Biblical Geography

Babylon (empire)

Empire · Old and New Testament · Ruins near Hillah, Iraq

Scripture first

2 Kings 25:8-11 · WEBU

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Nebuchadnezzar's captain burns Jerusalem and carries Judah away to Babylon.

Babylon rose on the Euphrates to succeed Assyria. Nebuchadnezzar took Jerusalem twice, deported the nation in stages, and made the exile the defining wound of the Old Testament.

Babylon fell to Cyrus of Persia in 539 BC without a battle, as Isaiah had foretold generations earlier. In the New Testament the name becomes symbolic: Revelation's Babylon is the proud city of man, deliberately more than the historical empire.

The empire that broke Judah, burned the temple and carried the people into exile; and in the prophets and Revelation, the Bible's lasting symbol of proud world power.

Biblical names
Babylon, Babel, Shinar (the plain)
Later names
Babil
Modern identification
Ruins near Hillah, Iraq · Iraq

Identification note. Ancient Babylon centred in Mesopotamia, largely within modern Iraq. Revelation's symbolic Babylon is not a claim about any modern state.

Babylon lay over 800 kilometres east across a the exiles had to skirt by the northern arc of the Fertile Crescent. The exile was not a short march but a removal to another world.

The canals of the Euphrates, the rivers of Babylon in , made the exiles a settled, irrigated life, which is why some never returned.

  • Nebuchadnezzar's captain burns Jerusalem and carries Judah away to Babylon.
  • By the rivers of Babylon the exiles wept
  • Daniel and his companions taken to Babylon
  • Babylon's fall foretold
  • Babylon as a symbol of the world set against God

What we know

Certain

  • The deportation of Judah and the destruction of Jerusalem are recorded in Scripture and in Babylonian chronicles.
  • Cyrus's conquest of Babylon in 539 BC is established history.

Probable

  • The ruins at Hillah are accepted as the site of ancient Babylon.

Disputed

  • Whether Peter's 'Babylon' means Rome, Jerusalem or the city itself is debated among interpreters.