■366 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



comes from a Babylonian or Assyrian root, t^^J/, or W2V, the 

 grammatical forms of which constantly occnr, but to which there is 

 no direct correspondent in the sense used here, known in the other 

 Semitic languages.* The signification of it, however, is thoroughly 

 established from its use in the Behistan and other trilingual inscrip- 

 tions, to render the ancient Persian kar, the equivalent of the Sanskrit 

 root c£ hri to "do" or "make." 



The literal translation is as follows : — 



" I say the palace (or great house) for the seat of my principality 

 in the land of Babylon which (is) the centre of Babylon I have made." 



The passage in Daniel, ch. iv., is : — 



*h arnrte byn-hy nfrjppiti pn-p_ nvpb v er .26. 

 s^nnn bnz wrrxi xhn -iesi xzhn nw Ter - 2T - 



t : - v t ■ t t -: - t : t : - ■• t 



: i-j-rn npb] ^;pn ^m is^d no*? n^n n^-n 



The literal rendering of this is : — 



Ver. 26. — " At the end of twelve months he was walking upon the 

 palace of the kingdom which (is) of Babylon." 



Yer. 27. — "The king spoke, and said, Is not this itself Babylon 

 the great which I have built it for a house of a kingdom, by the might 

 of my strength and for the honour of my majesty." 



The self-exaltation of Nebuchadnezzar comes out from the history 

 in the two records, and they have a remarkable agreement. In both 

 he brings himself forward as the founder of the royal palace, which 

 appears in Daniel, iv. 27, to have the expression "Babylon" applied 

 to it, as the same is also to the "kingdom" in ver. 26. 



This inscription possesses the special interest of being, so far as I 

 am aware, the only instance in which a distinguished character of an- 

 cient history has recorded, upon monuments of his own, and using the 

 first person, the same event which he is also stated to have celebrated, 

 with the use of the same person, in a passage of the sacred writings. 



* This root, and under the form of ttOJ?> occurs hut once in the Old Testament 

 (Joel, chap, i., ver. ] 7), where it has the meaning of " withering," " is rotten." — 

 (Eng. Auth. Version.) 



