EGYPT AND BAB YL ON.
96
CHAPTER
XI.
NOTICES OF BABYLON IX DANIEL, ISAIAH, JEREMIAH, AND EZEKIEL. IT is proposed in the present chapter to bring together the scattered notices in Scripture bearing upon the general condition of Babylon, the character of its government, and the manners and customs of its people ; and to inquire how far profane history confirms or illustrates what Scripture certain number of the points tells us on these matters. have necessarily been touched in some of the earlier chapters of the present volume, and thus it will be impossible to avoid a certain amount of repetition ; but the endeavor will be made to pass lightly over such topics as have been already put. before the reader, and thus to reduce the repetition to a
A
minimum.
We
have noticed indirectly, in connection with its commerce, the great wealth of Babylon. Isaiah calls it emphat" " the exactress of " the golden city (Isa. xiv. 4), or ically be rendered Jeremiah as the passage may literally. gold," " Lord " compares Babylon to a golden cup in the hand of the " abundant in treasures " ver. her and calls li. (ib. (Jer. 7), 13), declaring moreover that, at her"fall, all those who partook of her spoil should be " satisfied (ib. 1. 10). In Daniel " " head of is typified by the the gold Babylonian kingdom is monarch shown of the by ( Dan. ii. 38), and the opulence the enormous size of the image, or rather pillar, of gold which he set up, a pillar ninety feet high by nine feet wide (ib. iii. 1 ). The inscriptions are in accordance. Nebuchadnezzar tells us that he brought into the treasury of Merodach at Babylon " wares, and ornaments for the women,
molten gold, precious stones, metal, umritgana and cedar wood, a splendid abundance, riches and sources of
silver,