[40] Abydenus (apud Euseb., Chron., I. 9) reports a marriage between Nebuchadrezzar, Nabopolassar’s son, and the daughter of the Median king.
[41] 2 Kings xxiii. 29. The history is here very obscure. Necho, met at Megiddo by Josiah, and having slain him, appears to have spent a year or two in subjugating, and arranging for the government of, Syria (ibid., verses 33–35), and only reached the Euphrates in 605, when Nebuchadrezzar defeated him.
[42] The reverse view is taken by Wellhausen, who says (Israel u. Jüd. Gesch., pp. 97 f.): “Der Pharaoh scheint ausgezogen zu sein um sich seinen Teil an der Erbschaft Ninives vorwegzunehmen, während die Meder und Chaldäer die Stadt belagerten.”
[43] See above, p. 20, n. [37].
[44] I. 106.
[45] A stele of Nabonidus discovered at Hilleh and now in the museum at Constantinople relates that in his third year, 553, the king restored at Harran the temple of Sin, the moon-god, which the Medes had destroyed fifty-four years before, i.e. 607. Whether the Medes did this before, during or after the siege of Niniveh is uncertain, but the approximate date of the siege, 608—606, is thus marvellously confirmed. The stele affirms that the Medes alone took Niniveh, but that they were called in by Marduk, the Babylonian god, to assist Nabopolassar and avenge the deportation of his image by Sennacherib to Niniveh. Messerschmidt (Mittheilungen der Vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft, I. 1896) argues that the Medes were summoned by the Babylonians while the latter were being sore pressed by the Assyrians. Winckler had already (Untersuch., pp. 124 ff., 1889) urged that the Babylonians would refrain from taking an active part in the overthrow of Niniveh, in fear of incurring the guilt of sacrilege. Neither Messerschmidt’s paper, nor Scheil’s (who describes the stele in the Recueil des Travaux, XVIII. 1896), being accessible to me, I have written this note on the information supplied by Rev. C. H. W. Johns, of Cambridge, in the Expository Times, 1896, and by Prof. A. B. Davidson in App. I. to Nah., Hab. and Zeph.
[46] Berosus and Abydenus in Eusebius.
[47] This spelling (Jer. xlix. 28) is nearer the original than the alternative Hebrew Nebuchadnezzar. But the LXX. Ναβουχοδονόσορ, and the Ναβουκοδρόσορος of Abydenus and Megasthenes and Ναβοκοδρόσορος of Strabo, have preserved the more correct vocalisation; for the original is Nabu-kudurri-uṣur = Nebo, defend the crown!