my spirit, that ye may walk in my statutes and keep my ordinances. Then shall ye loathe yourselves for the evils which ye have committed in all your abominations; and the ruins of the cities shall be built up and inhabited, and the wilderness shall be as the garden of Eden. Israel and Judah shall no more be two nations; they shall both be my people, and I will be their God, and my servant David shall be king over them, their only shepherd. I will conclude with them an eternal covenant of peace, and establish them in the land wherein their fathers dwelt, and multiply them, and let my sanctuary and my dwelling be for ever among them." Prophecies uttered with such conviction and certainty, supported and strengthened the hope of the people in the coming restoration of the kingdom. It was possible by the help of Jehovah. It might be expected all the sooner, the more zealously and heartily the exiles worshipped Jehovah. The more melancholy the present state of affairs, the greater was the yearning with which the eye was directed upwards. Under their foreign rulers the Jews became accustomed more and more to think of Jehovah as the one and only king of Judah who would rescue his faithful people out of their slavery in Babylon, even as he had once led them forth with a strong hand and an outstretched arm out of Egypt. In the strange land and among strangers, where the Jews were kept together by nothing more than their common religion, where besides their religion nothing was left to them, adherence to the old faith struck deeper roots, and the increasing strength of religious conviction saved the nationality. FOOTNOTES: [679] Herod. 2, 178. [680] Joseph. "c. Apion." 1, 19. [681] Alcæi fragm. 35, ed. Bergk. [682] Tassie, "Catalogue Raisonné," p. 64; Raspe, "Planches," 11, 653. [683] Cp. Strabo, p. 739. [684] Vol. I. p. 300. Herod. 1, 185. Arrian, "Anab." 7, 21. Polybius, 9, 43. Strabo, p. 754. Ammian. Marcell. 23, 6. Ptolem. 5, 20. [685] Vol. I. p. 301. Abyden. fragm. 8, 9, ed. Müller. The position of the [Greek: Basileios potamos] is fixed by Ptolemy, 5, 17. That Nebuchadnezzar caused the Nahr Malka to be excavated follows from the words of Abydenus in Eusebius ("Chron." I. p. 37, ed. Schöne): Armacalen fluvium ex Arazane (Euphrate) derivavit: cp. "Præp. Evang." 9, 41. Armacale must obviously be the same name as Nahr Malka. Cp. Plin. "Hist. Nat." 6, 26 (30). On the position of the Nahr Malka, Xen. "Anab." 2-4. Ammian. Marcell. 26, 6; and that it was navigable, Herod. 1, 193.