terated from that of Herodotus. Both are irreconcileable with the succeeding dynasties, whether in the outline of the old chronography, or in the detail of Africanus's extracts from Manetho. Several short reigns seem to have elapsed between Rhampses and Shishak, or Sesoichis, who acceded to the throne of Egypt about the year before Solomon's death, and five years afterwards (probably at Jeroboam's instigation) attacked and plundered Jerusalem. He was slain, and succeeded by Ozoroth, or Zerah, King of Nubia, at the commencement of Asa's reign; by whom, fourteen years after, his formidable invasion of Judea was repulsed with vast slaughter. Diodorus names this Cushite sovereign Actysanes.

The collateral reigns of the Kings of Israel and Judah exceed every other ancient chronological document in marks of authenticity and simplicity. In how different a state should we have found the Greek chronology, if such a record of the Kings of Lacedemon existed! All the dates of each kingdom are checked by correspondent dates of the other, so that a numeral error could not occur without immediate exposure to correction. Volney does his utmost to convict this duplicate record of gross mistakes, and he has greatly deranged the dates, in order to involve them in confusion; yet he could not avoid a just conclusion as to its total. The same result follows, if we take the collateral dates as we find them; and admit that every King of Judah, or Israel, began to reign in that year of his contemporary which is positively assigned to him. Hence it is evident, 1. that the durations of reigns are expressed (like Hebrew dates in general) not by complete but current years; and, of course, that they were not designed to be added together: 2. that there were repeated interregna in the kingdom of Israel (as there were also in the Babylonian kingdom, which had then recently been erected); and in that of Judah, Uzziah, who was but five years old when his father was killed, did not begin to reign till he had completed his minority, at sixteen years of age.

Without such a check, slight uncertainties attach to all computations by current years; as the end of a year, and that of a king's reign may happen exactly, or very nearly, to coincide. As the tally could only be commensurate with the duration of the kingdom of Israel, it might not have been possible to determine, within two or three years, the whole time that the Temple stood; but a vision of Ezekiel, ch. iv. v. 5, 6, supplies the solution of this problem. The siege and destruction of Jerusalem were predicted by him seven years before the catastrophe. Forty years of divine forbearance toward the kingdom of Judah, reckoned back from it, comprise those of Jeremiah's ministry; and

in the year before this commenced, or the twelfth of Josiah's reign, that pious and zealous prince fulfilled the judgment denounced (350 years before) to Jeroboam, by destroying the altar which he had erected to an idol at Bethel, with all other remnants of idolatry in the extinct kingdom of Israel. So long the divine forbearance had been extended to the Israelites; and reckoning back from that event to the foundation of Solomon's Temple, it coincides with the 390th year. This, with the forty years of Jeremiah, which were completed at the destruction of the Temple, makes a total of 430, and places the latter event A. M. 3465.

The subjugation of the Jews, and their abduction to Babylon, had commenced eighteen complete years before; and thenceforth the Hebrew chronology is mixed with foreign dates. The canon of Ptolemy supplies a scale of comparison, but by its artificial construction it affords a contrast with the simplicity of the Hebrew computation. That celebrated geographer and astronomer, taking for his epoch the establishment of the Babylonian monarchy by Nabonassar, 747 years before the Christian era, placed against the name of every king in succession, that year of the era in which his reign had closed. So he annexes to Nebuchadnezzar the year 186 of the era, or 562 before Christ; which corresponded with the thirty-seventh year of Jechoniah's and Ezekiel's captivity, and with the forty-fourth of Daniel's, which occurred in the first year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, or 605 B. C. From that date, Jeremiah foretold that the captivity would continue to the seventieth year, or 536 B. C. Ptolemy dates the commencement of Cyrus's reign at Babylon two years earlier, and as Cyrus employed that time in besieging the city, the difference might arise from such a circumstance. So Ptolemy reckoned Cyrus to have reigned nine years at Babylon, and Xenophon but seven; and although his Cyropædia is a philosophical romance, irreconcileable in various respects with historical evidence, he had no probable motive either to invent or to corrupt such an interval. The same year, also, that is called by Ezra the first of Cyrus, seems to have been named the third by Daniel. The few remaining dates of Scripture perfectly agree with those of Ptolemy; and all the former, that are collateral with the Egyptian, Medo-Persian, and Lydian chronology of Herodotus, confirm the accuracy of his statements, so far as he was able to obtain direct information. Where this failed, his calculations were generally erroneous, and sometimes contradictory to each other. So his computations of the epochs of Sesostris, and of Troy, vacillate irreconcileably in different portions of his work.

The Temple being destroyed in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, or 587 before the Christian era, and A. M. 3465,

places the date of Creation 4051 B. C. The difference from the vulgar computation, 4004, after Usher, arises from an addition of six years to Lamech's life, a reduction of sixty years in Terah's, and the supplemental century to the defective total from the Exodus to the Temple, the reasons for which have been assigned. Other slight variations very nearly balance each other. With the Hebrew chronology thus adjusted, the most authentic remains of early profane history remarkably agree; and to produce this coalition, not a single date of Eratosthenes, or of Manetho, (as preserved by Josephus) has been altered. The ancient Assyrian dynasties evidently have come to us very much distorted; and, although Ctesias agrees with Herodotus in the dates of the Median kings, his exaggeration of the Medo-Assyrian dynasty immediately preceding them, is incontrovertible. The first five kings of this dynasty are named in Scripture, Pul or Jareb, Tiglath-pileser, Shalmaneser, Sennacherib, and Esar-haddon. The last of these monarchs acquired the dominion of Babylon 680 B. C.; transplanted thence the Samaritan colony to Palestine, and led captive Manasseh to Babylon, where Esar-haddon was succeeded by Saosduchinus in 667. Ctesias, named Esar-haddon, Arbianus; and placed him next before Artæus, the Deioces of Herodotus, who erected Media into an independent monarchy. To Esar-haddon, and his next three predecessors, Ctesias assigns 172 years; but Pul, or Arbaces, his fourth predecessor, supported Menahem's usurpation, B. C. 765; which reduces the interval below a complete century, even reckoning this to be the last year of Arbaces. Allowing, also, full 32 years (with Ctesias) to his reign, his capture of Nineveh, and destruction of Thonos, otherwise called Sardanapalus, could not precede 796; at which date the native Assyrian dynasty had reigned (according to our former adjustment) about eight centuries from Belus. This is quite long enough for credibility. Eusebius reckoned the kings forty-one, and the years about 1400; but our copies of Diodorus reduce the kings to thirty; and a proportionate contrac tion of the term is warranted by that abbreviation which has been proved to be indispensable in the Medo-Assyrian reigns. In the Scripture chronology of the interval, no material error could have taken place.

Forty years might elapse from the judgment denounced against Nineveh by Jonah to its execution by Arbaces or Pul; and it was then mitigated, as the city (though sacked,) was not rased. Ctesias, in whose time there were no remains of it, supposed it to have been destroyed at that juncture; but it is evident, both from the Bible and from Herodotus, that its catastrophe was postponed two centuries. The book of Tobit also, the chronology of which

is remarkably correct, concurs in ascribing its final destruction to Nebuchadnezzar, in conjunction with Cyaxares, or, according to the Hebrew orthography, Ahazuerus *

Cyaxares, at the commencement of his reign over the Medes and Persians, B. C. 633, was overpowered by a sudden irruption of the Scythians, who had recently expelled the Cimmerians from their country north of the Euxine, and pursued them across Caucasus. In their route they were joined by hordes of Moschites and Tibarenes; and by their overwhelming numbers they dispossessed Cyaxares of his kingdom, for no less a term than twentyeight years. A part of them, denominated Chaldeans, whose name is still given to the district (Keldir) which they had occupied, near Caucasus, took possession of Babylon, B. C. 625, and esta blished there a monarchy, which acquired and lost, with almost equal rapidity, very extensive and powerful dominion. The Scythian, kings and queens of that and of still earlier ages, were called (as those of Slavonic nations, their descendants, now are) Tzar and Tzarina. Nebu also (another royal title) answered in Slavonic to Divus in Latin. From these conquerors the Babylonians (in Hebrew Chasdites, or Arphaxadites) were afterwards called Chaldeans; but the only people whom Xenophon intimates to have been so named, in his time, were those which remained on the Euxine coast, through whose country he conducted his memorable and admirable retreat.

The Scythians seem to have divided their host after passing the gates of Caucasus, and, while the main body overran Media, to have pushed a detachment as far southward as Palestine. They there found Psammeticus, King of Egypt, whose army for twenty-nine years blockaded the Philistines in Ashdod. He prevailed on the Scythians to return northward; but they left at garrison at Bethshan, which was thenceforth called Scythopolis. It occurred during the minority of Josiah, and, being unattended with any important consequence to the Jews, it is not mentioned by the sacred writers. The book of Judith, if at all founded on fact, must apparently refer to this expedition; but, if so, it is grossly misrepresented and distorted. The book evidently was written at a great distance of time from that crisis. At length, when expelled from Media, some of the Scythians took refuge with Alyattes, King of Lydia, on whose territories their enemies the Cimmerians had obtruded, when expelled from their former possessions. On his refusal to deliver up the Scythian fugitives to Cyaxares, a war ensued for six years between Media and Lydia, which was terminated by an eclipse of the sun, renowned for being

* Ku was the common title of the Kaianian dynasty; and aέagus is the same with

אחשורוש

the first that was foretold by a Grecian philosopher; Thales, the Milesian, having calculated the time of its appearance. Of five eclipses that occurred between 607 and 585 B. C. for which various chronologers have contended, the only one that agrees with the chronology of Herodotus (which, in all other dates of that period, is consistent) was one of dig. 10. 33. in 597. That it could not be attended with the wonderful phenomena ascribed to it by the narrative, is no insuperable objection. It would equally apply to an eclipse that was subsequent to the birth of Herodotus, and of which, therefore, his information might have been more accurate. (Hales's Analysis, vol. 3. p. 151.) Any perceptible eclipse of the sun still alarms a half-civilized people; and superstition supplied terrific appearances where dread was otherwise excited.

Peace was mediated between Cyaxares and Alyattes, by Nebuchadnezzar, who then joined his forces with those of Cyaxares to subvert the feeble remains of the Assyrian empire, by utterly destroying its capital. The city of Nineveh was rased to the ground, after a siege of three years, in 594, the last year of Cyaxares's reign. His son Astyages, who had married the daughter of Alyattes, succeeded to the empire of the Medes and Persians, and Nebuchadnezzar confirmed their mutual alliance by espousing the sister of Astyages. Belshazzar, surnamed Evilmerodach, began to reign (as before stated) in 562; and, being cut off two years after, was succeeded, as Daniel testifies, by a King of the Medes and Persians. Astyages reigned till 558, when he was deposed by Cyrus. There could, therefore, in 560, be no other King of the Medes and Persians than Astyages, who appears, as brother-in-law of Nebuchadnezzar, on the death of his only son, to have acquired peaceably the dominion of Chaldea. Daniel calls him Darius, a name common to several of his successors, but identifies him with Astyages, as son of Ahazuerus, or Cyaxares.

The dethronement of Astyages by Cyrus left Chaldea again independent, and Nergal-shar-ezer (called by the Greeks Neriglissoroor) a son-in-law of Nebuchadnezzar, assumed the sovereignty. In four years he left it to his son, who was cut off in a few months; and his successor, called by Ptolemy, Nabonadius, -by Herodotus, Labinetus, reigned till Cyrus conquered Babylon. All these native kings are named by other writers, but Daniel alone attests the transient dominion of Astyages at Babylon. It might be expunged from the Chaldean annals, as an unwelcome memorial of renewed subjection to Media; but to whatever cause the silence of the native chroniclers may be attributed, even their positive testimony could not reasonably be opposed to such evidence as that of Daniel, the only historian who was on the spot.