BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

Who Were the Babylonians?

A brief look at one of the Bible’s biggest baddies

Who were the Babylonians? Depicted on top of the stele of his famous law code, Hammurabi stands before a seated Marduk. Hammurabi, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Babylonians are certainly one of the Bible’s biggest baddies, but they were also one of history’s greatest empires. So, who were the Babylonians? Centered on the city of Babylon, in central Iraq, the empire first came to power as a small territorial city-state in the 19th century BCE, under the rule of a newly established Amorite dynasty. Over the next millennium, the power of Babylonia would have its ups and downs, with the city being completely destroyed at one point before eventually being the center of an empire that stretched throughout the entire Fertile Crescent.

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Here Come the Babylonians

Despite the cultural and political power of the Babylonian Empire, its history can largely be presented in two short periods: the Old Babylonian period (c. 1894–1595 BCE) and the Neo-Babylonian period (c. 626–539 BCE).

The Old Babylonian period is defined by the reign of a single dynasty, founded by Sumu-Abum (r. 1897–1883 BCE). A local Amorite chieftain, Sumu-Abum managed to capture the small and insignificant city of Babylon from a fellow Amorite city-state. Over the next hundred years, Babylon remained rather small and unimportant, until the reign of the famous Hammurabi (r. 1792–1750 BCE), who greatly expanded the city, established an effective bureaucracy, and formed alliances with other important Amorite rulers. Within a short time, he drove the Elamites out of southern Mesopotamia, who had exerted control over the region for hundreds of years. He then slowly began to conquer the rest of the southern Mesopotamian city-states, as well as Elam, large sections of modern Iran, and eventually all of northern Mesopotamia and Syria, including the powerful Amorite kingdoms of Mari and Yamhad. He even forced the Assyrians into submission.

The expansive empire established by Hammurabi would be short lived, however. By the end of the reign of his son, Samsu-iluna, the borders of Babylon had already shrunk considerably, as the empire fell victim to rebellions and changes in climate. The reign of the last king of the first Babylonian dynasty, Samsu-ditana (r. 1625–1595 BCE), would be brought to an end by a long-distance raid by the Hittites, who managed to capitalize on a much-weakened Babylon. For nearly a thousand years, Babylon would be ruled by foreigners or weak local dynasties. This was the case for most of the biblical period of Israel and Judah, when Babylon was under the control of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. During this period, the Babylonians tried multiple times to achieve their independence. One such attempt is alluded to in 2 Kings 20 and Isaiah 39, when the Babylonian king, Merodach-Baladan, allied with King Hezekiah of Judah. While successful at first, the partnership failed, as Sennacherib, King of Assyria, managed to suppress the simultaneous rebellions in Judah and Babylon.

Brick inscription of Nebuchadnezzar II, written in Akkadian. Courtesy Nathan Steinmeyer.

However, less than a century later, another Babylonian king, Nebopolassar (r. 626–605 BCE), would take advantage of Assyria’s own period of weakness and declare Babylon’s independence. What followed was more than a decade of incredibly brutal warfare between Babylon and Assyria. It was only with the entrance into the conflict of the newly established Median empire that Babylon managed to succeed, conquering the cities of Assur and Nineveh and driving the last Assyrian king into exile in Egypt. Nebopolassar’s son, the famous Nebuchadnezzar II, would continue to expand Babylonian control over the region formerly controlled by the Assyrians, including the southern Levant and Jerusalem.

Following the death of Nebuchadnezzar in 562, the Babylonian Empire quickly stagnated with a series of short-lived kings. The reign of Nabonidus (r. 556–539 BCE) stabilized the empire for a short time, however; Nabonidus even campaigned in the Levant and conquered as far south as modern-day Madinah in Saudi Arabia. In 539, Babylonia was invaded by the Persians who quickly claimed victory. The end of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, and specifically the death of its second-to-last king, Labashi-Marduk, marked the last native Mesopotamian ruler until the coronation of King Faisal II of Iraq in 1939 CE.

While the actual period of Babylonian domination was rather short, Babylon still managed to make itself the cultural capital of all Mesopotamia for nearly two millennia, even following its conquest by Alexander the Great. This was largely the result of the success of Hammurabi’s bureaucracy, through which he managed to homogenize Mesopotamia, coalescing the Akkadian, Sumerian, and Amorite cultures into one “Babylonian” culture. This culture would then be adopted by the kingdoms and empires that controlled Mesopotamia following the collapse of the first Babylonian dynasty. One notable aspect of this broader culture was the worship of Marduk, who began as the city god of Babylon until he was elevated to head of the Mesopotamian pantheon with the creation of the Enuma Elish creation myth. Marduk would continue to be venerated for thousands of years, with the famous third-century BCE historian Berossus even being a priest of Marduk in Babylon.

Related reading in Bible History Daily:

Who Were the Amorites?

Where Are the Hanging Gardens of Babylon?

Dating Babylon’s Ishtar Gate

All-Access members, read more in the BAS Library:

The Babylonian Gap

What the Babylonian Flood Stories Can and Cannot Teach Us About the Genesis Flood

The Fury of Babylon: Ashkelon and the Archaeology of Destruction

How Bad Was the Babylonian Exile?

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