The Babylonian Chronicle — Jerusalem taken, 16 March 597 BC
The first fall of Jerusalem is datable to a single day — 16 March 597 BC — from Babylon's own records, and the replacement of one king by another matches 2 Kings 24 exactly.
Date fixeAuteur antique6th century BC
A Babylonian court chronicle, terse and administrative, recording year by year what the army did. For Nebuchadnezzar's seventh year it records the siege of "the city of Judah", its capture on the second day of the month Adar, the seizure of its king and the appointment of a king of Babylon's own choosing.
In the seventh year, the month of Kislev, the king of Akkad mustered his troops, marched to Hatti-land, and encamped against the city of Judah. On the second day of the month Adar he captured the city and seized the king. He appointed there a king of his own choice.
- Découvert
- Babylonia — Acquired by the British Museum; published by D. J. Wiseman, 1956
- Conservé à
- British Museum, London (BM 21946)
- Langue
- Akkadian
- Comment il nous est parvenu
- Fouillé, ou encore debout là où il fut bâti.
Ce qu'elle montre
The date conversion is astronomically secure. The chronicle names no king personally, but the sequence matches Jehoiachin's removal and Zedekiah's installation.
Ce qu'en font les historiens
One of the most precisely dated events in the Hebrew Bible, used in secular scholarship as a fixed anchor for the chronology of Judah's last decades.
Dans l'Écriture
Se rattache à
Sources
- Wiseman, Chronicles of Chaldaean Kings (626–556 BC) in the British Museum (1956)
- ABC 5, the Jerusalem Chronicle — text and translation
Ces textes sont pour l'instant en anglais. Les traductions suivront.