Aids for Bible Readers

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 7, 1908

Aids for Bible Readers

Historical quotations and extracts from various writers which may assist the thoughtful student of the Scriptures.

Babylon’s Great King

(Concluded)

The chief works expressly ascribed to Nebuchadnezzar by the ancient writers are the following: He built the great wall of Babylon, which, according to the lowest estimate, must have contained more than five hundred million square feet of solid masonry, and must have required three or four times that number of bricks. He constructed a new and magnificent palace in the neighborhood of the ancient residence of the kings. He made the celebrated “hanging gardens” for the gratification of his wife, Amyitis. He dug the huge reservoir near Sippara, said to have been one hundred forty miles in circumference, and one hundred eighty feet deep, furnishing it with flood-gates, through which its water could be drawn off for the purposes of irrigation. He constructed a number of canals, among them the Nahr-Malcha, or “Royal River,” a broad and deep channel which connected the Euphrates with the Tigris. He built quays and breakwaters along the shores of the Persian Gulf, and he at the same time founded the city of Diridotis, or Teredon, in the vicinity of that sea. To these constructions may be added,

on the authority either of Nebuchadnezzar’s own inscriptions or of the existing remains, the Birs-i-Nimrud, or great temple of Nebo at Borsippa; a vast reservoir in Babylon itself, called the Yapur-Shapu; an extensive embankment along the course of the Tigris, near Bagdad; and almost innumerable temples, walls, and other public buildings at Cutha, Sippara, Borsippa, Babylon, Chilmad, Bit-Dilga, etc. The indefatigable monarch seems to have either rebuilt, or at least repaired, almost every city and temple throughout the entire country. There are said to be at least one hundred sites in the tract immediately about Babylon, which give evidence, by inscribed bricks bearing his legend, of the marvelous activity and energy of this king.

We may suspect that among the constructions of Nebuchadnezzar was another great work, a work second in utility to none of those mentioned above, and requiring for its completion an enormous amount of labor. This is the canal called by the Arabs the Kerek Saideh, or canal of Saideh, which they ascribe to a wife of Nebuchadnezzar, a cutting four hundred miles in length which commenced at Hit on the Euphrates, and was carried along the extreme western edge of the alluvium close to the Arabian frontier, finally falling into the sea at the head of the Bubian Creek, about twenty miles to the west of Shat-el-Arab. The terraces of this canal which still remain indicate a work of such magnitude and difficulty that we can scarcely ascribe it with probability to any monarch who has held the country since Nebuchadnezzar.

The Pallacopas, or canal of Opa (Palga Opa), which left the Euphrates at Sippara (Mosaib), and ran into a great lake in the neighborhood of Borsippa, whence the lands in the neighborhood were irrigated, may also have been one of Nebuchadnezzar’s constructions. It was an old canal, much out of repair, in the time of Alexander, and was certainly the work, not of the Persian conquerors, but of some native monarch anterior to Cyrus. The Arabs, who call it the Nahr Abba, regard it as the oldest canal in the country.

Some glimpses into the private life and personal character of Nebuchadnezzar are afforded us by certain of the Old Testament writers. We see him in the book of Daniel at the head of a magnificent court, surrounded by “princes, governors, and captains, judges, treasurers, councilors, and sheriffs;” waited on by eunuchs selected with the greatest care, “well-favored” and carefully educated; attended, whenever he requires it, by a multitude of astrologers and other “wise men,” who seek to interpret to him the will of heaven. He is an absolute monarch, disposing with a word of the lives and properties of his subjects, even the highest. All offices are in his gift. He can raise a foreigner to the second place in the kingdom, and even set him over the entire priestly order. His wealth

is enormous; for he makes of pure gold an image, or obelisk, ninety feet high and nine feet broad. He is religious after a sort, but wavers in faith, sometimes acknowledging the God of the Jews as the only real deity, sometimes relapsing into an idolatrous worship, and forcing all his subjects to follow his example. Even then, however, his polytheism is of a kind which admits of a special devotion to a particular deity, who is called emphatically “his god.” In temper he is hasty and violent, but not obstinate; his fierce resolves are taken suddenly and as suddenly repented of; he is, moreover, capable of bursts of gratitude and devotion, no less than of accesses of fury; like most Orientals, he is vain-glorious; but he can humble himself before the chastening hand of the Almighty; in his better moods he shows a spirit astonishing in one of his country and time,—a spirit of real piety, self-condemnation, and self-abasement,—which renders him one of the most remarkable characters in Scripture.

A few touches of a darker hue must be added to this portrait of the great Babylonian king from the statements of another contemporary, the prophet Jeremiah. The execution of Jehoiakim, and the putting out of Zedekiah’s eyes, though acts of considerable severity, may perhaps be regarded as justified by the general practise of the age, and therefore as not indicating in Nebuchadnezzar any special ferocity of disposition. But the ill-treatment of Jehoiakim’s body, the barbarity of murdering Zedekiah’s sons before his eyes, and the prolonged imprisonment both of Zedekiah and of Jehoiachin, though the latter had only contemplated rebellion, can not be thus excused. They were unusual and unnecessary acts, which tell against the monarch who authorized them, and must be considered to imply a real cruelty of disposition, such as is observable in Sargon and Asshur-banipal. Nebuchadnezzar, it is plain, was not content with such a measure of severity as was needed to secure his own interests, but took a pleasure in the wanton infliction of suffering on those who had provoked his resentment.

On the other hand, we obtain from the native writer, Berosus, one amiable trait which deserves a cursory mention. Nebuchadnezzar was fondly attached to the Median princess who had been chosen for him as a wife by his father from political motives. Not content with ordinary tokens of affection, he erected, solely for her gratification, the remarkable structures which the Greeks called the “hanging gardens.” A native of a mountainous country, Amylitis disliked the tiresome uniformity of the level alluvium, and pined for the woods and hills of Media. It was to satisfy this longing by the best substitute which circumstances allowed that the celebrated gardens were made. Art strove to emulate nature with a certain measure of success, and the lofty rocks and various trees of this wonderful paradise, if they were not a very close imitation of

Median mountain scenery, were at any rate a pleasant change from the natural monotony of the Babylonian plain, and must have formed a grateful retreat for the Babylonian queen, whom they reminded at once of her husband’s love and of the beauty of her native country.

The most remarkable circumstance in Nebuchadnezzar’s life remains to be noticed. Toward the close of his reign, when his conquests and probably most of his great works were completed, in the midst of complete tranquillity and prosperity, a sudden warning was sent him. He dreamed a strange dream; and when he sought to know its meaning, the prophet Daniel was inspired to tell him that it portended his removal from the kingly office for the space of seven years, in consequence of a curious and very unusual kind of madness. This malady, which is not unknown to physicians, has been termed “lycanthropy.” It consists in the belief that one is not a man but a beast, in the disuse of language, the rejection of all ordinary human food, and sometimes in the loss of the erect posture and a preference for walking on all fours. Within a year of the time that he received the warning, Nebuchadnezzar was smitten. The great king became a wretched maniac. Allowed to indulge in his distempered fancy, he eschewed human habitations, lived in the open air night and day, fed on herbs, disused clothing, and became covered with a rough coat of hair. His subjects generally, it is probable, were not allowed to know of his condition, although they could not but be aware that he was suffering from some terrible malady. The queen most likely held the reins of power, and carried on the government in his name. The dream had been interpreted to mean that the lycanthropy would not be permanent; and even the date of recovery had been announced, only with a certain ambiguity. The Babylonians were thereby encouraged to await events, without taking any steps that would have involved them in difficulties if the malady ceased. And their faith and patience met with a reward. After suffering obscuration for the space of seven years, suddenly the king’s intellect returned to him. His recovery was received with joy by his court. Lords and councilors gathered about him. He once more took the government into his own hands, issued his proclamations, and performed the other functions of royalty. He was now an old man, and his reign does not seem to have been much prolonged; but “the glory of his kingdom,” his “honor and brightness,” returned; his last days were as brilliant as his first: his sun set in an unclouded sky, shorn of none of the rays that had given splendor to its noonday. Nebuchadnezzar expired at Babylon in the forty-fourth year of his reign, B. C. 561, after an illness of no long duration. He was probably little short of eighty years old at his death.

— “Seven Great Monarchies,” by George Rawlinson, M. A., Three Volume Edition, Volume II, pages 246-249.