During the seventh year of his reign, between April 598 and March 597 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar established his rule to the southern part of Hattu-Land. He probably began to stabilize and organize administration and garrisons that collected taxes on the local provinces and vassal kingdoms. In my opinion, this is the reason why in the 8th year of his rule in January 586 B.C.E, he was able to content with only short expedition reaching only to Carchemish. He partly accepted Taxes there and returned to Babylon one month later. During this time difficulties in other regions begun to bother Nebuchadrezzar. At some unknown date in his ninth year, which is between April 596 and mid-April 595 BCE, Nebuchadrezzar was forced to go out to a campaign along the bank of the Tigris, confronting the king of Elam. According to the Babylonian Chronicle, the King of Elam was intimidated by the might of the Babylonian army and returned to his own land. However, the necessity of mounting a campaign in the region attests to the problems that the Babylonians were having along the eastern boarder of the empire. Even more difficult problems awaited Nebuchadnezzar in the next year, the tenth year of his reign. According to Babylonian chronicle there was a revolt in Babylon that lasted from the month of Kislev until the month of Tebeth from mid-December 595 to mid-February 594 BCE. This revolt was suppressed only when Nebuchadnezzar ordered the execution of many of his own army, and personally trapped his enemy whose identity is not clear. It is likely that it was in that period of time, and perhaps against the background of these signs of weakness, that stability in Hattu-land began to be undermined. In Egypt, Psammetichus II ascended the throne in 595 BCE. His expedition to Nubia in 593 BCE was perceived as a resounding military success. His expedition to the Phoenician coast one year later probably by sea impressed the kingdoms of the region even more. The small local kingdoms who still remembered the Egyptian rule in the region that was halted less than ten years before, believed in the Egyptian's ability to return to a position of power. It is probable that a strengthening of Egypt and the activist foreign policy of Psammetichus encouraged the anti Babylonian treaty of the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, Sidon, and Judah. We know about it since it's in the background of one of the symbolic messages of Jeremiah. The date in the title of this prophecy is wrong. You can read it in chapter 27, verse one, and it can't be dated to the time of king Jehoiakim since, in the prophecy itself, it is stated that it occurs during the time of Zedekiah. The event in the background of this prophecy is the meeting of all the representative of the vassal kingdoms in the region. Let me read. I'm reading verse two and three. [Hebrew]. The symbolic act of Jeremiah aims toward the message of accepting the Babylonian yoke that a warning that any act of revolt or attempt to break the Babylonian yoke is against the will of God and will cause disastrous results. Have a look in verse eight. [Hebrew]. In verse nine to 11, Jeremiah's warning the representatives of the vassal kings from all kinds of false prophecies in hopes for the fall of Babylonian rule in the Levant. [Hebrew]. In verse 12, Jeremiah is focusing his message to Zedekiah the king of Judah, and warns him. [Hebrew]. The anti-Babylonian pact of the kings of Edom, Ammon, Tyre, Sidon, and Judah, was a move that could not have happened without Egyptian support. Accounts of an agreement between Judah and Egypt in the final years of Zedekiah's reign support assumptions regarding Egypt's role in undermining the stability of the region. In Ezekiel 17 verse 15, there is a description and condemnation of Zedekiah for breaking his personal oath of alliance to Nebuchadnezzar. [Hebrew]. The Egyptian army probably came to assist Judah during the Babylonian siege in Jerusalem. Jeremiah 37:5-11 mentions an Egyptian campaign to Judah at the height of the Babylonian siege and describing that there was a break in the siege when the Babylonian army left Jerusalem to an unknown place in order to face the Egyptians. [Hebrew]. Ostracon number three from Lines 14 and 15 contains a description of a journey to Egypt of Koniahu son of Elnathan. A commander in the Judahite army, apparently the ninth year of Zedekiah's rule, the year the revolt was declared against Babylon. This is the backdrop for understanding why Nebuchadnezzar was so anxious to leave for Hattu-Land in the winter of 594 BCE immediately after suppressing the revolt in Babylon and stabilizing his rule. According to the description in the Babylonian Chronicle, the king and probably also the governors of Hattu-land expressed their loyalty to him. He had received their tribute, and he returned to Babylon. In my opinion, this expedition was also connected with the rise of Psammetichus the Second to the throne in Egypt. An additional reason for the expedition was Nebuchadnezzar�sneed to prove to his Garrison forces in the region that his authority over Hattu-land and Babylon were firm and stable and that the signs of domestic instability were finished. Nebuchadnezzar made another campaign in the month of Kislev of the 11th year of his reign, November 594 BCE. But the Babylonian chronicle contains no other information about it. In this point, I am taking a small timeout, in order to let you know that the Babylonian chronicles were cut off in the 11th year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign for 37 years. The next known segment of the chronicle, is describing the events that were inspired in 557 BC It means that the construction of all the events around the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple will be done without the information from the Babylonian side. We will feel the absence of this information very much in our reconstructions. [MUSIC]
