2 Kings 20:12

At that time Berodachbaladan, the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present unto Hezekiah: for he had heard that Hezekiah had been sick.

At that time Berodach-baladan, the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, х Bªro'dak-Bal'ªdaan (H1255) (as in Isaiah 39:1); Mªro'dak-Bal'ªdaan (Gesenius). This name, as compounded of Mªrodaak (H4781), Mars, the great slaughterer (Jeremiah 50:2), and frequently incorporated with proper names, so Evil-merodach, etc., Baladan = bel (H1078), and 'adown (H113), sovereign lord, read on the side of a bowl found at Nineveh, Mered-onkh-bal; probably Mardocempalus of Ptolemy (Rawlinson's 'Herodotus', 1:, p. 502), "son" of Baladan.] The father of Merodach-baladan seems, from the Assyrian inscriptions, to have been Yagina, or Yakin (Rawlinson's 'Bampton Lectures,' p. 443, note; 'Ancient Monarchies,' 2:, p. 395. note); so that Baladan must have been his grandfather, or some distinguished, ancestor. He is here called "king of Babylon." In the 'annals of Sennacherib' the name of Merodach-baladan occurs as king of Kardunyas, or Chaldea. But Babylon was at that time a provincial capital of Assyria; and then, could there be, during the existence of the old Assyrian empire, a king of Babylon possessed of an independent kingdom, and free to appoint mission of the kind to Hezekiah, who was the determined and successful enemy of the Assyrian power?

In, the Armenian version of Eusebius' 'Chronicle,' discovered few years ago, a fragment of the Chaldean historian Berosus, preserved by Alexander Polyhistor, throws a welcome light on this obscure portion of history. It is to the following effect: After the reign of the brother of Sennacherib, Acises reigned ever the Babylonians; and when he had exercised supreme authority for the space of thirty days, he was slain by Marodachus Baladanus, who held the empire by force during six months; and he was slain by a person called Elibus, who succeeded to the throne. In the third year of his reign Sennacherib, king of the Assyrians, levied an army against the Babylonians, and in a battle in which they were engaged, routed and took him prisoner, with his adherents, and ordered them to be carried into the land of the Assyrians. Having assumed the government of the Babylonians, lane, he appointed his son, Asordanius, to be their king as his deputy, after which he himself retired again into Assyria' (Cory's 'Fragments').

Thus it is explained how, since the rulers of Babylon were formerly viceroys of the Assyrian monarchs, there happened to be a "king of Babylon" who acted independently, and despatched a friendly embassy to a distant monarch, who was notoriously in opposition to the Assyrian power. Merodach-baladan was one in a series of three successive rulers who, having thrown off the Assyrian yoke, were de facto kings of Babylon; and whether these usurpers took advantage of the fatal campaign in Judea, which reduced the Assyrian empire to low ebb, for unfurling the banner of independence, as the Medes are thought also to have done, or whatever other occasion may have tempted them to rebel, this precious fragment of Berosus has solved a historical problem, has given an actual existence to a person who, in the absence either of direct testimony or indirect corroboration from any quarter, was long considered a myth; and by thus establishing the reality of Merodach-baladan's royal condition, has wrested from sceptics one of their most formidable weapons against the truth of the Old Testament history, (see Layard's 'Nineveh and Babylon'-the results of a Second Expedition, pp. 140-145, 212, 443, 620; Rawlinson's 'Outlines,' pp. 39-32; Niebuhr, pp. 46, 47, 169; Bonomi, 'Ninevah and its Palaces,' pp. 51, 52; Wiseman's 'Lectures on the Connection of Science and Revealed Religion, p. 409, etc.) Sent letters and a present unto Hezekiah. It is highly probable that the message of congratulation to Hezekiah on his recovery, was only a polite pretext for the embassy; and that in the circumstances, common to these kings of Babylon and of Judah, of opposition to the Assyrian power, Merodach was desirous of forming a defensive league with Hezekiah against their great foe. The presents were, according to Eastern usage, an indispensable passport to the commencement of civil or social communications of any kind, and might be more or less valuable according to the ability or the purposes of the donor. But it appears further (2 Chronicles 32:31), that one important object of this mission to Hezekiah was, in accordance with the favourite tastes and pursuits of the chief men, in Chaldea, to inquire respecting the 'wonder' which had occurred in the country of Judah. That 'wonder' was in all probability, not the miraculous overthrow of the Assyrians, but the recession of the sun's shadow; because that phenomenon was directly connected with the convalescence of Hezekiah, and, doubtless, excited great interest among the astronomers of Babylon.