The neo-BABYLONIANS — a people of southern Mesopotamia who seized the Babylonian throne under Nabopolassar (626 BC), destroyed Assyria and Nineveh with the Medes (612), and under his son NEBUCHADNEZZAR crushed Egypt at Carchemish (605) to become the dominant empire of the age. 'Chaldean' and 'Babylonian' are used interchangeably in the Bible. ⚠ Habakkuk 1:6 is the shock at the centre of his book: God says 'I am raising up the Chaldeans' — the empire that will burn Jerusalem (587) is called God's own instrument, which is what triggers the prophet's protest that a holy God should not use a nation more wicked than the one it punishes. The Chaldeans deport Judah in three waves (605/597/587); the exile, and Daniel's whole career at their court, unfold in their capital. Abraham himself is remembered as coming from 'Ur of the Chaldeans' (Genesis 11:31), a later way of naming the region. By Roman times 'Chaldean' had also come to mean an astrologer, from Babylon's fame for the study of the stars.