Bookshelf/ Vol.I / Vol. IV. Part VI. Contents. Chapter I. 1. 2. 3. II. 1. 2. 3. III. 1. 2. 3. IV. 1. 2. V. 1. 2. Appendix I. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. II. 1a. 1b. 2a. 2b. 2c. 3. 4. III 1. 2a. 2b.

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APPENDIX

PART III

CHAPTER I

THE ADAMIC WORLD’S CHRONOLOGY, ACCORDING TO THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES, AND PROBABLE NEARNESS TO ITS SEVENTH MILLENNARY.

THE fact of the Jewish pre-christian church having long and fixedly entertained the opinion that Messiah’s kingdom of blessedness would occupy the seventh millennium of the world, agreeably with the type of the seventh day’s sabbatism of rest after the six days of creation, is well known. 1 And as I have observed in the preceding part of my Book, St. Paul’s use of the word sabbatismov, sabbatism, to designate the saints’ expected glorious time of rest with Christ, might also perhaps be construed that it was Hebrew Christians whom he was then addressing; and that by them the word thus chosen could not but be almost necessarily associated, from long national usage, with some chronological septenary 1a. -

1. So the Rabbi Eliezer, cap. xxviii. p. 41: - “The blessed Lord created seven worlds; (i.e. aijw>na?, ages) [Editor: McClintock & Strong’s: -  From the same as (104) (ajei>); properly an age; by extension perpetuity (also past); by implication the world; specially (Jewish) a Messianic period (present or future): — age, course, eternal, (for) ever (-more), [n-]ever, (beginning of the, while the) world (began, without end). Compare (5550) (cro>nov).] -- but one of them is all sabbath and the rest is life eternal.” “Where,” observes Dr. Whitby on Heb. iv. 9, “he refers to their (the Jew’s) common opinion that the world should continue 6000 years, and then a perpetual sabbath begin, typified by God’s resting the seventh day, and blessing it.” (For perpetual Whitby should have perhaps said a millennial sabbath; it being aiwniov in the sense in which the aiwnev, ages, before mentioned, were each millennial. So in the Midras Till. p. 4, the same Rabbi Eliezer says, “The days of Messiah are 1000 years.” ^[1] ) - Similarly the Bereschith Rabba, quoted also by Whitby; “If we expound the seventh day of the seventh thousand years, which is the world to come, the exposition is, ‘He blessed it,’ because that in the seventh thousand all souls shall be bound in the bundle of life. . . So our Rabbins of blessed memory have said in their Commentaries on ‘God blessed the seventh day,’ that the Holy Ghost blessed the world to come, which beginneth in the seventh thousand of years.” - Again, Philo is copious on the same subject: stating that the sabbaths of the law were allegories, or figurative expressions. With which view we may compare St. Paul’s declaration in Col. ii. 16, 17; “in respect of the sabbath-days, which are a shadow of things to come:” akia twn mellontwn.

The general opinion of the Jews was, that the world was to be 2000 years without the law, 2000 under the law, and 2000 under the Messiah. This is still called by the Jews” a tradition of the house of Elias,” an eminent Rabbi that lived before the birth of Christ: - who also taught that in the seventh millennary the earth would be renewed, and the righteous dead raised, no more again to be turned to dust: and that the just then alive should mount up with wings as eagles: so that in that day they would not need to fear, though the mountains (Psalm xlvi. 2) should be cast into the midst of the sea. Mede, Book iv.

1a. So Whitby says on Heb. iv. 9, that “the apostle by changing the word anapausin, rest, into sabbatism, clearly leads us . . to the spiritual sabbath of which the Jewish doctors speak so generally as the great thing signified by their sabbath.” Similarly Osiander, about the time of the Reformation. “De quà requie sempiteruà ad Hebræos, cap. 4, ita loquitur Apostolus, ut hoc ipsum mysterium nobis, veluti digito, commonstrare videatur.”

Mr. Brown disputes this from the etmology of the word sabbath, as simply meaning rest: (see p. 95, Note 809, suprà:) but the meaning conveyed to the Hebrew mind by the word cannot surely be with reason overlooked. So much were sabbath and septenary associated together in it that, as Schleusner observes on the word Sabbiaton, the Septuagint translators sometimes render the Hebrew word by ebdoman.

It is a word applied to the seventh year of the rest in the Mosaic law, as well as to the seventh day of rest. See Lev. xxv. 4, &c.

[Editor: We have included Strong’s Numbering of these terms for the reader, so that hopefully he may distinguish them more easily: -

Lev. 25:4 But in the seventh <7637> year <8141> shall be a sabbath <7676> of rest <7677> unto the land <776> , a sabbath <7676> for the LORD <3068> : thou shalt neither sow <2232> thy field <7704> , nor prune <2168> thy vineyard.

[1]. Seventh year 7637; “{7637} y[iybiv] — shbiy`iy, sheb-ee-ee'; or Y[IBIV] shbi‘iy, sheb-ee-ee'; ordinal from 7657; seventh: — seventh (time). click to see {7657}; µy[ib]vi — shib`iym., shib-eem'; multiple of 7651; seventy: — seventy, threescore and ten (+ -teen). click to see {7651}; [b"v, — sheba`, sheh'-bah; or h[;b]vi (masculine) shibrah, shib-aw'; from 7650; a primitive cardinal number; seven (as the sacred full one); also (adverbially) seven times; by implication, a week; by extension, an indefinite number: — (+ by) seven(-fold),-s, (-teen, -teenth), -th, times). Compare 7658. click to see {7650} click to see {7658}”.

[2.] Sabbath of rest for the LORD unto the land, 7676; “{7676} tB;v" — shabbath, shab-bawth'; intensive from 7673; intermission, i.e (specifically) the Sabbath: — (+ every) sabbath. click to see {7673}; {7673} tb"v; — shabath, shaw-bath'; a primitive root; to repose, i.e. desist from exertion; used in many implied relations (causative, figurative or specific): — (cause to, let, make to) cease, celebrate, cause (make) to fail, keep (sabbath), suffer to be lacking, leave, put away (down), (make to) rest, rid, still, take away. .

In fact among the Christian fathers that succeeded on the apostolic age, this view of the matter was universally received and promulgated. 2a Which being so, the chronological question as to what may be the world’s present age, dated from Adam’s

2a. I may specify more particularly the pseudo-Barnabas, a writer of unquestionably a very early age in the Church; ^[2] - Which being so, the chronological

[Editor: In Elliott’s original manuscript we have it written in Greek. Fortunately I have English Translations of Barnabas’ writings in my possession  which will replace Elliott’s Greek: -

CHAPTER 15

THE FALSE AND THE TRUE SABBATH

1. Barnabas. Further, also, it is written concerning the Sabbath in the Decalogue which [the Lord] spoke, face to face, to Moses on Mount Sinai, “And sanctify ye the Sabbath of the Lord with clean hands and a pure heart.” And He says in another place, “If my sons keep the Sabbath, then will I cause my mercy to rest upon them.” The Sabbath is mentioned at the beginning of the creation [thus]: “And God made in six days the works of His hands, and made an end on the seventh day, and rested on it, and sanctified it.” Attend, my children, to the meaning of this expression, “He finished in six days.” This implieth that the Lord will finish all things in six thousand years, for a day is with Him a thousand years. And He Himself testifieth, saying, “Behold, to-day will be as a thousand years.” Therefore, my children, in six days, that is, in six thousand years, all things will be finished. “And He rested on the seventh day.” This meaneth: when His Son, coming [again], shall destroy the time of the wicked man, and judge the ungodly, and change the sun, and the moon, and the stars, then shall He truly rest on the seventh day. Moreover, He says, “Thou shalt sanctify it with pure hands and a pure heart.” If, therefore, any one can now sanctify the day which God hath sanctified, except he is pure in heart in all things, we are deceived. Behold, therefore: certainly then one properly resting sanctifies it, when we ourselves, having received the promise, wickedness no longer existing, and all things having been made new by the Lord, shall be able to work righteousness. Then we shall be able to sanctify it, having been first sanctified ourselves. Further, He says to them, “Your new moons and your Sabbath I cannot endure.” Ye perceive how He speaks: Your present Sabbaths are not acceptable to Me, but that is which I have made, [namely this,] when, giving rest to all things, I shall make a beginning of the eighth day, that is, a beginning of another world. Wherefore, also, we keep the eighth day with joyfullness, the day also on which Jesus rose again from the dead. And when He had manifested Himself, He ascended into the heavens.

[Editor: Likewise we have taken the liberty to include for your inspection some excerpts taken from Irenæus which relate to his mind on the Jewish Sabbaths: -

2. Irenæua.  Moreover, we learn from the Scripture itself, that God gave circumcision, not as the completer of righteousness, but as a sign, that the race of Abraham might continue recognizable. For it declares: “God said unto Abraham, Every male among you shall be circumcised; and ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskins, as a token of the covenant between Me and you.” This same does Ezekiel the prophet say with regard to the Sabbaths: “Also I gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord, that sanctify them.” And in Exodus, God says to Moses: “And ye shall observe My Sabbaths; for it shall be a sign between Me and you for your generations.” These things, then, were given for a sign; but the signs were not unsymbolical, that is, neither unmeaning nor to no purpose, inasmuch as they were given by a wise Artist; but the circumcision after the flesh typified that after the Spirit. For “we,” says the apostle, “have been circumcised with the circumcision made without hands.” And the prophet declares, “Circumcise the hardness of your heart.” But the Sabbaths taught that we should continue day by day in God’s service. “For we have been counted,” says the Apostle Paul, “all the day long as sheep for the slaughter;” that is, consecrated [to God], and ministering continually to our faith, and persevering in it, and abstaining from all avarice, and not acquiring or possessing treasures upon earth. Moreover, the Sabbath of God (requietio Dei), that is, the kingdom, was, as it were, indicated by created things; in which [kingdom], the man who shall have persevered in serving God (Deo assistere) shall, in a state of rest, partake of God’s table.

 Thus, then, in the day that they did eat, in the same did they die, and became death’s debtors, since it was one day of the creation. For it is said, “There was made in the evening, and there was made in the morning, one day.” Now in this same day that they did eat, in that also did they die. But according to the cycle and progress of the days, after which one is termed first, another second, and another third, if anybody seeks diligently to learn upon what day out of the seven it was that Adam died, he will find it by examining the dispensation of the Lord. For by summing up in Himself the whole human race from the beginning to the end, He has also summed up its death. From this it is clear that the Lord suffered death, in obedience to His Father, upon that day on which Adam died while he disobeyed God. Now he died on the same day in which he did eat. For God said, “In that day on which ye shall eat of it, ye shall die by death.” The Lord, therefore, recapitulating in Himself this day, underwent His sufferings upon the day preceding the Sabbath, that is, the sixth day of the creation, on which day man was created; thus granting him a second creation by means of His passion, which is that [creation] out of death. And there are some, again, who relegate the death of Adam to the thousandth year; for since “a day of the Lord is as a thousand years,” he did not overstep the thousand years, but died within them, thus bearing out the sentence of his sin. Whether, therefore, with respect to disobedience, which is death; whether [we consider] that, on account of that, they were delivered over to death, and made debtors to it; whether with respect to [the fact that on] one and the same day on which they ate they also died (for it is one day of the creation); whether [we regard this point], that, with respect to this cycle of days, they died on the day in which they did also eat, that is, the day] of the preparation, which is termed “the pure supper,” that is, the sixth day of the feast, which the Lord also exhibited when He suffered on that day; or whether [we reflect] that he (Adam) did not overstep the thousand years, but died within their limit, — it follows that, in regard to all these significations, God is indeed true. For they died who tasted of the tree; and the serpent is proved a liar and a murderer, as the Lord said of

him: “For he is a murderer from the beginning, and the truth is not in him.”

These are [to take place] in the times of the kingdom, that is, upon the seventh day, which has been sanctified, in which God rested from all the works which He created, which is the true Sabbath of the righteous, which they shall not be engaged in any earthly occupation; but shall have a table at hand prepared for them by God, supplying them with all sorts of dishes. ]

3. Quæst. et Respons. which go under the name of Justin Martyr. - No 71: [Editor: We are unable to read the scanned treatise with regard to this excerpt, and further, we cannot find any reference in the writings of Justin Martyr which relates to the chronological aspects of Elliott’s discussion.]

4. Cyprian. “Ut primi in dispositione divinà septem dies annorum septeim millia continentes.” De Exh. Murt. 11.

                flae sexti millesimi anni malitia omnis abolcatur è terrà, et regnet perannos mille justitia.” vii. 14.

5. Lactanius. “Quoniam sex diebus euneta Dei opera perfecta sunt, per secula sex, id est annorum sex millis manere in hoc statu mundum necessu est. . . Et rursus quoniam perfectis operibus requievit die septimo, eumque bettesixit, necease est ut in fiae sexti millesimi anni malitia omnis aboleatur è terrà, et regnet per annos mille justitia.” vii. 14.

6. Ambrose. “Quia cum septimo die requieverit Deus ab omnibus operibus suis, post hebdomadam istius mundi quies diuturna promittitur.” in Luc. viii. 23.

For notices to the same effect from Jerome and Augustine see my Vol. i. p. 396, 397. Besides the passage there cited Augustine speaks of it also in his C. D. xx. 7. 1.

7. So too, as Feuardentius observes in his Notes on the passage quoted above from Irenæus, Hilary on Matt. xviii.

It is to be observed that the anti-premillennarian fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries explained the sabbatical seventh day as typical, not of a seventh sabbatical Millennium of rest, but an eternal sabbath: -a view generally adopted afterwards. In the pseudo-Barnabas’ view (ibid.) it seems to have been rather the Christian sabbath on the “eighth” day that typified the saints’ eternal rest; the Jewish seventh-day sabbath the millennial.

creation, and when the termination of its sixth millennary becomes one of real interest. Nor is there wanting the evidence requisite for our attaining a near probable approximation to this notable epoch; and finding, as the result of our inquiries, that according to the chronology of our Hebrew copies of the Old Testament, which cannot but be looked to à priori as our most authoritative guide on the subject, we are at this present time fast (perhaps very fast) approximating to it. Mr. Flynes Clinton, in his Essay on the Hebrew Chronology, appended to the third volume of his late learned work entitled Fasti Hellenici, has greatly elucidated the subject. For, setting aside the many comparatively leaseless mundane chronologies, such as Hales has enumerated, he lays down as indisputable the opinion just expressed that our appeal on the question must be to Holy Scripture, and primarily to the Hebrew text of Scripture: then proceeds thus to illustrate and argue out the point; including at the commencement in his review a notice of the chronological differences of the Samaritan Pentateuch and Greek Septuagint translation from the Hebrew.

It is on the Patriarchal chronologies that the differences (and great they are) first occur. And, on the disputed question, whether it be the Hebrew text with its shorter chronology that has by fraud been robbed of eleven centuries, or the Septuagint with its longer, that has had them fraudulently added, 1a (for that the difference in the result of design is a thing evident, and long since noted by Augustine, 2b as also whether its authority is to be set aside from respect to the Samaritan text, and its smaller variations, the answer seems on every account to be in favor of the Hebrew text: - considering, first, the superior reverence and almost superstitious care with which the Hebrew text was watched over, as compared with the Septuagint; 3c. - next, the wonderful uniformity of the numerals of the Hebrew text, in all its multitudes of manuscripts existing in different parts of the world, contrasted with the varieties and uncertainty of the numerals in the Septuagint and Samaritan; 4d-considering, further, the general agreement of the Samaritan with the Hebrew in the chronology of the antediluvian Patriarchs, 5e and its thus fixing the fraud in that table at least, and by probable consequence in the postdiluvian  table also, on the Septuagint: Septuagint; 6f- considering moreover the better agreement of the historical fact with the Hebrew than with the and the more easily supposable object with the Septuagint translators 7g - than with the keepers of the Hebrew text, as well as better opportunity, 8h for falsifying in the matter.

1a. The following tabular schemes exhibit the variations: the numbers expressing the parent’s age at the son’s birth, except in the cases of Noah and Shem; and Abraham’s birth assigned to Terah’s 130th year, the true date. (See Note † p. 709. infrà.) [Editor: We are unable to find this note (†) on page 709, however, hopefully, with God‘s help, we will transcribe pg. 709 ‘The Scripture Chronology of the Word,’ when we view pg. 709.]

2b.In the Antediluvian Table (where the question is between the Hebrew and Josephus ), the years before the son’s birth and the residence agree in all cases with the totals of the lives; except that in the Samaritan the residence in the sixth, eighth, and ninth are shortened, to adapt them to the shorter period between Jared and the Flood. Thus,

          in the Hebrew and Samaritan Adam has  130 + 800 - 930.

          Septuagint and Josephus                     230 + 700 - 930.

And in the Hebrew and Samaritan Seth has   105 + 807 - 912.

          Septuagint and Josephus                     205 + 707 - 912.

This can only have been by design. So Augustine Civ. Dei, sv. 13.1; “Videtur habere quamdam, si diei potest, error ipse constantiam; nee casum redolet, sed industriam.” And so Mr. Clinton.

3c. The Jews even counted the letters of their Bible.

4d.Professor Baumgarten, of Halle, in his Remarks on Universal History, observes; “Both the Samaritan copy and the Greek version abound in various readings, with respect to their different chronologies, and frequently contradict themselves: whereas the Hebrew is uniform and consistent in all its copies.” And Mr. Kennedy, in his Chronology of the World, says, that in examining the Hebrew Text he “was not able to discover one various reading in that multitude of numeral words and letters which constitute the scriptural series of years from Creation to the death of Nebuchadnezzar.”

I quote this from a Paper on the subject in the Christian Observer for May, 1802, p. 287; and, in further illustration of the uniformity of the Hebrew copies in respect of their numerals, may add from it that the Chaldee Paraphrase of Onkelos, written probably near about the time of Christ, agrees with the Hebrew chronologies, and that the same are recognized in the two Talmuds; - also that Dr. Wolff informs me that “in the ancient manuscripts which he saw at Bokhara, the chronological notices were exactly according to the received Hebrew text, though the letters of the manuscripts resembled Samaritan.”

As regards the Samaritan, it is to be observed that the manuscript from which our Samaritan Pentateuch was published, being written about A.D. 1400, was consequently not nearly so old as many Hebrew manuscripts. And in earlier existing copies of it we know that there were certain variations to the numerals, more accordant with the Hebrew. So the English Universal History, referred to in the Christian Observer. See Note 5a infrà.

Of the errors of the Septuagint numerals in many copies a notable example is given by Augustine, C.D. xv. 11. For it seems that in almost all the copies then extant Methuselah was made to have begotten Lamech at the age of 167, and to have lived 802 years after: that is, fourteen years after the Flood, according to the Septuagint chronology itself; though we know that no man but Noah, and his three sons Shem, Ham, and Japhet, were preserved alive through it.

5e. Viz. in the cases of all but the sixth, eighth, and ninth Patriarchs. Here the Samaritan residues are shortened to adapt them to the shorter period, made by the shorter genealogies corresponding between Jared and the Flood; to the intent that these Patriarchs might not be thought to have been involved in it. But we are told by Jerome (so the compilers of our English Universal History have remarked) that in his time there were some Samaritan copies which made Methuselah’s and Lamech’s ages, at the birth of their sons, the same as the Hebrew.

6f. On the two points alleged in their own favor by the advocates of the Septuagint Chronology, Mr. Clinton quite turns the tables against them. - 1. As to the age of the paioogonia, which these writers have placed after the lapse of one third of life, Mr. C. says that it appears from Scripture to have been in the Patriarchal age as early as it is now; Judah being at forty-eight a great-grandfather, - Benjamin having, under thirty, ten sons, &c. - 2. As to the Dispersion at Babel, which the Septuagintarians say implies a mundane population such as could not have been according to the Hebrew postdiluvian chronology, Mr. C. answers, that under favorable circumstances, even now, it has been known where it has doubled for short periods in less than thirteen years; and that in older cases of the Israelites in Egypt, and later of certain parts of the North American colonies, the population doubled itself in fifteen years: - that the circumstances of the first families after the Flood were precisely the most favorable to increase of population, with all the arts of the antediluvian world, unoccupied land to a boundless extent before them, and lives extended to 500, 400, and 200 years: - that thus we may reasonably assume twelve years, at the most, as that of the population doubling itself: on which assumption the population of the earth, derived from the stock of six parents, would in 276 years amount to above fifty millions, and in 300 years to two hundred millions. Even at the rate of fifteen years it would have reached two hundred millions in 373 years from the Flood; i.e. in the twenty-fourth year of Abraham. - Now at the time of the Dispersion, had the world’s population then amounted to many millions, men would have been forced by their wants to disperse; whereas the Sacred History tells us that it took place contrary to the wishes of men, who desired all to dwell together. A population of about 50,000 would just answer the probabilities of the case. And this number must have been reached within 100 years from the Flood; i.e. about the thirtieth year of Peleg (according to the Hebrew chronology); in whose days it is said, Gen. x. 25, that the Dispersion occurred.

Jerome (Vol. ii. p. 573), in his Letter to Evangelius about Melchisedek, thus gives and reasons on the numerals.

They say that Shem was 390 years when Abram was born. For

          Shem at     100 begat Arphaxad, and lived 100 years after.

          Arphaxad    35  . . . . Salem.

          Salem. . . .  30. . . .   Eber.

          Eber. . . . . .34. . . .   Phaleg.

          Phaleg. . . . 30. . . .   Rehu.

          Rehu. . . . . 32. . . .   Saleg.

          Saleg. . . . . 30 . . . .  Nahor.

          Nohor . . . .70 . . . .   Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

And Abraham died at 175. Therefore Shem overlived him 35 years.

7g Jackson allows that it is difficult to see the motives of the Jews in shortening the patriarchal genealogies. On the other hand the Septuagint translator’s had an obvious motive for enlarging the chronology. The Chaldeans and Egyptians (whose histories were about this time published by Borosus and Manetho) had claim to a remote antiquity. Hence these translators of the Pentateuch might have been led in a spirit of rivalry to augment the amount of the generations of their ancestors, alike by the centenary additions, and by the interpolation (as Hales himself allows it is) of the second Cainaan.

8h. Augustine, whose four chapters on this subject (C. D. xv. 10-14) well deserve attentive perusal, has put this point very strongly. Which, says he, is most credible, - that the Jews, dispersed over all the world, should have conspired together to defraud their scriptures and themselves of truth, the exclusive possession of which is so much their boast; or that the seventy Greek translators, united together in conclave by King Ptolemy, should have managed to falsify the numerals? He adds, 13.2,) as his own solution of the matter, that it was after all probably not the translators, but the first transcriber of the manuscript from the original in the royal library, that introduced the error; “Scripture tribustur errori qui de Bibliothech supradleti Regle codicem describendum primus accepit:” and concluses thus: “El lingus polise erodatur unde est lu aliam per iuterpretes facta translatia.” - Augustine’s testimony is the more valuable and remarkable because he was himself originally (see my Note Vol. i. p. 307) a Septuagintarian in chronology. At the conclusion of the C. D. however he measures the six periods of the world proceeding its septenary period, or sabbath, by æras, not millennaries; the 1st to the Flood, 2nd to Abraham, 3rd to David, 4th to the Babylonish Captivity, 5th to Christ, and 6th that after Christ. C. D. xxll. 30. 5.

This point settled, 9a than there  remain but two chasms in the Hebrew chronology to fill up, and one doubtful point to settle, arising from a difference between the Old Testament statement and one in the New Testament, in order to the completion of our chronological table. The chasms are, 1st, that from Moses’ death to the first servitude; 9b 2ndly, that between Samson’s death and Saul’s election to the kingdom:9c of neither of which could the length be much longer or shorter than thirty or forty years. 9d - The doubtful point alluded to concerns the same period of the Judges: it being whether the reckoning given in 1 Kings vi. 1, of the interval from the Exodus the building of Solomon’s temple at 480 years be the correct one, 9e or that by St. Paul, in Acts xiii. 18-22, at about 580. 9f Mr. Clinton (but here Usher and other eminent chronologists, as I shall have soon to observe again, who take the Hebrew text of SS. as the basis of their chronology, differ from him) prefers the latter. 9g And thus, completing his table, he makes the date of the Creation to be about 4138 B.C.; and consequently the end of the 6000 years of the world, and opening of the seventh Millennium, by approximation, about A.D. 1862: - the same year, very nearly, that we before fixed on the epoch of the full end of the 1260 years, on quite different data, and so the commencement at least of the time of the end. I subjoin a precis of his Mundane Chronology, from the Creation to Christ.

                            B. C.    A. M.                                                                             Years.

                            4138    Adam .           .               .               .               .              

                2482 -1656      The Deluge       .               .               .               .               1656

                            2130 -  2008    Birth of Abraham             .               .               .                  352

                            2055 -  2083    The Call             .               .               .                                    75

                            1625 -  2513    The Exodos       .               .               .               .                  430

                            1585 -  2553    Death of Moses               .               .               .                    40

                            1558 -  2580    First Servitude (by conjecture)      .               ..                   27

                            1128 -  3010    Death of Eli       .               .               .               .                  430

                            1096 -  3042    Election of Saul (by conjecture)    .               .                    32

                            1056 -  3082    David .               .               .               .               .                    40

                            1016 -  3122    Solomon            .               .               .               .                    40

                              976 -  3162    Rehoboam         .               .               .               .                    40

                              587 -  3551    Zedekiah’s Captivity       .               .               .                  389

    9a.  It is to be observed, as Clinton remarks, p. 203, that the question is not an indefinite one, from want of testimony, so as in the case of the early chronology of Greece. The uncertainty is one arising from two different distinct testimonies. We have only to decide which is the genuine and authentic copy. Either the space before the Flood was 1656 years, or it was 2256. Either the period from the Flood to the call of Abraham was 352 years, or it was 1002. “These periods could not be greater than the highest of these numbers, or less than the lowest.”

    9b. This period is that comprehended in Josh. xxiv. 31; “And Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua, and which had known all the works of the Lord that he had done for Israel.”

    9c. Compare Judg. xv. 20, xvi. 31, and 1 Sam. iv. 1, vii. 13, xii. 2.

    9d. Mr. Brooks, in the Preface to his late history of the Jews, p. xiii., argues that the interval from Moses’ death to Joshua’s most probably have been longer, because of Joshua being called r["n" a young man, in Exod. xxxiii. 11, and Numb. xi. 28, with reference to the second year after the Exodus. But this Hebrew word is used to designate servants also (compare Gen. xxiii. 3, &c.); and Joshua is called in the places above cited as the servant of Moses. (So Kimchi explains this appellative of Joshua, in Zech. ii. 7: and so, I may add, Ambrose comments on Gen. xxiv. 2: “Etiam senioris ætatis servuli pueri dicantur à dominis.”) Thus the appellation can no more be argued from than the French word garcon or English postboy. - Moreover, at the time of the division of the land, seven years after Moses’ death, (Josh xiv. 10) Joshua is said (ibid. xiii. 1) to have been “old and stricken in years.” - Thus Mr. Clinton seems fairly to have estimated Joshua’s age at the time of the spies at about forty; it being the then age of his associate Caleb also, who overlived him. See Judg. i. 1, 9-12. If so, as Joshua was 110 years at his death, (see Josh. xxiv. 29,) the interval must have been 110-(38+40)=32.

    9e. 1 Kings vi. 1; “It came to pass in the 480th year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, that he began to build the house of the Lord.”

    9f. Acts xiii. 18; “Forty years suffered he their manners in the wilderness: and when he had destroyed seven nations in Canaan, he divided their land to them by lot: and after that, he gave unto them judges about the space of 450 years, and Samuel the prophet. And afterwards they desired a king: and God gave them Saul.”

    9g. Because, argues he, the servitudes must be included in the periods of rest, on the shorter system; which inclusion seems directly contrary to the tenor of the Scripture statements.

    So Mr. Fynes Clinton. On the other hand, as before observed, the Hebrew Chronology about the time of the building of the temple may by many not unreasonably be deemed of the greater weight. - Mr. C.’s chronological table of this period, formed from the express declarations in the Book of Judges, is given below: - it being premised that Chushan’s oppression followed (Judg. iii. 7) on Israel’s first apostasy to the worship of Baalim, on the death of the elders that overlived Joshua. 9h this last Philistinian servitude of forty years appears to have included the judgeships of both Samson and Eli: the former being said (xv. 20, xvi. 31) to have judged Israel “in the days of the Philistines;” and the latter to have died from grief at their defeat of Israel, and capture of the ark. Their supremacy continued until Samuel’s defeat of them near Mizpeh, of which the stone Ebenezer was the record, 1 Sam. vii. 12: after which Israel had rest “all the days of Samuel;” (ib. 13;) until he was old, (viii. 1, xii. 2) and anointed Saul king.

    Thus the time of Judges, exclusive of Joshua and Samuel, appears from these numbers to have been 390 years: and, if we add 30 years for Joshua and the Egypt-born elders that overlived Joshua, reckoned from the time of the conquest and division of Canaan, (about 7 years having intervened between the event and Moses’ death,) and 30 years more for Samuel’s judgeship after the Philistine’s defeat, it exactly makes up St. Paul’s “about the space of 450 years.” Add 7 for the conquest of Canaan, 40 for the wilderness, 40 for Saul, and 40 for David: and then the 4th year of Solomon comes to about the 580th year from the Exodus; instead of the 480th, as the Hebrew text defines it in 1 Kings vi. 1. - Taking this view of the chronology, therefore, the only solution of the difficulty from 1 Kings vi. 1 that I see is by supposing a mistaken reading in our Hebrew copies of 480 for 580.

9h SERVITUDES                     YEARS                    RESTS and JUDGES                                 YEARS

1st  Chushan (Judg. iii. 8.)               8    

                                                                                1st. Rest (Judg. iii. 11).                               40

2nd. Eglon (iii. 14)                       18

                                                                                2nd       (iii. 30.)                                         80

3rd. Jabin (iv. 3.)                          20

                                                                                3rd.      (v. 31.)                                          40

4th Midian (vi. 1.)                        7

                                                                                4th (“the days of Gideon,” viii. 28.)           40

                                                                                Abimelech’s judging (ix. 22.)                        3

                                                                                Tola’s          do.                                         (x.    2.) 23

                                                                                Jair’s            do      (x.    3.)                       22

5th Ammon (x. 8)                        18

                                                                                Jephthah’s   do.     (xii. 7.)                          6

                                                                                Ibzan, Elon, Abdon, (xii. 8-14.)                 25

6th Philistines (xiii. 1.)                40                        [Samson 20 years, and Eli.]

                                TOTALS   111                                                                TOTALS         279

THE SCRIPTURE CHRONOLOGY OF THE WORLD

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On the other hand, if we adapt the Hebrew numeral in 1 Kings vi. 1, St. Paul’s 450 years will have to be explained either, as Whitby prefers, by reference to the then current Septuagint chronology; or possibly, as Archbishop Usher, by supposing it the measure of the time from Abraham to the division of the lands, not from the division of the lands to Samuel. ^[3] Then, of course, the world’s chronology will be near 100 years less advanced then on Clinton’s hypothesis, and we have yet to wait near that time (not very different from the 75 years of Daniel’s time of the end) for the end of the world’s sixth millennary, according to the Hebrew Scriptural data, and beginning of the world’s sabbatism. ^[4]

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