[911] How far the prophecy was fulfilled we do not know. Assyrian and Egyptian fragments of record show that in the thirty-seventh year of his reign Nebuchadrezzar invaded Egypt and advanced to Syene (Ezek. xxix. 10).
[912] 2 Macc. ii. 1-8; comp. xv. 13-16. The tradition is singular when we recall the small store which Jeremiah set by the Ark (Jer. iii. 16).
[913] Evil-Merodach (Avil-Marduk, "Man of Merodach") only reigned two years, and was then murdered by his brother-in-law Neriglissar (Berosus ap. Jos.: comp. Ap., i. 20). The Rabbis have a story—perhaps founded on that of Gaius and Agrippa I.—that Evil-Merodach had been imprisoned by his father for wishing his death, and in prison formed a friendship for Jehoiachin.
[914] "Lifted up his head." Comp. Gen. xl. 13, 20.
[915] To be thus ὁμοτράπεζος, or σύσσιτος, of the king was a high honour (Herod., iii. 13, v. 24. Comp. Judg. i. 7; 2 Sam. ix. 13, etc.).
[916] T. Hodgkin, Friends' Quarterly, September 1893, p. 401.
[917] Jer. xxix. 25-27.
[918] Up to the time of Tiglath-Pileser II., the Eponym Year (which is not here given) marks the second complete year of each king's reign.
[919] This Shalmaneser died about b.c. 825, after a reign of thirty-five years (Sayce in Records of the Past, v. 27-42; Oppert, Hist. des Empires de Chaldée et d'Assyrie; Ménant, Annales des Rois d'Assyrie, 1874).
[920] Many of these dates can only be regarded as uncertain and approximate. Kamphausen dates the commencement of all the latter kings a year later (Die Chronologie der hebräischen Könige, Bonn, 1883).