“Mr David Levi, in his Lingua Sacra, has given an account of this tradition extracted from Medrash Bereschith; and it is related by Jerome, who seems to admit its general credibility. However, if we allow that Abraham, being born and educated in an idolatrous country and family, might have been addicted in very early life to that superstition, it is certain that he renounced it, and that he was providentially removed from a scene of danger; and that he contributed to propagate just sentiments concerning the Deity wherever he sojourned. The fame of his wisdom, piety, and virtue, spread far and wide among the nations of the world. His name is mentioned with honour all over the East to this day. In just deduction from the premises detailed, it may be affirmed that the Divine promise to this Patriarch was the foundation of that grand scheme for preventing the universal prevalence of idolatry, and for preserving among mankind the knowledge and worship of the only true God, which, after undergoing several variations and improvements, was to last to the end of time."

BABYLON, the name of a most cele brated city of antiquity, the metropolis of Chaldea and the Babylonian Empire, was situated on the river Euphrates, and, as it is supposed, in 32° 25' north lat. and 44° east longitude. The early history of this city is involved in the greatest obscurity. To Nimrod is ascribed its first foundation, or at least of its mountain tower just described, little more than one hundred years posterior to the Deluge. After its desertion by the son of Cush and his followers, who by the remarkable Confusion of tongues were compelled to fulfil the arrangements of Providence, and disperse themselves throughout the world, nothing is recorded of it until Semiramis, the widow of the Assyrian king Ninus, returned to the depopulated city with new colonies, surrounded it with walls, and established the worship of its "hero-god." Such is the account as transmitted by

that Babylon was founded by Nimrod, increased by Belus and Queen Semiramis, and adorned by Nebuchadnezzar, who rendered it one of the wonders of the world. This account is now generally followed, and the antiquity of the city is at least unquestionable, since it was the capital of Nimrod's empire. It is remarkable that Herodotus gives us no information respecting the reputed founder of Babylon; he merely informs us that two of its queens, Semiramis and Nitocris, strengthened the walls of the city, guarded it against inundations of the river, and improved and adorned it to a considerable extent. We may therefore conclude with Rennell, that from this fact its antiquity is very great, and ascended so high, that the venerable father of history could not satisfy himself concerning it; at the same time, adds that judicious writer, the improvements which took place in the city in the reign of the reputed Semiramis might occasion the original foundation to be ascribed to her, the like having happened in the history of other cities. Herodotus informs us that Babylon became the capital of Assyria after the destruction of Nineveh; and perhaps we ought to date the foundation of those works which appear so stupendous in history, with the exception of the old or interior structure of the Tower of Belus, from that period only. If, then, with the ancient writers generally, we allow Semiramis to have been the foundress of that Babylon described by Herodotus, the date of the renewed foundation cannot be placed earlier than the eighth century before the Christian era, so that the duration of the city in that improved form was, reckoning to the time of Pliny, less than eight hundred years. It seems extraordinary that Herodotus does not mention Nebuchadnezzar, yet he agrees in chronology with the statements of the Hebrew writers, for the Queen Nitocris, to whom he ascribes the great works in and about Babylon, was contemporary with Nebuchadnezzar, and was, according to some writers, his wife, or more probably his daughter-in-law.

It has always been universally admitted that, by whomsoever Babylon was actually founded, Nebuchadnezzar was the person who repaired, beautified, and enlarged it in such an extraordinary and magnificent manner, that he may be said to have built it. Hence we find him thus exclaiming, in his own vain-glorious boast, "Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?" Dan. iv. 30. It is frequently expressed in Scripture that a person built a city who chiefly enlarged, repaired, or fortified it, 2 Chron. xi. 6; 2 Kings xix. 22. Whatever, therefore, we read of the original construction of Babylon by Nimrod, or Belus, or of its enlargement by Semiramis, it was either of little importance, or certainly it was not celebrated as one of the wonders of the world, until the walls with their hundred gates, the Temple of Belus, the monarch's magnificent Palace, the Hanging Gardens, and other grand works and improvements, were added by that splendid prince, who may in a most appropriate sense be said to have built Babylon. On account of its greatness and celebrity, and its giving name to a very large and powerful empire, it is denominated by a variety of just and appropriate terms in the sacred writings. It was situated in a plain, and surrounded by water, and hence it is termed, in prophetic language, "the desert of the sea," or rather the "plain of the sea," Isa. xxi. 1; and the propriety of this designation, as Bishop Newton observes, consists in this, that not only is any large collection of waters termed in the Oriental style a sea, but also the places about Babylon are said from the beginning to have overflowed with waters, and to have been called the sea. It was origin ally an immense morass; it became such after the capture of the city by Cyrus, and such it continues to the present day. Nevertheless, Babylon is also properly denominated a “mountain," Jer. li. 25, on account of the great height of its walls and palaces, towers and temples; and Berosus, cited by Josephus, says of some

of the buildings that they resembled mountains. The original intention of its tower, founded by Nimrod, as well as the greatness and grandeur of the city, is thus specially noticed in a prophetic denunciation uttered against it by Jeremiah

"Though Babylon should mount up to heaven, and though she should fortify the height of her strength, yet from me shall spoilers come unto her, saith the Lord." Babylon is termed the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, Isa. xiii. 19; the golden city, or exactress of gold, Isa. xiv. 4; and also the lady of kingdoms, Isa. xlvii. 5. She is described as dwelling in many waters, abundant in treasures, Jer. li. 13, referring to the river Euphrates, which encompassed and partly ran through Babylon, making it to all appearance secure and impregnable. She is also celebrated for her incomparable splendour, and spoken of as being without a rival, the praise of the whole earth, Jer. li. 41.

We have said that after the mention of Babel by Moses, who connects it with the celebrated building of which Jehovah prevented the completion, Babylon vanishes as it were from the scene of history. The Jewish writers had no opportunity of mentioning the city, as the Babylonians had no connection with them; and with regard to what the Greek writers, especially Herodotus and Ctesias, tell us, their statements are too often mixed up with fabulous reports which they collected in the country itself, which are incapable of being reduced to an exact chronological arrangement. Placing, therefore, no more dependence than is necessary on the mythological history of Babylon, and on the actions of Belus, Ninus, and Semiramis, the city and territory of Babylon were of little importance previous to the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. Gesenius, one of the most learned commentators on Isaiah, quotes and illustrates a passage in the Armenian version of Eusebius' Chronicle, from which it appears that Babylonia, even in the time of Hezekiah, from B. C. 728-700, was dependent upon the then powerful Assyrian Empire, although Merodach-baladan is

mentioned as king of Babylon, Isa. xxxix. It appears that the prince there spoken of had rebelled, and was anxious to obtain the assistance of Hezekiah, on whose recovery from sickness he sent an embassy of congratulation. He was slain about six months after the date of this embassy by Elibus, another usurper, who was taken prisoner by the Assyrian monarch Sennacherib. But so little is known of primitive Babylon, that we are compelled to confine ourselves to that period when this city occupied a great and distinguished place in the history of the world. That epoch begins in the latter part of the seventh, or rather in the beginning of the sixth century before the Christian era, and according to some historians about seventy years before the triumph of the Persian monarchy.

Professor Heeren gives an account of the rise of Babylon, which differs considerably from that usually followed by historians, yet which contains many important facts. "A revolution," he says, "took place in Asia similar to that which Cyrus afterwards effected. A nomade people under the name of Chaldeans, descending from the mountains of Taurus and Caucasus, overwhelmed southern Asia, and made themselves masters of the Syrian and Babylonian plains. Babylonia, which they captured, became the chief seat of their empire, and thus King Nebuchadnezzar, by subduing Asia, to the very shores of the Mediterranean, earned his title to be ranked among the most celebrated of Asiatic conquerors. The great victory which he gained at Cercesium (Carchemish, 2 Chron. xxxv. 20), on the banks of the Euphrates, over Pharaoh-Necho, king of Egypt, established his power. He destroyed Jerusalem, besieged Tyre and the other cities of Phoenicia, and probably overran Egypt itself. Thus was founded the Babylonian Empire, which was in its turn overthrown by Cyrus. This was not the period of the foundation and growth of Babylon, but it was that of its power." But this view of the origin of the Babylonian Empire must be received as altogether fanciful,

except the last observation which ascribes the greatness and grandeur of the city of Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar, who undoubtedly erected the Temple of Bel or Belus in its most renowned state, in honour of its deified founder Nimrod, to whom he ascribed his conquests and his victories. It is evident that the Babylonian Empire sprung out of the weakness of the Assyrian-that the king Nebuchadnezzar, whose history occurs in the sacred writings, was not an adventurer, as Heeren here supposes, descending from the mountains of Caucasus at the head of barbarous hordes, but the son of Nabopolassar, viceroy of Babylon, who in conjunction. with the governor of Media overthrew the Assyrian Empire in the reign of Sarac its last monarch-and that Babylon was indebted for much of its greatness to the ruin of Nineveh, which those conquerors destroyed.

Professor Heeren's observations on the progressive enlargement of Babylon, and the Asiatic cities in general, are quite in unison with the customs and manners of those ancient times. "It is one of the peculiarities of the great despotic empires which Asia has always contained, that they can with amazing facility concentrate their power upon one point, and thus, in consequence of the immense assemblage of various tribes from distant countries, and the almost incredible population which the ease of procuring subsistence accumulates in certain fruitful regions, many vast undertakings are practicable there which could not be executed in Europe. It must also be borne in mind that the great cities of Asia were constituted in a manner wholly different from those of Europe. They gradually grew out of the settlements of nomade conquerors, who fixed their abode in a subjugated country, and changed their old mode of life for one more settled and peaceful. The encampment of a chieftain near the walls of some already existing capital was speedily converted into a new city, which eclipsed the splendour of the old one. The vanquished people were employed in its erection: the plan

of the camp, which it followed in every particular, insured its symmetry, and enables us to account for its square form, and the straight lines in which its streets extended, and intersected each other at right angles. Such was the general origin of those vast capital cities, and the process of their foundation. Where a plentiful supply of building materials could be found at a convenient distance a clay that the sun could dry or the fire burn into bricks, and sources of bitumen that rendered mortar unnecessary-our surprise must be lessened at the erection of edifices and monuments such as Europe cannot equal. Such was the origin and state of the mighty Babylon, where majesty and splendour were so celebrated in antiquity. Much of its glory was due to the Chaldeans, whose monarchs, having achieved by their swords the sovereignty of Asia, made it their habitation. Is not this great Babylon, that I have built?' was the proud exclamation of its king Nebuchadnezzar. Still more expressive is the testimony of the Prophet (Isa. xxiii. 13, as Michaelis translates it), Behold the Land of the Chaldeans; that nation which a little time was not. The Assyrian subdued it, and gave it to the inhabitants of the desert; they transformed the wandering hordes of nations into settled abodes, and built up the palaces of the land."

Nebuchadnezzar in the pride of his heart called the city which it was his delight to beautify and adorn, "Great Babylon." According to the description of Herodotus, the first ancient writer who as an eye-witness has given a description of Babylon, the city must have covered about eight times as large a space as London. But the extent of the large Asiatic cities of antiquity forms a very incorrect guide to the European in estimating their population. The compact and close-built cities of Europe bear no resemblance to the scattered mansions of the East, surrounded by their extensive courts and gardens occupying more than an even portion of the whole area. In the case of Babylon much of the site of

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the city was laid out in fields and gardens, and hence it was rather an immense inclosed district, with groups of buildings interspersed, than a city in the modern application of the term. "The buildings of Babylon," says Quintus Curtius, "do not reach to the walls, but are at the distance of an acre (jugerum) from them. Neither is the whole city covered with houses, but only ninety furlongs (stadia); nor do the houses stand in rows by each other, but the intervals which separate them are sown and cultivated, that they may furnish subsistence in case of siege." This is an account written by one who accompanied Alexander the Great, and if this author be correct, what Herodotus relates of the high houses and straight streets should be limited to one part of the city.

The most celebrated works in the city, as they are enumerated and described by Prideaux, were the Walls, reckoned one of the Seven Wonders of the world, and which appeared more like the work of nature than the contrivance of man; the Temple of Belus, half a mile in circumference, and a furlong in height; the Hanging Gardens, piled on a successive series of terraces as high as the walls; the King's Palace; the embankments of the Euphrates; the artificial lakes and the canals.

The appearance of ancient Babylon was an immense square, traversed each way by twenty-five principal streets, which intersected each other, and farther divided the city into a number of small squares, amounting to six hundred and twenty-six. These principal streets were terminated at each end by gates of brass, of prodigious thickness and strength, with smaller ones opening towards the Euphrates. Without the walls the city was surrounded by a deep ditch filled with water, and lined with bricks on both sides formed of the earth which had been dug out of the site of the ditch. A branch of the Euphrates intersected the city from north to south, and across the river, in the central part, was a magnificent bridge, according to some writers a furlong in

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length, and thirty feet broad, and according to others more, very ingeniously constructed to supply a defect in the bed of the river, which was composed of sand. At each end of this bridge stood a palace, the old palace being on the east side, and the new palace on the west side of the river. The whole city was situated in a large plain, which comprised a rich and deep soil, adorned and fertilized by the Euphrates and the Tigris, from which, aided by the numerous canals which intersected the plain, water was obtained by manual la bour and machinery for the fields. Herodotus, Strabo, and Pliny, speak in the strongest manner of the extraordinary fertility of this once highly-favoured but now neglected region; the former even declining to mention some instances of it which he had seen lest he should be accused of exaggeration or credulity. That part of the city which lay on the east side of the Euphrates was called the old city, and that on the west was added by Nebuchadnezzar, but both were included within the walls. The design of the whole was evidently taken from Nineveh, which had been destroyed by the father of Nebuchadnezzar, whose ambition it was that Babylon should excel that ancient seat of the Assyrian Empire in size and magnificence. The whole city, however, was never entirely inhabited, notwithstanding the number of captives which Nebuchadnezzar carried out of Judea and other conquered countries; nor was time allowed for its arrival at that population and glory which that splendid prince contemplated, for when Cyrus removed the seat of government to Shushan, Babylon gradually sunk into decay. "While in the plenitude of its power," says Dr Keith, "and, according to the most accurate chronologers, one hundred and sixty years before the foot of an enemy had entered it, the voice of prophecy pronounced the doom of the mighty and unconquered Babylon. A succession of ages brought it gradually to the dust, and the gradation of its fall is marked till it sunk at last into utter desolation. At a time when nothing but magnificence was around

Babylon the great, fallen Babylon was delineated exactly as every traveller now describes its ruins; and the prophecies concerning it may be viewed connectedly from the period of their earliest to that of their latest fulfilment."

The extent of the walls of Babylon has been variously stated by ancient writers. Herodotus makes them two hundred royal cubits, or nearly 337 feet high, and fifty royal cubits, or upwards of 84 feet thick. Ctesias gives fifty fathoms, or 300 feet for the height. Strabo and Quintus Curtius, who follow an anonymous writer in Diodorus Siculus, make the height fifty common cubits, or 75 feet. Pliny gives 200 feet, and Orosius 300 feet. Those who give the height of the walls as only 50 feet, represent them as they existed after the time of Darius Hystaspes, who caused them to be beaten down to that level. Diodorus Siculus asserts that six chariots might drive upon them abreast, whereas Herodotus says that only one chariot could turn, but he places buildings on each side of the tops of the walls. The same discrepancies exist as to the actual extent of those celebrated walls. Herodotus makes them 120 stadia each side, or 480 in circumference, equivalent to sixty of our miles. Pliny and Solinus give the circuit at 60 Roman miles, which nearly agrees with the statement of Herodotus. Strabo makes the extent 385 stadia; Diodorus Siculus, from Ctesias, 360; Clitarchus, who accompanied Alexander the Great, 365; Curtius, 368. Rennell thinks that 360 or 365 is the correct statement, since one of those numbers is reported by Ctesias, and the other by Clitarchus, both of whom were eye-witnesses. Taking the circumference of Babylon at 356 stadia, and these at 491 feet, each side of the square, which is equal to 914 stadia, we have an area of 72 miles and a trifling fraction.

The walls of Babylon were built of brick baked in the sun, cemented with bitumen instead of mortar. In the compass of the walls there were one hundred gates, or twenty-five in each of the four