Kentucky Gazette And General Advertiser

The glory and predicted fall and ruin of Babylon.

Babylon, situated on the banks of the Euphrates, within the limits of the present Turkish empire, and at no great distance from the city of Bagdad, has afforded a most illustrious instance, as well of the truth of scripture prophecy, as of the perishing nature of all worldly grandeur. This city was founded by Nimrod, a grandson of Ham, who was one of the sons of Noah. He was a mighty hunter,' and after rendering himself popular by his stratagem and prowess in destroying wild beasts of prey, he subdued the tribes of men and bowed their necks beneath his regal sceptre. The sacred historian remarks, that the beginning of his kingdom was Babel. Babylon, begun by Nimrod where old Babel stood, was enlarged, enriched and embellished by his successors, till, in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, its splendor surpassed description. It was four square, and sixty miles in circumference. Its walls were eighty seven feet thick. and three hundred and fifty feet high. Its gates were of brass ; its gardens supported in the air at the height of between three and four hundred feet;—planted with Orange and other fruit trees, and decorated with every flower, shrub and vegetable that could charm the senses, were an astonishing specimen of the art and power of man. That city was the cradle, or the birth place of learning and the sciences. In the observatories, on the summits of its lofty towers, astronomy was studied some centuries before the time of Abraham.—The wealth of the East, wrung from its owners by extortions and conquests, was poured into this reservoir : thither were conveyed the golden vessels of Solomon's temple, and all the riches of Jerusalem and Tyre.

While Babylon was at the height of her power and grandeur ; while in the confident expectation of endless prosperity, she was "singing like an harlot," the holy Seers of Palestine predicted her fall and ruin. Jeremiah prophesied concerning Babylon. " It shall not be inhabited but shall be wholly desolate' Isaiah foretold that Babylon should be destroyed and " never again inhabited; but wild beasts of the desert shall lie there, and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures!"

Events have strikingly corresponded to those predictions. Five hundred and thirty eight years before the christian era. Babylon was taken by Cyrus, when Belshazzar the king was slain—By a series of subsequent calamities, that superb city was laid in ruins, and has long since become a den of serpents.—In the time of Augustus, the city was almost deserted. The Persian kings, in the second or third century, while the walls were still standing, used the city as a great park in which they kept and hunted wild beasts. At last the walls and the towers, which were built of brick and hewn stone cemented together with bitumen, crumbled and fell; and the fragments of those immense piles overspread the ground. Benjamin, a Jew who was there in the 12th century said, " Babylon is now laid waste, and men fear to enter there on account of the serpents and scorpions." Another who visited the ruins in the year 1574, said, " They are so full of venomous creatures that no one dares approach nearer than half a league from them, except for two months in the winter, when these animals stir not from their holes," More modern travellers have given a similar account; adding, that the ruins are so defaced and so widely spread, that it is impossible to tell exactly where the city stood.

[Balance.]