A. M. 2501: just 1500 years before the true date of the birth of Christ.

IV. There is a note of time incidently specified in Judges, which proves that, from the settlement of the people in their possessions, to the end of the subjection to the Ammonites, from which the Israelites were delivered by Jephthah; there was an interval of three hundred years either more or less. The actual periods, beginning at Judges iii. 8, and ending with this deliverance, x. 8, amount in all to 319 years; which approaches so near to a current statement, like this of Jephthah's, that we may consider it to be the truth. If so, from the death of Joshua, B. C. 1504, to the time of the deliverance from the Ammonites, there were about 319 years; that is, the time of this deliverance was about B. C. 1185, or 1186.

V. From the time of the deliverance from the subjection to the Ammonites, to the end of the forty years' subjection to the Philistines, the specified intervals amount to 71 years in all: which added to the former 319 make up 390. Now within this forty years' subjection to the Philistines is manifestly included the twenty years' partial deliverance by Samsond; and as it appears to me the forty years' judging of Elie. For it is evident that, at the time of the death of Eli, the oppression of the people by the Philistines was still continuing; which oppression there is no reason to suppose was part of any new term of years; and consequently must have been part of the old f. If so, the administration of Eli and the subjection of the people to the Philistines; being each of them forty years in extent, and each of them terminated together, or within a very short time of each other; must have begun

b Judges xi. 26. e 1 Sam. iv. 18.

.c Judges xii. 7—xiii. 1. f 1 Sam. iv. 7. 9.

d xv. 20. xvi. 31.

together; including in the latter part of both the twenty years of partial deliverance by Samson. On this principle, the close of the administration of Eli, about 390 years after B. C. 1504, fell about B. C. 1114. or 1115.

VI. After this, we must take into account the length of the administration of Samuel, who succeeded to Eli; (and, as it would seem, in one year's time, subsequent to his death and the capture of the ark ;) until the appointment of the first king in the person of Saul: and after this appointment, the length of the reign of Saul, until the accession of David: and we shall obtain the time of the accession of David. We may collect from Acts xiii. 21, that the length of the reign of Saul must be stated, in some sense or other, at a period of forty years and from 1 Sam. vii. 2, that the length of the administration of Samuel was not less than twenty years. We may allow then for both these periods together sixty years in all; twenty to the latter and forty to the former; and the interval between the time of the death of Joshua and the time of the accession of David becomes 390 +60, or 450, years: so that, if the former was B. C. 1504, the latter was B. C. 1054.

The accuracy of this calculation seems to be confirmed by the testimony of St. Paul; who tells the Jews in the synagogue of Pisidian Antioch ", that the period for which they had been governed by judges, dated from some apx or other; as low down as the prophet Samuel; (and therefore ending with the close of his administration, which was that of the last of the judges ;) was ὡς ἔτεσι τετρακοσίοις καὶ πεντήKOVтα; a general statement, which was evidently not meant to be understood of 450 years exactly, but of some minor or major number roundly expressed, not very far short of that. There are two apxai or dates,

g 1 Sam. vi. 1. 13. 21. vii. 1. 3.

h Acts xiii. 20.

to which as the context shews this calculation admits of being referred; one at verse 18, in the beginning of the forty years' probation in the wilderness—the other at verse 19, in the entrance into Canaan, and the reduction of the nations therein. In other words, the interval of 450 years, for which the people, if subject to any government, were subject to the government of judges and not of kings, is referred either to the date of the Exodus or to that of the Eisodus, as its beginning and to the time of the appointment of Saul as its close.

I have little doubt that the first of these is that date which St. Paul had in view. He was marking out the course and succession of the changes in the government of the Jews from the earliest period to the time of Christ, with the eras or times of each; first from the Exodus to the last of the judges-secondly from the last of the judges to the first of the kings-thirdly from the first of the kings, until the time when, in the person of the second of the number, the inheritance of the kingdom, and with it the regal form of government, became for ever assured to one certain channel, by the transmission of the sceptre to David, as the father and type of Christ. Now between the date of the Exodus, B. C. 1560, and the time of the appointment of Saul, B. C. 1094, there are 466 years; and between the date of the Eisodus, B. C. 1520, and the same time there are 426; either of which might be called in round numbers about 450: for which too there might be this additional reason, viz. that the appointment of Othniel, the first judge as such, was about as much later, as we shall see hereafter, than the beginning of the smaller of these numbers; as that was than the beginning of the larger. There is another sense, it is true, in which the same calculation admits of being under

stood, and which would bring it nearer still to the actual period of 450 years: but I consider it unnecessary to enter here upon the statement of it*: and equally so to shew how the length of the duration of the administration of Eli, before his death, admits of being harmonized with the early history of Samuel, before his appointment to the office of prophet, and afterwards of judge. It is sufficient that this, if requisite, might easily be effected †.

VII. From the appointment of Saul, B. C. 1094, to the accession of David, there was forty years' interval;

* The supposition, to which I allude, is briefly as follows. From the date of the Eisodus, B. C. 1520, to the beginning of Saul's sole reign, B. C. 1076, there were 444 years. From the same time, to the death of Samuel, about B. C. 1056, were 464. The mean point between these two periods would be as nearly as possible, 450.

† We may observe, however, that the substance of the book of Judges, from chapter xvii. to the end-which relates to the destructive war waged upon the tribe of Benjamin, at a time when Phinehas was the highpriest, and consequently early in the intermediate history comes most probably within the eighty years which ensued on the deliverance from the subjection to the Moabites. Ehud, by whom that deliverance was effected, was himself a Benjamite; which renders it very improbable that his tribe had yet been nearly exterminated. But it is not said expressly that he judged, though it is said that he deliver

k iii. 30.

ance.

ed, the people-nor yet how long he survived the deliverFrom the Eisodus, B. C. 1520, to the time of this deliverance, the specified interval, as we have calculated it generally, amounts to eightytwo years; which would place the beginning of the deliverance about B. C. 1440. At the time of the Eisodus, it is probable, Phinehas was a young man, not much above twenty years old; especially if, at the time of the mission of the spies, B. C. 1559, Eleazar his father must himself have been under the same age at least m. Before Christ 1520, then, Phinehas might not be much more than twenty; and B. C. 1440, not much more than one hundred : whence if, like Joshua, he lived to be one hundred and ten, and much more if, like many others before him, he lived to be one hundred and twenty or thirty, he might be ministering in the priest's office long after the time of Ehud.

i xx. 28. 1 Numbers xxvi. 2. xxxi. 6. xxvi. 65. xxxii. 11. Deut. i. 35, 36. 38, 39. ii. 14.

m xiv. 29.

and from the accession of David, to the beginning of the reign of Solomon, there was the same. The accession of David then was B. C. 1054, and the accession of Solomon B. C. 1014. The true length of the reign of Saul, indeed, as I shewed in the Twelfth Dissertation", vol. i. was thirty-nine years and about six months; and that of the reign of David forty years and six months; making up eighty years in all, beginning B. C. 1094, and ending B.C. 1014, as before. On this principle, also, the reign of David terminated, and the reign of Solomon began in the spring.

VIII. In the fourth year of his reign, and in the second month, (Zif, or Jar,) consequently B. C. 1011, he began to build the temple°; and in seven years after, consequently about the same time, B. C. 1004, it was so far complete as to be said to be built; though its integrity in all its parts might not take place until the seventh month afterwards P. This was, as it appears to me, when the whole edifice, being then complete, was dedicated. Still the temple was begun to be built B. C. 1011, and finished, in some sense or other, B. C. 1004, in the spring of the year in each case: which is so far an observable coincidence, that it comes in precisely one thousand years after the call of Abraham, B. C. 2004; and one thousand years before the birth of Christ, B. C. 4; three thousand years from the creation, A. M. 1; and three thousand years before the sabbatic millennium, (if any such event is then to take place,) A. M. 6001.

The temple, especially that part of it called κаT' Cox the vaòs or sanctuary, and constructed after the pattern of the original Tabernacle, was a lively emblem of the body of Christ: and as that was built at a certain distance of time from the call of Abraham, so n Page 396. 01 Kings vi. 1. p vi. 37, 38. 2 Chron. iii. 2. v. 1. 3.