Babylon consisted of one extensive plain, which was artificially intersected by numerous canals, formed to carry off the annual inundations of the two rivers which bounded it. No records exist of the ancient condition of Babylon, except that it is said to have been enlarged by Semiramis, the wife of Ninus, about 2000 B.C., and doubled in size by Nebuchadnezzar.2 Under this monarch, it reached the utmost height of magnificence and grandeur: it was the metropolis of the civilized world, and there flowed into it the riches of almost all lands. In the Old Testament it is styled "the praise of the whole earth," "the glory of kingdoms;" a description which is amply confirmed by the testimony of profane writers. It was built on a large plain, and was a perfect square, measuring fifteen miles on each side. The walls were 87 feet thick and 350 feet in height, and were built of large bricks, cemented with bitumen, which was found in abundance in the neighbourhood. Outside the wall of the city ran a deep and wide trench filled with water, and crossed on each side by twentyfive bridges, leading to as many gates of brass. From each gate ran a street fifteen miles long, so that the whole number of streets was fifty, of which twenty-five ran in one direction,

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build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

(1) Ps. cxxxvii. 1. By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.Jer. li. 13. O thou that dwellest upon many waters, abundant in treasures, thine end is come, and the measure of thy covet

ousness.

(2) Dan. iv. 30. Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty ? (3) Jer. li. 41. How is Shesach taken! and how is the praise of the whole earth surprised! how is Babylon become an astonishment among the nations!

(4) Isa. xiii. 19. And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.

(5) Isa. xlv. 2. I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron.

and twenty-five in the other, crossing each other at right angles. Thus the whole city was cut into 676 squares, each two miles and a quarter in circuit. The houses were large and lofty, and faced the streets, the space within the squares being devoted to gardens and pleasure-grounds. Through the city flowed the river Euphrates, which was crossed in the middle by a bridge. The river flowed from north to south, and was faced on both banks by a breastwork of bricks, through which, avenues, secured by little gates of brass, led by steps to the transverse streets. Of the ornamental works of art, the hanging gardens were reckoned by the ancients among the seven wonders of the world. They were laid out on tiers of platforms, raised to a great height by rows of arches, and covered with soil sufficient for the growth of large trees. But by far the most interesting structure to the biblical scholar was the temple of Belus, which consisted of eight towers, one built on the other, the lowest being half a mile in compass, and the last 600 feet from the ground, or 120 feet higher than the great pyramid of Egypt. This, there is good reason to suppose, was built around the ruins of the tower of Babel.

Whilst Babylon was in this state of magnificence, it was selected by God to be his instrument for punishing the rebellious Jews, who, neglecting the warning conveyed by the capture of the ten tribes by the Assyrians, pursued their course of idolatry and immorality until they had fulfilled the doom pronounced by Moses 850 years before,' and repeated by subsequent prophets."

(1) Deut. xxviii. 36. The Lord shall bring thee, and thy king which thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation which neither thou nor thy fathers have known; and there shalt thou serve other gods, wood and stone, &c.

(2) Jer. xxix. 22. And of them shall be taken up a curse by all the captivity of Judah which are in Babylon, saying, The Lord make thee like Zedekiah and like Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire.- -Ezek. xii. 13. My net also

will I spread upon him, and he shall be taken in my snare: and I will bring him to Babylon to the land of the Chaldeans; yet shall he not see it, though he shall die there.- -2 Kings xx. 16-18. And Isaiah said unto Hezekiah, Hear the word of the Lord. Behold, the days come, that all that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store unto this day, shall be carried into Babylon : nothing shall be left, saith the Lord. And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away.

In the year 606 B.C. Jeremiah' foretold that the tribe of Judah should be carried captive to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, and should remain there for seventy years. In the same year, Jerusalem was taken, the temple partially despoiled, many of the principal inhabitants carried captive to Babylon, and the Jewish king made a vassal of the conqueror.2 Jehoiachin,3 the son and successor of Jehoiakim, trod but too closely in his father's steps, and met with a yet severer fate. The temple was stripped of whatever vessels had remained in it, and all the people, save the " poorer sort," were carried away, the king among the rest; Zedekiah, his father's brother, being left as nominal sovereign; and finally, when Zedekiah re

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(1) Jer. xxv. 8-11. Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts; Because ye have not heard my words, behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the Lord, and Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations round about, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and an hissing, and perpetual desolations. Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the sound of the milstones, and the light of the candle. And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

(2) Dan. i. 1-4. In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon unto Jerusalem, and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God: which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he brought the vessels into the treasure house of his god. And the king spake unto Ashpenaz the master of his eunuchs, that he should bring certain of the children of Israel, and of the king's seed, and of the princes; children in whom was no blemish, but well-favoured, and skilful in all wisdom, and cunning in knowledge, and understanding science, and such as had ability in them to stand in the king's palace, and whom they might teach the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans.

(3) Called also Jechoniah and Coniah.

(4) Jer. xxii. 24-27. As I live, saith the Lord, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet upon my right hand, yet would I pluck thee thence; and I will give thee into the hand of them that seek thy life, and into the hand of them whose face thou fearest, even into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans. And I will cast thee out, and thy mother that bare thee, into another country, where ye were not born; and there shall ye die. But to the land whereunto they desire to return, thither shall they not return.

(5) Jer. xxvii. 21, 22. Yea, thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning the vessels that remain in the house of the Lord, and in the house of the king of Judah and of Jerusalem; they shall be carried to Babylon, and there shall they be until the day that I visit them, saith the Lord; then will I bring them up, and restore them to this place.

(6) 2 Kings xxiv. 11-17. And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came against

belled against his master, he too was taken by Nebuchadnezzar, his eyes were put out,' and he was carried captive to Babylon. For seventy years from the capture of Jehoiakim, the land of Judah enjoyed her sabbatic years; and at the expiration of that time the vengeance of God overtook the no less guilty city that had enslaved it, for in the reign of Belshazzar, or Nabonadius, the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar,3 Cyrus, nephew of Darius the Mede, (or Cyaxáres,) came from the north with an army, and having laid siege to Babylon, took it in the manner described in Daniel v., whilst the inhabitants were feasting.5 Grecian historians confirm the account given in the sacred volume, and add that Cyrus diverted the waters of the river into an artificial lake, and entered through the city, and his servants did besiege it. And Jehoiachin the king of Judah went out to the king of Babylon, he, and his mother, and his servants, and his princes, and his officers: and the king of Babylon took him in the eighth year of his reign. And he carried out thence all the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king's house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the Lord, as the Lord had said. And he carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valour, even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and smiths: none remained, save the poorest sort of the people of the land. And he carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, and the king's mother, and the king's wives, and his officers, and the mighty of the land, those carried he into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon. And all the men of might, even seven thousand, and craftsmen and smiths a thousand, all that were strong and apt for war, even them the king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon. And the king of Babylon made Mattaniah his father's brother king in his stead, and changed his name to Zedekiah.

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(1) 2 Kings xxv. 7. And they slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him with fetters of brass, and carried him to Babylon.

(2) Levit. xxv. 3, 4. Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof; but in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the Lord: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard.--Levit. xxvi. 34, 35. Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths. As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it.2 Chron. xxxvi. 21. 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.

(3) Dan. v. 2. His father (marginal reading, grandfather) Nebuchadnezzar. (4) Jer. 1. 41. Behold, a people shall come from the north, and a great nation, and many kings shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth.

(5) Jer. li. 39. In their heat I will make their feasts, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the Lord.

(6) Jer. 1. 38. A drought is upon her waters; and they shall be dried up.

its deserted channel; and that his soldiers penetrated into the city through the wicket gates which led from the streets, and which were left open' by the carelessness of the guards. Though Babylon was not immediately destroyed, the beginning of its decay must be dated from this event. The river was never afterwards restored to its wonted channel, though several efforts were made to effect this object; consequently the adjacent country became a marsh, and assumed the appearance prophetically described by Isaiah and Jeremiah. The accounts given by modern travellers of the present appearance of Babylon are little more than a repetition of the prophecies quoted above. It is an uninhabited mass of heaps, intersected with marshes and swamps, the only object of interest being the highest of the heaps, called Birs Nimrod, which is supposed to be the ruin of the temple of Belus, and therefore equally a monument of the pride of Babylon and the presumption of Babel.

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(1) Isa. xlv. 1. Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut.

(2) Isa. xiii. 19-22. And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged.. -Isa. xiv. 23. 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.- -Jer. xxv. 11—13. And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the Lord, for their iniquity, and 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. Jer. 1. 38, &c.

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