The date of the final fall and destruction of Nineveh is not certain, and much depends on the interpretation given to the words "the king of Assyria" in 2 Kings xxiii. 29. If, as is usually supposed, these really signify the king of Babylon, who had succeeded to the power of Assyria, we may place the fall of the Assyrian capital in B.C. 610; otherwise the date must be as late as B.C. 606. It cannot be later, since, when Jeremiah reviews in this year the existing nations of the east (xxv. 19-26), he says not a word about either Nineveh or Assyria. The vengeance the prophets had predicted for the Assyrians had already fallen upon them. What it was to be like we may gather from the language of Nahum.
The last king of Assyria was Esar-haddon II, called Sarakos by the Greek writers. He has left us a few records, which were written when his enemies were gathering about him, and when his people were vainly calling upon their gods for help. The Medes, the Minni, the Kimmerians or Gomer, had all banded themselves together, and were steadily approaching Nineveh. The frontier cities had been stormed, and the enemy was spreading like an inundation over the whole country. In their despair the Assyrian rulers ordained a solemn fast of 100 days and 100 nights, and besought the Sun-god to pardon their sin. But all was in vain. The measure of the iniquities of Assyria was filled up; the time had come when the desolater should himself be desolate, and Nineveh, as God's prophets had threatened, was laid utterly waste.(11)
_Rise of the Babylonian empire.--Media.--Pharaoh-Necho.--The battle of Carchemish.--Nebuchadrezzar ascends the throne.--The splendour of Babylon.--No monuments yet discovered recording Nebuchadrezzar's Jewish and Syrian campaigns.--Evil-Merodach.--Clay documents recently discovered in Babylonia.--New light thrown on the empire of Cyrus.--The cylinder of Cyrus.--Cyrus not a monotheist.--The Babylonian King of Isaiah xiv.--Cyrus not a King of Persia at all.--Babylon not besieged by Cyrus.--How Cyrus came to let the Jews return.--Correspondence between the language of Cyrus and of Scripture.--__"__The god who raises the dead to life.__"__--Prayer after a bad dream.--Babylonian penitential psalms.--A translation of one of them.--Chronological table of the events of the chapter._