Daniel 3:4

4. Compare Daniel 4:1; Daniel 6:25. Recent excavations prove that Babylon was a city of many tongues. Hilprecht has been able to declare that, from the amalgamation of languages used in the texts, it is clear that at a time only a little later than this “the population of Babylon was as thoroughly mixed as that of the States of New York and Pennsylvania at our own time” ( ibid.); but this amalgamation of languages could not have taken place in an hour. It is absolutely certain that in Nebuchadnezzar’s time all the tongues of the civilized world could be heard in the streets of the capital, and representatives of these languages no doubt took part in his great triumphs and festivals. (See Introduction, III, 2.)