NOTICES IN KINGS AND CUEONICLES.
21
carried off from the Jewish temple a certain portion of the holy vessels, conveyed them to Babylon, and placed them there " in the house of his god." With respect to the first point, profane history tells us by the mouth of a large number of writers,* that toVard the dosr of the seventh century B.C. the Assyrian empire came to
an end, Nineveh was destroyed, and Babylon stepped into
a position of greatly
augmented power and authority.
The
date of the change is undetermined ; but it was certainly not earlier than B. c. 625, and not later than B. c. 606. The third year of Jehoiakim seems to have been B. c. 605. Thus the independence of Babylonia, distinctly implied in the above passages, was beyond' all doubt a fait accompli at the time mentioned. The second point the government of Babylonia at this exact time by a prince named Nebuchadnezzar or Nebuchadrezzar is to some extent a The name indeed difficulty. is abundantly confirmed. Nine-tenths of the baked bricks found in Babylonia bear the stamp of 2fafai-fatdurri4&urt the sou of Nabur-pal-uzur, king of Babylon." And Berosus, Abydfiius, and Alexander Polyhistor, all give the name with i-xact
variation. But Babylonian chronology made Nebuchadnezzar ascend the throne, not in B. c, 605, biit in B.C. 604 and Berosus expressly stated that the first expedition conducted by Nebuchadnezzar into Syria, Palestine and the north-eastern parts of Egypt, fell into the lifetime of his father, Nabopolassar, and preceded his own establishment on the Babylonian throne. f The difficulty is sometimes met little
;
the supposition that Nebuchadnezzar was associated in kingdom by his father before setting out upon his expedition (and association was certainly a practice not unknown to the Babylonians) ; but the more probable explanation is, that the sacred writers call Nebuchadnezzar " king of Babyl>y
the
of him, because he became ourselves might say, " King George the fourth received the allied sovereigns on their visit to Eng" The and after Louis
on
lon,"
-ueh
:
first
just as
making mention
we
Waterloo;"
or,
Emperor
Napoleon
long a prisoner in the fortress of Ham;" although 'or;ro the Fourth received the sovereigns as prince regent, 'l Louis Napoleon was not emperor till many years after s
As Herodotus (i. 106, 178), Polyhistor, Abydcnus, the writer Book of Tobit (xiv. 13), and others,
;he t
Berosus, Fr. 14.
of