Babylon and the Judean Exile

586 BCE — Near East, Neo-Babylonian Empire

Today: Iraq (Babylon, near modern Hillah)

Nebuchadnezzar II destroyed Jerusalem, burned its temple, and deported much of Judah's population to Babylon. The exile might have erased them as it had erased other small peoples — instead, cut off from their temple and their land, the exiles compiled and edited the texts that became the Hebrew Bible, transforming a religion of place and sacrifice into one of book and covenant that could survive anywhere. A portable religion emerged from the loss of a homeland, and it outlasted every empire that displaced it.

Worth knowing: Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar was the largest city in the world, and its Hanging Gardens were named a wonder of the ancient world — though no Babylonian record of them survives, and archaeologists have never found a trace.

Pattern: Migration pressure — Large movements of peoples — pushed or pulled — reshape the societies they leave and the ones they enter.

Entry 40 of 240 in Precedent, a walk through the whole human story in order.