EGYPT AND BABYLON.
80
The
following are the chief objections to this theory
:
There is no reason to suppose that Evil-Merodach ever bore any other name, or was known to the Jews under one He aj> designation, to the Babylonians under another. pears in the Book of Kings under his rightful name of EvilMerodach (2 Kings xxv. 27), and again in the Book of Jeremiah (Jer. lii. 31). Unless we have distinct evidence of a monarch having borne two names, it is to the last degree uncritical to presume it. (b) The third year of Belshazzar Evil-Merodach is is mentioned in Daniel (ch. viii. 1). assigned two years only by Ptolemy, Berosus, and Abydenus the latest date upon his tablets is his second year he actually reigned no more than a year and ten months, (c) Evil-Merodach was put to death by his brother-in-law, Neriglissar, in B. c. 560. Babylon was at this time under no peril from the Medes and Persians, to whom the death of Belshaz(a)
;
;
zar appears to be attributed (vers. 31). (d) The identification of Belshazzar with Evil-Merodach involves that of " Darius the Median " ver. 31) with Neriglissar, who was not a Mede, and had a name as remote as possible from that of Darius. If Belshazzar be not Evil-Merodach, can he be Neriglissar? Here the name is not so great a difficulty. For, in the first place, the two words have two words have two elements in common. Neriglissar is in the Babylonian, NerMoreover, it galsar-uzur, while Belshazzar is Bel-sar-uzur. was not an unknown thing in Babylonia and Assyria to substitute in a royal designation the name of one god for another.f But, per contra (d) Nergal was a god so distinct from Bel, that we can scarcely imagine such a substitution
Bel for Nergal having been allowable, (b) Neriglissar son-in-law, not the son, of Nebuchadnezzar, (c) He appears to have died peaceably, and to have been succeeded by his son, Labasi-Merodach (Labossoracus),! instead " of being " slain suddenly, and succeeded by a Darius. It seems therefore impossible that the Belshazzar of Daniel can be Neriglissar. as
was the
NaIs he, then, as Josephus supposed, Nabonidus ? bonidus, according to Ptolemy and Berosus, was the last native king. The Medes and Persians destroyed his kingdom, and made him prisoner after which, in a little time, he ;
*
"
Mag. Syntax.,"
v.
t
14; Beros., " Transactions of Bib. Arch. Soc.," vol.
t
Berosus,
Ptol.,
1.
s. c.
1.
s. c.,
Abyden.,
1.
s. c.
vi., p. 28.
Joseph., "Ant. Jud.,
x. 11,
2,