Zech. i. 7, 12.  So then the ninth year of Zedekiah, in which this indignation against Jerusalem and the cities of Judah began, commenced with the month Nisan in the year of Nabonassar 158; and the eleventh year of Zedekiah, and nineteenth of Nebuchadnezzar, in which the city was taken and the Temple burnt, commenced with the month Nisan in the year of Nabonassar 160, as above.

By all these characters the years of Jehoiakim, Zedekiah, and Nebuchadnezzar, seem to be sufficiently determined, and thereby the Chronology of the Jews in the Old Testament is connected with that of later times:  for between the death of Solomon and the ninth year of Zedekiah wherein Nebuchadnezzar invaded Judaea, and began the Siege of Jerusalem, there were 390 years, as is manifest both by the prophesy of Ezekiel, chap. iv, and by summing up the years of the Kings of Judah; and from the ninth year of Zedekiah inclusively to the vulgar AEra of Christ, there were 590 years:  and both these numbers, with half the Reign of Solomon, make up a thousand years.

In the [378] end of the Reign of Josiah, Anno Nabonass. 139, Pharaoh Nechoh, the successor of Psammitichus, came with a great army out of Egypt against the King of Assyria, and being denied passage through Judaea, beat the Jews at Megiddo or Magdolus before Egypt, slew Josiah their King, marched to Carchemish or Circutium, a town of Mesopotamia upon Euphrates, and took it, possest himself of the cities of Syria, sent for Jehoahaz the new King of Judah to Riblah or Antioch, deposed him there, made Jehojakim King in the room of Josiah, and put the Kingdom of Judah to tribute:  but the King of Assyria being in the mean time besieged and subdued, and Nineveh destroyed by Assuerus King of the Medes, and Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon, and the conquerors being thereby entitled to the countries belonging to the King of Assyria, they led their victorious armies against the King of Egypt who had seized part of them.  For Nebuchadnezzar, assisted [379] by Astibares, that is, by Astivares, Assuerus, Acksweres, Axeres, or Cy-Axeres, King of the Medes, in the [380] third year of Jehoiakim, came with an army of Babylonians, Medes, Syrians, Moabites and Ammonites, to the number of 10000 chariots, and 180000 foot, and 120000 horse, and laid waste Samaria, Galilee, Scythopolis, and the Jews in Galaaditis, and besieged Jerusalem, and took King Jehoiakim alive, and [381] bound him in chains for a time, and