How deeply Manasseh had planted in Israel the worship of the heavenly host may be seen from the survival of the latter through all the reforms of Josiah and the destruction of Jerusalem (Jer. vii. 18, viii., xliv.; Ezek. viii. Cf. Stade, _Gesch. des V. Israel_, I., pp. 629 ff.).
[16] The Jehovist and Elohist into the closely mortised JE. Stade indeed assigns to the period of Manasseh Israel’s first acquaintance with the Babylonian cosmogonies and myths which led to that reconstruction of them in the spirit of her own religion which we find in the Jehovistic portions of the beginning of Genesis (_Gesch. des V. Isr._, I., pp. 630 ff.). But it may well be doubted (1) whether the reign of Manasseh affords time for this assimilation, and (2) whether it was likely that Assyrian and Babylonian theology could make so deep and lasting impression upon the purer faith of Israel at a time when the latter stood in such sharp hostility to all foreign influences and was so bitterly persecuted by the parties in Israel who had succumbed to these influences.
[17] Chaps. v.—xxvi., xxviii.
[19] 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11 ff.
[20] 2 Kings xxi. 23.
[21] But in his conquests of Hauran, Northern Arabia and the eastern neighbours of Judah, he had evidently sought to imitate the policy of Asarhaddon in 675 f., and secure firm ground in Palestine and Arabia for a subsequent attack upon Egypt. That this never came shows more than anything else could Assyria’s consciousness of growing weakness.
[22] The name of Josiah’s (יֹאשִׁיָּהוּ) mother was Jedidah (יְדִידָה), daughter of Adaiah (עֲדָיָה) of Boṣḳath in the Shephelah of Judah.
[23] 2 Kings xxii., xxiii.
[24] Zeph. i. 4: the LXX. reads _names of Baal_. See below, p. 40, n. 87.
[25] _Ibid._, 5.
[26] _Ibid._, 8-12.
[27] I. 102 ff.
[28] Herod., I. 105.
[29] The new name of Bethshan in the mouth of Esdraelon, viz. Scythopolis, is said to be derived from them (but see _Hist. Geog. of the Holy Land_, pp. 363 f.); they conquered Askalon (Herod., I. 105).
[30] 2 Kings xvii. 6: _and in the cities_ (LXX. _mountains_) _of the Medes_. The Heb. is מָדָי, Madai.
[31] Mentioned by Sargon.
[32] Sayce, _Empires of the East_, 239: cf. McCurdy, § 823 f.
[33] Herod., I. 103.
[34] Heb. Kasdim, כַּשְׂדִים; LXX. Χαλδαῖοι; Assyr. Kaldâa, Kaldu. The Hebrew form with _s_ is regarded by many authorities as the original, from the Assyrian root _kashadu_, to conquer, and the Assyrian form with _l_ to have arisen by the common change of _sh_ through _r_ into _l_. The form with _s_ does not occur, however, in Assyrian, which also possesses the root _kaladu_, with the same meaning as _kashadu_. See Mr. Pinches’ articles on Chaldea and the Chaldeans in the new edition of Vol. I. of Smith’s _Bible Dictionary_.
[35] About 880 B.C. in the annals of Assurnatsirpal. See Chronological Table to Vol. I.
[36] No inscriptions of Asshur-itil-ilani have been found later than the first two years of his reign.
[37] Billerbeck-Jeremias, “Der Untergang Niniveh’s,” in Delitzsch and Haupt’s _Beiträge zur Assyriologie_, III., p. 113.
[38] Nahum ii.
[39] See below, p. 120.
[40] Abydenus (apud Euseb., _Chron._, I. 9) reports a marriage between Nebuchadrezzar, Nabopolassar’s son, and the daughter of the Median king.
[41] 2 Kings xxiii. 29. The history is here very obscure. Necho, met at Megiddo by Josiah, and having slain him, appears to have spent a year or two in subjugating, and arranging for the government of, Syria (_ibid._, verses 33-35), and only reached the Euphrates in 605, when Nebuchadrezzar defeated him.
[42] The reverse view is taken by Wellhausen, who says (_Israel u. Jüd. Gesch._, pp. 97 f.): “Der Pharaoh scheint ausgezogen zu sein um sich seinen Teil an der Erbschaft Ninives vorwegzunehmen, während die Meder und Chaldäer die Stadt belagerten.”