A. M. 3417. A. C. 587; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 4825. A. C. 586. JER. xl. 7-xlv., DANIEL, AND EZRA i→v.

We have been so large in our answers to some of the last objections, that we have less room left for the reconciliation of some seeming inconsistencies that are alleged in this period of history; but a little will suffice for this.

conceived and apprehended thus,-"That Nehemiah found the list and catalogue of those that came up in the first of Cyrus, as it was then taken, and that he called over the names of the families, as they lay in order there; that he observed the order of the old list, in callFor, 1. Whereas the number of the people, returning ing them over, and lifting them, but took the real number from the captivity, is much larger in the general sum of them, as they were at the time, when he numbered than it is in the particulars, it is to be remembered, that them, that some families were now more in number than not only those of Judah and Benjamin, but several also they were when the first list was made, and some fewer; of the other tribes, took the benefit of the decree which and some that were in that list were not to be found now; Cyrus granted in favour of the Jews, to return again in- for some more of the same stock had come up from to their own land. That they did so, is plain from the Babylon, since the first numbering, and others, who tenor of the decree itself, which extends to all the peo-had come up at first, and were then numbered, were now ple of the God of Israel,' whereof (as Josephus informs gone back again.” us) Zerubbabel sent a copy into Media, to the rest of the ten tribes, who, together with the rest of the fathers of Judah and Benjamin,' are supposed to be those, 2 whose spirit God had raised up to go :' and therefore the difference between the gross and the particular sums arises from hence, that in the latter, the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi, only are reckoned by their families; whereas in the former, all those of the other tribes that accompanied them in their return to Jerusalem are added.

This accounts for the difference between the general and particular sums in Ezra; and then why the particulars in Ezra differ from the particulars in Nehemiah, the matter (according to a very competent judge) is to be

1 Ezra i. 3. * Ibid. ver. 5. 'Patrick's Commentary on Ezra ii. 6; and Prideaux's Connection.

4 Lightfoot's Chronology, p. 146.

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2. Whereas it is said of the fourscore Israelites, that they were carrying their offerings to the house of the Lord,' when the house of the Lord at Jerusalem had, for some time before, been destroyed by the Babylonians; " why may we not suppose, that the place where the temple stood, even after its destruction, was held in such veneration, that the people who were left in the country, after the general captivity, chose to offer their sacrifices and oblations there, as long as they remained in the land; and that having no priests at Jerusalem, they might go to Mizpeh (where these servants of the Lord had, very probably, put themselves under the governor's protection) to fetch one from thence, in order to assist them in their religious offices?

7 Samaria, indeed, and the other parts from whence these devout persons came, lay to the north, and Mizpeh to the south of Jerusalem, a little too far distant for them to go for a priest; and therefore others have imagined, that after the destruction of the temple, Gedaliah, by the advice of the prophet Jeremiah, and the priests that were with him, had established a tabernacle, and built an altar at Mizpeh, where the people, for the present, might resort to pay their devotions, and present their oblations, until by some happy turn of affairs, their temple might come to be built again; and that this tabernacle and altar might with propriety enough, be called 'the house of the Lord."

We can hardly believe, indeed, that after the temple was gone, the people were to live without any place of religious worship; and, therefore, considering that Mizpeh was all along esteemed a place of more than ordi

the terms Gog and Magog are evidently used allegorically, as names of the enemies of Christianity, who will endeavour to extirpate it from the earth, but shall thereby bring upon themselves signal destruction."—(Bib. Cabinet, No. xi. Rosenmuller, Bib. Geog. vol. i. pp. 121-123.) With regard to the wall of Gog and Magog mentioned by Rosenmuller, Ker Porter (Travels, vol. ii. p. 520.) thus writes," The name Daghistan implies a land of mountains, and it contains some of the most inaccessible of this branch of the Caucasian range, which runs directly through the heart of this country. The eastern side, towards the sea, commands the most level ground; and on that shore we find the district and city of Derbent. It possesses a picturesque citadel, though situated at rather an unserviceable distance from the town and harbour; but I am told that part of the ancient wall, named Gog and Magog, is very traceable near this old stronghold, and that its foundations may be tracked thence, running in a westerly direction over even the highest mountains. This place, and its adjacent district, a position deemed of the greatest im-nary sanctity; that after the return of the ark, there portance by all conquerors, whether Persians, Greeks, Arabs, &c. who could acquire its possession, is now the property of Russia." This wall was really built by the famous Noushirvan, king of Persia, as a barrier against the inroads of the Khazars. That Gog and Magog were to be sought for in the Caucasus, was the idea of Bochart. "He observes," says Wells, (Geog. of the Old Testament, vol. i. p. 121.) that these words Gog-chasan, denote in the neighbouring oriental tongues as much as Gog's Fort, and from Gog-chasan the Greeks framed the name Kaúxaros, Caucasus." And besides finding the word Gog preserved in Gogarene, a district of Iberia, he believes Prometheus, chained to the Caucasus by Jupiter, to have been none other than Gog.

The Scherif-el-Edrisi, in his geographical work called "The Diversion of the Curious," gives a singular account of Yajooj and Majooj, taken from the travels of one Salam the interpreter. This person, says he, was sent about the beginning of the ninth century, by the Calif Mohammed Ameen Billah, to discover the mountain Kokaiya, with the bank or rampart of Yajooj and Majooj, who dwelt on the north of it, and who were confined within by a great gate of iron, fifty cubits high, supported by great buttresses, with an iron bulwark reaching to the summit of

6

6

Samuel gathered together all Israel before the Lord;' that there he built an altar, and offered a sacrifice;' and that in the time of the Maccabees, when the Jews were in the same case as now, without a temple, and without an altar, they here 10 assembled themselves together;' for Mizpeh, as the author of that history tells us, was the place where they prayed aforetime in Israel; we cannot but think, that there is something of 5 Jer. xl. 5. "Prideaux's Connection, in the notes, anno 588. 'Calmet's Commentary on Jer. xli. 5. 8 1 Sam. vii. 5, 6. 9 Ibid. ver, 19. 10 Maccab. iii. 46. Kokaiya, almost beyond the reach of vision. The people of Yajooj, says he, are of the common size, but those of Majooj (so far from being giants according to European notions) are a race of pigmies only three spans high. For farther information respecting the locality of Gog and Magog, the reader is referred to a Dissertation on the subject by D'Anville, in the Memoires de l'Acad. des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, vol. xxxi. and Rennell's Geog. of Herodotus, p. 152.-Bib. Cab. No. xi. Rosenmuller, Bib. Geog.—ED.

с

A. M. 3417. A. C. 587; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 4825 A. C. 586. JER. xl. 7-xlv. DANIEL, AND EZRA 1-Y. reality in the supposition, and that these eighty pious | was upon it, the holy fire upon the altar, the Urim and mourners were going to Mizpeh, and not to Jerusalem, Thummim, the spirit of prophecy, the Shechinah, I when the bloody and perfidious Ishmael circumvented or divine presence, the five great things for which the them. former temple was so renowned, were lost and gone, and never to be recovered to this other.

3

3. Once more: whereas it is said, that the priests and Levites, and elders of the fathers,' who had seen the first temple, wept when the foundation of the second was laid, though it is manifest, that the latter temple was forty cubits larger than the former; it must be remembered, that the reason of their weeping was, not so much because it was like to prove far inferior to that of Solomon as to its outward structure, but because it was to want those extraordinary marks of the divine favour, wherewith the other temple was honoured. The second temple was built upon the same foundations with the first; and therefore the different measures that we find of them in the books of Kings and Ezra, are to be understood in respect of the different distances between which the said measures were taken. The twenty cubits' breadth, which is said of Solomon's temple, was from the inside of the wall on the one side, to the inside of the wall on the other; but the sixty cubits' breadth of that to be built by Zerubbabel, was the breadth of the whole building, from the inside of the outer wall of it on the one side, to the inside of the outer wall on the other. So that the difference of the said twenty cubits' breadth, and of the said sixty cubits' breadth, is no more than this,-That the one is meant of the temple strictly so called, the other of the temple and its appertaining buildings. Both the temples then, without all doubt, were of the same dimensions; but then here was the difference, the sad difference, which drew tears from the eyes of the elders, viz. that, in all appearance, there were little or no hopes, that the poor beginnings of the latter temple would ever be raised to the grandeur and magnificence of the former, since the one had been built by the wisest and richest king, and constantly adorned by some one or other of his posterity; the other now begun by a small company of exiles, just returned from their captivity; the one in a time of profound peace, and the greatest opulence, the other in a time of common calamity and distress; the one finished with the most costly stones and timber, wrought with exquisite art, and overlaid with vast quantities of gold, the other to be raised out of no better materials than what could be dug from the ruinous foundation of the old one. But the occasion of their grief was not only this, that the materials and ornaments of the second temple, were even as nothing in comparison of the first;' but the ark of the covenant and the mercy-seat, which

1 Jer. xli. 6.

3

Ezra iii. 12.

Compare Ezra vi. 3. with 1 Kings vi. 20. and 2 Chron. iii. 3. 4 Hag. ii. 3.

4

a This was a small chest, or coffer, three feet nine inches in length, two feet three inches in breadth, and two feet three inches in height, Exod. xxv. 10, 22. In it were put the two tables of the law, the broken ones as well as the whole ones (say the Rabbins), and nothing else was put therein when it was brought into Solomon's temple, 1 Kings viii. 9; but in process of time, Aaron's rod, the pot of manna, and the original volume of the law, written by Moses' own hand, came to be likewise put into it, Heb. ix. 4. The Jews have a tradition, which Epiphanius (in Vita Jerem. Propheta) takes notice of, that Jeremiah foreseeing the approaching ruiu of the temple, carried the ark of the covenant into a cave, and by his prayers prevailed that it might be sunk, and swallowed up in the rock, so that it might

never more be seen; and this, though a fiction, is designed to inform us, that, in the destruction of Jerusalem, this sacred piece of furniture was lost. The Jews, indeed, upon the building of the second temple, made an ark of the same shape and dimensions with the first, and put it in the same place: but it had none of its honours and prerogatives; no tables of the law, no Aaron's rod, no pot of manna in it, no appearance of the divine glory over it, no oracles given from it; the only use that was made of it was, to be a representative of the former on the great day of expiation, and to be a repository of the Holy Scriptures, that is, of the original copy of that collection which was made of them after the captivity, by Ezra, and the men of the great synagogue.-Prideaux's Connection, anno 535. made of solid gold, and at the two ends of it were fixed two b This was the cover of the ark of the covenant. It was cherubim of the same metal, which, by their wings extended forwards, seemed to form a throne for the majesty of God, who, in Scripture, is represented to us as sitting between the cheruhim, and the ark itself was, as it were, his footstool. The to imply, that from thence the Lord heard the vows and prayers Hebrew word caphoreth, by being translated propitiatory, seems of his people, and pardoned them their sins; and by its being, at other times, translated oracle, seems farther to imply, that from thence he manifested his will and pleasure, and gave responses to Moses.-Calmet's Dictionary, under the word. c This fire came down from heaven, first upon the altar in the tabernacle, at the consecration of Aaron and his sons to the priesthood, (Lev. ix, 24,) and, afterwards, it descended anew upon the altar in the temple of Solomon, at its consecration, (2 Chron. priests, day and night, in the same manner as it had been in the vii. 1,) and there it was constantly fed and maintained by the tabernacle. The Jews have a tradition, that Jeremiah, foreseeing the destruction of the temple, took this fire, and hid it in a pit, but that, at the rebuilding of the temple, being brought fiction: for the generality of them allow, that, at the destruction again from thence, it revived upon the altar; but this is all a of the temple, it was extinguished; and, in the time of the second temple, nothing was made use of for all their burntofferings but common fire only.-Prideaux's Connection. breastplate itself, or only in the clearness and perfection of those d Whether the Urim and Thummim lay in the high priest's oracular answers which he received from God, when he went to consult him upon any important matter, so it was, that, having put on all his pontifical robes, and presented himself in the sancmost probably by an audible voice from the mercy-seat (which tuary before the holy of holies, he knew, by one means or other, was within behind the veil), what the divine pleasure was cocerning the aflair wherein he came to consult him. This was a singular privilege vouchsafed to the Jews; but it does not consulting the Lord in this manner after the building of Soleappear from the sacred history, that there are any footsteps of mon's temple to the time of its destruction; and, after its destruction, all are agreed, that this was never restored; so that namely, that the Holy Spirit spake to the children of Israel, during there seems to be some reason for that maxim among the Jews, the tabernacle, by Urim and Thummim; under the first temple, by the prophets; and under the second by Bath-col, or a voice sent from heaven, such as was heard at the baptism of Jesus Christ, and at his transfiguration.-Patrick's Commentary; and Calmet's Dictionary.

e This, it must be owned, was not wholly withdrawn from the Jewish church, in the time of the second temple. The prophets Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi lived in this time and prophesied; but, after their death (which the Rabbins say happened in one year), the prophetic spirit wholly ceased from among the Jews.-Prideaux's Connection.

among the Jews, which consisted of a visible cloud, resting over f The Shechinah was a sensible token of God's presence two cherubim, that overshadowed it, (Lev. xvi. 2.) It there the mercy-seat, or cover of the ark of the covenant, just above the wards, at the consecration of the temple by Solomon, was trans first appeared when Moses consecrated the tabernacle, and after

A. M. 3417. A. C. 587; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 4825. A. C. 586. JER. xl. 7-xlv. DANIEL, AND EZRA i-v.

This was a just matter of lamentation to those that had seen these singular tokens of the divine favour in the former temple, and a discouragement of their proceeding with the building of the present; and therefore the prophet Haggai was sent to inform them, that all these wants and defects should be abundantly repaired by the coming of the Messiah, the true Shechinah of the Divine Majesty, in the time of the second temple 'I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with glory; the glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts.'

entered it, the voice of prophecy pronounced the doom of the mighty and unconquered Babylon. A succession of ages brought it gradually to the dust; and the gradation of its fall is marked till it sink at last into utter desolation. At a time when nothing but magnificence was around Babylon the great, fallen Babylon was delineated exactly as every traveller now describes its ruins.

Chaldea, with its rich soil, and warm climate, and intersected by the Tigris and Euphrates, was one of the last countries in the world, of which the desolation could have been thought of by man. Yet the debasing idolatry, and brutifying wickedness of its inhabitants provoked, and brought down the vengeance of heaven.

'The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amos

CHAP. III.-On the History of Cyrus, and the Taking did see. The noise of a multitude in the mountains,

of Babylon.

SUPPLEMENTAL BY THE EDITOR.

like as of a great people; a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered together; the Lord of hosts mustereth the host of the battle. They come from a far country, from the end of heaven, even the Lord, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land. Behold the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate ; and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. Babylon the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldee's

As the taking of Babylon is one of the greatest events in ancient history, and as the principal circumstances with which it was attended were foretold in the Holy Scriptures many years before it happened, it may not be improper that, by the insertion of a few observations, we enable the reader more fully to compare the predic-excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and tions and the accomplishment of them together.

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Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it The pride, the cruelty, and the impiety of Babylon, be dwelt in from generation to generation; neither shall provoked the wrath of God against her. With regard to the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds her pride, she believed herself to be invincible. She make their fold there. But wild beasts of the desert said in her heart, I am the queen of nations, and I shall shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful remain so for ever. I am, and none else beside me; creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall of children.' As to her cruelty, God himself complains cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their of it: I was wroth with my people, and have given pleasant palaces. them into thine hand: thou didst show them no mercy; upon the ancient hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke.' And as to her impiety, her monarch not only preferred his false divinities to the true and only God, but fancied that he had vanquished his power, because he was possessed of the vessels which had belonged to his worship; and as if he meant to affront him, he affected to apply those holy vessels to profane uses.

If ever there was a city, as Dr Keith observes, that seemed to bid defiance to any predictions of its fall, that city was Babylon. Its walls, which were reckoned among the wonders of the world, appeared rather like the bulwark of nature, than the workmanship of man. The temple of Belus, half a mile in circumference, and a furlong in height,—the hanging gardens, which, piled in successive terraces, towered as high as the walls the embankments which restrained the Euphrates-the hundred brazen gates—and the adjoining artificial lake, -all displayed many of the mightiest works of mortals concentrated in a single spot. Yet, while in the plenitude of its power, and, according to the most accurate chronologers, 160 years before the foot of an enemy had

'Hag. ii. 7, 8.

Jated thither; (See vol. 2, 437) and there continued, in the same visible manner, while the ark was in its own proper place, either in the tabernacle or temple (but not while it was in move

ment, as it often was during the time of the tabernacle), till the Babylonians destroyed the temple, after which it never appeared more.-Prideaux's Connection.

I will cut off from Babylon, the name, and remnant, the son and nephew, saith the Lord. I will also make it a possession for the bittern and pools of water; and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of hosts. Thus saith the Lord, that saith unto the deep, be dry; and I will dry up thy rivers; that saith of Cyrus, he is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure, and I will lose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut.—I will punish the land of the Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desolations. And I will bring upon that land all my words which I have pronounced against it, even all that is written in this book which Jeremiah hath prophesied against all the nations. Declare ye among the nations, and publish, and set up a standard; publish and conceal not; say, Babylon is taken, Bel is confounded, Merodoch is broken in pieces; her idols are confounded, her images are broken in pieces. For out of the north there cometh up a nation against her, which shall make her land de. solate, and none shall dwell therein; they shall remove, they shall depart, both man and beast. For, lo, I will raise, and cause to come up against Babylon, an assembly of great nations from the north country: and they shall set themselves in array against her; and from thence she shall be taken; their arrows shall be as of a mighty, expert man; none shall return in vain. And

2 Is. xiii. 1-22.

A. M. 3417. A. C. 587; OR. ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 4825. A. C. 386. JER. xl. 7.-xlv. DANIEL AND EZRA i—v.

her, than in the hope of discovering some point not utterly impregnable, accompanied by his chief officers and friends, he rode around the walls, and examined them on every side, after having for that purpose stationed his whole army round the city. They camped against it round about. They put themselves in array against Babylon round about.

Chaldea shall be a spoil; and all that spoil her shall be satisfied, saith the Lord. Behold the hindermost of the nations a wilderness, a dry land and a desert. Because of the wrath of the Lord, it shall not be inhabited, but it shall be wholly desolate; every one that goeth by Babylon shall be astonished, and hiss at all her plagues. The Lord hath opened his armoury, and hath brought forth the weapons of his indignation; for this is the work of the Lord God of hosts in the land of the Chaldees. Come against her from the utmost border, open her storehouses; cast her up as heaps, and destroy her utterly, let nothing of her be left.-Therefore the wild beast of the desert, with the wild beasts of the islands shall dwell there, and the owls shall dwell therein and it shall be no more inhabited for ever; neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation. As God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and the neighbouring cities thereof, saith the Lord; so shall man no more abide there, neither shall any son of man dwell therein." 'Set up a standard in the land, blow the trumpet among the nations, prepare the nations against her, call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Asche--Babylon was besieged-the army was divided into nas: Lo, I will raise and cause to come up against Babylon an assembly of great nations from the north country.'

:

Frustrated in the attempt to discover, throughout the whole circumference, a single assailable point,and finding that it was not possible, by any attack, to make himself master of walls so strong and so high, and fearing that his army would be exposed to the assault of the Babylonians by a too extended, and consequently weakened line.— Cyrus standing in the middle of his army gave orders that the heavy armed men should move, in opposite directions, from each extremity towards the centre; and the horse and light armed men being nearer and advan... cing first, and the phalanx being redoubled and closed up, the bravest troops thus occupied alike the front and the rear, and the less effective were stationed in the middle. A trench was dug round the city-towers were erected

twelve parts, that each, monthly, by turn, might keep watch throughout the year;—and though the orders were given by Cyrus, the command of the Lord of hosts was unconsciously obeyed, 'let none thereof escape.'

The mighty men of Babylon have forborne to fight. They have remained in their holds; their might hath failed; they became as women.' Babylon had been the hammer of the whole earth, by which nations were broken in pieces, and kingdoms destroyed. Its mighty men carried the terror of their arms to distant regions, and led nations captive. But they were dismayed, according to the word of the God of Israel, whenever the nations which he had stirred up against them, stood in array before their walls. Their timidity, so clearly predicted, was the express complaint and accusation of their enemies, who in vain attempted to provoke them to the contest. Cyrus challenged their monarch to single combat, but also in vain ; 2 for the hands of the king of Babylon waxed feeble. Courage had departed from both prince and people; and none attempted to save their country from spoliation, or to chase the assailants from their gates. They sallied not forth against the

Cyrus subdued the Armenians, who had revolted against Media, spared their king, bound them over anew to their allegiance, by kindness rather than by force, and incorporated their army with his own. He adopted the Hyrcanians who had rebelled against Babylon, as allies and confederates, with the Medes and Persians. He conquered the united forces of the Babylonians and Lydians, took Sardis, with Croesus and all his wealth, spared his life after he was at the stake, restored to him his family and his household, received him into the number of his counsellors and friends, and thus prepared the Lydians, over whom he reigned, and who were formerly combined with Babylon, for coming up against it: he overthrew also the Phrygians and Cappadocians, and added their armies in like manner to his accumulating forces. And by successive alliances and conquests, by proclaiming liberty to the slaves, by a humane policy, consummate skill, a pure and noble disinterestedness, and a boundless generosity, he changed, within the space of twenty years, a confederacy which the king of Baby-invaders and besiegers, nor did they attempt to disjoin lon had raised up against the Medes and Persians, whose junction he feared, into a confederacy even of the same nature against Babylon itself,—and thus a standard was set up against Babylon in many a land, kingdoms were summoned, prepared, and gathered together against her.

"They shall hold the bow and the lance,-they shall ride upon horses,-let the archer bend his bow,-all ye that bend the bow shoot at her.' Forty thousand Persian horsemen were armed from among the nations which Cyrus subdued; many horses of the captives were besides distributed among all the allies. And Cyrus came up against Babylon with a great multitude of horse; and also with a great multitude of archers and javelin men, -that held the bow and the lance.

No sooner had Cyrus reached Babylon, with the nations which he had prepared, and gathered against

Is. xliv. xlvi. Jer. li.

and disperse them, even when drawn all round their walls, and comparatively weak along the extended line. Every gate was still shut; and they remained in their holds. Being as unable to rouse their courage, even by a close blockade, and to bring them to the field, as to scale or break down any portion of their stupendous walls, or to force their gates of solid brass, Cyrus reasoned, that the greater their number was, the more easily would they be starved into surrender, and yield to famine, since they would not contend with arms, nor come forth to fight. And hence arose, for the space of two years, his only hope of eventual success. So dispirited became its people, that Babylon, which had made the world as a wilderness, was long unresistingly a beleaguered town. But possessed of many fertile fields, and of provisions for twenty years, which in their timid caution they had plentifully stored, they derided

A. M. 3417. A. C. 587; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 4825. A. C. 586. JEK. xl. 7—xlv. DANIEL, AND EZRA i—v.

Cyrus from their impregnable walls within which they | it riseth, and mischief shall come upon thee, and thou remained. Their profligacy, their wickedness and false shalt not be able to put it off.' confidence were unabated; they continued to live carelessly in pleasures, but their might did not return; and Babylon the great, unlike to many a small fortress and unwalled town, made not one effort to regain its freedom or to be rid of the foe.

Much time having been lost, and no progress having been made in the siege, the anxiety of Cyrus was strongly excited, and he was reduced to great perplexity, when at last it was suggested, and immediately determined on, to turn the course of the Euphrates. But the task was not an easy one. The river was a quarter of a mile broad, and twelve feet deep, and in the opinion of one of the counsellors of Cyrus, the city was stronger by the river than by its walls. Diligent and laborious preparation was made for the execution of the scheme, yet so as to deceive the Babylonians. And the great trench, ostensibly formed for the purpose of blockade, which for the time it effectually secured, was dug around the walls on every side, in order to drain the Euphrates, and to leave its channel a straight passage into the city, through the midst of which it flowed. But, in the words of Herodotus, "if the besieged had either been aware of the designs of Cyrus, or had discovered the project before its actual accomplishment, they might have effected the total destruction of their troops. They had only to secure the little gates which led to the river, and to man the embankment on either side, and they might have enclosed the Persians as in a net, from which they could never have escaped." Guarding as much as possibly they could against such a catastrophe, Cyrus purposely chose, for the execution of his plan, the time of a great annual Babylonish festival, during which, according to their practice," the Babylonians drank and revelled the whole night.' And while the unconscious and reckless citizens " were engaged in dancing and merriment," the river was suddenly turned into the lake, the trench and the canals; and the watchful Persians, both foot and horse, so soon as the subsiding of the water per"mitted, entered by its channel, and were followed by the allies in array, on the dry part of the river. I will dry up thy sea, and make thy springs dry; that saith to the deep be dry, I will dry up thy rivers.'

One detachment, says Herodotus, was placed where the river first enters the city, and another where it leaves it. 2 And one post did run to meet another, and one * messenger to meet another, to show the king of Babylon that his city is taken at the end, and that the passages are short. They were taken by surprise, according to the historian just mentioned; and such was the extent of the city, that they who lived in the extremities were made prisoners before any alarm was communicated to the centre of the place where the palace stood. Not a 1 gate of the city wall was opened; not a brick of it had fallen. But a snare was laid for Babylon-it was taken, and it was not aware; it was found and also caught, for it had sinned against the Lord. How is the praise of the whole earth surprised! For thou hast treated in thy wickedness, and thy wisdom, and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee, therefore shall evil come upon thee, and thou shalt not know from whence

In their heat I will make their feasts, and I will make them drunken, that they may sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake, saith the Lord. I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter.' Cyrus, as the night drew on, stimulated his assembled troops to enter the city, because in that night of general revel within the walls, many of them were asleep, many drunk, and confusion universally prevailed. On passing, without obstruction or hinderance, to the city, the Persians, slaying some, putting others to flight, and joining with the revellers, as if slaughter had been merriment, hastened by the shortest way to the palace, and reached it, before a messenger had told the king that his city was taken. The gates of the palace, which was strongly fortified, were shut. The guards stationed before them were drinking beside a blazing light, when the Persians rushed impetuously upon them. The louder and altered clamour, no longer joyous, caught the ear of the inmates of the palace, and the bright light showed them the work of destruction, without revealing its cause. And, not aware of the presence of an enemy in the midst of Babylon, the king himself (who had been roused from his revelry by the handwriting on the wall), excited by the warlike tumult at the gates, commanded those within to examine from whence it arose; and according to the same word by which the gates leading from the river to the city were not shut, the loins of kings were loosed to open before Cyrus the two-leaved gates. At the first sight of the opened gates of the palace of Babylon, the eager Persians sprang in. king of Babylon heard the report of them; anguish took hold of him." He and all who were about him perished; God had numbered his kingdom and finished it: it was divided, and given to the Medes and Persians: the lives of the Babylonian princes, and lords, and rulers, and captains, closed with that night's festival; the drunken slept a perpetual sleep and did not wake.

3

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'Her young men shall fall in the streets, and all her men of war shall be cut off in that day.' Cyrus sent troops of horse throughout the streets, with orders to slay all who were found there. And he commanded proclamation to be made, in the Syrian language, that all who were in the houses should remain within; and that if any one were found abroad, he should be killed. These orders were obeyed.

'I will fill thee with men as with caterpillars.' Not only did the Persian army enter with ease as caterpillars, together with all the nations that had come up against Babylon, but they seemed also as numerous. Cyrus, after the capture of the city, made a great display of his cavalry in the presence of the Babylonians, and in the midst of Babylon. Four thousand guards stood before the palace gates, and two thousand on each side. These advanced as Cyrus approached; two thousand spearmen followed them. These were succeeded by four square masses of Persian cavalry, each consisting of ten thousand men : and to these again were added in their order, the Median, Armenian, Hyrcanian, Caducian, and Sacian horsemen,-all, as before, riding upon horses, every man in array, with lines of chariots,

Herod, b. i. c. 191.