Historical Evidences of the Old Testament E-Book

A. H. Sayce

• Herausgeber: Charles River Editors
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 349

Beschreibung

The Pergamum Collection publishes books history has long forgotten. We transcribe books by hand that are now hard to find and out of print.

Das E-Book Historical Evidences of the Old Testament wird angeboten von Charles River Editors und wurde mit folgenden Begriffen kategorisiert:
bible; hebrew; history; noah; free; lecturable; catholic

Leseprobe

ARGUMENT OF THE TRACT

The credibility of Scripture has been assailed since the beginning of the present century on the ground that the narratives contained in it are not contemporaneous with the events they profess to record, 1, because they represent an incredible amount of civilization as existing in the ancient Eastern world, and are inconsistent with the accounts of classical writers; and, 2, because writing was little known or practiced by the Jews at so early a period. It is shown that both these arguments are overthrown by the discovery and decipherment of the ancient monuments of Egypt and Western Asia, which prove the minute accuracy of the Biblical accounts and the prevalence of books and readers in early times.

Wherever the Biblical history comes into contact with that of its powerful neighbors, and can thus be tested by the contemporaneous monuments of Egypt and Assyro-Babylonia, it is confirmed and illustrated even in the smallest details. Typical examples of this are taken from the monuments of Babylonia, Egypt, and Assyria. The extraordinary fidelity of the Biblical narrative to facts which had been utterly forgotten long before the classical era is further illustrated by the recovery of the great Hittite Empire, to which there are hitherto unsuspected allusions in the Old Testament.

The discovery of the Moabite Stone, and more especially the Siloam inscription, prove that the Jews in the age of the Kings were well acquainted with the art of writing on parchment or papyrus. And since the Babylonians possessed libraries and were a literary people, there is no reason why Abraham and his descendants should not also have been able to read or write.

Modern exploration and research, consequently, have shown, 1, that the picture of Oriental history presented in the Old Testament is strictly consonant with the facts wherever it can be tested by contemporaneous monuments; and, 2, that the art of writing was practiced by the Israelites at an early date. Hence the argument against the contemporary character of the Old Testament records falls to the ground, and with it the argument against their historical credibility. This, on the other hand, is confirmed by their agreement in details with the contents of the inscriptions.

THE WITNESS OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS TO THE OLD TESTMAENT SCRIPTURES

Ever since the beginning of the present century the historical credibility of the Old Testament Scriptures has been bitterly assailed. The methods that have been employed for resolving the earlier history of Greece and Rome into myth and legend have been turned against the ancient history of the Jewish race. Every effort has been made to show that the books of the Old Testament are a farrago of documents and interpolations of various ages, few of which, however, are contemporaneous with the events they profess to record. The events themselves have been treated as the products of distorted tradition or romance, or else assigned a purely mythical origin. Chedorlaomer and his allies have been transformed into solar heroes, the twelve sons of Jacob into the twelve zodiacal signs, and the conquest of Canaan by Joshua into the daily struggle of night and dawn. This skeptical criticism has rested on two main assumptions: firstly, that writing was unknown or but little used in Palestine until shortly before the Babylonish Exile; and, secondly, that the notices of foreign countries in the Old Testament implied an inconceivable amount of civilization in the ancient Hast, and were inconsistent with the accounts handed down by classical historians.

The same half-century, however, which has witnessed these assaults on the Old Testament has also witnessed the discovery and decipherment of monuments which belong to Old Testament times. At the very moment when the assailants of Scripture had adopted new methods of attack which could no longer be met by the old modes of defense, God was raising up unexpected testimonies to the truth of Biblical history. The ancient civilizations of Egypt, of Babylonia, and of Assyria now lay outspread before us as fully and clearly as the civilization of imperial Rome. Sennacherib and Tiglath Pileser, Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus, speak to us, as it we are, face to face, and tell us in their own words the story of the deeds in which they themselves took part and we can trace the very forms of the letters in which Isaiah and Jeremiah recorded their prophecies. The stones have cried out on behalf of the “oracles of God,” and have shown that the pictures of ancient history given in the Old Testament are such as only contemporaries could have drawn and that books and the art of writing were almost as well known to the age of Hezekiah as they are to the England of today.

To prove this we will first take a few typical examples from the monuments of the chief nations of the ancient past which illustrate the leading periods of Old Testament history, and then point out how utterly mistaken is the idea that the people over whom David and Hezekiah ruled were illiterate.

The fourteenth chapter of Genesis contains an account of an expedition against Palestine made by Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, and his allies, one of whom was Amraphel, king of Shinar, or Southern Babylonia. The account has been condemned as unhistorical, partly because a Babylonian campaign against a distant country like Palestine was held to be incredible at so early a period, partly because a king of Blam appears as leader of the invading army. But recent discoveries have shown that the whole account is in strict accordance with the actual fact lying before the days of Abraham we find from the monuments that the Babylonian kings carried their arms as far as Palestine, and even crossed over into the island of Cyprus, while one of them claims to have conquered the Sinaitic Peninsula. At the period, moreover, to which we must refer the life of Abraham, Babylonia was in subjection to Blam, and was divided into two States, the southern of which was called Sumer or Shinar. The very name of Chedorlaomer can be shown to be of Elamite origin. Lagamar was a Blamite deity, and Kudur (or chedor in the language of Elam, meant “servant.” Bricks are now in the British Museum stamped with the inscriptions of another Klamite prince, Kudur-Mabuk, the servant of Mabuk,” whose name is formed precisely the same way as that of Chedorlaomer. From these we learn that he had conquered Babylonia, and that his son Eri-Aku ruled at Larsa. Now Eri-Aku is letter for letter the same name as Arioch, and Larsa may be identified with Ellasar, the city of which we are told in Genesis that Arioch was king. Here, therefore, where the book of Genesis touches upon Babylonian history, contemporaneous monuments prove that its statements are faithful to the minutest details.

Just as the life of Abraham touches upon Babylonian history, so the Exodus brings us into contact with Egyptian history. The expulsion of the Hyksos or Shepherd kings, in whose time the children of Israel had come into Egypt, brought with it the rise of a new king, who knew not Joseph and of a dynasty hostile to all those who had been favored by the Hyksos princes, or were of Asiatic origin. The oppression culminated in the long reign of Rameses II, for whom the Israelites built the cities of Raamses and Pithom. Dr. Brugsch has shown that the city of Rameses, or Raamses, was the name given to Zoan or Tanis, the old capital of the Hyksos, after its reconstruction by Rameses II, and the city of Pithom was discovered only two years ago in the mounds of Tel el-Maskhuta. Tel el-Maskhuta is near the now famous site of Tel el-Kebir, and was called Pa-Turn, the city of “the Setting Sun,” by the Egyptians. Inscriptions found on the spot prove that it was built by Rameses II and was intended for a “storehouse” of corn or treasure. The store-chambers themselves have been laid bare. They are very strongly constructed, and are divided by partitions from eight to ten feet thick. The bricks, like most of those found in Egypt, have been baked in the sun, some of them being mixed with straw, and others not. As the discoverer, M. Naville, has observed, we may see in these strawless bricks the work of the oppressed people when the order came: “Thus saith the Pharaoh, I will not give you straw.” The Pharaoh of the Exodus, however, must have been the son of Rameses, Meneptah II, whose reign lasted but a short time. It was full of trouble and disaster. In his fifth year Northern Egypt was overrun and devastated by a great invasion of the Libyans, which was with difficulty repulsed while three years later a body of Bedouins made its way from Edom to the land of Goshen along part of the very road which the Israelites must have traversed. The official report of the migration states that they had passed through the fortress of Khetam, which is situated in Thuku (or Succoth), to the lakes of the city of Pithom, which are in the land of Succoth, in order that they might feed themselves and their herds on the possessions of the Pharaoh. “Khetam seems to be the Etham of Scripture. Exodus 13: 20.

As Egypt declined, the kingdom of Assyria grew in power and it was with Assyria rather than with Egypt that later Israelitish history had to do. Illustrations and confirmations of Holy Writ have poured in abundantly upon us during the last few years from the mounds and ruins of Assyria, and more especially from the sculptured stones and clay books of the Assyrian capital, Nineveh. At first it was objected that the system of interpreting the Assyrian monuments could not be correct, since “they would never have so largely concerned themselves, as they were represented as doing, with a petty and obscure kingdom like that of Judah;” but now that no doubt any longer hangs over the decipherment of the inscriptions, it is found that they “concerned themselves” with Judah and Israel even more than was originally suspected. From the time of Jehu downwards the Assyrian kings were brought into frequent contact and intercourse with the people of Samaria and Jerusalem and the records they have left us not only confirm the statements of the Old Testament, but also throw light on many passages which have hitherto been obscure.

“Akhabbu of Sirla,” or Ahab of Israel, is the first king of Samaria mentioned in the Assyrian texts. He brought 2,000 chariots and 10,000 men to the help of Hadadezer, or Ben-hadad II of Damascus, and his allies, in a great battle against the Assyrians at Karkar or Aroer. This battle must have taken place shortly before his death and after the conclusion of the alliance between Ahab and Ben-hadad which is recorded in i Kings 20:34. Hadadezer’s successor was Khazail, or Hazael, according to the Bible as well as the Assyrian monuments. Hazael was defeated by the Assyrian monarch, who, after a vain at tempt to capture Damascus, marched to the shores of the Mediterranean and there received the tribute of Yahua, the son of Khumri.” Yahua is Jehu, and Khumri Omri, though in calling Jehu his son the Assyrians were misinformed, as he was only Omri’s successor. Omri, however, had been the founder of Samaria, which is frequently termed Beth-omri, or “House of Omri,” in the inscriptions, and any prince who came after him might well be supposed by a stranger to have been his descendant. The tribute bearers of Jehu can still be seen sculptured on a small black obelisk brought from the ruins of Calah by Sir A. H. Layard, and now in the British Museum. They carry with them bars of gold and silver, a golden vase and a golden spoon, besides cups and goblets of gold, pieces of lead, a sceptre, and precious woods. Their features are those which even now characterize the Jewish race, and their fringed robes descend to their ankles.

After the time of Jehu the Assyrian monuments are silent for some time about affairs in the West. Rimmon-nirari, however, a king who reigned from B. C. 810 to 781, reduced Damascus to a condition of vassalage, and thus prevented it for a time from being dangerous to its neighbors. This explains the successes of Jeroboam II against the Syrians. He was a contemporary of Rimmon-nirari, and “restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain, according to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah, which was of Gath-hepher.” 3 Kings 14:25.

The dynasty to which Rimmon-nirari belonged was overthrown by a rebellion at the head of which was a military adventurer named Pul, who usurped the throne under the name of Tiglath Pileser II, in April, B. C. 745. He founded the second Assyrian Empire, and introduced a new system of policy into the East. He and his successors aimed at uniting the whole of Western Asia into a single State. For this purpose they not only made extensive conquests, but also organized and consolidated them under governors appointed by the Assyrian king. Hence it is that from this time forward Palestine was exposed to continual attacks on the part of Assyria. Its princes were made tributary, and when they attempted to rebel were punished with death or exile and the captivity of their people. Tiglath Pileser is the first Assyrian monarch mentioned in the Old Testament, because, as we now learn from the monuments, he was the first who led his armies against the Israelites.

According to 2 Kings 15:29, “In the days of Pekah, king of Israel, came Tiglath Pileser, king of Assyria, and took Ijon and Abel-Beth-maachah and Janoah and Kedesh and Hazor and Gilead and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and carried them captive to Assyria.”

Tiglath Pileser, on his side, tells us in an inscription which is unfortunately much mutilated that in his eleventh year, B.C. 734, he marched against the West; and, after overrunning some of the Phoenician States, captured the towns of Gilead and Abel-Beth-maachah, “which belonged to the land of Beth-omri,” and annexed the whole district to Assyria, setting Assyrian governors over it. He then goes on to describe his conquest of Gaza, and adds, “Some of the inhabitants of the land of Beth-omri, with their goods, I carried to Assyria. Pekah, their king,” I put to death; I raised Hosea to the sovereignty over them.” This shows that the conspiracy against Pekah described in 2 Kings 15:30 was carried out under the protection and with the help of the Assyrian king.

Tiglath Pileser, under his original name of Pul, had already made himself known to the Israelites. Menahem had become his tributary and had given him “a thousand talents of silver, that his hand might be with him to confirm the kingdom in his hand.” 2 Kings 15:19. This event also is referred to by Tiglath Pileser in his annals, where he states that in B. C. 739 he received tribute from “Menahem of Samaria” and “Rezin of Damascus.”

Rezin was the last king of Damascus. Isaiah had prophesied that Damascus and its sovereign should speedily fall, and in 2 Kings 16 we are told how this came about. Aim, attacked by the confederate armies of Pekah and Resin, called in the powerful aid of Tiglath Pileser, and purchased his assistance with the gold and silver of the temple and the royal palace. Then u the king of Assyria went up against Damascus, and took it and carried the people of it captive to Kir, and slew Resin.” We can now read the history of the campaign at greater length on the monuments of the Assyrian king himself. After receiving the Jewish bribe, we learn that he marched into Syria in B.C. 734. Resin was defeated in battle, his chariots destroyed, his officers captured and impaled, while he himself escaped to Damascus, where he was closely besieged. The Syrian territory was swept with fire and sword, the sixteen districts into which it was divided were “overwhelmed as with a flood,” and the beautiful trees and gardens surrounding the town were cut down and destroyed. Damascus, however, proved too strong to be taken by assault; so leaving a force before it to reduce it by famine, Tiglath Pileser overran the northern part of Israel, and, as we have seen, carried away the inhabitants of Gilead and Naphtali. He then entered Samaria, and placed Hosea on the throne; and subsequently returned to Damascus, which fell in B.C. 732, after a siege of two years. Rezin was put to death and a great court held, at which the subject princes of the neighboring countries presented themselves with gifts. Among them was Jehoahaz of Judah, whom the Biblical writers call Ahas, omitting the sacred name of the God of Israel from the name of a king who was unworthy to bear it. It was when Ahaz was at Damascus that he saw the altar the pattern of which he sent to Urijah the priest.

Not the least of the services rendered to students of the Old Testament by the decipherment of the Assyrian inscriptions is the restoration of the true chronology of the Israelite and Jewish kings. As is well known, this chronology has long been the despair of historians, and the most contradictory schemes for reducing it to order have been confidently put forward. The Assyrians reckoned time by the names of certain officers who were changed from year to year, and corresponded with the eponymous archons of ancient Athens. Lists of these Assyrian officers have been preserved, extending from B.C. 909 to the closing days of the monarchy, and we can thus accurately fix the dates of the various events which marked the terms of office of the successive eponyms. In this way some difficulties which formerly obscured the chronology of the books of Kings may be cleared away.

Tiglath Pileser died, it appears, B.C. 727, and the crown was usurped by Elulseos, who took the name of Shalmaneser IV. He carried Hosea into captivity and laid siege to Samaria, as we are told in the Bible. “The king of Assyria,” however, who actually captured Samaria was not Shalmaneser, but his successor Sargon, who seized the throne after Shalmaneser’s death, apparently B.C. 722. Immediately afterwards Samaria fell; and Sargon informs us that 27,280 of its inhabitants were sent into exile, and an Assyrian governor set over it who was ordered to raise each year the same amount of tribute as that which had been paid by Hosea. The small number of persons carried captive shows that only the upper classes were transported from their homes, as was the case with the Jews who were carried captive by Nebuchadnezzar along with Jehoiachin; the poorer portion of the population, who were not considered responsible for the revolt from Assyria, being allowed to remain. The exiles were settled on the banks of the Habor or Khabur, a river which falls into the Euphrates, and flows from a country called Gozan by the Assyrians, as well as in the cities of the Medes. These had been conquered by Sargon, and their old inhabitants sent elsewhere.

Sargon’s name occurs but once in the Old Testament, Isa. 20:1, and as no trace of it could be found in classical writers it was objected to as fictitious. Now, however, we find that Sargon, the father of Sennacherib, was one of the greatest monarchs who ever ruled over Assyria, and that his reign lasted as long as seventeen years. The event referred to by Isaiah, when the Tartan or commander-in-chief was ordered to invest Ashdod, is recorded in Sargon’s annals, and formed part of the history of a campaign which has thrown new and unexpected light upon certain passages of Scripture.

The prophecy contained in the tenth chapter of Isaiah has been alleged to be contrary to fact and to have never been fulfilled. When Sennacherib invaded Judaea he did not march upon Jerusalem from the northeast, as Isaiah describes the Assyrians as doing, but from the southwest; while Jerusalem was not captured, as Isaiah implies would be the case. Indeed the whole spirit of the prophecy delivered by Isaiah when Sennacherib threatened the city, Isa. 37, is in striking contrast to that contained in the tenth chapter. If we turn to another prophecy, Isa. 22, we shall find a picture placed before our eyes which is even more inconsistent with what we know about the campaign of Sennacherib. Here Jerusalem is described as being worn out with a long siege; its defenders are dying of famine; the Assyrians are at its gates; and the prophet declares that it is about to fall. As long as it was thought necessary to refer these prophecies to the invasion of Sennacherib, they were hopelessly irreconcilable with the real facts.

But all difficulties have now been removed and the accuracy of Scripture thoroughly vindicated. We gather from the Assyrian monuments that ten years before the invasion of Judah by Sennacherib there had been a previous invasion by his father Sargon. A Chaldean chief named Merodach-baladan had made himself king of Babylon on the death of Shalmaneser, and succeeded for some years in maintaining himself against his dangerous neighbor, the Assyrian king. As Sargon, however, became more and more powerful, Merodach-baladan began to make endeavors to form a vast league against him. Ambassadors were sent for the purpose to Blam on the east, and to Egypt, Judah, and other Syrian States on the west. We learn from the Bible that Hezekiah’s recent recovery from illness formed the pretext for their visit to him. The league was formed; but before its members had time to act in concert Sargon became aware of it, and at once inarched against Palestine. The wide spreading land of Judah was overrun and its capital taken; Ashdod, which had been a centre of disaffection, was razed to the ground, the Moabites and Edomites were punished, and the Egyptian king was prevented from coming to the help of his allies. It was this invasion of Judah and this capture of Jerusalem to which Isaiah refers in the tenth and twenty-second chapters of his prophecies; and the Biblical statements are theirs shown to be an exact representation of the actual facts. In the following year (B.C. 710) Sargon turned upon Merodach Baladan. The Elamites were defeated, Babylon was taken, and the Chaldean prince driven to the marshes at the head of the Persian Gulf, while Sargon proclaimed himself king of Babylonia.

Sargon was murdered by his soldiers, and succeeded by his son Sennacherib, who mounted the throne on the 12th of Ab or July, B.C. 705. Trusting to the support of Tirhakah, the Ethiopian king of Egypt, Hezekiah threw off his allegiance to Assyria, and was followed in this act by the Phoenicians and other neighboring States. It was not until B.C. 701, the fourth year of his reign, that Sennacherib found himself free to punish the rebels. Then came that memorable campaign the latter part of which is described in such detail by Isaiah and in the second book of Kings, and which ended so disastrously for the vainglorious Assyrian king. An account of it is given with almost equal detail by Sennacherib himself, though the final disaster is naturally glossed over, and only the earlier successes of the expedition recorded. More than one version of the account has been found among the clay books of Nineveh, Here is the translation of one of them.

“In my third campaign I went to the land of the Hittites. The fear of the greatness of my majesty overwhelmed Klulseos, king of Sidon, and he fled afar in the middle of the sea (i. e., to Cyprus), and his land I subjected. As for Great Sidon and Little Sidon, Beth Zeth, Sarepta, Makhallib, Usu, Ekdippa, and Akko (Acre), his strong cities, the fenced-in fortresses and villages, the barracks of his troops, the fear of the weapons of Assur, my lord, overwhelmed them, and they knelt at my feet. I set Ethbaal on the royal throne over them, and laid upon him the tribute and taxes due to my majesty each year for ever. Menahem of Samsi-mnrun, Ethbaal of Sidon, Abdilihti of Arvad, Uru-melech of Gebal, Metinti of Ashdod, Fedael of Ammon, Chemosh-nadab of Moab, Melech-ram of Edom, all the kings of the west, brought the full amount of their rich gifts and treasures to my presence and kissed my feet. But Zedekiah, king of Ashkelon, who had not submitted to my yoke, himself, the gods of the house of his fathers, his wife, his sons, his daughters, and his brothers, the seed of the house of his fathers, I removed, and I sent him to Assyria. I set over the men of Ashkelon, Sarludari, the son of Rukipti, their former king, and I imposed upon him the payment of tribute and the homage due to my majesty, and he became a vassal. In the course of my campaign I approached and captured Beth-dagon, Joppa, Bene-berak, and Azur, the cities of Zedekiah which did not submit at once to my yoke, and I carried away their spoil. The priests, the chief men, and the common people of Ekron, who had thrown into chains their king Padi (Pedaiah) because he was faithful to his oaths to Assyria, and had given him up to Hezekiah the Jew, who imprisoned him like an enemy in a dark dungeon, feared in their hearts. The king of Egypt, the bowmen, the chariots, and the horses of the king of Ethiopia, had gathered together innumerable forces and gone to their assistance. In sight of the town of Eltekeh was their order of battle drawn up; they summoned their troops (to the fight). Trusting in Assur, my lord, I fought with them and overthrew them. My hands took the captains of the chariots and the sons of the king of Egypt, as well as the captains of the chariots of the king of Ethiopia, alive in the midst of the battle. I approached and captured the towns of Eltekeh and Timnath, and I carried away their spoil. I marched against the city of Ekron, and put to death the priests and the chief men who had committed the sin (of rebellion), and I hung up their bodies on stakes all round the city. The citizens who had done wrong and wickedness I counted as a spoil; as for the rest of them who had done no sin or crime, in whom no fault was found, I proclaimed their freedom (from punishment). I had Padi, their king, brought out from the midst of Jerusalem, and I seated him on the throne of royalty over them, and I laid upon him the tribute due to my majesty. But as for Hezekiah of Judah, who had not submitted to my yoke, forty-six of his strong cities, together with innumerable fortresses and small towns which depended on them, by overthrowing the walls and open attack, by battle, engines, and battering-rams, I besieged, I captured; I brought out from the midst of them and counted as a spoil 200,150 persons, great and small, male and female, besides mules, asses, camels, oxen, and sheep without number. Hezekiah himself I shut up like a bird in a cage in Jerusalem, his royal city. I built a line of forts against him, and I kept back his heel from going forth out of the great gate of his city. I cut off his cities which I had spoiled from the midst of his land, and gave them to Metinti, king of Ashdod, Padi, king of Bkron, and Zil-baal, king of Gaza, and I made his country small. In addition to their former tribute and yearly gifts, I added other tribute and the homage due to my majesty, and I laid it upon them. The fear of the greatness of my majesty overwhelmed him, even Hezekiah and he sent after me to Nineveh, my royal city, by way of gift and tribute, the Arabs and his bodyguard whom he had brought for the defense of Jerusalem, his royal city, and had furnished with pay, along with thirty talents, eight hundred talents of pure silver, carbuncles and other precious stones, a couch of ivory, thrones of ivory, an elephant’s hide, an elephant’s tusk, rare woods of all kinds, a vast treasure, as well as the eunuchs of his palace, and dancing-men and dancing-women; and he sent his ambassador to offer homage.”

In this account Sennacherib discreetly omits to mention why it was that he never captured Jerusalem itself, after all the preparations he had made for doing so, or why he did not succeed in punishing Hezekiah as he was accustomed to punish other rebellious princes. His silence on this point, and the fact that he never again ventured to invade Palestine, are the strongest possible confirmations of the truth of the Biblical story. In order to cover the disastrous ending of his campaign he has transposed the period at which Hezekiah’s embassy was sent to him, and made it follow the dispatch of the rab-shakeh or chamberlain to Jerusalem. It really preceded the latter event, and was a vain attempt on the part of Hezekiah to buy off the punishment threatened him by the Assyrian king. The embassy reached Sennacherib just after his capture of Lachish in the south of Judah, and there is now a bas-relief in the British Museum which represents him seated on his throne, with the inhabitants of the unfortunate city kneeling before him. An inscription in front of the king reads: “Sennacherib, the king of multitudes, the king of Assyria, sat on an upright throne, and the spoil of the city of Lachish passed before him.”

Before we leave the Assyrian records we must notice a statement of Scripture which has been the subject of much hostile criticism, but has now been curiously verified by modern research. In 2 Chronicles 33: it is said that the king of Assyria, after crushing the revolt of Manasseh, carried him away captive to Babylon. The fact is not mentioned in the books of Kings, and it has been asked. How could a king of Assyria carry his prisoners to Babylon? Had the fact been an invention of a later age, when the history of Assyria had been forgotten, we may feel quite sure that Nineveh and not Babylon would have been assigned as the place of Manasseh’s imprisonment. But the supposed error turns out to be a strong verification of the Scriptural narrative. Manasseh was the contemporary of Sennacherib’s son and successor, Esar-haddon, who alludes to him by name in more than one inscription; and Esarhaddon not only rebuilt Babylon, which had been destroyed by his father, but held his court there during half the year. That Manasseh should afterwards have been pardoned and restored to his throne is also in full accordance with the evidence of the monuments. Rebel princes were so treated not infrequently. Thus, Asshurbanipal, the successor of Esar-haddon, tells us that, after sending a revolted Egyptian prince to Nineveh, bound hand and foot with iron fetters, he forgave the prisoner and allowed him to return to his kingdom.

Jerusalem was destined to fall by the hand, not of an Assyrian, but of a Babylonian monarch. The Babylonian Empire of Nebuchadnezzar rose on the ruins of that of Assyria; but though we have many inscriptions of the great Babylonian king relating to his buildings, only a small fragment of his annals has as yet been found. This, however, disposes of the doubts that have been expressed as to the fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy of the Babylonian conquest of Egypt. It tells us that, in his thirty-seventh year (B.C. 568), Nebuchadnezzar invaded Egypt and defeated the Egyptian king Amasis. Egyptian monuments supplement this mutilated record. We learn from them that the invading forces penetrated the country as far as the extreme south, and that it was not until they had reached Assouan that they were driven back again by the Egyptian general, Hor. Only a year ago an interesting discovery was made in the mounds of Tel Defenneh, the ancient Daphne, on the western side of the Suez Canal. This consisted of small clay cylinders covered with Babylonian writing, which enumerated the titles and building operations of Nebuchadnezzar. They must have been buried in this frontier town of Egypt as a token of the Babylonian conquest of the country.

The history of the overthrow of Nebuchadnezzar’s empire has now been told to us by Cyrus himself. Two long inscriptions of his have been discovered in the ruins of Babylon, one of which gives, in chronological order, the events which marked the reign of Nabonnidus, the father of Belshazzar, and the last Babylonian king, as well as the history of the final conquest of Babylon; while the other is a proclamation put forth by Cyrus not long after the defeat and death of Nabonnidus. In this he declares that Bel-Merodach, the great lord, the restorer of his people, beheld with joy the deeds of his vicegerent (Cyrus), who was righteous in hand and heart. To his city of Babylon he summoned his march, and bade him take the road to Babylon; like a friend and a comrade he went to his side.

When the conquest was completed Cyrus assembled the various peoples whom the Babylonian kings had carried into captivity, and restored them and their gods to their own lands. Among these peoples were, as the Bible teaches us, the Jews, who returned, not with the images of false gods, but with the sacred vessels of the ruined temple.

Such, then, are some of the most striking verifications of the truth of the Old Testament record where it refers to the great kingdoms and empires that surrounded the chosen people. In every case where we can test it by contemporaneous monuments, the authenticity of which is doubted by no one, we find it confirmed and explained even in the minutest points. Such accuracy would be impossible if the Biblical narratives had been composed at a later period than that to which the events belong. Legend soon takes the place of history in the East, and the classical writers show how quickly the real annals of Egypt and Assyria were forgotten. Monumental research has not only proved the truth of the events recorded in Scripture, it also proves that the account of these events must have been written by contemporaries. On no other hypothesis is the minute accuracy which distinguishes it to be explained.

This accuracy has lately been illustrated by a startling and unexpected discovery. Besides the small Hittite tribe settled in the south of Judah, of whom we hear so much in connection with the lives of the patriarchs, reference is more than once made in the books of Kings to Hittites living in the north of Syria. Solomon, we are told, imported horses from Egypt, which were sold again to “all the kings of the Hittites n and the kings of Aram or Syria, 1 Kings 10: 29. Again, when God had sent a panic upon the Syrian army which was besieging Samaria, the soldiers of Ben-hadad supposed that the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians. 2 Kings 7:6.

Objectors to the historical truth of the Old Testament narrative, like Prof. F. Newman, declared that these allusions to northern Hittites destroyed its credibility. No Hittites in the north of Syria were known to classical writers; and the Hittites of Genesis lived in the southern part of Judaea. But first the Egyptian and then the Assyrian monuments proved that not only did Hittite tribes inhabit the very district to which the notices in the books of Kings would assign them, but also that they were once a very powerful and important people. In the time of the great Egyptian monarch, Rameses II, the oppressor of the children of Israel, they contended on equal terms with the Egyptians themselves; the Egyptian king was glad finally to secure a peace by marrying a Hittite princess. For several centuries they successfully withstood the power of Assyria; and it was not until the reign of Sargon that their capital, Carchemish, was at last taken by storm and the last Hittite sovereign replaced by an Assyrian governor. In the age of the Exodus they had carried their arms across Asia Minor as far as the shores of the Aegean, and the empire they founded in Asia Minor has left remains in the neighborhood of the river Halys, as well as on the sculptured rocks of Lydia. They had invented a peculiar system of pictorial writing, and their art, though based on Babylonian models, was also of a peculiar kind. The early art of Greece was indebted to it, and through the art of Greece the art of modern Europe as well. The site of their northern capital, Carchemish, was discovered at a place now called Jerablus, on the Euphrates, by Mr. George Smith, during the ill-fated expedition which eventually cost him his life. Since then the ruins of Carchemish have been partially explored and some of the Hittite monuments disinterred among them are now in the British Museum. Carchemish, however, was not the only capital the Hittites possessed. The Bible speaks of their “kings” in the plural, and in agreement with this we find from the Egyptian inscriptions that they had also a southern capital on the Orontes, called Kadesh. A recent discovery has shown that Kadesh as well as Carchemish is mentioned in the Old Testament. Manuscripts make it clear that the Septuagint text of 2 Sam 24:6 reads “Kadesh of the Hittites,” instead of the “Tahtim-hodshi” of the Hebrew text. David’s census, according to this, was taken throughout the whole extent of his empire, which then included Damascus, and consequently bordered on the Hittite Kadesh in the north. Here again, therefore, modern research has proved the accuracy of the Old Testament record in a point so minute as to have escaped the notice of the most eagle-eyed critic. Indeed, the very existence of the Hittite Kadesh had been forgotten since its destruction by the Syrian kings, shortly after the age of David until it was again brought to light by the decipherment of the Egyptian texts.

The recovery of the long-forgotten Hittite empire has also revealed some more “undesigned coincidences,” as they may be called, between the statements of the sacred writers and the discoveries of modern research. While making war upon the Syrians, David is represented as being on friendly terms with Hamath. Toi, king of Hamath, in fact, sent his son Joram to David with presents, “because he had fought against Hadadezer and smitten him; for Hadadezer had wars with Toi.” 2 Sam. 8:10. Now Hamath turns out to have been a Hittite kingdom, and the Hittites and their Syrian neighbors belonged to different races, and were continually engaged in war. It was therefore natural that Toi should have made alliance with David, who had broken the power of the common enemy. This alliance between Hamath and Judah must have lasted down to the time when Hamath was reduced by Sargon and became an Assyrian dependency. Tiglath Pileser II informs us that Uzziah of Judah was the ally of Yahu-bihdi or Jeho-bihad, king of Hamath. This explains a passage of Scripture, 2 Kin. 14:28, which has long presented a difficulty, though the difficulty is now seen to have been due to our own ignorance, and to be really a striking confirmation of the truth of the inspired record. When it is said that Jeroboam II recovered “Hamath, which was (allied) with Judah, for Israel,” we are supplied with the middle link of a chain which begins with the embassy of Toi to David, and ends with the alliance between Uzziah and Yahu-bihdi. It is noticeable that Yahu-bihdi and Joram, the son of Toi, are the only Gentiles known to us whose names are compounded with that of the God of Israel.

It now only remains to point out how recent discoveries have shown that writing was known and practiced in Judah at the time to which the larger part of the Old Testament Scriptures professes to belong. There have been two discoveries which more especially make this clear. These are the discoveries of the Moabite Stone and the Siloam Inscription. The Moabite Stone was a monument erected by Mesha, the contemporary of Ahab, who is called u a sheep master in 2 Kin. 3:4. It is consequently as old as the ninth century before the Christian era, and was discovered in 1869 by Mr. Klein, a German missionary, among the ruins of Dhiban, the ancient Dibon. Owing to an unfortunate dispute for the possession of the stone, it was broken into pieces by the Arabs, though not until after some imperfect squeezes of it had been made. Most of the fragments have since been recovered and fitted together, but the concluding lines are still missing. A translation of the text will show how historically important it is: