NERIGLISSOR – Fourth Neo-Babylonian king (Babylonian Nergal-šar-uşur, “Nergal protect the king”; Hebrew Nérghal Sar'şer), the second successor of the great Nabuchodonosor II; he reigned from 560 to 556 B.C.
He was the son of a certain Běl-šar-škun, an otherwise little-identifiable Babylonian grandee, “wise prince and perfect hero, guardian of Esagila and of the (city of) Babylon,” which denotes his noble origin. Private cuneiform documents designate him as the owner of extensive lands in the provinces of Babylon, Opis, and elsewhere. He knew how to add political influence to wealth, and Nabuchodonosor gave him a daughter in marriage. Official documents report one of his missions to Aktak (later Seleucia) and to Tokrītān, on the Tigris. In the “court calendar,” published by Unger, he is listed among the amēlu mademnim, the highest dignitaries of the court and the Empire. There is the addition amēlu “Sin-magir” (which perhaps entered the corrupt text of Ier. 39, 3, as Samgar), giving solid probability to the opinion that he was governor of Bit-Sin-magir, north of Babylon, a sensitive post on the border of Media.
Assuming the (only probable) identification with Nérghal Sar'şer (Volg. Neregel, Sereser), N., although subordinate to Nabuzardan, would have been among those Babylonian dignitaries who, after the capture of Jerusalem in 586, reorganized the country and who, according to Ier. 39, 13, granted the prophet Jeremiah his freedom. N., here named among the “princes of the King of Babylon,” is rabh māgh, a title equivalent to that given him in the “court calendar,” rab māgh, an office which certainly does not entail being “prefect of the magi,” but which, according to the texts collected by Manitius, implies a connection with the “chariots” and the cavalry, without excluding civil duties.
N. ascended the throne after the year 560, following a revolution in which King Amēl-Marduk (son of Nabuchodonosor, who pardoned Ianchin: cf. Ier. 52, 31-34) was killed. Like all usurpers, N. emphasizes in his inscriptions the destinies of the great gods, who gave him kingship over the “black-haired ones” and who “placed the crown of Marduk upon his brow.”
He endeavored to regain the sympathies of the priests by restoring the temples; moreover, he gave his daughter Gigitum in marriage to a priest of Sippar. He succeeded in keeping the borders of the vast Empire intact, and even brought the goddess Annunitum back to Sippar from Gutium, a province near Media. But, having usurped the throne at an already advanced age, he had only four years left in which to rule and fortify his palace in Babylon. He was succeeded for nine months by his underage son Labāš-Marduk, who, according to Nabonedo, did not know how to conduct himself in the Kingdom, having sat upon the throne “against the will of the gods.”