מקם
signifies when applied to men, as in Amos v. 2. 1 Sam. xii. 11. Psal. cxiii. 7. Jer. x. 20. l. 32. Hab. i. 6. Zech. xi. 16. As Amos names not the Assyrians; at the writing of this prophecy they made no great figure in the world, but were to be raised up against Israel, and by consequence rose up in the days of Pul and his successors: for after Jeroboam had conquered Damascus and Hamath, his successor Menahem destroyed Tiphsah with its territories upon Euphrates, because they opened not to him: and therefore Israel continued in its greatness 'till Pul, probably grown formidable by some victories, caused Menahem to buy his peace. Pul therefore Reigning presently after the prophesy of Amos, and being the first upon record who began to fulfill it, may be justly reckoned the first conqueror and founder of this Empire. For God stirred up the spirit of Pul, and the spirit of Tiglath-pileser King of Assyria, 1 Chron. v. 20.
The same Prophet Amos, in prophesying against Israel, threatned them in this manner, with what had lately befallen other Kingdoms: Pass ye, [[346]] saith he, unto Calneh and see, and from thence go ye to Hamath the great, then go down to Gath of the Philistims. Be they better than these Kingdoms? These Kingdoms were not yet conquered by the Assyrians, except that of Calneh or Chalonitis upon Tigris, between Babylon and Nineveh. Gath was newly vanquished [[347]] by Uzziah King of Judah, and Hamath [[348]] by Jeroboam King of Israel: and while the Prophet, in threatning Israel with the Assyrians, instances in desolations made by other nations, and mentions no other conquest of the Assyrians than that of Chalonitis near Nineveh; it argues that the King of Nineveh was now beginning his conquests, and had not yet made any great progress in that vast career of victories, which we read of a few years after.
For about seven years after the captivity of the ten Tribes, when Sennacherib warred in Syria, which was in the 16th Olympiad, he [[349]] sent this message to the King of Judah: Behold, thou hast heard that the Kings of Assyria have done to all Lands by destroying them utterly, and shalt thou be delivered? Have the Gods of the nations delivered them which the Gods of my fathers have destroyed, as Gozan and Haran and Reseph, and the children of Eden which were in [the Kingdom of] Thelasar? Where is the King of Hamath, and the King of Arpad, and the King of the city of Sepharvaim, and of Hena and Ivah? And Isaiah [[350]] thus introduceth the King of Assyria boasting: Are not my Princes altogether as Kings? Is not Calno [or Calneh] as Carchemish? Is not Hamath as Arpad? Is not Samaria as Damascus? As my hand hath found the Kingdoms of the Idols, and whose graven Images did excel them of Jerusalem and of Samaria; shall I not as I have done unto Samaria and her Idols, so do to Jerusalem and her Idols? All this desolation is recited as fresh in memory to terrify the Jews, and these Kingdoms reach to the borders of Assyria, and to shew the largeness of the conquests they are called all lands, that is, all round about Assyria. It was the custom of the Kings of Assyria, for preventing the rebellion of people newly conquered, to captivate and transplant those of several countries into one another's lands, and intermix them variously: and thence it appears [[351]] that Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and Gozan, and the cities of the Medes into which Galilee and Samaria were transplanted; and Kir into which Damascus was transplanted; and Babylon and Cuth or the Susanchites, and Hamath, and Ava, and Sepharvaim, and the Dinaites, and the Apharsachites, and the Tarpelites, and the Archevites, and the Dehavites, and the Elamites, or Persians, part of all which nations were led captive by Asserhadon and his predecessors into Samaria; were all of them conquered by the Assyrians not long before.
In these conquests are involved on the west and south side of Assyria, the Kingdoms of Mesopotamia, whose royal seats were Haran or Carrhæ, and Carchemish or Circutium, and Sepharvaim, a city upon Euphrates, between Babylon and Nineveh, called Sipparæ by Berosus, Abydenus, and Polyhistor, and Sipphara by Ptolomy; and the Kingdoms of Syria seated at Samaria, Damascus, Gath, Hamath, Arpad, and Reseph, a city placed by Ptolomy near Thapsacus: on the south side and south east side were Babylon and Calneh, or Calno, a city which was founded by Nimrod, where Bagdad now stands, and gave the name of Chalonitis to a large region under its government; and Thelasar or Talatha, a city of the children of Eden, placed by Ptolomy in Babylonia, upon the common stream of Tigris and Euphrates, which was therefore the river of Paradise; and the Archevites at Areca or Erech, a city built by Nimrod on the east side of Pasitigris, between Apamia and the Persian Gulph; and the Susanchites at Cuth, or Susa, the metropolis of Susiana: on the east were Elymais, and some cities of the Medes, and Kir, [[352]] a city and large region of Media, between Elymais, and Assyria, called Kirene by the Chaldee Paraphrast and Latin Interpreter, and Carine by Ptolomy: on the north-east were Habor or Chaboras, a mountainous region between Assyria and Media; and the Apharsachites, or men of Arrapachitis, a region originally peopled by Arphaxad, and placed by Ptolomy at the bottom of the mountains next Assyria: and on the north between Assyria and the Gordiæan mountains was Halah or Chalach, the metropolis of Calachene: and beyond these upon the Caspian sea was Gozan, called Gauzania by Ptolomy. Thus did these new conquests extend every way from the province of Assyria to considerable distances, and make up the great body of that Monarchy: so that well might the King of Assyria boast how his armies had destroyed all lands. All these nations [[353]] had 'till now their several Gods, and each accounted his God the God of his own land, and the defender thereof, against the Gods of the neighbouring countries, and particularly against the Gods of Assyria; and therefore they were never 'till now united under the Assyrian Monarchy, especially since the King of Assyria doth not boast of their being conquered by the Assyrians oftner than once: but these being small Kingdoms the King of Assyria easily overflowed them: Know ye not, saith [[354]] Sennacherib to the Jews, what I and my fathers have done unto all the People of other lands?—for no God of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people out of mine hand, and out of the hand of my fathers: how much less shall your God deliver you out of mine hand? He and his fathers therefore, Pul, Tiglath-pileser, and Shalmaneser, were great conquerors, and with a current of victories had newly overflowed all nations round about Assyria, and thereby set up this Monarchy.
Between the Reigns of Jeroboam II, and his son Zachariah, there was an interregnum of about ten or twelve years in the Kingdom of Israel: and the prophet Hosea [[355]] in the time of that interregnum, or soon after, mentions the King of Assyria by the name of Jareb, and another conqueror by the name of Shalman; and perhaps Shalman might be the first part of the name of Shalmaneser, and Iareb, or Irib, for it may be read both ways, the last part of the name of his successor Sennacherib: but whoever these Princes were, it appears not that they Reigned before Shalmaneser. Pul, or Belus, seems to be the first who carried on his conquests beyond the province of Assyria: he conquered Calneh with its territories in the Reign of Jerboam, Amos i. 1. vi. 2. & Isa. x. 8, 9. and invaded Israel in the Reign of Menahem, 2 King. xv. 19. but stayed not in the land, being bought off by Menahem for a thousand talents of silver: in his Reign therefore the Kingdom of Assyria was advanced on this side Tigris: for he was a great warrior, and seems to have conquered Haran, and Carchemish, and Reseph, and Calneh, and Thelasar, and might found or enlarge the city of Babylon, and build the old palace.
Herodotus tells us, that one of the gates of Babylon was [[356]] called the gate of Semiramis, and than she adorned the walls of the city, and the Temple of Belus, and that she [[357]] was five Generations older than Nitocris the mother of Labynitus, or Nabonnedus, the last King of Babylon; and therefore she flourished four Generations, or about 134 years, before Nebuchadnezzar , and by consequence in the Reign of Tiglath-pileser the successor of Pul: and the followers of Ctesias tell us, that she built Babylon, and was the widow of the son and successor of Belus, the founder of the Assyrian Empire; that is, the widow of one of the sons of Pul: but [[358]] Berosus a Chaldæan blames the Greeks for ascribing the building of Babylon to Semiramis; and other authors ascribe the building of this city to Belus himself, that is to Pul; so Curtius [[359]] tells us; Semiramis Babylonem condiderat, vel ut plerique credidere Belus, cujus regia ostenditur: and Abydenus, who had his history from the ancient monuments of the Chaldæans, writes, [[360]] Λεγεται Βηλον Βαβυλωνα τειχει περιβαλειν· τωι χρονωι δε τωι ικνευμενωι αφανισθηναι. τειχισαι δε αυθις Ναβουχοδονοσορον, το μεχρι της Μακεδονιων αρχης διαμειναν εον χαλκοπυλον. 'Tis reported that Belus compassed Babylon with a wall, which in time was abolished: and that Nebuchadnezzar afterwards built a new wall with brazen gates, which stood 'till the time of the Macedonian Empire: and so Dorotheas [[361]] an ancient Poet of Sidon;
Αρχαιη Βαβυλων, Τυριου Βηλοιο πολισμα.
The ancient city Babylon built by the Tyrian Belus;
That is, by the Syrian or Assyrian Belus; the words Tyrian, Syrian, and Assyrian, being anciently used promiscuously for one another: Herennius [[362]] tells us, that it was built by the son of Belus; and this son might be Nabonassar. After the conquest of Calneh, Thelasar, and Sippare, Belus might seize Chaldæa, and begin to build Babylon, and leave it to his younger son: for all the Kings of Babylon in the Canon of Ptolemy are called Assyrians, and Nabonassar is the first of them: and Nebuchadnezzar [[363]] reckoned himself descended from Belus, that is, from the Assyrian Pul: and the building of Babylon is ascribed to the Assyrians by [[364]] Isaiah: Behold, saith he, the land of the Chaldeans: This people was not 'till the Assyrian founded it for them that dwell in the wilderness, [that is, for the Arabians.] They set up the towers thereof, they raised up the palaces thereof. From all this it seems therefore that Pul founded the walls and the palaces of Babylon, and left the city with the province of Chaldæa to his younger son Nabonassar; and that Nabonassar finished what his father began, and erected the Temple of Jupiter Belus to his father: and that Semiramis lived in those days, and was the Queen of Nabonassar, because one of the gates of Babylon was called the gate of Semiramis, as Herodotus affirms: but whether she continued to Reign there after her husband's death may be doubted.