EGYPT AND BABYLON.
68
Egypt's degradation was to last for a long term of years.* It is not unlikely that Amasis became the vassal of Nebuchadnezzar, and his peaceful reign, and the material prosperity of his country,! were the result of a compact by which he acknowledged the suzerainty of Babylon, and bowed his head to a foreign yoke.
*" Forty
years" (Ezek. xxix. 11-13); but "forty years," in pro* is not to be taken literally,
phetic language, t
Herod.,
ii. f
177.
.