The tablet details Nebuchadnezzar's military campaigns in the west and has been interpreted to refer to both the Battle of Carchemish and the Siege of Jerusalem (597 BC).

The ABC5 is a continuation of Babylonian Chronicle ABC4 (The Late Years of Nabopolassar), where Nebuchadnezzar is mentioned as the Crown Prince.

[4] As with most other Babylonian Chronicles, the tablet is unprovenanced, having been purchased in 1896[5] via an antiquities dealer from an unknown excavation.

The Chronicle states: In the seventh year (of Nebuchadnezzar) in the month Chislev (Nov/Dec) the king of Babylon assembled his army, and after he had invaded the land of Hatti (Turkey/Syria) he laid siege to the city of Judah.

[4] Prior to publication of the Babylonian Chronicles by Donald Wiseman in 1956,[10] Thiele had determined from the biblical texts that Nebuchadnezzar's initial capture of Jerusalem occurred in the spring of 597 BC,[11] while other scholars, including Albright, more frequently dated the event to 598 BC.