in revolt against her, and Israel released from the yoke by the all-powerful will of the Persians.  “Thus saith the Lord to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden to subdue nations before him, and I will loose the loins of kings; to open the doors before him, and the gates shall not be shut; I will go before thee and make the rugged places plain:  I will break in pieces the doors of brass, rend in sunder the bars of iron:  and I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I am the Lord which call thee by thy name, even the God of Israel.  For Jacob My servant’s sake, and Israel My chosen, I have called thee by thy name:  I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known Me."* Nothing can stand before the victorious prince whom Jahveh leads:  “Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth; their idols are upon the beasts, and upon the cattle:  the things that ye carried about are made a load, a burden to the weary beast.  They stoop, they bow down together; they could not deliver the burden, but themselves are gone into captivity."** “O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground without a throne, O daughter of the Chaldaeans:  for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate.  Take the millstones and grind meal:  remove thy veil, strip off the train, uncover the leg, pass through the rivers.  They nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen....  Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldaeans:  for thou shalt no more be called the lady of kingdoms."***

     * Second Isaiah, in Isa. xlv. 1-4.

     ** Second Isaiah, in Isa. xlvi. 1, 2.

     *** Second Isaiah, in Isa. xlvii. 1-5.

The task which Cyrus had undertaken was not so difficult as we might imagine.  Not only was he hailed with delight by the strangers who thronged Babylonia, but the Babylonians themselves were weary of their king, and the majority of them were ready to welcome the Persian who would rid them of him, as in old days they hailed the Assyrian kings who delivered them from their Chaldaean lords.  It is possible that towards the end of his reign Nabonidus partly resumed the supreme power;* but anxious for the future, and depending but little on human help, he had sought a more powerful aid at the hands of the gods.  He had apparently revived some of the old forgotten cults, and had applied to their use revenues which impoverished the endowment of the prevalent worship of his own time.  As he felt the growing danger approach, he remembered those towns of secondary grade—­Uru, Uruk, Larsam, and Eridu—­all of which, lying outside Nebuchadrezzar’s scheme of defence, would be sacrificed in the case of an invasion:  he had therefore brought away from them the most venerated statues, those in which the spirit of the divinity was more particularly pleased to dwell, and had shut them up in the capital, within the security of its triple rampart.**