ssar and his successors (c. 626 ff.),
although there is no positive proof that Nabopolassar was purely
Chaldaean in blood. The sudden rise of the later Babylonian empire under
Nebuchadrezzar, the son of Nabopolassar, must have tended to produce so
thorough an amalgamation of the Chaldaeans and Babylonians, who had
theretofore been considered as two kindred branches of the same original
Semite stock, that in the course of time no perceptible differences
existed between them. A similar amalgamation, although in this case of
two peoples originally racially distinct, has taken place in modern
times between the Manchu Tatars and the Chinese. It is quite evident,
for example, from the Semitic character of the Chaldaean king-names,
that the language of these Chaldaeans differed in no way from the
ordinary Semitic Babylonian idiom which was practically identical with
that of Assyria. Consequently, the term "Chaldaean" came quite naturally
to be used in later days as synonymous with "Babylonian." When
subsequently the Babylonian language went out of use and Aramaic took
its place, the latter tongue was wrongly termed "Chaldee" by Jerome,
because it was the only language known to him used in Babylonia. This
error was followed until a very recent date by many scholars.

The derivation of the name "Chaldaean" is extremely uncertain. Peter
Jensen has conjectured with slight probability that the Chaldaeans were
Semitized Sumerians, i.e. a non-Semitic tribe which by contact with
Semitic influences had lost its original character. There seems to be
little or no evidence to support such a view. Friedrich Delitzsch
derived the name "Chaldaean" =_Kasdim_ from the non-Semitic Kassites who
held the supremacy over practically all Babylonia during an extended
period (c. 1783-1200 B.C.). This theory seems also to be extremely
improbable. It is much more likely that the name "Chaldaean" is
connected with the Semitic stem _kasadu_ (conquer), in which case
_Kaldi-Kasdi_, with the well-known interchange of l and _s_, would mean
"conquerors." It is also possible that _Kasdu-Kaldu_ is connected with
the proper name Chesed, who is represented as having been the nephew of
Abraham (Gen. xxii. 22). There is no connexion whatever between the
Black Sea peoples called "Chaldaeans" by Xenophon (_Anab_. vii. 25) and
the Chaldaeans of Babylonia.

In Daniel, the term "Chaldaeans" is very commonly employed with the
meaning "astrologers, astronomers," which sen