ar came in
person, "he and all his host," against Jerusalem, and after overcoming
and pillaging the open country, "built forts" and besieged the city.
Uaphris, upon this, learning the danger of his ally, marched out of
Egypt to his relief; and the Babylonian army, receiving intelligence
of his approach, raised the siege and proceeded in quest of their new
enemy. According to Josephus a battle was fought, in which the Egyptians
were defeated; but it is perhaps more probable that they avoided an
engagement by a precipitate retreat into their own country. At any
rate the attempt effectually to relieve Jerusalem failed. After a brief
interval the siege was renewed; a complete blockade was established; and
in a year and a half from the time of the second investment, the city
fell.

Nebuchadnezzar had not waited to witness this success of his arms.
The siege of Tyre was still being pressed at the date of the second
investment of Jerusalem, and the Chaldaean monarch had perhaps thought
that his presence on the borders of Phoenicia was necessary to animate
his troops in that quarter. If this was his motive in withdrawing from
the Jewish capital, the event would seem to have shown that he judged
wisely. Tyre, if it fell at the end of its thirteen years' siege,
must have been taken in the very year which followed the capture of
Jerusalem, B.C. 585. We may suppose that Nebuchadnezzar, when he quitted
Jerusalem and took up his abode at Eiblah in the Coele-Syrian valley,
turned his main attention to the great Phoenician city, and made
arrangements which caused its capture in the ensuing year.

The recovery of these two important cities secured to the Babylonian
monarch the quiet possession thenceforth of Syria and Palestine. But
still he had not as yet inflicted any chastisement upon Egypt; though
policy, no less than honor, required that the aggressions of this
audacious power should be punished. If we may believe Josephus, however,
the day of vengeance was not very long delayed. Within four years of the
fall of Tyre, B.C. 581, Nebuchadnezzar, he tells us, invaded Egypt, put
Uaphris, the monarch who had succored Zedekiah, to death, and placed
a creature of his own upon the throne. Egyptian history, it is true,
forbids our accepting this statement as correct in all its particulars.
Uaphris appears certainly to have reigned at least as late as B.C.
569, and according to Herodotus, he was put to death, not by a foreign
invader, but