death, and he died near the close of Saul's veigB Q. Sam. XXV, 1 ; xxviii, 8). If he were 20 years old ai the former date, and judged for 12 years after the vic- tory at Mispeh, he would have been near 86 yemn oU (20+20+12+82=84) at his death, which appears to have been a long period of life at that time. VTe tkss arrive at the following numbers for the varioas por- tions of this period :
Wandering In the Deeert. 40
Joshua*! Rule 85
Bunriving Elden 18
Fint Serritode 8
Othniel's Judgeship 40
Second Servitude 18
Ehud*! Judgeship (indnd-
ing Shamgar*8) 80
Third Senritode 80
Barmk'i Judseehlp 40
Fourth Senritude 7
01deon*8 Judgeship 40
Abtanelech's Rdgn 8
ToU*8 Judgeship. 83
Jail's Judgeship 28
Fifth Servitude. »
Jephthah's Judgeship.... <
Ibaan*8 Judgeship T
Elon*s Judgeship ie
Abdon's Judgeship $
Sixth Senritode 46
&anuoii*8 Judgeship A
ElFs Judgeship 4»
Seventh Servitude. M
SamueTs Judgeship IS
SauTs Reign m
David's Reign #j
8oknnoo*8 firat yean 3
Total 6i
Two independent large numbers seem to ooofinn thii result. One is in PauPs address at Antioch of Piaidia, where, after speaking of the Exodus and the 40 yean in the desert, he adds: '*And when be had destroyed seven nations in the land of Chanaan, he divided ^m Und unto them by lot. And after that he gave [unto them ] judges about the space of four hundred and fifty years, until Samuel the prophet. And afterward thev desired a king** (Acts xiii, 19, 20, 21). This interWl of 450 years may be variously explained — as commeoc- ing with Othniers deliverance and ending with Eli'i death, a period which the numbers of the earlier booki of the Bible, if added together, make 442 years ; or as commencing with the First Servitude, 8 3rears moce, whidi would be exactly 450 years ; or with Joshua's death, which would raise these numbers by about 18 years ; or again, it may be held to end at Seal's aocea> sion, which woiUd raise the numbers given respective- ly by about 82 years. However explained, this som of 450 years supports the authority of the detailed nnia- bers as forming an essentially correct measure of the period ; and the precise coincidence with one of the foregoing modes of computation seems to sh6w that it was that which Paul adopted. The other large nniB> ber occurs in Jephthah*s message to the king of the Children of Ammon, where the period duridg which Israel had held the land of the Amorites fVom the firet conquest either up to the beginning of the servitode from which they were about to be fk«ed, or up to the very time, is given as 800 years (Judg. xi, 26). The above detailed numbers, including the nncertaln p»> riods, -Wbvld make these intervals respectively 844 and 862 years. Here, therefore, there appears to be an agreement, although not positive, since the meaning might be either three centuries, as a vague sum, or about 800 years. So fiur as the evidence of the num- bers goes, we must decide in favor of the longer inter* val, from the Exodus to the building of the first TeiD- pie, in preference to the period of 4^ or 440 years.
The evidence of the genealogies has been held bj some to sustain a different conclusion. These lists^ as they now stand, would, if of continuous generatioos, be decidedly in ikvor of an interval of about 300, 400, or even 600 years, some being much shorter than oth- ers. It is, however, impossible to reduce them to con- sistency with each otiier without arbitrarily altering some, and the result, with those who have followed them as the safest guides, has been the adoption of the shortest of the numbers just given, about 800 years. The evidence of the genealogies may therefore be ison- sidered as probably leading to the rejection of all nu- merical statements, but as perhaps less inconsistent with that of 480 or 440 years than with the rest
The statement in 1 Kings vi, 1, is accepted by HH- lel, the author of the modem Jewish chronology, who makes the 480 years one of the elements for the coi-
CHRONOLOGY
303
CHRONOLOGY
btiucUon of lib Mmidttie sra ; by Usher abo, by Pe- tavins, who, howeTer, dates the period from the Eirode, and by many others. In more recent times, Hengsten- berg (^Authentie dei Peniateueht, ii, 28 sq.), Hofmann (jn the Studim «. KriHien, 1888X Thenins (on 1 Kinffi vi, 1\ Tiele {Ckronoi, da A. T,\ Oehringer (fiber die biUitcke jEre), Niebnhr (Geech. A$wr$ n. Bab,\ up- hold the statement as historical. Bat though this meaanre, by bridging over the interval fh>m Moses to Solomon, enables the chronologist, when he has form- ed his mundane series down to the Exode, to assign the year omm mimM of 4 Solomon and so of 1 David, or, having traced the reckoning B.G. up to 1 Solomon, to give the year B.C. of the Ezode, the whde tract of time occupied by the Judges is still loose at either end, and needs much management to define its bearings. For the items actually enumerated, being (even if the entire iO years of Eli and the 20 years of tbe Ark at Kiijath-Jearim be included in the 890 of the Judges) 47+880+48=480, no room is left for Joshua and t^e elders, Samuel and SauL Accordingly, the chronol- og^sts who accept this measure are obliged to resort to violent expedients— the assumption that some of the seryitudes were contemporary, and others, which it is dearly impossible to exalt aboye the rank of ingenious conjectures. But the number 480 is, in fact, open to grave suspicion. The Sept. has instead of it 440. Jo- aephns takes no notice of either, and on various occa- sions makes the interval 502, 612, and 632 years; the early Christian chronographeov also ignore the meas- ure—thus Theophil. Antioch. reckons 408 to 1 David ; Clem. Alex, to 1 Saul, 490; Africanns, 677 years. Paul's enumeration, in Acts idii, 18-21, also proves at least this, that Jews in his time reckoned the intertral in a way which is inconsistent with the statement in 1 EangB vi, I. He gives from the Exode to 1 David 40+450+40=580; therefore to 4 Solomon, 578 years. Paul's term of 450 years is evidently the interval from tlie First Servitude to the end of those 20 years of tbe Ark, 1 Sam. vii, 2 (composed of 890+40+20). Clin- ton (Faati HelL i, 812) dates the 450 from the partis •tion of lands (47th after Exode), aemanes 20 years for Joehna and the elders, and another term of 12 years between the 20 years of the Ark (1 Sam. vii, 2) and the 40 years which he gives entire to Saul, thus making the sum 612 years. It remains only to state that the text in 1 Kings vi, 1, cannot be impugned on strict- ly critical grounds, excepting the various reading in the Sept. ; the other versions and the Heb. MSS. are oniform in their testimony : that date, therefore, must be summarily rejected as an early interpolation, as is done by most modem chronologers. For a ftirther ex- amination of the period in question, see Judges. For tlie valoo of Egyptian dates of the Exode, see below. (See also in the Siud. u, KrUiken, 1868, iv.)