he name of
the son. _Astyages_ did nothing glorious: in the beginning of his Reign a
great body of _Scythians_ commanded by _Madyes_, [407] invaded _Media_ and
_Parthia_, as above, and Reigned there about 28 years; but at length his
son _Cyaxeres_ circumvented and slew them in a feast, and made the rest fly
to their brethren in _Parthia_; and immediately after, in conjunction with
_Nebuchadnezzar_, invaded and subverted the Kingdom of _Assyria_, and
destroyed _Nineveh_.

In the fourth year of _Jehoiakim_, which the _Jews_ reckon to be the first
of _Nebuchadnezzar_, dating his Reign from his being made King by his
father, or from the month _Nisan_ preceding, when the victors had newly
shared the Empire of the _Assyrians_, and in prosecuting their victory were
invading _Syria_ and _Phoenicia_, and were ready to invade the nations
round about; God [408] threatned that _he would take all the families of
the North, _that is, the armies of the _Medes_,_ and _Nebuchadnezzar_ the
King of _Babylon_, and bring them against _Judaea_ and against the nations
round about, and utterly destroy those nations, and make them an
astonishment and lasting desolations, and cause them all to drink the
wine-cup of his fury_; and in particular, he names _the Kings of _Judah_
and _Egypt_, and those of _Edom_, and _Moab_, and _Ammon_, and _Tyre_, and
_Zidon_, and the Isles of the Sea, and _Arabia_, and _Zimri_, and all the
Kings of _Elam_, and all the Kings of the _Medes_, and all the Kings of the
North, and the King of _Sesac_; and that after seventy years, he would also
punish the King of _Babylon__. Here, in numbering the nations which should
suffer, he omits the _Assyrians_ as fallen already, and names the Kings of
_Elam_ or _Persia_, and _Sesac_ or _Susa_, as distinct from those of the
_Medes_ and _Babylonians_; and therefore the _Persians_ were not yet
subdued by the _Medes_, nor the King of _Susa_ by the _Chaldaeans_; and as
by the punishment of the King of _Babylon_ he means the conquest of
_Babylon_ by the _Medes_; so by the punishment of the _Medes_ he seems to
mean the conquest of the _Medes_ by _Cyrus_.

After this, in the beginning of the Reign of _Zedekiah_, that is, in the
ninth year of _Nebuchadnezzar,_ God threatned that _he would give the
Kingdoms of _Edom_, _Moab_, and _Ammon_, and _Tyre_ and _Zidon_, into the
hand of _Nebuchadnezzar_ King of _Babylon_, and that all the nations should
serve him, and his son, and his son's son un