1401

[About this period the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean suffered severely from the ravages of pirates and kidnappers; these barbarous exterprises had, however, the effect of greatly improving navigation.]

Cecrops leads a colony from Sais in Lower Egypt to Attica, and founds the city of Athens.

Moses, having slain an Egyptian, flees into Midian, where he marries Zipporah the daughter of Jethro, a Įriest, and lives with him forty years.

Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, born. Whilst Moses keeps his father in law's sheep at Mount Horeb, God appears to him in a burning bush, and sends him to deliver Israel. Moses and Aaron declare to Pharaoh 'the message on which they are sent to him from God, but are charged with mutiny; and more grievous labours are laid upon the Israelites. God lays ten plagues upon the Egyptians.

UPON the fourteenth day of the first month, (which was May the 4th, upon Monday, with us,) in the evening, the passover is instituted.

Upon the fifteenth of the same month, at midnight, the firstborn of Egypt being all slain, Pharaoh and his servants send away the Israelites; who on the selfsame day, being the complete term of 430 years from the first pilgrimage of their ancestors, reckoning from Abraham's departure out of Charran, commence their departure.

At the Red Sea Pharaoh with his host overtakes them; Moses divides the waters, and the children of Israel pass through on dry ground; Pharaoh and his army following them are overwhelmed by the waters.

Upon the fifteenth of the second month (our June the 4th, being Thursday) the Israelites come to the wilderness of Zin, where for want of food they murmur against God and their leaders. Manna is sent from heaven, upon which they lived for forty years.

At Rephidim, the people murmur for want of water: Moses gives them water from the rock in Horeb.

The Amalekites falling upon the rear of the Israelites are discomfited by Joshua.

God publishes the Ten Commandments with a terrible voice from Mount Sinai, and gives Moses the two tables of the Law in stone. Moses goes down from the mount, and seeing the people keeping a festival in honour of an idol, breaks the tables of the Law. He burns the idol, and puts 3000 of the idolaters to death. God commands Moses to make new tables of stone.

In the first six months of this year, the tabernacle is set up in the desert at Mount Sinai, and Aaron and his sons are consecrated for the priesthood.

From the wilderness of Paran, near Kadesh-barnea, twelve men are sent to discover the land of Canaan.

The people are about to return into Egypt. God denounces that all who are now twenty years old and upward (except Caleb and Joshua) shall die in the

wilderness.

In Kadesh-barnea the Israelites continue many days; but that in some places they continued many years, appears from there being in the space of thirtyseven years but seventeen encampings mentioned.

Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, for raising a mutiny against Moses and Aaron, are swallowed alive into the earth, with 250 of their associates.

In these thirty-seven years the Israelites by seventeen encampings having compassed the hill country of Seir and Edom, come to the wilderness of Zin in the first month of the 40th year after their departure out of Egypt. Here Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron, dies. In the fifth month of this year Aaron dies at Mosera, leaving his son Eleazar his successor in the high-priesthood.

Ög the king of Basan, coming out against Israel, is destroyed with all his people; and his country possessed by the Israelites.

Balak, king of Moab, invites Balaam, a soothsayer out of Mesopotamia, to come and curse the Israelites.

[It is plausibly conjectured that the Pharaoh who oppressed the Israelites was not a native Egyptian, but some foreign conqueror who had subdued Lower Egypt. According to the traditions of the Arabs, which were probably derived from the Jews, he was an Amalekite, and therefore connected by race with the old enemies of the Egyptians, the Hyksos, or Shepherd-kings. The destruction of his host in the Red Sea may have enabled the Egyptians to throw off the galling yoke to which they were subjected, and thus prepared the way for the victorious career of their greatest monarch, Sesostris. It is most probable that the extensive conquests ascribed to this monarch were effected during the period that the Israelites remained wanderers in the Desert.]

[About this period commerce began to rise into importance, and several cities acquired distinction, either as favourable marts for trade, or convenient halting-places for caravans. It appears that many nomade races engaged themselves as carriers for the merchants and manufacturers of the cities, by which means they helped to advance civilization without abandoning their own barbarous and erratic habits. Although no express mention is made of the Israelites having met with any of these trading caravans during their wanderings in the Desert, the regulations respecting traffic in the Levitical Law render it highly probable that such an intercourse was not infrequent, and was deemed worthy of being noticed by the inspired legislator.]

[It is supposed that cotton goods began to be manufactured in India and in the Assyrian provinces about this period. Babylonian garments became important objects of traffic in the succeeding century.

Spinning and weaving had been established long before in Egypt, as is manifest from the account given of the furniture of the tabernacle.]

The reign of Danaus in Egypt.

The city of Sparta founded.

Arcas establishes the kingdom of Arcadia.

Danaus, expelled from Egypt, settles in Argos.

The city of Troy founded by Dardanus.

SCRIPTURAL EVENTS.

Balaam, instead of cursing Israel, blesses them. Moses and Eleazar number the people from twenty years old and upwards, and find them to be 601,730 men, beside the Levites, from one month old and upwards, 23,000. Moses receives command for the parting of the Land of Promise among the Israelites.

The daughters of Zelophehad have their father's land parted among them, for want of issue male; this cccasions the law for succession in heritages.

God signifies to Moses that he shall die; and Joshua thereupon is declared to be his successor.

Moses goes up to Mount Nebo and there dies, aged 120 years. The Israelites mourn for him thirty days.

Upon the tenth day of the first month (April 30), the Israelites, under the conduct of Joshua, go up out of the river Jordan into the promised land of Canaan. They pass through the river on dry ground. Joshaa sets up twelve stones for a memorial in the channel of Jordan, and taking twelve other stones out of the midst thereof, sets them up at Gilgal, the place where they next encamp.

Jericho taken, and the inhabitants put to the sword. The Israelites are smitten at Ai, which is afterwards taken and destroyed.

The kings of Canaan combine against Israel, and are miraculously defeated.

Joshua, now grown old, is commanded by God to divide all the land on the west of Jordan among the nine tribes remaining, and the other half tribe of Manasseh. Having got the whole land into his hands, he divides it among the children of Israel. Death of Joshua.

After the decease of Joshua, and the elders who outlived him, there succeeds a generation of men which forget God, and mingle themselves with the Canaanites by marriage, and worship their idols. In this time of anarchy and confusion those disorders were committed which are reported in the five last chapters of the Book of Judges. God, being highly provoked, gives them up into the hands of Cushan, king of Mesopotamia; which first calamity of theirs holds them eight years.

Othniel, the son of Kenaz, and son-in-law to Joshua, stirred up by God, defeats Cushan, and delivers the Israelites; and the land rested forty years.

Othniel dying, the Israelites fall again to sin, and are given into the hands of Eglon, king of Moab, who, joining with the Ammonites and the Amalekites, overthrows the Israelites, and takes Jericho. This second oppression continues eighteen years.

Ehud, the son of Gera, is raised up by God to be an avenger of his people. He slays 10,000 of the most valiant men of Moab: and the land rests forty years.

After him Shamgar, the son of Anath, slays 600 Philistines with an ox-goad, and he also avenges Israel.

The Israelites, after the death of Ehud returning to their old sin, are given up by God into the hands of Jabin, king of Canaan; and this thraldom continues twenty years.

Deborah, a prophetess, and Barak, captain of the host of Israel, overcome Sisera, whom Jael afterwards kills in her own tent.

War between the Athenians and Cretans, in consequence of the murder of Androgeos, son of Minos, the Cretan monarch.

Tolah, the son of Puah, after Abimelech, judges

Israel twenty-three years.

Abdon, the Ephraimite, succeeds Elon, and judges Israel eight years.

1403

COTEMPORARY EVENTS IN PROFANE HISTORY.

The Nemean games instituted.

First Theban war; death of Eteocles and Polynices.
The second Theban war, called that of the Epigoni.
Supposed era of Semiramis, queen of Babylon.
The probable period of the Amazonian war.

Commencement of the Trojan war.

Troy, after a siege of ten years, taken and destroyed by the Greeks.

Commencement of the 20th Egyptian dynasty.

Murder of Semiramis by her son Ninias.

Eli, the high-priest, succeeds Abdon, and judges Israel forty years. The Israelites again provoke the Lord to anger, and he delivers them into the hands of the Philistines.

Samson, the Nazarite, as an angel had foretold, is born at Zora.

Samson is betrayed by Delilah, and delivered to the Philistines. He destroys himself and his enemies.

The Israelites take up arms against the Philistines, but with ill success. The ark of God is taken.

The Philistines send home the ark, and it is brought to Beth-shemesh.

The Israelites, by Samuel's persuasion, repent, and God delivers them from the invasion of the Philistines.

The Israelites require a king; whereupon God gives them Saul, the son of Kish, after Samuel had judged Israel twenty-one years.

David, the son of Jesse, the Ephrathite, born at Bethlehem-judah, thirty years before he succeeded Saul.

God rejects Saul, and sends Samuel to Bethlehem to

The celebrated Temple of Diana at Ephesus burned down by the incendiary Erostratus.

[Athens, at this period, was regarded as the metropolis of the Ionian race, and was therefore an object of hostility to the Dorians, who had rendered themselves supreme in the Peloponnesus.]

The kingdom of Zobah, or Sophene, founded. The crown of Corinth transferred from the family of Sisyphus to the descendants of Hercules.

The Athenian king, Codrus, offers himself a sacrifice for his country, and royalty is abolished in Athens after his death. His sons remove to Asia Minor, and found the Ionian colonies.

The kingdom of Sparta divided between two monarchs of equal power.

The coasts of Asia Minor colonized by the Ionians, who are followed by the Eolians, Dorians, &c., so that the whole eastern coast of the Ægean Sea becomes studded with Grecian cities; all of which rapidly acquired wealth and importance by attention to commerce.

Mitylene, the capital of Lesbos, built.
Magnesia, on Mount Sipylus, colonized.

Abner carries Ishbosheth, Saul's son, to Mahanaim, and there makes him king over the rest of Israel.

Abner, affronted by Ishbosheth, revolts to David. Baanah and Rechab murder Ishbosheth. The captains and elders of all the tribes anoint David a third time, and make him king over all Israel. He marches to Jerusalem and takes the fort of Zion.

The ark of the covenant brought from Kirjathjearim out of the house of Abinadab, and placed at Zion. David imparts to Nathan the prophet his purpose of building a house for God; but is answered from God, that this should be done, not by him, but by his son Solomon.

Asa, in the 20th year of Jeroboam, succeeds his father Abijam, and reigns forty-one years.

955

954

Nadab, in the second year of Asa, succeeds his father Jeroboam in the kingdom of Israel, and reigns not full two years.

Nadab is slain at the siege of Gibbethon by Baasha, who having made himself king over Israel, utterly destroys the whole race of Jeroboam, and reigns twentyfour years. At this time lived the prophets Jehu, Hanani, and Azarias. Asa destroys idolatry, and, enjoying ten years of peace, strengthens his kingdom with forts and a standing army.

Zerah, the Ethiopian, with an innumerable army, invades Judah; Asa overcomes him, sacrifices to God of the spoil, and makes a solemn covenant with God.

Elah, the son of Baasha, succeeds his father in the kingdom of Israel.

953

951

950

941

Egypt about this period begins to be distracted by a growing rivalry between the castes, and a general dissatisfaction arising from the dislike with which sacerdotal ascendancy was viewed by the bulk of the people.

Royalty abolished at Argos, and the first democracy established in Greece.

930

and reigns twenty-two years in Samaria.

916

Jehoshaphat succeeds his father Asa in the fourth year of Ahab, king of Israel, and reigns twenty-five years in Jerusalem.

Jehoshaphat being settled in his kingdom, and having demolished the high places and groves, in the third year of his reign he sends Levites with the princes to instruct the people in the law.

Ben-hadad, king of Syria, lays siege to Samaria, who, by the direction of a prophet, is beaten off, and a vast number of the Syrians slain.

Ahab, in the 17th year of the reign of Jehoshaphat, makes his son Ahaziah his associate in the government of his kingdom. Jehoshaphat also makes Jehoram his son copartner with him in the government of Judah.

Ahab is slain at Ramoth-gilead.

Ahab being dead, the Moabites revolt from Israel. Jehoram succeeds his brother Ahaziah in the kingdom of Israel in the latter end of the 18th year of Jelioshaphat, and reigns twelve years.

Elijah is taken up into heaven in a fiery chariot. Jehoshaphat, grown old, gives to his sons many gifts, with fenced cities in Judæa.

Jehoram, by the death of his father, has the kingdom of Judah to himself, which he holds four years. At this time the Edomites, who ever since King David's time had lived in subjection to Judah, revolt.

914

912

901

898

897

896

894

892

889

The first code of maritime laws prepared by the Rhodians, at this time masters of the navigation of the Mediterranean Sea.

[Probable age of the commencement of Etrurian greatness. The Etrurians appear to have been at one time masters of the whole of Northern Italy.]

A regular trade appears to have been established at this period between the cities on the coast of Palestine and the south of Spain.

Lycurgus abdicates his government at Lacedæmon, and begins a ten years' travel to observe the customs and manners of other nations, and thus qualify himself for the office of legislator in his own country.

Jehoram, king of Israel, and Ahaziah, king of Judah, lead their armies to Ramoth-gilead against Hazael. Elisha sends a young prophet with instructions to anoint Jehu, the son of Jehoshaphat, king over Israel, who, being proclaimed king, marches to Jezreel, kills Jehoram, and causes Jezebel to be cast out at a window, where she is eaten by dogs.

Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab, seeing her son Ahaziah dead, usurps the kingdom of Judah, destroying those that had right to the succession; but Jehosheba takes Jehoash, being then an infant, and son to her brother Ahaziah, and hides him in the Temple.

Jehoiada, the high-priest, brings out Jehoash, now seven years old, and anoints him king, causes Athaliah to be slain, and restores the worship of the true God.

Lycurgus returns from his travels to Sparta, remodels the entire constitution of the government, and establishes a new code of law, which the Spartans bind themselves by solemn oaths to maintain for ever.

Iphitus begins to compute time by Olympiads, 18 years after the first Olympiad.

1405

SCRIPTURAL EVENTS,

Jehoash, in the 23rd year of his reign, gives orders for the repair of the Temple, committing the charge thereof to Jehoiada, the high-priest.

Jehoahaz succeeds his father, Jehu, in the kingdom of Israel, and reigns seventeen years.

Jehoash, the son of Jehoahaz, king of Israel, is taken into the consortship of that kingdom by his father, in the 27th year of Jehoash, king of Judah, and reigns sixteen years.

Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada the high-priest, for reproving the people of Judah, that fall to idolatry after the decease of Jehoiada, is stoned to death in the court of the house of the Lord by the commandment of King Jehoash, who the next year after is murdered by some of his servants, as he lay in his bed; and Amaziah, his son, succeeds him.

Jehoahaz dies, and Jehoash, his son, succeeds in the kingdom of Israel.

Jeroboam the Second is this year taken into the consortship of the kingdom of Israel by his father, Jehoash, going to war against the Syrians.

Amaziah provokes Jehoash, king of Israel, to battle. Jehoash overcomes him, and takes him prisoner, breaks down 400 cubits of the wall of Jerusalem, and, having spoiled the Temple and the king's house of a vast treasure, returns to Samaria.

Jehoash dies fifteen years before Amaziah, and Jeroboam the Second, his son, reigneth in Samaria forty-one years.

Amaziah, finding a conspiracy against him at Jerusalem, flies to Lachish, where he is murdered; after whom comes his son Uzziah, or Azariah, in the 27th year of Jeroboam the Second, and reigns fifty-two years in Jerusalem.

Now is held the 13th Jubilee under the two most flourishing kings; in whose times live sundry great prophets in both kingdoms; Isaiah and Joel in Judah; Jonah, Hosea, and Ămos, in Israel. Jonah sent into Nineveh, the metropolis of Assyria, where both king and people at his preaching repent.

Jeroboam, king of Israel (under whom that kingdom came to its full height of glory), dies; after his death all things fall into confusion, and the state is reduced to anarchy, which lasts eleven years and a-half.

Zachariah, the son of Jeroboam, the fourth and last of the race of Jehu, begins his reign over Israel in the 38th year of Azariah, or Uzziah, king of Judah, and reigns six months.

Shallum, the son of Jabesh, at the end of six months murders him in the sight of the people, and reigns one month, in the 39th year of Uzziah, king of Judah.

Menahem, the son of Gadi, going from Tirzah to Samaria, kills Shallum.

Pul, king of Assyria, invades the kingdom of Israel.

Pekahiah succeeds his father, Menahem, in the 50th year of Uzziah, king of Judah, and reigns two

Halyattes, king of Lydia, wages war against Cyaxares, king of the Medes.

Jotham succeeds his father, Uzziah, in the kingdom of Judah, at the age of twenty-five years, and reigns sixteen years in Jerusalem.

Jotham subdues the Ammonites, and makes them tributary for three years.

Arbaces, prefect of Media, and Belesis, a priest of Babylon, revolt against Sardanapalus, capture Nineveh, and subvert the Assyrian monarchy.

Rome founded by Romulus on the Palatine hill. The Babylonian empire founded by Nabonassar.

Ahaz succeeds his father, Jotham, in the 17th year of Pekah, king of Israel, and reigns sixteen years.

This year Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah, king of Israel, are confederate against Judah, which strikes a great terror into that nation; the prophet Esay sends a gracious message. Rezin and Pekah now lay siege to Jerusalem, and therein to Ahaz, but are beaten off.

The king of Israel slays of the men of Judah 120,000 in one day, with a great many of the nobility, and carries away 200,000 captives; but these, by the advice of the prophet Oded, are released and sent