Page:The Pharaohs and their people; scenes of old Egyptian life and history (IA pharaohstheirpeo00berkiala).pdf/298

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

an exile from Israel, who may himself have seen the Egyptian prisoners and the spoil of Thebes. In his indignant denunciation of Nineveh and her king, he thus addresses the magnificent and cruel city: 'Art thou better than No-Amon "(the city of Amen = Thebes)," that was enthroned among the streams, and the floods were round about her; her rampart was upon the river, and the waters her defence. Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength, and it was infinite; Put and Lubim were her helpers. Yet was she carried away and went into captivity; her young children were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets: they cast lots for her honourable men, and her great men were bound with chains' (Nahum iii. 8-10).[1]

It was little more than half a century later that Nineveh herself fell with a mightier and more overwhelming destruction.

  1. In this and in other quotations from the Old Testament the renderings of Ewald and Stanley have sometimes been adopted.