perhaps regarded by the Babylonians as a wrongful departure from their customs. At any rate, we learn from Berosus that within two years of his accession Evil-Merodach was put to death by his subjects, on the charge of ruling in a lawless and intemperate fashion. As Jehoiachin "did eat bread continually before Evil-Merodach all the days of his (i.e. Jehoiachin's) life," we must suppose that he died within less than two years from his release. He would have been at the time between fifty and sixty years of age.

"Those that had escaped from the sword carried he" (i. e. Nebuchadnezzar) "away to Babylon, where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia; to fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths; for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years."—2 CHRON. Xxxvi. 20, 21.

were servants to

The statement that the Israelites " Nebuchadnezzar and his sons " is at first sight contradictory to the Babylonian history, as delivered to us by profane authors. According to them, Nebuchadnezzar was succeeded by one son only, viz., EvilMerodach, after whom the crown fell to a certain Neriglissar, or Nergal-sar-uzur, who was not a blood relation. Neriglissar, however, had married a daughter of Nebuchadnezzar, and having thus become a son-inlaw, may conceivably be termed a "son." He was succeeded by his own son, Laborosoarchod, probably a grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, who would come under the term "son" by the ordinary Hebrew usage. The successor of Laborosoarchod was, we are told," in no

way related" to the family of Nebuchadnezzar. There are some reasons, however, for believing that he, too, married a daughter of the great monarch; so that he, too, may have been regarded as "a son" in the same sense with Neriglissar.

The seventy years of the captivity, during which the land lay waste, and "enjoyed its sabbaths," may be counted from different dates. In this place the year of the final destruction of Jerusalem seems to be taken as the terminus a quo. This was B. C. 586, the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar (2 Kings xxv. 3–8; Jer. lii. 6-12), and the passage would therefore seem to point to B. C. 516 as the termination of the captivity period. Now B. C. 516, the sixth of Darius Hystaspis, was, in fact, the close of the period of depression and desolation, so far as the temple was concerned (Ezra vi. 15). But the personal captivity, the desolation of the land through loss of inhabitants, both began and ended earlier. Jeremiah evidently intended his "seventy years" to count from the first capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar (Jer. xxv. 1–12), which was in B. C. 605; and Daniel must have counted from the same date when he felt, in B. C. 538, that the time of release was approaching (Dan. ix. 2). It is questionable, however, whether the full term of the prophetic announcement, thus understood, was actually reached. If Nebuchadnezzar carried away his first captives from Jerusalem in B. c. 605, and Cyrus issued his edict for the return in his first year (2 Chron. xxxvi. 22; Ezra, i. 1), which was B. C. 538, the seven

tieth year had certainly not then commenced. Even if the captives did not take immediate advantage of the edict, but made the journey from Babylonia to Palestine in the year following the proclamation, B. C. 537, which is not improbable, still the captivity had not endured seventy years, but only sixty-eight. It is usual to meet the difficulty by the supposition that the first year of Cyrus in Scripture is really the third year from his conquest of Babylon, Darius the Mede having been made viceroy of Babylon under Cyrus during the first two years after the conquest. This is, no doubt, a possible explanation. But it is perhaps as probable that the round number "seventy," in the prophecy of Jeremiah, was not intended to be exact, but approximate, and that the actual duration of the captivity fell short by a year or two of the threatened period.

That "the reign of the kingdom of Persia" immediately succeeded to that of Babylon, which was swallowed up by the great Aryan power within seventy years of the accession of Nebuchadnezzar, is declared with one voice by the classical historians, and has been recently confirmed by more than one native document. Two inscriptions, brought from Babylonia within the last decade, describe the circumstances under which the great empire of Babylon collapsed before the arms of Cyrus the Great, and was absorbed into his dominions. The details of the subjection will have to be considered hereafter, when we comment on those passages of Scripture which treat directly of the fall of

the city. At present we desire simply to note the confirmation by the monuments of the Persian conquest, effected by Cyrus the Great, in the seventeenth year of Nabonidus, which was the sixty-eighth year after the accession of Nebuchadnezzar and his first capture of Jerusalem.1

1 See the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology, vol. vi., PP. 47-61.

CHAPTER IV.

NOTICES OF BABYLON IN DANIEL.

THE history of the chosen people during the period of the Babylonian captivity is carried on in a book which we are accustomed to regard as prophetical, but in which the historical element decidedly preponderates. The first six chapters of Daniel contain a continuous and most important narrative. The scene of the history has been transferred from Jerusalem to Babylon. We are introduced into the court of the great King Nebuchadnezzar, and shown his grandeur, his pride, his cruelty, his relentings, his self-glorification, his punishment. We find the Jews his captives, scattered in various parts of his territories (ch. ix. 7), without organization or national life, a mere herd of slaves, down-trodden and oppressed for the most part. At the court, however, it is different. There four Jews, of royal, or at any rate noble blood, occupy a position of some importance, take rank among the courtiers, hold communication with the monarch, and are called upon to advise him in circumstances of difficulty (ch. i. 17-20). After a time they rise still higher in the king's favour, and are promoted to some