2 Kings xxiv, 1. The capital of Chaldea, built by Nimrod, Gen.
x, 10. It was under Nebuchadnezzar that Babylon, then become the seat of
universal empire, is supposed to have acquired that extent and
magnificence, and that those stupendous works were completed which
rendered it the wonder of the world and of posterity: and accordingly,
this prince, then the most potent on the earth, arrogated to himself the
whole glory of its erection; and in the pride of his heart exclaimed,
“Is not this great Babylon that I have built?” The city at this period
stood on both sides of the river, which intersected it in the middle. It
was, according to the least computation, that of Diodorus Siculus, 45
miles in circumference; and according to Herodotus, the older author of
the two, 60 miles. Its shape was that of a square, traversed each way by
25 principal streets; which of course intersected each other, dividing
the city into 626 squares. These streets were terminated at each end by
gates of brass, of prodigious size and strength, with a smaller one
opening toward the river. The walls, from the most moderate accounts,
were 75 feet in height and 32 in breadth; while Herodotus makes them 300
in height and 75 in breadth: which last measurement, incredible as it
may seem, is worthy of credit, as Herodotus is much the oldest author
who describes them, and who gives their original height; whereas, those
who follow him in their accounts of these stupendous walls, describe
them as they were after they had been taken down to the less elevation
by Darius Hystaspes. They were built of brick, cemented with bitumen
instead of mortar; and were encompassed by a broad and deep ditch, lined
with the same materials, as were also the banks of the river in its
course through the city: the inhabitants descending to the water by
steps through the smaller brazen gates before mentioned. The houses were
three or four stories high, separated from each other by small courts or
gardens, with open spaces and even fields interspersed over the immense
area enclosed within the walls. Over the river was a bridge, connecting
the two halves of the city, which stood, the one on its eastern, and the
other on its western, bank; the river running nearly north and south.
The bridge was 5 furlongs in length, and 30 feet in breadth, and had a
palace at each end, with, it is said, a subterraneous passage beneath
the river, from one to the other: the work of Semiramis. Within the city
was the temple of Belus, or Jupiter, which Herodotus describes as a
square of two stadia, or a quarter of a mile: in the midst of which
arose the celebrated tower, to which both the same writer, and Strabo,
give an elevation of one stadium, or 660 feet; and the same measure at
its base; the whole being divided into eight separate towers, one above
another, of decreasing dimensions to the summit; where stood a chapel,
containing a couch, table, and other things of gold. Here the principal
devotions were performed; and over this, on the highest platform of all,
was the observatory, by the help of which the Babylonians arrived to
such perfection in astronomy, that Calisthenes the philosopher, who
accompanied Alexander to Babylon, found astronomical observations for
1903 years backwards from that time; which reach as high as the 115th
year after the flood. On either side of the river, according to
Diodorus, adjoining to the bridge, was a palace; that on the western
bank being by much the larger. This palace was eight miles in
circumference, and strongly fortified with three walls one within
another. Within it were the celebrated pensile or hanging gardens,
enclosed in a square of 400 feet. These gardens were raised on terraces,
supported by arches, or rather by piers, laid over with broad flat
stones; the arch appearing to be unknown to the Babylonians: which
courses of piers rose above one another, till they reached the level of
the top of the city walls. On each terrace or platform, a deep layer of
mould was laid, in which flowers, shrubs and trees were planted; some of
which are said to have reached the height of 50 feet. On the highest
level was a reservoir, with an engine to draw water up from the river by
which the whole was watered. This novel and astonishing structure, the
work of a monarch who knew not how to create food for his own pampered
fancy, or labour for his debased subjects or unhappy captives, was
undertaken to please his wife Amyitis; that she might see an imitation
of the hills and woods of her native country, Media.
Yet, while in the plenitude of its power, and, according to the most
accurate chronologers, 160 years before the foot of an enemy had entered
it, the voice of an enemy had entered it, the voice of prophecy
pronounced the doom of the mighty and unconquered Babylon. A succession
of ages brought it gradually to the dust; and the gradation of its fall
is marked till it sinks at last into utter desolation. At a time when
nothing but magnificence was around this city, emphatically called the
great, fallen Babylon was delineated by the pencil of inspiration
exactly as every traveller now describes its ruins.
The immense fertility of Chaldea, which retained also the name of
Babylonia till after the Christian æra, corresponded with the greatness
of Babylon. It was the most fertile region of the whole east. Babylonia
was one vast plain, adorned and enriched by the Euphrates and the
Tigris, from which, and from the numerous canals that intersected the
country from the one river to the other, water was distributed over the
fields by manual labour and by hydraulic machines, giving rise, in that
warm climate and rich exhaustless soil, to an exuberance of produce
without a known parallel, over so extensive a region, either in ancient
or modern times. Herodotus states, that he knew not how to speak of its
wonderful fertility, which none but eye witnesses would credit; and,
though writing in the language of Greece, itself a fertile country, he
expresses his own consciousness that his description of what he actually
saw would appear to be improbable, and to exceed belief. Such was the
“Chaldees’ excellency,” that it departed not on the first conquest, nor
on the final extinction of its capital, but one metropolis of Assyria
arose after another in the land of Chaldea, when Babylon had ceased to
be “the glory of kingdoms.”
2. Manifold are the prophecies respecting Babylon and the land of the
Chaldeans; and the long lapse of ages has served to confirm their
fulfilment in every particular, and to render it at last complete. The
judgments of Heaven are not casual, but sure; they are not arbitrary,
but righteous. And they were denounced against the Babylonians, and the
inhabitants of Chaldea, expressly because of their idolatry, tyranny,
oppression, pride, covetousness, drunkenness, falsehood, and other
wickedness. The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amos did see:
“The noise of a multitude in the mountains, like as of a great people: a
tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered together: the Lord
of Hosts mustereth the host of the battle. They come from a far country,
from the end of heaven, even the Lord and the weapons of his
indignation, to destroy the whole land. Behold, the day of the Lord
cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land
desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. Babylon,
the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency, shall be
as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited,
neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither
shall the Arabian pitch tent there: neither shall the shepherds make
their fold there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there: and
their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell
there, and satyrs shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands
shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant
palaces.” “Thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon,
and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased! Thy pomp
is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is
spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. Thou shalt be brought down
to hell, to the sides of the pit. Thou art cast out of the grave like an
abominable branch.--I will cut off from Babylon the name, and remnant,
the son, and nephew, saith the Lord. I will also make it a possession
for the bittern, and pools of water: and I will sweep it with the besom
of destruction, saith the Lord of Hosts.” “Babylon is fallen, is fallen;
and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground.”
“Thus saith the Lord, that saith unto the deep, Be dry; and I will dry
up thy rivers: that saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform
all my pleasure,--and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before
him the two-leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut.” “Bel boweth
down,” &c. “Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of
Babylon: sit on the ground, there is no throne, O daughter of the
Chaldeans. Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of
the Chaldeans; for thou shalt no more be called the lady of kingdoms.”
Many other prophecies against Babylon, and the whole land of Chaldea,
are found in the Old Testament; and though the limits of this article
will only allow a reference to be made to the exact fulfilment of a few,
there is not one of the great number of predictions on record, the
accomplishment of which has not been remarked by numerous writers, and
more especially by those who have visited the spot. For, though for many
centuries the site of Babylon was unknown, or the ruins of other
Chaldean cities mistaken for its remains, its true situation and present
condition have been, within a few years, satisfactorily ascertained, and
accurately described, by several most intelligent and enterprising
travellers.
When in the plenitude of its greatness, splendour and strength, Babylon
first yielded to the arms of Cyrus, whose name, and the manœuvre by
which the city was taken, were mentioned by Isaiah nearly two hundred
years before the event; which was also predicted by Jeremiah: “Go up, O
Elam, (or Persia,) besiege, O Media. The Lord hath raised up the spirit
of the kings of the Medes, for his device is against Babylon, to destroy
it.” The kings of Persia and Media, prompted by a common interest,
freely entered into a league against Babylon, and with one accord
entrusted the command of their united armies to Cyrus, the relative and
eventually the successor of them both.--But the taking of Babylon was
not reserved for these kingdoms alone: other nations had to be “prepared
against her.” “Set up a standard in the land; blow the trumpet among the
nations, prepare the nations against her, call together against her the
kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Aschenaz: Lo, I will raise and cause to
come up against Babylon an assembly of great nations from the north
country,” &c. Cyrus subdued the Armenians, who had revolted against
Media, spared their king, bound them over anew to their allegiance, by
kindness rather than by force, and incorporated their army with his
own.--“The mighty men of Babylon have foreborne to fight. They have
remained in their holds; their might hath failed, they became as women.”
So dispirited became its people, that Babylon, which had made the world
to tremble, was long besieged, without making any effort to drive off
the enemy. But, possessed of provisions for twenty years, which in their
timid caution they had plentifully stored, they derided Cyrus from their
impregnable walls, within which they remained. Their profligacy, their
wickedness and false confidence were unabated; they continued to live
carelessly in pleasures: and Babylon the great, unlike to many a small
fortress and unwalled town, made not one struggle to regain its freedom
or to be rid of the foe.--Much time having been lost, and no progress
being made in the siege, the anxiety of Cyrus was strongly excited, and
he was reduced to great perplexity, when at last it was suggested and
immediately determined to divert the course of the Euphrates. And while
the unconscious and reckless citizens were engaged in dancing and
merriment, the river was suddenly turned into the lake, the trench, and
the canals; and the Persians, both foot and horse, so soon as the
subsiding of the water permitted, entered by its channel, and were
followed by the allies in array, along the dry part of the river. “I
will dry up thy sea, and make thy springs dry. That saith to the deep,
Be dry, I will dry up thy rivers.”--One detachment was placed where the
river first enters the city, and another where it leaves it. And “one
post did run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to show
the king of Babylon that his city is taken at the end, and that the
passages are shut.” “They were taken,” says Herodotus, “by _surprise_;
and such is the extent of the city, that, as the inhabitants themselves
affirm, they who lived in the extremities were made prisoners before any
alarm was communicated to the centre of the place,” where the palace
stood. Thus a “snare was laid for Babylon, it was taken, and it was not
aware; it was found and also caught; for it had sinned against the Lord.
How is the praise of the whole earth surprised!”--“In their heat I will
make their feasts, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice
and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the Lord. I will bring
them down like lambs to the slaughter,” &c. “I will make drunken her
princes and her wise men, her captains and her rulers, and her mighty
men, and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep,” &c. Cyrus, as the night
drew on, stimulated his assembled troops to enter the city, because in
that night of general revel within the walls, many of them were asleep,
many drunk, and confusion universally prevailed. On passing, without
obstruction or hinderance, into the city, the Persians, slaying some,
putting others to flight, and joining with the revellers, as if
slaughter had been merriment, hastened by the shortest way to the
palace, and reached it ere yet a messenger had told the king that his
city was taken. The gates of the palace, which was strongly fortified,
were shut. The guards stationed before them, were _drinking_ beside a
blazing light, when the Persians rushed impetuously upon them. A louder
and altered clamour, no longer joyous, caught the ear of the inmates of
the palace, and the bright light showed them the work of destruction,
without revealing its cause. And not aware of the presence of an enemy
in the midst of Babylon, the king himself, (who had been roused from his
revelry by the hand writing on the wall,) excited by the warlike tumult
at the gates, commanded those within to examine from whence it arose;
and according to the same word, by which “the gates” (leading from the
river to the city) “were not shut, the loins of kings were loosed to
open before Cyrus the two-leaved gates” of the palace. The eager
Persians sprang in. “The king of Babylon heard the report of them;
anguish took hold of him;” he and all who were about him perished; God
had “numbered” his kingdom and finished it; it was “divided,” and given
to the Medes and Persians; the lives of the Babylonian princes, and
lords, and rulers, and captains, closed with that night’s festival; the
drunken slept “a perpetual sleep, and did not wake.”--“I will fill thee
with men as with caterpillars.” Not only did the Persian army enter with
ease as caterpillars, together with all the nations that had come up
against Babylon, but they seemed also as numerous. Cyrus, after the
capture of the city, made a great display of his cavalry in the presence
of the Babylonians, and in the midst of Babylon. Four thousand guards
stood before the palace gates, and two thousand on each side. These
advanced as Cyrus approached; two thousand spearmen followed them. These
were succeeded by four square masses of Persian cavalry, each consisting
of ten thousand men: and to these again were added, in their order, the
Median, Armenian, Hyrcanian, Caducian, and Sacian horsemen,--all, as
before, “riding upon horses, every man in array,”--with lines of
chariots, four abreast, concluding the train of the numerous hosts.
Cyrus afterward reviewed, at Babylon, the whole of his army, consisting
of one hundred and twenty thousand horse, two thousand chariots, and six
hundred thousand foot. Babylon, which was taken when not aware, and
within whose walls no enemy, except a captive, had been ever seen, was
thus “filled with men as with caterpillars,” as if there had not been a
wall around it. The Scriptures do not relate the manner in which Babylon
was taken, nor do they ever allude to the exact fulfilment of the
prophecies. But there is, in every particular, a strict coincidence
between the predictions of the prophets and the historical narratives,
both of Herodotus and Xenophon.
3. Every step in the progress of the decline of Babylon was the
accomplishment of a prophecy. Conquered, for the first time, by Cyrus,
it was afterward reduced from an imperial to a tributary city. “Come
down and sit in the dust, O daughter of Babylon: sit on the ground,
there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans.” After the Babylonians
rebelled against Darius, the walls were reduced in height, and all the
gates destroyed. “The wall of Babylon shall fall, her walls are thrown
down.”--Xerxes, after his ignominious retreat from Greece, rifled the
temples of Babylon, the golden images alone of which were estimated at
20,000,000_l_, beside treasures of vast amount. “I will punish Bel in
Babylon, and I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he has
swallowed up; I will do judgment upon the graven images of
Babylon.”--Alexander the Great attempted to restore it to its former
glory, and designed to make it the metropolis of a universal empire. But
while the building of the temple of Belus, and the reparation of the
embankments of the Euphrates, were actually carrying on, the conqueror
of the world died, at the commencement of this his last undertaking, in
the height of his power, and in the flower of his age. “Take balm for
her pain, if so be that she may be healed. We would have healed Babylon,
but she is not healed.” The building of the neighbouring city of
Seleucia was the chief cause of the decline of Babylon, and drained it
of a great part of its population. And at a later period, or about 130
years before the birth of Christ, Humerus, a Parthian governor, who was
noted as excelling all tyrants in cruelty, exercised great severities on
the Babylonians; and having burned the forum and some of the temples,
and destroyed the fairest parts of the city, reduced many of the
inhabitants to slavery on the slightest pretexts, and caused them,
together with all their households, to be sent into Media. “They shall
remove, they shall depart, both man and beast.” The “golden city” thus
gradually verged, for centuries, toward poverty and desolation.
Notwithstanding that Cyrus resided chiefly at Babylon, and sought to
reform the government, and remodel the manners of the Babylonians, the
succeeding kings of Persia preferred, as the seat of empire, Susa,
Persepolis, or Ecbatana, situated in their own country: and in like
manner the successors of Alexander did not attempt to complete his
purpose of restoring Babylon to its preeminence and glory; but, after
the subdivision of his mighty empire, the very kings of Assyria, during
their temporary residence even in Chaldea, deserted Babylon, and dwelt
in Seleucia. And thus the foreign inhabitants, first Persians and
afterward Greeks, imitating their sovereigns by deserting Babylon, acted
as if they verily had said, “Forsake her, and let us go every man unto
his own country; for her judgment is reached unto heaven, and is lifted
up even to the skies.”
4. But kindred judgments, the issue of common crimes, rested on the land
of Chaldea, as well as on its doomed metropolis. “They come from a far
country, from the end of the earth, to destroy the whole land. Many
nations and great kings shall serve themselves of thee also,” &c. The
Persians, the Macedonians, the Parthians, the Romans, the Saracens, and
the Turks, are the chief of the many nations who have unscrupulously and
unsparingly “served themselves” of the land of the Chaldeans: and Cyrus
and Darius, kings of Persia; Alexander the Great; and Seleucus, king of
Assyria; Demetrius and Antiochus the Great; Tragan, Severus, Julian, and
Heraclius, emperors of Rome; the victorious Omar, the successor of
Mohammed; Holagou, and Tamerlane,--are “great kings” who successively
subdued or desolated Chaldea, or exacted from it tribute to such an
extent, as scarcely any other country ever paid to a single conqueror.
And though the names of some of these nations were unknown to the
Babylonians, and unheard of in the world at the time of the prophecy,
most of these “many nations and great kings” need now but to be named,
to show that, in local relation to Chaldea, “they came from the utmost
border, from the coasts of the earth.”--“I will punish the land of the
Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desolations; cut off the sower
from Babylon, and him that handleth the sickle in the time of harvest. A
drought is on her waters, and they shall be dried up. Behold the
hinder-most of the nations, a dry land and a desert.” The land of the
Chaldeans was indeed made--perpetual, or long continued, desolation.
Ravaged and spoiled for ages, the Chaldees’ excellency finally
disappeared, and the land became desolate, as still it remains.
Rauwolff, who passed through it in 1574, describes the country as bare,
and “so dry and barren that it cannot be tilled.” And the most recent
travellers all concur in describing it in similar terms. On the one
side, near to the site of Opis, “the country all around,” says Mr.
Buckingham, “appears to be one wide desert, of sandy and barren soil,
thinly scattered over with brushwood and tufts of reedy grass.” On the
other, between Bussorah and Bagdad, “immediately on either bank of the
Tigris,” observes Mignan, “is the _untrodden desert_. The absence of all
cultivation, the sterile, arid, and wild character of the whole scene,
formed a contrast to the rich and delightful accounts delineated in
Scripture. The natives, in travelling over these pathless deserts, are
compelled to explore their way by the stars.” “The whole country between
Bagdad and Hillah is a perfectly flat and (with the exception of a few
spots as you approach the latter place) _uncultivated waste_. That it
was at some former period in a far different state, is evident from the
number of canals by which it is traversed, now _dry_ and neglected; and
the quantity of heaps of earth covered with fragments of brick and
broken tiles, which are seen in every direction, the indisputable traces
of former population. At present the only inhabitants of the tract are
the Sobeide Arabs. Around, as far as the eye can reach is a _trackless
desert_.”--“Her cities are desolations.” The course of the Tigris
through Babylonia, instead of being adorned with cities, is marked with
the sites of “ancient ruins.” Sitace, Sabata, Narisa, Fuchera, Sendia,
“no longer exist.” A succession of longitudinal mounds, crossed at right
angles by others, mark the supposed site of Artemita, or Destagered. Its
once luxuriant gardens are covered with grass; and a higher mound
distinguishes “the royal residence” from the ancient streets. “Extensive
ridges and mountains, (near to Houmania,) varying in height and extent,
are seen branching in every direction.” A wall, with sixteen bastions,
is the only memorial of Apollonia. The once magnificent Seleucia is now
a scene of desolation. There is not a single entire edifice, but the
country is strewed for miles with fragments of decayed buildings. “As
far,” says Major Keppel, “as the eye could reach, the horizon presented
a broken line of mounds; the whole of this place was a desert flat.” On
the opposite bank of the Tigris, where Ctesiphon its rival stood, beside
fragments of walls and broken masses of brick work, and remains of vast
structures encumbered with heaps of earth, there is one magnificent
monument of antiquity “in a remarkably perfect state of preservation,”
“a large and noble pile of building, the front of which presents to view
a wall three hundred feet in length, adorned with four rows of arched
recesses, with a central arch, in span eighty-six feet, and above a
hundred feet high, supported by walls sixteen feet thick, and leading to
a hall which extends to the depth of a hundred and fifty-six feet,” the
width of the building. A great part of the back wall, and of the roof,
is broken down; but that which remains “still appears much larger than
Westminster Abbey.” It is supposed to have been the lofty palace of
Chosroes; but there desolation now reigns. “On the site of Ctesiphon,”
says Mignan, “the smallest insect under heaven would not find a single
blade of grass wherein to hide itself, nor one drop of water to allay
its thirst.” In the rear of the palace, and attached to it, are mounds
two miles in circumference, indicating the utter desolation of
buildings, formed to minister to luxury.
5. But let us come to the fulfilment of these wonderful prophecies in
the present condition of Babylon itself, as described by those who have
most recently visited it.
“Babylon shall become heaps.” Babylon the glory of kingdoms is now the
greatest of ruins. “Immense tumuli of temples, palaces, and habitations
of every description,” are every where seen, and form “long and varied
lines of ruins,” which, in some places, says Sir R. K. Porter, “rather
resemble natural hills than _mounds_ which cover the remains of great
and splendid edifices.” These buildings, which were once the labour of
slaves and the pride of kings, are now misshapen heaps of rubbish. “The
whole face of the country,” observes Rich, “is covered with vestiges of
building, in some places consisting of brick walls surprisingly fresh,
in others, merely a _vast succession of mounds_ of rubbish, of such
indeterminate figures, variety, and extent, as to involve the person who
should have formed any theory in inextricable confusion.”--“Let nothing
of her be left.” “Vast heaps constitute _all that now remains_ of
ancient Babylon,” says Rich. All its grandeur is departed; all its
treasures have been spoiled; all its excellence has utterly vanished;
the very heaps are searched for bricks, when nothing else can be found;
even these are _not left_, wherever they can be taken away; and Babylon
has for ages been “a quarry above ground,” ready to the hand of every
successive despoiler. Without the most remote allusion to this prophecy,
Captain Mignan describes a mound attached to the palace, ninety yards in
breadth by half that height, the whole of which is deeply furrowed, in
the same manner as the generality of the mounds. “The ground is
extremely soft, and tiresome to walk over, and appears _completely
exhausted_ of all its building materials; _nothing now is left_, save
one towering hill, the earth of which is mixed with _fragments_ of
broken brick, red varnished pottery, tile, bitumen, mortar, glass,
shells, and pieces of mother of pearl,”--worthless fragments, of no
value to the poorest. “From thence shall she be taken, let nothing of
her be left.” While the workmen “cast her up as heaps” while excavating
for bricks, that they may “take” them “from thence,” and that “nothing
may be left;” they labour more than trebly in the fulfilment of
prophecy: for the numerous and deep excavations form pools of water, on
the over-flowing of the Euphrates, and, annually filled, they are not
dried up throughout the year. “Deep cavities are also formed by the
Arabs, when digging for hidden treasure.” Thus “the ground,” says
Buckingham, “is sometimes covered with pools of water in the hollows.”
“Sit in the dust, sit on the ground, O daughter of the Chaldeans.” The
surface of the mounds which form all that remains of Babylon, consists
of decomposed buildings, reduced to dust; and over all the ancient
streets and habitations, there is literally nothing but the dust of the
ground on which to sit.--“Thy nakedness shall be uncovered.” “Our path,”
says Captain Mignan, “lay through the great mass of ruined heaps on the
site of ‘shrunken Babylon;’ and I am perfectly incapable of conveying an
adequate idea of the dreary, lonely nakedness that appeared before
me.”--“Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness.” “There reigns
throughout the ruins,” says Sir R. K. Porter, “a silence profound as the
grave.” “Babylon is now a silent scene, a sublime solitude.”--“It shall
never be inhabited, nor dwelt in from generation to generation.” From
Rauwolff’s testimony it appears that, in the sixteenth century, “there
was not a house to be seen.” And now “the eye wanders over a barren
desert, in which the ruins are nearly the only indication that it had
ever been inhabited.” “It is impossible,” adds Major Keppel, “to behold
this scene and not to be reminded how exactly the predictions of Isaiah
and Jeremiah have been fulfilled, even in the appearance Babylon was
doomed to present, that ‘she should never be inhabited;’ that ‘the
Arabian should not pitch his tent there;’ that she should ‘become
heaps;’ that her cities should be ‘a desolation, a dry land, and a
wilderness.’” “Babylon is spurned alike by the heel of the Ottomans, the
Israelites, and the sons of Ishmael.” It is “a tenantless and desolate
metropolis,” remarks Mignan. “It shall not be inhabited, but be wholly
desolate. Neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there, neither shall the
shepherds make their folds there.” It was prophesied of Ammon that it
should be a stable for camels and a couching place for flocks; and of
Philistia, that it should be cottages for shepherds, and a pasture of
flocks. But Babylon was to be visited with a far greater desolation, and
to become unfit or unsuited even for such a purpose; and that neither a
tent would be pitched there, even by an Arab, nor a fold made by a
shepherd, implies the last degree of solitude and desolation. “It is
common in these parts for shepherds to make use of ruined edifices to
shelter their flocks in.” But Babylon is an exception. Instead of taking
the bricks from thence, the shepherd might very readily erect a defence
from wild beasts, and make a fold for his flock amidst the heaps of
Babylon; and the Arab who fearlessly traverses it by day, might pitch
his tent by night. But neither the one nor the other could now be
persuaded to remain a single night among the ruins. The superstitious
dread of evil spirits, far more than the natural terror of the wild
beasts, effectually prevents them. Captain Mignan was accompanied by six
Arabs, completely armed; but he “could not induce them to remain toward
night, from the apprehension of evil spirits. It is impossible to
eradicate this idea from the minds of this people, who are very deeply
imbued with superstition.”
“Wild beasts of the deserts shall lie there, and their houses shall be
full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs
(goats) shall dance there,” &c. “There are many dens of wild beasts in
various parts. And while the lower excavations are often pools of water,
in most of the cavities are numbers of bats and owls.” The king of the
forest now ranges over the site of that Babylon which Nebuchadnezzar
built for his own glory. And the temple of Belus, the greatest work of
man, is now like unto a natural den of lions. Two or three majestic
lions were seen upon its heights by Sir Robert Ker Porter, as he was
approaching it; and “the broad prints of their feet were left plain in
the clayey soil.” Major Keppel saw there a similar foot-print of a lion.
It is also the unmolested retreat of jackalls, hyenas, and other noxious
animals. Wild beasts are numerous at the Mujelibé, as well as on Birs
Nimrood. “The mound,” says Kinneir, “was full of large holes: we entered
some of them, and found them strewed with the carcasses and skeletons of
animals recently killed. The ordure of wild beasts was so strong, that
prudence got the better of curiosity; for we had no doubt as to the
savage nature of the inhabitants. Our guides, indeed, told us, that all
the ruins abounded in lions, and other wild beasts: so literally has the
divine prediction been fulfilled, that wild beasts of the deserts should
lie there, and their houses be full of doleful creatures; that the wild
beasts of the islands should cry in their desolate houses.”
“The sea is come upon Babylon. She is covered with the multitude of the
waves thereof.” The traces of the western bank of the Euphrates are now
no longer discernible. The river overflows unrestrained; and the very
ruins, with “every appearance of the embankment,” have been swept away.
“The ground there is low and marshy, and presents not the slightest
vestige of former buildings, of any description whatever.” “Morasses and
ponds,” says Porter, “tracked the ground in various parts. For a long
time after the general subsiding of the Euphrates, great part of this
plain is little better than a swamp,” &c. “The ruins of Babylon are then
inundated, so as to render many parts of them inaccessible, by
converting the valleys among them into morasses.” But while Babylon is
thus “covered with the multitude of waves, and the waters come upon it;”
yet, in striking contrast and seeming contradiction to such a feature of
desolation, (like the formation of “pools of water,” from the “casting
up of heaps,”) are the elevated sunburnt ruins, which the waters do not
overflow, and the “dry waste” and “parched and burning plain,” on which
the heaps of Babylon lie, equally prove that it is “a desert, a dry
land, and a wilderness.” One part, even on the western side of the
river, is “low and marshy, and another,” says Mignan, “an arid desert.”
Many other striking particulars might be collected; and we may conclude
in the words of Mr. Keith, from whose work on the prophecies several of
the above particulars have been extracted:--“Is it possible that there
can be any attestation of the truth of prophecy, if it be not witnessed
here? Is there any spot on earth which has undergone a more complete
transformation? ‘The records of the human race,’ it has been said with
truth, ‘do not present a contrast more striking than that between the
primeval magnificence of Babylon and its long desolation.’ Its ruins
have of late been carefully and scrupulously examined by different
natives of Britain, of unimpeached veracity; and the result of every
research is a more striking demonstration of the literal accomplishment
of every prediction. How few spots are there on earth of which we have
so clear and faithful a picture as prophecy gave to fallen Babylon at a
time when no spot on earth resembled it less than its present desolate
solitary site! or could any prophecies respecting any single place have
been more precise, or wonderful, or numerous, or true, or more gradually
accomplished throughout many generations? And when they look at what
Babylon was, and what it is, and perceive the minute realization of them
all, may not nations learn wisdom, may not tyrants tremble, and may not
skeptics think?”
The reasons why prophecies so numerous and particular were recorded
concerning Babylon, appear to have been, 1. That Babylon was the great
oppressor of the Jews. 2. That it was the type of all the powerful
persecuting enemies of the church of God, especially of Rome; and in its
fate they may read their own. 3. That the accomplishment of prophecy in
the destruction of so eminent an empire might give a solemn testimony to
the truth of the Scriptures to the whole earth, and to all ages.
x, 10. It was under Nebuchadnezzar that Babylon, then become the seat of
universal empire, is supposed to have acquired that extent and
magnificence, and that those stupendous works were completed which
rendered it the wonder of the world and of posterity: and accordingly,
this prince, then the most potent on the earth, arrogated to himself the
whole glory of its erection; and in the pride of his heart exclaimed,
“Is not this great Babylon that I have built?” The city at this period
stood on both sides of the river, which intersected it in the middle. It
was, according to the least computation, that of Diodorus Siculus, 45
miles in circumference; and according to Herodotus, the older author of
the two, 60 miles. Its shape was that of a square, traversed each way by
25 principal streets; which of course intersected each other, dividing
the city into 626 squares. These streets were terminated at each end by
gates of brass, of prodigious size and strength, with a smaller one
opening toward the river. The walls, from the most moderate accounts,
were 75 feet in height and 32 in breadth; while Herodotus makes them 300
in height and 75 in breadth: which last measurement, incredible as it
may seem, is worthy of credit, as Herodotus is much the oldest author
who describes them, and who gives their original height; whereas, those
who follow him in their accounts of these stupendous walls, describe
them as they were after they had been taken down to the less elevation
by Darius Hystaspes. They were built of brick, cemented with bitumen
instead of mortar; and were encompassed by a broad and deep ditch, lined
with the same materials, as were also the banks of the river in its
course through the city: the inhabitants descending to the water by
steps through the smaller brazen gates before mentioned. The houses were
three or four stories high, separated from each other by small courts or
gardens, with open spaces and even fields interspersed over the immense
area enclosed within the walls. Over the river was a bridge, connecting
the two halves of the city, which stood, the one on its eastern, and the
other on its western, bank; the river running nearly north and south.
The bridge was 5 furlongs in length, and 30 feet in breadth, and had a
palace at each end, with, it is said, a subterraneous passage beneath
the river, from one to the other: the work of Semiramis. Within the city
was the temple of Belus, or Jupiter, which Herodotus describes as a
square of two stadia, or a quarter of a mile: in the midst of which
arose the celebrated tower, to which both the same writer, and Strabo,
give an elevation of one stadium, or 660 feet; and the same measure at
its base; the whole being divided into eight separate towers, one above
another, of decreasing dimensions to the summit; where stood a chapel,
containing a couch, table, and other things of gold. Here the principal
devotions were performed; and over this, on the highest platform of all,
was the observatory, by the help of which the Babylonians arrived to
such perfection in astronomy, that Calisthenes the philosopher, who
accompanied Alexander to Babylon, found astronomical observations for
1903 years backwards from that time; which reach as high as the 115th
year after the flood. On either side of the river, according to
Diodorus, adjoining to the bridge, was a palace; that on the western
bank being by much the larger. This palace was eight miles in
circumference, and strongly fortified with three walls one within
another. Within it were the celebrated pensile or hanging gardens,
enclosed in a square of 400 feet. These gardens were raised on terraces,
supported by arches, or rather by piers, laid over with broad flat
stones; the arch appearing to be unknown to the Babylonians: which
courses of piers rose above one another, till they reached the level of
the top of the city walls. On each terrace or platform, a deep layer of
mould was laid, in which flowers, shrubs and trees were planted; some of
which are said to have reached the height of 50 feet. On the highest
level was a reservoir, with an engine to draw water up from the river by
which the whole was watered. This novel and astonishing structure, the
work of a monarch who knew not how to create food for his own pampered
fancy, or labour for his debased subjects or unhappy captives, was
undertaken to please his wife Amyitis; that she might see an imitation
of the hills and woods of her native country, Media.
Yet, while in the plenitude of its power, and, according to the most
accurate chronologers, 160 years before the foot of an enemy had entered
it, the voice of an enemy had entered it, the voice of prophecy
pronounced the doom of the mighty and unconquered Babylon. A succession
of ages brought it gradually to the dust; and the gradation of its fall
is marked till it sinks at last into utter desolation. At a time when
nothing but magnificence was around this city, emphatically called the
great, fallen Babylon was delineated by the pencil of inspiration
exactly as every traveller now describes its ruins.
The immense fertility of Chaldea, which retained also the name of
Babylonia till after the Christian æra, corresponded with the greatness
of Babylon. It was the most fertile region of the whole east. Babylonia
was one vast plain, adorned and enriched by the Euphrates and the
Tigris, from which, and from the numerous canals that intersected the
country from the one river to the other, water was distributed over the
fields by manual labour and by hydraulic machines, giving rise, in that
warm climate and rich exhaustless soil, to an exuberance of produce
without a known parallel, over so extensive a region, either in ancient
or modern times. Herodotus states, that he knew not how to speak of its
wonderful fertility, which none but eye witnesses would credit; and,
though writing in the language of Greece, itself a fertile country, he
expresses his own consciousness that his description of what he actually
saw would appear to be improbable, and to exceed belief. Such was the
“Chaldees’ excellency,” that it departed not on the first conquest, nor
on the final extinction of its capital, but one metropolis of Assyria
arose after another in the land of Chaldea, when Babylon had ceased to
be “the glory of kingdoms.”
2. Manifold are the prophecies respecting Babylon and the land of the
Chaldeans; and the long lapse of ages has served to confirm their
fulfilment in every particular, and to render it at last complete. The
judgments of Heaven are not casual, but sure; they are not arbitrary,
but righteous. And they were denounced against the Babylonians, and the
inhabitants of Chaldea, expressly because of their idolatry, tyranny,
oppression, pride, covetousness, drunkenness, falsehood, and other
wickedness. The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amos did see:
“The noise of a multitude in the mountains, like as of a great people: a
tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered together: the Lord
of Hosts mustereth the host of the battle. They come from a far country,
from the end of heaven, even the Lord and the weapons of his
indignation, to destroy the whole land. Behold, the day of the Lord
cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land
desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. Babylon,
the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency, shall be
as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited,
neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither
shall the Arabian pitch tent there: neither shall the shepherds make
their fold there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there: and
their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell
there, and satyrs shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands
shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant
palaces.” “Thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon,
and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased! Thy pomp
is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is
spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. Thou shalt be brought down
to hell, to the sides of the pit. Thou art cast out of the grave like an
abominable branch.--I will cut off from Babylon the name, and remnant,
the son, and nephew, saith the Lord. I will also make it a possession
for the bittern, and pools of water: and I will sweep it with the besom
of destruction, saith the Lord of Hosts.” “Babylon is fallen, is fallen;
and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground.”
“Thus saith the Lord, that saith unto the deep, Be dry; and I will dry
up thy rivers: that saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform
all my pleasure,--and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before
him the two-leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut.” “Bel boweth
down,” &c. “Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of
Babylon: sit on the ground, there is no throne, O daughter of the
Chaldeans. Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of
the Chaldeans; for thou shalt no more be called the lady of kingdoms.”
Many other prophecies against Babylon, and the whole land of Chaldea,
are found in the Old Testament; and though the limits of this article
will only allow a reference to be made to the exact fulfilment of a few,
there is not one of the great number of predictions on record, the
accomplishment of which has not been remarked by numerous writers, and
more especially by those who have visited the spot. For, though for many
centuries the site of Babylon was unknown, or the ruins of other
Chaldean cities mistaken for its remains, its true situation and present
condition have been, within a few years, satisfactorily ascertained, and
accurately described, by several most intelligent and enterprising
travellers.
When in the plenitude of its greatness, splendour and strength, Babylon
first yielded to the arms of Cyrus, whose name, and the manœuvre by
which the city was taken, were mentioned by Isaiah nearly two hundred
years before the event; which was also predicted by Jeremiah: “Go up, O
Elam, (or Persia,) besiege, O Media. The Lord hath raised up the spirit
of the kings of the Medes, for his device is against Babylon, to destroy
it.” The kings of Persia and Media, prompted by a common interest,
freely entered into a league against Babylon, and with one accord
entrusted the command of their united armies to Cyrus, the relative and
eventually the successor of them both.--But the taking of Babylon was
not reserved for these kingdoms alone: other nations had to be “prepared
against her.” “Set up a standard in the land; blow the trumpet among the
nations, prepare the nations against her, call together against her the
kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Aschenaz: Lo, I will raise and cause to
come up against Babylon an assembly of great nations from the north
country,” &c. Cyrus subdued the Armenians, who had revolted against
Media, spared their king, bound them over anew to their allegiance, by
kindness rather than by force, and incorporated their army with his
own.--“The mighty men of Babylon have foreborne to fight. They have
remained in their holds; their might hath failed, they became as women.”
So dispirited became its people, that Babylon, which had made the world
to tremble, was long besieged, without making any effort to drive off
the enemy. But, possessed of provisions for twenty years, which in their
timid caution they had plentifully stored, they derided Cyrus from their
impregnable walls, within which they remained. Their profligacy, their
wickedness and false confidence were unabated; they continued to live
carelessly in pleasures: and Babylon the great, unlike to many a small
fortress and unwalled town, made not one struggle to regain its freedom
or to be rid of the foe.--Much time having been lost, and no progress
being made in the siege, the anxiety of Cyrus was strongly excited, and
he was reduced to great perplexity, when at last it was suggested and
immediately determined to divert the course of the Euphrates. And while
the unconscious and reckless citizens were engaged in dancing and
merriment, the river was suddenly turned into the lake, the trench, and
the canals; and the Persians, both foot and horse, so soon as the
subsiding of the water permitted, entered by its channel, and were
followed by the allies in array, along the dry part of the river. “I
will dry up thy sea, and make thy springs dry. That saith to the deep,
Be dry, I will dry up thy rivers.”--One detachment was placed where the
river first enters the city, and another where it leaves it. And “one
post did run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to show
the king of Babylon that his city is taken at the end, and that the
passages are shut.” “They were taken,” says Herodotus, “by _surprise_;
and such is the extent of the city, that, as the inhabitants themselves
affirm, they who lived in the extremities were made prisoners before any
alarm was communicated to the centre of the place,” where the palace
stood. Thus a “snare was laid for Babylon, it was taken, and it was not
aware; it was found and also caught; for it had sinned against the Lord.
How is the praise of the whole earth surprised!”--“In their heat I will
make their feasts, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice
and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the Lord. I will bring
them down like lambs to the slaughter,” &c. “I will make drunken her
princes and her wise men, her captains and her rulers, and her mighty
men, and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep,” &c. Cyrus, as the night
drew on, stimulated his assembled troops to enter the city, because in
that night of general revel within the walls, many of them were asleep,
many drunk, and confusion universally prevailed. On passing, without
obstruction or hinderance, into the city, the Persians, slaying some,
putting others to flight, and joining with the revellers, as if
slaughter had been merriment, hastened by the shortest way to the
palace, and reached it ere yet a messenger had told the king that his
city was taken. The gates of the palace, which was strongly fortified,
were shut. The guards stationed before them, were _drinking_ beside a
blazing light, when the Persians rushed impetuously upon them. A louder
and altered clamour, no longer joyous, caught the ear of the inmates of
the palace, and the bright light showed them the work of destruction,
without revealing its cause. And not aware of the presence of an enemy
in the midst of Babylon, the king himself, (who had been roused from his
revelry by the hand writing on the wall,) excited by the warlike tumult
at the gates, commanded those within to examine from whence it arose;
and according to the same word, by which “the gates” (leading from the
river to the city) “were not shut, the loins of kings were loosed to
open before Cyrus the two-leaved gates” of the palace. The eager
Persians sprang in. “The king of Babylon heard the report of them;
anguish took hold of him;” he and all who were about him perished; God
had “numbered” his kingdom and finished it; it was “divided,” and given
to the Medes and Persians; the lives of the Babylonian princes, and
lords, and rulers, and captains, closed with that night’s festival; the
drunken slept “a perpetual sleep, and did not wake.”--“I will fill thee
with men as with caterpillars.” Not only did the Persian army enter with
ease as caterpillars, together with all the nations that had come up
against Babylon, but they seemed also as numerous. Cyrus, after the
capture of the city, made a great display of his cavalry in the presence
of the Babylonians, and in the midst of Babylon. Four thousand guards
stood before the palace gates, and two thousand on each side. These
advanced as Cyrus approached; two thousand spearmen followed them. These
were succeeded by four square masses of Persian cavalry, each consisting
of ten thousand men: and to these again were added, in their order, the
Median, Armenian, Hyrcanian, Caducian, and Sacian horsemen,--all, as
before, “riding upon horses, every man in array,”--with lines of
chariots, four abreast, concluding the train of the numerous hosts.
Cyrus afterward reviewed, at Babylon, the whole of his army, consisting
of one hundred and twenty thousand horse, two thousand chariots, and six
hundred thousand foot. Babylon, which was taken when not aware, and
within whose walls no enemy, except a captive, had been ever seen, was
thus “filled with men as with caterpillars,” as if there had not been a
wall around it. The Scriptures do not relate the manner in which Babylon
was taken, nor do they ever allude to the exact fulfilment of the
prophecies. But there is, in every particular, a strict coincidence
between the predictions of the prophets and the historical narratives,
both of Herodotus and Xenophon.
3. Every step in the progress of the decline of Babylon was the
accomplishment of a prophecy. Conquered, for the first time, by Cyrus,
it was afterward reduced from an imperial to a tributary city. “Come
down and sit in the dust, O daughter of Babylon: sit on the ground,
there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans.” After the Babylonians
rebelled against Darius, the walls were reduced in height, and all the
gates destroyed. “The wall of Babylon shall fall, her walls are thrown
down.”--Xerxes, after his ignominious retreat from Greece, rifled the
temples of Babylon, the golden images alone of which were estimated at
20,000,000_l_, beside treasures of vast amount. “I will punish Bel in
Babylon, and I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he has
swallowed up; I will do judgment upon the graven images of
Babylon.”--Alexander the Great attempted to restore it to its former
glory, and designed to make it the metropolis of a universal empire. But
while the building of the temple of Belus, and the reparation of the
embankments of the Euphrates, were actually carrying on, the conqueror
of the world died, at the commencement of this his last undertaking, in
the height of his power, and in the flower of his age. “Take balm for
her pain, if so be that she may be healed. We would have healed Babylon,
but she is not healed.” The building of the neighbouring city of
Seleucia was the chief cause of the decline of Babylon, and drained it
of a great part of its population. And at a later period, or about 130
years before the birth of Christ, Humerus, a Parthian governor, who was
noted as excelling all tyrants in cruelty, exercised great severities on
the Babylonians; and having burned the forum and some of the temples,
and destroyed the fairest parts of the city, reduced many of the
inhabitants to slavery on the slightest pretexts, and caused them,
together with all their households, to be sent into Media. “They shall
remove, they shall depart, both man and beast.” The “golden city” thus
gradually verged, for centuries, toward poverty and desolation.
Notwithstanding that Cyrus resided chiefly at Babylon, and sought to
reform the government, and remodel the manners of the Babylonians, the
succeeding kings of Persia preferred, as the seat of empire, Susa,
Persepolis, or Ecbatana, situated in their own country: and in like
manner the successors of Alexander did not attempt to complete his
purpose of restoring Babylon to its preeminence and glory; but, after
the subdivision of his mighty empire, the very kings of Assyria, during
their temporary residence even in Chaldea, deserted Babylon, and dwelt
in Seleucia. And thus the foreign inhabitants, first Persians and
afterward Greeks, imitating their sovereigns by deserting Babylon, acted
as if they verily had said, “Forsake her, and let us go every man unto
his own country; for her judgment is reached unto heaven, and is lifted
up even to the skies.”
4. But kindred judgments, the issue of common crimes, rested on the land
of Chaldea, as well as on its doomed metropolis. “They come from a far
country, from the end of the earth, to destroy the whole land. Many
nations and great kings shall serve themselves of thee also,” &c. The
Persians, the Macedonians, the Parthians, the Romans, the Saracens, and
the Turks, are the chief of the many nations who have unscrupulously and
unsparingly “served themselves” of the land of the Chaldeans: and Cyrus
and Darius, kings of Persia; Alexander the Great; and Seleucus, king of
Assyria; Demetrius and Antiochus the Great; Tragan, Severus, Julian, and
Heraclius, emperors of Rome; the victorious Omar, the successor of
Mohammed; Holagou, and Tamerlane,--are “great kings” who successively
subdued or desolated Chaldea, or exacted from it tribute to such an
extent, as scarcely any other country ever paid to a single conqueror.
And though the names of some of these nations were unknown to the
Babylonians, and unheard of in the world at the time of the prophecy,
most of these “many nations and great kings” need now but to be named,
to show that, in local relation to Chaldea, “they came from the utmost
border, from the coasts of the earth.”--“I will punish the land of the
Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desolations; cut off the sower
from Babylon, and him that handleth the sickle in the time of harvest. A
drought is on her waters, and they shall be dried up. Behold the
hinder-most of the nations, a dry land and a desert.” The land of the
Chaldeans was indeed made--perpetual, or long continued, desolation.
Ravaged and spoiled for ages, the Chaldees’ excellency finally
disappeared, and the land became desolate, as still it remains.
Rauwolff, who passed through it in 1574, describes the country as bare,
and “so dry and barren that it cannot be tilled.” And the most recent
travellers all concur in describing it in similar terms. On the one
side, near to the site of Opis, “the country all around,” says Mr.
Buckingham, “appears to be one wide desert, of sandy and barren soil,
thinly scattered over with brushwood and tufts of reedy grass.” On the
other, between Bussorah and Bagdad, “immediately on either bank of the
Tigris,” observes Mignan, “is the _untrodden desert_. The absence of all
cultivation, the sterile, arid, and wild character of the whole scene,
formed a contrast to the rich and delightful accounts delineated in
Scripture. The natives, in travelling over these pathless deserts, are
compelled to explore their way by the stars.” “The whole country between
Bagdad and Hillah is a perfectly flat and (with the exception of a few
spots as you approach the latter place) _uncultivated waste_. That it
was at some former period in a far different state, is evident from the
number of canals by which it is traversed, now _dry_ and neglected; and
the quantity of heaps of earth covered with fragments of brick and
broken tiles, which are seen in every direction, the indisputable traces
of former population. At present the only inhabitants of the tract are
the Sobeide Arabs. Around, as far as the eye can reach is a _trackless
desert_.”--“Her cities are desolations.” The course of the Tigris
through Babylonia, instead of being adorned with cities, is marked with
the sites of “ancient ruins.” Sitace, Sabata, Narisa, Fuchera, Sendia,
“no longer exist.” A succession of longitudinal mounds, crossed at right
angles by others, mark the supposed site of Artemita, or Destagered. Its
once luxuriant gardens are covered with grass; and a higher mound
distinguishes “the royal residence” from the ancient streets. “Extensive
ridges and mountains, (near to Houmania,) varying in height and extent,
are seen branching in every direction.” A wall, with sixteen bastions,
is the only memorial of Apollonia. The once magnificent Seleucia is now
a scene of desolation. There is not a single entire edifice, but the
country is strewed for miles with fragments of decayed buildings. “As
far,” says Major Keppel, “as the eye could reach, the horizon presented
a broken line of mounds; the whole of this place was a desert flat.” On
the opposite bank of the Tigris, where Ctesiphon its rival stood, beside
fragments of walls and broken masses of brick work, and remains of vast
structures encumbered with heaps of earth, there is one magnificent
monument of antiquity “in a remarkably perfect state of preservation,”
“a large and noble pile of building, the front of which presents to view
a wall three hundred feet in length, adorned with four rows of arched
recesses, with a central arch, in span eighty-six feet, and above a
hundred feet high, supported by walls sixteen feet thick, and leading to
a hall which extends to the depth of a hundred and fifty-six feet,” the
width of the building. A great part of the back wall, and of the roof,
is broken down; but that which remains “still appears much larger than
Westminster Abbey.” It is supposed to have been the lofty palace of
Chosroes; but there desolation now reigns. “On the site of Ctesiphon,”
says Mignan, “the smallest insect under heaven would not find a single
blade of grass wherein to hide itself, nor one drop of water to allay
its thirst.” In the rear of the palace, and attached to it, are mounds
two miles in circumference, indicating the utter desolation of
buildings, formed to minister to luxury.
5. But let us come to the fulfilment of these wonderful prophecies in
the present condition of Babylon itself, as described by those who have
most recently visited it.
“Babylon shall become heaps.” Babylon the glory of kingdoms is now the
greatest of ruins. “Immense tumuli of temples, palaces, and habitations
of every description,” are every where seen, and form “long and varied
lines of ruins,” which, in some places, says Sir R. K. Porter, “rather
resemble natural hills than _mounds_ which cover the remains of great
and splendid edifices.” These buildings, which were once the labour of
slaves and the pride of kings, are now misshapen heaps of rubbish. “The
whole face of the country,” observes Rich, “is covered with vestiges of
building, in some places consisting of brick walls surprisingly fresh,
in others, merely a _vast succession of mounds_ of rubbish, of such
indeterminate figures, variety, and extent, as to involve the person who
should have formed any theory in inextricable confusion.”--“Let nothing
of her be left.” “Vast heaps constitute _all that now remains_ of
ancient Babylon,” says Rich. All its grandeur is departed; all its
treasures have been spoiled; all its excellence has utterly vanished;
the very heaps are searched for bricks, when nothing else can be found;
even these are _not left_, wherever they can be taken away; and Babylon
has for ages been “a quarry above ground,” ready to the hand of every
successive despoiler. Without the most remote allusion to this prophecy,
Captain Mignan describes a mound attached to the palace, ninety yards in
breadth by half that height, the whole of which is deeply furrowed, in
the same manner as the generality of the mounds. “The ground is
extremely soft, and tiresome to walk over, and appears _completely
exhausted_ of all its building materials; _nothing now is left_, save
one towering hill, the earth of which is mixed with _fragments_ of
broken brick, red varnished pottery, tile, bitumen, mortar, glass,
shells, and pieces of mother of pearl,”--worthless fragments, of no
value to the poorest. “From thence shall she be taken, let nothing of
her be left.” While the workmen “cast her up as heaps” while excavating
for bricks, that they may “take” them “from thence,” and that “nothing
may be left;” they labour more than trebly in the fulfilment of
prophecy: for the numerous and deep excavations form pools of water, on
the over-flowing of the Euphrates, and, annually filled, they are not
dried up throughout the year. “Deep cavities are also formed by the
Arabs, when digging for hidden treasure.” Thus “the ground,” says
Buckingham, “is sometimes covered with pools of water in the hollows.”
“Sit in the dust, sit on the ground, O daughter of the Chaldeans.” The
surface of the mounds which form all that remains of Babylon, consists
of decomposed buildings, reduced to dust; and over all the ancient
streets and habitations, there is literally nothing but the dust of the
ground on which to sit.--“Thy nakedness shall be uncovered.” “Our path,”
says Captain Mignan, “lay through the great mass of ruined heaps on the
site of ‘shrunken Babylon;’ and I am perfectly incapable of conveying an
adequate idea of the dreary, lonely nakedness that appeared before
me.”--“Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness.” “There reigns
throughout the ruins,” says Sir R. K. Porter, “a silence profound as the
grave.” “Babylon is now a silent scene, a sublime solitude.”--“It shall
never be inhabited, nor dwelt in from generation to generation.” From
Rauwolff’s testimony it appears that, in the sixteenth century, “there
was not a house to be seen.” And now “the eye wanders over a barren
desert, in which the ruins are nearly the only indication that it had
ever been inhabited.” “It is impossible,” adds Major Keppel, “to behold
this scene and not to be reminded how exactly the predictions of Isaiah
and Jeremiah have been fulfilled, even in the appearance Babylon was
doomed to present, that ‘she should never be inhabited;’ that ‘the
Arabian should not pitch his tent there;’ that she should ‘become
heaps;’ that her cities should be ‘a desolation, a dry land, and a
wilderness.’” “Babylon is spurned alike by the heel of the Ottomans, the
Israelites, and the sons of Ishmael.” It is “a tenantless and desolate
metropolis,” remarks Mignan. “It shall not be inhabited, but be wholly
desolate. Neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there, neither shall the
shepherds make their folds there.” It was prophesied of Ammon that it
should be a stable for camels and a couching place for flocks; and of
Philistia, that it should be cottages for shepherds, and a pasture of
flocks. But Babylon was to be visited with a far greater desolation, and
to become unfit or unsuited even for such a purpose; and that neither a
tent would be pitched there, even by an Arab, nor a fold made by a
shepherd, implies the last degree of solitude and desolation. “It is
common in these parts for shepherds to make use of ruined edifices to
shelter their flocks in.” But Babylon is an exception. Instead of taking
the bricks from thence, the shepherd might very readily erect a defence
from wild beasts, and make a fold for his flock amidst the heaps of
Babylon; and the Arab who fearlessly traverses it by day, might pitch
his tent by night. But neither the one nor the other could now be
persuaded to remain a single night among the ruins. The superstitious
dread of evil spirits, far more than the natural terror of the wild
beasts, effectually prevents them. Captain Mignan was accompanied by six
Arabs, completely armed; but he “could not induce them to remain toward
night, from the apprehension of evil spirits. It is impossible to
eradicate this idea from the minds of this people, who are very deeply
imbued with superstition.”
“Wild beasts of the deserts shall lie there, and their houses shall be
full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs
(goats) shall dance there,” &c. “There are many dens of wild beasts in
various parts. And while the lower excavations are often pools of water,
in most of the cavities are numbers of bats and owls.” The king of the
forest now ranges over the site of that Babylon which Nebuchadnezzar
built for his own glory. And the temple of Belus, the greatest work of
man, is now like unto a natural den of lions. Two or three majestic
lions were seen upon its heights by Sir Robert Ker Porter, as he was
approaching it; and “the broad prints of their feet were left plain in
the clayey soil.” Major Keppel saw there a similar foot-print of a lion.
It is also the unmolested retreat of jackalls, hyenas, and other noxious
animals. Wild beasts are numerous at the Mujelibé, as well as on Birs
Nimrood. “The mound,” says Kinneir, “was full of large holes: we entered
some of them, and found them strewed with the carcasses and skeletons of
animals recently killed. The ordure of wild beasts was so strong, that
prudence got the better of curiosity; for we had no doubt as to the
savage nature of the inhabitants. Our guides, indeed, told us, that all
the ruins abounded in lions, and other wild beasts: so literally has the
divine prediction been fulfilled, that wild beasts of the deserts should
lie there, and their houses be full of doleful creatures; that the wild
beasts of the islands should cry in their desolate houses.”
“The sea is come upon Babylon. She is covered with the multitude of the
waves thereof.” The traces of the western bank of the Euphrates are now
no longer discernible. The river overflows unrestrained; and the very
ruins, with “every appearance of the embankment,” have been swept away.
“The ground there is low and marshy, and presents not the slightest
vestige of former buildings, of any description whatever.” “Morasses and
ponds,” says Porter, “tracked the ground in various parts. For a long
time after the general subsiding of the Euphrates, great part of this
plain is little better than a swamp,” &c. “The ruins of Babylon are then
inundated, so as to render many parts of them inaccessible, by
converting the valleys among them into morasses.” But while Babylon is
thus “covered with the multitude of waves, and the waters come upon it;”
yet, in striking contrast and seeming contradiction to such a feature of
desolation, (like the formation of “pools of water,” from the “casting
up of heaps,”) are the elevated sunburnt ruins, which the waters do not
overflow, and the “dry waste” and “parched and burning plain,” on which
the heaps of Babylon lie, equally prove that it is “a desert, a dry
land, and a wilderness.” One part, even on the western side of the
river, is “low and marshy, and another,” says Mignan, “an arid desert.”
Many other striking particulars might be collected; and we may conclude
in the words of Mr. Keith, from whose work on the prophecies several of
the above particulars have been extracted:--“Is it possible that there
can be any attestation of the truth of prophecy, if it be not witnessed
here? Is there any spot on earth which has undergone a more complete
transformation? ‘The records of the human race,’ it has been said with
truth, ‘do not present a contrast more striking than that between the
primeval magnificence of Babylon and its long desolation.’ Its ruins
have of late been carefully and scrupulously examined by different
natives of Britain, of unimpeached veracity; and the result of every
research is a more striking demonstration of the literal accomplishment
of every prediction. How few spots are there on earth of which we have
so clear and faithful a picture as prophecy gave to fallen Babylon at a
time when no spot on earth resembled it less than its present desolate
solitary site! or could any prophecies respecting any single place have
been more precise, or wonderful, or numerous, or true, or more gradually
accomplished throughout many generations? And when they look at what
Babylon was, and what it is, and perceive the minute realization of them
all, may not nations learn wisdom, may not tyrants tremble, and may not
skeptics think?”
The reasons why prophecies so numerous and particular were recorded
concerning Babylon, appear to have been, 1. That Babylon was the great
oppressor of the Jews. 2. That it was the type of all the powerful
persecuting enemies of the church of God, especially of Rome; and in its
fate they may read their own. 3. That the accomplishment of prophecy in
the destruction of so eminent an empire might give a solemn testimony to
the truth of the Scriptures to the whole earth, and to all ages.