective capitals of the Chaldean and Assyrian monarchies — are doomed in the prophetic word to perpetual desolation.
How blessed, beloved reader, to turn from the wreck and ruin of human greatness, to that which cannot be moved; “let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.”
Names of the Country and City
The desert of the sea.
The land of the Chaldeans.
The land of Shinar.
The land of Merathaim.
The land of Babylon.
The most proud.
Praise of the whole earth.
Sheshach.
The lady of kingdoms.
The golden city.
The city of merchants.
Babylon the great.
The glory of kingdoms.
The beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency
Its Location
On the rivers Tigris and Euphrates.
Its People
Were numerous.
Were idolaters.
Were wealthy.
Were cruel.
Were superstitious.
Were warlike.
Were commercial.
The City
Was large.
Was strongly fortified.
Was utterly destroyed.
Babylon – Jehovah’s Instrument of Judgment
Upon Egypt.
Upon Judah.
Upon Edom.
Upon Moab.
Upon Ammon.
Upon Tyre.
Upon Zidon.
Upon Assyria.
Upon Hazor.
Upon Nineveh.
The Babylon of the Apocalypse occupies the same relation to the Babylon of the prophets, as does the New Jerusalem to the Jerusalem of the prophets. In the Revelation, both cities are used in a mystical sense; in the prophets, the cities are to be understood in their literal import. The prophets Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel are remarkably definite in their statements upon Babylon and her relation to Judea.
Jackson’s Dictionary of Scripture Proper Names:
confusion (by mixing)
Related Books and Articles:
Narrator:
Chris Genthree
Duration:
13min