FIRST PRIZE ESSAY ON THE FULFILMENT OF THE PROPHECIES RELATING TO THE DESTRUCTION OF BABYLON, BY MASTER JOHN SAMUEL BROAD, Aged 15. Bristol, Aug. 19th, 1824. JOHN SAMUEL BROAD, a youth of fifteen years of age, the 21st of the last month, is the sole author of the accompanying Essay on the Destruction of Babylon, and is a candidate for the prize advertised on the cover of the Teacher's Offering for May last. The above is certified by me as correct. JAMES WOOD, Minister. AN ACCOUNT OF THE FULFILMENT OF THE PROPHECIES, RELATING TO THE DESTRUCTION OF BABYLON. BABYLON, the metropolitan city of Chaldea, so greatly distinguished in holy writ, is universally allowed to have stood on the banks of the river Euphrates. By whom it was built is uncertain: several historians maintain that Nimrod or Belus, who is called in Genesis chap. x. v. 9. ❝ a mighty hunter before the Lord," was the real founder, while others assert that it was his son Ninus, and not a few have conferred this honour upon the celebrated Queen Semiramis. The most probable and received opinion however, is, that Nimrod first established,* and that Semiramis much enlarged, and adorned to a great degree, * One proof that he was the founder, is drawn from the best of all authorities---the Bible. In the xth chap. of Genesis it is said, "the beginning of this this ancient and wonderful city. Various accounts are also given of the size of Babylon. The heathen writer, Strabo, makes it fortyeight miles in circuit; but Herodotus, (who had seen it) says it was sixty miles, that the walls were eighty-seven feet in thickness, and three hundred and fifty in height. These were of four sides, meeting at right angles, and the composition was brick and bitumen. Each side of this square had five and twenty immense gates of brass, and the city was decorated with many noble works of architecture, particularly "the temple of Belus," "the ancient palace," and "the bridge across the Euphrates," which Semiramis is said to have been the chief instrument of raising. It was in her reign that this place began to expand itself, although not till a considerable while after, in the time of the famous Nebuchadnezzar, did it attain to that height of grandeur as distinguished it above other na kingdom was Babel," and there is every reason to believe this the same as Babylon: besides, Babylon is said "to have been as ancient, or more ancient than Nineveh," and that sister city it is quite certain was built in or near the time of Nimrod, and perhaps by him. |