the tribes were carried into a second bondage: and what is remarkable, many of them went to another land of Goshen; but not like that of old: to another city Avaris; and in succession to the same people, to whom their fathers had succeeded in Egypt, even the Cuseans. Their captivity was I attended with this cruel circumstance, that they went now to a wild and uncultivated country: and had the mortification to see the people, who had quitted it, occupy the pleasant fields of Israel. 35 The king of Assyria brought men from Ba"bylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and "from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed "them in the cities of Samaria :-and they pos"sessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof." Here was every additional circumstance, to aggravate their misfortune, and embitter their servitude: to bring to their memory continually what they had been, and what they now were: to point out visibly the finger of God in the peculiar sufferings of such a reprobate people: and at the same time to alarm the remaining tribes; that they might take warning at the sight of such particular judgments, and recollect themselves in good time.

Thus have I endeavoured to clear up some parts of antient history, particularly that which relates to the land of Goshen, and the Shepherd Kings: a

35 2 Kings 17. v. 24.

work of some consequence, if rightly conducted; but attended with no small difficulty, and requiring uncommon attention. Were a person to meet with the remains of an antient tessellated pavement, shattered into a thousand pieces, and to endeavour to reduce it to order; his labour would be similar to that of rectifying the chronology, and history of Egypt. The latter task is accompanied with this additional trouble; that, as many have been from time to time tampering with this work, the materials, originally ill-placed, have been ten times more confounded; and many of them rejected and abolished by persons, who could not adapt them to their particular system.

ADDITIONAL REMARKS.

OF

BELUS, NINUS, ARIUS,

AND SOME OF THE

SUPPOSED KINGS OF BABYLONIA.

I MENTIONED, that the Assyrians had regained Babylon at the time that the shepherds were in Egypt. Conformable to what I have been saying is the evidence of Africanus; who not only tells us, that the Assyrians had got possession of it; but specifies, that they took it from the Arabians: which Arabians, we know, were the sons of Chus, as has been before shewn. Tn Twv Agaßwv βασιλειαν την μετα την Χαλδαίων διεδέξαντο Ασσυρίων βα σιλείς. One of the first of these Assyrian kings

VOL. VI.

Euseb. Chron. Aoy. Пgwr. pag. 18.

S