If Pekah, then, reigned twenty years, he must have been assassinated in the third of Ahaz. What, then, shall we say to the prima facie evidence of xv. 30? And Hoshea the son of Elah made a conspiracy against Pekah the son of Remaliah, and smote him, and slew him, and reigned in his stead, in the twentieth year of Jotham the son of Uzziah. My answer is, that the last words of this text are an interpolation; the fact of which is proved by the very necessity of the case.

For first, it is the direct conclusion from them that the death of Pekah, and the beginning of the reign of Hoshea, both coincided with the twentieth of Jotham; and that would be recta fronte at variance with 2 Kings xvii. 1.

Secondly, it is not possible to explain the difficulty by supposing that Jotham might have reigned four years in conjunction with Uzziah, before his death. For on this principle the twentieth of Jotham, as dated from that apx, must have been the sixteenth of Jotham, as dated from his father's death; and the twentieth of Pekah must have synchronised with the sixteenth of Jotham, and not with the third of Ahaz.

Thirdly, it may be assumed as an indisputable truth, that no one but Ahaz was king of Judah when Pekah conspired with Rezin to invade Judæad: the object of which invasion, as we learn from Isaiah vii. 6, was to dethrone Ahaz, and to substitute an usurper in his stead. Nothing, then, is more probable than that this invasion took place in the very first year of Ahaz; and that the recent death of Jotham was the cause of the invasion itself. For Jotham was a good king and a prosperous; which renders it exceedingly improbable that the Divine Providence would suffer him to be exposed to any such danger in his lifetime; and much

c 2 Kings xv. 27. d Ibid. xvi. 5. 2 Chron. xxviii. 1—15. e Ibid. xxvii.

less to experience the signal defeat which happened to Ahaz. Yet it must be evident from 2 Kings xv. 37. that the designs against the kingdom of Judah began to be formed and acted upon almost in his lifetime, and certainly immediately after his death.

These conclusions are placed beyond a question by the testimony of Isaiah vii. 1-16. and viii. 1-4. which relate to the invasion and its consequences. The birth of Maher-shalal-hash-baz took place after this invasion, yet one or two years at least before the reduction of Samaria and Damascus, as accomplished by Tiglath-pileserh. The death of Pekah was subsequent to all these events, and yet in his twentieth year: I would arrange them, then, as follows:

If, now, Pekah had been put to death at the very end of his twentieth year, the reign of Hoshea would properly have borne date from the end of the third, or the beginning of the fourth, of Ahaz. But it appears from 2 Kings xviii. 1. that the first of Hezekiah began in the third of Hoshea; yet from xviii. 9, 10, that his fourth began in the seventh, and his sixth in the ninth. It is manifest, then, that the first of Hezekiah did strictly begin in the fourth of Hoshea; and, consequently, that the first of Hoshea must strictly have begun in the thirteenth of Ahaz; the beginning of which might yet be considered the end of his twelfth. We may assume, then, that the first of Hoshea and the thirteenth of Ahaz synchronised, perhaps, throughout. Between the death of Pekah at the end of the third of Ahaz-and the accession of Hoshea at the beginning of his thirteenth, there was consequently a

f Isaiah viii. 3. g Ibid. viii. 4.

VOL. III.

h2 Kings xvi. 7—9. xv. 29.
K k

i Ibid. xvii. 1.

second interregnum in the kingdom of Israel of nine years in duration. To proceed then *.

13 of Ahaz. 1 of Hoshea. Nisan B. C. 727-726.

16............ 4 ......

.724-723.

If Ahaz died about the middle of his sixteenth year, between the Nisan and the Tisri, B. C. 724, the first of Hezekiah would truly bear date from the same time, and in the fourth of Hoshea.

Hence 1 of Hezekiah. 4 of Hoshea. Nisan B. C. 724-723.

4........

7....
9.......

721-720. 719-718.

And if Samaria was actually reduced at any period between Tisri, B. C. 719, and Nisan, B. C. 718, it would truly be reduced in the sixth of Hezekiah and in the ninth of Hoshea, both.

With regard to the residue of the reign of Hezekiah, his nominal fourteenth would begin Nisan, B. C. 711: his true, Tisri, B. C. 711: and the former would expire Nisan, B. C. 710: the latter Tisri, B. C. 710. In the latter half of his true fourteenth year, between Nisan and Tisri, B. C. 710. Sennacherib came up against him; and a little before the usual period of seed-time, that is, a little before Tisri, in the same year, as the very words of Isaiah distinctly imply k, he was miraculously delivered from him.

The nominal fifteenth of his reign would begin and expire with the Nisan, the true with the Tisri, B. C.

* Syncellus i. 381.1.17—382. 1. 14. informs us that all copies of the books of Kings which he had been able to see, stated the reign of Pekah, son of Remaliah, either at eighteen or at twenty years, except one, which he says was written with great care and exactness, after originals corrected by Basil of Cæsarea himself; and there it was stated at twenty-eight: by the help of

k 2 Kings xix. 29.

which he was able to discover that the first of Hoshea did indeed coincide with the twelfth of Ahaz. But the reading in this instance must have been produced either by not perceiving the fact of an interregnum between Pekah and Hoshea, or a desire to do away with it, and to add the years of that interregnum to the reign of the preceding king.

Isaiah xxxvii. 30.

710 and 709, respectively. We have supposed that his sickness attacked him immediately after his deliverance from Sennacherib1; and, consequently, in the first half of his true fifteenth year; which bore date between Tisri, B. C. 710. and Nisan, B. C. 709. Hence the fifteen years added to his life m bore date also between Tisri, B. C. 710, and Nisan, B. C. 709: and they were either current years, or complete; current, if Hezekiah reigned twenty-nine years incomplete, but complete, if he reigned twenty-nine years complete. But his reign is stated at twenty-nine years only—and his nominal first beginning Nisan, B. C. 724, his nominal twenty-ninth began Nisan, B. C. 696, and expired Nisan, B. C. 695. To this time from Tisri, B. C. 710, there would be fourteen years and six months complete; or fifteen current years in all.

We may pause here to point out a coincidence between Scriptural and profane chronology. The embassy of Merodach-baladan king of Babylon was produced partly by the news of Hezekiah's sickness and recovery, and partly by the sign, relating to the sun, which had been vouchsafed unto him". This embassy, therefore, it is morally certain would take place either in the last half of B. C. 710, or the first half of B. C. 709. Now the Merodach-baladan of Scripture is with great reason supposed to be the Mardoc-empadus of Ptolemy's canon; the beginning of whose reign, according to Dodwell's edition of that canon, fell out Erae Nabonassari 27. B.C. 721, and the end Erae Nabonassari 39. B. C. 709 and as all the years in that scientific canon begin with the first day of the same month, the Egyptian Thoth, which answered B. C. 721 to Feb. 20. and B. C. 709 to Feb. 17, it is manifestly possible that he might

1 Supra, Appendix, Dissertation xi. 453. n 2 Kings xx. 1-12. 2 Chron. xxxii. 24. 31. o Dissertationes Cyprianicæ, Appendix, 84.

m 2 Kings xx. 6. Isaiah xxxviii. 5. Isaiah xxxviii. 7, 8. 22. xxxix. 1.

have sent this embassy to Hezekiah, between the Thoth, B. C. 710, and the Thoth, B. C. 709, though in the very last year of his reign.

Again, 1 of Manasseh. Nisan B. C. 695-694.

55....

641-640.

From the great length of the reign of Manasseh, it is nothing improbable that he died in his fifty-fifth year, or B. C. 641.

Hence 1 of Amon. Nisan B. C. 641-640.

The violent death of Amon, in like manner, authorizes the inference that the true length of his reign was not two years complete: and we may suppose the first of Josiah to bear date nominally from Nisan, but really from about Tisri, B. C. 640.

The reign of Josiah certainly began before the first month in the sacred year; and it certainly terminated in spring; for it was at a time when Pharaoh-Necho was taking the field to begin a march from Egypt to the Euphrates 9. We may reasonably infer, then, that he died at the end of his nominal, but the middle of his real, thirty-first, about Nisan, B. C. 609. From an eclipse of the moon on the eleventh of March, B. C. 609, (vide the Table of Pingrè,) we may conclude that the first of Nisan would synchronise that year with the beginning of the month of April; before, or by which time the king of Egypt may well be supposed to have set out on his expedition.

The three months of Jehoahaz, whom Jeremiah dep 2 Kings xxii. 3. xxiii. 23. 2 Chron. xxxiv. 8. xxxv. 1. 19. xxiii. 29, 30. 2 Chron. xxxv. 20-24.

q 2 Kings