CHRONOLOGY
801
CHRONOLOGY
after the Deluge. Important aid in tills approxima- 1 don of lacred with proftne dironology ia afllDrded bj I the oonaideraUe extension of the Biblical period of the ' Jodgea, noticed below, beyond that fixed by Usher.
(8l) An important rectification of the last genera- tion is required in all the lists. Aocording to them; it would appear that Terah was 70 years old at Abnun^s birth. ** Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran'* (Gen. xl, 26). It is afterwards sdd that Terah went from Ur of the Chaldees to Ha- ran, and died there at tlie age of 205 years [Samar. 145] (xi, 81, 82); and the departure of Abram from Haian to Canaan is then narrated (comp. Acts vii, 4), his age being stated to have been at that time 75 years (xii, 1-6). Usher therefore coi^}ectares that Te- rah was 130 years old at Abram's birth (205—75=130), and supposes the latter not to have heed the eldest son, but mentioned first on account of his eminence, as is Shem in several places (v, 82 ; vi, 10; vii, 18 ; ix, 18 ; X, 1), who yet appears to have been the third son of Noah, and certainly not the eldest (x, 21). To this it has been objected, however, that it seems scarcely probable that If Abram had been bom to his fkther at the age of 180 years, he should have asked in wonder, *'ShaIl [a child] bo bom unto him that is a hundred yean oki? and shatt Sarah, that Is ninety years old, bear?" (G«n. zvii, 17). But the foroe of Uiis objeb- tion is almost entfarely obviated when it is considered that l^rah had previously had a son, whereas Abra- ham at the time of his observation was altogether ddidleas. It is better, therefore, to adopt this arrange- ment, than to make an arbitraiy. change in the num- bers, as the Samar. apparently has done.
2. Fron Abrcan^s depctrture out o/ffaran to the Esd~ odin.— The length of this period is stated by Paul as 480 yean from the promise to Abraham to iJie giving of the Law (Gal. iii, 17), the first event behig held to be tiiat recorded in Oen. xii, 1-5. The same number of yean is given In Exodus (xH, 40, 41), where the Heb. reads, ** Kow the sojourning of the children of Israel who dwelt fai Egypt [was] four hundred and tiiirty years. And it came to pass at the end of the ibur hundred and thirty years, even the self-same day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt'* Here the Sept. and Samar. sdd after **in Egypt" the words "and in Canaan," wfaHe the Alexandrian and other MSS. of the former also add after " the children of Israel*' the words " and their finthers.** It seems most reasonable to regard both these additions as glosses ; if they are excluded, the passage appean to make tlie duration of the so- journ in Egypt 480 yean, but this is not an absolutely certain oonclnskm. The *f sojourning** might well in- efaide the period after the promise to Abraham, while that patriarch and his descendants " sojourned in the land of promise as [in] a strange country** (Heb. xi, 9), for it is not positively said **the sojourning of the chfldren of Israel in Eg3rpt,'* but *'who dwelt in Bgypt'* As for the very day of dose being that of oommeneement, it might refer either to Abraham*8 en- trance or to the time of the promise. A third passage is the divfaie declaration to Abraham of the future his- tory of his children ; " Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land [that is] not their's, and diall serve them ; and they shall afflict them four hundred yean ; and also that nation, whom they shall save, will I judge ; and afterward shall they come out with great substance*' (Gen. xv, 18, 14 ; comp. Acts ▼ii, «, 7). The four hundred yean cannot be held to be the period of oppression without a denial of the his- torical character of the narrative of that time, but can ^y be supposed to mean the time from this dedara- tnn to the Exodus. It is also noticeable that after the citation given above the events of the whole so- joom are repeated, showing that this was the period spoken of^ and perhaps, therefore, the period defined (xT, 15, le) as ** the fourth generation.'*
But the qnestioii. From what point of time are these yean reckoned ? has been variously answered, and' chronological schemes vary accordingly. Some, as the Sept., Josephus, ttie Jewish Chronology, and most Christian writen, assign the period to the entire so- journ in Canaan and Egypt, beginning either with the Call of Abraham (Gen. xii), or the Promise (xv) ; oth- en date it fhxn the dose of the period during which the' Promises were made (Perizonlus, Schdttgen); some (as Bengel) frtnn the birth of Jacob; while nu- merous recent writen give the whde period to the so- journ in Egypt, reckoned from the descent of Jacob and the patriarchs into that country (see Knobel, In loc. ; Browne, Ordo Seed, § 284-288). The genealogy of Moses is inconsistent with so long an interval as 480 yean between Jaoob*s 180th and Moses' 80th year ; for we learn that between Levi and Moses were only two descents — indeed, by the raother*s side (Jochebed, ^^daugliter** of Levi), only one ; and as the sum of the Uves of Levi, Kohath, and Amram is 187+188+187, it follows that from the birth of Levi to the birth <^ Moses must be considerably less than 407 yean. 3o also the other genealogies, in which (with one excep- tion, and that only apparent) we constantly airive at contemporaries of Moses in the 4th, 5th, and 6th de- scent ftx)m the twdve patriarchs (Browne, Ordo Sad, § 284-288). Hence we must measure this interval of 480 yean (Gal. iii, 17) ft^m the call of Abraham, in his 76th year (Gen. xii, 4), after the death of Terah (Acta vii, 4 ; Gen. xi, 82), to the Exodus.