SCRIPTURAL EVENTS.

after, the state continuing all that time in great confusion, without any form of government.

Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, comes up against Hoshea, and makes him to serve him, and pay him tribute.

Hezekiah succeeds his father, Ahaz, in the kingdom of Judah, and reigns twenty-nine years in Jerusalem.

Hoshea, king of Israel, having consulted with So, king of Egypt, refuses to pay tribute to Shalmaneser; Shalmaneser lays siege to Samaria, and towards the latter end of the third year takes it, and carries away the Israelites captive into his own country. This was the end of the kingdom of Israel, when it had stood divided from the kingdom of Judah 254 years.

Sennacherib, king of Assyria, coming up against Judah, besieges their fenced cities, and takes many of them, but is pacified by a tribute.

Sennacherib, not observing the articles of peace, lays siege to Jerusalem. An angel of the Lord slays 185,000 men in the Assyrian army; and the next morning Sennacherib departs, and returns to Nineveh, where, not long after, whilst he is worshipping in the house of Nisroch, his god, he is slain by his own sons.

God

Manasseh, at twelve years of age, succeeds his father, Hezekiah, and reigns fifty-five years. delivers him up into the hands of the Assyrians, who, in the 22nd year of his reign, carry him away captive to Babylon; but upon his repentance God restores him to his liberty and kingdom.

[The Jewish monarchy at this time was sinking rapidly into weakness and decay, the result of the neglect of the Divine Law, and the repeated warnings of the prophets, both by the kings and the people.]

This year Nabuchodonosor, king of Assyria, purposing to make himself universal monarch, sends Holofernes, his general, against Judæa, who lays siege to Bethulia, and there has his head taken off by Judith, a woman of the tribe of Simeon.

Amon, aged twenty-two years, succeeds his father, Manasseh, and reigns two years.

Josiah, a child of eight years old, succeeds his father, Amon, and reigns thirty-one years. In his time lived Jeremiah and Zephaniah, the prophets, and Huldah, the prophetess.

COTEMPORARY EVENTS IN PROFANE HISTORY.

Candaules, the last of the Heraclidæ, begins his reign in Lydia.

Jugæus, called also Illilæus, ascends the throne of Babylon.

Naxus, the first Greek colony in Sicily, founded. The Messenians conquered, and reduced to servitude by the Spartans.

Mardoc-Empadus, called in Scripture, Merodach, ascends the throne of Babylon.

[Candaules, king of Lydia, deposed and murdered by Gyges, who founds the dynasty of the Mermnadæ.]

Romulus, the founder of Rome, murdered; and the supreme power usurped by the senate.

The Medes under Deioces revolt from the Babylonians, and make Ecbatana the capital of their kingdom.]

Numa Pompilius elected second king of Rome. Corcyra, the metropolis of the island of that name, founded by the Corinthians.

Phraortes, king of Media, makes himself master of Upper Asia.

In the 12th year of his reign, Josiah begins a reformation in Judah and Jerusalem, and carries it on successfully.

Josiah gives order for the repair of the Temple. Hilkiah, the high-priest, having found a book of the Law, sends it to the king, who hears it read all over to him. He causes the book of the Law to be read over before all the people, and renews the covenant between God and his people.

At this time a war breaks out between the king of Egypt and the king of Assyria. Josiah unadvisedly

Phraortes, king of Media, slain, with the greater part of his army, at the siege of Nineveh. Phrygia subdued by the Lydians.

The city and kingdom of Cyrene founded by Battus.

SCRIPTURAL EVENTS.

COTEMPORARY EVENTS IN PROFANE HISTORY.

1407

engages in this war against Necho, king of Egypt, and is slain in the valley of Megiddo.

After the death of Josiah, the people anoint Shallum, one of his younger sons, to be their king. After three months' reign he is deposed by Pharaoh Necho, who makes Eliakim, his elder brother, king over Judah and Jerusalem, and changes his name into Jehoiakim; but Jehoahaz he carries along with him captive into Egypt, where he ends his days.

Jehoiakim, at twenty-five years of age, begins to reign, and he reigns eleven years.

Úriah and Jeremiah prophesy against Jerusalem; the former is put to death, the latter is acquitted, and set at liberty. About this time Habakkuk also prophesies.

This year is Nebuchadnezzar the Great made by his father, a partner in the kingdom of Babylon.

Jehoiakim is put in chains to be carried to Babylon; but upon his submission and promises of obedience is left in his own house, where he lives a servant to Nebuchadnezzar three years.

Whilst Nebuchadnezzar pursues his victories over the king of Egypt, his father dies; which coming to his knowledge, he gives orders for the bringing away of the captives, and posts with a small company the nearest way to Babylon, where he is received as the lawful successor to his father's dominions. He causes to be brought to Babylon what he thinks fit of the vessels and furniture of the Temple, and places them in the house of his god, viz., Belus.

Jehoiakim, having lived three years in subjection to the king of Babylon, falls off, and rebels against him.

Nebuchadnezzar sends an army, consisting of Chaldæans, Syrians, Moabites, and Ammonites, against Jehoiakim; these waste the whole country of Judea, and carry away from thence 3023 captives; Jehoiakim also is taken prisoner and put to death.

Jehoiachin (called also Conias and Jeconias) at eighteen years of age succeeds his father Jehoiakim, and reigns three months in Jerusalem.

Nebuchadnezzar besieges Jerusalem: Jehoiachin with all his kindred and courtiers come out to meet him. Nebuchadnezzar makes them all prisoners, enters Jerusalem, and carries away captive to Babylon the king, his mother, wives, courtiers, magistrates, and 10,000 able men out of Jerusalem, leaving none behind him but the poorer sort of people.

Nebuchadnezzar before his departure from Jerusalem makes Mattaniah, Jehoiachin's father's brother, king, changing his name into Zedekiah.

Zedekiah, beginning his reign at twenty-one years of age, reigns eleven years. In the latter end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, Jerusalem, after a long siege, is taken by Nebuchadnezzar, and his Chaldæans enter it. Zedekiah flees away by night, but being pursued, is taken, and brought prisoner to Riblah, Nebuchadnezzar's head-quarters; there having first seen his children slaughtered before his eyes, he has afterwards those eyes put out, and, being loaded with chains, is carried away captive to Babylon.

Thus was Judah carried out of her own land 468 years after David began to reign over it, 388 years after the falling off of the ten tribes, and 134 years after the destruction of the kingdom of Israel.

THE BABYLONIAN EMPIRE.

NEBUCHADNEZZAR, proud of his victories over Egypt, and his conquest of Judea and other countries, and boasting the magnificence of his buildings, falls distracted, and is driven from the society of men.

After seven years spent among the beasts of the field, his understanding returning to him, he humbly acknowledgeth the power of God, and his goodness toward him and is restored to his kingdom. A few days after he dies, having reigned about twenty months together with his father, and forty-three years by himself.

SCRIPTURAL EVENTS.

Evil-merodach his son succeeds him in the 37th year of the captivity of Jehoiachin, or Jeconiah, who presently gives order for the enlargement of Jehoiachin.

Belshazzar having removed some persons who had murdered his father Evil-merodach, and usurped his throne, succeeds in the kingdom of Babylon.

This Belshazzar makes a great feast for all his year nobles, brings forth all the vessels of the house of the Lord, to the glory of his idols. In the midst of all this jollity a hand appears writing on the wall of the room. Daniel is sent for, who reads the writing, and gives the king the interpretation of it: whereupon Daniel is publicly proclaimed the third man in the kingdom. The same night Belshazzar is slain, Babylon taken by Cyrus, and the empire translated to the Medes and Persians.

Cyrus having given the kingdom of Babylon to Darius the Mede, reserving some palaces in the city for himself, returns through Media into Persia.

THE PERSIAN EMPIRE.

Cyrus, his father Cambyses, and his father-in-law Cyaxares, both dying, Persia falls to him by inheritance, and Media by contract of marriage. In the first year of his reign he issues an edict permitting the Jews to return home and rebuild their city and temple.

In the second year after their return from Babylon, in the second month, they appoint Levites to oversee the work of the house of God, and lay the foundation of the Temple; the old men lamenting, who fifty-three years before had seen the old Temple standing, and the younger sort rejoicing to see the new one going up.

The Samaritans, by the means of certain courtiers about Cyrus, whom they had bribed for that purpose, disturb the Jews in their work of the Temple.

In the beginning of the reign of Artaxerxes (called in profane story Cambyses) the Samaritans, who, whilst Cyrus lived, had secretly undermined the Jews, now openly frame a direct accusation in writing against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem, and present it to the king, who presently forbids the Jews to proceed in the building.

In the second year of King Darius Hystaspes (the same with Ahasuerus) Zerubbabel and Jeshua, incited by the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, set forward the building of the Temple.

About this time Zechariah the prophet exhorteth the Jews to repentance.

Ahasuerus puts away Queen Vashti his wife, and not long after espouses Esther, the niece of Mordecai the Jew.

In the sixth year of Darius, or Ahasuerus, the Temple is finished; the dedication whereof is celebrated with great joy and abundance of sacrifices, the priests and Levites, every one in his place, attending on the ministry of the Temple. The passover also is celebrated.

Haman, an Agagite, of the race of the Amalekites, a great favourite of King Ahasuerus, offended at Mordecai, resolves to be revenged of the whole nation of the Jews. He obtains an edict from the king, that all Jews, without respect to sex or age, upon the thirteenth day of the month Adar, be put to death in all the provinces of the king's dominions.

Ahasuerus hearing it read in the chronicles, that a conspiracy had been discovered to him by Mordecai, commanded that he be publicly honoured, and that by Haman himself, his deadly enemy.

Esther, entertaining the king and Haman at a banquet, makes suit for her own life, and her people's, and accuses Haman. The king, understanding that Haman had provided a gallows for Mordecai, causes him to be hanged thereon. In memory of this great deliverance the two days of Purim are made festival.

A great part of Sicily subdued by Macharus, the Carthaginian general.

· Polycrates becomes tyrant of Samos.

The Carthaginian senators murdered by an insurgent soldiery.

Death of Cyrus the Great; Cambyses, king of Persia. Servius Tullius murdered by his son Tarquin the Proud, who becomes seventh and last king of Rome. Death of Peisistratus, tyrant of Athens. Egypt conquered by the Persians.

Cambyses dying suddenly, the empire of Persia is usurped by the impostor Smerdis, but the deception being discovered by the Persian nobles, Smerdis is slain, and Darius, the son of Hystaspes, elected to the Persian throne.

1409

SCRIPTURAL EVENTS.

Ezra, the priest, a man skilled in the law of Moses, obtains a large commission from King Artaxerxes, to settle the Jewish commonwealth, and to reform the church at Jerusalem.

In the seventh year of Artaxerxes, Ezra, with a great multitude of Jews, sets out from Babylon.

In the 20th year of King Artaxerxes, Nehemiah a Jew, one of his cupbearers, being made governor of Judæa, obtains leave to build the walls of Jerusalem, and finish that great work. Here begin Daniel's seventy weeks to be fulfilled before the passion of our Saviour.

Nehemiah, having governed Judea twelve years, returns to the king of Persia.

COTEMPORARY EVENTS IN PROFANE HISTORY.

Xerxes, at the head of the most powerful army mentioned in history, invades Greece.

Battles of Thermopyla, Artemisium, and Salamis; Xerxes flees from Greece.

Battles of Plataea and Mycale; the Persians are driven from Europe, and the Ionian cities recover their freedom.

Death of Xerxes; Artaxerxes Longimanus becomes king of Persia.

End of the war between the Spartans and Helots. Great increase of the tribunitian power in Rome. Cimon establishes peace between the Greeks and Persians.

The laws of the Twelve Tables established in Rome.

The power of the Decemvirate at Rome abolished. Commencement of the first Peloponnesian war. Platea taken and destroyed by the Spartans and their allies.

Death of Artaxerxes Longimanus; accession of Xerxes II.; he is murdered, and Sogdianus usurps the Persian throne. Sogdianus is in his turn deposed, and succeeded by Darius Ochus.

The first Peloponnesian war ended by the peace of Nicias.

The Athenian invasion of Sicily; commencement of the second Peloponnesian war.

Total destruction of the Athenian army in Sicily. Death of Darius Ochus; accession of Artaxerxes Mnemon to the Persian throne.

Athens taken by Lysander, and an end put to the second Peloponnesian war.

Cyrus the Younger, who had revolted against his brother Artaxerxes, is defeated and slain at Cunaxa; the retreat of the Ten Thousand.

War between the Persians and Spartans.

The Spartans conclude an inglorious peace with thePersians.

Rome burned by the Gauls.

The third Peloponnesian war begins.

Battle of Mantinea; destruction of Spartan supremacy. Death of Artaxerxes Mnemon; his son Ochus, king of Persia.

Rise of the Macedonian power under Philip.
Birth of Alexander the Great.

Ochus deposed and murdered by Bagoas, who places the late king's youngest son on the Persian throne. Battle of Charonea, overthrow of the Athenian power. Philip of Macedon murdered; he is succeeded by his son, Alexander the Great.

The Persians are overcome, Darius slain, and Alexander remains universal monarch of the Eastern world.

Alexander, having reigned six years and ten months, dies; his army and dominions are divided among his captains. Antigonus makes himself governor of Asia; Seleucus, of Babylon and the bordering nations; Lysimachus hath the Hellespont; Cassander, Macedon; and Ptolemeus, the son of Lagus, gets Egypt.

Ptolemeus, surnamed Soter, makes himself master of Jerusalem by a stratagem. He sends several colonies of Jews into Egypt, and puts great confidence in them. Ptolemeus Philadelphus, son of Ptolomeus Soter, being a great favourer of learning, builds a most magnificent library at Alexandria. Demetrius Phalereus, to whom he had committed the care of procuring all

SCRIPTURAL EVENTS.

sorts of books, and out of all countries, persuades him to employ seventy-two Jews in translating the Holy Scriptures out of the original Hebrew into the Greek tongue, which was done in the seventh year of his reign. The king also dismisses many captive Jews, and sends many presents to the temple at Jerusalem.

One Simon, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, governor of the Temple, falling out with Onias, the high-priest, goes to Apollonius, the governor of Colosyria, and informs him that there is a vast treasure in the Temple: Apollonius acquaints King Seleucus, his master, with it, who presently sends his treasurer, Heliodorus, to Jerusalem, to bring this money away. Heliodorus entering the Temple is by angels struck down in the very place, and carried from thence half dead; but by the prayers of Onias he is soon after restored to his health. Returning to Seleucus that sent him, he magnifies the holiness of the Temple, and the power of God dwelling in it.

Antiochus Epiphanes succeeds Seleucus in the kingdom of Syria, and reigns eleven years and some months.

Jason, by corrupting King Antiochus, obtains the office of high-priest.

Menelaus, brother to Simon the Traitor, being employed by Jason to carry the money to the king, promises 300 talents of silver above what Jason had sent, and gets the priesthood to himself.

Menclaus, not paying the money he had promised the king at his admission, is summoned to appear before Antiochus; he substitutes Lysimachus, his brother, in his place.

Antiochus takes Jerusalem, and sacking it pillages the Temple, destroys 40,000 of the inhabitants, and sells as many more. He endeavours, also, to abolish the worship of God, and forces many Jews to forsake their religion. The Samaritans now disown their relation to the Jews, to whom, in prosperity, they pretended alliance, and consecrate the Temple on Mount Gerizim to Jupiter.

King 'Antiochus by a public edict commands all nations that are subject unto him to observe the same way of divine worship. Mattathias, a priest, with his five sons, slay those that are sent by King Antiochus to compel them to offer abominable sacrifices, and after betake themselves to the desert.

Judas Maccabeus delivers his country, and purges it from the abominations which had been committed in it. Tryphon's vices render him so odious to his soldiers, that they submit themselves to Cleopatra, Demetrius's relict. She marries Antiochus Soter, Demetrius's brother, and causes him to be crowned king. Antiochus drives Tryphon out of Syria, besieges him in Dora, whence he flies to Apamea, where he is taken and slain.

Simon, the high priest, traversing the cities of Judæa, and taking care for their orderly government, comes down with his two sons Mattathias and Judas to Jericho; Ptolemeus, the son of Abubus, Simon's son-inlaw, invites them to a castle which he had fortified, called Dochus, and there, whilst he entertains them at a banquet, barbarously murders them. John Hircanus succeeds his father in the high-priesthood.

John Hircanus takes Shechem, and demolishes the temple on Mount Gerizim, 200 years after it had been built by Sanaballat.

Judas, eldest son of Hircanus, otherwise called Aristobulus, and surnamed Philellen, succeeds his father in the government and the high-priesthood; he was the first of any, that after the return from the captivity of Babylon set a crown upon his head, and changed the state into a monarchy.

Anna, the prophetess, daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser, this year becoming a widow, departs not from the Temple, but serves God with fasting and prayer night and day, for eighty-four years together, until such time as she sees Christ in the Temple.

Jerusalem is this year taken by Pompey; who meddles not with any of the treasure which was in the Temple, but makes the Jews tributary to the Romans.

JESUS CHRIST born crucified

COTEMPORARY EVENTS IN PROFANE HISTORY.

The Romans began about this time to interfere in the disputes which arose between the successors of Alexander, and thus extended their influence into Western Asia. Central Asia was divided between the Parthians and the Bactrians; but the power of the latter gradually declined until the very name became extinct. Both the Parthians and the Bactrians were attached to the Greek system of civilization, which was odious to most of the nations over which they ruled.

Perseus having made war upon the Romans, is this year overcome by them, and the kingdom of the Macedonians ends, when from Caranus it had stood 626 years. Nevertheless the reliques of the Macedonian empire, while that of the Roman was rising, did yet survive in the Ptolemies of Egypt, and the kings of Syria.

Two plebeians, for the first time, elected consuls at Rome.

During the two centuries which preceded the birth of Jesus Christ, the Roman empire continually extended, until it included the greater part of the then known world. At the same time the Republic was distracted by the contests for power between the patricians and the plebeians, which led to sanguinary civil wars. At length Julius Cæsar, irritated by the favour which the Senate showed to his rival, Pompey the Great, subverted the ancient Roman constitution, and placed himself at the head of the state, with the title of Emperor. He was murdered by some of the partisans of the ancient republic; but they were unable to restore the old constitution, and were completely overthrown at Philippi. Octavius Cæsar was then proclaimed Emperor. He took the name of Augustus after having conquered his rivals and established his power so securely that he was able to shut the Temple of Janus, as a sign that the world was enjoying universal peace. In his reign Christ was born, and he was crucified in the following reign of Tiberius Cæsar.