Sheshach

Sheshach is the cryptic code-name for Babylon used twice by Jeremiah in his oracles of judgment (Jeremiah 25:26, 51:41). The name is an atbash cipher of Babel/Babylon — a Hebrew encryption that replaces each letter with its mirror counterpart (aleph↔tav, beth↔shin, etc.). Applying atbash to BBL yields SSK = Sheshach. The encryption may have been either a literary device or a precaution, since openly naming Babylon's downfall while she was still the dominant superpower could have been politically dangerous. Jeremiah declares: "How Sheshach is taken, the praise of the whole earth seized!" (Jer 51:41) — one of the earliest documented examples of biblical cryptography.