Timeline of Characters and Events for Isaiah Sermon Series

Isaiah 40-55: Timeline of Characters and Events

587-586 BCE – Jerusalem, the southern capital of Judah falls to the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, who had deposed king Jeconiah [Jehoiachin] and enthroned the puppet Zedekiah a decade earlier.

556 BCE – Nabonidus ascends to the Babylonian throne.  He tries to exalt his personal god (the Aramaic tribal god, Nabu/ Sîn, symbolized by a crescent moon) to the head of the Babylonian pantheon over Marduk.

552-543/2 – After a revolt by the priests of Marduk, Nabonidus lives in self-imposed exile in the desert at Tema (Tayma), leaving his son Bēl-šar-uṣur (Belshazzar) in charge as a kind of co-regent in the city of Babylon.  Nabonidus eventually returns to Babylon and redoubles his efforts to establish the worship of Nabu/Sîn, rebuilding and rededicating a temple to the god in Harran.

550 BCE – Cyrus (the Great) of Persis defeats the Medes and establishes the Achaemenid (Persian) empire.

540 BCE – Cyrus begins the conquest of Babylon.  The poet/prophet of Isaiah 40-55 begins to prophesy salvation and to urge the exiles to prepare to return to Judah and Jerusalem.

539 BCE – Nabonidus belatedly celebrates the god Marduk at the New Year’s festival in Babylon, a religious and political spectacle that includes the transportation of many idols into the city, and appears to restore Marduk to his previous position in the pantheon, trying to rally and coerce the support of surrounding cities and temple officials when Cyrus, king of Persia, becomes a threat.  Cyrus defeats the Babylonians in battle at Opis (about 50 miles from Babylon, near modern Baghdad), then marches unopposed into the major Babylonian city of Sippar and, finally, into the capital city of Babylon itself, where he is embraced and heralded by the Babylonian priests as a liberator.

538 BCE -- Cyrus depicts himself in propaganda as a savior, restoring the divine order which had been disrupted by Nabonidus and restoring the nations that had been destroyed and displaced (exiled) earlier by Babylon and Assyria.  In the famous Cyrus Cylinder, an inscription that was deposited in the foundations of the E-sa-gi-la temple (ziggurat) dedicated to Marduk as head of the Babylonian pantheon, Cyrus denounces Nabonidus as an impious ruler and portrays himself as a pious worshipper of the god Marduk. Cyrus claims to have improved the lives of the citizens of Babylonia, repatriated displaced peoples, and restored temples and cult sanctuaries.

The Bible records declarations similar in tone and substance to those of the Cyrus Cylinder (2 Chronicles 36, Ezra 1), but focused on the return of Judean exiles from Babylon and the rebuilding of the temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem.  The prophet/poet of Isaiah 40-55 calls Cyrus “Yahweh’s anointed” (Messiah or Christ) and embraces the notion that Cyrus is sent by God to save and restore the people of Judah and Jerusalem, to return them to their homes, and to rebuild the temple.

516 BCE – the rebuilt Second Temple is dedicated in Jerusalem during the reign of the Persian king Darius I and the governorship of Zerubbabel (grandson of the deposed king Jeconiah / Jehoiachin).

Isaiah 1-39: Timeline of Characters and Events

790-738 BCE – Reign of King Uzziah of Judah (Isaiah 1, 6; his co-regent, Jotham, overlaps with Uzziah and Ahaz after about 750 BCE, otherwise Jotham has no role in the book of Isaiah)

760-750 BCE – Amos (a Judean, southerner) prophesies in Samaria (Israel, the northern capital)

750-720 BCE – Hosea (a northerner, prophesies to Israel, with Samaria as the capital)

745-727 BCE – Assyrians under Tiglath-pileser III begin their conquest of the Levant.

741-716 BCE – Reign of King Ahaz [Jehoahaz I] of Judah (Isaiah 7, 14)

740-687 BCE – Micah (southern prophet, contemporary of Isaiah, prophesies in Judah)

738 BCE – Isaiah’s Prophecies Begin (Isaiah 6)

735-732 BCE – Syro-Ephraimitic War.  Rezin, the Aramean king of Damascus, and Pekah, the king of Israel, probably with Philistine and Phoenician support, try to force Ahaz, King of Judah, to support their coalition to resist Assyrian expansion.  (Isaiah 7-9)

734 BCE – King Ahaz of Judah begins to pay tribute to the Assyrians.

715-687/686 BCE – Reign of King Hezekiah of Judah (Isaiah 36-39)

722 BCE – Israel’s northern capital, Samaria, falls to the Assyrians.

721-705 BCE – Jerusalem prepares for an inevitable Assyrian siege, including the completion of the Siloam Tunnel from the Gihon spring to a large reservoir inside the city walls.

705 BCE – Sudden death of Sargon II results in widespread revolt against Assyria, including by Judah in alliance with Egypt.

701 BCE – Sennacherib’s (Assyrian) Military Campaign.  The siege of Jerusalem results in the loss of forty-six of Judah’s walled cities, exile of 200,150 of its citizens, and the imposition of a heavy tribute.  At the end of the campaign, Jerusalem was the only significant unconquered city in Judah.