calling, and the minute ceremonial instructions as to the killing and cooking of the sacrificial animals appeared to him as necessary to the future prosperity of his people as the moral law.  Towards the end, however, the imagination of the seer soared above the formalism of the sacrificing priest; he saw in a vision waters issuing out of the very threshold of the divine house, flowing towards the Dead Sea through a forest of fruit trees, “whose leaf shall not wither, neither shall the fruit thereof fail.”  The twelve tribes of Israel, alike those of whom a remnant still existed as well as those which at different times had become extinct, were to divide the regenerated land by lot among them—­Dan in the extreme north, Reuben and Judah in the south; and they would unite to found once more, around Mount Sion, that new Jerusalem whose name henceforth was to be Jahveh-shammah, “The Lord is there."*

     * Ezek. xlvii., xlviii.  The image of the river seems to be
     borrowed from the vessel of water of Chaldaean mythology.

The influence of Ezekiel does not seem to have extended beyond a restricted circle of admirers.  Untouched by his preaching, many of the exiles still persisted in their worship of the heathen gods; most of these probably became merged in the bulk of the Chaldaean population, and were lost, as far as Israel was concerned, as completely as were the earlier exiles of Ephraim under Tiglath-pileser III. and Sargon.  The greater number of the Jews, however, remained faithful to their hopes of future greatness, and applied themselves to discerning in passing events the premonitory signs of deliverance.  “Like as a woman with child, that draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs; so have we been before Thee, O Lord....  Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee:  hide thyself for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.  For, behold, the Lord cometh forth out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity:  the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain."* The condition of the people improved after the death of Nebuchadrezzar.  Amil-marduk took Jehoiachin out of the prison in which he had languished for thirty years, and treated him with honour:** this was not as yet the restoration that had been promised, but it was the end of the persecution.

     * An anonymous prophet, about 570, in Isa. xxvi. 17, 20, 21.

     ** 2 Kings xxv. 27-30; cf.  Jer. lii. 31-34.

A period of court intrigues followed, during which the sceptre of Nebuchadrezzar changed hands four times in less than seven years; then came the accession of the peaceful and devout Nabonidus, the fall of Astyages, and the first victories of Cyrus.  Nothing escaped the vigilant eye of the prophets, and they began to proclaim that the time was at hand, then to predict the fall of Babylon, and to depict the barbarians