EVIL-MERODACH - me - ro 'dak), (Heb.
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 con quered kings who were detained at Babylon (2 Kings xxv:27; Jer. lii:3t-34). (See CHAL DIEANS.) A Jewish tradition (noticed by Jerome on Is. xiv :29) ascribes this kindness to a personal friendship which Evil-merodach had contracted with the Jewish king when he was himself con signed to prison by Nebuchadnezzar, who, on re covering from his seven years' monomania, took offense at some part of the conduct of his son, by whom the government had in the meantime been administered. This story was probably invented to account for the fact.
The cuneiform equivalent of his name is Ant:? (Ava)-Maruduk (cf. Haupt in Zeitsch. f. Assyr.
ii :266 and 234 f.), 'man (servant) of Merodach.' According to Berosus he administered the king dom during his two years' reign (562-56o) with indiscretion and wanton unrestraint. Tide (Bob. Assyr. Ges. pp. 457, 464) concludes, on the basis of this character of Evil-merodach, that the be nevolent act toward Jehoiachin should be attribu ted to his successor on the throne of Babylon. We possess as yet none of his annals, though sev eral contract tablets date from his reign. In the year 56o his brother-in-law, Neriglissar (Xerga/ sar-uszer, 'Nergal preserve the king'), in a con spiracy, slew him and seized the throne. (Ira M. Price, Hastings' Bib. Diet.) EWER (U'Er), or pitcher accompanying a wash basin (John xiii:5).
EWES (uz), the rendering in the A. V. of sev eral Hebrew words for the female sheep. (See SHEEP.)