The above table stops short with B. C. 590-589, the hundred and thirty-second sabbatic year; which and season, as it should have been. For this would imply that seventy sabbatic years at least had been neglected in due course of things, before the commencement of the captivity: and seventy sabbatic years would imply a period of 490 common years, before the date of the captivity, B. C. 606, at least; during which not a single sabbatic year could have been observed in the due course of things. And what would be the consequence of this conclusion? That no sabbatic year could ever have been observed, as far back as B. C. 1096-two years before the first of Saul, B. C. 1094, and forty years before the probable date of the death of Samuel, B. C. 1056: and all through the reigns of David and Solomon, and every successive king of Judah, good or bad, alike, from B. C. 974, the first of Rehoboam, to B. C. 606, the third of Jehoiakim. We cannot suppose the above declaration was intended to lead to such an absurd and improbable conclusion as this. The truth is, the absolute duration of the rest of the land, even for the captivity itself, cannot be dated from B. C. 606, which was the first captivity, but only from B. C. 588, which was the last. After B. C. 588, the land might be completely abandoned and deserted; but before, it could not have been: consequently after this date it might have enjoyed a perfect rest from every species of agricultural service to which a land is put while in the possession of inhabitants to till it; but before it could not. From this date, to that of the return and the reoccupation of the country, B. C. 536, the interval is exactly fiftytwo years and fifty-two years, supposing them to represent more or less so many sabbatic years, which should have been observed in due course, but had not been, will be equivalent to 364 common years; which, dated back from B. C. 606, would express, on this principle, that period of time in Jewish history previously, during which, on the whole, the sabbatic year, like any other ordinance of the Jewish law, had been more or less neglected, or never, at least, uniformly observed. And herein we may perceive a remarkable coincidence. For what is that period, later than the close of the reign of Solomon at least -at which and from which we may most reasonably suppose the law of Moses in general to have begun, and to have continued, to be more or less regularly or irregularly observed, according to the character of the reigning king-even of Judah? With the evidence of Kings xiv. 25, 26. and 2 Chron. xii. 1-12. before our eyes, can we hesitate to say it must bear date in and after the fifth of Rehoboam, when Jerusalem was delivered into the hands of Shishak king of Egypt-as the first instance of any such penal dispensation for any specific corresponding offence, since the establishment of the kingly government in the person of Saul? Now the fifth of Rehoboam bears date from Nisan, B. C. 970, (see Appendix, Disserta also has been illustrated elsewhere. Had it been con tinued forwards, however, the hundred and forty-second would be found to coincide with B. C. 520-519: for 1507-520987=141 × 7. Now according to the Fasti Hellenici of Mr. Clinton c, the first Thoth of Darius Hystaspis was Jan. 1. B.C.521; in which case a sabbatic year, B. C. 520-519, would be partly in the second, and partly in the third of his reign. On this principle the ninth month in the second of Darius, Haggai ii. 10. 18, was Chisleu, B. C. 520 and the words which follow, Consider now from this day and upward, from the four and twentieth day of the ninth month, even from the day that the foundation of the LORD's temple was laid, consider it. Is the seed yet in the barn?....from this day will I bless you appear to justify the inference that there was this year the usual seed-time; and consequently that B. C. 520. was not a sabbatic year d. In answer to this objection I observe first, that Zechariah i. 7. as a later prophecy than Zechariah i. 1, delivered in the eighth Jewish month in the second of Darius, was later than Haggai ii. 10, delivered in the ninth for Zechariah i. 7, was delivered in the eleventh month, and the foundation of the temple had been already laid before Zechariah i. 7, as well as before Haggai ii. 10; which is confirmed also by Zechariah iv. 9. If, then, the first of Darius bore date from January B. C. 521, his second would bear date from January tion xii. vol. iii. 485,) and 364 years reckoned back from the spring quarter of B. C. 606, bring us to the same time B.C. 970-exactly in the fifth of Rehoboam also. This is a remarkable coincidence. с c 313. 4. also B. C. 521. Second edition. ii. 16. * Yet-that is, as the Hebrew word answering to it means, still. By the end of the ninth month in the Jewish year, it should be remembered, seed time was commonly over. d Compare i. 5, 6. 9, 10, 11. B. C. 520 and the eleventh sacred month, which belonged to that second, must have preceded, not followed, the ninth which belonged to the same: nor was it possible for the eleventh of the sacred year to have come within the second of Darius, and yet to have been later in occurrence than the ninth, unless the years of Darius bore date sometime between the eleventh and the ninth; and not between the ninth and the eleventh. Now Haggai i. 1. 15. ii. 1. 10. Zechariah i. 1. 7. vii. 1. laid together demonstrate that his years bore date neither before the twenty-fourth of the eleventh month, nor after the first of the sixth: which justifies the inference that they bore date critically between the two: either with the beginning of the sacred year itself, or sometime in the spring quarter of that year generally: and this is further confirmed by the testimony of Ezra vi. 15. and 1 Esdr. v.6. I do not mean to call in question the accuracy of the canon of Ptolemy; nor do I conceive its authority to be endangered by what I am about to say. The testimony of Herodotus, however, with regard to the history of the kings of Persia, is equal to that of the canon; especially when he comes to the reigns of Xerxes and of Darius: and it may be proved by the help of that testimony that Darius must have died B. C. 486, and therefore, as he reigned thirty-six years in all, that he began to reign B. C. 522. With this view, I shall assume nothing but the date of the best authenticated fact in all ancient history, the date of the battle of Salamis, B. C. 480. If it can be proved that this battle was fought in the seventh of Xerxes ineunte, or the sixth exeunte; the seventh of Xerxes, or the sixth, coincided with B. C. 480: and therefore his first with B. C. 486. e Herodotus, vii. 4. Now the reduction of Egypt took place in the second year after the death of Darius f; consequently in the second of Xerxes. From the time of this reduction, four full or entire years were taken up in preparing for the expedition against Greece: which years beginning some time in the second ended at the same time in the sixth of Xerxes. Πέμπτῳ δὲ ἔτει ἀνομένῳ 5, when the fifth year was begun, and proceeding onwards to its close, consequently, at the earliest, still in the sixth of Xerxes, the expedition was actually begun*. But it was begun in the latter half of B. C. *There are critics, it is true, and chronologers of great celebrity who understand this allusion proleptically of the march from Sardis, B. C. 480, and not that from Susa, B. C. 481: but certainly not without doing violence to the most simple and most obvious construction of the text. It is making a distinction without a difference, and raising a mere dispute about terms, seriously to question whether the στρατηλασία as such of Xerxes began from Susa before the winter, or from Sardis after it since it must be evident that when he had once begun his march, if there had been time the same year, he would have continued it. The stoppage at Sardis was due to the necessity of the case; the winter setting in at the time of his arrival there, and suspending all further proceedings until the spring. And Herodotus must have understood this accordingly; or he would not say that having wintered (xepepioas) at Sardis, with the return of spring (ἅμα τῷ ἔαρι) he resumed his march: vii. 37. cf. 26. 32. f Herodotus, vii. 7. But if the expedition was truly and properly begun when Xerxes set out from Susa, the four years' preliminary preparations were over when Xerxes set out from Susa; and if the winter quarter was arrived or at hand when he came to Sardis, the autumnal quarter was arrived or at hand when he set out from Susa: for the example of the younger Cyrus is a proof that a much smaller force than the army of Xerxes could not have marched from Persia to Sardis in less than four months' time. If, however, the four years' preliminary preparations were over about the close of the summer quarter, B. C. 481, the reduction of Egypt had been completed about the same time B. C. 485 and the death of Darius cannot be placed later than the same time in the year before that, B. C. 486. The time of the arrival at Sardis is further demonstrable by the help of the following considerations. When Xerxes arrived there he dispatched heralds into Greece, to demand g vii. 20. 481, for the winter was past at Sardis; and the Hellespont was not crossed until the spring, about the earth and water h; and when he was arrived at Thessaly, these heralds met him on their return. It may be calculated that the army had been then not less than two months on the road; and that the heralds did not meet him sooner than the end of May, or the beginning of June. It is asserted by Herodotus that just as Xerxes was setting out from Sardis, there was a remarkable eclipse of the sunk: there is accordingly an eclipse in Pingrè's Table, April 8, B. C. 480, which would seem at first sight to be altogether such as Herodotus describes. But herein is a singular instance of disagreement between historical testimony, and the result of an astronomical calculation; for while the former is positive with respect to the fact of a visible eclipse in the spring of the year when Xerxes set out from Sardis, the latter shews an eclipse April 8, B. C. 480, at 11. 15. in the evening for the meridian of Paris, and therefore invisible at Sardis. There was another eclipse, it is true, B. C. 481, on April 19. central, and at six in the morning; which would consequently be visible both at Susa and at Sardis: but it seems utterly inconceivable, unless the date of the battle of Salamis is to be advanced from B. C. 480, to B. C. 481, that this could be what Herodotus intended. It is more reasonable to suppose either that Herodotus is mistaken, in the fact of this eclipse, or by a lapse of memory has confounded it with the eclipse of the year before, or that were it to be recalculated, with the more accurate data which astronomers possess at present, it would be found to have been actually visible at Sardis, either April 8 or April 9: and consequently that one of these days was the time when the army began its march from thence, re Now in one month's time afterwards they had passed the Hellespont; consequently by the first week in May; and in three months more they arrived at Athens m; consequently by the beginning of August. The march. to the borders of Thessaly was about one third of this distance; the march thence to Thermopyle was about another; and the march to Athens from Thermopyla was about the mainder: we must allow therefore about a month to each of these intervals. And it agrees with this conclusion, that just after the battle of Thermopylæ, the Olympic festival was going h Herodotus, vii. 32. i Ibid. 131. k vii. 37. Aristides alludes to this eclipse, Oratio xlvi. 241. §. 5: also the Scholiast in Prooem. ad Æschyli Persas. So also Suidas, Ξέρξης. i Herodotus, ix. 8. 10. mentions another eclipse of the sun, just when the wall across the isthmus was completed, B. C. 479. Pingrè has a central eclipse, October 2, B. C. 480: a small eclipse, Feb. 28, B. C. 479. visible in the north of Asia, but not in Greece; and another, September 21, in the same year, scarcely to be called an eclipse, but merely an attouchement extérieure, of the disks of the sun and of the moon. It is possible, however, that the eclipse, October 2, B. C. 480, may be that to which Herodotus alludes, ix. 10. m viii. 51. |