NEBUCHADREZZAR, or NABOPOLASSAR, a great Chaldean king of Babylon. The account of his life given in the sacred narrative has received considerable elucidation from the canon of Ptolemy the mathematician, and from an extract preserved by Josephus out of a history by Berosus, a priest of the temple of Bel. From the combined import of these three narratives, we gather that Nebuchadnezzar, having virtually received the sovereign power from his infant father Nabopolassar, set out at the head of a mighty army to chastise Necho, King of Egypt. The Egyptian monarch, after subduing the kingdom of Judaea, had advanced as far as the banks of the Euphrates, and had seized upon Carchemish (Cresium). There the youthful Chaldean prince met him, routed his army, and retook the captured city. The Jews, deprived of the support of their allies, yielded to the conqueror; their king Jehoiakim became a tributary of Babylon; and within two years the Egyptian influence in Syria was completely crushed. At this time (605 B.C.) Nebuchadnezzar received intelligence of his father's death. Leaving his army to conduct the captives and the spoils to Babylonia, he hastened home with a slender escort to assume the sole sovereignty. To consolidate his throne by an alliance, the young king married Amytis, the daughter of the King of Media. About the same time his great and splendid genius, unoccupied by schemes of conquest, began to find a congenial exercise in expensive improvements and gorgeous architecture. He decorated the temple of Belus to a superb magnificence with the treasures and the sacred vessels from Jerusalem; he planned stupendous canals, rivalling in depth and breadth the river Euphrates; and he laid the foundations of that massive and lofty palace, whose terrace-gardens, hanging from its sides like woods from the brow of a mountain cliff, became the wonder of the world. These peaceful occupations were interrupted by the intelligence that the Jews, instigated by Necho, King of Egypt, had rebelled. In the eighth year of his reign Nebuchadnezzar was besieging Jerusalem in person. The city was soon forced to surrender; the newly-appointed king Jehoiachim was deposed; the temple and the palace were plundered; no less than 50,000 captives, including Ezekiel the prophet, the nobles of Judah, and the craftsmen, followed in the train of the conqueror to Babylon; and Zedekiah, the brother of the late monarch, was left to govern the remnant. But no sooner had the Chaldean monarch departed to his distant capital, than his old enemies the Egyptians began to plot against him. They had induced Zedekiah to renounce his allegiance to Babylon, and had sent an army under their king Hophra to support him in his rebellion, when Nebuchadnezzar, at the head of all the forces of his empire, reappeared in Palestine. After driving the Egyptians back into their own country, he sat down before Jerusalem in 590 B.C. A hot siege of two years ended in the complete surrender of the city to his merciless vengeance. As a summary punishment upon the refractory Jews, he condemned their capital city to be first plundered of all its brass and gold, and then reduced to ashes, and their entire nation to be carried into captivity. The plunder of this expedition, like that of former expeditions, was devoted to the adorning of the royal seat of the conqueror with specimens of art and enterprise. One of these was the gigantic golden image which is mentioned by the prophet Daniel. Nebuchadnezzar was yet destined to be the minister of Divine vengeance upon the idolatrous Tyrians and Egyptians. At the end of an arduous siege of thirteen years, he took the city of Tyre, and levelled it with the dust. The Egyptians, who had added to their former provocations by sending succours to the besieged Tyrians, then became the object of his attack. Invading Egypt he marched from Migdol to Syene, overwhelming all resistance, taking numerous captives, and filling the entire length and breadth of the land with burning cities and slaughtered citizens. This campaign seems to have closed the military career of the Babylonian conqueror. He returned home to enjoy in peace the sway of that wide empire which had been won by his sword, and the splendour of that metropolis which had become under him the queen of the cities of the earth. His pride, pampered by the remembrance of an uninterrupted series of successes, swelled to a monstrous height. Walking one day in his palace, and looking down upon the imposing scene of magnificent houses around him, he burst out into an apostrophe of self-exultation. Immediately a voice fell from heaven, dooming him to live like a beast of the field until he should learn "that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will." In the same hour the arrogant, self-elated monarch was changed into a bewildered monomaniac that fancied himself an ox, and fled from the abodes of men to eat grass in the wilderness. At the close of seven years, he was restored to his reason and to his kingdom; and it is probable that the rest of his days were passed in that humility of spirit which becomes a creature. He died in 562 B.C. and was succeeded by his son Nouaroudamos, or Evil-Merodach.