The priests bear rule at their hand,
And My people—they love so to have it;
But what will ye do in the end?
6. In the Sixth Song on the Scythians, VI. 1-5, which also is given without introduction, Jerusalem is threatened—even Jerusalem to which in the previous songs the country-folk had been bidden to fly for shelter—and the foes are described in the attempt to rush her, as they rushed Askalon according to Herodotus. That they are represented as faltering and no success is predicted for them, and also that they are called shepherds, are signs that it is the Scythians, though still nameless, who are meant in verses 3-5. The next three verses, separately introduced, point rather to [pg 126] a Chaldean invasion by their picture of besiegers throwing up a mound against the walls, and may therefore be one of the additions to his earlier Oracles made by the Prophet, when in 604 the enemy from the North was clearly seen to be Nebuchadrezzar, with the siege-trains familiar to us from the Assyrian and Babylonian monuments; upon which are represented just such a hewing of timber and heaping of mounds against a city's walls.
Pack off, O Benjamin's sons, VI. 1
Out of Jerusalem!
Strike up the trump in Tekoa,[239]
O'er Beth-hakkérem lift up the signal!
For evil glowers out of the North,
And ruin immense.