Jephthah Ibzan 7 10 - 40 Samson last 20 years Eli 40 VII. Serv. Philist. 20 Samuel 12 } David Solomon -403 margin, copied from the New 6 Analysis of Dr. HALES, vol. i. p. 101, that Jephthah rose to the government of Gilead 363 years after the death of Moses. According to the scriptures, however, only 318 years had elapsed: because Moses conquered Gilead in the last year of his life, Deut. ii. 14, 16-24. -iii. 1-7. the Israelites had held quiet possession of it 300 years prior to the Ammonitish tyranny, Judges xi. 26. and -218 that oppression had lasted 18 years when Jephthah accepted 621 the government of Gilead,Judg. 40 40 3 - x. 8. The fidelity of these statements is demonstrable from Josephus himself; for he assigns a rest of 40 years to Israel, after the discomfiture of Midian by Gideon, which limitation indicates that after the expiration of that period an oppression ensued and as the Ammonitish invasion stands next on record, that, and that alone, was the circumstance which terminated the rest under Gideon: otherwise the rest is extended to the death of Jair,and embraces a period of 88 years. This, however, is impossible; not only because the rest is expressly limited to 40 years, but from the apostacy of Israel; for "as soon as Gideon was dead-the children of Israel turned again-after Baalim, and made Baal-berith their god." Judg. viii. 33, Agreeably, therefore, to the usual procedure of the divine government, the Lord sold them into the hands of their enemies, as related Judg. x. 6-9. See notes (*) p. 138, and (*) p. 149. But the most formidable departure of Josephus from the Hebrew Scriptures, in this epocha, is in extending its duration to 621 years According to the Hebrew bible it contains 479 years; a period, not only long enough to embrace all the events assigned to it by the sacred penmen, but which cannot be extended without seriously embarrassing the chronology. 40 70 479 3 -113 For if the 40 years of Moses's government, the 70 years of David's life, and the 3 years of Solomon's reign anterior to the foundation of the temple, be deducted from the length of the whole epocha, there will be a residue of 366 years. This reaches from 4 366 the sacking of Jericho to the birth of David, and is occupied by four generations only-Salmon, Boaz, 91 Obed, and Jesse, (Ruth iv. 21, 22. 1 Chron. ii. 11, 12. Matt. i. 5.) each averaging 91 years. This unusual protraction of life, through so many successive generations, the Rev. T. STACKHOUSE (Hist. of the Bible, book 5. chap. iv. diss. 4.) considers as no small obstacle to the rectification of the Hebrew Chronology. 40 621 But in the larger computation of Josephus, instead of 91 years for each generation, we have the enormous sum of 127 years: which result, con3 -113 sidering especially that the average of 14 generations 70 from Abraham, B. c. 2008, to David, B. c. 2919, is 4 | 508 only 65 years each, is decidedly fatal to this portion of the Chronology of the Jewish historian; and 127 clearly demonstrates the superior claims of the Chronology of the sacred writers to our regard. TABLE IV. From Foundation of the Temple to the Captivity of the Ten Tribes. In this epocha the general outline of the Chronology has been adjusted by the sacred writers, by the concatenation of the reigns of the Jewish and Israelitish kings. Rehoboam 17 25 1 Abijah Asa Jehoshaphat Jehoram Abaziah Athaliah 6 Joash Amaziah Interregnum Uzziah Jotham The period that elapsed between the building of the temple A. M. 2991, and the year in which Jerusalem was taken by Nebuchadnezzar, A. M. 3417 is 426 years. But Josephus Temple fd. by Solm. 37 extends it to 441 years; presenting an excess of 14 years or thereabouts, 3 beyond the term assigned in Scrip41 ture. Annexed is his computation, as amended by Dr. HALes, New 8 Analysis, vol. i. § 2. art. 4. from which it is not only obvious that his numbers have been obtained from 40 Scripture, but that in placing them 29 in succession one after the other, he 11 has overlooked the deductions which 52 should be made for those years when 16 father and son reigned conjointly: 16 for it was a practice common to the 29 Israelitish and Jewish princes, towards the close of the reigns, to associate their sons with them in the government. Thus he reckons 8 years for Jehoram, 29 for Amaziah, and 29 for Hezekiah, being certainly the lengths of their respective reigns: 11 but it is most evident, from the plainest testimony of Scripture, that four 441 years of Jehoram's reign fall within Jehoshaphat's, 2 Kings viii. 16. Ahaz Joisah Jehoahaz 3m. 10d. 55 2 31 three of Amaziah's within that of Joash, and three of Hezekiah's within that of Ahaz. From the foregoing table it appears that the kingdom of the ten tribes, from its commencement under Jeroboam, KK A. M. 3028, to the captivity A. M. 3286, lasted 259 years. Its decline may be considered as coeval with its commencement; because idolatry, which Jeroboam made the established religion of the land, and to which all the Israelitish princes were more or less addicted, separated them from the favour of God. The history of the country is strikingly illustrative of this-presenting little more than a scene of abominable idolatries, tyrannies, persecutions, assassinations, and anarchy. During the short period of its continuance the throne was occupied by twenty princes of ten different families—a circumstance perhaps unparalleled either in ancient or modern history, and affording a striking illustration of Solomon's remark, that for the transgression of a land many are the princes thereof. Prov. xxviii. 2. Some of the difficulties in this epocha are attributable to the mistakes of transcribers; thus in 2 Chron. xxii. 2. Ahaziah, Jehoram's youngest son, is said to have been forty-two years old at his accession: whereas his father was only forty years old at his death, xxi. 20. This error is rectified by the parallel history in 2 Kings viii. 26. Again in 2 Kings xv. 30, the writer appears to have confounded the length of the reign of Pekah with that of Jotham; the former reigning 20, the latter only 16 years.* Not a few, however, of the embarrassments, in which the chronology is involved, arise from the inattention of the sacred writers to the lesser periods of time, which are seldom noticed by them. Thus Hezekiah began his reign in the third year of Hosea, king of Israel, but the month is not stated; in the table therefore the Ist year of Hezekiah and the 3rd of Hosea stand on one line: but it is evident that the beginning of the first year of Hezekiah coincided with the latter part of the 3rd * It is hardly possible that the same individual could have written v. 30. and v. 33. of 2 Kings xv. But whether it were so or not, they prove how little care the compilers of the Jewish annals took to adjust their Chronology. |