The Nabonidus Chronicle
Few books of history indicate that the fall of ancient Babylon was the result of its capture by a coalition army of Medes and Persians in the year 539 BCE. Much of this statement is based on a cuneiform tablet called the Nabonidus Chronicle, which was apparently discovered not far from Baghdad, perhaps among the ruins of Babylon, shortly before it was acquired by the British Museum in London in 1879. Nabonidus, the last Babylonian monarch, is not the author, but his name is associated with it because the tablet lists, in the form of annals, a series of events that occurred during his reign. The most memorable of these remains the taking — to say the least unusual — of Babylon by armies who invested the imposing city « without fighting »! Far from being a mere detail, this fact supports the prophetic character of several biblical statements contained in particular in the book of Isaiah.
The Nabonidus Chronicle (BM 35382) is a small clay tablet, measuring 146 mm wide and 140 mm long, which has inscriptions spread over two columns on each of its two sides, but a large part having been damaged, alone « little more than 75 of the original 300 to 400 lines » 1 have been preserved. Much of the first column and almost all of the fourth are missing, as well as the bottom of the second and top of the third. Now, it is precisely at this last place that the account of the capture of Babylon begins, which, for this reason, is not explicitly dated 2. Let’s admit that it’s a bit of a pity for a document supposed to offer Assyriologists a safe base, an absolute date, that of 16 Tešrit 539 BCE — equivalent to 5 October of the same year according to our Gregorian calendar — to establish the chronology of many civilizations of antiquity. What does this famous tablet tell us about the fall of Babylon? Here is the order of events as recorded in lines 14 to 18 of the third column:
« In the month of Tešrit, (…) the fourteenth, Sippar was taken without a struggle. Nabonidus fled. The sixteenth, Governor Ugbaru of Gutium and the army of Cyrus made their entrance into Babylon without fighting. Later, having returned, Nabonidus was taken in Babylon. Until the end of the month, the shield-(carriers) of Gutium encircled the gates of the Esagila, but there was no interruption (of rites) of any kind in the Esagila or in any other temple and no (festival) date was missed. In the month of Arahsamnu, the third day, Cyrus entered Babylon »
Translation by Jean-Jacques GLASSNER 3
As we said in the introduction, the Nabonidus Chronicle clearly indicates that Cyrus II and his army « entered Babylon without fighting.» However, unlike the inhabitants of Sippar two days earlier, the Babylonians never surrendered to the enemy. Herodotus indeed reports that « the Babylonians (…) had made a heap of provisions for many years. So the siege did not worry them in any way » 4. How then did their attackers manage to take their city « without fighting »? The Greek historian continues: « [Cyrus] turned away (…) by the communication channel, the river in the lake, which was a large swamp. The waters flowed there, and the old bed of the Euphrates became fordable. Having done so, the Persians, who had been placed on the banks of the river, entered Babylon through the bed of the river, the waters of which had retreated so much, that they had little but the middle of the thighs » 5. This first element of explanation refers us to the biblical text of Isaiah 44:27 which prophetically announced the strategy that Cyrus would employ: « When I order deep waters, ‘Dry up!’ I will make sure the rivers dry up! » (FBV). However, if the Euphrates played an essential role in the defense system of Babylon, neutralizing the river was not enough to guarantee the capture of the city. It also had high walls, flanked by many towers, themselves locked by heavy copper doors! By what means would it be possible to cross them « without fighting »?
The answer is found in Isaiah 45:1, which follows immediately from the previous passage. We read: « This is what Jehovah says to his anointed one, to Cyrus, (…) to open before him the double doors, so that the gates will not be shut » (TMN). Let’s face it, it’s easier to go through an open door than a closed one, especially if the door is one of the largest in the empire! Describing the capture of Babylon in his biography of Cyrus II, Xenophon supports Isaiah’s statement by putting the following words in the mouth of Gobryas, « Governor Ugbaru » of the Nabonidus Chronicle: « It would come as no surprise that the doors were not closed, for the whole city seems to be rejoicing tonight » 6. Without knowing it, Xenophon likewise endorses the historicity of the biblical book of Daniel which, in chapter 5, recounts the banquet that the regent Belshazzar — in the absence of his father Nabonide, ‘in flight‘ — gave the evening of the capture of Babylon. If it were easy for Herodotus and Xenophon to gather their information from Persian authorities, it was not the same for Isaiah, who accurately indicated how Babylon would be taken… two centuries before its completion!
Denying the divine inspiration of the biblical text, many critics quickly concluded that the book of Isaiah was posterior to the events it described, or even that it was the fruit of several authors who had lived in different eras. However, these arguments could not stand in the face of another prophecy of Isaiah, also relating to the fall of Babylon. Isaiah 13:19-20 said: « Babylon, the most glorious of kingdoms, the flower of Chaldean pride, will be devastated like Sodom and Gomorrah when God destroyed them. Babylon will never be inhabited again. It will remain empty for generation after generation. Nomads will refuse to camp there, and shepherds will not bed down their sheep » (NLT). If the abandonment of the site of Babylon has been a reality for many centuries, this was not yet the case in the time of Jesus. At that time, however, many scrolls containing all of Isaiah’s writings were circulating within the Jewish community. The aforementioned prophecy, together with that relating to the fall of Babylon, could therefore not have been produced after its realization. A millennium separates them, which is beyond human ability to predict. Only a suprahuman source — in this case Jehovah God — could point to the least detail, as far in advance, as the Nabonidus Chronicle clearly testifies.
References
| 1 | Adolf Leo Oppenheim, « The Babylonian Evidence of Achaemenian Rule in Mesopotamia », The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 2, 1985, p. 534. |
| 2 | Albert Kirk Grayson, « Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles », 1975, p. 109. |
| 3 | Jean-Jacques Glassner, « Mesopotamian Chronicles », 2004, pp. 237, 239. |
| 4 | Hérodote, « Historia », I, 190. |
| 5 | Ibid., I, 191. |
| 6 | Xénophon, « Cyropaedia », VII, [5], 25. |