All offices are in his gift.

He can raise a foreigner to the second place in the kingdom, and even set him over the entire priestly order.

His wealth is enormous, for he makes of pure gold an image, or obelisk, ninety feet high and nine feet broad.

He is religious after a sort, but wavers in his faith, sometimes acknowledging the God of the Jews as the only real deity, sometimes relapsing into an idolatrous worship, and forcing all his subjects to follow his example.
Even then, however, his polytheism is of a kind which admits of a special devotion to a particular deity, who is called emphatically "his god." In temper he is hasty and violent, but not obstinate; his fierce resolves are taken suddenly and as suddenly repented of; he is moreover capable of bursts of gratitude and devotion, no less than of accesses of fury; like most Orientals, he is vainglorious but he can humble himself before the chastening hand of the Almighty; in his better moods he shows a spirit astonishing in one of his country and time--a spirit of real piety, self-condemnation, and self-abasement, which renders him one of the most remarkable characters in Scripture.
A few touches of a darker hue must be added to this portrait of the great Babylonian king from the statements of another contemporary, the prophet Jeremiah.

The execution of Jehoi-akim, and the putting out of Zedekiah's eyes, though acts of considerable severity, may perhaps be regarded as justified by the general practice of the age, and therefore as not indicating in Nebuchadnezzar any special ferocity of disposition.
But the ill-treatment of Jehoiakim's dead body, the barbarity of murdering Zedekiah's sons before his eyes, and the prolonged imprisonment both of Zedekiah and of Jehoiachin, though the latter had only contemplated rebellion, cannot be thus excused.