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ing, that were better known and described in course of history. True it is, that of Cyrus, and some other Persians, we find in the Bible the same names by which other authors have recorded them; but of Pul and Salmanassar, with other Assyrian Chaldæan kings, diversity of name hath bred question of the persons. Therefore, whereas the scriptures do speak of Salmanassar, king of Ashur, who reigned in the time of Ahaz and Hezekiah king of Judah, and Hosea king of Israel, whom he carried into captivity; and whereas Ptolemy makes mention of Nabonassar, speaking precisely of the time wherein he lived; it is very pertinent to shew, that Salmanassar and Nabonassar were one and the same man. The like reason also requireth that it be shewed of Nebuchadnezzar, that he was the same whom Ptolemy calleth Nabopolassar.

Of both these points Bucholerus hath well collected sufficient proof, from the exact calculations of sundry good mathematicians; for by them it appears, that between Nabonassar and the birth of Christ there passed seven hundred and forty-six years; at which distance of time the reign of Salmanassar was. One great proof hereof is this, which the same Bucholerus allegeth out of Erasmus Reinholdus, in the Prutenick tables. Mardocempadus king of Babylon, (whom Ptolemy, speaking of three eclipses of the moon, which were in his time, doth mention,) was the same whom the scriptures call Merodach, who sent ambassadors to Hezekiah king of Judah. So that if we reckon backwards to the difference of time between Merodach and Salmanassar, we shall find it the same which is between Mardocempadus and Nabonassar. Likewise Functius doth shew, that whereas from the destruction of Samaria to the destruction of Jerusalem, in the nineteenth of Nebuchadnezzar, we collect, out of the scriptures, the distance of one hundred and thirty-three years; the self-same distance of time is found in Ptolemy be

tween Nabonassar and Nabopolassar. For whereas Ptolemy seems to differ from this account, making Nabonassar more ancient by an hundred and forty years than the destruction of Jerusalem, we are to understand that he took Samaria in the eighth year of his reign; so that the seven foregoing years, added to these one hundred thirty-three, make the accounts of the scripture fall even with that of Ptolemy. Ptolemy's computation is, that from the first of Nabonassar to the fifth of Nabopolassar, there passed one hundred and twenty-seven years. Now, if we add to these one hundred and twenty-seven, the thirteen ensuing of Nebuchadnezzar's years, before the city and temple were destroyed, we have the sum of one hundred and forty years. In so plain a case more proofs are needless, though many are brought, of which this may serve for all; that Ptolemy placeth the first of Nabopolassar one hundred and twenty-two years after the first of Nabonassar, which agreeth exactly with the scriptures. To these notes are added the consent of all mathematicians, which, in account of times, I hold more sure than the authority of any history; and therefore I think it folly to make doubt, where historians and mathematical observations do so thoroughly concur.

. Yet forasmuch as that argument of the learned Scaliger doth rest unanswered, whereby he proved Baladan, the father of Merodach, to have been this Nabonassar, I will not spare to lose a word or two in giving the reader satisfaction herein. It is true, that the next observations of the heavenly bodies which Ptolemy recorded, after the time of Nabonassar, were in the reign of Mardocempadus; the second year of whose reign is, according to Ptolemy," concurrent in part with the twenty-seventh of Nabonassar: For the second of three ancient eclipses, which he calculates, being in the second year of Mardocempadus, was, from the beginning of Nabonassar,

♦ Ptol. Almag, l. 4. c. 8,

twenty-seven years seventeen days and eleven hours; the account from Nabonassar beginning at high noon the first day of the Egyptian month Thot, then answering to the twenty-sixth of February; and this eclipse being fifty minutes before midnight, on the eighteenth day of that month, when the first day ́ thereof agreed with the nineteenth of February; so' that the difference of time between the two kings Nabonassar and Mardocempadus, is noted by Ptolemy according to the Egyptian years. But how does this prove that Mardocempadus, or Merodach, was the son of Nabonassar? yea, how doth it prove that he was his next successor, or any way of his lineage? It was enough to satisfy me in this argument, that Scaliger himself did afterwards believe Mardocempadus to have been rather the nephew, than the son, of Baladan, or Nabonassar. For, if he might be either the nephew or the son, he might, perhaps, be' neither the one nor the other. But because our countryman, Lidyate, hath reprehended Scaliger for changing his opinion; and that both Torniellus, who follows Scaliger herein, and Sethus Calvisius, who hath drawn into form of chronology that learned work, De Emendatione Temporum, do hold up the same assertion, confounding Baladan with Nabonassar, I have taken the pains to search, as far as my leisure and diligence could reach, after any sentence that might prove the kindred or succession of these two. Yet I cannot find in the Almagest, (for the scriptures are either silent in this point or adverse to Scaliger, and other good authority I know none in this business,) any sentence more nearly proving the succession of Merodach to Nabonassar, than the place now rehearsed; which makes no more, to shew that the one of these was father to the other, than, (that I may use a like example,) the as near succession of William the Conqueror declares him to have been son or grandchild to Edward the Confessor. This considered, we may safely go on with our account

from Nabonassar, taking him for Salmanassar; and not fearing that the readers will be driven from our book, when they find something in it agreeing with Annius; forasmuch as these kings, mentioned in scripture, reigned in Babylon and Assyria in those very times which, by Diodorus and Ptolemy, are assigned to Belosus, Nabonassar, and Mardocempadus, and the rest; no good history naming any others that reigned there in those ages, and all astronomical observations fitly concurring with the years that are attributed to these, or numbered from them.

SECT. II.

Of the danger and deliverance of Judæa from Sennacherib.

WHEN Salmanassar was dead, and his son Sennacherib in possession of the empire, in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah, he demanded of him such tribute as was agreed on at such time as Tilgath, the grandfather of Sennacherib, and father of Salmanassar, invited by Ahaz, invaded Rezin king of Damascus, and delivered him from the dangerous war which Israel had undertaken against him. This tribute and acknowledgment, when Hezekiah denied, Sennacherib having, (as it seems,) a purpose to invade Egypt, sent one part of his army to lie before Jerusalem. Now, though Hezekiah, (fearing this powerful prince,) had acknowledged his fault, and purchased his peace, as he hoped, with thirty hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold, wherewith he presented Sennacherib, now set down before Lachis, in Judæa; yet, under the colour of better assurance, and to force the king' of Judah to deliver hostages, the Assyrian environed Jerusalem with a gross army, and, having his sword in his hand, thought it the fittest time to write his own conditions.

Hezekiah directed his three greatest counsellors 2 2 Kings xviii. 21,

to parley with Rabshakeh over the wall, and to receive his demands; who used three principal arguments to persuade the people to yield themselves to his master Sennacherib. For though the chancellor, steward, and secretary, sent by Hezekiah, desired Rabshakeh to speak unto them in the Syrian tongue, and not in the Jewish, yet he, with a more loud voice, directed his speech to the multitude in their own language: And, for the first, he made them know, that if they continued obstinate, and adhered to their king, that they would, in a short time, be enforced to eat their own dung, and drink their own urine; secondly, he altogether disabled the king of Egypt, from whom the Judæans hoped for succour, and compared him to a broken staff, on which whosoever leaneth pierceth his own hand; thirdly, that the gods, who should help them, Hezekiah had formerly broken and defaced, meaning chiefly, (as it is thought by some,) the brazen serpent, which had been preserved ever since Moses's time; and withal he bade them remember the gods of other nations, whom, notwithstanding any power of theirs, his master had conquered and thrown down, and for God himself, in whom they trusted, he persuaded them by no means to rely on him, for he would deceive them. But finding the people silent, (for so the king had commanded them,) after a while, when he had understood that the king of Arabia was marching on with a powerful army, he himself left the Assyrian forces in charge to others, and sought Sennacherib at Lebnah, in Judæa, either to inform him of their resolution in Jerusalem, or to confer with him concerning the army of Tirhakah, the Arabian. Soon upon this, there came letters from Sennacherib to Hezekiah, whom he partly advised, and partly threatened, to submit himself, using the same blasphemous outrage against the all-powerful God as before. But Hezekiah sending those counsellors to the prophet

2 2 Kings xviii. 21.

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