1946 Birth of Abraham.
2016 The Promise, I. [characteristic of the first period],
2121 Death of Abraham.
2852 Birth of David.
2882 David becomes King, II. [characteristic of the second
period].
2923 Death of David. 3327 Birth of Jechoniah. 3345 Jechoniah Bound, III. [characteristic of the third
period].
3939 Birth of Christ. 3969 Baptism of Christ.
Now, in the first place, take the sum of the years in each Fourteen, and divide them by fourteen, which is the number of generations, and you will obtain the length of the single genera- tions in each period : so that, in the first period, a generation will contain sixty-two, in the second, thirty-three, and in the third, forty- two years. The mean length will be about forty-six years : this, however, I will not press. Take, in the second place, which is more to the purpose, the nine hundred and twenty-three years from the promise given to Abraham till the birth of Christ, and divide them by three, which is the number of the periods : the mean length of the periods will not come up to that of the first, will exceed that of the second, but will agree admirably with that of the third. The third therefore stands as the primary period (to which the two others are subservient), between the excess of the first and the defect of the second, which mutually compensate each other. And the Evangelist has acted as geographers do, who, when wishing to express the distance between two cities, enumerate the stations interposed between them, in such a manner, that they add to one stage the paces which they take from another, and thus produce more con veniently the real total without any violence to truth. In fact, the Evangelist has done that, which every chronologer does, when he enumerates the years in his canons so as to absorb the excesses and defects of the months and days. In short, the years of the first and second period, taken together, are exactly