Nebuchadnezzar

Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of a statue made of four metals in Daniel 2 was composed using Persian and Greek historiographic imagery. The crushing of the statue by a stone mountain alludes to the story of the golden calf, and is a message of hope to the Judeans that God will eventually crush their Greek oppressors.

The first section of Daniel (chs. 2-6) is a collection of quasi-independent court tales. Once they were combined into the book of Daniel in its current form, the story of Daniel interpreting Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, which parallels Pharaoh’s dream in the Joseph story, was revised. It was further supplemented with Daniel’s prayer which creates a contrast between the power of God and that of Antiochus IV.

Jeremiah 39 describes Nebuchadnezzar’s siege of Jerusalem, and even names some of the officials who were with him and their titles (v.3). Babylonian administrative records uncovered by archaeology revises our understanding of who they were.

King Jehoiachin surrenders to Nebuchadrezzar in 597 B.C.E., on the 2nd of Adar. Decades later, he is released in the twelfth month (i.e., Adar), providing a historical precedent for the Purim story, where Adar is a month of changing fortunes. The fate of Jehoiachin is given dramatically different depictions by the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel.