Nebadon

“ As God is your divine Father, so is the Supreme your divine Mother, in whom you are nurtured throughout your lives as universe creatures. "How universal is the Supreme—he is on all sides! The limitless things of creation depend on his presence for life, and none are refused."
What Michael is to Nebadon, the Supreme is to the finite cosmos; his Deity is the great avenue through which the love of the Father flows outward to all creation, and he is the great avenue through which finite creatures pass inward in their quest of the Father, who is love. ”

“ The other courtesy colonies maintain extensive and beautiful headquarters. Many of these buildings are constructed wholly of crystal gems. All the architectural worlds abound in crystals and the so-called precious metals.
7. The circles of the finaliters have a unique structure at the center. And this same vacant temple is found on every system headquarters world throughout Nebadon. This edifice on Jerusem is sealed with the insignia of Michael, and it bears this inscription: "Undedicated to the seventh stage of spirit—to the eternal assignment." ”

“ By nature, however, it is the land of the nomad. Throughout most of its history, the Bedouin have dominated it as they do to-day. When undeveloped by irrigation, its hills and valleys are covered in springtime by a green herbage, which disappears, except in some secluded glens, before the glaring heat of summer. To the south, the Negeb at last descends to the great barren desert of Tîh, across which ran the highways to Egypt, to Arabia, and to Babylonia. ”

“ We are now well acquainted with the history of Nabonidos and the fall of his empire, thanks to three cuneiform documents which have been found in Babylonia. One is an inscription of Nabonidos himself; another an edict issued by Cyrus shortly after his conquest of the country; and the third the annals of the reign of Nabonidos, compiled the year after his overthrow. The empire of Nabonidos, we learn, extended as far westward as Gaza, but the 'Manda' or 'Nomads' of whom Astyages (Istuvegu) was king had devastated part of Western Asia and had destroyed the temple of the Moon-god at Harran. ”

“ The Navaho is the American Bedouin, the chief human touch in the great plateau-desert region of our Southwest, acknowledging no superior, paying allegiance to no king in name of chief, a keeper of flocks and herds who asks nothing of the Government but to be unmolested in his pastoral life and in the religion of his forebears. Although the mythology and ceremonials of this virile people would alone furnish material for many volumes, it is believed that even with the present comparatively brief treatment a comprehensive view of their character and activities will be gained. ”

“ With a fine army he attacked Nechoh, and defeated him with so dreadful a slaughter that the Egyptian king retreated rapidly to the Nile. Nebuchadnezzar followed him through Palestine to Pelusium, a city on the sea-coast frontiers of Egypt, about seventy miles east of the Nile. At this place he heard of the death of his father, at Babylon, and committing the army and his prisoners into the hands of his trusty generals, he left and, with a small escort, crossed the desert and arrived at Babylon, 700 miles distant to the east. ”

“ It is because he is so big a Chief that his attitude is entirely passive. Once Neva had forgotten the puny human factor, so he took the guise of a man and came to earth. The open spaces—the natural savannahs or geological outcrops—are where he spoke to the Indians, and it is a sign of his speaking and of his erstwhile presence that these are now open to the sun and the sky. But one Indian vexed Neva, the Good Spirit, and he was wrath with all men, so he went again to sit on the roof of the world. ”

“ It is rare to meet anywhere in the North an Arab who has crossed the Great Nefûd.
To us too, imbued as we were with the fancies of the Desert, Nejd had long assumed the romantic colouring of a holy land; and when it was decided that we were to visit Jebel Shammar, the metropolis of Bedouin life, our expedition presented itself as an almost pious undertaking ”

“ The habits of the Nebatæi, or Arabs of Nebaioth, are depicted as follows by Diodorus Siculus: “They live in the open air, and call a land their country, which is destitute of habitations, and has neither rivers nor copious fountains, such as could satisfy an army of invaders. ”

“ They come all of them for violence; their faces are set eagerly as the east wind, and they gather captives as the sand. Yea, he scoffeth at kings, and princes are a derision unto him: he derideth every stronghold: for he heapeth up dust and taketh it. Then shall he sweep by as a wind, and shall pass over the guilty, even he whose might is his god.” Nebuchadrezzar’s army must have presented a spectacle as strange as did that of Necho. ”

“ As Daniel interpreted Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, so has it been and is with Ethiopia. “They shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field, and they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and they shall wet thee with the dew of heaven, and seven times shall pass over thee, till thou knowest that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will. ”

“ With regard to the names of the Babylonian princes, it is remarkable (1) that the name Nergal-sharezer occurs twice, the first time without any designation, the second time with the official title of chief magician; (2) that the name Samgar-nebo has the name of God (Nebo or Nebu) in the second half, whereas in all other compounds of this kind that are known to us, Nebu forms the first portion of the name, as in Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan, Nebushasban (Jer 39:13) , Naboned, Nabonassar, Nabopolassar, etc. ”

“ The essence of despotism pervading the land to its very core, the Negoos is the true God of its adoration. All the best portions of the soil pertain to His Majesty, and the life as well as the property of every subject is at his sole and absolute disposal. Every act is performed with some view to promote his pleasure, and the subject waits on his sovereign will, for favour, preferment, and place. All appointments are at the king’s disposal—all rewards and distinctions come from the king’s hand. In years of famine, food itself is only to be obtained from the royal granaries ”

“ Various wars now raged between the Lamanites and Nephites. The people of Nephi erected many forts and high mounds to secure themselves from the invasion of their enemies.
The Book of Helaman, which consists of five chapters, [Pg 302] opens with the fortieth year of the reign of the Judges. It details sad accounts of dissensions and war, and strange alternations of prosperity and adversity to the church. A man by the name of Nephi, who was now chief judge, imitated Alma, and laying down his civil office, became a great preacher and prophet, performing miracles and mighty wonders. ”

“ The necessity of making the frontier of the Chaldean Empire safe on the side toward Egypt was the political cause for the deportation of the tribe of Judah. Nebuchadnezzar dared not to leave a people on the soil who would constantly endanger the entrance to his dominions by plotting with the Egyptians. He therefore took up the Jews bodily, placed them in the center of his empire, and turned the land of Judah into a desolation. ”

“ In the margin he is called the chief of the slaughter-men, or executioners; for soldiers are but slaughter-men, and God employs them as executioners of his sentence against a sinful people. Nebuzaradan was chief of those soldiers, but, in the execution he did, we have reason to fear he had no eye to God, but he served the king of Babylon and his own designs, now that he came into Jerusalem, into the very bowels of it, as captain of the slaughter-men there. ”

“ Nabu, the wise, all-knowing god, sacred in Borsippa, was also popular in literature and learning. In addition to being patron of intelligence and wisdom, he was also patron of agriculture. When his favor was given, storehouses were heaped high with grain; when his favor was withdrawn, famine afflicted the land. From the twelfth century B.C. onwards his name appears in royal names such as Nabo-polasar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nabo-nidus, and in the ninth century B.C. the worship of this god only was preached: "Put thy trust in Nebo; trust not in another God." ”

“ So they smoked the pipe of peace and amity, and talked of the mighty changes going on in the Continent, the new nation seeming a conglomerate of many peoples, sweeping everything before them with their resistless energy; of the towns springing up where different tribes had roamed about and slaughtered each other. Almost eighty years ago Neepawa had been born, when his race was ruler of nearly all the country. ”

“ In 604 Necho of Egypt marched with an army to the Euphrates, and Nabopolassar sent his son, Nebuchadrezzar II, to meet him. Nebuchadrezzar defeated Necho at the battle of Carchemish, and hotly pursued him toward Egypt. (See Jer. 46.) The pursuit was, however, interrupted by the death of Nabopolassar, and the recall of Nebuchadrezzar to Babylon to be crowned as king. The defeat of Necho had made Judah a Babylonian vassal-state. Nebuchadrezzar ruled until 562 B. C., and raised Babylon to a height of power which rivaled that attained under the great Hammurapi. ”

“ Others are without rain and barren all year; they are covered with long stretches of drift-sand, carried about by the wind and tossed in billows on the weather side of the rocks and bushes. [3] Palgrave asserts that some of the nefud sands are 600 feet deep. They prevail in the vast unexplored region south of Nejd and north of Hadramaut including the so-called “Great Arabian Desert.” Absolute sterility is the dominant feature here, whereas the northern nefuds are the pasture lands for thousands of horses and sheep. ”

“ The Tabeeb women also make the earthenware vessels in the country, as all ironwork is done by the men. There are two superiors, an aged woman who has charge of the females, and an old man placed in authority over the males. The Negoos is a great friend to the Tabeebs, and gives to them several oxen during the year. Besides he has bestowed a great deal of land upon the various monasteries of these people, of which institutions there are no less than forty-two in Shoa. ”

“ It was one of the best houses left standing in Khartoum, and boasted an upper floor, which was taken possession of by Nahoum Abbajee as head of what I might call the gold syndicate, while Sirri and I shared the ground floor. In the East the West is reversed; you climb to the garret with your rising fortunes, and descend with them, as they fall, to the lower floors. Instead of having Saier or Baggara guards to watch me, Awwad gave me some slaves from the Beit-el-Mal as guardians, and they had, in addition to watching me, to perform the household duties ”

“ One thing is certain for them, and they do not regard it as an article of faith, but as a fact patent and indisputable, and that is the extraordinary power of the nepu; he is the master of life and of death. Hence it is only natural that they should fear him and obey him in everything and give him all that he asks for. The nepu is not a chief, but he domineers over the chiefs, and we may say that the true authority, the only effective influence in New Guinea, is that of the nepu. ”

“ It is a geographical expression including three principal sub-districts, Jebel Shammar and Kasim in the North, and Aared in the South. The only doubt I have ever heard expressed was as to the Nefûds themselves, whether they were included or not in the term. The p. xxivBedouins certainly so consider them, for they are the only part of Nejd which they habitually inhabit, the stony plateaux of the centre being unfit for pastoral life. Jôf is considered outside the limit northwards, as are Kheybar and Teyma to the north-west, while Jobba and Harik are doubtful, being towns of the Nefûd. ”

“ The Nefûd and, indeed, Nejd, which lies beyond it, are free from those creatures which make life a torment in other districts of the East. Even the fleas on our greyhounds died as soon as they entered the enchanted circle of red sand. But Jobba would be dirty if it could; and its inhabitants are the least well-mannered of all the Arabs we saw in Nejd. The fact is, the people are very poor and have no communication with the outer world, except when the rare travellers between Haïl and Jôf stop a night among them. ”

“ P. 399, l. 8. The spelling of the name of Nebuchadnezzar differs somewhat in the various inscriptions, but the meaning is always practically the same—“Nebo, protect the boundary” or “my boundary,” according as the second component ends in a or i. In Nabium (p. 398, l. 7 from below) we have an old form fully spelt out.
Emblems used by Esarhaddon, and carved on the upper surface of the black stone presented to the British Museum by Lord Aberdeen. It represents a divine tiara upon an altar, a priest, the sacred tree of the Assyrians, a bull, a mountain (?) ”

“ Necho went forward to the Euphrates, put the land to tribute, and, in the case of Judah at any rate, filled the throne with his own nominee (see Jehoiakim) . The fall of Nineveh and the division of the spoil gave to Nabopolasser, king of Babylon, the inheritance of the Assyrians in the west, and he at once despatched his son Nebuchadrezzar to fight Necho. The Babylonian and Egyptian forces met at Carchemish (605) , and the rout of the latter was so complete that Necho relinquished Syria and might have lost Egypt as well had not the death of Nabopolasser recalled the victor to Babylon. ”