Overview
The Babylonian Chronicles are clay tablets that record Babylonian and neighbouring history year by year in a terse, standard format: regnal year, month, what the king did. The tablets relevant to the Bible are in the British Museum. D. J. Wiseman published four of the Neo-Babylonian ones in Chronicles of Chaldaean Kings (1956), BM 21946 among them. A. K. Grayson's Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles (1975) numbered the corpus ABC 1-25.
BM 21946 (ABC 5) covers Nebuchadnezzar's first eleven years. It records the defeat of the Egyptian army at Carchemish (605), Nebuchadnezzar's accession, the western campaigns, a drawn battle with Egypt (601), and in year 7 a march to the Hatti-land, a siege of 'the city of Judah', its capture on the 2nd of Adar, the capture of its king, and the installation of 'a king of his own choice'. BM 21901 (ABC 3) records the fall of Nineveh (612) and, in 609, Aššur-uballiṭ and 'a great army of Egypt' crossing the Euphrates against Harran. ABC 1 (BM 92502) records Shalmaneser V's accession and the destruction of a city read Šamara'in/Shabara'in.
The chronicles do not mention the 587/586 destruction of Jerusalem. BM 21946 stops after Nebuchadnezzar's 11th year (594/593), and the next Neo-Babylonian chronicle tablet in Wiseman's set (BM 25124) deals with Neriglissar's campaign of 557/556.
What the text says (summary)
He encamped against the city of Judah, and in the month of Adar, on the second day, he seized the city and captured the king. A king of his own choosing he appointed in it; its heavy tribute he took and brought into Babylon.Our literal translation of BM 21946 rev. 12-13 as transliterated by D. J. Wiseman, Chronicles of Chaldaean Kings (1956), p. 72 (ina muḫḫi āl Iaḫudu iddi-ma ina araḫ Addari ūmu 2-KAM āla iṣṣabat šarra iktašad / šarra ša libbišu ina libbi ipteqid bilassa kabittu ilqâm-ma ana Bābili ultērib)
What the evidence shows
- BM 21946 rev. 11-13 (Wiseman's transliteration): 'Year 7, month Kislev: the king of Akkad mustered his troops, marched to the Hatti-land, encamped against the city of Judah (āl ia-a-ḫu-du), and on day 2 of Adar seized the city and captured the king; he appointed there a king of his own heart, took its heavy tribute and brought it to Babylon.'
- The chronicle names neither Jerusalem nor Jehoiachin nor Zedekiah: 'city of Judah', 'the king', 'a king of his own choice'.
- Wiseman (1956) converts 2 Adar of Nebuchadnezzar's year 7 to 15/16 March 597 BCE.
- BM 21946 obv. 1-8: in Nabopolassar's 21st year (605), crown prince Nebuchadnezzar defeats the Egyptian army at Carchemish.
- BM 21946 rev. 5-7: in year 4 (601) the king marches to Egypt; 'in open battle they smote the breast of each other and inflicted great havoc on each other'; the king of Akkad returns to Babylon.
- BM 21901 l. 66-67: 'In the month of Tammuz Aššur-uballiṭ, king of Assyria, a great army of Egypt ... crossed the river [and] marched against the city of Harran to conquer it' (Wiseman 1956 translation, 609 BCE).
- ABC 1 (BM 92502) i 27-28: 'On the twenty-fifth day of Tebet Shalmaneser took his seat on the throne in Assyria, and the city of Shabarain was destroyed' (Rogers 1912 translation).
- BM 92502 is 'a copy made in the twenty-second year of Darius from an older and damaged text' (Wiseman 1956, p. 2).
- Tablet provenance: Babylon on internal evidence; no recorded excavation context (Wiseman 1956, pp. 4-5).
Open questions
- Seventh year or eighth? The chronicle dates the capture of the 'city of Judah' to Nebuchadnezzar's 7th year, Adar. Jeremiah 52:28 counts 3,023 Judeans deported 'in the seventh year'; 2 Kings 24:12 says Jehoiachin was taken 'in the eighth year of his reign'. One explanation is different year-counting (accession-year vs. non-accession-year reckoning, or a spring-versus-autumn new year); the texts themselves state only the numbers.
- When were the chronicles written? Wiseman (1956) held that the script allows anything from near-contemporary to late Achaemenid. Yuval Levavi (JAOS 145, 2025) argues ABC 3-5 form a complete trilogy composed soon after the last events in ABC 5, around the late 590s BCE. A late-590s composition would make the Jerusalem entry close to contemporary.
- Why no 587/586? The destruction of Jerusalem in Zedekiah's 11th year falls after the last year on BM 21946. Levavi (2025) argues ABC 3-5 are complete as they stand, which would make the gap the end of that composition. The Livius.org introduction to ABC 5 instead assumes a 'lost sequel of this chronicle'. Neither position has a surviving tablet behind it.
Since 2024
- 2025-08Yuval Levavi (JAOS 145) argues that chronicles ABC 3-5 form a complete trilogy with no missing sections, with ABC 5 (the Jerusalem chronicle) as its centerpiece, composed around the late 590s BCE, shortly after the last events it records. [5]
Sources
- D. J. Wiseman, Chronicles of Chaldaean Kings (626-556 B.C.) in the British Museum (London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1956) link editio princeps
- C. J. Gadd, The Fall of Nineveh: The Newly Discovered Babylonian Chronicle, No. 21,901, in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1923) link editio princeps
- A. Kirk Grayson, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles (Texts from Cuneiform Sources 5; Locust Valley, NY: J. J. Augustin, 1975; reprinted Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2000) link translation
- R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament (New York: Eaton & Mains, 1912), 'The Babylonian Chronicle', pp. 208ff. link translation
- Yuval Levavi, 'Exploring the Neo-Babylonian Chronicle Chain ABC 3-5', Journal of the American Oriental Society 145/3 (2025), doi:10.7817/jaos.145.2.2025.ar022 link study
- 'ABC 5 (Jerusalem Chronicle)', Livius.org (translation adapted from Grayson 1975 and J.-J. Glassner, Mesopotamian Chronicles, 2004) link translation
Corrected from the earlier edition of this page
- Old entry's quoted inscription 'In the month of Adar, the enemy captured the city' is not the chronicle's wording. The chronicle says the king of Akkad 'encamped against the city of Judah and on the second day of the month of Adar seized the city and captured the king'.
- Old entry dates the chronicles 'c. 560 BCE' and '6th century' as if one document. They are separate tablets: event coverage runs 747-539 BCE across the series; BM 21946's writing date is not fixed by its script; ABC 1's copy is dated to Darius year 22 (500/499 BCE if Darius I); Levavi (2025) proposes the late 590s for ABC 3-5.
- Old entry says they were 'discovered during excavations' and are housed in 'the British Museum and the Iraq Museum'. The chronicle tablets discussed here are British Museum acquisitions without recorded excavation context; no Iraq Museum holding of them was found.
- Old entry says the tablets detail the conquest of Jerusalem 'in vivid detail' and cites Jeremiah 39-52 generally. The chronicle gives three lines on 597 and says nothing about 587/586, the Temple, or Zedekiah's revolt; Jer 39 and 52:4-27 (the 587/586 fall) have no chronicle parallel.
- Old entry: 'Confirms 597 BCE Jerusalem conquest'. The chronicle gives the regnal date (year 7, 2 Adar). '597 BCE' is the modern conversion (Wiseman 1956: 15/16 March 597), and the name 'Jerusalem' does not appear; the text says 'the city of Judah'.
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