On this side the river. — This translation, although it expresses the true reference, viz., to the country west of the Euphrates, is literally incorrect. The words mean, “on the further side of the river,” considered from the point of view of Babylon (see the use in the later books, or in Ezra 4:6; Ezra 6:6, &c.); and accordingly indicate composition at the time of the Exile, or, at any rate, at a period when the Babylonish empire was so established in supreme sovereignty as to determine the geographical nomenclature of the East.

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