We do not as yet possess any monumental account of Nebuchadnezzar’s campaigns in Palestine, though he has left rock texts in Lebanon and near Beirût. These record his piety in erecting temples, but one recently found attests his widespread conquests,[147] for, speaking of contributions to a temple, he says: “I gathered revenues from all peoples of mankind, from the upper sea to the lower sea, from distant lands of widespread peoples of mankind, kings ruling the mountains and the sea coast.... Princes of the land of the Hittites, near the Euphrates on the west--for by command of Merodach my lord I had swallowed up their power--were made to bring strong beams from Mount Lebanon to my city Babylon.” [Sidenote: IDOLATRY] There are many passing allusions in the Book of Jeremiah to the Jerusalem of this age.[148] When the city fell, in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the men of war fled towards Jericho by night, “by the way of the gate between two walls which is by the king’s garden.” This gate, as we shall see later, was at the recess above Siloam where the wall crossed the Tyropœon Valley at a re-entering angle. The whole city was then burned, and its treasures carried away, with its chiefs, priests, and all but the “poor of the land, vine-dressers and husbandmen.” Jerusalem had become a pagan city, full of ugly little statues of Ashtoreth, and of Baal shrines at each street corner; for “according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem have ye set up altars to Bosheth, altars to burn incense to Baal.”[149] The ancient human sacrifices, offered to Molech, continued to be celebrated in the Valley of Topheth as in Isaiah’s time. The city in extent was the same which Nehemiah found in ruins, and its ancient walls were then merely rebuilt, but a more detailed account of this topography will be conveniently deferred till the next chapter, in which the work of Nehemiah’s time is to be considered. FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER III [96] 2 Sam. v. 6–9; see LXX. The Greek reads “and his house” for “and inwards.” [97] 2 Sam. v. 7; 1 Kings viii. 1; 1 Chron. xi. 5; 2 Chron v. 2. Josephus, “Ant.,” VII. iii. 1; “Wars,” V. iv. 1. [98] Septuagint of 2 Sam. v. 9; 1 Kings xi. 27 (1 Chron. xi. 5–8 differs in the Greek). [99] Ps. xlviii. 2. [100] Zeph. i. 11. [101] Neh. iii. 8. See LXX., _tou plateos_. [102] Some references seem to make the city of David include the lower town--see 1 Kings viii. 1, ix. 24; 2 Chron. v. 2, viii. 11; 1 Macc. i. 33, ii. 31, vii. 32--but these are of late date. Stairs ascended from near Siloam to the city of David (Neh. iii. 15, xii. 37). [103] 2 Sam. v. 11; 1 Kings viii. 1, ix. 24; 1 Chron. xv. 29; 2 Chron. v. 2, viii. 11. [104] Wellhausen’s views as to a double narrative have nothing convincing to support them. [105] 2 Sam. iii. 36. [106] 2 Sam. xv. 12, xxiii. 34; _cf._ xi. 3. [107] 2 Sam. xv. 13–30, xvii. 17, xviii. 18.