tanding
and had been present at its destruction.

* The name which is written Sheshbazzar in the Hebrew text
of the Book of Ezra (i. 9, 11; v. 14, 16) is rendered
Sasabalassaros in Lucian's recension of the Septuagint, and
this latter form confirms the hypothesis of Hoonacker, which
is now universally accepted, that it corresponds to the
Babylonian Shamash-abaluzur. It is known that Shamash
becomes Shauash in Babylonian; thus Saosdukhinos comes from
Shamash-shumukin: similarly Shamash-abaluzur has become
Shauash-abaluzur. Imbert has recognised Sheshbazzar,
Shauash-abaluzur in the Shenazzar mentioned in 1 Chron. iii.
8, as being one of the sons of Jeconiah, and this
identification has been accepted by several recent
historians of Israel. It should be remembered that Shauash-
abaluzur and Zerubbabel have long been confounded one with
the other.

The returning exiles at first settled in the small towns of Judah and
Benjamin, and it was not until seven months after their arrival that
they summoned courage to clear the sacred area in order to erect in its
midst an altar of sacrifice.*

* The history of this first return from captivity is
summarily set forth in Ezra i.; cf. v. 13-17; vi. 3-5, 15.
Its authenticity has been denied: with regard to this point
and the questions relating to Jewish history after the
exile, the modifications which have been imposed on the
original plan of this work have obliged me to suppress much
detail in the text and the whole of the bibliography in the
notes.

They formed there, in the land of their fathers, a little colony, almost
lost among the heathen nations of former times--Philistines, Idumasans,
Moabites, Ammonites, and the settlers implanted at various times in what
had been the kingdom of Israel by the sovereigns of Assyria and Chaldaea.
Grouped around the Persian governor, who alone was able to protect them
from the hatred of their rivals, they had no hope of prospering, or even
of maintaining their position, except by exhibiting an unshaken fidelity
to their deliverers. It was on this very feeling that Cyrus mainly
relied when he granted them permission to return to their native
hills, and he was actuated as much by a far-seeing policy as from the
promptings of instinctive generosity. It was with satisfaction that he
saw in that distant province, lying on the fronti