BABYLON IN THE DAYS OF NEBUCHADREZZAR. 201 



Babel in seven courses of different colours : black for Saturn, 

 orange for Jupiter, red for Mars, etc. ? — the seven planets consisting 

 at that day of the five then known and the sun and moon, which 

 thus gave us the names for the seven days of the week. And cannot 

 the colours of some of these bricks even now be traced, showing 

 clearly the astronomical character of the tower ? Those then 

 scattered would carry with them the knowledge of this pictorial 

 word of God (as described in Ps. xix) all over the world, as stated 

 by St. Paul in Eom. x, 18. 



Mr. Rouse said : — We have heard to-day a good deal of the reason 

 why, to my mind, Nebuchadrezzar's kingdom is described as the 

 golden head of the Gentile powers to which God's people Israel 

 were to be subject — the lining of Nebo's chamber with gold, the 

 beautifying of his whole temple with gold, silver, precious stones, and 

 bronze, the overlaying of Marduk's shrine with shining gold, and the 

 gathering into his own palace of abundance of gold, silver, and 

 precious stones, and so on. Herodotus tells us, too, that the last 

 stage but one of the great tower of the supreme god had a golden 

 image of him, while at the top was a golden table with a golden 

 chair before it ready for the god to descend and sit down at table. 

 And, in keeping with all this, iEschylus in his drama called The 

 Persians, when describing Xerxes' vast army, says : — 



" And Babylon the golden 

 Sent up her tale of men." 



Nebuchadrezzar did not claim to have been the first builder of 

 the Tower of Babel. He said that he rebuilt it after it had " stood 

 in ruins for many generations." Yet anyone will deem him worthy 

 of the name of builder of Babylon who considers his imposing 

 list of temples restored or built, his enlargement of his father's 

 palace, and his enormous quays of bitumen and brick, the deep 

 moat with its bitumen foundation, and the walls towering and 

 inaccessible with which he surrounded a citadel 4000 cubits square. 

 (Indian House Inscription.) 



With reference to the " borrowing of old Sumerian words " by 

 Nebuchadrezzar and his priests, I should like to say this. In the 

 first chapter of Daniel we read that Nebuchadrezzar commanded 

 his chamberlain to choose out healthy and clever young nobles of 

 Israel and " teach them the learning and tongue of the Chaldeans," 



