Page:Historical Works of Venerable Bede vol. 2.djvu/314

 242  The fifth age of the world began with the captivity of the kingdom of Judah, which lasted 70 years, according to the prophet Jeremiah.

A.M. 8377 [4725].

In the fourteenth year after the city was smitten, which is the twenty-fifth of the captivity of King Jehoiachin, with whom Ezechiel was carried away captive, the same Ezechiel, being brought in the visions of God into the land of Israel, saw the restitution of the city, and of the temple and its ceremonies. Servius, the sixth king of Rome, reigned 83 years: he added three hills to the city,—the Quirinal, the Esquiline, and the Viminal. He dug trenches around the walls, and first instituted the census of the Roman people.

A.M. 8889 [4737].

In the twenty-sixth year after the destruction of Jerusalem, being the thirty-seventh year of the captivity of King Jehoiachin, Evilmerodach, king of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, lifted up the head of Jehoiachim, king of Judah, out of prison, and set his throne above the throne of the kings that were with him in Babylon. The prophet Jeremiah speaks before of this time, when he writes: "Behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the Lord, and Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all the nations round about, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon 70 years. And when 70 years are accomplished, I will visit the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the Lord, for their iniquity, and the lands of the Chaldaeans, and will make