have already seen how such a conceit might readily take its rise.--The great question, as to the lineage of the earlier Jews of Mesopotamia and Persia, we shall recur to further on.

We have probably said enough to show, that no very great stress can properly be laid upon this tradition of the Nestorians; or, at least, that it cannot be regarded as proving incontrovertibly their Hebrew descent.

There remains to be considered the argument arising from the country of the Nestorians, so far as their territory can be shown to be identical with that to which the ten tribes were carried away. To this evidence, so far as it justly bears upon the subject, we have no objection to urge, but regard it rather as prima facie the strongest topic of all brought forward by Dr. Grant. Even here, however, the author, by claiming too much, weakens the force of his argument; for not satisfied with what is probably true, that the territory of the Nestorians may be in part one of the regions to which the Israelites were deported, he insists upon finding within their limits all the places to which the tribes were thus transferred. On this point, however, there is at least room for doubt.

It is twice related, that in the ninth year of Hoshea, king of Israel, and the sixth of Hezekiah, king of Judah, or about B. C. 720, Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, took the city of Samaria, "and carried away Israel into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and on Habor, a river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes." About fifteen or sixteen years earlier, Tiglath-Pileser had made an inroad upon the regions around the northern and eastern parts of the Lake of Tiberias, and carried away in like manner the people of Naphtali and Galilee and Gilead, the latter occupied by the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh,-" and brought them unto Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and the river of Gozan, unto this day."+

...

their brethren elsewhere, etc. They speak the language of the country; but respecting the common use of a vulgar Hebrew among them, we received different statements." Researches II. p. 196.

* 2 K. 17; 6. 18: 9-11. The English version has " in Habor by the river of Gozan ;" but the Hebrew in both places reads:

† 2 K. 15: 29. 1 Chr. 5: 26. The English version in the latter passage has: to Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the river Gozan;" but here too the reading of the Hebrew is:

Here it is obvious that the regions to which the Israelites were thus brought at different times, are in general the same; while there is, nevertheless, a certain difference in the specifications. In both the accounts of the book of Kings, Habor is distinctly and definitely spoken of as "a river of Gozan ;" but in the later narrative of the book of Chronicles, we find the word Hara so inserted as to read: "Habor, and Hara, and the river of Gozan." We must here doubtless hold to the reading of the book of Kings, as the earliest and purest, and as being moreover twice repeated. The variation may have arisen in two ways. Hara (7) signifies "mountains, mountainous tract," and may have been first written as a gloss in the margin, in order to explain what was meant by their dwelling on the Ha bor, i. e. not merely along the river itself, but on and among the mountains through which it flows. A subsequent copyist would very easily transfer the word into the text, and fill out what he supposed to be the grammatical connection, by inserting the conjunction before and after it. Instances of various readings from such a source are very frequent in all ancient writings. Or, if Hara be regarded as the proper name of a region, like the Arabic Jebâl, " mountains," still, its insertion in this particular place is probably to be ascribed to the negligence of transcribers; at any rate, it cannot do away the stronger evidence of the double reading of the book of Kings.*

The Israelites were carried away into Assyria, and it becomes therefore important to ascertain what were the limits of this empire at that period. Assyria, or (as written by the Arameans, Greeks, and Romans) Aturia and Atyria, was originally a province or region on the east of the Tigris, of which Nineveh was the centre and capital. Of its earliest limits we have no account. Its kings, pushing their conquests on every side, subdued Media on the east, and Mesopotamia and Syria on the west, and thus established the powerful empire of Assyria; which, after various vicissitudes, appears to have reached its most flourishing point under the same Shalmaneser, near the close of the eighth century before Christ. We are told, indeed, that the kingdom of Babylon was founded by Nabonassar about 747 B. C., but he must either have been a vassal of As

* Media or 'Irâk 'Ajmy bears also at the present day the name el-Jebâl. Rennell Geog. Syst. of Herodot. p. 395.

syria, or his country have been again subdued by that power; for among the various tribes brought by Shalmaneser into the cities of Samaria instead of the Israelites, there were also “men of Babylon."* Or even apart from this fact, it is obvious, that at least all the northern part of Mesopotamia must still have been subject to the Assyrian monarchs; for both Shalmaneser and after him Sennacherib took their march across it on their way to Palestine. Indeed, the first sovereign of Babylon who made himself independent, as is generally understood, was Meroc-Baladan, who is not put earlier than 712 B. C. His successor was again subdued by Sennacherib, and Babylon remained subject to Assyria until Nabopolassar, about 626 B. C.† -The earliest defection of the Medes from the Assyrian yoke is commonly assigned to 713 B. C., and their first king, Dejoces, is supposed to have commenced his reign about three years later, or 710 B. C.‡

Thus it appears, that at the time of the carrying away of the ten tribes, and, with a short exception, for nearly a century afterwards, the territory of Assyria extended far on the west of the Tigris, and included Mesopotamia and sometimes Syria. After the downfall of Nineveh under Nabopolassar and Cyaxares, the Assyrian empire came to an end, and the great Chaldean realm of Babylon extended itself under Nebuchadnezzar over the same wide limits. The name Assyria or Aturia was now again restricted to the region east of the Tigris; where Ptolemy in a later age describes it as bounded on the north by a part of Armenia and Mount Niphates, on the west by Mesopotamia and the Tigris, on the south by Susiana, and on the east by a part of Media and the mountains Choatras and Zagros. This region certainly comprehended the present territory of the Nestorians, as well as the greater part of the modern Kurdistan. It was divided into the following provinces: Arrapachitis, adjacent to Media; next to this Adiabene; then towards the east, Arbelitis; above Adiabene was Calacine or Calachene ; below it, Apolloniatis; and then Sittacene next to Susiana.

* 2 K. 17: 24, 30.

Usher Annales pp. 54, 62. Winer. Bibl. Realw. Zeittafeln pp. 875, 876. Zumpt Annales vet. Regnor. etc. Berl. 1838, p. 5.

Usher ib. p. 57.

1: 2, 15.

Zumpt ib. pp. 5, 6.—Compare also Tobit

Adiabene was the principal province, and appears to have included Nineveh; it is indeed sometimes used interchangeably for Assyria itself.* Above and below it, along the Tigris, lay respectively Calachene and Apolloniatis; while Arrapachitis next to Media would appear to have embraced a part, if not the whole, of the present Nestorian territory.

We have been "thus particular on this point," in order to correct an historical error into which Dr. Grant has fallen, in his zeal to strengthen his argument. He asserts, namely, that at the time of the carrying away of the ten tribes, both the Babylonians and Medes had already fallen off from the Assyrian empire; which therefore was then limited to the region east of the Tigris, and no longer included Mesopotamia; pp. 155-157. Indeed, it seems never to have occurred to Dr. G. to ask, if the Assyrian empire was already thus hemmed in and crippled on the west by an independent kingdom of Babylon, how Shalmaneser, and after him Sennacherib, could make their inroads upon Syria and Palestine. The preceding remarks show sufficiently, that both Mesopotamia and Media were still portions of the Assyrian empire.

Hence, in respect to the cities of the Medes, we are not compelled, as Dr. G. would fain believe, to "look for the settlements of the captive Israelites in or near the borders of Assyria proper;" p. 157. The whole of Media was still open to the will of the Assyrian conqueror; and the sacred writer intimates no restriction to the western cities. Indeed, the city Rages in Media, where the exiles were visited by Tobit at an early period of the Israelitish captivity, lay quite at the southeastern extremity of Media, near to Teheran, the modern capital of Persia.+

In Halah most commentators have united in recognizing the Calah of Gen. 10: 11, 12; and, as the name of a region, they

* Plin. H. N. V. 12. Ammian. Marcell. XXIII. 20. See generally Cellarius Notit. Orbis II. p. 653 seq.

† Tobit 1: 14, 15. Winer Bibl. Realw. art. Rages.

แ

Ephrem Syrus explains Calah by Hatra, the Chetra or Chatara of the Romans. Opp. I. p. 58. Assemani Bibl. Orient. IV. p. 419. This Dr. Grant assumes to be the mcdern Hatareh, about a day's journey N. N. W. of the ruins of Nineveh;" p. 158. But both Assemani and also the Syrian Lexicographers, Bar Bahlul and Bar Ali, describe this Hatra or Chetra as situated in Mesopotamia over against Tekrit,

justly regard it as identical with the Calachene of the Greeks and Romans; which, as we have seen above, was a province of Assyria proper, north of Adiabene and adjacent to the Tigris. Some, indeed, refer it to the Hulwân of the Arabs, called also by the Syrians Hulun and Halach; but this city, as described by Abulfeda, lies in the N. E. part of the Babylonian 'Irak, to the S. E. of Nineveh, and remote from any part of Calachene.* The identity of Halah with the latter seems in every respect most probable; and thus we find the Israelites transported at least to the vicinity of the country of the Nestorians. Whether the region of Halah extended up into their mountains, we are still not informed. The same is true as to Hulwân; which is also much farther remote from the present territory of the Nestorians.

Habor is the name of a river; and we find at this very day a river of the same name, Arabic Khabûr, rising in the highlands of the ancient Assyria proper, and pursuing its course southwesterly to the Tigris. Dr. Grant has the merit of being the first to furnish correct information respecting this stream. Here certainly is prima facie a strong point; and Dr. G. endeavors to strengthen it still more, by attempting to make out, that the name Gozan is to be recognized in the Zozan, (high pastures) of the Nestorians. This he does by showing that "Gozan, according to Cruden, Holden, and others, signifies pasture," while "Zozan is the name given by the Nestorians to all the high-lands of Assyria which afford pasturage for their numerous flocks ;" pp. 159, 160. Further, he says, "the sounds of G and Z frequently interchange" without altering the sense of the words; and for this he appeals to Gesenius; p. 160.

Now all that Gesenius says, and justly says, is, that the letter G ( Gimel), like the other palatals Kaph and Koph, sometimes passes over, not into Z (Zayin), but into Tsade (†, ts);

not far from the Tigris and from Birtha; see Gesen. Thesaur. Heb. art. 2, and his Heb. u. Chald. Wörterb. 1834, Vorrede pp. xviii, xix. It is so laid down in the maps of D'Anville and others. Abulfeda calls it Hadhr; Abulf. by Reiske, in Büsching's Magazin, Th. IV. p. 246.

* Assemani ibid. p. 419. Gesen. Thesaur, Heb. art. . Abulfeda ibid. p. 262. It is this Halach or Hulun, Arab. Hulwân, which Assemani describes as the seat of a Nestorian bishop; and not Hatra or Chetra.