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alluded to, a.s we can scarcely believe that tlie fathers of the other Nebuchad- 

 nezzars had also the same name. Eeferring to what has been said by Dr. 

 Stern, I would add this, that there is one thing which has struck me as much 

 as anything I have met with in the course of my explorations, as to 

 the fulfilment of prophecy, where it is said in Jeremiah (1. 2), — " Bel is 

 confounded, Merodach is broken in pieces ; her idols are confounded, her 

 images are broken in pieces." We have found some entire idols and 

 images in Assyria, but in Babylon we have only met with trunks or frag- 

 ments. When we get a trunk, we find no head, we find heads with- 

 out trunks, arms without hands, and trunks without either. I am sorry 

 to say I cannot give an opinion about the Assyrian language, which can 

 hardly be left in better hands than those of Mr. Budge, and I only hope 

 that through his knowledge of Syriac he will be able to surpass all the other 

 Assyrian scholars in explaining certain mysteries in connexion with the 

 ancient languages of those countries. (Applause.) 



The Chairman. — It now becomes my duty to say a few words upon the 

 paper before us. It is the custom for the Chairman on these occasions to 

 gather up the threads of the various replies and comments on the paper 

 read to us, and to give his own opinion upon the subject. I am quite sure 

 that aU present will a.gree with me that on the present occasion the Chair- 

 man can hardly be expected to add anything. It appears to me as a philo- 

 logist that in the case before us we have exceedingly fertile ground. We 

 know in agriculture that where three kinds of soil meet — clay, sand, and 

 chalk — the land is fertile. Now, we have here the three great fomilies of 

 human language meeting together : Akkadian, which is Turanian, Semitic, and 

 the Babylonian of the later inscriptions, a tongue towards the understanding 

 of which Mr. Eassam has told us the Aryan Kurdish will be of great 

 value. So we have here a very fertile philological soil to deal with. 

 The learned writer of this paper has dug into this soil with great 

 success, and I trust that the result of his trenching will be that it will con- 

 tinue to produce such fruit as may amply repay his labour. I should like 

 to say one word in favour of my old friend Babel. It was new to me to 

 hear Babel spoken of as the " Gate of the Gods." In the Hebrew it is not 

 "Bab-el," but " Ba-bel," and I was under the impression that the word was 

 derived simply from " bah-bah," which means confusion or chattering. Our 

 " babble " is simply " ba-b,'' with the frequentative termination " le." With 

 regard to Nebuchadnezzar, I suppose the correct form of the name was 

 Nabu-kudur-uzur, but the Hebrews preferred to call him Nebuchadnezzar. 

 So the literal translation of Chushan-rish'athaim is "dark one of double 

 wickedness." I have always thought this to be a corruption, probably 

 intentional, of the real Mesopotamian name : some such corruption maj 

 have taken place in the name of the King of Babylon. Just so, Beelzebub 

 {Syr. B'el-debobo) means " lord of hatred " ; the Hebrews chose to call him 

 Beelzebul, " lord of dirt." I merely give these as specimens of the way in 

 which names may be corrupted, and as a suggestion that there may well have 



