and on the Non-identity of Babylon and Babel. 37 



the city may be either to a pool {reservoir) ftdl of water, or to 

 afsh-pond swarmitig with Jish : the context shows that the 

 general idea of fidness cannot be mistaken : — " But Nineveh 

 is of old [full or swarming] like a pool of water ; yet they shall 



Jlee away : stand, stand; but none shall look back she is 



empty, and void, and waste*." 



As regards the " cities of the plain," it may be perfectly 

 true that Jordan " overflowed all his banks in the time of 

 harvest," without its thence following that those cities were 

 affected by the inundation any more than Jericho, and the other 

 cities which were, and still are, erected along the valley of 

 that river. 



On the subject of Egypt, the opinion is already expressed 

 at length in my Origines Bibliccs, that the Mitzraim of Scrip- 

 ture was nowhere within the valley of^ the Nile: it becomes 

 unnecessary, therefore, that I should here say anything upon 

 this particular point. But leaving this quite out of the ques- 

 tion, we find from the earliest writer of profane history, that 

 even within Egypt itself, the natives— a totally distinct people 

 (I may just remark,) from the Mitzrites of the north, in the 

 neighbourhood of Canaan,— came originally from the higher 

 lands of the south, and that it was only " as their country be- 

 came more extensive that some remained in their primitive 

 places of residence, whilst others migrated to a loiver situatio7i ■ 

 whence it was that the Thebaid went formerly under the name 

 of Egypt ^.^ 



Independently therefore of " all the good reasons to the 

 contrary", the opinion is unfounded, — for what evidence we 

 have is' directly opposed to such an opinion, — that " the 

 earliest people on record chose for their settlements every 

 such impracticable spot they could find." 



On separate grounds it is yet contended, that the Babel of 

 Genesis was actually built in the lowlands of the Euphrates, 

 for that " Isaiah xxiii. 13. seems distinctly to identify Nim- 

 rod's Babel and Babylon," from which text it is inferred that 

 " the Assyrian Nimrod founded Babel, formed into a social 

 community the remnant of the people scattered and broken at 

 the Dispersion, and the Assyrian of later days set up the towers 

 and raised up the palaces thereof; " and it is subsequently 

 argued as follows : " As Shinar must have embraced no very 

 extensive range, and Nimrod's Babel (or Babylon) and the 



• Diodati's Italian translation represents the idea of the original far bet- 

 ter than our English version : " OrNinevc c stata, dal tempo che e in cssere, 

 come un vivmi> r/' acijuc : ora fuggono cssi : fermatevi, fermatevi ; ma niuno 

 si rivolgc lOlla h votata, c spogliata, c desolata." 



t Euterpe 16. 



