Nebuchadrezzar was the king who destroyed Jerusalem and carried the more prominent of the people of Judah captive. (See 2 Kings 24 and 25.) His inscriptions give no account of these events. In the first of the quotations made above he covers all his conquests by one general reference. In the second quotation he gives a more detailed account of his conquest of the Lebanon, because that inscription was carved on the rocks at the side of one of the deep valleys of the Lebanon. The third inscription, relating to the building of Babylon, has been strikingly confirmed by Koldewey’s excavation of Babylon, by which the massive walls and extensive temples were uncovered.[544] It also gives us a background for Daniel 4:29, where Nebuchadrezzar is said to have walked upon[545] the royal palace and said: “Is not this great Babylon which I have built?”
17. Evil-Merodach, 562-560 B. C.
Nebuchadrezzar was succeeded by his son, Amil-Marduk, whom the Bible (2 Kings 25:27) calls Evil-Merodach. The only inscription of his that has been found is the following, inscribed on an alabaster vase found at Susa, whither the Elamites had at some time carried it as booty:[546]
Palace of Amil-Marduk, King of Babylon, son of Nebuchadrezzar, King of Babylon.
This is the king who released Jehoiachin, King of Judah, from prison after his thirty-six years in confinement and treated him kindly.
Note on the Land of the Queen of Sheba.—This region, which lay in South Arabia, was explored during the nineteenth century by a number of travelers. Three of these, Thomas J. Arnaud in 1843, Joseph Halévy in 1869, and Eduard Glaser who made four expeditions between 1882 and 1894, brought back from South Arabia many inscriptions, several of which were made by rulers of Saba, the Biblical Sheba, whose queen is said to have visited Solomon (1 Kings 10:1-13). As none of these relate to that queen, it has not seemed fitting to include one of them. The inscriptions, however, show that two important kingdoms existed there, Saba and Main. Main is thought by some to be related to the Biblical Midianites. The Greek version of Job makes Job’s friend, Zophar, king of Main. The kingdom of Saba lasted until 115 B. C. It established strong colonies in Africa. In 115 B. C. one colony overthrew the mother-country and established the kingdom of Saba and Raidhan, which lasted till about 300 A. D. After that Saba became apparently unimportant, but various Semitic kingdoms succeeded one another in Africa, including the present-day Abyssinian kingdom. The Abyssinian king claims descent from Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.