Biblical Geography

Babylon (city)

City · Old Testament · Ruins near Hillah

Scripture first

Daniel 4:29-30 · WEBU

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Nebuchadnezzar walks on the palace roof: Is not this great Babylon, which I have built?

The city of Babylon straddled the Euphrates with walls, gates, a processional way and a great ziggurat, its bricks stamped with Nebuchadnezzar's name. Judah's exiles lived in its canals district for seventy years, and Daniel rose in its court. Cyrus took it in 539 BC, and it slowly declined into ruin.

The walled city on the Euphrates where the exiles lived and Daniel served, fallen to Cyrus in one night.

Biblical names
Babylon, Babel
Modern identification
Ruins near Hillah · Iraq

Babylon's water, the Euphrates and its canals, was both its wealth and its weakness: Cyrus's forces entered along the diverted riverbed, exactly the kind of approach -45's language anticipates.

  • Nebuchadnezzar walks on the palace roof: Is not this great Babylon, which I have built?
  • Babel's tower and the scattering
  • By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
  • That very night Babylon fell to the Medes and Persians
  • The virgin daughter of Babylon brought down to the dust

What we know

Certain

  • The city's capture by Cyrus in 539 BC and its ruins at Hillah are established.

Disputed

  • The identification of specific structures, such as the tower of Babel with the ziggurat Etemenanki, is a reasonable association, not a proof.