The History Leading Up to the Destruction of Judah

According to Babylonian sources, by 616 B.C.E., the Egyptian troops of Psammetichus I were already fighting on the side of the Assyrians at Gablini in the Middle Euphrates. See, Jean-Jacques Glassner, Mesopotamian Chronicles, ed. Benjamin Foster, Writings from the Ancient World 19 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2004), 219; trans. of Chroniques Mésopotamiennes (Paris: Les Belles Lettres; 1993). Archaeology also supports the appearance of the Egyptians in the wars, since archaeological finds naming Psammetichus I and Necho II were found in Carchemish together with a shield of a Greek warrior. C. Leonard Woolley, Carchemish. Report on the Excavations at Jerablus on Behalf of the British Museum. Part II: The Town Defences (London: Printed by order of the Trustees, 1923), 123–129, Pls. 21 – 26.

This is recorded both in the Babylonian Chronicles and in the Bible (Jer 46).

Glassner, Mesopotamian Chronicles, 229.

Glassner, Mesopotamian Chronicles, 229.

See Lawrence E. Stager, “Ashkelon and the Archaeology of Destruction: Kislev 604 BCE,” Eretz Israel 25: Joseph Aviram Volume (1996): 61–74.

The biblical “ninth month” is the same as Babylonian Kislev (Kislimu). In the Second Temple period, the Judeans/Jews would adopt the Babylonian names, which are still used today.

Editor’s note: See discussion in, Zev Farber, “The Prohibition of Shaving in the Torah and Halacha,” TheTorah (2014).

See Israel Ephʿal “Nebuchadnezzar the Warrior: Remarks on his Military Achievements,” Israel Exploration Journal 53.2 (2003): 178–191 [180, n.4].

While the geographical specifics of the 603 B.C.E. campaign are unreadable, most scholars assume the region was Ḫatti. Based on the verse in Jeremiah, Anson Rainey (1930–2011) suggested that the city was Gaza:

[The seco]nd [year], in the month of Iyyar, the king of Akkad strengthened his powerful army and [marched on Ḫatti]. He set up his quarters at (or against) [the city of Gaza]. He made cross [...] large siege towers. [... from the month of] Iyyar to the month of [..., he traveled through Ḫatti victoriously].

(The translation follows Glassner, Mesopotamian Chronicles, 229, but with one of the brackets filled in with Rainey’s suggested Gaza reconstruction.) See Anson F. Rainey, “The Fate of Lachish during the Campaigns of Sennacherib and Nebuchadrezzar,” ch. 9 in Investigations at Lachish: The Sanctuary and The Residency (Lachish V), ed. Yohanan Aharoni (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University’s Institute of Archaeology, 1975), 47–60 [p. 54]. Other suggestions have been Ashdod, Ekron, Aphek, Tyre, Sidon, and even Jerusalem. See discussion in Nadav Na’aman, “Nebuchadrezzar’s Campaign in Year 603 BCE,” Biblische Notizen 61 (1992): 41–44. Na’aman himself reconstructs Kimuhu (modern-day Samsat in Turkey), arguing that even the reconstruction of the Levant as the target region is mistaken.

Seymour Gitin, “The Philistines in the Prophetic Texts: An Archaeological Perspective,” in Hesed ve-Emet: Studies in Honor of Ernest S. Frerichs, ed. Jody Magness and Seymour Gitin, BJS 320 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998), 273–290 [p. 276]. See also David S. Vanderhooft, The Neo-Babylonian Empire and Babylon in the Latter Prophets, Harvard Semitic Monographs 59 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999), 82–83. Other scholars date it slightly later, whether to the 603 B.C.E. campaign, which may have been aimed at Gaza (see above), to the 601 B.C.E. campaign against Egypt, or to early in the 598 campaign against Judah, when Nebuchadnezzar retook the Levant from Egypt (see below). Oded Lipschits argues that 598 is the latest possible date for this conquest, since in the Istanbul prism (see below), Ekron is not mentioned and thus, like Ashkelon, likely no longer existed. See Oded Lipschits, The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem: Judah Under Babylonian Rule (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2005), 41–42 [nn 18–19], 52 [n 55].

Aramaic reconstruction and translation is taken from Bezalel Porten, “The Identity of King Adon,” Biblical Archaeologist (1981): 36–52, updated in idem., “Appeal of Adon King of Ekron to Pharaoh,” in The Context of Scripture, ed. William W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 3.132–134. It was Porten who made the now generally accepted connection between the letter and the city of Ekron.

See Trude Dothan and Seymour Gitin, “Tel Miqne,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East, ed. Eric M. Meyers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 4.30–35 [33–34].

For more on this, see Dan’el Kahn, “Nebuchadnezzar Fails to Conquer Egypt so Jeremiah’s Prophecy Was Updated,” TheTorah (2022).

Glassner, Mesopotamian Chronicles, 227.

The Greek Septuagint (LXX) has a more general introduction: Ἐπὶ τοὺς ἀλλοφύλους “regarding the outsiders [=Philistines].” Given the truth and specificity of the claim about Egypt’s conquest of Gaza, which would not have been common knowledge to later scribes, it seems that MT is original here. As for the LXX text, a later scribe, perhaps confused about how a lament about the conquest of Gaza could have been made before the conquest of Gaza—not realizing that the lament was about the Babylonian conquest and the note about the Egyptian reconquest—deleted the original opening in favor of a more general one.

Nadav Na’aman reconstructs the penultimate name as Mir-[ru-na], a shortened form for Samsimuruna in Lebanon, and suggests that the final city was Byblos, in this same region. See Nadav Na’aman, “Royal Vassals or Governors? On The Status of Sheshbazzar and Zerubbabel in the Persian Empire,” Henoch 22 (2000): 35–44 [p. 41].

Editor’s note: For more on this campaign, see David Glatt-Gilead, “Jehoiachin’s Exile and the Division of Judah,” TheTorah (2017).

Glassner, Mesopotamian Chronicles, 231.

Ernst F. Weidner “Hochverrat gegen Nebukadnezar II: ein Grosswürdenträger vor dem Königsgericht” [High Treason against Nebuchadnezzar II: A Dignitary before the King’s Court], Archiv für Orientforschung 17 (1956): 1-9.

See discussion in William McKane, “Jeremiah’s Instructions to Seraiah (Jeremiah 51: 59-64),” in Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom, ed. David P. Wright, David Noel Freedman, and Avi Hurvitz (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1995), 697–706 [697–698].

His grandfather (and namesake) Psammetichus I expelled them from Egypt.

Knowledge of this impressive victory may even be at the heart of Ezekiel’s prophecy about Egypt and its neighbors (Ezek 30:1–3).

For a detailed discussion of Psammetichus II’s rule and its consequences, see Dan’el Kahn, “Some Remarks on the Foreign Policy of Psammetichus II in the Levant (595–589 B.C.),” Journal of Egyptian History 1 (2008): 139–158.

Editor’s note: For a discussion of the dating problem, see Zev Farber, “Tisha B’Av: On What Day Were the Jerusalem Temples Destroyed?” TheTorah (2018).