Jewish writers refer to a passage in the Prophet Isaiah d. The Chaldeans were but very recently risen into power ; for, many hundred years after the JewTs were established in the land of Canaan, the very name of Babylon was not at all formidable to Israel, or perhaps scarcely known. It was originally owing to the Assyrians that Babylon was exalted into so great and powerful a state : as, says the prophet, in the passage referred to, " Behold, the land of the Chaldeans ; this people was not till the Assyrian founded it for them that dwell in the wilderness : they set up the towers thereof, they raised up the palaces thereof." Now to be vanquished by such a people, and to be carried captive to such a place, appeared a peculiar degradation ; which may be supposed to be in part an accomplishment of those words, " I will move them to jealousy with them which are not a people ; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation."
But that there was to be a further accomplishment of those words, we cannot doubt. Indeed, the Jews themselves acknowledge, that their present dispersion through the world is a continuation of those very judgments which were denounced against them by Moses. Not only the learned amongst them acknow- ledge this, but, as Moses himself foretold, even the most ignorant of the Jews are well aware of it. Moses says, in Deut. xxxi. 17, 18, " My anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them ; so that they will say in that day, Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not amongst us ? And I will surely hide my face in that day for all the evils which they have wrought, in that they are turned unto other gods." Now " the Jews themselves (as Bishop Patrick observes) take notice that these words have been fulfilled by the many calamities which have befallen them since the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. This
Isai. xxiii. 13.