Ethiopia is it likely, I would ask, that the powerful Tirhaka should have quietly returned into his own remote southern dominions, and that too at a time when the disastrous discomfiture of Sennacherib had removed all present apprehension of Assyrian aggression? (b) Again the Scriptures appear also to agree with Herodotus, in stating that when Sennacherib was in Judea, a native Egyptian was king at least in Lower Egypt. For (1) while they call So, king of Egypt,' they speak of Tirhaka merely as 'king of Ethiopia.' (2) In Isaiah xxx., which evidently refers to a time almost immediately preceding the invasion of Judea by Sennacherib, the Egyptian monarch, from whom the Jews are then seeking assistance, is styled Pharaoh," which is the proper title of native Egyptian sovereigns. (3) And shortly before the Assyrian had heard that Tirhaka was marching to attack him, Rabshakeh, taunting Hezekiah with his supposed dependence on Egyptian succour, adds that Pharaoh, king of Egypt, will disappoint all who trust in him. Indeed, in the Old Testament, we may be said to have a twofold testimony to the fact, that a native Egyptian was on the throne when Sennacherib was in Judea. For we have Jewish testimony in Isaiah xxx.; and we have what may be regarded as Assyrian testimony in the language of Rabshakeh.

5. Can Manetho be fairly and without violence reconciled with the Scriptures and Herodotus, as far as regards the bare fact that a native Egyptian was on the throne when Sennacherib was in Judea? It will be permitted to attempt at least such a reconciliation. So, or Sevechus, may (as has been supposed by some writers) have voluntarily retired into Ethiopia some time before his death, not from any wish to abandon the kingdom of Egypt, but in order to avoid collision with Assyria, whose monarch he must have offended, by encouraging Hoshea king of Israel to declare himself independent. There is, however, nothing either in Herodotus or in the Scriptures to forbid our thinking that So still kept Ethiopian governors and garrisons in the principal cities of Upper Egypt, and that he continued to hold the sovereignty of that important portion of the Egyptian territory. Tirhaka may thus have succeeded not only to the throne of Ethiopia, but also to the virtual sovereignty of Upper Egypt. An ambitious and enterprising spirit,' a feeling of rivalry and the natural desire to recover the whole extent of the authority which had been enjoyed by Sabacon and Sevechus, may

s How unlike is this monarch in the prophet's record to the Sethon of Herodotus, who had alienated from himself the military caste, and was obliged to depend on the unwarlike portion of his subjects. Sennacherib's narrative, quoted in the previous note, is equally unfavourable to the veracity or knowledge of the informants of Herodotus, who doubtless relates honestly what he had heard from them.

t It would seem, from the Assyrian inscriptions, that the rulers of Egypt had sought and obtained large assistance from the king of Meroe, in their expedition against the Assyrians in Palestine. The sanguinary defeat of the combined Ethiopian and Egyptian forces near Lachish would exasperate the pride of Tirhaka, and add to feelings of rivalry a bitter desire of revenge. There is perhaps nothing in the Assyrian records unfavourable to the idea that the king of Meroe was virtually king of a portion of Upper Egypt when Sennacherib entered Judea,

have stimulated Tirhaka to march against Sennacherib. He would thus (as has already been suggested) enter Egypt at the head of an overwhelming force; and what is more probable than that, on learning the disastrous retreat of the Assyrians from Judea, he should resume, and retain until his death, that sovereignty over all Egypt which had been possessed by his two immediate predecessors on the throne of Ethiopia? Hence the reign of the Pharaoh who succeeded Sevechus may have been so short and inglorious that Manetho probably did not deem it necessary or proper to insert the name of this Pharaoh in his list of the monarchs of Egypt. Indeed, had he done so, he would have been compelled to regard Tarchus (Tirhaka) as forming a second Ethiopian dynasty.

6. It may not be uninteresting to introduce Berosus in connection with the Scriptures and Herodotus. (a.) All three agree that on one single night a terrible calamity befel the Assyrians. In Herodotus, 'a number of field-mice, pouring in upon them, devoured their quivers and their bows, and the handles of their shields;'-in the Scriptures and Berosus, the Assyrian soldiers themselves perish. Again, in Herodotus, the disaster occurs in Egypt, near Pelusium, and the sufferers are under the immediate command of Sennacherib; but in the two other histories, the 185,000," who died in one night, belonged to a detachment from the main army, and they perished in the immediate neighbourhood of Jerusalem. (b) With regard to the Assyrian invasion of Egypt, Herodotus allows that Sennacherib entered Egypt with a large army of Assyrians and Arabians-(Cambyses afterwards in like manner sought the alliance of the Arabians)-but he appears to deny that he advanced farther than the frontier town of Pelusium. According to Josephus, Berosus asserts that Sennacherib made an expedition against Egypt, and that it was on his return from his Egyptian war to Jerusalem that he learned the terrible destruction which had befallen his forces there. This language would imply that he advanced beyond Pelusium, and that his expedition was not unsuccessful. The Scriptures would seem strongly to favour the idea of a successful invasion of Egypt by the Assyrians; for (1) in Isa. xxxvii. 25, the Most High

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Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem would have no insuperable difficulty in ascertaining the number of the slain, great as it was. There would be none of the confusion of a field of battle, no heaps of bodies piled upon bodies. The revellers were smitten over their wine-the sleepers where they were lying in unconsciousness of what was about to come upon them-the sentinels where they were stationed. The Jewish numerical statement of 185,000 would be eagerly received and noted in the Philistine cities, in Tyre and Sidon, in Damascus, and throughout Syria, and in the capital and other cities of Chaldea. It is not therefore necessary to suppose that Berosus took his account of the 185,000 from the Bible, though he may have seen it. Traditional accounts of the disaster, retaining accurately the number of the slain, may have survived to his time. When, however, he says that on the very first night of the siege 185,000, with their captains and generals, were destroyed,' he is plainly in error. Sennacherib wished to terrify Hezekiah into an immediate surrender. He thus probably sent a very large force, 185,000 men, the flower of his army, to Jerusalem. He could do this without peril to himself; for, in case of need, the detached host could easily return to him within three or four days.

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declares that Sennacherib* had used (perhaps in his letter to Hezekiah) this boastful language, 'I have digged and drunk water, and with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of besieged places,' words which would strikingly apply to a successful invasion of Egypt. (2) In 2 Kings xviii. 21, Rabshakeh calls Egypt 'a bruised reed' (p), an expression which (when we consider who was the speaker) would rather apply to a successful Assyrian invasion than to Ethiopian supremacy. (3) The prophet Nahum, ch. iii. ver. 8, thus addresses Nineveh: Art thou better than populous No (Amon)? Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength, and it was infinite; Put and Lubim were thy (Nineveh) helpers. Yet was she carried away; she went into captivity.' From these verses it would appear probable that at the time when the Assyrians, aided by the African Put and Lubim, took and sacked' No (Thebes), the Ethiopians were masters at least of Upper Egypt. It is perhaps at present uncertain whether this event occurred in the reign of Shalmaneser (Sargon) or Sennacherib. (4) In Isa. xx. 4, it is predicted that the king of Assyria (Sargon or his successor) should lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives.'

7. I would now notice the Assyrian account of the transactions of Sennacherib's third regnal year, as interpreted by Col. Rawlinson. In my (Sennacherib's) third year I went up to the country of the Khetta or Hittites (a name denoting Phoenicia, Palestine, &c.). Luliya, king of Sidon (the Elulacus of Menander), had thrown off the yoke of allegiance. I reduced his entire country: the places which submitted to me were Sidon the greater and Sidon the less, Beth-Zitta, Saripat (Sarepta), Mahallat, Husuva (a name for Tyre, derived from Usous, one of its founders), Aksib and Acca. I placed Tubaal on the throne in the place of Luliya. Sitka of Ascalon, who did not come to pay me homage, the gods of his house and his treasures, &c., I seized and sent off to Nineveh. I placed another chief on the throne of Ascalon.' And all this was accomplished before the autumn of this same year. Assuming the substantial correctness of Col. R.'s interpretation, how strikingly does this rapidity of conquest accord with the divine description of Sennacherib's career in 2 Kings xix. 26, where the Most High says, 'Now have I brought it to pass that thou shouldest be to lay waste fenced cities into ruinous heaps. Therefore their inhabitants were of small power; they were dismayed and con

* In 2 Kings xix. 24, the expression is still more striking, I have digged and drunk strange waters.' The Assyrian inscriptions seem to prove that Berosus' statement, Sennacherib made an expedition against Egypt, must be explained merely of his marching to encounter the Egyptians and Ethiopians near Lachish. At the same time it is not impossible that Sennacherib may have borne a conspicuous part in a successful invasion of Egypt, during the reign of his father Shalmaneser (Sargon). The annals of Shalmaneser may perhaps throw light upon this subject and upon the sack of No Amon.

This epithet may however allude especially to Sennacherib's victory near Lachish-a victory which would strikingly accord with the prediction in Isa.

XX. 4.

As far as the Assyrian annals have been yet deciphered, there appears to be no mention of the capture of No Amon in the reign of Sennacherib.

a Outline of Assyr. Hist. p. 22.

founded; they were as the grass of the field and as the green herb, as the grass on the housetops, and as corn blasted before it be grown up.' Sennacherib thus proceeds: In the autumn of the (third) year certain other cities which had refused to submit to my authority I took and plundered. The kings of Egypt also sent horsemen and footmen, belonging to the army of the king of Mirukha (Meroe or Ethiopia), of which the numbers could not be counted. In the neighbourhood of the city of Allakhis (Lachish) I joined battle with them. The captains of the cohorts and the young men of the kings of Egypt, and the captains of the cohorts of the king of Meroe, I put to the sword in the country of Lubana (Lebnah). And because Hezekiah king of Judea did not submit to my yoke, forty-six of his strong fenced cities, and innumerable smaller towns which depended on them, I took and plundered; but I left to him Jerusalem, his capital city, and some of the inferior towns around it. . . . And because Hezekiah still continued to refuse to pay me homage, I attacked and carried off the whole population, fixed and nomade, which dwelled around Jerusalem, with 30 talents of gold and 800 talents of silver, the accumulated wealth of the nobles of Hezekiah, &c. I returned to Nineveh, and I accounted this spoil for the tribute which he refused to pay me.'

I have already noticed that the number of the male and female Jewish prisoners is stated at 200,164; and that this removal of so many inhabitants remarkably illustrates the language of Hezekiah, who, on the occasion of the advance of Tartan, Rabshakeh, and Rabsaris against Jerusalem, says to Isaiah, 'lift up thy voice for the remnant that are left' (2 Kings xix. 4).

8. Col. Rawlinson thinks that it was in this third year that the miraculous discomfiture of the Assyrians occurred. Sennacherib's annals do not of course allude to a discomfiture produced by pestilence and panic; but the summary way in which he closes his account of the campaign, merely stating that he returned to Nineveh with his spoil, would be alone sufficient to indicate some disaster to his army. It is also im

portant to add that he was unable during the following year, owing apparently to the severe check he had sustained, to undertake any operations of magnitude, and that, so far as has yet been ascertained, he does not appear at any subsequent period of his reign to have ventured to lead his armies across the Euphrates into Syria.'— Outline of Assyr. Hist., p. 25.

I would particularly request the reader's attention to the following. 'The events of the fourth year of Sennacherib present a marked contrast to the detailed and magniloquent descriptions of the preceding

b There is a substantial agreement here between the Scriptures and the Assyrian inscriptions, as will appear from the following - In the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah did Sennacherib, king of Assyria, come up against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them. . And the king of Assyria appointed unto Hezekiah thirty talents of gold and three hundred talents of silver." It is quite probable that Sennacherib carried to Nineveh a much larger quantity of silver than this; and that the silver amounted to 800 talents. Menahem gave the Assyrian Pul 1000 talents of silver.

periods; they are confined to a few meagre lines, and refer exclusively to an expedition against the Chaldees, undertaken perhaps in order to punish Merodach Baladan for sending ambassadors to Hezekiah, which Sennacherib does not seem even to have conducted in person.'

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9. I will here venture to suggest that it was in this fourth year, the transactions of which are confined to a few meagre lines,' that the fearful destruction befel the 185,000 who had been sent against Jerusalem under Tartan, Rabshakeh, and Rabsaris.

For (1), according to the Assyrian inscriptions, it was not until the autumn of the third year that Sennacherib commenced hostilities against Hezekiah; and as the Assyrian returned to Nineveh before the close of the year, we have only four or five months allowed for the various events which happened between the commencement of hostilities and their final close by the miraculous destruction of the 185,000. These events are

a. The rapid overthrow of the 46 strong fenced cities, and their numerous dependencies, and the defeat of the Ethiopians and Egyptians near Lachish.

b. The negotiations between the two kings, which terminated in the payment by Hezekiah of 30 talents of gold and 300 talents of silver. c. The dangerous sickness and miraculous recovery of Hezekiah. That this was previous to the Assyrian discomfiture, is plain from the promise to Hezekiah while yet on his sick bed, And I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria' (Isa. xxxviii. 6).

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d. It appears to me that the measures taken to fortify Jerusalem (2 Chron. xxxii. 3) were subsequent to Hezekiah's miraculous recovery. For considering the following language of Hezekiah at this time to the people, 'Be strong and courageous, be not afraid nor dismayed for the king of Assyria, nor for all the multitude that is with him, for there be more with us than with him. With him is an arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God to fight our battles,' it seems to me that this cheerful confidence and language were subsequent to Hezekiah's miraculous recovery, and to the gracious promise of deliverance which he then received. And this view is perhaps strongly favoured by what immediately follows, And the people rested themselves upon the words of Hezekiah king of Judah.' If we suppose the attempts to fortify the city to have followed the divine promise and their king's miraculous recovery, the full confidence of the people in the words of their king is accounted for without difficulty.

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e. The advance of Tartan and the 185,000 to Jerusalem, and the days or weeks which elapsed before their miraculous destruction.

(2) It must have been some time after the terrible defeat at Lachish, which appears to have occurred about the autumn of the year or shortly

There seems to be a direct allusion to this divine promise, which, together with Hezekiah's miraculous recovery, had been probably reported to Sennacherib, when Rabshakeh, on his reaching Jerusalem, said,―Thus saith the king, let not Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying, He will surely deliver us, and this city shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.' 2 Kings xviii. 30.