Evil Merodach
Fausset's Bible Dictionary [1]
Son and successor of Nebuchadnezzar. During the latter's exclusion from men among beasts, Evil Merodach administered the government. On Nebuchadnezzar's resuming it at the end of seven years, he heard of his son's misconduct and that Evil Merodach had exulted in his father's calamity. He therefore cast Evil Merodach into prison, where the prince met Jehoiachin or Jeconiah, and became his friend. When Evil Merodach mounted the throne therefore he brought him out of prison, changed his prison garments, and set his throne above the throne of the kings with him in Babylon, and "Jehoiachin did continually eat bread before him all the days of his life" ( Jeremiah 52:31-34). After a two-year reign, 561-559 B.C., he was murdered by Neriglissar (Nergal Sharezer), a Babylonian noble (married to his sister), who seized the crown. Evil Merodach was guilty of lawless government, according to Berosus, possibly because of his showing greater lenity than his father.
Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblial Literature [2]
Evil Mero´dach, son and successor of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who, on his accession to the throne (B.C. 562), released the captive king of Judah, Jehoiachin, from prison, treated him with kindness and distinction, and set his throne above the thrones of the other conquered kings who were detained at Babylon [[[Chaldeans]. A]] Jewish tradition (noticed by Jerome on ) ascribes this kindness to a personal friendship which Evil-merodach had contracted with the Jewish king, when he was himself consigned to prison by Nebuchadnezzar, who, on recovering from his seven years' monomania, took offence at some part of the conduct of his son, by whom the government had in the meantime been administered. But this story was probably invented to account for the fact.
