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| “ | Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the image of gold I have set up? Now when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe, and all kinds of music, if you are ready to fall down and worship the image I made, very good. But if you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace. Then what god will be able to rescue you from my hand? | „ |
| ~ Nebuchadnezzar threatening Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego with execution for their "treason". |
Nebuchadnezzar II is one of the secondary antagonists of The Bible.
The second king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire and the son and successor of his father Nabopolassar, Nebuchadnezzar II sought to rule the entire world and force its kingdom to worship his gods, in particular, Marduk, Ishtar, and Nabu.
Biography[]
The Babylonian captivity initiated by Nebuchadnezzar came to an end with the fall of Babylon, caused by the Achaemenid king Cyrus the Great in 539 BC. Within a year of their liberation, some captured Jews returned to their homeland. Their liberation did little to erase the memory of five decades of imprisonment and oppression. Instead, Jewish literary accounts ensured that accounts of the hardship endured by the Jews, as well as the monarch responsible for it, would be remembered for all time. The Book of Jeremiah calls Nebuchadnezzar a "Destroyer of Nations".
Nebuchadnezzar's story thus found its way into the Old Testament of the Bible. The Bible narrates how Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the Kingdom of Judah, besieged, plundered and destroyed Jerusalem, and how he took away the Jews in captivity, portraying him as a cruel enemy of the Jewish people. The Bible also portrays Nebuchadnezzar as the legitimate ruler of all the nations of the world, appointed to rule the world by God. As such, Judah, through divine ruling, should have obeyed Nebuchadnezzar and not rebelled. Nebuchadnezzar is also depicted as carrying out death sentences pronounced by God, slaying two false prophets. Nebuchadnezzar's campaigns of conquest against other nations are portrayed as being in-line with God's will for Nebuchadnezzar's dominance.
Despite Nebuchadnezzar's negative portrayal, he is notably referred with the epithet 'my servant' (i.e. God's servant) in three places in the Book of Jeremiah. Nebuchadnezzar's attack on the Kingdom of Judah is theologically justified in the Book of Jeremiah on account of its populace's 'disobedience' of God, and the king is called "Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant". The Book of Jeremiah also states that God has made all the Earth and given it to whom it seemed proper to give it to, deciding upon giving all of the lands of the world to "Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant". The Book of Jeremiah also prophesises Nebuchadnezzar's victory over Egypt, stating that "Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant" will invade Egypt and "deliver to death those appointed for death, and to captivity those appointed for captivity, and to the sword those appointed for the sword". Given that Nebuchadnezzar was the enemy of what the Bible proclaims as God's chosen people, possibly the worst enemy they had faced until this point, there must be a special reason for referring to him with the epithet "my servant". Other uses of this epithet are usually limited to some of the most positively portrayed figures, such as the various prophets, Jacob (the symbol of the chosen people) and David (the chosen king). Klaas A. D. Smelik noted in 2004 that "in the Hebrew Bible, there is no better company conceivable than these; at the same time, there is no candidate less likely for this title of honour than the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar". It is possible that the epithet is a later addition, as it is missing in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, perhaps added after Nabuchadnezzar began to be seen in a slightly more favourable light than immediately after Jerusalem's destruction. Alternatively, possible theological explanations include Nebuchadnezzar, despite his cruelty, being seen as an instrument in fulfilling God's universal plan, or perhaps that designating him as a "servant" of God was to show that readers should not fear Nebuchadnezzar, but his true master, God.
In the Book of Daniel, considered by scholars to be a work of historical fiction, Nebuchadnezzar is given a portrayal that differs considerably from his portrayal in the Book of Jeremiah. He is for the most part depicted as a merciless and despotic ruler. The king has a nightmare, and asks his wise men, including Daniel and his three companions Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, to interpret the dream, but refuses to state the dream's contents. When the servants protest, Nebuchadnezzar sentences all of them (including Daniel and his companions) to death. By the end of the story, when Daniel successfully interpreted the dream, Nebuchadnezzar is nevertheless shown to be very grateful, showering Daniel with gifts, making him the governor of the "province of Babylon" and making him the chief of the kingdoms' wisemen. A second story again casts Nebuchadnezzar as a tyrannical and pagan king, who after Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refuse to worship a newly erected golden statue sentences them to death through being thrown into a furnace. They are miraculously delivered, and Nebuchadnezzar then acknowledges God as the "lord of kings" and "god of gods". Though Nebuchadnezzar is also mentioned as acknowledging the God as the true god in other passages of the Book of Daniel, it is apparent that his supposed conversion to Judaism does not change his violent character, given that he proclaims that anyone who speaks amiss of God "shall be cut in pieces and their houses shall be made a dunghill". In a third story, Daniel interprets another dream as meaning that Nebuchadnezzar will lose his mind and live like an animal for seven years before being restored to his normal state (Daniel 1-4). The portrayal of Nebuchadnezzar in the Book of Daniel is a fickle tyrant who is not particularly consistent in his faith, far from the typical "servants of God" in other books of the Bible. Given that Nebuchadnezzar is referred to as the father of Belshazzar in the Book of Daniel, it is probable that this portrayal of Nebuchadnezzar, especially the story of his madness, was actually based on Belshazzar's real father, Nabonidus, the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire (r. 556–539 BC). Separate Jewish and Hellenistic traditions exist concerning Nabonidus having been mad, and it is likely that this madness was simply reattributed to Nebuchadnezzar in the Book of Daniel through conflation. Some later traditions conflated Nebuchadnezzar with other rulers as well, such as the Assyrian Ashurbanipal (r. 669–631 BC), the Persian Artaxerxes III (r. 358–338 BC), the Seleucids Antiochus IV Epiphanes (r. 175–164 BC) and Demetrius I Soter (r. 161–150 BC) and the Armenian Tigranes the Great (r. 95–55 BC). The apocryphal Book of Judith, which probably applies the name Nebuchadnezzar to Tigranes the Great of Armenia, refers to Nebuchadnezzar as a king of the Assyrians, rather than Babylonians, and demonstrates that Nebuchadnezzar was still viewed as an evil king, responsible for destroying Jerusalem, looting its temple, taking the Jews hostage in Babylon, and for the various misdeeds ascribed to him in later Jewish writings.
Trivia[]
- Popular Christian children's franchise VeggieTales named one of its main characters, Nebby K. Nezzer (Mr. Nezzer) after this king. He first appeared in 1995's Rack, Shack and Benny, a loose adaptation of the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the biblical Book of Daniel, where he tries to force the three boys to worship his bunny statue and sing the Bunny Song and threatens to put them in the furnace if they do not sing the song.
