Between 1899 and 1917, Robert Koldewey excavated Babylon for the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft. Near the southern palace and the Ishtar Gate, he recovered hundreds of administrative tablets from a large vaulted storeroom. A subset of these, published in 1939 by Ernst Weidner, recorded standing rations of oil, grain, and other provisions issued to captive royalty and their retinues.\n\nFour tablets specifically name Ya'u-kinu shar mat Yahudu — "Jehoiachin, king of the land of Judah" — along with his five sons and several Judean courtiers. The rations are dated between the tenth and thirty-fifth years of Nebuchadnezzar II. This matches 2 Kings 24:12-15, which records Jehoiachin's deportation in 597 BC, and 2 Kings 25:27-30, which records his eventual release and dining at the Babylonian royal table.\n\nThe tablets are a direct, extrabiblical, contemporary attestation of a deportation event and a named Judean king. They are held today at the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin.
highNamed Figures
Jehoiachin Ration Tablets (Babylonian Captivity)
Clay tablets recovered near the Ishtar Gate in Babylon record monthly oil rations issued to Jehoiachin, king of Judah, and his five sons — directly corroborating the closing chapters of 2 Kings and Jeremiah 52.
Key arguments
- Tablets name Jehoiachin explicitly using his royal title.
- Dating to Nebuchadnezzar's reign matches 2 Kings 24-25.
- The rations pattern matches the biblical description of royal treatment.
- These are contemporary administrative documents, not later chronicles.
Key verses
- 2 Kings 24:10-17
- 2 Kings 25:27-30
- Jeremiah 52:31-34
- Ezekiel 1:2
Sources
- Ernst Weidner — Jojachin, König von Juda, in babylonischen Keilschrifttexten (1939)
- D. J. Wiseman — Nebuchadrezzar and Babylon (1985)
- Kenneth Kitchen — On the Reliability of the Old Testament (2003)