Nebuchadnezzar II significant event Siege of Jerusalem
In 589 BC, Zedekiah refused to pay tribute to Nebuchadnezzar, and he was closely followed in this by Ithobaal III, the king of Tyre. In response to Zedekiah's uprising, Nebuchadnezzar conquered and destroyed the Kingdom of Judah in 586 BC, one of the great achievements of his reign. The campaign, which probably ended in the summer of 586 BC, resulted in the plunder and destruction of the city of Jerusalem, a permanent end to Judah, and it led to the Babylonian captivity, as the Jews were captured and deported to Babylonia. Archaeological excavations confirm that Jerusalem and the surrounding area was destroyed and depopulated. It is possible that the intensity of the destruction carried out by Nebuchadnezzar at Jerusalem and elsewhere in the Levant was due to the implementation of something akin to a scorched earth-policy, aimed at stopping Egypt from gaining a foothold there.Some Jewish administration was allowed to remain in the region under the governor Gedaliah, governing from Mizpah under close Babylonian monitoring. According to the Bible, and the 1st-century AD Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, Zedekiah attempted to flee after resisting the Babylonians, but was captured at Jericho and suffered a terrible fate. According to the narrative, Nebuchadnezzar wanted to make an example out of him given that Zedekiah was not an ordinary vassal, but a vassal directly appointed by Nebuchadnezzar. As such, Zedekiah was supposedly taken to Riblah in northern Syria, where he had to watch his sons being executed before having his eyes gouged out and sent to be imprisoned in Babylon.Per the Books of Kings in the Bible, the campaign against Judah was longer than typical Mesopotamian wars, with the siege of Jerusalem lasting 18–30 months (depending on the calculation), rather than the typical length of less than a year. Whether the unusual length of the siege indicates that the Babylonian army was weak, unable to break into the city for more than a year, or that Nebuchadnezzar by this time had succeeded in stabilising his rule in Babylonia and could thus wage war patiently without being pressured by time to escalate the siege, is not certain.
Landmark event Key happening Pivotal occurrence Momentous incident Notable episode