Room 55
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The Bible records attacks in 605 BC & 597 BC – confirmed by records of Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel is taken captive in 605 BC, Ezekiel is taken in 597 BC
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Jeremiah prophesies that Nebuchadnezzar would defeat Assyria and Egypt and then take Judah into captivity for 70 years.
‘behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, My servant, and will bring them against this land and against its inhabitants and against all these nations round about; and I will utterly destroy them and make them a horror and a hissing, and an everlasting desolation.
Moreover, I will take from them the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp. This whole land will be a desolation and a horror, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.’ (Jeremiah 25:9-11).
In Jeremiah 25:9-11 Jeremiah predicts the victory of Babylon over Assyria and Egypt, and the subsequent captivity of Judah for 70 years.
Nebuchadnezzar led Babylon against the Egyptian army resulting in the slaughter of the Egyptians at Carchemish (Jeremiah 46)
The bible records that Pharaoh Neco came again to help the Assyrian empire against the Babylonians (650 BC)
Nebuchadnezzar II King of Babylon
Daniel then realises the prophesied 70 years of captivity is coming to an end and prays for the fulfilment of the prophecy in Daniel 9:2
Daniel 9:2 (ESV)
2 in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years.
Jeremiah 46:2 (ESV)
2 About Egypt. Concerning the army of Pharaoh Neco, king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates at Carchemish and which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon defeated in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah:
Babylonian Chronicle for 605-594 BC confirms the biblical record for the battle of Carchemish and the siege of Jerusalem
Daniel 1:1-6 (ESV)
Daniel Taken to Babylon
1 In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it.
2 And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with some of the vessels of the house of God. And he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, and placed the vessels in the treasury of his god.
3 Then the king commanded Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the people of Israel, both of the royal family[a] and of the nobility, 4 youths without blemish, of good appearance and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding learning, and competent to stand in the king’s palace, and to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans.