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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



could have but one end. The Babylonian 

 army surrounded Jerusalem, and after a 

 desperate defense of 18 months the Holy 

 City was taken (586 B. C.) (II Kings 

 xxv, II Chronicles xxxvi, Jeremiah 

 xxxix). Nebuchadnezzar was not quite 

 so cruel as an Assyrian conqueror would 

 have been, but he was cruel enough. He 

 slew Zedekiah's sons before their father's 

 eyes, and then blinded the vanquished 

 king, that so his last earthly sight might 

 be one of horror ; then he swept him and 

 the majority of the important people still 

 remaining in the land into captivity. Thus 

 miserably ended the rule of the House of 

 David, having endured for about 414 

 years (1000-586 B. C). 



Nebuchadnezzar is always associated in 

 our minds with the splendor of his great 

 city, Babylon. "Is not this great Babylon 

 which I have built ?" And indeed he de- 

 serves such an association ; and if ever a 

 man had cause for pride as he surveyed 

 the work of his hands, Nebuchadnezzar 

 was that man as he looked abroad on 

 Babylon. Great she had always been, 

 reverenced as the mother city, and the 

 source of learning and law even by her 

 Assyrian conquerors in the day of her 

 humiliation. But Nebuchadnezzar and 

 his father had found her as the Assyrians 

 had left her — powerless, humiliated, and 

 sunk. 



He raised her, within a generation, to 

 far more than her ancient splendor — to 

 a magnificence indeed which beggared 

 description ; so that even Rome, wonder- 

 ful as its spell has been, has never been 

 able to oust Babylon from the mind and 

 imagination of the human race as the 

 typical world-city, the emblem of all that 

 is magnificent and luxurious and central. 

 Ancient historians can find no words to 

 describe the grandeur of the palaces, the 

 temples, the hanging gardens of the great 

 city by the Euphrates. 



NEBUCHADNEZZAR a MAX OF PEACE 



Great soldier as Nebuchadnezzar was, 

 he was really by nature and instinct a 

 man of peace, not of the merciless and 

 unprofitable Assyrian type at all. "He 

 was, in truth, a son of Babylonia, not of 

 Assyria ; a man of peace, not of war ; a 

 devotee of religion and culture, not of 



organization and administration," so says 

 Goodspeed ("History of the Babylonians 

 and Assyrians"). 



The same high authority remarks that 

 "the picture of him in the Book of Daniel 

 is, in not a few respects, strikingly accu- 

 rate. His inscriptions reveal a loftiness 

 of religious sentiment unequaled in the 

 royal literature of the Oriental world." 

 There can be no question of the dignity 

 and reverence of some of the prayers 

 used, or sanctioned for use, by the great 

 king. 



eternal prince! Lord of all being! 

 As for the king whom thou lovest, and 

 Whose name thou has proclaimed 



As was pleasing to thee, 

 Do thou lead aright his life, 

 Guide him in a straight path. 



1 am the prince obedient to thee, 

 The creature of thy hand; 

 Thou hast created me, and 

 With dominion over all people 

 Thou hast intrusted me. 

 According to thy grace, O Lord, 

 Which thou dost bestow on all people, 

 Cause me to love thy supreme dominion, 

 And create in my heart 



The worship of thy godhead, 



And grant whatever is pleasing to thee 



Because thou hast fashioned my life. 



Such a prayer is worthy to have come 

 from the lips of him whom the Book of 

 Daniel represents as saying: "Now I 

 Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and 

 honour the King of Heaven ; for all His 

 works are truth, and His ways righteous- 

 ness ; and those that walk in pride He is 

 able to abase" (iv : ^y) . 



A SHORT-LIVED RENAISSANCE 



Wonderful as was this renaissance of 

 ancient Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar, 

 it was destined to be a short-lived splen- 

 dor. The great king was succeeded by 

 weaklings, and a great new power, that 

 of the Persians under Cyrus, was rising 

 in the north. Nabuna'id, the last King 

 of Babylon, was the most pious of mon- 

 archs, serving his gods with unexampled 

 devotion. 



In this respect we owe him no small 

 debt : for it is his inscriptions on his res- 

 torations of ancient temples that have 

 enabled modern scholars to arrive at ap- 

 proximate dates for the earlier Babylon- 

 ian kings. What was wanted for Baby- 

 lon them, however, was not a pious dilet- 



