Bab-ili, 'gate of the god' — the city on the Euphrates that gave the world Hammurabi's laws, and under Nebuchadnezzar II the Ishtar Gate, the ziggurat Etemenanki (standing behind the Bible's memory of Babel's tower — see Shinar), and the empire that ended Judah. In Jeremiah's preaching the doom long comes from an unnamed 'north'; at 20:4-6 the name is finally said out loud — Babylon, five times in three verses — and Daniel's first page records the fulfillment begun (605 BC). The city fell to Cyrus in 539 BC (the Nabonidus Chronicle and Cyrus Cylinder carry the receipt), and Revelation will pick the name up again as the world-city's cipher (chs. 17–18).