The king spake, and said, Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?
Is not this great Babylon, that I have built? Herodotus ascribes the building of Babylon to Semiramis and Nitocris, his informant under the Persian dynasty giving him the Assyrian and Persian account. Berosus and Abydenus give the Babylonian account-namely, that Nebuchadnezzar added much to the old city; built a splendid palace and city walls. Herodotus, the so-called 'father of history,' does not even mention Nebuchadnezzar. (Nitocris, to whom he attributes the beautifying of Babylon, seems to have been Nebuchadnezzar's wife.) Hence, infidels have doubted the Scripture account.
But the latter is proved by thousands of bricks on the plain, the inscriptions of which have been deciphered, each marked 'Nebuchadnezzar, the son of Nabopolassar.' "Built," i:e., restored and enlarged (2 Chronicles 11:5-6). It is curious, all the bricks have been found with the stamped face downward. Scarcely a figure in stone, or a tablet, has been dug out of the rubbish heaps of Babylon, whereas Nineveh abounds in them; fulfilling Jeremiah 51:37, "Babylon shall become heaps." The "I" is emphatic, by which he puts himself in the place of God; so the "my power, my majesty." He impiously opposes his might to God's, as though God's threat, uttered a year before, could never come to pass. He would be more than man; God therefore justly makes him less than man: he must be driven from men, and "dwell with the beasts," and become like a beast. An acting over again of the fall: Adam, once lord of the world and the very beasts (Genesis 1:28; as was also Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel 2:38), would be a god (Genesis 3:5), therefore he must die like the beasts (Psalms 82:6; Psalms 49:12). The second Adam restores the forfeited inheritance (Psalms 8:4-8).