Battle of Karkar, in which Ahab and Benhadad were defeated 854 Jehu pays tribute to Shalmanezer II. 842 Menahem tributary to Assyria 738 Fall of Samaria 722 Sennacherib's Invasion 701
These dates do not accord with those which we should derive from the Book of Kings in the ordinary system of chronology, which seem to fix the Fall of Samaria in 737.
The dates of the later Kings of Assyria seem to be as follows:--
Rimmon-Nirari III. 810 Shalmanezer III. 781 Assur-dân IV. 771 Tiglath-Pileser III. (Pul, a usurper) 745 Shalmanezer IV. 727 Sargon 722 Sennacherib 705 Esar-haddon I. 681 Assur-bani-pal 668
* * * * *
Destruction of Nineveh 606
Adding up the separate data of this book for the kings of Israel we have from Jeroboam to the death of Joram ninety-eight years seven days; and for the same period of the kings of Judah from Rehoboam to Ahaziah we have ninety-five years. Supposing that some such errors as we have indicated have crept into the computation, the dates of the reigns may be, as reckoned by Kittel:--
Saul 1037-1017 David 1017-977 Solomon 977-937 Jeroboam I. 937-915 Nadab 915-914 Baasha 914-890 Elah 890-889 Zimri 889 Omri 889-877 Ahab 877-855 Ahaziah 855-854 Jehoram 854-842
* * * * *
Rehoboam 937-920 Abijah 920-917 Asa 917-876 Jehoshaphat 876-851 Joram 851-843 Ahaziah 843-842
From Phœnician inscriptions (recorded in the _Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum_) little of _historical_ importance has hitherto been reaped.
In the Egyptian monuments there is nothing which illustrates the period of the Kings except the inscription of Sheshonk recording his invasion in the days of Rehoboam, of which I have given some account (p. 315).
The Assyrian inscriptions, to which allusion is made in their place, are of extreme importance and interest, and from the lists of kings we have good details of chronology. The best book on their bearing upon Hebrew history is that of Schrader, _Die Keilinschriften und d. Alte Testament_, 1883.
On the datum of four hundred and eighty years from the Exodus to the building of the Temple, I have already touched. It does not agree with Acts xiii. 20, nor with the Book of Judges. The LXX. reads "four hundred and forty." It is almost certainly a late and erroneous chronological gloss derived in very simple fashion, thus:--The wanderings forty years, Joshua forty years, Othniel forty years, Ehud eighty years, Jabin twenty years, Barak forty years, Gideon forty years, the Philistines forty years, Samson twenty years, Samuel forty years, Saul forty years, David forty years = four hundred and eighty, or twelve generations of forty years.
But the same result was arrived at with equal empiricism by omitting the episodes of heathen dominations (Jabin and the Philistines), and only adding up the years assigned to the Judges, and the four years of Solomon's reign before he began to build the Temple, thus:--Othniel forty years, Ehud eighty years, Barak forty years, Gideon forty years, Tola twenty-three years, Jair twenty-two years, Jephthah six years, Ibzan seven years, Elom ten years, Abdon eight years, Samson twenty years = two hundred and ninety-six.
Eli forty years, Samuel twenty years (1 Sam. vii. 15), David forty years, Solomon four = one hundred and four. Add to the four hundred the two generations of the wanderings and Joshua, and we again have four hundred and eighty; but quite as arbitrarily, for the period of Saul is omitted.[792]
The problems of early Hebrew chronology cannot yet be regarded as even approximately solved.