any time between his twelfth and his twentieth year*. Nor is there any difficulty in conceiving that the first revelation might be made to him ten years or more before the death of Eli. Some considerable interval must have elapsed between 1 Sam. iii. 19, and the close of the preceding narrative as well as between the end of 1 Sam. iii. and the beginning of 1 Sam. iv. The penal denunciations of the Divine Providence are seldom seen to be executed as soon as made: witness the cases of Jeroboam, Baasha, and Ahab: nor is it more extraordinary that the beginning of the punishment of the house of Eli should be delayed ten or fifteen years after it was first denounced, than that its final consummation should not take place until more than one hundred years later; when Abiathar was deposed from the priesthood by Solomon d.

If, however, Samuel was about thirty at the time of the death of Eli, he would be about fifty at the time of the appointment of Saul; and sixty-eight in the eighteenth year of his reign: at which advanced age, if he had never yet done so before, he might well be supposed to retire from public life, or from the same actual share in the administration of the affairs of the kingdom, which he might have sustained until then. It will follow from this supposition, that the one and two years of the reign of Saul, which are mentioned 1 Sam. xiii. 1, are in reality the first one and two years of his sole reign; and virtually the nineteenth and twentieth since his original appointment: and the course of events, which begins and proceeds from xiii. 2,

* Gen. xxi. 14, 15, 16, &c. Ishmael is repeatedly called a child or lad, when he was certainly more than fourteen, and might be as much as seventeen. So likewise Benjamin, xliv. 20

-the end, though he was old enough to have children; and even had he been ten years younger than Joseph, he could not have been less than twenty.

d 1 Kings ii. 27.

begins and proceeds from his twenty-first, or at the earliest from his twentieth itself. The advantages which immediately flow from this construction, and their uses in reconciling the accounts of Scripture with each other, or with general probabilities, are these.

First, it is not necessary to suppose that Saul was more than twenty, or at the utmost than twenty-five years old, when he was appointed king-nor than sixty, or sixty-five, at the time of his death. At the latest of the former of these extremes, he would still be strictly a young man; and at the latest of the latter he might still be able to go out to battle.

Secondly, it is not necessary to suppose that he was married before the first year of his reign; nor consequently that Jonathan his oldest son was more than thirty-nine years old at his death: in which case he would be twenty years old in the twenty-first year of Saul, and nineteen in his twentieth; and at either of these times would be capable of the exploit attributed to him 1 Sam. xiii. 2, 3. and xiv. Among his brothers, too, the sons of Saul and Ahinoam e, Ishui (mentioned after Jonathan, and, as it appears, the same person with Ishbosheth) and Melchi-shua, might both be born by the twentieth or twenty-first of Saul; but not necessarily Abinadab: who yet might be born soon after, and still be of an age to go out to battle, by the fortieth.

Thirdly, David, who was born in the eleventh year of Saul, would be but nine or ten years younger than Jonathan, born as we suppose in his first or his second. And who is there, that reads the exquisite narrative of their wonderful friendship, but would suppose that, with the most entire congeniality in other respects, the difference of years between them could not have been too considerable? This argument alone is sufficient to e 1 Sam. xiv. 49.

convince us that Jonathan could not have been born earlier than the first or second year of the reign of Saul; for it would be difficult to believe that his soul could have been so intuitively knit with the soul of David f, had not the kindred sympathies of one youthful mind with another cooperated with any other motive to produce so immediate and lasting an impression.

Fourthly, it is not necessary to suppose that David was anointed by Samuel before the sixteenth or seventeenth year of his age-the twenty-sixth or the twentyseventh of the reign of Saul; nor that he slew Goliath before his nineteenth or his twentieth *, in the twentyninth or the thirtieth: and soon after this time he would manifestly be of an age to be married to Michal, the daughter of Saul; as the narrative supposes him to have been . But he might manifestly be alluded to, even in the twenty-first of Saul, and much more a few years after, as a person already in being, though not publicly known; and already fixed upon as Saul's successor in the kingdom, though not yet anointed.

Fifthly, at the time of the appointment of Saul, the Israelites were in no danger from any enemy but the Ammonites; the Philistines in particular, since the deliverance recorded at the outset of the administration of Samuel, had been quite subdued. Yet we find them resuming the offensive at the outset of xiii. 1. 3. and maintaining a constant warfare, xiv. 52. thenceforward to the end of the reign of Saul. But if they had been subdued all the days of Samuel, this would not be consistent, unless the days of Samuel were supposed to extend at least up to xiii. 1. 3. in the reign of Saul. If the days of Samuel, as such, really expired

*Theodorit, i. 381. in 1 Reg. Interr. 41: μepákov hv, sc. David,

when he slew Goliath, TeVtekaiδεκα ἐτῶν ἢ ἑκκαίδεκα.

f 1 Sam. xviii. 1.

g Ibid. xviii. 17—27.

h Ibid. vii. 3-12. 13.

in the eighteenth of Saul-then the Philistines, who might have been kept under, until then, by their dread of Samuel, might begin, in the nineteenth, to be again superior, or at least to oppose a formidable resistance.

Sixthly, 1 Sam. xiv. 3. Ahiah, a grandson of Phinehas, was ministering in the priest's office, in the second or third year of Saul; and xxi. 1. xxii. 9. 11. at a much later period, Ahimelech, his brother, was doing the same in his stead and xxii. 20-23, Ahimelech had a son, Abiathar, already arrived at maturity: and this was probably not more than four or five years before the end of the reign of Saul. If Eli was ninety-eight years old at the time of his death, it is probable that Phinehas was not less than fifty-eight*: and if Phinehas had been married at thirty, his son, Ahitub, might be then twenty-eight. In this case, Ahiah a son of this Ahitub might be actually in office, forty years afterwards, in the twentieth of Saul; and Ahimelech, fiftyfive years afterwards, in the thirty-fifth or thirty-sixth; and Abiathar, the son of Ahimelech, be fully arrived at maturity: yet not much more than sixty, at the beginning of the reign of Solomon.

Seventhly, it is not necessary to suppose that Samuel died more than two or three years before Saul, as the context very clearly implies; or about the eightyeighth year of his age. The departure of David to Achish seems to have been produced by his death— and that was but one year and four months before the fatal battle of Gilboa: nor had Samuel been long dead when Saul applied to the witch of Endor; which could not have been many days before his own death.

* 1 Sam. i. 3. Hophni and Phinehas were both priests, and both acting in that capacity, the year before the birth of Samuel. They were probably then not

less than thirty at that time; in which case, Phinehas, at the death of Eli, thirty years after, would be sixty at least.

Lastly, the assertion of Josephus, that Saul reigned twenty-two years after the death of Samuel, is virtually corroborated by Eupolemus, apud Eusebiumi: by Theophilus ad Autolycum: and by others-who all state the length of his reign άλŵs at twenty-one or twenty years; which being dated from the eighteenth would be equivalent to thirty-nine: and the reign of Saul was actually thirty-nine years complete, but not forty. There seems, then, to have been always a current tradition that the reign of Saul in some sense was a reign of twenty-one, or twenty-two years, which the testimony of St. Paul proves to have been one of thirtynine, or of forty. The origin of this tradition is explained by the distinction in question; that the first eighteen years of his reign were divided with Samuel, the remaining twenty-one or twenty-two were not. Considered in this light too, the administration of the Judges, which did not terminate except with the administration of Samuel, may be supposed not to have ceased before B. C. 1076, the beginning of the nineteenth of Saul. To this time from the date of the Eisodus, B. C. 1520, the interval would be 444 years; which might easily be called in round numbers 450. Vide supra, page 447-449*. .

* Eusebius (Chronicon Armeno-Latinum, i. 170-172.) argues, as I have done, from the age of Ishbosheth at the death of Saul, that Saul must have reigned forty years; which he divides between Samuel and Saul. But he supposes further, that Saul's reign, properly so called, was but of two years' duration; that he fell away, and was given up to a re

probate spirit, at the end of his second year; and therefore (he being as good as set aside) that the rest of his reign was to be reckoned as belonging to Samuel. Sulpicius Severus, Sacra Historia, i. 64. §. 8-14. mentions that most chronologers supposed Saul to have reigned thirty years: an opinion, however, with which he does not himself agree ;

i Præparatio Evangelica, ix. 30. 447. B. D. k Lib. iii. cap. 24. 372. Cf. Julius Pollux, Chronicon, p. 104.