eir
dignity proceed from themselves. Their horses also are swifter than
leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves; and their
horsemen spread themselves; yea, their horsemen come from far; they
fly as an eagle that hasteneth to devour. They come all of them for
violence; their faces are set eagerly as the east wind, and they gather
captives as the sand. Yea, he scoffeth at kings, and princes are a
derision unto him: he derideth every stronghold: for he heapeth up dust
and taketh it. Then shall he sweep by as a wind, and shall pass over the
guilty, even he whose might is his god." Nebuchadrezzar's army must have
presented a spectacle as strange as did that of Necho. It contained,
besides its nucleus of Chaldaen and Babylonian infantry, squadrons of
Scythian and Median cavalry, whose cruelty it was, no doubt, that had
alarmed the prophet, and certainly bands of Greek hoplites, for the
poet Alcasus had had a brother, Antimenidas by name, in the Chaldaean
monarch's service. Jehoiakim died before the enemy appeared beneath the
walls of Jerusalem, and was at once succeeded by his son Jeconiah,* a
youth of eighteen years, who assumed the name of Jehoiachin.**

* [Jehoiachin is called Coniah in Jer. xxii. 24 and xxiv. 1,
and Jeconiah in 1 Chron. iii. 16.--Tr.]

** 2 Kings xxiv. 5-10; cf. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 6-9, where the
writer says that Nebuchadrezzar bound Jehoiakim "in
fetters, to carry him to Babylon."

The new king continued the struggle at first courageously, but the
advent of Nebuchadrezzar so clearly convinced him of the futility of the
defence, that he suddenly decided to lay down his arms. He came forth
from the city with his mother Nehushta, the officers of his house, his
ministers, and his eunuchs, and prostrated himself at the feet of
his suzerain. The Chaldaen monarch was not inclined to proceed to
extremities; he therefore exiled to Babylon Jehoiachin and the whole of
his seditious court who had so ill-advised the young king, the best of
his officers, and the most skilful artisans, in all 3023 persons,
but the priests and the bulk of the people remained at Jerusalem. The
conqueror appointed Mattaniah, the youngest son of Josiah, to be their
ruler, who, on succeeding to the crown, changed his name, after the
example of his predecessors, adopting that of Zedekiah. Jehoiachin had
reigned exactly three months over his besieged city (596).*

The Egyptians made no attempt to save th