In the fourth year of _Jehoiakim_, which the _Jews_ reckon to be the first of _Nebuchadnezzar_, dating his Reign from his being made King by his father, or from the month _Nisan_ preceding, when the victors had newly shared the Empire of the _Assyrians_, and in prosecuting their victory were invading _Syria_ and _Phœnicia_, and were ready to invade the nations round about; God [408] threatned that _he would take all the families of the North, _that is, the armies of the _Medes_,_ and _Nebuchadnezzar_ the King of _Babylon_, and bring them against _Judæa_ and against the nations round about, and utterly destroy those nations, and make them an astonishment and lasting desolations, and cause them all to drink the wine-cup of his fury_; and in particular, he names _the Kings of _Judah_ and _Egypt_, and those of _Edom_, and _Moab_, and _Ammon_, and _Tyre_, and _Zidon_, and the Isles of the Sea, and _Arabia_, and _Zimri_, and all the Kings of _Elam_, and all the Kings of the _Medes_, and all the Kings of the North, and the King of _Sesac_; and that after seventy years, he would also punish the King of _Babylon__. Here, in numbering the nations which should suffer, he omits the _Assyrians_ as fallen already, and names the Kings of _Elam_ or _Persia_, and _Sesac_ or _Susa_, as distinct from those of the _Medes_ and _Babylonians_; and therefore the _Persians_ were not yet subdued by the _Medes_, nor the King of _Susa_ by the _Chaldæans_; and as by the punishment of the King of _Babylon_ he means the conquest of _Babylon_ by the _Medes_; so by the punishment of the _Medes_ he seems to mean the conquest of the _Medes_ by _Cyrus_.