USHER allows but 254 years from the revolt to the removal of the ten tribes. The reafon of this abbre viation has already been affigned. In the Annals the birth of Arphaxad and of Abraham is anticipated each by one year. A third is retrenched from the reign of Jehoash, and a fourth from that of Ahaz. These miftakes being rectified, the reduction of Samaria is brought down to its true date A. M. 3288, not 3284. "THEY who make operofe explications of little difficulties, are more folicitous in defending the chronology of the fcripture, than it needeth. In reckoning the times, the facred writers do not infist on the niceties of odd months, days, or parts of a year." Even this remark is more than it needeth. No other hiftorians are fo careful to diftinguish incomplete from full years, to characterize excurrent months, and days, by the years of co-existent reigns, and to suggest more hints than are ftrialy neceffary to the truth of computation. Of the infpired authors this is one peculiar mark of perfection. In the foregoing arrangements the utmost regard has been had to thofe numbers of reference, without which it would have been impoffible to methodise the hiftory of this period; and it is, with much fatisfaction, discovered, that all are perfectly confiftent. Subjoined are the fynchronisms in the reigns from the 93d year fubfequent to the death of Solomon, exhibited at one view. * Wall's note on 2 Kings, ix.. 29. Judak IT merits regard, that the long reign of Uzziah happily ferves, as an adjusting meafure, for feven short reigns, and three vacancies of the throne in Samaria. *Hofhea's first year is connected with the 12th of Ahaz (2 Kings, xvii. 1.). In the table it coincides with the 14th. This apparent difcord of dates admits a very probable compromise. In the 12th of Ahaz, either by confent or compulfion, Hofhea might obtain the fovereignty; but the facred. hiftorian judged it proper to include the nine full years of ufurpation, and to compute the reign of the fame quantity. from the 14th of Ahaz,' in which it moft probably ended. Some part of the fame year might be common to both princes, though it did not begin and end with the fame day of the coexiftent reigns. СНАР. From the Removal of the Ten Tribes to the Conflagration of the First Temple. T HAT useful directory, the Chronicle of Samaria, unavoidably ceafed with the political existence of that establishment. Its ufe, however, is happily fuperfeded by Ptolemy's Mathematical Canon, which opens 26 years prior to the extinction of the kingdom in Ifrael, and terminates with the reign of Antoninus the Philofopher, one full century after the Chriftian era. THE reigns in Judah are ftill computed from Abib. But to all of them the Annals affign another date from different months of their several years. The authorities produced from the facred records, if properly interpreted, do not establish the author's pofitions, a full examination of which is reserved for the enlarged Arrangements, where it will be fhewn, that his conclufions are at variance with the chronology and history of the times. THIS period ends with A. M. 3421, 427 years after the foundation of the Temple. But from the 39th of Solomon's reign exclufively, 3030, begins a new fource G 2 fource of computation, by the noted term of 390 years, beyond which the punishment of Ifrael's apoftacy was not to be deferred *. As a regulating measure for the remaining reigns in Judah, it is requifite to fet those of Chaldea in juxtapofition. An abbreviated scheme follows. Jerufalem. Babylon. Jerufalem. Babylon. Hezekiah 7 Mard. Em- 2 259 Jofiah 16 Nabopol- I 354 padus 12 269 Jehoahaz 31 laffar 16 369 Archianus 5 274 Jehoiakim 1 Manafch 17 22 24 Interreign 2 276 27 Belibus 3 279 28 Aprona- I 280 29. I dius 28 4 17 370 Nebuchad-120 373 nezzar 221 374 3375 2 281 4.376 3 282 8 5376 4 6 285 5 Regilibus I 286 10 7 378 Jehoiachin 11 8 379 4 290 Zedekiah K 9380 2 10 381 11 382 50 2 chinus } 20 331 Amon 51 Nebuchado- 1 332 7 338 8339 22 353 17 388 18 389 2 + Daniel, adopting the computation of Chaldea, where he wrote his Prophecies, dates Nebuchadnezzar's reign from the death of his father. But all the other facred authors reckon from the fourth of Jehoiakim. The duration of the divine forbearance with the idolatrous Ifraelites, prefignified to Ezekiel, was limited to 390 years, the last of which began in the tenth of Zedekiah, which was the 18th of Nebuchadnezzar, Jer. xxxii, 1.; and ended on the ninth of the fourth month in the fubfequent year, when the famine was fore in the city, and Zedekiah Bound with fetters. a Kings, xxiv. 5—7. Stages Stages of the Siege according to the Hebrew and Roman Calendar. Zedekiah's 9th year begins 3419 Abib 1 April 10 m. 1 April 17 t. 11th of Zedekiah begins 3421 Abib Famine prevails. The fiege raised Tamuz 10 July 26 th. Conflagration of the temple Ab 10 Aug. 25 f. 20 Sept. 4 t. THESE Arrangements, the refult of calculations, conftructed on infallible characters of time, expreffed in feveral concurrent texts, evince, that the years of Zedekiah are not computed, as in the Annals, from the tenth day of the fourth month, and that the eleventh in particular, did not expire till the end of the eighth month exclusively from the date of his captivity. If from the breaking up the city, on the 26th July, 390 years be counted back, to the first of Rehoboam, which was the 40th of Solomon, their commencement, without regard to the Hebrew lunar form, will coincide with Wednesday the 27th July A. M. 3031, the true hiftorical term, whence the establishment of idolworship in Samaria is to be computed. USHER, Prideaux, Bedford, and others, continue the currency of the 390 years to the 23d of Nebuchadnezzar, when Nebuzaradan returned to Jerufalem, and thence carried away into Babylon 745 captives *. |