lations upon trust, as he me twith them; and no doubt he was imposed on in many of them," and particularly in the instance before us; but Ctesias living in the court of Persia, and searching the public registers, was able to give a better account than Herodotus, of the Assyrian kings. But whether Herodotus' account be true or false, the whole of it, I am sure, does not favour our learned author's hypothesis; nor, as I apprehend, does the particular cited about Semiramis, if we take the words of Herodotus according to his own meaning. 3. Sir Isaac Newton cites Nehemiah, chap. x. ver. 32. The words are Now, therefore, our GOD-Let not all the trouble seem little before thee, that hath come upon us, on our kings, on our princes, and on our priests, and on our prophets, and on our fathers, and on all thy people, since the time of the kings of Assyria unto this day. Our learned author says, since the time of the kings of Assyria-" that is, since "Newton's Chron. p. 267. the time of the kingdom of Assyria, or since the rise of that empire; and therefore the Assyrian empire arose, when the kings of Assyria began to afflict the Jews." In answer to this objection, I would observe, that the expression, since the time of the kings of Assyria, or, to render it more strictly, according to the Hebrew words, from the days of the kings of Assyria, is very general, and may signify a time commencing from any part of their times; therefore it is restraining the expression purely to serve a hypothesis, to suppose that the words mean, not from their times in general, but from the very rise or beginning of their times. The heathen writers frequently used a like general expression, the Trojan times, go Tay Tgwinav, before the Trojan times, is an expression both of Thucydides and Diodorus Siculus; yet neither of them meant by it, before the rise of the Trojan peo Thucyd. 1. 1. p. 3. Diodor. lib. 1. p. 4, and the same author uses o των Τρωικών in the same sense, ibid. ple, but before the Trojan war, with which the Trojans and their times ended. As to the expression before us, we shall more clearly see what was designed by it, if we consider, 1. That the sacred writers represent the Jews as suffering in and after these times from the kings of two countries, from the kings of Assyria and from the kings of Babylon. Israel was a scattered sheep the Lions had drove him away: first, the king of Assyria devoured him; and last, the king of Babylon brake his bones. -2. The kings of Assyria, who began the troubles which were brought upon the Israelites, were the kings who reigned at Nineveh, from Pul, before Tiglath-Pileser,' to Nabopolassar, who destroyed Nineveh, and made Babylon the sole metropolis of the empire. Pul first began to afflict them; his successors, at different times, and in different P Jeremiah 1. ver. 17. 1 Chron. v. ver. 26. 2 Kings xv. 19. Usher. Chronol. manners, distressed them; until Nebuchadnezzar completed their miseries in the captivity. But, 3. The sacred writers, in the titles which they give to these kings, did not design to hint either the extent of their empire, or the history of their succession; but commonly call them kings of the country or city where they resided, whatever other dominions they were masters of, and without any regard to the particulars of their actions or families, of the rise of one family, or the fall of another. Pul seems to have been the father of Sardanapulus; Tiglath-Pileser was Arbaces, who, in confederacy with Belesis, overthrew the empire of Pul, in the days of his son Sardanapulus ;" and Tiglath-Pileser was not king of such large dominions as Pul and Sardanapulus commanded; but the sacred writers take nó notice of these revolutions. Pul had his residence at Nineveh, in Assyria, and Tiglath 'Id' ibid. See Usher's Chron. ▪ Prideaux Connection, ub. sup. Pileser made that city his royal seat; for which reason they are both called in Scripture kings of Assyria; and upon the same account the successors of Tiglath-Pileser have the same title, until the empire was removed to Babylon. Salmanezer, the son of Tiglath-Pileser, is called king of Assyria;' and so is Sargon, or Sennacherib; Esarhaddon, though he was king of Babylon as well as of Assyria, is called in Scripture, king of Assyria, for in that country was his seat of residence; but after Nabopolassar destroyed Nineveh, and removed the empire to Babylon, the kings of it are called in Scripture kings of Babylon, and not kings of Assyria, though Assyria was part of their dominions, as Babylon and the adjacent country had been of many of the Assyrian kings. There were great turns and revolutions in the kingdoms of these countries, from the death of Sardanapulus, to the esta b * Prid. Connect. vol. i. book 1.2Kings xvii. 3. |