Babylon, kingdom of

The kingdom of Babylon, also called the land of the Chaldeans, was the Neo-Babylonian Empire that rose to dominance under Nabopolassar and his son Nebuchadnezzar II following the fall of Assyria. Its heartland was southern Mesopotamia — the ancient region of Sumer and Akkad — with Babylon as its capital. The empire stretched from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean, incorporating Judah, Syria, and Egypt's border regions into its sphere of control. Nebuchadnezzar's campaigns against Jerusalem in 605, 597, and 586 B.C. resulted in the destruction of the temple and the deportation of the Jewish population in successive waves.

The biblical characterization of Babylon as an instrument of divine judgment on Israel (Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel) is paired with equally strong prophecies of Babylon's own eventual judgment and destruction (Isaiah 43–47; Jeremiah 50–51). The empire fell to Cyrus the Great of Persia in 539 B.C., as Daniel had foretold through the vision of the statue and the hand writing on the wall. The Chronicler's account (2 Chronicles 36:20–23) frames the entire Babylonian exile within the larger story of divine faithfulness — ending with Cyrus's decree and the return.