opened up to Nineveh the whole of the south of Asia, and the Southern Ocean. Hence the prophet Nahum says, (iii. 16,) that Nineveh had more merchants than there are stars in the sky.' And, as Michaelis remarks, (in loco,) the commercial intercourse between Eastern and Western Asia must have almost entirely been carried on by way of Nineveh, inasmuch as there were the bridges over the Tigris, a river which, at few other points, admitted of their convenient erection. But, as is the case in all large and wealthy cities, there reigned here the greatest corruption of morals, on account of which the Hebrew prophets Nahum (iii. 1, et seq.) and Zephaniah (ii. 13-15,) foretold its destruction (comp. Tobit xiv. 13.) This was hastened by the effeminacy and licentiousness of the Assyrian monarchs, who were unable to withstand the attacks of the victorious Medes. Cyaxares, king of Media, and Nabopolassar, viceroy of Babylon, having formed an alliance, took and destroyed Nineveh in the year before Christ, 597."

Like Babylon, Nineveh was employed by God as an instrument to chastise his people for their sins. Shalmanaser, one of its kings, after having reduced Samaria, the capital of the kingdom of Israel, carried away its inhabitants, and located them in distant provinces in his empire; and thus extinguished the kingdom of Israel, after it had existed separately from Judah about two hundred and fifty years. (2 Kings xvii.) Sennacherib, another of its kings, reduced to subjection Jerusalem, the capital of the kingdom of Judah, exhausted all its treasures, and grievously oppressed its inhabitants. (2 Kings xviii.) Esarhaddon, another of its kings, having possessed himself of the land of Israel, sent some of his generals with part of his army, into Judea, to reduce that country likewise to subjection to him. They defeated Manasseh, took him prisoner, and carried him with them to Babylon. This will account for the

prominence of Nineveh in the prophecies of Holy Writ.

The next of Nimrod's Assyrian cities is REHOBOTH. This is called emphatically "the city Rehoboth." The word Rehoboth in Hebrew signifies streets, and to mark it as a proper name, in distinction from an appellative, Moses annexes to it the word city. By this name, there are no traces of this city in these parts. Ptolemy makes mention of a city here by the name of Birtha, and as Birtha in the Chaldee signifies the same thing as Rehoboth does in the Hebrew, it is thought that Birtha and Rehoboth are but two different names of the same city.—It is supposed, too, that this Birtha, mentioned by Ptolemy, is the same as Virta, mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus; and this city lay on the Tigris, not far from the mouth of the Lycus.

The next city in order is CALAH, or, more properly, Chalah. Strabo informs us that the name of the country about the head of the river Lycus, was formerly Calachene-might it not be so called from Calah, its capital city? "But according to the opinion of some learned men," observes Rosenmüller,† " Calach is not different from Chalach, whither Salmanassar, king of Assyria, transplanted a colony of the Israelites, 2 Kings xvii. 6; xviii. 11. The name Chalach is given among the Syrians to a town which is likewise called by them Chulon, and, by the Arabs, Cholwan, or Holwan. By the Arabian geographers, it is described as the most north-easterly city of Arabian or Babylonian Irak, in the direction of Persia, at the foot of the mountain ridge which at present separates the Turkish from the Persian territory. This place would have been one of the most southerly of ancient Assyria, whereas the Calachene of the ancients was one of the northern

* Lib. ii. c. 4, 8, 12, 13. † Biblical Cabinet, No. 17.

most provinces of that empire. We therefore take Calach and Chalach to be two different places, the former of which gave name to the province of Calachene, but the latter is Holwan, which still retains its ancient name among the Syrians.”

It was

The last mentioned of the Assyrian cities of Nimrod is RESEN. This is thought by Bochart to be the same city as is mentioned by Xenophon, in the Anabasis, under the name of Larissa. As they moved eastward up the Tigris, they found, several miles north of the Lycus, a deserted city called Larissa, which had formerly been in the possession of the Medes. two parasangs in circuit, but nothing remained of it but the strong wall, a hundred feet high, and consisted of brick. The situation of this town, Rosenmüller remarks, would correspond pretty exactly with the position of Resen, as described by Moses: only there is too little similarity in the names to warrant us in certainly identifying them as the same place. Bochart,* however, shows that the difference between the names Resen and Larissa, or the change of the former to the latter, is not so great, as, at first sight, it would appear. Larissa, he observes, is a Greek name, and several cities in Greece were called by it; there was also another city of the same name in Syria, which, according to Stephanus, the Syrians themselves called Sizara. But there were no Greek cities in Assyria in the days of Xenophon, i. e. before Alexander the Great; and consequently no Larissa: it is likely therefore that the Greek asking, what city those were the ruins of, the Assyrians might answer-" Laresen," i. e. of Resen; which word Xenophon expressed by Larissa-a like name of several Greek cities. Bochart also adduces some examples of the le, the sign of the genitive or dative case, prefixed to proper names in Hebrew, being

*Phaleg. lib. iv. c. 23.

incorporated with the name itself in a translation: as, 1 Chron, v. 26, where which should be rendered "in Chalach," and in our version is rendered "unto Halah," is in the Vulgate rendered "in Lachlach.”— Moreover, the character of Larissa as given by Xenophon, accords with that given of Resen by Moses. Xenophon informs us that Larissa was a strong and great city, although in ruins, being no less than two parasangs, or about eight miles, in compass ;* and Moses informs us that Resen was 66 a great city."

Such is, or rather was, the kingdom of Nimrod; for of the eight cities which it comprehended, some of which attained a degree of magnitude and splendour that has not been surpassed, perhaps not equalled, by any other, the site only of one can be ascertained with certainty; and that merely by its stupendous ruins! So fleeting is human glory!

But in the extinction of the kingdom of Nimrod, we see not only the ravages of time, but the retributive justice of God. This is especially evident in Nineveh and Babylon, which, in the desolations to which they were subject, merely received the measure which they had meted out to other nations. Babylon especially was the hammer of the whole earth, and lo! it is cut asunder! It is become a desolation among the nations!

*Anabas. lib. iii. p. 226, Edit. quar. Cant. 1785.

LECTURE VII.

COUNTRIES CONNECTED WITH THE POSSESSION OF CANAAN.

SCENE OF THE PROMISE OF CANAAN.-NURSERY FOR CANAAN.

In the possession of Canaan by the Israelites, divine purposes of the greatest magnitude were involved. Satan had possessed himself of unrestricted dominion on earth. By a universal system of idolatry, he had planted his throne between the human worshipper and the divine Being, and thus appropriated to himself the adoration which belonged solely to God. Now, that the earth might not quite forget the right of its Creator in it, this particular people were to be located in that particular spot, and the temple of Jehovah set up, and his worship maintained, in the midst of them. Pur. poses thus important being involved in it, God effected this possession in a most signal manner so that the pious Israelites could, in after ages, sing,-" We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, what work thou didst in their days, in the times of old, how thou didst drive out the heathen with thy hand, and plantedst them; how thou didst afflict the people, and cast them out. For they got not the land in pos session by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them: but thy right hand, and thine arm, and the