RINAP 4: The Royal Inscriptions of Esarhaddon, King of Assyria (680-669 BC), “Esarhaddon 104 (Babylon A), translation block i 34 – ii 9a (Akkadian ii 2-9)”
“The merciful god Marduk [w]rote that the calculated time of its abandonment (should last) 70 years, (but) his heart was quickly soothed, and he reversed the numbers and (thus) ordered its (re)occupation to be (after) 11 years.”
An Assyrian royal inscription about the restoration of Babylon. It shows that a divinely decreed period of 'seventy years' of abandonment was a known convention in Mesopotamian religious writing, and that the actual interval could be far shorter.
Source officielle (s’ouvre dans un nouvel onglet)
Note de provenance et de vérification for RINAP 4: The Royal Inscriptions of Esarhaddon, King of Assyria (680-669 BC), Esarhaddon 104 (Babylon A), translation block i 34 – ii 9a (Akkadian ii 2-9)
Note sur la fiabilité. The Oracc HTML edition of Esarhaddon 104 was fetched and read on 19 September 2026. The sentence quoted falls at the end of the translation block Oracc labels “(i 34)”; the Akkadian behind it is lines ii 2-9 of the same inscription. The parallel passage was also read in Esarhaddon 105 (Q003334), where it reads “The merciful god Marduk wrote …” without the restoration bracket. This is offered as background on the “seventy years” formula, not as evidence about Jeremiah.
Date de consultation. 19 septembre 2026 · Identifiant de la source. src-chr-e-oracc-esarhaddon-104