So Sennacherib returned to Nineveh, exasperated by his defeat, where he inflicted many cruelties upon the captive Israelites, and fifty-five days after his return he was assassinated by his two eldest sons, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroc, his god, (signifying "king of flight,” corresponding to Zevs pužios, “Jove [the god] of flight," among the Greeks.) They escaped into the land of Armenia, while his third son, Esarhaddon, reigned in his stead, 2 Kings xix. 9—37, Tobit i. 18-21.

At this favourable juncture, when the Assyrians were weakened by so great a blow, the Babylonians revolted, and also the Medes. And Merodach Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah, to congratulate him on his recovery. Hezekiah, flattered with this embassy, in the pride of his heart, shewed the Babylonian embassadors all his treasures, which he had probably recovered from the Assyrians, and encreased with their spoils for which he was reprimanded by Isaiah, and warned in the name of THE LORD, that all his treasures, and all his posterity, should be carried away captives to Babylon; thus unfolding his former indistinct prophecy to Ahaz, Isaiah vii. 9, which began to be fulfilled in the captivity of his son Manasseh, and was completed in that of Zedekiah, the last of his race. Hezekiah received the message with due submission to the will of THE LORD, thankful that the evil was not to be inflicted in his own days, 2 Kings xx. 12-20.

MANASSEH.

The youth of this prince, who was only twelve years old when he unhappily lost his father, and began to reign, was soon corrupted by evil counsellors, for he revived all the abominations that Hezekiah had destroyed: he built altars for all the host of heaven in the courts of the temple; he erected an idol in the house of God; and he sacrificed his children to Moloch in the valley of Hinnom; he used inchantments and witchcraft, and made divination by Ob; and he made Judah and Jerusalem to do worse than the heathen whom THE LORD had destroyed

whereas the Simoon usually blows in the day-time, and mostly about noon, being raised by the intense heat of the sun.

before the children of Israel, 2 Kings xxi. 1–9, 2 Chron. xxxiii. 1-9.

For all these national enormities, the LORD threatened Manasseh, that he would bring such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that both the ears of the hearer should tingle, 2 Kings xxi. 10-15. And accordingly, in the twenty-second year of his reign, B. C. 675, (as the Jews in Seder Olam Rabba, and the Talmudists, date the year of his captivity and repentance, see Ganz, p. 45,) “the captains of the host of the king of Assyria took Manasseh alive, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon," 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11.

This king of Assyria was Esarhaddon, or Asaradine, who, six years before, B. C. 680, had taken Babylon, and subdued the Babylonians, weakened by intestine divisions, and an interregnum, as we learn from Ptolomy's Canon. He was a prosperous prince, and afterwards transplanted a colony of Babylonians, Cuthites, and Syrians, into the cities of Samaria, in the room of the captive tribes, about B. C. 675, as observed before, p. 420.

The captivity of Manasseh probably lasted during the remainder of the reign of Esarhaddon, about twelve years, during which he humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, who heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom; when he knew in his affliction, that THE LORD HE WAS THE GOD, and none else. The remainder of his reign he spent in reforming the national religion, and abolishing the idols he had set up; and he so far succeeded, that though the people still sacrificed in the high places, it was unto the LORD THEIR GOD only, 2 Chron. xxxiii. 12-17.

AMON.

This prince, who came to the throne when he was twenty-two years old, and who was born therefore after his father's return from captivity, forsook THE LORD, and revived the idolatries that Manasseh had suppressed. He was slain in a conspiracy by his own servants, after a short reign of two years, 2 Chron. xxxiii. 21-24.

HOLOFERNES'S INVASION OF JUDEA.

This last Assyrian invasion of Judea is noticed only in the apocryphal book of Judith, but it is perfectly consonant with the whole range of sacred and profane history, and supplies some important links in both, which are not to be found elsewhere.

The object of this invasion was to punish all the western states who had refused to send auxiliaries to Nebuchadonosor, king of Assyria, the grandson of Esarhaddon, in his war with Arphaxad, or Phraortes, king of Media, whom he slew in a pitched battle, and took Ecbatana, the capital city, B. C. 641, Judith i. 1-16. See the analysis of Assyrian and Median chronology.

The next year, B. C. 640, Holofernes was sent on this commission with a mighty army, who reduced all the maritime states bordering on the Mediterranean, and also the states eastwards of Jordan, and pitched in the borders of Judea, near Bethulia, after the assassination of Amon, when the nation was governed by Joachim*, the high-priest, and the senate, or council of the elders at Jerusalem, iv. 8, xi. 14, xv. 8.

The description of the state of Judea, on the news of his approach, exactly corresponds to this period, and to no other in the Jewish history, earlier or later.

"Now the children of Israel, that dwelt in Judea, heard all that Holofernes, the chief captain of Nebuchadonosor, king of the Assyrians, had done to the [adjacent] nations, and after what manner he had spoiled all their temples, and brought them to nought. Therefore they were exceedingly afraid of him, and were troubled for Jerusalem, and for the temple of the LORD THEIR GOD."

"For they were newly returned from the captivity [of Manasseh,] and all the people of Judea were lately gathered together, and the vessels, and the altar, and the house were sanctified, after the profanation [of them by the Assyrians at that time.]

And every man and woman, and the little children, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, fell before the temple, and cast ashes

He is called Eliachim, a word of the same import in the Syriac version, as being derived from the names of God, IAH and ÆL. See 2 Chron. xxxvi. 4. Josephus calls him Eliakiah, Ant. x. 4, who is called Hilkiah, 2 Kings xxii. 8.

upon their heads, and spread out their sackcloth before the face of the Lord, (also they put sackcloth about the altar) and they cried to the God of Israel, all with one consent, that He would not give their children for a prey, and their wives for a spoil, and the cities of their inheritance to destruction, and the sanctuary to profanation, and for reproach, and for the Gentiles to rejoice at," Judith iv. 1—15.

And Judith herself represents the state of national religion at that time, as exactly corresponding to Manasseh's reformation: "For there arose none in our age, neither is there any now in these days, neither tribe, nor family, nor people, nor city among us, which worship gods made with hands, as hath been aforetime." Judith viii. 18. While the administration of the government by the high-priest and council at Jerusalem, proves that there was no king in being at the time, and therefore fixes the precise time of this invasion after the assassination of Amon, and before the appointment of Josiah, which has been incorrectly placed in the reign of Manasses by Usher, Petavius, Huetius, and Prideaux; in the reign of Josiah, after the reformation in the twelfth year of his reign, by Jackson; and so low as the reign of Darius Hystaspes, by Whiston; long after the subversion of the Assyrian monarchy.

The stratagem of the Jewish heroine to work the destruction of the Assyrian general, by the fascination of her charms, and the artful tale she told, proved effectual. It struck a panic terror through all the Assyrian host, who fled in disorder, and were chased by the Israelites beyond Damascus, and few of that great multitude ever reached Nineveh, while their rich camp near Bethulia was spoiled by the inhabitants of the country, Judith chap. ix.—xv.

Thus was the death blow given to the mighty Assyrian empire, by the hand of a Jewess of the obscure tribe of Simeon! They never recovered its disastrous consequences. The western nations all shook off the Assyrian yoke; the eastern, the Medes, rallied after their recent defeat, and recovered Ecbatana, and the cities that had been taken by Nebuchadonosor; they even carried the war into Assyria, and in conjunction with the Babylonians, who again revolted, besieged and took Nineveh, and put an end to the Assyrian empire, B.C. 606, (about thirty-four years after the defeat of Holofernes,) as we learn from the joint testimony of Sacred and profane history. Tobit xiv. 15, Ff

VOL. II.

Herodot. B. I. The book of Judith, therefore, is a valuable appendage to both *.

JUDITH'S THANKSGIVING.

After this signal deliverance, Judith, as " a mother in Israel," composed a hymn, or song of praise, which may vie with those of Miriam and Deborah, for sublimity and chasteness of imagery:

XVI. 2. " Begin unto MY GOD with timbrels,

Sing unto MY LORD with cymbals;

Tune unto Him a new psalm,

Exalt Him, and call upon his name.

3. For the God that breaketh battles is THE Lord:
Among the camps, in the midst of the people,
He delivered me out of the hand of my persecutors.
The Assyrian came from the mountains of the north,
He came, with myriads of his army,
Whose multitude stopped the torrents,
And their horse covered the hills.

II. 4.

5. He said that he would burn my borders,
And kill my young men with the sword,
And dash my sucklings against the ground,

And give my infants for a spoil,

And my virgins for a prey;

6. But THE LORD, THE ALMIGHTY, disappointed them
By the hand of a woman!

III. 7.

For their mighty one fell not by the young men,
Neither did the sons of the Titans smite him,

Nor huge giants encounter him;

But Judith, the daughter of Merari,

Relaxed him by the beauty of her countenance.

8. For she put off the garment of her widowhood,

There are a few mistakes in the Book of Judith, which have been unwarrantably supposed to impeach the authenticity of the whole.

1. It is said in Achior's speech, v. 18, that "the Jews were led captives into a land that was not theirs, and the temple of their God was cast to the ground." This evidently relates to the destruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar, after the destruction of Nineveh; but both were standing in the time of Judith. Accordingly, Jerom has rejected this verse as an interpolation, in his Latin Translation.

2. Judith is said to have lived a hundred and five years; " and there was none that made the children of Israel any more afraid in the days of Judith, nor a long time after her death,” xvi. 23-25. Her longevity is inconsistent with the history: we can scarcely suppose her to have been more than thirty years of age, when she fascinated Holofernes with her charms. If then she survived seventy-five years, she must have seen the destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem, and the captivity of the whole Jewish people by Nebuchadnezzar, which was only fifty-four years after, B.C. 586.