Tablets of Neriglissar and the Nergal-sharezer Question
Neo-Babylonian tablets securely attest King Neriglissar, while his proposed identity with a Nergal-sharezer at Jerusalem in Jeremiah remains a philological and chronological argument.
- Artifact date
- 560-556 BC
- Findspot
- Babylon and Sippar, Iraq
- Current location
- British Museum and other cuneiform collections
What archaeologists can actually examine
A substantial corpus of contracts, economic texts, and royal inscriptions names Nergal-šar-uṣur, conventionally Neriglissar, as king of Babylon. Internally dated documents establish his reign after Amel-Marduk, about 560-556 BCE, and some earlier texts attest a prominent man of the same name before accession. Jeremiah 39 names Nergal-sharezer among Babylonian officers at Jerusalem. The Akkadian and Hebrew forms correspond closely, but the passage itself may name two Nergal-sharezers with different titles, making the equation with the future king a question of syntax, office, and prosopography.
A securely documented king
Contemporary tablets and royal inscriptions establish Nergal-šar-uṣur/Neriglissar and his 560-556 BCE reign.
A genuine name correspondence
Hebrew Nergal-sharezer represents the same Babylonian theophoric name found in cuneiform sources.
A possible pre-royal career
Chronology permits the later king to have been a senior official at Jerusalem, but possibility is not object-level proof.
A text-critical complication
Jeremiah's arrangement of Samgar, Rab-mag, and two apparent Nergal-sharezers materially affects the identification.
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
Neriglissar's evidence emerged through the recovery and decipherment of Babylonian tablets from sites including Babylon and Sippar, now dispersed among collections such as the British Museum. Individual business texts were catalogued object by object, while Ronald Sack assembled the royal and private evidence into a dedicated monograph. The biblical comparison developed through Assyriological study of Jeremiah's foreign names and titles. It is therefore not based on one sensational 'Nergal-sharezer tablet' but on a cumulative archive that reconstructs a securely known king and a possible pre-royal career.
What you are looking at
The corpus includes small clay economic tablets impressed in Akkadian cuneiform and more formal royal building inscriptions. British Museum object 1880,0617.1517 is an economic tablet from Babylon dated to Neriglissar's reign; CDLI links Sack's catalogue to multiple Neo-Babylonian objects and their publication history. Date formulas identify the reigning king, while transaction clauses and witness lists illuminate elite networks. None of these objects physically labels itself as belonging to the biblical siege scene, and objects from the reign should not be confused with texts naming a pre-accession official.
Where it belongs in history
Regnal formulas place Neriglissar after his overthrow of Amel-Marduk and before Labashi-Marduk, conventionally 560-556 BCE. Jerusalem fell to Nebuchadnezzar in 587/586 BCE, roughly a generation earlier. Identification is possible only if the future king was already an adult court or military official. Cuneiform sources indicate a wealthy and prominent Neriglissar before accession, but matching every occurrence requires attention to patronymics and office. Variations of one year in regnal dates reflect accession-year conventions, not uncertainty about the dynasty's general order.
Consensus, questions, and debate
Older and modern scholars have often identified a Nergal-sharezer in Jeremiah with Neriglissar, sometimes treating samgar as an office and distinguishing him from the Rab-mag. Others emphasize that the Masoretic wording can be parsed as two men with the same name and that personal names could recur. Lawrence Mykytiuk argues for strong identification of several Jeremianic figures using name, title, and chronology, whereas broader Assyriological work remains careful about which Nergal-šar-uṣur each text represents. The king's historical existence is certain; the siege-officer identification is probable to disputed depending on the parsing.
The biblical record beside the artifact
Jeremiah 39:3 lists Babylonian officials entering Jerusalem's middle gate, including Nergal-sharezer associated with Samgar and another Nergal-sharezer called Rab-mag; verse 13 again names Nergal-sharezer the Rab-mag in the order concerning Jeremiah. The underlying name corresponds to Akkadian Nergal-šar-uṣur, 'Nergal, protect the king.' This anchors the narrative in authentic Babylonian nomenclature. Whether either occurrence denotes the later king Neriglissar depends on how the Hebrew/Aramaic titles and punctuation are reconstructed; the royal tablets do not mention Jerusalem or Jeremiah.
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
This record exposes both the power and the discipline of prosopography. Cuneiform tablets give Neriglissar an independent biography, economic network, reign, and Akkadian name. Jeremiah preserves a Hebrew form appropriate to that same linguistic world and situates bearers of it among Nebuchadnezzar's officials. The comparison can illuminate the precision of Babylonian naming in Jeremiah without pretending that identical names automatically equal identical persons. It encourages readers to weigh chronology, office, name rarity, and textual syntax together rather than relying on a superficial spelling resemblance. It also reveals why titles matter as much as names: an apparent match can strengthen or weaken once samgar and Rab-mag are parsed, translated, and compared with Babylonian usage.
Authoritative sources
Institutional catalogs, excavation reports, and academic publications let you examine the evidence beyond this summary.
Neriglissar
British MuseumDocuments the ruler, name forms, reign, and related objects in the museum collection.
Economic tablet from Neriglissar's reign
British MuseumObject-level catalogue entry for a Babylon tablet dated under Neriglissar.
Neriglissar, King of Babylon
Cuneiform Digital Library InitiativeBibliographic record for Ronald Sack's specialist monograph with linked related cuneiform artifacts.
Eleven Non-Royal Jeremianic Figures Strongly Identified in Authentic, Contemporaneous Inscriptions
Purdue University Research Repository / Eretz-IsraelPresents a detailed prosopographical argument concerning Babylonian officials named in Jeremiah and its evidentiary criteria.