Icon: enlarge
Destruction
Troops of King Nebuchadnezzar burn Jerusalem down (oil painting by Juan de la Corte, 17th century).
Photo: akg images
This text first appeared in SPIEGEL HISTORY 6/2014
It must have been a terrible slaughter and rage: Conflagrations swept through the streets.
Arrows bored into houses and human bodies.
Thousands were dragged off into enemy territory or killed.
When the army of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar in the summer of 587 BC
When he finally abandoned the kingdom of Judah and its capital Jerusalem, there was not much left of the proud mountain state: Jerusalem's houses, the royal palace and the temple of the national god Yahweh were destroyed, the fields around it devastated, the king's sons murdered, priests and politicians deported .
This is what the second book of kings tells about, and archaeological finds confirm it.
The king himself was blinded and starved in captivity in Babylon.
"With this great catastrophe," writes the Israeli archaeologist Israel Finkelstein, "the religious and national existence of the people of Israel could have come to an end."
But the Israelites survived and from their experience in exile created important parts of the work that shapes the world to this day: the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh, adopted in Christianity with a slightly different canon as the Old Testament.
A font full of beliefs and laws, but also adventurous stories and poetry.
Read more with Spiegel Plus
More perspectives, more understanding.
Your advantages with SPIEGEL +
Icon: Check
SPIEGEL as a magazine
as an app, e-paper and on the e-reader
Icon: Check
All articles on SPIEGEL.de
Exclusive texts for SPIEGEL + readers
Icon: Check
Try one month for free
Cancel anytime online
A price
only € 19.99 per month
One month for € 0.00
Try now for 0.00 € Buy nowArrow to the right
Already have a digital subscription? Register here
Restore iTunes subscription
SPIEGEL + is processed via your iTunes account and paid for with a purchase confirmation.
24 hours before it expires, the subscription is automatically renewed by one month at the current price of 19.99 €
You can cancel the subscription at any time in the settings of your iTunes account.
In order to use SPIEGEL + outside of this app, you must link the subscription to a SPIEGEL ID account immediately after purchase.
With the purchase you accept our general terms and conditions and privacy policy.
