Merodach-baladan
Name meaning: "bitter contrition, without judgment"
Merodach-baladan (Babylonian: Marduk-apla-iddina, meaning Marduk has given a son) was a Chaldean chieftain who twice seized the throne of Babylon — first around 721–710 BC and again briefly in 703 BC. He is notable in biblical history as the king who sent envoys with letters and a present to King Hezekiah of Judah upon hearing that Hezekiah had been ill (Isaiah 39:1; 2 Kings 20:12). The mission was almost certainly diplomatic as well, designed to cultivate an anti-Assyrian alliance.
Hezekiah's fateful decision to show the envoys all his treasuries prompted a stark oracle from Isaiah: everything shown to the Babylonians would one day be carried off to Babylon, and Hezekiah's own sons would serve as eunuchs in the Babylonian court — a prophecy fulfilled more than a century later under Nebuchadnezzar.