premacy of Jehovah, and that they had been but the blind agents of his will. The strong and marked interference to prevent "the great kings" from engrossing to themselves the merit or glory of their victories, and from despising the God of the people who, for their sins, had been abased at their footstool, even extorted from these proud monarchs the avowal that they had received all their crowns and all their kingdoms from "the most high God," whom the Hebrews worshipped. Now this and other results of the destitution of the Hebrews as strongly, and perhaps more strikingly, subserved the great object of keeping alive in the world the knowledge of a supreme and universal governor and creator, as by inaintaining the Hebrews in Palestine. Indeed, that this great truth was diffused among, and impressed upon, the conquering nations by the captivity of the Hebrews,-that "the Lord's song" was not sung utterly in vain in a strange land, by the captives who wept when they remembered Zion under the willows and beside the waters of Babylon,-in short, that they received some salt which kept them from utter putrefaction, some leaven which wrought vitally in them and prepared them for the revelations which the "fulness of times" produced—is evinced by the history of Daniel, by the edicts of Nebuchadnezzar, of Darius, and, above all, of Cyrus, and may even be traced in the tradition which ascribes the doctrines and important reforms of Zoroaster to his intercourse with the Jewish captives and prophets at Babylon.

Thus, although they had forfeited the high destiny of preserving and propagating certain truths as an independent and sovereign people, the forfeiture extended only to their own position, for the truths intrusted to them were still preserved and diffused through the instrumentality of their bondage and punishment. This was true even in the times posterior to their restoration to their own land.

We have been anxious to make these remarks, lest the facts of the history should seem to intimate that the divine intention in the establishment of the Hebrew commonwealth was frustrated by the perversity of the people which rendered the subversion of that commonwealth necessary. Having, as we trust, shown that there is no room for this conclusion, it may seem better to reserve such further remarks as may tend to develop the spirit of the ensuing history, for the natural connexion with the record of the circumstances in which they are involved. We now therefore proceed to record the captivities of Israel and of Judah.

When Jerusalem was destroyed, one hundred and ninety-four years had elapsed since the Israelites of Galilee and Gilead had been led away captive into Assyria; one hundred and thirty-three years since Shalmaneser had removed the ten tribes to Halah, and Habor by the river Gozan, and to Hara and other cities of Media; and ten years since Nebuchadnezzar had banished some of the inhabitants of Jerusalem to the river of Chebar. The determination of the sites to which the Israelites were removed is a matter of some interest, but one which, in a work like the present, does not require any large investigation. The interest lies in the means thus given of determining the district to which the Israelites were expatriated; and it is sufficient for us to state that all the investigations which have yet been instituted, and all the information which has yet been acquired, concur in referring all these names (excepting, of course, the river Chebar) to that northwestern part of the present Persian empire which formed the ancient Media. It is, indeed, remarkable that the only other cities whose names occur in the history of the captivity of the ten tribes, are Rhages and Ecbatana, which we know to have been important cities of Media, in both of which it appears that the expatriated Israelites were settled in considerable numbers.

Even this much it is important to learn; because of itself it throws much light upon the policy of the Assyrian conquerors, and upon the position which the removed Israelites ultimately occupied. Media was then subject to the Assyrian empire, although still chiefly occupied by the native Medes; it seems, therefore, to have been the policy of the Medes to remove the inhabitants of one conquered country to another conquered country with the view of weakening the separate interest or nationality of both, and of promoting such a fusion of races and nations as might tend to realize tranquillity and permanence to the general empire. From this allocation of the expatriated Israelites in Media results the important fact that, whereas Judah was always subject to the conquering nation, Israel was only so for a short time, as the Medes, among whom they were placed, were not long in asserting their independence of Assyria, which empire they (with the Babyloniaus) ultimately subverted, and continued independent of the great Babylonian empire which succeeded, and to which

the captives of Judah were subject. So, then, the relations of the ten tribes were with the Medes, not with the Assyrians or Babylonians; and their relations with the Medes were not, and were necessarily far better than, those between captives and conquerors. It does not appear how the Medes could regard them, or that they did regard them, otherwise than as useful and respectable colonists whom the common oppressor had placed among them, and whose continued presence it was desirable to solicit and retain. It is hard to call this a captivity; but since it is usually so described, it is important to remark that the captivity of the ten tribes and that of Judah was under different, and independent, and not always friendly, states. There is a vague notion that since the Babylonians subverted and succeeded the Assyrians, the Israelites, who had been captives to the Assyrians, became such to the Babylonians, and were afterward joined in that captivity by their brethren of Judah; but this, as we have seen, was by no means the case.

The information we possess respecting the condition of the ten tribes, before and after the fall of Jerusalem, is exceedingly scanty. It is certain that during the long years which passed before Judah also was carried into captivity, the expatriated Israelites fully participated in all the extravagant hopes of their brethren in Judah, and were looking with sanguine expectations for a speedy restoration to their own land; and the adverse prophecies and declarations of Ezekiel were as little heeded by them as those of Jeremiah were at Jerusalem.

The apocryphal book of Tobit is the only source from which any information can be obtained as to the social position of the expatriated Israelites. We are certainly not among those who would like to repose much belief in “the stupid story of Tobias and his dog;" yet the framework of that story is so much in agreement with what we do know, and is so probable and natural in itself, that it would seem to have been founded on facts," and to have been concocted by one who was intimately acquainted with the condition and affairs of the Israelites under the Assyrians.

From this it would appear, that many of the captives were stationed at Nineveh itself, where they would seem to have lived much like other citizens, and were allowed to possess or acquire considerable wealth. Among these was Tobit, of the town and city of Naphtali, a man who feared God, as doubtless many other of the captives did, and who, as far as in his power, squared his conduct by the rules and observances of the Mosaical law, and acquired such a character for probity, that the conqueror himself, Shalmaneser, took notice of him, and appointed him his purveyor. This promotion of one of the expatriated Hebrews is significant in its indications, as it shows that, as afterward with their brethren in Babylon, offices of importance and profit were, under the Assyrians, open to the ambition, or rewarded the good conduct of the Israelites. Tobit availed himself of his position to visit his brother Israelites in other cities, to cheer them and to encourage their reasonable hopes and enterprises. He must have acquired considerable wealth, as he was enabled to deposite ten talents of silver in the hands of Gabel of Rhages, in Media. That he did this may seem to imply that the captives stationed in Media were considered more securely circuinstanced than those directly under the eye of the Assyrians. When Sennacherib returned from his signal overthrow in Palestine, he vented his ill-humor upon the Hebrew captives, and caused many of them to be put to death, and their bodies were cast forth to remain unburied beyond the walls of Nineveh. This was very shocking to the pious Tobit, who made it a practice to inter by night the bodies of his brethren whom he found unburied. The absence of the bodies occasioned inquiry, and the truth came to the knowledge of the tyrant, who would have put him to death; but the good man received timely warning, and made his escape from Nineveh. The tyrant himself was soon slain by his own sons; and (another marked instance of promotion) his successor, Esarhaddon, appointed Achiacharus, Tobit's nephew, to be his "cupbearer, and keeper of the signet, and overseer of the accounts." Through this person Tobit received permission to return to Nineveh. But he was reduced to comparative poverty, and total blindness was soon after added to his misfortunes. His nephew, Achiacharus, was kind to the family under these circumstances, until Tobit thought proper to remove into Elymais. There poverty was still their lot; and they were supported chiefly by the wife, Anna, who took in "woman's work," and sometimes obtained presents from her employers above her actual earnings.

At last Tobit, who had returned to Nineveh, bethought him of the valuable property he had left with Gabel at Rhages, and he sent his son to reclaim it, after giving

him such instructions as shows that travelling was then, as almost ever since, dangerous in those countries. The romantic adventures of young Tobias on the journey form the most suspicious part of the book-perhaps the only suspicious part; for which reason, as well as because it affords none of the illustration we require, we willingly pass it by. It may suffice to state that Tobias prospered in his journey. Tobit lived in Nineveh to the good old age of 158 years, and before his death foretold the approaching troubles of Assyria and the destruction of Nineveh, and that "for a time peace should rather be in Media," to which country he advised his son to withdraw. Tobias was mindful of his counsel, and withdrew to Ecbatana, where, in due time, he heard of the destruction of Nineveh by the combined forces of the Medes and Babylonians.

We have already stated the inferences, as to the condition of the expatriated Israelites, which this narrative opens, although we have no information as to their condi tion after the fall of Nineveh and during the contemporary captivity of Judah. But there is every reason to conclude that their position under the Medes, when Media became an independent and well-governed state, was even less disadvantageous and unequal than it had been when that country was part of the Assyrian empire.

We have brought the history of the kingdom of Judah down to the destruction of Jerusalem and the desolation of the country. But the history of the captivity must take us back to an earlier date, even to the time when Nebuchadnezzar spoiled the temple of its costly utensils, and sent away to Babylon a number of young princes and nobles as hostages for the fidelity of the people and their new king. This was eleven years before the fall of Jerusalem.

Among these captives were Daniel, and his three friends, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. These, as tokens of their enslaved condition, received Chaldean names, inore familiar than their own to the organs of the conquering people. Daniel was called Belteshazzar; Hananiah, Shadrach; Mishael, Meshach; and Azariah, Abednego. These were, among others of the most promising of the youths, selected to be educated in the palace for three years, under the charge of the chief of the eunuchs, in the learning and language of the Chaldeans, to qualify them for holding offices about the court and in the state. At the end of that time they were brought before the king to be examined as to their proficiency, when the young persons named were "found to be ten times better informed in all matters of wisdom and understanding than all the magi or astrologers that were in the whole realm." They were accordingly admitted to a place in that learned body.

Seventeen years after the destruction of Jerusalem, and the second year after the devastation of Egypt, when all his enemies were subdued on every side, and when his rule extended over many nations, Nebuchadnezzar had a dream, which left a profound impression upon his mind, but the details of which he was unable to recover when he awoke. He therefore sent for all the magi and astrologers, requiring that by their occult skill and pretended influence with the gods, they should not only interpret but recover the dream he had lost. This they avowed themselves unable to do; whereupon the enraged and disappointed king commanded them to be massacred. Daniel and his friends were sought for, to be included in this doom; but Daniel, being informed of the cause, repaired to the royal presence, and promised that if further time were allowed, he would undertake that the dream and an interpretation should be found. To this the king willingly agreed; and the pious youths betook themselves to fasting and prayer, in the hope that God would enable them to satisfy the king's demand. Nor was their expectation disappointed. The matter was made known to Daniel in a vision. He was then enabled to remind the king that he had seen in his dream a compound image, and to inform him that this image represented "the things that should come to pass thereafter." In this compound image, the head of pure gold denoted Nebuchadnezzar himself, and the succeeding kings of the Babylonian dynasty; the breast and arms of silver, indicated the succeeding but inferior empire of the Medes and Persians; the belly and thighs of brass, the next following empire of the Macedonians and the Greeks, whose arms were brass; the legs of iron, and the toes partly iron and partly clay, refer to the Roman empire, which should be strong as iron, but the kingdoms into which it would ultimately subdivide, composed of heterogeneous materials, which should be partly strong and partly weak; and, lastly, the STONE Smiting the image and filling the whole earth, denoted the kingdom of Christ, which was to be set up upon the ruins of these temporal kingdoms and empires, and

was destined to fill the whole earth, and to stand or continue for ever. "Thou art this head of gold," said the prophet to the king; but he did not indicate the names and sources of the succeeding and then non-existing empires with equal distinctness. But we know them, not only from the order in which they succeed, and from the characters ascribed to them; but from the subsequent visions of Daniel himself, in which these empires are distinctly named, and by which the meaning of this primary vision is gradually unfolded, and which form, together, one grand chain of prophecy, extending to the end of time, and so clear and distinct, that as much of thema (nearly the whole) as is already fulfilled, and which was once a shadowing forth of the future, reads like a condensed history of past ages.

From the first, Daniel had disclaimed any peculiar pretensions to wisdom. "There is," he said, "a God in heaven who revealeth secrets ;" and to him he not only referred all the credit of the interpretation, but plainly told the king that it was to the appointments of this "God in heaven," who had the supreme disposal of all events, that he owed all the kingdoms which he ruled. Here was a grand instance of that testimony for Jehovah to which, when introducing this chapter, we had occasion to advert. The king was much struck by it, so that, while he prostrated himself before Daniel as before a superior, he acknowledged that the God who could enable him to reveal this great secret was indeed the God of gods and Lord of kings. Who does not see that it was for the purpose of impressing this conviction that the dream was given to him, the forgetfulness inflicted, and the interpretation bestowed on Daniel?

Nebuchadnezzar was not slow in rewarding the distinguished qualities which the prophet exhibited. He appointed him ruler over the whole province of Babylon, and, at the same time, "chief governor over all the wise men of Babylon" (Rab-Mag, or Archimagus, Jer. xxxii. 3), two of the highest civil and scientific offices in the state. At his request, also, his three friends were appointed to conduct under him in the affairs of his provincial government, while he himself took a high place, if not the first place, in the civil councils of the king.

The services of Daniel and his friends proved too valuable to be dispensed with; but mature deliberation disgusted the king at his dream and its interpretation, and his pride disposed him to retract the acknowledgment he had made of the supremacy of the God of a conquered people. It was, as we apprehend, under this influence that he erected a great image, of which not the head only, but the whole figure was of gold, to denote the continuance of his empire, in opposition to his dream; and it was dedicated to the tutelary god Bel, or Belus, whose power he now considered superior to that of the God of the Hebrews; whereby, in the most offen sive manner, he revoked his former concession. All men were commanded to worship this, and no other god, on pain of death: in consequence of which, the three friends of Daniel, who continued their worship of Jehovah, with their faces turned toward Jerusalem, and took no notice of the golden image, were seized, and cast into an intensely heated furnace. But by the special and manifest interposition of the God they served, they were delivered without a hair of their heads being injured: by which fact the king, who was present, was constrained to confess that the God of the Hebrews, who could after this sort deliver his people, was unquestionably superior to all others.

Nebuchadnezzar manifestly was endowed with many great and generous qualities: but he was spoiled by prosperity, while, by the very aggrandizement which exalted his pride, he had been fixed into a position which made it necessary to the Divine glory that he should be brought to, and kept in, the acknowledgment that in all his acts he had been but an instrument in the hands of the God worshipped by one of the nations which had received his yoke, and whose superiority at least, if not his unity, he was required to acknowledge.

In another dream he was forewarned of the consequences of his excessive pride. This dream Daniel unflinchingly interpreted; but whatever effect it might produce was of no long duration. Twelve months after, while contemplating his extensive dominion and the splendor to which he had raised the great city of Babylon, his

This was probably the statue of solid gold, twelve cubits high, which, according to Herodotus, stood in the temple of Belus, until it was taken away by Xerxes. The height mentioned by Daniel, sixty cubits, probably included the pedestal or pillars on which it stood, as otherwise its height would have been dis proportionate to its breadth, six cubits.

heart swelled with kingly pride, and he exclaimed, "Is not this great Babylon, which I have built for the capital of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty?" While these words were in his mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, saying, "O king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken: The kingdom is departed from thee. And they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field; they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and seven times [years] shall pass over thee, until thou know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will." The thing was accomplished that very hour; and in this state he remained until "his hairs were grown like eagles' feathers, and his nails like birds' claws." The meaning of which seems to be that his proud mind was in that instant shattered, and fell into a kind of monomania, which made him fancy himself some animal; in consequence of which it was judged necessary by his physicians to humor his fancy by treating him as such, and by allowing him within certain limits to act as such. The sequel can not be more emphatically told than in his own words, as found in an edict, recounting these circumstances, which he issued on his recovery. "At the end of the days, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the Most High, and I praised and honored him that liveth for ever and ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom from generation to generation. And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou? At the same time my reason returned; and for the glory of my kingdom, mine honor and brightness returned unto me; and my counsellors and lords sought unto me; and I was established in my kingdom, and excellent majesty was added unto me. Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise, and extol, and honor the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and his ways judgment; and thoss that walk in pride he is able to abase." This noble acknowledgment demonstrates our former argument, that care was taken by Jehovah to maintain his own honor, and to secure his own great objects, notwithstanding, and indeed through, that bondage to which sin had reduced his people.

After a long reign of forty-three years, Nebuchadnezzar died in 561, and was succeeded by his son, Evil-Merodach. A Jewish tradition reports that this prince behaved so ill, by provoking a rupture with the Medes, during the distraction of his father, that Nebuchadnezzar, on his recovery, threw him into prison; and that he there became acquainted with, and interested in, Jehoiachim, the imprisoned king of Judah. However this may be, it is certain that one of the first acts of his reign was to release Jehoiachim from his long imprisonment of thirty-seven years; and during the remainder of his life he treated him with much distinction and kindness, giving him a place at his court and table above all the other captive kings then in Babylon. As, however, the text implies that he died before his benefactor, who himself survived but three years, the Hebrew king could not long have outlived his release. Evil-Merodach was slain in a battle against the united Medes and Persians, who by this time had become very powerful by their junction and intermarriages. The combined force was on this occasion commanded by young Cyrus, who had already begun to distinguish himself, and who had been appointed to this command by his uncle and father-in-law, Cyaxares- Darius the Mede" of scripture-king of the Medes. This was in B. C. 558.

Evil-Merodach was succeeded by his son Belshazzar. The end only of this monarch's reign is noticed in scripture; but Xenophont gives instances of his earlier conduct in the throne, of which only a barbarous and jealous tyrant could have been capable. His last and most heinous offence was the profanation of the sacred vessels belonging to the Jerusalem temple, which his illustrious grandfather, and even his incapable father, had respected. Having made a great feast "to a thousand of his lords," he ordered the sacred vessels to be brought, that he and his wassailers might drink wine from them. That there was an intentional insult to the Most High in this act transpires in the narrative: "They praised the gods of gold, silver, brass, iron, and stone; but THE GOD in whose hand was their breath, and whose were all their ways, they praised or glorified not." Indeed, to appreciate fully this act and its conse

Noticed by Jerome on Isaiah xiv.

+ Cyrop. i. 4.