and in the wine- : cup v Nebuchadnezzar's operations in southern Syria in 599-598 BC.~" A crux is that the victim of the Babylonians are called Qedar in the Jeremianic poem but arab by Nebuchadnezzar. It has been suggested that the oracle did not orig- inally refer to the campaign in 599 but to an earlier event, but the argument for this

doi:10.4324/9781315029535-34

Chapter

ABSTRACT

These facts indicate that the G r a b mentioned in the wine-cup vision in the book of Jeremiah are in fact those closely associated with Qedar in the Assyrian inscriptions, and against whom Nebuchadnezzar sent out his troops in 599 BC. From the Qedar oracle in Jeremiah 49 we learn that the Babylonian campaign was not only against the Arabs but also against their close allies, Qedar, who are included under this label by the Babylonian scribe.