The Ministers of Nebuchadnezzar: The Fall of the First Temple

After several weeks of warfare in Jerusalem, on the seventh of Av, Nebuzaradan "the captain of the guard," commander of the Babylonian killing units, invaded Jerusalem. He ordered his soldiers to burn the Temple and the prominent houses of Jerusalem, tear down the city walls, and seize a substantial plunder. As described in the Book of Kings:

"On the seventh day of the fifth month, in the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, entered Jerusalem.

He burned the house of Hashem and the king's house and all the houses of Jerusalem; every great house he burned with fire. And the walls of Jerusalem around were destroyed by all the Chaldean troops [the Babylonians], under the captain of the guard."

Two days later, on the ninth of Av, Nebuchadnezzar's soldiers set the Temple ablaze, and it was engulfed in flames. From then until today, the ninth of Av is a day of deep mourning for the Jewish people. The Sages describe the profound sorrow of the prophet Jeremiah over the destruction and the suffering of Israel at that time:

"Jeremiah the prophet left Anathoth to come to Jerusalem. He lifted his eyes and saw the smoke of the Temple rising... He came and stood on the wall, and saw the Temple made with rows of stones... He began to cry out, saying... Which path did the lost ones take!? Rather, I will go and perish with them!"

After the fall of Jerusalem and Judah, part of the local population did not survive the violent conquest, and part was exiled to Babylon, with many dying along the way. The Babylonian warriors were known for their extreme cruelty to some of their captives, whom they tortured mercilessly, later killing or abandoning them to die of thirst and hunger. This practice was common among some ancient eastern peoples and appears in stone reliefs discovered in the palaces of the Assyrian kings, the people who Babylon replaced on the stage of history.

Thus, the Sages describe the tortures the Babylonians inflicted on the people of Judah:

"What did the enemies do to our children?... Some were killed, some were bound with their hands tied behind them, some were shackled in iron chains, some were stripped naked, some died on the way with their bodies left to the birds of the sky and beasts of the earth, and some were thrown into the heat, hungry and thirsty..."

Babylonian Army Commanders in Jerusalem: The Findings

In the intense campaign against Jerusalem and Judah, Nebuchadnezzar deployed his best men. Some of them later assumed important roles in the Babylonian kingdom. The king himself spent much of the time in his headquarters in the northern city of Riblah, presumably attending to other urgent matters that arose across his kingdom.

In the Book of Jeremiah, it is described how during the conquest of Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar's ministers gathered for a consultation near one of the city gates:

"And all the ministers of the king of Babylon came and sat at the middle gate: Nergal-Sharezer, Samgar, Nebo-Sarsechim, the chief officer, Nergal-Sharezer, the high official, and all the other ministers of the king of Babylon."

According to the Sages, the purpose of this gathering was to plan the burning of the Temple:

"There the haters sat and plotted how to burn the Temple, until they reached a decision among themselves."

To the amazement of researchers, Babylonian inscriptions from the time of Nebuchadnezzar have been discovered, mentioning all these figures by name. Two are mentioned in one inscription, and two others in separate inscriptions.

Nebuzaradan the Captain of the Guard and Nergal-Sharezer Samgar

Prof. Rocio da Riva, a scholar of the ancient Near East from the University of Barcelona, reports in her article a unique finding: a Babylonian inscription documenting the history of Nebuchadnezzar, stored in the vaults of the Istanbul Archaeological Museum. This prism-shaped inscription was discovered by archaeologist Robert Koldewey while excavating Nebuchadnezzar's palace in Babylon at the beginning of the 20th century, and it was taken to Turkey.

The text of the inscription includes a long list of the king's officials, including "Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard," who is mentioned first among the kingdom's top officials and seems to have been particularly close to the king, as well as the minister "Nergal-Sharezer - Sin Magir."

These are undoubtedly the high-ranking commander "Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard" and Nebuchadnezzar's officer "Nergal-Sharezer Samgar," mentioned in the biblical verses we have seen, who led the conquest of Jerusalem (!).

Nergal-Sharezer the High Official

Another minister mentioned in the verse we brought above, "Nergal-Sharezer the high official," is also noted as a prominent official of Nebuchadnezzar in Babylonian documents related to economic and administrative matters. He married Kasaya, the daughter of Nebuchadnezzar, and there is an opinion that he later became the king of Babylon himself.

Nebo-Sarsechim the Chief Officer

In 2007, the British Museum announced that its expert, Assyriologist Prof. Michael Jursa, managed to decipher a small clay tablet brought from the ancient city of Sippar in Babylon, containing cuneiform writing that mentions a high-ranking individual named "Nebo-Sarsechim the Chief Officer." The tablet states that this individual donated "a mina and a half" of gold (a unit of measure equivalent to three-quarters of a kilogram) to a temple in Babylon. The tablet is dated to 595 BCE, which is the tenth year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, twelve years before the siege of Jerusalem.

Without a doubt, this refers to "Nebo-Sarsechim the chief officer" mentioned in the Book of Jeremiah, describing firsthand the period of Nebuchadnezzar.

Dr. Irving Finkel, a renowned British expert on ancient Near Eastern languages who also examined the finding, couldn't contain his enthusiasm when discussing the discovery:

"This is a fantastic discovery, on a global scale... A small and trivial detail in the Bible turns out to be accurate and correct. In my opinion, this means the whole story [of the Book of Jeremiah] gets reinforced anew."

Archaeological Remains from the Babylonian Destruction in Jerusalem

The conquest was complete, the destruction done, and the Jewish people began their exile.

Thousands of years have passed since then, and subsequent conquerors wreaked further destruction on the remains left in Jerusalem. Yet, the signs of the battles and violent devastation by the ranks of the Babylonian empire are still evident and have been discovered in archaeological finds unearthed in many places across the city. Let's explore a few of them.

"The Israeli Tower"

An impressive finding testifying to the Babylonian conquest was uncovered by archaeologist Prof. Nachman Avigad, during his excavations in the Jewish Quarter of Old Jerusalem in the 1970s. His digs revealed a solid and robust tower-shaped structure, approximately eight meters high, whose "remarkable preservation and quality construction make it a most impressive architectural monument from the First Temple period." The findings suggest the tower was connected to the northern defense line of Jerusalem, destroyed in the war, through which the Babylonians breached into the city. Avigad named the tower "The Israeli Tower."

The artifacts within and around the tower indicate fierce battles occurred there. Flat iron arrowheads, used by the Judahite army, were found; alongside them, bronze arrowheads used by the Babylonian army. These are the arrowheads fired by Zedekiah's soldiers and Babylonian archers at each other.

Babylonian conquest arrowheads, found in the burnt layer of the Israeli tower in Jerusalem

Additionally, large amounts of ash and soot, indicating a fierce fire, were found at the base of the tower. Here's how the researchers, clearly associating the finding with the Babylonian conquest, wrote about it:

"The ground facing the tower... was covered with fire remains, containing charred wood, ash, and soot... These three elements discovered – fortification, arrows, and fire – clearly indicate a battle fought here over the conquest of the wall... The signs of burning and fighting correspond to Nebuchadnezzar's siege of Jerusalem and its conquest...

It seems that in our excavation, the first tangible evidence of this fateful event was found, the battle fought on Jerusalem's walls, following which the fire consumed Jerusalem and the First Temple was destroyed."

The Israeli Tower in Old Jerusalem (Photo: Ze'ev Radovan)

"The Burnt Room"

We descend from the tower in the city's north towards the Temple Mount. Nearby, on the slope of the "City of David," numerous findings from the end of the First Temple era have been unearthed.

In his excavations here from 1978 to 1985, Yigal Shiloh uncovered and examined large stone slides resting here, found to be remains of houses from that period. A room was discovered with a particularly thick layer of ash and soot, identified as preserved from the intense fire that raged there with the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem, a blaze that collapsed the buildings in the area.

In certain spots, the ash and fire remains piled up on the room's floor to a height of about fifty centimeters, an amount so large it blackened the faces of the excavators. The room was nicknamed by the excavators "The Burnt Room." Charred furniture remnants and numerous metal arrowheads were found, indicating the heavy battle waged there.

The Layer of Babylonian Destruction in the "City of David"

In 2017, the management of the "City of David" site in ancient Jerusalem, near the Temple Mount, announced that archaeological excavations at the site revealed clear evidence of Jerusalem's destruction and burning by the Babylonians.

Residential buildings from the First Temple period were discovered, containing scales and fish bones, and distinct artistic artifacts pointing out that this was where the wealthy of the Kingdom of Judah lived before the destruction.

These houses were also found covered by stone debris, under which a layer of destruction about half a meter high was discovered, including many charred wood remains and pottery shards shattered during the fire.

Among the prominent discoveries from the excavation were dozens of pottery jars, some bearing 'Rosette' stamps – a six-petal rose design. These stamps are typical of the Kingdom of Judah at the end of the First Temple period, and according to archaeologist Ortal Kalaf, the project's director, they provide a clear dating to the entire layer: the final decades of the Kingdom of Judah and the Babylonian conquest.

Babylonian Arrowhead

As known from the scriptures and words of the Sages, the Babylonian warriors also conquered and destroyed the Temple Mount and the entire Temple area. A special remnant, serving as a silent witness to the battles fought there, was discovered in the soil extracted from the Temple Mount after excavation.

In the soil sieving, a rare Babylonian arrowhead was uncovered, preserved on the Temple Mount from that difficult period until today.

Expressing his excitement over the unexpected discovery, archaeologist Dr. Gabriel Barkay, head of the "Temple Mount Sifting Project," said:

"We have a wonderful arrowhead from Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonian army, from the destruction of the First Temple. This is an arrow of the Scytho-Iranian type, shaped like a tiny jet plane. It has three wings, pierces easily, withdraws with difficulty, and tears the flesh."

The Hostility of the "Children of Edom" Toward Judah

The Babylonian army completed its destruction by demolishing the walls of Jerusalem to the ground, as was customary in ancient times when capturing a foreign city, to prevent the defeated people from entrenching themselves in their city again.

In this matter too, we find a connection between the Sages' words regarding the scriptures, and the archaeological findings.

Archaeologist Prof. Yohanan Aharoni writes, that the Edomites took advantage of Judah's weakening during the Babylonian conquest and invaded its southern territories adjacent to their own, striking the inhabitants and plundering.

In the military fortress of the Kingdom of Judah at Tel Arad, a letter was found urging its commanders to hastily send reinforcements to a settlement called "Ramat-Negev" to protect it against an expected Edomite attack. Prof. Aharoni directs us to the verses in the Book of Obadiah and Psalms, hinting at these attacks and the hostile attitude of the Edomites towards Judah.

Indeed, concerning the verse in Psalms "Remember, Hashem, for the children of Edom the day of Jerusalem; Who said, Lay it bare, lay it bare, to its very foundation," the Sages of Israel say that it relates to what the Edomites did during the destruction of Jerusalem: they were the ones urging the Babylonians to tear the city down to its foundations, "inciting them to uproot everything."

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