EGYPT AND BABYLON. CHAPTER I. NOTICES OF BABYLON IN THE BOOK OF GENESIS. "Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar."-GEN. x. 8-10. THAT this passage refers to Babylon will scarcely be disputed. The words "Babel" and "Shinar" are sufficient proof. 'Babel," elsewhere generally translated "Babylon" (2 Kings xx. 12; xxiv. 1; 2 Chron. xxxii. 31; xxxiii. 11; Ps. cxxxvii. 1, etc.), is the exact Hebrew equivalent of the native Babil, which appears as the capital of Babylonia in the cuneiform records from the time of Agu-kak-rimi (about B.C. 2000) to the conquest of the country by Cyrus (B.C. 538). "Shinar" is probably an equivalent of "Mesopotamia," "the country of the two rivers," and in Scripture |
