And Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city.
And Resen, [Septuagint, Dasee] - supposed to be represented by Kileh-Shergat, or by Selamiyeh, both of which ruins belong to the proto-Assyrian period. Bochart thought it the Larissa of Xenophon. But that idea is now exploded.
The same ... a great city. This is commonly supposed to refer to Resen. But Knobel and other recent critics think it includes all the four as constituting Nineveh. Sir H. Rawlinson considers ('Outlines of Assyrian History') that 'the names of these eight primeval cities are not intended to denote capitals then actually built, and so named, but rather to point out the localities where the first colonies were established, by titles which became famous under the empire, and which were thus alone familiar to the Jews.' There is in the Mosaic account of them a noticeable difference of phraseology.
Thus, in the record of the first four it is not asserted that Nimrod was the actual founder, but rather conveys the impression that he, with his followers, entered upon the occupation of cities previously established. But when the increasing population of his kingdom induced him to look out for a larger territory, he "built," or laid the foundation of other cities in Assyria, where the inhabitants, though necessarily ruled by his deputies, were placed under the same common form of government.
The record of Nimrod and his achievements forms an insulated portion of this chapter; and therefore its position does not determine the era at which he flourished. Whether he was a contemporary with the builders of the town and tower of Babel, and was the prime instigator and leader in that impious project, cannot, though it be the common opinion, be ascertained by any data found in Scripture; and the light reflected by the cuneiform monuments would seem to point to a date considerably posterior to the dispersion at Babel. Into this interesting but wide field of illustration our limits forbid our entering, and we take leave of the subject with the remark, that there is certain evidence of the dynasty of Nimrod-which comprised eleven sovereigns-having reigned for a period of more than two centuries. 'It is curious,' says Professor Rawlinson ('Ancient Monarchies') 'that in Assyria, as in early Chaldea, there is a special pre-eminence of four cities, as afterward, in the flourishing periods of the empire, there were actually four capitals. On the whole, however, it is more probable that we have here a mistranslation (which is corrected in the margin), and that three cities only are ascribed by Moses to the great patriarch.'
A conjecture is thrown out by Knobel, Delitzsch, Ewald, etc., that the four cities here enumerated form the angles of the parallelogram described by Layard as comprising the ruins of ancient Nineveh;-Nimrud, Kouyunjik, Khorsabad, and Karamles, corresponding with the sixty miles of the geographer; and the three days' journey of Jonah. But the soundness of this conjecture is doubted by Professor Rawlinson, who adduces various historycal, as well as topographical, arguments against it ('Ancient Mon.,' vol. 1:, p. 312, 313).