cess. of 2 Chron. divination) given them assurance, that God would at last reward their labours with suc- From 1 Kings In the third engagement, Arbaces himself was wounded, and his army routed viii. to the end and pursued as far as the mountains of Babylon; so that the chief officers were for dispersing, and shifting for themselves, when Belesis gave them once more assurance, that if they would but continue together for five days longer, every thing in that time would have a different turn. With much intreaty was the army prevailed on not to disperse, when suddenly news was brought, that a great inforcement was coming from Bactria to join the king, so that the only game which Arbaces had to play, was to march against them, and by all means imaginable, prevail with them to revolt; wherein he succeeded beyond all mens hopes and expectations, and so gave another turn to the face of affairs. Sardanapalus, in the mean time, knowing nothing of this, and being elated with his repeated successes, was indulging his sloth and luxury, and preparing beasts for sacrifice, with plenty of wine, and other things necessary to feast and entertain his soldiers; when Arbaces having intelligence by deserters in what condition his army lay, fearless of any foe, and overcome already with surfeiting and drunkenness, broke into their camp by night, and having made a terrible slaughter of most of them, forced the rest into the city. The king, after this defeat, took upon him the defence of the place, and committed the charge of the army to Salamenus the queen's brother; but Salamenus was worsted in two pitched battles, one in the open field, and the other before the walls of Nineveh, where himself was slain, and most of his men cut to pieces; so that all the resource which Sardanapalus had, was to sustain the siege as long as he could, until the succours (which he had sent for out of all his provinces) should come to his assistance and this he had some hopes of being able to do, because there was an ancient prophecy, that "Nineveh never could be taken by force until the river became its enemy." Arbaces, on the other hand, was much encouraged by hjs successes, and carried on the siege with the utmost vigour; but the prodigious strength of the walls, which were an hundred feet high, and so very broad that three chariots might go a-breast upon them, and the vast plenty of all manner of stores and provisions necessary for a long defence, hindered him from making any considerable progress. Thus two years were spent without any prospect of relief on the one side, or of taking the town on the other. In the third year, a continued fall of rains made Tygris overflow to such a degree, that, coming into the city, it tore along with it twenty fathoms of the wall; which Sardanapalus concluding to be the accomplishment of the oracle, because by this means the river was apparently become an enemy to the city, he grew quite dispirited, and gave up all for lost. However, to prevent his falling into the hands of the enemy, he caused a large pile of wood to be made in the court of his palace, and there heaped together all his gold, silver, and royal apparel, and having enclosed his eunuchs and concubines in the midst of it, ordered it to be set on fire, and so burnt himself and them together. The only action wherein (a) those historians, who make no mention of his victories, represent him as a valiant man! Arbaces, being it peculiarly convenient for astronomical calculations, it was adopted by the early Greek astronomers Timachares and Hipparchus, and by Ptolemy and others of the Alexandrian school in Egypt. Hales's Analysis, vol. i. p. 268, &c.] * Concerning this pile, Athenæus informs us that it was four hundred feet high, upon which he placed 150 golden beds, and as many golden tables; that he had thrown into it some millions of talents of gold and silver, besides the richest furniture of purple, and the finest garments; and that this pile was fifteen days in (a) Justin, lib. i. and Athenæus, lib. xii. c. 12. Ant. Chris. or 586. A. M. 3394, informed of this, marched his army through the breach of the wall, and took the city. &c. or 4825. After this he rewarded his followers according to their merit; made Belesis governor 610, &c. of Babylonia, Chaldea, and Arabia, according to their compact, and took the rest of the empire to himself; which put an end to the Assyrian monarchy, after it had governed all Asia (a) above thirteen hundred years, and (according to the vision which Daniel (b) had of it) in its conquests had been as swift as an eagle, but now its wings were plucked. APPENDIX TO DISSERTATION V. THE intricacy of the Scriptural chronology from the revolt of the ten tribes to the destruction of Jerusalem, and more especially to the taking of Samaria, has been complained of by every writer on the subject. Dr Hales, whose Sacred chronology at least is to me the most perspicuous and satisfactory of any that I have seen, observes, that the difficulty of harmonising the reigns of the kings of Judah and Israel together has principally arisen from two circumstances. Of these the first is the discordance of some of the correspondences in the years of their respective reigns, with the direct length of those reigns themselves; and the second is the not having critically determined the duration of the two interregnums in the succession of the latter kings, so as to make them correspond with the former throughout. As I have uniformly placed his dates of the most important events below those of our author, it may be satisfactory to the reader to find here the principles on which this eminent chronologer has adjusted and harmonised the whole, and to find them stated as nearly as possible in his own words. 1. In the first place, he considers the standard of the reigns of the kings of Judah as correct; and for this good reason-that it is verified by the concurrence of the books of Kings and Chronicles (the latter relating chiefly to the kings of Judah), and of Josephus, Abulfaragi, and Eutychius *2. The incorrectness therefore complained of, must be confined to the latter series, and remedied by reducing it to the former. But the two series of reigns agree in three points of time; for, 1. the reigns of Rehoboam and Jeroboam began together, or at least in the same year; (c) as did also, 2. the reigns of queen Athaliah and Jehu respectively over Judah and Israel; (d) and, 3. Samaria was taken by the Assyrians in the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, and in the sixth year of Hezekiah king of Judah (e). Hence it necessarily follows, 1. That the six first reigns in Judah must have been equal in length to the eight first reigns in Israel; and, 2. That the next seven in Judah to the sixth of Hezekiah, including one interregnum, must be equal to the remainder in Israel, including two interregnums. But upon comparing the former together, it appears that the first six of Judah amount to ninety-five years, whereas the first eight of Is "In his occurrunt plura notatu dignissima, quæ frus- (c) 1 Kings xii. 1-20. 2 Chron. x. 1-19. viii. to the end rael amount to ninety-eight years, according to the table of reigns at present in Scrip- From 1 Kings ture. Consequently three years must be retrenched from the latter, to reduce them to an equality with the former. Accordingly, in the tables of this accurate chronologer, one year is subtracted from each of the reigns of Baasha, Ela, and Zimri, which are thereby reduced from current to complete years; and this is warranted by the correspondences. For Baasha began to reign in the third year of Asa king of Judah, (a) and his son Ela in the 26th of Asa, (b) which gives the reign of Baasha, 26—3—23 years complete. Ela was slain in the twenty-seventh of Asa (c), and therefore reigned only 27-26—1 year complete. Zimri and Omri reigned in succession, from the twenty-seventh to the thirty-eighth of Asa (d), or only 38-27-11 years complete. And as their reigns were all included in the one reign of Asa, and therefore more likely to be correctly referred thereto, this is a reason, why these three reigns should be selected for reduction rather than the succeeding or the preceding. But upon comparing together the latter series of reigns in these two kingdoms, it appears that there was one interregnum in the kingdom of Judah, of eleven years; and two in Israel-the first of twenty-two, and the second of ten years; which are requisite in both, to equalise the two periods of 176 years each, from the joint accession of queen Athaliah and Jehu, to the sixth of Hezekiah, and the capture of Samaria. "That the lengths of these interregnums are rightly assigned, will appear from the correspondences of reigns. For 1. Amaziah, king of Judah, survived the death of Jehoash, king of Israel, fifteen years. He died, therefore, about the sixteenth year of Jeroboam II. the son of Jehoash (e); but Azariah or Uzziah did not begin to reign until the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam II. (f); whence it follows that from the death of Amaziah to the accession of his son Uzziah, there was an interregnum of 27-16-11 years. 2. Jeroboam II. began to reign in the fifteenth year of Amaziah, king of Judah, and reigned fourty-one years (g). He died, therefore, in the sixteenth year of Uzziah, king of Judah; but Zechariah, his son, did not succeed him till the thirty-eighth of Uzziah (h); consequently, the first interregnum in Israel lasted 38—16-22 years. 3. Pekah, king of Israel, began to reign in the fifty-second year of Uzziah (i), and in the twentieth year of his reign he was slain by Hoshea, in the third year of Ahaz, king of Judah (k), but Hoshea did not begin to reign till the twelfth year of Ahaz, or the thirteenth current (); consequently the second interregnum in Israel lasted 13—3—10 years." "A curious and satisfactory confirmation of this adjustment of the reigns of the kings of Israel is furnished by Josephus, who reckons (m) their amount, from the revolt of the ten tribes, to the extinction of that kingdom, 240 years; and if from the whole corrected amount 271 years, we deduct the two interregnums 32 years-the remainder 239 years complete, or 240 years current, gives the length of the reigns alone.We are now competent, continues Dr Hales, to detect some errors that have crept into the correspondences of reigns, and hitherto puzzled and perplexed chronologers, preventing them from critically harmonizing the two series. 1. "Jehoshaphat begin to reign over Judah in the fourth year of Ahab (n).”—It should be the second. 2. "Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, began to reign over Israel in the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat (o)."-It should be the twentieth of Jehoshaphat. &c. or 4825. Ant. Chris. A. M. 3394, 3. "Jehoram, the son of Ahaziah, began to reign over Israel in the second year of Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat (a)."—It should be in the twenty-second year of Jehosha610, &c. phat; as also where it is again incorrectly stated (b), to have been in the eighteenth of Jehoshaphat. or 586. 4. "Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, began to reign over Judah in the fifth year of Joram, the grandson of Ahab (c)"-It should be either in the fifth year from the death of Ahab; or in the third year of Joram's reign. The clause" Jehoshaphat being then king of Judah" our author deems an anachronism, and an interpolation in the Masoretic text; though others have endeavoured, I think unsuccessfully, to vindicate its authenticity by supposing that Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, shared the sovereignty some years with his father. 5. "Jehoash began to reign over Israel in the thirty-seventh year of Joash king of Judah (d)."—It should be the thirty-ninth year; as in the accurate Aldine edition of the Septuagint. See Jackson's Chronology, vol. i. p. 182. 6. "The correspondences by which the interregnum in Judah was collected, are incorrect; they should be 25-14-11 years. 7. "Hoshea is said (e) to have slain Pekah, king of Israel, in the twentieth year of Jotham; but Jotham reigned only sixteen years (f). It was therefore in the third of Ahaz that Pekah was slain, as may be collected from the first verse of the sixteenth chapter of the same book."] Hales's Analysis, &c. vol. ii. p. 408, &c. THE HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. BOOK VII. CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF THINGS FROM THE BABYLONISH CAPTI VITY TO THE BIRTH OF CHRIST, IN ALL 588 YEARS, ACCORDING CHAPTER I. FROM THE CAPTIVITY TO THE DEATH OF CYRUS. Chris. THE HISTORY. Daniel, and 1.3417, AFTER the return of Nebuchadnezzar and his victorious army to Babylon, all those From Jer. xl. or 1825. Jews who for fear of him had taken refuge among neighbouring nations, or had hid to xlv. all themselves in the fields and deserts of their own country, hearing that Gedaliah was from Ezra i. made governor of the land, resorted to him at Mizpah †, where he set up his residence. to v. 586. In the history of Jacob we read, that after a stay of several years at Haran, making his escape from thence, he was overtook by Laban, his father-in-law, in a mountainous tract, which was afterwards called Gilead, i. e. an heap of stones, as also Mispeh, i. e. a watch-tower, because at the covenant which was made between Laban and him an heap of stones was gathered to remain a monument of it, and upon that |