Nebo-Sarsekim Cuneiform Tablet
A small Babylonian receipt dated to 595 BC records Nabû-sharrussu-ukin, chief of the court officials, making a substantial gold delivery to Esagila—a rare name-and-title combination closely matching Jeremiah 39:3.
- Artifact date
- 18th day of the 11th month, Nebuchadnezzar’s tenth year (595 BC)
- Discovered
- 2007
- Findspot
- Unrecorded Babylonian provenance; acquired by the British Museum in 1920
- Current location
- British Museum, London (BM 114789)
What archaeologists can actually examine
BM 114789 is an administrative receipt, not a victory inscription. It records one and a half minas of gold belonging to Nabû-sharrussu-ukin, the rab sha-reshi, sent through another courtier and delivered at Esagila, Marduk's great temple in Babylon. Witnesses are named, and the transaction is dated to the eighteenth day of the eleventh month in Nebuchadnezzar II's tenth year, 595/594 BC. Michael Jursa recognized in 2007 that the rare compound name and senior office correspond closely to Nebo-Sarsekim rab-saris in the consonantal text of Jeremiah 39:3, only about eight years before Jerusalem's fall. The match is exceptionally strong because it combines name, title, reign, and time. Yet the tablet records a Babylonian gold transaction and never mentions Jerusalem, Judah, a siege, or Jeremiah.
A rare full name matches Jeremiah
Nabû-sharrussu-ukin closely corresponds to the consonants behind Nebo-Sarsekim when the Hebrew list is parsed accordingly.
The senior office matches as well
Akkadian rab sha-reshi and Hebrew rab-saris represent the same Babylonian court title.
The date falls only eight years before Jerusalem's fall
Nebuchadnezzar's tenth year places the official in service during the precise historical window required by Jeremiah 39.
The object is an ordinary temple receipt
Its gold transaction at Esagila supplies independent administrative evidence rather than a biblical or military commemoration.
The identification is strong but inferential
Name, title, reign, and chronology converge, while the tablet itself never places the man at Jerusalem.
Follow the evidence from discovery to debate
Move through the find in a deliberate order: establish its provenance, examine the surviving object, place it in time, and then weigh the scholarly interpretation.
How the find came to light
The tablet's ancient excavation context is not securely recorded. It belongs to material associated with the Ebabbar archive at Sippar and was acquired by the British Museum in 1920, long before its biblical significance was noticed. While studying Neo-Babylonian economic texts in the museum, University of Vienna Assyriologist Michael Jursa read and published BM 114789 in 2008. News accounts sometimes described this as the tablet's 'discovery,' but the physical object had been catalogued for decades; the discovery was the recognition and philological publication of its name-and-title correspondence. Terence Mitchell subsequently presented the text, translation, office, and Jeremiah comparison in detail. This delayed recognition illustrates why large tablet collections continue to yield historical information: thousands of small receipts remain meaningful only after specialists identify persons, institutions, dates, and archival relationships.
What you are looking at
BM 114789 is a compact rectangular clay tablet about 35 millimeters high and 54 millimeters wide, inscribed in Neo-Babylonian cuneiform. Its brief text identifies the gold—about 1.5 minas, conventionally estimated near 750 grams—as the property of Nabû-sharrussu-ukin, rab sha-reshi. Arad-Banitu, himself described with a court title, delivers it at Esagila. Two witnesses and a precise day-month-regnal-year date complete the receipt. The tablet's importance lies not in elaborate art but in bureaucratic exactness. The personal name contains the god Nabû and means approximately 'Nabû has established his kingship.' The office title literally concerns the king's head or presence and denotes a high court official; translating it simply as 'chief eunuch' may import later physiological assumptions that the Akkadian term does not always require.
Where it belongs in history
The date formula places the transaction on day eighteen of Shabatu, Nebuchadnezzar II's tenth regnal year, corresponding to 595/594 BC. Jerusalem's final capture under Zedekiah occurred in 587/586 BC, roughly eight years later, so a senior official could readily appear in both settings. Neo-Babylonian temple archives document extensive interaction among royal administrators, courtiers, merchants, and major sanctuaries. Esagila was Babylon's central Marduk temple, and a gold delivery there belongs to that institutional economy. The tablet does not come from Jerusalem or from the army's campaign archive. Its value is prosopographical: it establishes that a person with the right rare name and very high title served in Nebuchadnezzar's administration at the right time to be the official listed in Jeremiah.
Consensus, questions, and debate
Jursa argued that the uncommon name, single high-ranking office, close date, and near-perfect consonantal correspondence make identity effectively secure. He proposed that a Hebrew scribe or transmission history interpreted the ending -kin as an Aramaizing plural and regularized it to -kim. Mitchell accepted the identification and emphasized how the tablet clarifies the court titles in Jeremiah. Other scholarship urges precision about the Hebrew parsing and the range of sha reshi, which can mean courtier or official and need not always denote a castrated eunuch. The case is stronger than a name-only parallel because the office also matches, yet it remains historical inference: two sources do not explicitly say they concern the same encounter or provide a shared patronymic. Presentation should explain why specialists find the match compelling without claiming mathematical proof.
The biblical record beside the artifact
Jeremiah 39:1-3 describes Babylonian forces breaching Jerusalem and lists senior officials seated at the middle gate. The Masoretic consonants can be divided to read Nebo-Sarsekim followed by the title Rab-saris, closely matching Akkadian Nabû-sharrussu-ukin, rab sha-reshi. Jeremiah 39:13 again uses Rab-saris among official titles, though that verse may refer to a titleholder rather than repeat the personal name. Older English translations punctuated the difficult sequence differently, producing names such as 'Samgar-nebo, Sarsechim,' which obscured the match. The tablet strongly supports the reading that Jeremiah preserves an authentic Babylonian compound name and court office. It does not place the tablet's owner at Jerusalem; the identification of the two references is a prosopographical conclusion based on rarity, rank, and chronology.
Jeremiah 39:3
3And all the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat in the middle gate, [even] Nergal-sharezer, Samgar-nebo, Sarsechim, Rab-saris, Nergal-sharezer, Rab-mag, with all the residue of the princes of the king of Babylon.
A responsible historical conclusion
The tablet shows how an unglamorous receipt can illuminate a difficult biblical verse more precisely than a monumental royal inscription. It preserves Babylonian administrative language, a rare full name, a senior title, a temple transaction, and an exact date. Those details turn Jeremiah's crowded official list from apparently garbled names into plausible Neo-Babylonian court terminology. The find also teaches a sound method: identification becomes strong when name, office, ruler, and chronological window converge, not merely when two ancient spellings look similar. At the same time, the receipt's silence about Jerusalem keeps the conclusion proportionate. It corroborates a likely official and the text's institutional vocabulary rather than the entire siege narrative.
Included in these guides
See how this evidence file fits within a larger historical question.
Authoritative sources
Institutional catalogs, excavation reports, and academic publications let you examine the evidence beyond this summary.
Nabû-sharrussu-ukin, rab sha-reshi, and 'Nebusarsekim' (Jeremiah 39:3)
Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et UtilitairesMichael Jursa's original publication with cuneiform transliteration, German translation, date, title analysis, and argument for the identification.
Nabû-sharrussu-ukin, rab sha-reshi, und 'Nabusarsekim' (Jer. 39:3)
University of Vienna Research PortalInstitutional bibliographic record identifying Jursa's peer-reviewed specialist publication and its academic provenance.
Nebo-Sarsekim (Jeremiah 39:3) Mentioned in a Recently Noticed Babylonian Text
Buried History: Journal of the Australian Institute of ArchaeologyDetailed scholarly presentation of BM 114789, its dimensions, transaction, translation, court titles, date, and biblical comparison.
Samgar-Nebu
WiBiLex, German Bible SocietySpecialist lexical discussion of Jeremiah 39:3's difficult division, Babylonian names and offices, and the resulting Nebo-Sarsekim identification.