In the year of Nabonassar 123, [[376]] Nabopolassar the commander of the forces of Chyniladon the King of Assyria in Chaldæa revolted from him, and became King of Babylon; and Chyniladon was either then, or soon after, succeeded at Nineveh by the last King of Assyria, called Sarac by Polyhistor: and at length Nebuchadnezzar, the son of Nabopolassar, married Amyite the daughter of Astyages and sister of Cyaxeres; and by this marriage the two families having contracted affinity, they conspired against the Assyrians; and Nabopolasser being now grown old, and Astyages being dead, their sons Nebuchadnezzar and Cyaxeres led the armies of the two nations against Nineveh, slew Sarac, destroyed the city, and shared the Kingdom of the Assyrians. This victory the Jews refer to the Chaldæans; the Greeks to the Medes; Tobit, Polyhistor, Josephus, and Ctesias to both. It gave a beginning to the great successes of Nebuchadnezzar and Cyaxeres, and laid the foundation of the two collateral Empires of the Babylonians and Medes; these being branches of the Assyrian Empire: and thence the time of the fall of the Assyrian Empire is determined, the conquerors being then in their youth. In the Reign of Josiah, when Zephaniah prophesied, Nineveh and the Kingdom of Assyria were standing, and their fall was predicted by that Prophet, Zeph. i. 1, and ii. 13. and in the end of his Reign Pharaoh Nechoh King of Egypt, the successor of Psammitichus, went up against the King of Assyria to the river Euphrates, to fight against Carchemish or Circutium, and in his way thither slew Josiah, 2 Kings xxiii. 29. 2 Chron. xxxv. 20. and therefore the last King of Assyria was not yet slain. But in the third and fourth year of Jehoiakim the successor of Josiah, the two conquerors having taken Nineveh and finished their war in Assyria, prosecuted their conquests westward, and leading their forces against the King of Egypt, as an invader of their right of conquest, they beat him at Carchemish, and [[377]] took from him whatever he had newly taken from the Assyrians: and therefore we cannot err above a year or two, if we refer the destruction of Nineveh, and fall of the Assyrian Empire, to the second year of Jehoiakim, Anno Nabonass. 140. The name of the last King Sarac might perhaps be contracted from Sarchedon, as this name was from Asserhadon, Asserhadon-Pul, or Sardanapalus.
While the Assyrians Reigned at Nineveh, Persia was divided into several Kingdoms; and amongst others there was a Kingdom of Elam, which flourished in the days of Hezekiah, Manasseh, Josiah, and Jehoiakim Kings of Judah, and fell in the days of Zedekiah, Jer. xxv. 25, and xlix. 34, and Ezek. xxxii. 24. This Kingdom seems to have been potent, and to have had wars with the King of Touran or Scythia beyond the river Oxus with various success, and at length to have been subdued by the Medes and Babylonians, or one of them. For while Nebuchadnezzar warred in the west, Cyaxeres recovered the Assyrian provinces of Armenia, Pontus, and Cappadocia, and then they went eastward against the provinces of Persia and Parthia. Whether the Pischdadians, whom the Persians reckon to have been their oldest Kings, were Kings of the Kingdom of Elam, or of that of the Assyrians, and whether Elam was conquered by the Assyrians at the same time with Babylonia and Susiana in the Reign of Asserhadon, and soon after revolted, I leave to be examined.
CHAP. IV.
Of the two Contemporary Empires of the Babylonians and Medes.
By the fall of the Assyrian Empire the Kingdoms of the Babylonians and Medes grew great and potent. The Reigns of the Kings of Babylon are stated in Ptolemy's Canon: for understanding of which you are to note that every King's Reign in that Canon began with the last Thoth of his predecessor's Reign, as I gather by comparing the Reigns of the Roman Emperors in that Canon with their Reigns recorded in years, months, and days, by other Authors: whence it appears from that Canon that Asserhadon died in the year of Nabonassar 81, Saosduchinus his successor in the year 101, Chyniladon in the year 123, Nabopolassar in the year 144, and Nebuchadnezzar in the year 187. All these Kings, and some others mentioned in the Canon, Reigned successively over Babylon, and this last King died in the 37th year of Jechoniah's captivity, 2 Kings xxv. 27. and therefore Jechoniah was captivated in the 150th year of Nabonassar.
This captivity was in the eighth year of Nebuchadnezzar's Reign, 2 Kings xxiv. 12. and eleventh of Jehoiakim's: for the first year of Nebuchadnezzar's Reign was the fourth of Jehoiakim's, Jer. xxv. i. and Jehoiakim Reigned eleven years before this captivity, 2 Kings xxiii. 36. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 5, and Jechoniah three months, ending with the captivity; and the tenth year of Jechoniah's captivity, was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar's Reign, Jer. xxxii. 1. and the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in which Jerusalem was taken, was the nineteenth of Nebuchadnezzar, Jer. lii. 5, 12. and therefore Nebuchadnezzar began his Reign in the year of Nabonassar 142, that is, two years before the death of his father Nabopolassar, he being then made King by his father; and Jehoiakim succeeded his father Josiah in the year of Nabonassar 139; and Jerusalem was taken and the Temple burnt in the year of Nabonassar 160, about twenty years after the destruction of Nineveh.
The Reign of Darius Hystaspis over Persia, by the Canon and the consent of all Chronologers, and by several Eclipses of the Moon, began in spring in the year of Nabonassar 227: and in the fourth year of King Darius, in the 4th day of the ninth month, which is the month Chisleu, when the Jews had sent unto the house of God, saying, should I weep in the fifth month as I have done these so many years? the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah, saying, speak to all the people of the Land, and to the Priests, saying; when ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month even those seventy years, did ye at all fast unto me? Zech. vii. Count backwards those seventy years in which they fasted in the fifth month for the burning of the Temple, and in the seventh for the death of Gedaliah; and the burning of the Temple and death of Gedaliah, will fall upon the fifth and seventh Jewish months, in the year of Nabonassar 160, as above.
As the Chaldæan Astronomers counted the Reigns of their Kings by the years of Nabonassar, beginning with the month Thoth, so the Jews, as their Authors tell us, counted the Reigns of theirs by the years of Moses, beginning every year with the month Nisan: for if any King began his Reign a few days before this month began, it was reckoned to him for a whole year, and the beginning of this month was accounted the beginning of the second year of his Reign; and according to this reckoning the first year of Jehojakim began with the month Nisan, Anno Nabonass. 139, tho' his Reign might not really begin 'till five or six months after; and the fourth year of Jehoiakim, and first of Nebuchadnezzar, according to the reckoning of the Jews, began with the month Nisan, Anno Nabonass. 142; and the first year of Zedekiah and of Jeconiah's captivity, and ninth year of Nebuchadnezzar, began with the month Nisan, in the year of Nabonassar 150; and the tenth year of Zedekiah, and 18th of Nebuchadnezzar, began with the month Nisan in the year of Nabonassar 159. Now in the ninth year of Zedekiah, Nebuchadnezzar invaded Judæa and the cities thereof and in the tenth month of that year, and tenth day of the month, he and his host besieged Jerusalem, 2 Kings xxv. 1. Jer. xxxiv. 1, xxxix. 1, and lii. 4. From this time to the tenth month in the second year of Darius are just seventy years, and accordingly, upon the 24th day of the eleventh month of the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah,—and the Angel of the Lord said, Oh Lord of Hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem, and on the cities of Judah, against which thou hast had indignation, these threescore and ten years, Zech. i. 7, 12. So then the ninth year of Zedekiah, in which this indignation against Jerusalem and the cities of Judah began, commenced with the month Nisan in the year of Nabonassar 158; and the eleventh year of Zedekiah, and nineteenth of Nebuchadnezzar, in which the city was taken and the Temple burnt, commenced with the month Nisan in the year of Nabonassar 160, as above.