ORIENTAL DISCOVERIES ON OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. 25 



an inscription translated hy M. Alfred Boisier, he says, referring 

 to an Arabian king : " With the knife which I use to cut meat 

 I made a hole in his jaw. I passed a ring througli his npper 

 lip. I attached to it a chain with which one leads the dogs in 

 leash."* 



(4) The statement that Manasseh was taken to Babylon was 

 fastened upon as an indication that the hook was wiitten at a 

 time when it was no lon^'er known that Nineveh, and not 

 Babylon, was the capital of the Assyrian empire. A former 

 high authority. Dr. Samuel Davidson, says of this passage in 

 his Introduction to the Old Testament : " It is related that the 

 king of Assyria took Manasseh to Babylon, instead of to his 

 own capital, to the very city which was disposed to rebel 

 against him I That is improbable." He explains the supposed 

 " error as a reHection of the later statements regarding the 

 carrying away of Jehoiachin and of Zedekiah to Babylon. 

 These, he says, " furnished a pattern for the alleged event." 

 But in this Davidson was completely mistaken. Babylon was 

 not then disposed to rebel against Assurbanipal. The city had 

 been captured, and the rebellion had been ruthlessly suppressed. 

 And from that time onward, Assurbanipal assumed the 

 sovereignty of Babylon. It was in strict agreement, therefore, 

 with the events of the time that Manasseh should have been 

 taken to Babylon wdiere the head of the revolt had been 

 crushed, and where Assurbanipal w^as re-establishing his sway. 



(5) Another seemingly unhistorical event is the return of 

 Manasseh to Jerusalem as king. The Scripture tells us that 

 this change in Manasseli's fortunes was due to repentance and 

 earnest prayer. This evident intention, to make that event 

 commend a return to God and trust in the Divine mercy, was 

 perhaps enough to beget suspicion in certain minds. 'But, 

 though we have as yet no diiect confirmation of tlie Jewish 

 king's release, we know that the act was entirely in accord with 

 Assurbanipal's practice. Speaking of a king, evidently in the 

 same district, he says : " I restored and favoured him. The 

 towers which over against Babel, king of Tyre, I had raised, I 

 pulled down : on sea and land all his roads which I had taken 

 I opened."! There is also a record extant of an exactly similar 

 exhibition of mercy by this king. The territory of Egypt had 

 been divided by him among a number of Egyptian nobles 

 whom he had vested with sovereign power. They revolted, and 



* Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archccology^ vol. xx p. 163. 

 t Records of the Pasty vol. ix, p. 40. 



c 2 



