By all these characters the years of Jehoiakim, Zedekiah, and Nebuchadnezzar, seem to be sufficiently determined, and thereby the Chronology of the Jews in the Old Testament is connected with that of later times: for between the death of Solomon and the ninth year of Zedekiah wherein Nebuchadnezzar invaded Judæa, and began the Siege of Jerusalem, there were 390 years, as is manifest both by the prophesy of Ezekiel, chap. iv, and by summing up the years of the Kings of Judah; and from the ninth year of Zedekiah inclusively to the vulgar Æra of Christ, there were 590 years: and both these numbers, with half the Reign of Solomon, make up a thousand years.
In the [[378]] end of the Reign of Josiah, Anno Nabonass. 139, Pharaoh Nechoh, the successor of Psammitichus, came with a great army out of Egypt against the King of Assyria, and being denied passage through Judæa, beat the Jews at Megiddo or Magdolus before Egypt, slew Josiah their King, marched to Carchemish or Circutium, a town of Mesopotamia upon Euphrates, and took it, possest himself of the cities of Syria, sent for Jehoahaz the new King of Judah to Riblah or Antioch, deposed him there, made Jehojakim King in the room of Josiah, and put the Kingdom of Judah to tribute: but the King of Assyria being in the mean time besieged and subdued, and Nineveh destroyed by Assuerus King of the Medes, and Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon, and the conquerors being thereby entitled to the countries belonging to the King of Assyria, they led their victorious armies against the King of Egypt who had seized part of them. For Nebuchadnezzar, assisted [[379]] by Astibares, that is, by Astivares, Assuerus, Acksweres, Axeres, or Cy-Axeres, King of the Medes, in the [[380]] third year of Jehoiakim, came with an army of Babylonians, Medes, Syrians, Moabites and Ammonites, to the number of 10000 chariots, and 180000 foot, and 120000 horse, and laid waste Samaria, Galilee, Scythopolis, and the Jews in Galaaditis, and besieged Jerusalem, and took King Jehoiakim alive, and [[381]] bound him in chains for a time, and carried to Babylon Daniel and others of the people, and part of what Gold and Silver and Brass they found in the Temple: and in [[382]] the fourth year of Jehoiakim, which was the twentieth of Nabopolassar, they routed the army of Pharaoh Nechoh at Carchemish, and by pursuing the war took from the King of Egypt whatever pertained to him from the river of Egypt to the river of Euphrates. This King of Egypt is called by Berosus, [[383]] the Satrapa of Egypt, Cœle-Syria, and Phœnicia; and this victory over him put an end to his Reign in Cœle-Syria and Phœnicia, which he had newly invaded, and gave a beginning to the Reign of Nebuchadnezzar there: and by the conquests over Assyria and Syria the small Kingdom of Babylon was erected into a potent Empire.
Whilst Nebuchadnezzar was acting in Syria, [[384]] his father Nabopolassar died, having Reigned 21 years; and Nebuchadnezzar upon the news thereof, having ordered his affairs in Syria returned to Babylon, leaving the captives and his army with his servants to follow him: and from henceforward he applied himself sometimes to war, conquering Sittacene, Susiana, Arabia, Edom, Egypt, and some other countries; and sometimes to peace, adorning the Temple of Belus with the spoils that he had taken; and the city of Babylon with magnificent walls and gates, and stately palaces and pensile gardens, as Berosus relates; and amongst other things he cut the new rivers Naarmalcha and Pallacopas above Babylon and built the city of Teredon.
Judæa was now in servitude under the King of Babylon, being invaded and subdued in the third and fourth years of Jehoiakim, and Jehoiakim served him three years, and then turned and rebelled, 2 King. xxiv. 1. While Nebuchadnezzar and the army of the Chaldæans continued in Syria, Jehojakim was under compulsion; after they returned to Babylon, Jehojakim continued in fidelity three years, that is, during the 7th, 8th and 9th years of his Reign, and rebelled in the tenth: whereupon in the return or end of the year, that is in spring, he sent [[385]] and besieged Jerusalem, captivated Jeconiah the son and successor of Jehoiakim, spoiled the Temple, and carried away to Babylon the Princes, craftsmen, smiths, and all that were fit for war: and, when none remained but the poorest of the people, made [[386]] Zedekiah their King, and bound him upon oath to serve the King of Babylon: this was in spring in the end of the eleventh year of Jehoiakim, and beginning of the year of Nabonassar 150.
Zedekiah notwithstanding his oath [[387]] revolted, and made a covenant with the King of Egypt, and therefore Nebuchadnezzar in the ninth year of Zedekiah [[388]] invaded Judæa and the cities thereof, and in the tenth Jewish month of that year besieged Jerusalem again, and in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the 4th and 5th months, after a siege of one year and an half, took and burnt the City and Temple.
Nebuchadnezzar after he was made King by his father Reigned over Phœnicia and Cœle-Syria 45 years, and [[389]] after the death of his father 43 years, and [[390]] after the captivity of Jeconiah 37; and then was succeeded by his son Evilmerodach, called Iluarodamus in Ptolemy's Canon. Jerome [[391]] tells us, that Evilmerodach Reigned seven years in his father's life-time, while his father did eat grass with oxen, and after his father's restoration was put in prison with Jeconiah King of Judah 'till the death of his father, and then succeeded in the Throne. In the fifth year of Jeconiah's captivity, Belshazzar was next in dignity to his father Nebuchadnezzar, and was designed to be his successor, Baruch i. 2, 10, 11, 12, 14, and therefore Evilmerodach was even then in disgrace. Upon his coming to the Throne [[392]] he brought his friend and companion Jeconiah out of prison on the 27th day of the twelfth month; so that Nebuchadnezzar died in the end of winter, Anno Nabonass. 187.
Evilmerodach Reigned two years after his father's death, and for his lust and evil manners was slain by his sister's husband Neriglissar, or Nergalassar, Nabonass. 189, according to the Canon.
Neriglissar, in the name of his young son Labosordachus, or Laboasserdach, the grand-child of Nebuchadnezzar by his daughter, Reigned four years, according to the Canon and Berosus, including the short Reign of Laboasserdach alone: for Laboasserdach, according to Berosus and Josephus, Reigned nine months after the death of his father, and then for his evil manners was slain in a feast, by the conspiracy of his friends with Nabonnedus a Babylonian, to whom by consent they gave the Kingdom: but these nine months are not reckoned apart in the Canon.
Nabonnedus or Nabonadius, according to the Canon, began his Reign in the year of Nabonassar 193, Reigned seventeen years, and ended his Reign in the year of Nabonassar 210, being then vanquished and Babylon taken by Cyrus.
Herodotus calls this last King of Babylon, Labynitus, and says that he was the son of a former Labynitus, and of Nitocris an eminent Queen of Babylon: by the father he seems to understand that Labynitus, who, as he tells us, was King of Babylon when the great Eclipse of the Sun predicted by Thales put an end to the five years war between the Medes and Lydians; and this was the great Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel [[393]] calls the last King of Babylon, Belshazzar, and saith that Nebuchadnezzar was his father: and Josephus tells us, [[394]] that the last King of Babylon was called Naboandel by the Babylonians, and Reigned seventeen years; and therefore he is the same King of Babylon with Nabonnedus or Labynitus; and this is more agreeable to sacred writ than to make Nabonnedus a stranger to the royal line: for all nations were to serve Nebuchadnezzar and his posterity, till the very time of his land should come, and many nations should serve themselves of him, Jer. xxvii. 7. Belshazzar was born and lived in honour before the fifth year of Jeconiah's captivity, which was the eleventh year of Nebuchadnezzar's Reign; and therefore he was above 34 years old at the death of Evilmerodach, and so could be no other King than Nabonnedus: for Laboasserdach the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar was a child when he Reigned.