Chapter XL. Berossus on the Captivity of the Jews by Nabuchodonosor

To this I must necessarily append also the account of the captivity of the Jews under Nebuchadnezzar:

[JOSEPHUS] [1] ‘Nebuchadnezzar having encountered the rebel and joined battle with him, both mastered him, and brought the country at once under his own rule.

‘And it happened that his father Nabopallasar fell sick at this time, and departed from life in the city of Babylon, after having reigned twenty-one years. And when Nebuchadnezzar heard soon after of his father’s death, he set in order the affairs of Egypt and of the rest of the country, and having committed the prisoners of the Jews and Phoenicians and Syrians, the nations near Egypt, to certain of his friends, came to Babylon.’

After other statements he says:

‘So then Nebuchadnezzar, after be had begun the wall before-mentioned, fell sick and died, after a reign of forty-three years, and his son Evil-Merodach became master of the kingdom.

‘He governed the affairs of the kingdom in a lawless and outrageous manner, and was plotted against and put to death by his sister’s husband Neriglisar, after having reigned two years.

‘And after he was slain Neriglisar, who had plotted against him, succeeded to the government and reigned four years. His son Chabaessoarach succeeded to the kingdom, though he was but a boy, and held it nine mouths; but because be showed many evil dispositions, a plot was made against him by his friends, and he was beaten to death.

‘Upon his death, those who had plotted against him met together, and by common consent conferred the kingdom on Nabonuedus, who was a Babylonian and one of the same conspiracy.

‘In his reign the walls of Babylon adjacent to the river were handsomely repaired with baked brick and asphalt. And in the seventeenth year of his reign Cyrus came from Persia with a great force, and, after subduing all the rest of the kingdom, invaded Babylonia.

‘Nabonnedus, on being informed of his advance, met him with his army, and having joined battle was defeated, and fled with a few attendants, and was shut up in the city Borsippus.

‘And Cyrus having taken Babylon, and ordered the demolition of the outer walls of the city because the city had proved very troublesome to him, and hard to take, moved his army to Borsippus, to besiege Nabonnedus.

‘But as Nabonnedus did not wait for the siege, but gave himself up beforehand, Cyrus treated him in a kindly manner, and, giving him Carmania to dwell in, sent him away from Babylonia. The rest of his time therefore Nabonnedus passed in that country, and there ended his life.

‘This narrative contains the truth in agreement with our books. For in them it is written that Nebuchadnezzar in the eighteenth year of his reign laid waste our temple, and it remained unregarded fifty years. But in the second year of the reign of Cyrus the foundations were laid, and it was completed again in the tenth year of the reign of Darius.’

Thus far Josephus.