into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, his enemy, that sought his life. Behold, I will send and fetch Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant. At the entrance of Pharaoh's house, in Tachpanhes, he will spread out his royal pavilion, and he will come and smite the land of Egypt, and deliver to death such as are for death, and to captivity such as are for captivity, and to the sword such as are for the sword. And I will kindle a fire in the houses of the gods of Egypt, and he shall burn them and carry them away captive, and he shall break the pillars of Bethshemesh (the obelisks of Heliopolis), and the houses of the gods of Egypt shall he burn with fire."[674] Nebuchadnezzar did not fulfil these expectations. He was not a conqueror who sought to press on beyond all bounds, and extend his power further and further. On the contrary, he sought to keep his empire within the natural boundaries, and not go beyond the desert which separated him from Egypt. The subjugation of Syria was not complete so long as Tyre did not obey his authority. He directed his arms not against Hophrah but against Tyre. It was difficult to reach the island city without a fleet. Nevertheless Ezekiel looked forward to the speedy success of the Babylonians, and the immediate fall of the great trading city. Tyre will fall because she rejoiced over the fall of Jerusalem, because she cried: "I shall be full, since thou art desolate."[675] He describes in a lively manner how Nebuchadnezzar will set up his battering-rams against the walls of Tyre; how he will throw down their towers with his engines of war; will cast up a trench against them, and raise the shield upon them.[676] He sees the island already changed into a naked rock for spreading out nets.[677] These prophecies also were not fulfilled in their whole extent. The siege, after the capture of the old city, was no more than a blockade from the mainland, a cutting off of all intercourse of the city towards the coast, such as had once before been carried on in the time of Shalmanesar IV. and Assurbanipal of Assyria (pp. 83, 166), and now as then it was only feebly sustained from the sea by the ships which the subject neighbour-harbours had to furnish. Nebuchadnezzar's troops are said to have remained thirteen years before Tyre. The blockade was brought to an end, as it seems, in the year 573 B.C., by an arrangement in which the Tyrians recognised the supremacy of the king of Babylon. "A heavy service," says the prophet Ezekiel, "has Nebuchadnezzar compelled his army to perform against Tyre. Every head is bald, and every shoulder peeled, and there is no wages in his army for Tyre." The Tyrians, as it seems, allowed Nebuchadnezzar to elect their king. Ethbaal, king of Tyre, resigned the throne, and Nebuchadnezzar set up Baal in his place.[678]