APPENDIX.

CHRONOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE FIRST TWO PERIODS OF THE HISTORY OF ISRAEL.

We have seen what are the periods into which the course of this history till the fall of the ancient kingdom may be divided, and what amount of definite chronological data may be still discovered throughout. While we observed that the determination of the date of separate events can be effected with more completeness in proportion to the lateness of their occurrence and to the proximity of the materials for their description to the time when they actually happened, we still found, as might be expected on the first glance, some fixed points for the earlier periods as well. The last four hundred years, however, afford the additional facility of a more continuous comparison of the chronology of this history with that of foreign nations.2

In order to fix in the rest of contemporaneous history the place of these four hundred years after the disruption of the Davidic monarchy, and so of all that we know from still earlier ages, the first step necessary is the discovery of points where the chronology of the history of Israel links itself quite firmly with that of some other nation which is securely established on independent grounds. Only one such point presents itself within the limits of the Old Testament itself, towards the conclusion of the whole period. After the total destruction of the polity of Israel, the writers under the Chaldean supremacy began to reckon their years either by the Chaldean chronology alone, or by that in conjunction with their native computation; and so we know

1 Vol. i. p. 204 sqq.

2 An attempt was made very early to compute the chronology of the two kingdoms from their disruption, both by the kings in detail, and, as a whole, by the data of the Old Testament, and to remove the difficulties attendant on such a process (some of which we have already discussed); but, unfortunately, we no longer possess in their original form the earliest and best works of this class, which already date from before Christ. For the estimates of later writers see Clem. Alex. Strom. i. p. 337 sq., and Euseb. Præp. Ev. ix. 21, 29. According to Syrian extracts (in Lagarde's Ann. Syr. p. 120) the destruction of the

temple took place four hundred and fortyone years after its erection. According to Hamza's Arab. Ann. p. 92 sq., the kingdom of Judah lasted three hundred and ninetyfour years (in which the eight years of Jehoram are reckoned in the reign of Jehoshaphat); and, according to a computation in Maqrîzi (Sacy's Chrestom. i. p. 110), the kingdom of the Ten Tribes lasted two hundred and fifty-one years. Some modern attempts to fix the details with more exactness may be seen in Clinton's Fast. Hell. i. pp. 314-29, and in the Journal of Sacred Literature, 1857, Oct. p. 217 sqq. Compare, also, the remarks above, p. 206.

1

from several passages that Jerusalem was taken in the nineteenth year of the reign of Nabuchodrozzor. The chronology of these Babylonian kings is known to us, however, with great exactness, partly through the Ptolemaic Canon of the kings which begins with Nabonassar in 747 B.C., and partly through the descriptions of eclipses observed in Babylon transmitted by Cl. Ptolemæus, and confirmed by modern calculation. Assuming, then, that the Babylonian monarchy fell by the conquest of Cyrus in the year 538 B.C., the nineteenth year of Nabuchodrozzor's reign, and, with it, the destruction of Jerusalem by him, fall in the year 586 B.C.;3 and from this point the antecedent years are to be determined.

The only objection that can be brought against this, arises from the chronology in the book of Ezekiel. In this book the years are reckoned from the deportation of Jehoiachin, which was placed, as every indication forces us to conclude, twelve years before the destruction of Jerusalem; but just at the beginning, apparently with the purpose of explaining this chronology, which was current only among the Israelites deported to Babylonia, by that which was better known in those countries, the thirtieth year is given as corresponding with the fifth year of Ezekiel's computation; and there is no doubt that this was the thirtieth year of the chronology then in use all over Babylonia. What this chronology was, however, is not known to us from any other sources. Supposing that it commenced with the first year of Nabopolassar as the first powerful Babylonian king, 625 B.C., which is a very simple conjecture, we should get instead of the year

The passages from the book of Kings, 2 Kings xxiv. 12, xxv. 8, Jer. lii. 12, are in harmony with Jer. xxv. 1, xxxii. 1; they, therefore, afford a secure basis. It is clear, however, from a passage inserted in Jer. lii. 28-30 (see p. 265 note 2), that others placed the beginning of Nabuchodrozzor's reign a year later; hence, Josephus, Contr. Ap. i. 21, puts the eighteenth year instead of the nineteenth; this might happen if the beginning of the year fell in Babylonia in the autumn, not as in Israel in the spring. If the year of the deportation of Jehoiachin (p. 263 sq.) were reckoned not as the eleventh, but, as might be justly expected, and as is confirmed by Ezek. xxxiii. 21, as the twelfth year before the destruction of Jerusalem, a further explanation is afforded of the way in which the thirty-seventh year of this chronology, 2 Kings xxv. 27, Jer. lii. 21, may correspond to the forty-third and last year of the reign of Nabuchodrozzor.

2 Compare Ideler Handbuch der Chronol. i. p. 109 sqq., 222, and in the Berl. Akad. Abhandl. 1816. The result of the astronomical calculations is that Nabopolassar did not reign twenty-nine years, as appears in Jos. Contr. Ap. i. 19, but twentyone years, as is stated in Jos. Ant. x. 11. 1,

following Berosus and the Ptolemaic Canon of the kings. The calculation of the years of the Babylonian kings by a later chronologer in Ang. Mai's Nova Coll. Script. Vet. vol. I. pt. ii. p. 31 differs widely from the Ptolemaic Canon in the period before Nabopolassar, but seems not to be worthy of any confidence.-The latest attempts of modern times have not led to any greater certainty; see the essays of Rawlinson, Hincks, and Bosanquet in the As. Journ. 1855, 1861, pp. 378-392, and 1864, pp. 145-180; Jahrbb. der Bibl. Wiss. x. p. 172.

3 On account of a special computation of the months, Clinton in the Fast. Hell. i. p. 319 prefers the year 587 B.C.—It is remarkable, however, that the number 588 lies at the basis of the calculation in Dan. ix. 21-27, see the Jahrbb. der. Bibl. Wiss. xii. p. 54. New and important evidence has been obtained (according to the Propheten des A. B. iii. p. 421 sqq.) in favour of this year being the year of the destruction of Jerusalem; if other considerations should (as I believe) confirm this, all the previous dates will have to be increased by two years. Compare, also, the numbers in Eutychii Ann. i. p. 343, and in Lagarde's Ann. Syr. p. 120.

P. 263 sq.

593 B.C., which we should expect from our previous computation, the year 596 B.C., which would be two or three years too much. Meanwhile we are wholly ignorant of what event was taken as the commencement of the Babylonian era; and it is not clear why it need have been the very first year of Nabopolassar's reign. It would be preferable to suppose it was the era of Babylonian freedom, when the Assyrian yoke was cast off; and reasons have been already assigned for the conclusion that this event may have taken place in the second or third year of Nabopolassar's reign.

We thus obtain in the contemporary history of the powerful Chaldean kings a fixed point for the insertion of the whole chronology of Israel into the general history of the world. There are, indeed, other places in the Old Testament during these four hundred years where contemporary Assyrian, Tyrian, and Egyptian kings are also named. But in earlier ages no writer in Israel would have thought it worthy of the dignity either of himself or his nation, to calculate the time by the reigns of foreign as well as of native kings; and if descendants of the kingdom of the Ten Tribes wrote any such works under the Assyrians, they are all lost. The information we derive, however, from other sources, about the chronology of those foreign kingdoms, is in harmony, when carefully investigated, with the firm basis acquired for the chronology of the kingdoms of Israel; but it does not yet stand upon such sure foundations as our knowledge of the Chaldean chronology.

We know with tolerable certainty the length of the reign of each of the Assyrian kings after Pul mentioned in the Old Testament; 2 but we cannot fix on the year of either the beginning or the end of any one of their reigns; and we are consequently unable to find their exact place in contemporary history. Of Sennacherib we can only say that he did not become king till some time after the destruction of Samaria in 719 B.C. and before the siege of Jerusalem in the year 711; hence we assume that his reign commenced in 713 B.c.3

The chronology of the Tyrian kings stands in a somewhat different position. Josephus, while he could not avail himself of any special work on the history of the Assyrian kings, had before him very re

1 P. 255 sq.

2 In the enumeration of these kings in Euseb. Chron. Arm. ii. p. 23 there are no numbers given at all; Samuel of Ani, in his Chronicle (at the end of the Milanese edition of the Armenian Eusebius), which is based on ancient authorities, reckons 16 years for Pul, 27 for Tiglath-Pileser, 16 for Shalmaneser, and 18 for Sennacherib. The last number is also found in Euseb. Chron. Arm. i. p. 43, following Alex. Polyhistor. The numbers in Elijah's Syrian Chronology are not yet printed (see Catal. Codd. Syr. Mus. Brit. p. 87); and Moses' Choren. Arm. Hist. i. 22 only repeats the error of Eusebius, that there were only 88

years between Sennacherib and Nabuchodrozzor. The numbers in the list of the Chronography printed in Angelo Mai's Nova Coll. Script. Vet. vol. I. pt. ii. p. 24, are somewhat contracted; Pul 14, TiglathPileser 23, Shalmaneser 15, Sennacherib 16, Assorom (i.e. Asarhaddon) 15 years. Some modern works which treat of the connexion of Assyrian and Israelite history from the side of chronology, I have discussed in the Götting. Gel. Anz. 1853, pp. 134-136; the special point there investigated is, whether it is necessary materially to shorten this whole period of 400 years. 3 See further remarks on p. 178 sqq.

liable authorities on that of the Tyrian, which extended at least as far back as the age of David.1 The most important point for us to note is the calculation of the years of the Tyrian kings from the destruction of Jerusalem. During the reign of Ithobal (the date of the commencement of which we do not know), Nabuchodrozzor besieged Tyre for thirteen years. Then followed the reign of Baal for ten years, after which different judges governed for seven years and a quarter. These were succeeded by Balator, who reigned one year, Merbal four, and Hirom twenty years; and in the fourteenth year of this latter prince, Cyrus became king (of course, as Josephus always means) over Babylon. These would amount together to fifty-four years and a quarter,2 or, better, fifty-five and a quarter. Subtracting from the twenty years of Hirom's reign the six just mentioned, there remain forty-nine and a quarter, or in round numbers, forty-nine years. Now, supposing that the siege of Tyre began in the seventh-or, better, in the seventeenth 3-year of Nabuchodrozzor, say in the year 588 B.C.,* there would be a period of fifty years till the reign of Cyrus in Babylon. It further follows from this, that if the restoration of the temple began in the second year of the reign of Cyrus, it must have lain (according to Josephus) fifty years in ruins,5 supposing first that Jerusalem (as assumed above) was destroyed in 586 B.C., and secondly, that the year of its destruction was reckoned in. In this way a complete harmony is established between the fragment from the history of Tyre communicated by Josephus, and the computation of the year of the destruction of Jerusalem derived from a wholly different source. And this is of the greatest importance for the general chronology of the history.

4

Of the Egyptian kings we should possess a continuous chronology, could we depend entirely on Manetho's statements of the length of the reigns of individual kings and dynasties, as they have been transmitted to us in various later works. But it is well known how far Manetho's dates are from agreeing either with each other, or with other ancient traditions, and even the great industry displayed by modern investigators in their attempts to shed light upon this obscurity has not yet succeeded in always making a trustworthy beginning. The assumption that the disruption of the Davidic monarchy took place four hundred years before 586 B.C. would be incorrect, if Shishak did not come to the

throne according to Rosellini till the year 972 B.C., according to Bunsen till the year 982, according to Böckh1 not even till 934, or at the earliest, in the year 957. In all these attempts it is assumed beforehand that Bocchoris, the only king of the twenty-fourth dynasty, did not reign more than six years, as is stated by Georgius Syncellus, following Julius Africanus. Other authorities, however, state that he reigned forty-four years; and it seems in itself scarcely probable that the reign of a king whose wise administration was so copiously described by later writers, and who at length succumbed in a struggle with Ethiopian sovereigns, should not have lasted a longer time. And so in this province of history also, there will still remain much for future investigation to decide.2

Further valuable aid would be gained, could we rely on the exactness of the chronology after the destruction of Samaria which prevailed among the Jews in the north-eastern districts.3 There must certainly have been many among the Israelites there who were descended from the Ten Tribes; but nothing more definite can now be said about it. I may, however, remark that the attempts to reject these inscriptions as spurious, like that to cast suspicion on the Karaites and their ancient manuscripts of the Bible, seem to me entirely groundless.

1 Manetho und die Hundssternperiode (Berlin, 1845), pp. 315-320.

2 Much has certainly been done in the last ten years in the investigation of this period of Egyptian history also by deciphering hieroglyphic inscriptions; but it has hitherto been impossible to discover in them any continuous chronology, or even to restore one from isolated numbers. Compare R. Lepsius' Königsbuch der alten Aegypter, Berlin, 1858, and further the Gött. Gel. Anz. 1858, pp. 1441-58, Rougé in the Athénée franç. 1855, p. 1083 sqq.,

Revue archéol. 1862, p. 162 sqq. The general drift at present is to make the chronology shorter by some decades; Niebuhr began this by his groundless assumption that the reign of Manasseh must be diminished by twenty years, because his son and successor was so young at his accession. No more solid proof has yet been forthcoming. I therefore leave my previous statements unchanged.

3 See the latest results in Ad. Neubauer's Beiträgen und Documenten zur Geschichte des Karäerthums, Leipzig, 1866, p. 22 sqq.