After the death of King Solomon, during the reign of his son, Rehoboam, the ancient Kingdom of Israel split into two kingdoms around 931 B.C. (1 Kings 11:31-35). The split was the result of infighting because of heavy taxes. When Rehoboam failed to address the economic complaints of the northern tribes, the Kingdom of Israel and Judah split into two, with the tribe of Benjamin siding with Judah.
Then, around 710 B.C. Judah found itself in a dangerous situation. A decade before, the kingdom of Israel had been conquered by Assyria. The Assyrians relocated most of the population of northern Israel and repopulated the area with people from distant parts of the Assyrian Empire. Judah’s territory had also been largely devastated by the Assyrian armies, and only a great miracle had saved the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the fate of northern Israel (II Kings 19:35). A new power, Babylon, was rising in the east, and Judah was in a precarious position between powerful and warring powers of Assyria, Babylon and Egypt.
When Judah’s King Hezekiah, who reigned from around 715–686 BC, fell ill and was healed, a Babylonian prince sent a message of congratulations and gifts to him (2 Kings 20:12). Hezekiah naively interpreted this as an act of reconciliation, and foolishly tried to impress his visitors by showing them the kingdom’s wealth and weaponry (II Kings 20:13-17), providing them with important information for the future Babylonian invasion of Judah and its rich capital, Jerusalem.
After Hezekiah died his son Manasseh inherited the throne, and proved to be a very wicked ruler (2 Chronicles 33:1-2), with the result that God allowed the Assyrians to conquer the kingdom of Judah (verses 9-11). Two Assyrian records corroborate Manasseh’s submission to the Assyrians. “The name, ‘Manasseh, king of Judah’ appears on the Prism of Esarhaddon … and on the Prism of Ashurbanipal” as among 22 rulers who paid tribute to Assyria (The New Bible Dictionary, 1996, p. 724).
The Assyrian Empire, with Nineveh as its capital, appeared invincible. James Muir describes this empire at the time of the prophet Nahum (668 B.C): “Assyria’s expansion across western Asia could be likened to an octopus whose tentacles stretched from the Persian Gulf to the Nile, and whose head was Nineveh. At that time, Nineveh was considered one of the most beautiful cities in the world.” (Archaeology and the Scriptures, 1965, pp. 182—183).
In spite of Nineveh’s greatness, the prophet Nahum foretold not only the city’s destruction, but predicted it would never be rebuilt (Nahum 3:5-7). After its destruction, in 612 B.C “Nineveh disappeared so quickly from sight …that when the Greek general Xenophon and his ten thousand soldiers passed over the site…he didn’t realize the ruins of Nineveh were under his feet…what was left became an artificial mound covered with grass” (Arnold Brackman, The Luck of Nineveh, 1978, p. 21). The site of ancient Nineveh was only rediscovered in 1845 by British archaeologist Austen Henry Layard.
After Assyria fell, Babylon ruled the region, and with the rise of King Nebuchadnezzar (605-562 B.C), the days of the kingdom of Judah were numbered. God sent prophets to warn them to repent and return to worship of the one true God. One of those prophets was Jeremiah, whose faithful scribe, Baruch, wrote down some of Jeremiah’s prophecies (Jeremiah 36:4).
Archaeologists found a clay impression from Jeremiah’s time bearing not only Baruch’s name, but apparently even his fingerprint. Tsvi Schneider, who in 1991 served as assistant librarian at Hebrew University’s Institute of Archaeology, writes about a seal with Baruch’s name on it: “The first and best-known biblical name to be identified on a bulla [a lump of clay bearing a seal impression] is Baruch son of Neriah….The inscription is in three lines and reads: ‘Belonging to Berekhyahu/son of Neriyahu/the scribe’….Four episodes in the Book of Jeremiah mention Baruch, son of Neriah the scribe” (Biblical Archaeological Review, July—August 1991, p. 27).
The librarian also explains that the names of three other people from Jeremiah’s day, including Baruch’s brother, appear in other clay impressions and seals (Biblical Archaeological Review, p. 30). These remarkable finds confirm four people mentioned in the book of Jeremiah were real people who lived in Jerusalem at the time.
The Bible’s account of the conquest of Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 36:15-21) is also confirmed by Babylonian records. Jerusalem was actually conquered twice. The city was first captured, but not destroyed. Later it fell a second time, in 587 B.C., when it was destroyed as the Bible describes. The city was put to the torch, its palaces and the temple burned and its walls demolished. The Bible faithfully describes both defeats, but does not specify when the city was conquered the first time.
In 1887 several Babylonian tablets, which archaeologists call The Babylon Chronicles, were deciphered. They provided dates of the reigns of many Babylonian kings. More tablets, deciphered in 1956, give the dates of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign and activities.The Archaeological Commentary on the Bible explains the significance of the 1956 find: “Until 1956, the date of the first conquest of Jerusalem by the Babylonians was not known. But in that year, several cuneiform tablets were deciphered which gave an exact date for the first conquest— in 597 B.C.” (1979, pp. 143-144).
Like the Assyrians, the Babylonians deported vanquished peoples to maintain tighter control over conquered territories, and Judah’s inhabitants were taken to Babylon. Although their situation seemed hopeless, God through His prophets encouraged the people not to give up and that they would one day return: “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all who were carried away captive…to Babylon: Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and beget sons and daughters …And seek the peace of the city…and pray to the Lord for it; for in its peace you will have peace … After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you…and cause you to return to this place” (Jeremiah 29:4-10). After these encouraging words, the exiles flourished in Babylon, and were so successful that after the 70 prophesied years of their exile the majority decided to stay.
Archaeological evidence demonstrates the kind of favorable conditions God promised Judah in Babylon. “In 1933, E.F. Weidner, the Assyriologist…[was looking] through the tablets and sherds in the basement rooms of the Kaiser-Friedrich Museum ..[and] suddenly found some priceless relics… [of] the ancient world. On four different receipts for stores issued… he came upon a familiar biblical name: ‘Ja’—u—kinu’—Jehoiachin! There was no possibility of his name being mistaken, because Jehoiachin was given his full title: ‘King of the [land of] Judah’ … Jehoiachin, the deposed king of Judah, lived with his family and his retinue in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon. Weidner’s discovery supports the biblical account…” (Werner Keller, The Bible as History, 1980, pp. 303-304). See Jeremiah 52:31-35.
The inhabitants of Judah, who had come to Babylon as a defeated and captive people, were given considerable leeway by the Babylonians. Historian Petra Eisele explains: “….enough is known to confirm their plight was not as harsh as their slavery had been in Egypt during Moses’ time. In Babylon they did not live as prisoners or slaves, instead as a ‘semi—free’ people … After the Persians conquered Babylon in 539 B.C. and granted the Jews the right to return to their native land, only a minority of these supposedly ‘poor prisoners’ took advantage of this generous offer. Many did not want to sacrifice the comforts and riches they had acquired in this ‘foreign’ land and face the uncertainties of going back to their ‘homeland.’
“As the clay tablets of commercial documents in the fifth century B.C show, even after the end of the exile, the Babylonian banks were firmly in the hands of the Jews. There was one Jewish banker whose firm, Bank of Murashu & Sons, had greatly expanded into the real estate business. It had its headquarters in nearby Nippur, and had approximately 200 branches throughout the country!” (Babylon, quoted in Editorial EDAF, 1980, p. 70).
