Megasthenes or Abydenus, was no relation of Nebuchadnezzar's whatever. We may take it for granted then, that Belshazzar was one of the former; either Evil-merodach, Neriglissar, or Laborosoarchod: but that he was not Nabonadius.

Secondly, according to Berosus, the reign of Laborosoarchod was a reign of only nine months; and Berosus is confirmed by the canon, which omits this reign altogether because it was less than a year. This is sufficient to prove that Belshazzar was not Laborosoarchod for the reign of Belshazzar extended into his third year at least a.

Thirdly, according to Berosus, and our other authorities, Evil-merodach himself was assassinated by Neriglissar-but Neriglissar, so far as appears to the contrary, died a natural death. Now, Dan. v. 30, Belshazzar also was certainly assassinated: whence he might be Evil-merodach, but he could not be Neriglissar.

Besides which, Dan. v. 2. 11. 13. 18. 22, Belshazzar is so called the son of Nebuchadnezzar, as seems to leave no doubt that he was truly and properly such: and this also is true of Evil-merodach, but neither of Laborosoarchod nor of Neriglissar.

The Book of Baruch, which some commentators consider authentic, and which, even if apocryphal, is nevertheless of great antiquity; speaks of Balthasar, or Belshazzar, as standing in no other relation; and as born before the fifth of Jehoiachin's captivity itself: a supposition which we shall see hereafter is by no means improbable. ch. i. 2. 11, 12.

The captivity of the Jews was still a recent event at the very time of his death : which also might be true of Evil-merodach.

The reign of Evil-merodach, according to the canon

z Eusebius, Præparatio Evangelica, ix. cap. 41. 457. B. Chronicon ArmenoLatinum, Pars i. 60. a Dan. vii. 1. viii. I. b v. 13.

of Ptolemy, must have lasted for two years complete, at least; and it has been seen from Dan. vii. 1. viii. 1. that the reign of Belshazzar extended into his third year; but there is no proof that it extended beyond it. The death of Belshazzar took place in the very midst of a festive celebrity: and that is just such a death as might be the natural effect of a conspiracy against his life, formed and executed by a confidential person, like Neriglissar, his sister's husband.

These reasons appear to me almost demonstrative that Belshazzar was really Evil-merodach: between whose death, and the capture of Babylon by the Medes and Persians, there were consequently three intermediate reigns, Neriglissar's, Laborosoarchod's, and Nabonadius's. What, then, shall we say to the testimony of Daniel, v. 30, 31, which tells us that Darius the Mede took the kingdom, in the very next verse to that which mentions the death of Belshazzar? My answer is, though it is a truth which has been overlooked by chronologers and commentators, that Dan. v. 30, 31, affirms no connection between the death of Belshazzar and the accession of Darius-that they were not of necessity consecutive events—and that it may be proved from Daniel himself, that there was in reality a twentyone years' interval between them.

I ground this assertion on Daniel x. 13: But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days. It seems to me clear from xi. 1. ix. 1, that these twenty-one days of opposition expired in the first of Darius: and from ix. 21. viii. 1, 2. 16, 17, that they began in the third of Belshazzar: and that they are figuratively intended for the interval which, notwithstanding the death of Belshazzar in the third year of his reign, and the declaration, that his king

dom was divided and given to the Medes and Persians, which immediately preceded his death, was yet to be interposed before the accession of the first Medo-Persian monarch.

There can be no question that the word of prophecy had coupled the deliverance of the Jews with the dissolution of the Babylonian monarchy, and the commencement of the Medo-Persian: and this connection is very plainly implied by Daniel ix. 1, 2. It is equally indisputable that, in resentment of the profane impiety of Belshazzar, evinced at his feast, this dissolution was predicted on the very night of his death. The very night of his death then seemed to be fixed as the point of time whence the deliverance of the Jews was to begin. But there was to be in reality a certain intermediate interval; which, being so far a delay of the downfall of the Babylonian monarchy, was so far a delay of the promised deliverance of the Jews. This delay is ascribed to the opposition of a Power adverse to the counsels of God, and interested in opposing the liberation of the Jews: which Power is called the Prince of the kingdom of Persia. This Prince of the kingdom of Persia is clearly described as a real being and a personal agent, who must consequently be capable of a real agency and a personal part of some kind or other; and whatever opinion we may form of the nature of the agent himself, the part ascribed to him is plainly implied to be adverse to the counsels of God for the good of his people in particular. The Prince of Grecia is similarly alluded to at x. 20 and as Persia or Grecia is thus supposed to have its peculiar Prince, so are the Jews described as having theirs' in the person of Michael, x. 13. 21. xii. 1: and as the former are supposed to thwart or resist the dispensations of Providence in behalf of the Jews,

so is the latter supposed to promote or to favour them.

I know not what other meaning but this can be attached to the words in question. As to supposing that the twenty-one days relate to the interval between the commencement of the rebuilding of the temple, B.C. 535, and its completion even B. C. 515, this was an interval of twenty prophetical days only, not of twentyone; and though it had been one of twenty-one, it would not have been an interval of opposition, for all that length of time, on the part of the Persians, but upon the whole, of assistance and encouragement. The progress of the work might be suspended during the reign of Cambyses; but that could be only for seven or eight years in all the remaining thirteen, instead of years of opposition, were years of protection and support.

On the other hand, it is a remarkable coincidence, and abundantly sufficient to confirm our interpretation of the text, that, according to the canon of Ptolemy, the united reigns of Nebuchadnezzar and Evil-merodach, fortyfive years in all, beginning B. C. 604, expired B. C. 559 and the united reigns of Neriglissar and Nabonadius, exactly twenty-one years together, beginning B. C. 559, expired B. C. 538, in the very year which the canon ascribes to the first of Cyrus: but which is truly to be understood of the first of Darius. For the canon ascribes nine years to Cyrus, dated from the close of the Babylonian dynasty; whereas the true length of his reign was seven: a difference easily accounted for, if Darius reigned two years independent of Cyrus, which are nevertheless reckoned into his reign *. The testimony of Daniel is implicitly in

*Eusebius (Chronicon Armeno-Latinum, Pars i. 44, 45) gives the lengths of these several reigns,

beginning with that of Nabopolassar, or as he calls him, Sardanapallus, down to Cyrus, from Ale

favour of this supposition; for he mentions nowhere any more than the first year of Darius; though he mentions the first and the third of Cyrus e—and as Darius was sixty-two years old when he came to the throne, it is manifestly possible that he might die at the end of his second year; when he would be sixtythree or sixty-four*.

In support of the same interpretation we may further reason as follows:

I. The feast, at which Belshazzar was slain, was manifestly in the midst of peacef. This might be the case B. C. 559, but could not B. C. 538. And though it may be true, as Herodotus attests 5, that the city was surprised by the Persians while some public celebrity was going on, (which was most probably the festival called Sacea; celebrated, according to Berosus and perhaps to Ctesias, for five days, from the sixteenth to the twentieth of the month Lous,) yet there is nothing in the whole of Jeremiah 1. and li. though devoted almost exclusively to this topic of the capture of Babylon, which authorizes the inference that it would be taken under such circumstances as these of Belshazzar's feast.

h

II. The queen-mother, or wife of Nebuchadnezzar, was still living, and the second ruler in the kingdom. This also might be true, B. C. 559, only two years after the death of her husband; but it is highly im

xander Polyhistor after Berosus -all agreeably to our statements; excepting that, relating to the reign of Evil-merodach, to which he assigns twelve years instead of three: and even this may be explained, if Evil-mero

e ix. 1. xi. I. i. 21. x. I. h Athenæus, xiv. 44.

dach was regent, during his father's illness, seven years, became sole king two years after, and died in his third year.

*For some further observations on Daniel x. 13, see the next Dissertation.

f Dan. v. 1-4. 23. 30. i Dan. v. 7. 10, 11. 16. 29.

8 i. 191.