would be determined by the vernal equinox, and either coincide with that, or at the utmost precede or follow it within certain limits, such as appear to have held good subsequently. For there is no reason why the same rule, in this respect, which prevailed in the time of our Saviour, when the vernal equinox fell upon March 22, should not be considered admissible at any period before that, when the date of the same equinox was proportionally more in advance. If the vernal equinox was supposed to be arrived six or seven days before its true date at one time, it might be supposed arrived at the same distance of time before its true date at another. Hence, if when that date was nominally March 24, and actually March 22, the passover might still be celebrated on March 18, it is only in accordance with the principle of such an usage, that when the date of the vernal equinox was nominally April 5, and actually April 3, the passover might yet be celebrated on March 30. Now, on the principle of the lunar and the solar revolutions, between which, for periods of years which are multiples of nineteen, the number of years in a Metonic cycle-a certain ratio is known to prevail; it may be proved that if the moon was at the full, for the meridian of Jerusalem, at 3. 2. in the morning, March 13 in the Julian year, or March 11 in the corresponding tropical year, B. C. 4; it must have been at the full for the meridian of Alexandria in Egypt, at 11. 24. in the morning on April 1 in the Julian year, or March 30 in the tropical, B. C. 1559. The details of this proof I have thrown into the margin *. But if The statement of the proof is as follows: In nineteen tropical years, or two hundred and thirty-five lu nations, the revolution of the sun is found to anticipate that of the moon by two hours, four minutes, and nineteen seconds. that was the case, it is manifestly possible that the passover might be celebrated on March 30, and there This difference must be added to a given time of the moon's age in reckoning forwards; and deducted from it in reckoning backwards. Now in 19 x 12 or 228 years, the Anticipation h. m. S. Now, the hours being reckoned from midnight, let the moon be supposed at the full, B. C. 4, for the meridian of Jerusalem, Let B.C. 1562. be considered the first of a series of Metonic cycles B. C. 1559. is the third year of that cycle complete, or the beginning of the fourth. To obtain the moon's epact at the end of her third year from the beginning of a cycle, we must proceed thus: Mean difference of one lunar and one solar exclusive of seconds Multiply by three.. year, d. h. m. S. O Mean difference of three lunar and three solar = 238 00 O fore that the fourteenth of Nisan might coincide with March 30. If so, it would fall upon the fourth day of the week, or Wednesday: and consequently the tenth of Nisan on the seventh, or the Saturday. For if, in the year of Exodus, the third of April fell on the Saturday, then, in the year after the Exodus, it would fall on the Sunday: and if April 3 in that year was a Sunday, March 30, before it, must have been a Wednesday. On this principle, if Nisan 14. March 30. was a Wednesday, Nisan 1. March 17. was a Thursday: and if the Tabernacle was set up on that day, it was set up on the Thursdays. But it would not follow from this fact that the Tabernacle service began on the Thursday. The business of setting up the Tabernacle, which was preliminary to that commencement, might occupy one or two days' time; and the actual commencement of the service might not take place until the Saturday; that is, until the third of Nisan. There are many reasons to render it probable that the Levitical service would originally begin either with the evening of the Sabbath, or the evening of the first day of the week; and we saw in Dissertation xii. vol. i. p. 413, that it appears to have finally ceased on one of those two days in particular. This fact seems to me to be intimated in the account which is given of the offerings of the princes, or heads of the tribes h; which began as soon as the erection and consecration of the Tabernacle were duly completed, and which lasted for twelve days in order. It is reasonable to suppose that all this began and continued so as to be over before the time when the passover was celebrated; that is, before the fourteenth day of the month and therefore, that it began and was completed between the first and the fourteenth, after the one, but before the otheri. In this case, nothing is more probable than that it began on the second of Nisan, which would be on the Friday; and ended on the thirteenth, which would coincide with the Tuesday. Moreover it appears from Numbers x. 11-33. that after all these things the cloud was first removed from the Tabernacle on the twentieth of the second month; and the people journeyed subsequently without interruption until the twenty-third. It is an obvious conjecture that this stopping at the end of a three days' journey, beginning with the twentieth of Jar, was for the sake of the rest on the sabbath; which would thus coincide with the twenty-third. And if the fourteenth of Nisan fell on the Wednesday, and Nisan now consisted of twenty-nine days, this conjecture would be true; for the twenty-first and twenty-eighth of Nisan, the sixth, the thirteenth, and the twentieth, of Jar would necessarily be Wednesdays also; and therefore the twenty-third would be a Saturday. We may collect too from Numbers xi. 18. 31, 32. that the supply of the quails, which ensued so soon after the arrival at Taberah, ensued on the twenty-fourth: and consequently on the first day of the week. In this case the supply of quails, like that of manna, took place on the first day of the week in this year, as that had taken place on the first day of the week the year before it: i Numb. ix. 1. 2-5. and this upon the twenty-fourth, as that did upon the sixteenth of the same month. It constitutes no difficulty, that we suppose the fourteenth of the Jewish Nisan to fall, in two successive years, on the same day of the week. This could not be the case with any day in the solar year, nor with any day in the lunar, as such; but it might be the case with a day which made part of a solar year in one year, and part of a lunar in the next: which, as we have already observed, was probably true of the fourteenth of Nisan in the year before, and the year after the Exodus respectively. A. M. 2445, B. C. 1560, the fourteenth of Nisan, if we are right in the conclusions established, coincided with the seventh of April; and A. M. 2446, B. C. 1559, with the thirtieth of March: both of which must have fallen on the Wednesday if either of them did so. If, however, A. M. 2446, B. C. 1559, the moon was at the full on March 30. 11. 24. in the morning; A. M. 2445, B. C. 1560, it was at the full ten days, twenty-one hours, before that; viz. April 10. 8. 24. in the morning. This day would answer to the seventeenth of Nisan, and both would fall on the Saturday. They would coincide also with the day when the passage of the Red sea took place; at which time, it might almost be conjectured from Exod. xiv. 19, 20. Joshua xxiv. 7. that the night was light, or the moon was at the full. Moreover, if B. C. 1559, A. M. 2446, the new moon of Nisan fell on the tropical March 15; then after the lapse of thirty-nine years, B. C. 1520, A. M. 2485, the year of the Eisodus, it admits of proof that it would fall on April 3*: that is, in the year of the Eisodus, the * This computation will stand as follows: B. C. 1559. A. M. 2446. New moon, March Anticipation to be added for two d. h. m. 15 17 2 4 8 38 |