21.

Nineveh.

greatness; the walls of it being an hundred feet CHAP. V. high, and so broad that three carts might go abreast on the top thereof; and along these walls there were fifteen hundred turrets, each of them The two hundred feet high. So strong, that it was strength of thought to have been impregnable, and that something perhaps in respect to an old prediction concerning it; which signified, that the town should never be taken, till the river became an enemy to it. A prediction, which induced Sardanapalus to make it the seat of his war against Belochus and Arbaces, then in arms against him; who having besieged it three years without success, at last the river overflowing, carried before it twenty furlongs of the wall. Which accident so terrified the effeminate king Sardanapalus, that he burnt himself in the midst of his treasures, and so left the town to the besiegers. Destruction being threatened to this city by the preaching of Jonas, it escaped then upon repentance. But the people going on in their wicked courses, it was destroyed by Astyages king of the Medes, that it might no longer be an encouragement to the Assyrians to rebel against him, as formerly against some of his predecessors. Upon and as it were out of the ruins hereof is supposed another city to have arisen, at no great distance from the situation of the former, and called by the same name, as has been before observed, and which was the Nineveh that was standing in the time of Amm. Marcellinus and Paulus Diaconus, and that on the east of the river Lycus, whereas old Nineveh was on the west. And thus much for Nineveh.

Rehoboth.

Proceed we now to the other cities, which Nim- 22. rod built in these parts, as well as Nineveh; and Of the city these having suffered much the same fate with Nineveh, nothing can be produced concerning them, that will amount to more than conjecture. The city mentioned by Moses next to Nineveh is Rehoboth, which word, because in the Hebrew tongue it denotes also streets, hence the sacred Historian seems to have added the word city; to

PART I. shew, that it was here to be taken as a proper name. Now there being no footsteps of the name itself in these parts, but there being here a city or town called Birtha by Ptolemy, and the said name denoting in the Chaldee tongue the same as Rehoboth does in the Hebrew, in an appellative or common acceptation; hence it is probably conjectured, that Rehoboth and Birtha are only two different names of one and the same city. And it is not to be doubted, but the Birtha mentioned by Ptolemy is the same which Ammianus Marcellinus calls Virta. It was seated on the Tigris, about the mouth of the river Lycus.

23. Another Rehoboth

mentioned,

37.

There is mention made, Gen. xxxvi. 37. of a city Rehoboth, where Saul a king of Edom was. born. But this is thought to be the Rehoboth that lay on Gen. xxxvi. the Euphrates; whence Bochart tells us, that it is to this day distinguished among the Arabs by the name of Rahabath-melic, i. e. Rehoboth-regis; as in Norfolk there is a town called for distinction sake Lynn-regis. But whether this Rehoboth on the Euphrates was the birth-place of Saul the Idumean king, or no; it is in a manner certain, that it was at too great a distance from Assyria, properly so called, to be built by Nimrod, together with Nineveh, and the other two that follow, viz. Calah, and Resen.

24.

Calab.

As for Calah and Calach, since we find in Strabo Of the city a country about the head of the river Lycus, called Calachene, it is very probable, that the said country took this name from Calach, which was once the capital city of it. Ptolemy also mentions a country, called Calacine, in these parts. And whereas Pliny mentions a people called Classitæ, through whose country the Lycus runs, it is likely that Classitæ is a corruption for Calachite. To this city and country it was, in all probability, that Salmanassar transplanted some of the ten tribes of Israel, as we read 2 Kings xvii. 6. For though the word be there somewhat differently spelt, yet the said two letters, wherein the difference lies, frequently used one for the other; and what is in

are

this last place written in our Bible Halah, may be CHAP. V. written agreeably to the Hebrew Chalah or Chalach, and so little differing from Calah or Calach.

ras.

We are come now to the last city mentioned by Moses, as built by Nimrod; the name whereof was Resen. There were two cities in Mesopotamia of somewhat like names, one being called Rhisina, between Edessa and mount Masius; the other, Rhesena, between the rivers Chaboras and SaocoBut the situation of neither of these agreeing to the description of Resen given by Moses, therefore learned persons have been induced to look on a city mentioned by Xenophon under the name of Larissa, to be the same with Resen built by Nimrod, and that for these three considerations. 1st. That the situation of this Larissa lying on the Tigris well enough agrees with the situation of Resen, as described by Moses, who tells us, that it was built between Nineveh and Calah, Gen. x. 12. Moreover, 2dly, Moses observes in the same text, that Resen was a great city. And so Xenophon tells us, that Larissa was a strong and great, but then ruinated city, being two parasangs, i. e. eight miles in compass; and its walls an hundred feet high, and twenty-five feet broad. 3dly, and lastly, Larissa was a Greek name; whence we find a city so called in Thessaly, and said to be the birth-place of Achilles. There was also another city of the same name in Syria, which the Syrians themselves called Sizara, as Stephanus observes. But now 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 Greeks asking, what city those were the ruins of, the Assyrians might answer, Laresen, i. e. of Resen; which word Xenophon expressed by Larissa, a somewhat like name of several Greek cities. And thus much for the kingdom of Nimrod.

25.

Of the city

Resen.

PART I.

1.

The series

of the sa

CHAPTER VI.

Of Chaldea, Ur of the Chaldees, and Haran.

THE sacred Historian having given us an account of the attempt to build the tower of Babel, of the confusion of tongues, and dispersion of mankind cred history continued. ensuing thereupon, and also of the kingdom erected by Nimrod; he then hastens to the history of Abraham, giving us a genealogical account of his descent from Shem, Gen. xi. 10—26. After which he informs us, that Terah the father of Abraham, taking this his son with him, and Lot his grandson by Haran, and Sarah Abraham's wife, left Ur of the Chaldees, for to go into Canaan; and that being come unto Haran, they dwelt there. We are then to shew the situation of these two places, Ur of the Chaldees and Haran. And in order to discover the situation of the former, it is requisite to premise something of the country of the Chaldees, or Chaldea.

2.

dees or

It is certain, then, that by the name of Chaldea The land of in after-ages was denoted the country lying between the Chal Mesopotamia to the north, Susiana to the east, the Chaldea,. Persian Bay to the south, and Arabia Deserta to whence so the west. Its capital city was Babylonia, hence called; and called by Isaiah the prophet, the beauty of the Chalin what ex- dees' excellency. From this its capital city, the whole

tent com

monly taken.

country of Chaldea came to be denoted by the name of Babylonia; and so these two words to be frequently used promiscuously: though some writers make a distinction between them, but not the same. For some make Chaldea in a restrained sense to be a province of Babylonia; others make Babylonia a province of Chaldea, namely, that part which lay about the city of Babylon. That Babylon was so called by the Greeks, from its Hebrew