7, that he did not think those years to be bare years, but rather days for years; by which reckoning, and by which alone, could seventy weeks, or four hundred and ninety days, reach to the age of Josephus.But as to the truth of those seven years' banishment of Nebuchadnezzar from men, and his living so long among the beasts, the very small remains we have any where else of this Nebuchadnezzar prevent our expectation of any other full account of it.So far we knew by Ptolemy's canon, a contemporary record, as well as by Josephus presently, that he reigned in all forty-three years, that is, eight years after we meet with any account of his actions; one of the last of which was the thirteen years' siege of Tyre, Antiq.B.XI.ch.11., where yet the Old Latin has but three years and ten months: yet were his actions before so remarkable, both in sacred and profane authors, that a vacuity of eight years at the least, at the latter end of his reign, must be allowed to agree very well with Daniel's accounts;that after a seven years' brutal life, he might return to his reason, and to the exercise of his royal authority, for one whole year at least before his death.
(20) These forty-three years for the duration of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar are, as I have just now observed, the very same number in Ptolemy's canon.Moses Chorenensis does also confirm this captivity of the Jews under Nebuchadnezzar, and adds, what is very remarkable, that sale of those Jews that were carried by him into captivity got away into Armenia, and raised the great family of the Bagratide there.
(21) These twenty-one years here ascribed to one named Naboulassar, in the first book against Apion, or to Nabopollassar, the father of the great Nebuchadnezzar, are also the very same with those given him in Ptolemy's canon.And note here, that what Dr.Prideaux says, at the year, that Nebuchadnezzar must have been a common name of other kings of Babylon, besides the great Nebuchadnezzar himself is a groundless mistake of some modern chronologers rely, and destitute of all proper original authority.
(22) These fifteen days for finishing such vast buildings at Babylon, in Josephus's copy of Berosus, would seem too absurd to be supposed to be the true number, were it not for the same testimony extant also in the first book against Apion, sect.19, with the same number.It thence indeed appears that Josephus's copy of Berosus had this small number, but that it is the true number I still doubt.Josephus assures us, that the walls of so much a smaller city as Jerusalem were two years and four months in building by Nehemiah, who yet hastened the work all he could, Antiq.B.XI.ch.5.sect.8.I should think one hundred and fifteen days, or a year and fifteen days, much more proportionable to so great a work.
(23) It is here remarkable that Josephus, without the knowledge of Ptolemy's canon, should call the same king whom he himself here (Bar.i.11, and Daniel 5:1, 2, 9, 12, 22, 29, 39) styles Beltazar, or Belshazzar, from the Babylonian god Bel, Naboandelus also; and in the first book against Apion, sect.19, vol.iii., from the same citation out of Berosus, Nabonnedon, from the Babylonian god Nabo or Nebo.This last is not remote from the original pronunciation itself in Ptolemy's canon, Nabonadius; for both the place of this king in that canon, as the last of the Assyrian or Babylonian kings, and the number of years of his reign, seventeen, the same in both demonstrate that it is one and the same king that is meant by them all.It is also worth noting, that Josephus knew that Darius, the partner of Cyrus, was the son of Astyages, and was called by another name among the Greeks, though it does not appear he knew what that name was, as having never seen the best history of this period, which is Xenophon's.
But then what Josephus's present copies say presently, sect.4, that it was only within no long time after the hand-writing on the wall that Baltasar was slain, does not so well agree with our copies of Daniel, which say it was the same night, Daniel 5:30.
(24) This grandmother, or mother of Baltasar, the queen dowager of Babylon, (for she is distinguished from his queen, Daniel 5:10, 13,) seems to have been the famous Nitocris, who fortified Babylon against the Medes and Persians, and, in all probability governed under Baltasar, who seems to be a weak and effeminate prince.
(25) It is no way improbable that Daniel's enemies might suggest this reason to the king why the lions did not meddle with him and that they might suspect the king's kindness to Daniel had procured these lions to be so filled beforehand, and that thence it was that he encouraged Daniel to submit to this experiment, in hopes of coming off safe; and that this was the true reason of making so terrible an experiment upon those his enemies, and all their families, Daniel 6:21, though our other copies do not directly take notice of it (26) What Josephus here says, that the stones of the sepulchers of the kings of Persia at this tower, or those perhaps of the same sort that are now commonly called the ruins of Persepolis, continued so entire and unaltered in his days, as if they were lately put there, "I (says Reland) here can show to be true, as to those stones of the Persian mansoleum, which Com.Brunius brake off and gave me." He ascribed this to the hardness of the stones, which scarcely yields to iron tools, and proves frequently too hard for cutting by the chisel, but oftentimes breaks it to pieces.