Marduk
Marduk Previous (Marcus Porcius Cato) Next (Margaret Atwood) Marduk , from a Babylonian cylinder seal Marduk (Sumerian for "solar calf"; Biblical Merodach ) was the name of a late generation god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon . When Babylon became the political center of the Euphrates valley in the time of Hammurabi (eighteenth century B.C.E. ), Marduk rose to the head of the Babylonian pantheon, a position he fully acquired by the second half of the second millennium B.C.E. He was also referred simply as “ Bel ," meaning “Lord,” or Bel-Marduk . Marduk was thus the chief deity of the Babylonian Empire during the period of Jewish exile in Babylon (sixth-fifth centuries B.C.E. ). It was Marduk whom Cyrus the Great of Persia credited with the inspiration to allow the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple of Yahweh . Marduk's association with the solar system 's largest planet led indirectly to its being n...