NEBUCHADNEZZAR

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 31, 6 February 1932, Page 17

NEBUCHADNEZZAR

RECONSTRUCTED HISTORY

I To the ordinary reader perhaps the, most amazing feature of .Slme.;G.rE.. Tabouis's book, Nebuchadnezzar," are the notes at the end of each'chapter. At once it.is realised, that this extraordinary narrative of,ilife in Babylon ■2500 years ago is not just an imaginary reconsti'uctron,but a study based on actual records which confirm the Bible ■•story Jat many*points. Besearch has brought a great number of tablets to [light,-'particularly in the last:century, and-it would; appear that we l^now almost as- much' about Nebuchadnezzar: as we do about our own Elizabethans, remarks a writer in "John, o1 London's Weekly." ''.'...; ■;■-.'""

Mine. Tabouis (who wrote' "The Private Life of; Tutankhamen") traces very-vividly the career •of that remarkable "Napoleon of the Chaldeans" from 6ia;B;C.j when" as a young man after the Fall of Nineveh,.he heard the news of the death- of his father andi hurried back across'ths desert to Babylon to claim tho throne,-until the "one defeat,'^ his" death; which followed the somewhat obscure years of madness recorded in the Book of Daniel:

The mighty and relentless conqueror of Jerusalem;' Tyre; and other cities, the. mai'who drove back the Egyptian invasion'and deified himself in the great pillar he had erected inthe desert, never lived• to see-the-downfall of Babylon, which occurred thirty years after hia death. But he died with the knowledge that'the,Babylonian collapse had been foretold by. the prophets of Israel, those strange,,'uncouth visionaries who had, so paradoxically, helped him in his allconquering career. For to Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel Babylon was the scourge of the Lord and Nebuchadnezzar was exalted as His chastising rod:' -

Side by.side with .the graphic pictures of ..Ballon, with its fierce opulence, /its, lust, and its love of wealth and power,' are the glimpses of the Jews, who, stood for something which Nebuchadnezzar could never understand —-a spiritual kingdom. in which mercy and pity/ had a, part,' and whose faith in theuv/God '.was strongest when He had apparently .forsaken them.

. Mme. .Tabouis , does not accentuate this conflict between the two ideals, but to read this fascinating book in the light^Bf the history of the Jews is to realise ,that it was the lowly people with; an unconquerable faith who survived, and that their prophets were not only seers-but great statesmen. _ It is fairly certain that wo now have in one volume practically all there is to ,be known about. Babylon at the heighth, of its power. Mme. Tabouis takes, us into the great palace and the spacious. temples .where we stand by they king's Bide during "tho savage religious festivals. There is a description of the feast of Ishtar which reads like a nightmare of licentiousness. At the same time thes authoress gives us quieter pictures of1 life in the market in the gardens, and the desert.