Jehoiakim

Jehoiakim was the King of Judah from 608 to 598. He was first Known as Eliakim but pharaoh Necho II deposed his brother in throne, making Eliakim king in his place. He is known for being a ruthless and not faithful ruler, he is know for burning one of the scroll of prophecies of the prophet Jeremiah. acording to 2 Kings 23:35 Jehoiakim ruled originally as a vassal of the Egyptians, paying a heavy tribute. To raise the money he taxed the land and exacted the silver and gold from the people of the land according to their assessments. However, after the defeat of the Egyptian empire by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II. Jehoiakim swiftly changed factions to avoid being destroyed and deposed.to be able to be spared by the Babylonians he accepted to pay tribute and gave to the Babylonians some precious artifacts from the temple and handed over some members of the royal family as hostages.Jehoiakim served as a vassal for king Nebuchadnezzar II for three years until one of the campaigns of  Nebuchadnezzar II to conquer Egypt failed, making Jehoiakim optimistic to come back under the Egyptian rule and hoping for the defeat of Babylon. However,  Nebuchadnezzar II laid siege  over Jerusalem for three months. Jehoiakim died short before the siege ended, and it is know that his body was taken out and thrown outside the city walls. in conclusion Jehoakim was not a very good king and all the mistakes he made ended in the destruction of the city and the plunder of the temple.

Nebuchadnezzar II

Nebuchadnezzar II is without a doubt one of the most famous and well known kings in the Old Testament. he is mentioned in the book of Daniel and he has direct interaction with Daniel -the main character of this book- Nebuchadnezzar II conquered Jerusalem and alsohe had a special dream where he saw a gigantic image that was made of different materials (gold, silver, bronze, iron and clay). the prophet Daniel told him that the dream was just a prediction of what will happen to his kingdom. However, information about how Nebuchadnezzar II contributed to history is scarce and are limited to some research projects made by a short group of history scholars.

one thing that we can learn about Nebuchadnezzar II is that he was a king under the Neo-Babylonian empire he ruled from 605 BC – 562 BC and the construction of the hanging gardens of Babylon and the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem are attributed to him. For that reason, Nebuchadnezzar II was a king that was focused in conquering and developing by constructing important landmarks.

Nebuchadnezzar II was know by conquering Jerusalem and destroying the temple. however this was not the only military campaign that he was involved on. Nebuchadnezzar II is widely known in the Neo-Babylonian history for developing huge campaigns all around the Levant region. Moreover, his hunger of contest made him to get into a campaign to invade Egypt. however, the rebellion in the Canaanite and Judah states made him to withdraw and focusing in stopping the rebellion by destroying Jerusalem and deposing king  Jehoiakim. after he took the control of the region again he focused on siege and taking control Tyre which was the border with Egypt. Unfortunately for Nebuchadnezzar II, the siege lasted for 13 years and ended with the submission of Tyre and accepting the authority of the Babylonians, but was late to continue the campaign to conquer Egypt.

the second thing that made Nebuchadnezzar II famous was that he developed great structures such as the Mede Wall, the Ishtar Gates and the hanging gardens of Babylon. when the father of Nebuchadnezzar II, Nabopolassar was in ruing Babylon he started to rebuilding the city and temples of the previous attacks of Sennacherib and Assurbanipal and some other local rebelions that left the city devastated. Nebuchadnezzar II had the idea to make Babylon one of the greatest wonders of the world. they did not spared in any resource, they used for construction cedar-wood, nor bronze, gold, silver, rare and precious stones. and for work force they brought to Babylon many captives from western Asia.