they pretend to demonftrate, that CHRIST appeared earlier in the world by about 240 years, than we say he did : but as their authority is altogether founded upon that of the Talmud, we fhall fpend no more time in coufuting either ".

WE pass by alfo the Jewish Targums, or Chaldee paraphrafes, becaufe we have none upon the book of the Judges or of the Kings. But upon the whole, whatever Imall differences there may be between those chronological works, they all agree in the feries and fucceffion of their kings and judges, in the fame order of time as we find them in thofe two facred books, and that of the Chronicles. It is true, that this laft fometimes jars with thofe of Samuel and Kings in point of numbers, whether of years, or other things mentioned in both. But fuch differences are scarce worth the pains which fome critics have taken to reconcile them

(E).

• Vid and CAPZOVIUS's learned an

n Vid. PRID. conn. ubi fup. & pt. i. lib. v. int. al. WHISTON's chronology, fwer to it.

(E) We shall have occafion, in the fequel of their hiftory, to hint at fome of the latter fort; and, as to the first, the only inftance we are going to give, will eafily convince the reader, that, in thefe cafes, fome errors have manifeftly crept into the text, whether through the likeness of the numerical Hebrew letters, or the negligence of copyifts, whatever the Jews may pretend to the contrary. The place we mean is, where the book of Chronicles fays, that Abaziah was 42 years of age when he began to reign (7), contrary to that of Kings, which makes him but 22 years old (8). It

(7) 2 Chron. xxii. 2.

ver. ult.

will be no hard matter to find
where the miftake lies, fince,
according to the former au-
thor, that monarch must have
been two years older than his
father, who is affirmed to have
died in the 40th year of his
age (9). It were ridiculous
to follow the forced and unna-
tural folution of two or three
authors, who have in vain en-
deavoured to folve the difficul-
ty (10), againft the far great-
er majority, who have plainly
owned, that it could not be re-
moved by any
other way,
by owning the bigger num-
ber to be an error of the
tranfcriber (11).

(8) 2 Kings viii. 26.

(10) Uffer in an. Broughton. Jun. in loc.

than

(9) 2 Cbr. xxi.

(11) Jerom. Kimch. Abarban. L. de Dieu, Pifcat. Cajet. Scalig. Grot. Capel. & al. mult. Vid. & Nert. Knatchbul, animadv. in N. T. in A&, iv, Le Scen. essay on a new verf. p. ii. ch. vi. §. 8. & al, mult.

THE

THE following is the lift of the patriarchs, heads or chiefs, judges and kings of Judah and Ifrael. As for their chronology and fynchronisms, we fhall refer them, as we have done hitherto, to their history.

Jewish kings before Jeroboam's revolt.

Kings of Judah and Ifrael, after the rupture of the two

kingdoms:

SECT. V.

The Jewish Hiftory, from Abraham to Moses.

W

E have had occafion already to hint, that this celebrated patriarch was the father and founder of the Jewish nation; though they were never, as we can find, called by his name; but either by that of Ifraelites or Jews, or by the more common one of Hebrews (A). But, as he was defigned by the divine providence to fill up a more noble character, and to be, in a more eminent and exalted manner, the father of the faithful; and, as fuch, was to give fo many fignal tokens of his faith and intire refignation to the divine call, which brought him out of his native home into a strange land, where he was to continue only a fojourner; it was, doubtlefs, on that account chiefly, The defign that the facred hiftorian hath thought fit to give us a more of the book of Genefis.

* See vol. i. p. 253, & feqq. ii. p. 380, & feqq.

(A) We have ventured here to call them Jews, in compliance with custom, tho' that name was not given them till after the Babylonifh captivity, when the tribe of Judah became the moft confiderable, if not almost the whole of what was left of Ifrael (1). The first name that was given to Abraham and his children, was that of Hebrews, which fome derive from Heber, the fifth in def cent from Noah (2). But it is hardly probable, that Abraham would call himself by his name,ratherthan by that of any of his ten predeceffors, and we rather think, that it was given him by the Canaanites, because he came thither from the other fide of the Euphrates; the word ay Heber fig

(1) See vol. ii. p. 382, & notes. (3) Gen. xiv. 13,

nifying in the original, the
other fide, whether of a river,
fea, or any other thing: in
which fenfe fome people are
called tranfmarine, transalpine,
and the like. What feems to
confirm this etymology is, that
we don't find, that he was
called by that name, till word
was brought him of his ne-
phew Lot's misfortune (3); fo
that it is likely the messenger
enquiring for Abraham, of the
inhabitants, might defcribe
him by the word ay Hibri,
or one that came from the
other fide of the river. How-
ever, after Jacob had received
the great name of Ifrael, they
preferred that of Ifraelites to
that of Hebrews, though the
neighbouring nations ftill called
them by the latter.

(2) Gen. x. 24. D. Kimchi,
R 4
fuccina

fuccinct account of his life, travels, and various trials, as well as of the wonderful means, by which the divine wisdom and goodness led him through them to the promised bleffing, which was to crown them all. Neither was, in all probability, this surprising history thus circumftantiatedly penned without a view of exciting the too unbelieving Ifraelites, then in the fame wandering condition, but defigned for a more happy lot, to rely on the fame infallible guide, which was fpeediby to conduct them to it, if their murmurings and difobedience did not put fome obstruction to their promised happiness.

Year of ABRAHAM the fon of Terah, and the tenth in a lineal the flood defcent from the fon and fucceffor of Noah b, was born in 427. Ur of the Chaldees, and about feventy-four years of Bef. Chr. age when his father and he came from thence into Ha1921. rand, where they had not been feated long, before Terah

died in the two hundredth and fifth year of his age (B). His

b Gen. x. 25, & feqq. See vol. i. p. 299, & feqq.
xi. 28, & feqq. a Vide vol. i. p. 257, & feqq.

(B) There feems to be an infurmountable difficulty in this account of Terab's age, of which we have taken notice in a former volume (3), and which chronologers have variously endeavoured to remove. Willet and Tremellius think, that though Terah was but feventy years old when he began to have children, yet he was near an hundred and thirty when he begat Abraham, and that those that were born before him, are purpofedly omitted by Mofes, that Abrabam might have the honour of primogeniture for the excellency of his faith (4). Others with Calmet, choofe rather to give him Adar, or Azar, for his father, and Terah for his

(3) Vol. i. p. 1256, & feqq.

funeral

c Gen.

grandfather, according to the Arabian history of that patriarch; and to fill up the chafm, fuppofe that Adar begot Abraham in the fixtieth year of his age (5); but befides the small reliance we can have on that hiftory, the thing feems quite oppofite to the text. Others more reasonably suppose, with Sir Norton Knatchbull (6), that there is an error crept into the original; and that Terah was either an hundred and thirty years old when he begat Abraham, or that if he was then but feventy years old, he died in the hundredth and fifty-fifth, and not in the two hundredth and fifth year of his age: for the text fays, that Abraham was feventy-five years old when he

(4) Idem in loc. Villet. cb. ii. quæft. 19. (5) Calm. bift. Vid. Herbelot, biblict, orient. p. 12, 13. (6) Vid. effay

en a tem verf.

left