Nebuchadnezzar II (642-7 October 562) was King of the Neo-Babylonian Empire from August 605 BC to 7 October 562 BC, succeeding Nabopolassar and preceding Amel-Marduk.
Biography[]
Nebuchadnezzar was born in Uruk in 642 BC, the son of Nabopolassar. He served as a commander of his father's Babylonian army during his conquest of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, including at the Fall of Nineveh in 612 BC, and he succeeded his father as King of the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 605 BC. That same year, Nebuchadnezzar defeated Pharaoh Necho II at the Battle of Carchemish, ending Assyrian resistance to the Babylonian takeover of Mesopotamia, and also ending Ancient Egypt's dominance of the Levant. Nevertheless, Nebuchadnezzar's invasion of Egypt was disastrous, and he was soon faced with several rebellions from disloyal vassals as a result; in 597 BC, he captured Jerusalem from the rebellious kingdom of Judah. In 587 BC, he once again conquered Jerusalem, and he destroyed the city and deported the Jews to Babylonia, initiating their infamous Babylonian captivity. According to the Book of Jeremiah in the Old Testament, Nebuchadnezzar was sent by God to rule the world as punishment for the disobedience of the Jews, and he took the Judean Daniel as an interpreter of his dreams. Daniel prophesied that, as Nebuchadnezzar would not submit fully to God, he would go insane for seven years, live in the fields like an animal with long hair and fingernails, and eat grass, and, according to the Book of Daniel, the king indeed transformed into a wild beast a year later while boasting to himself, and did not regain his sanity until seven years later. He died in Babylon in 562 BC.
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