Obrazy na stronie
PDF
ePub

Temple. The Babylonians were marked by blind fuperftition, practifed various magical arts, and confided in the pretended discoveries of judicial aftrology. Their vices far exceeded their credulity and their folly. They indulged in exceffive luxury, were avaricious. and arrogant, and oppreffed the furrounding nations with exceffive tyranny. Their cruelty was in a peculiar manner directed against the Jews. In their invafion of Judea, they laid the country wafte, put both old and young to the fword, profaned the Temple, and detained all whom they led away captives in a ftate of the moft rigid bondage. For these reafons, the denunciations of Divine vengeance were pronounced with particular severity against them.

[ocr errors]

We have seen the city of Babylon taken, and the "chofen people of God" delivered from bondage by Cyrus, according to the fure word of Prophecy." We fhall now furvey this Metropolis of the World as it stood at the fummit of its greatness, and follow it to the gulph of oblivion, from whence Prophecy and History recall its existence,

According to the moft authentic accounts that have come down to us, Babylon con

[ocr errors]

tained the aftonishing space of fixty miles, and was adorned in every part with gardens, palaces, and temples. Around it were extended walls of ftupendous height and thicknefs, compofed of large bricks cemented with bitumen, that by time acquired a folidity harder than ftone. One hundred gates of folid brafs commanded the approaches to the city; two hundred and fifty towers of vast dimenfions and elevation were placed at equal distances along the walls. The buildings most remarkable for fize and magnificence were, the bridge erected over the Euphrates, the fpacious palaces of the Kings, and the ancient temple of Belus, compofed of eight towers, rifing one above another, and diminishing in proportion to their prodigious elevation. Such were the majestic edifices of this extenfive and populous capital of the Affyrian Empire; which, at a distance, to ufe the comparison of ancient writers, had the appearance of lofty mountains. They were calculated to brave the fierceft attacks of hoftile power, and to withstand the of remote ages.

ravages

The lofty terms in which Babylon is defcribed in Scripture, correfpond with the account of profane writers, It is called by

Ifaiah,

Ifaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel," the golden city," "" the glory of kingdoms," " abundant in treasures," and "the praife of the whole earth." Berofus, Herodotus, Strabo, and Diodorus Siculus, fome of the most antient and most authentic writers, reprefent it as "the most glorious metropolis upon which the fun ever fhone, and rank it high among the wonders of the antient world." At the precife time when it was rifing to this state of grandeur, when the dominion of its fovereigns was fpreading over all the furrounding provinces, and power, opulence, and profperity combined to ensure the long continuance of its empire and glory, Ifaiah thus pronounced its total ruin.

a Ifaiah xlvii. 5. xiv. 4. Jer. li. 41, &c. Goguet's Origin of Laws. Prideaux, vol. i. p. 75. Newton on the Prophecies, vol. i. p. 276, &c.

Ifaiah xiii. 19, 20, 21, 22. xiv. 23. For a more full anticipation of the deftruction of Babylon, see Ifaiah xiii, xiv, xxi, xlvii. In chap. xiii. the Medes, then an inconfiderable people, are brought forward as the great agents in the overthrow of the Affyrian Monarchy. Chap. xiv. contains the triumph of the various nations of the earth over the fallen King of Babylon. This description, confifting of the most bold and striking images, is truly fublime. See Lowth on Ifaiah, xxi, xlvii.

And

And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees excellency, shall be as when God overthrew: Sodom and Gomorrah. It fhall never be inhabited, neither fhall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither Shall the Arabian pitch his tent there, neither Shall the shepherds make their fold there. But wild beasts of the defert fhall lie there, and their houfes fhall be full of doleful creatures, and owls fhall dwell there, and fatyrs fhall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands Shall cry in their defolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days fhall not be prolonged. — I will alfo make it a poffeffion for the bittern, and pools of water; and I will fweep it with the befom of deftruction, faith the Lord of Hofts.

A feries of ages was neceffary to give this Prophecy its full accomplishment. And if we carefully follow the ftream of history, we fhall find that a feries of ages has completely verified the awful menace of the Prophet.

The conquefts of Cyrus extinguifhed the glory of the Affyrian empire, and the fplendor of Babylon was eclipfed by the removal

of

of the feat of government to Sufa in Perfia. The waters of the Euphrates were never reftored to their proper channel, from the new course which Cyrus had given them to facilitate his entrance into the city. A drought was upon her waters, and they were dried up. By their stagnation the whole country became unwholesome, and affumed the form, and communicated the effects, of an extensive and peftilential morass. The fea came up upon Babylon; he was covered with the multitude of the waves thereof. The immenfe flaughter of the inhabitants of the city was an additional caufe of its decline and ruin. All her men of war were cut off. To punish the inhabitants for an infurrection, Darius Hyftafpes, King of Perfia, demolished the gates, reduced the height of the walls, and leffened the number of the citizens. Alexander the Great, indeed, formed the de

C

[ocr errors]

Jerem. 1. 38, &c. d Jerem. li. 42. The facred writers frequently ufe the word fea in a limited fenfe; they give it to great rivers, which, in consequence of their inundations, appear like feas. The country around Babylon which was watered by the Euphrates, is called the defert of the fea, Ifaiah xxi. 1. Jer. li. 36. The fame name is given to a lake. The Sea of Galilee is ftrictly the Lake of Galilee. Compare Matt. iv. 18. viii. 32. with John vi, 1, 18.

« PoprzedniaDalej »