BABYLON AND PERSIA

THE KING, THE AKHMMENIAN." 327pleasure" (Isaiah XLVI. 28*), show more than anaccidental coincidence in thought and wording withthe line already quoted from the " ProclamationCylinder," of Kyros : " And he [Marduk] selected aking to conduct after his heart what he committedto his hands. Pie proclaimed the name of Kurash,king of the city of Anshan, to be king over the wholecountry, and to all people he declared his title." Thesequel of the two documents presents the same exactparallelism, as follows :"Thus saith Yahveh to his " The country of Guti and .allanointed, to Koresh, whose right its forces he caused to bow beliandI have holden, to subdue fore his feet, as well as the wholenations before him ... to open nation of blackheads (Chaldeans)doors before him. ... I will go whom he brought into his hand,before thee and make the rugged . . . Marduk the great Lord,places plain. I will break in ... directed his heart andpieces the doors of brass and cut hand. ... To his own city ofin sunder the bars of iron, and I Babylon he summoned him towill give thee the hidden riches of march and he caused him to takesecret place . . ." (Isaiah XLV., the road to Tintir ; hke a friend.1-3- and benefactor he conducted hisenemy." (Proclamation Cylin¬der of Kyros.)25. The advance of the invading forces took placefrom several sides. The Proclamation Cylinderspeaks of them as " far-extending, of which, like thewaters of the river, the numbers could not ^'Fall of Babybetold." The beginning seems to have '°°' 538 b.cbeen made by a rising in the lowlands by theGulf, and Kyros himself appeared south of Babylon* The latter part of the Book of Isaiah, from chapter XL., is not byIsaiah, the grand old prophet and minister of Hezeklah, but by iilater writer, of the time of the Captivity, whom Bible scholars haveagreed to designate as " the second Isaiah," - .