With regard to the fulfilment of this prophecy, it follows from the latter part of the title that Nebuchadnezzar had smitten the Arabian tribes, i.e., defeated them, and subjected them to his sway. But we have no historical information as to the time when this took place. M. von Niebuhr (Gesch. Assyr. u. Bab. S. 209) and Duncker (Gesch. d. Alterth. i. S. 427) suppose that Nebuchadnezzar, after he had returned home to Babylon from Hither Asia, having heard of the death of his father, after his victory at Carchemish, and after he had ascended the throne, "as it seems," first thought of extending his authority over the Arabians on the lower portion of the Euphrates, in North Arabia, and in the Syrian desert. This supposition may possibly be true, but cannot be raised to historic probability; moreover, it is connected, by the above-mentioned historians, with theories regarding the campaigns against Hither Asia which rest upon statements of Josephus that are very uncertain, and some of which can be proved to be incorrect. Such is the statement in Antt. x. 6. 1, that Nebuchadnezzar, after his victory at Carchemish, in pursuing the Egyptians to the borders of their country, did not touch Judea. The only notice we have, apart from Scripture, of the conquest of Arabia by Nebuchadnezzar, is that furnished by Josephus (contra Ap. i. 19) from Berosus: κρατῆσαι δέ φησί τὸν Βαβυλώνιον (i.e., Nebuchadnezzar) Αἰγύπτου Συρίας Φοινίκης ̓Αραβίας. But this notice is stated in such indefinite and general terms, that nothing more specific can be inferred from it regarding the time and circumstances of the conquest of Arabians.