How Did Hammurabi Build The Mesopotamian Empire

Abigail Bosco
Jackson
Intro to Bib Faith
31 October 2014

The Empire Strikes Back: Babylonian Empire

Regarded as the most powerful state in the ancient Mesopotamian world, the Babylonian empire served as the center of Mesopotamian civilization for nearly two-thousand years. While the Babylonians contributed to creating codified laws, a tower that soared above the earth, and one of the Seven Wonders of the World they also played a huge role in Israelite history by conquering the nation of Israel and exiling them into captivity for seventy years. The examination of the Babylonian empire’s history not only provides great insight into the culture of the ancient Mesopotamian world, but also delivers a great look into the context of the Babylonian
captivity in the Bible.
Much of Babylon’s success is credited its first king , Hammurabi.
Hammurabi took Babylon from a small town near the Tigris river to being “one of the most powerful and influential in all of Mesopotamia” (Mark). The name Babylon means “confusion” in Hebrew, and it is where the tower of Babel was located. He did many things to the city in order to keep it peaceful. He was so good at war he had all the surrounding cities united under Babylon which made it the largest city in Mesopotamia. He also created a code of laws called Hammurabi’s code. The code had so much as 200 plus laws in it that were very specific. An example of a law in Hammurabi’s code was “If anyone is committing a robbery and is caught, then he shall be put to death” (“Hammurabi’s Code”). There were a lot of harsh laws but that was only to maintain peace between the different social
classes. The Babylonians did not believe in equality between men, women, and slaves though. Punishments for the wealthy or noble people were different than lower-class people or commoners, and slaves. Members of the upper class had harsher punishments than the commoners. Women also had some rights though such as: buying or selling property and obtaining a divorce (“Hammurabi’s Code”). These were some of the things the Babylonians believed what was right in a relationship with each other. They also believed that the gods decided the fate of the world and human beings could find out their plans. This is a practice they called divination (Lambert). In 1750 BC Hammurabi died. When this happened the Babylonians became less of a powerful state and more of a vulnerable one. A tribe called the Hittites took advantage of that and invaded Babylon but then left them in turmoil. Another tribe called the Kassites then came in and took over Babylon. They ruled there for a while until the Assyrians rose up. The Assyrians then took over Babylon and the Kassites and called them their own. In 729 BC, Tiglath-Pileser made himself king of Babylon. The Babylonians did not like living under the Assyrians so they made an alliance with the Medes. They planned to capture and destroy Nineveh, the Assyrian capitol. They did just that in 612 BC. Then the Persians came and captured Babylon and ended their empire in 539 BC (Lambert). The Babylonian empire was talked about many times in the Bible. The Bible states that Babylon had defeated Jerusalem, under their king Nebuchadnezzar II, in 587 BC. This story is located in 2 Kings 24-25 of the Bible. God used king Nebuchadnezzar and his brutality toward Jerusalem to bring them closer to him. The people of Jerusalem had been rebelling toward God and He was not very happy with them, especially their king Jehoiachin. According to 2 Kings 24:9 “He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father had done” (Harrelson 566). When Nebuchadnezzar had come to Jerusalem himself, Jehoiachin along with his mother, attendants, nobles, and officials all surrendered to him. The Babylonians worshipped many gods.
A few are: An/Anu the god of heaven, Enlil the god of air and storms, Enki the god of water and fertile earth, Ki the mother-goddess representing earth, Ashur the god of the sky, and their main god was Marduk who was the god that would send the Babylonian king (“Ancient Babylon”). The Babylonian empire was never an empire that worshipped God as a whole. They were still used in God’s plan though. God used them to wake up the Israelite’s and bring them closer to him. Through this capture of Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar had taken five handsome men from the Israelite royal family and nobility. They were to be trained to serve the king for three years and then after that, serve the king. These three men were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. The king had changed their names to Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego though. Many events happened to the Israelites during the Babylonian exile, but the story of these men is the most
famous. God used these men to try and bring the people of Babylon to him and worship him instead of the idols and false gods they believed in. The most famous trial was when King Nebuchadnezzar had set up a statue made of gold and made his people worship it. When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did not bow down to it, the king threw them into a fiery furnace. The furnace was so hot that it burned and killed the soldiers who had threw them in there. God had spared the Jews’ lives though. The king saw that they were walking around in the furnace along with a fourth person who is believed to be Jesus, the son of God. He ordered them to come out and they walked out of the furnace without any blemish of burn. King Nebuchadnezzar saw this and was amazed by the power of God. He told people to worship God but he did not truly believe in God himself. God then had to use a different approach. He used an interpretation of a dream of Nebuchadnezzar’s in order to fully put trust in the Lord. He was basically shunned by everyone seven times and had no food but the grass to eat for a very long time. He then had to fully put his trust in God and that is when he knew that God was the God of the universe and could do all things. Once he fully put his trust in God, God turned his life around so he could spread the work God did in his life to the kingdom of Babylon. (Daniel 1-4; Harrelson) There were many things that were similar between the story about the Babylonians in the Bible and what research has to say. The research was right about the rising and falling of Babylon at different points in their existence. The Bible explains the rise and fall but it is not all in one place. It is placed throughout the Bible because it is not the most important thing in the Bible. The rise and fall of Babylon is not the main point of the Bible so it is not a big part of it. However it does play a role in the lives of the Israelites. It also gives stories about what the people of God did in Babylon that the research does not share. Stories such as Daniel in the lion’s den or Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego being thrown into the fiery furnace. The Bible does not mention the names of all the different gods the Babylonians worshipped though. It does not mention specific rituals that they had practiced either. For these types of things, one has to go to a reliable source online or in a library and research the history of the Babylonian empire. The Bible also does not talk about Hammurabi’s code in great detail. It does not say what it contains or what it was for. There really is no mention of it whatsoever. Some people think that Moses had copied it and mentioned it in the Bible, but no one has proved that to be true. What the Bible says and what research says about Babylon can be both compared and contrasted and are both essential in understanding the Babylonian empire. God used the Babylonians to keep the Jews from turning completely away from him. Even though the Babylonians were not followers of God he used them in a positive way. God could have just gotten rid of them completely because they had worshipped many other false gods and were making sacrifices to them. They mostly had good morals and good intentions with Hammurabi’s code, but without God they could not truly function as a whole. The code was a good step towards a better and peaceful community, but God is the only one who could make their lives truly better and truly peaceful.

Works Cited
"Ancient Babylon." AllAboutHistory.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Oct. 2014.
"Hammurabi 's Code: An Eye for an Eye." Ushistory.org. Independence Hall Association, n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2014.
Harrelson, Walter J. The New Interpreter 's Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha. Nashville: Abingdon, 2003. Print.
Lambert, Tim. "A BRIEF HISTORY OF BABYLON." The Babylonians. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Oct. 2014.
Mark, Joshua J. "Babylon." Ancient History Encyclopedia. N.p., 28 Apr. 2011. Web. 21 Oct. 2014.