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any one series. He also makes the Jubilee to be the fiftieth year every time it revolves.” 1 The learned Doctor "rejects the Jubilee years, together with the sabbatical years, from his chronological system; but of those who adopt it, to the exclusion of an intercalary year, he says, "it is indeed the truth of the matter, and I know no objection against it, but that it exposeth the error of those, who, thinking that the sabbatical years did always happen each exactly on the seventh year after the former, have in that order and series placed them in their chronological computations; without considering, that after every fortyninth year, a jubilee year did intervene between the Shemittah that then ended, and the beginning of the next that followed." To this may be added the fact, that "many learned men on the Continent inclined to this opinion so late as the middle of the last century, as may be seen from the following words of Michaelis: "if those are right who place the Jubilee in the fiftieth year, there must every half century have been two years of rest in immediate succession. For the forty-ninth was a seventh year, and of course a year of rest; and in the fiftieth year the land was in like manner to keep holiday. And however paradoxical this may seem, it does appear to be the meaning of the Mosaic statute." 4

3

Of the application of Jubilees in chronological com

1. Ibid.

3. Investigator, vol. iv., p. 131.

2. Ibid. p. 131.

4. Iuvestigator, vol. iv., p. 131. Com. on Law of Moses, vol. i., p. 388.

putations, we shall have occasion to speak in the sequel.

Finally, on the subject of the Jewish mode of reckoning time as above set forth, we remark, that, whether, during their sojourn in their own land, or under the kings, captivities, &c., we think we have demonstrated the correctness of the Rule, "that though the Jewish ordinary year is to be attended to when but few years are under consideration, yet, in a long succession of time, they are not to be noticed, for by Intercalations, they amount to the same with solar time." It only remains therefore that we apply the same process to the aggregate of years from the deluge to the present year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and forty-two, in sacred chronological computations, Historic and Prophetic, as that adopted in the regulation of our vulgar Era. The references of the learned Shuckford to 1 kings iv., 5, compared with 1 Chron. xxvii., 15, as evidence that in the time of the kings, sacred time, whether embracing one or five hundred years, was computed at three hundred and sixty days each, can never be reconciled with their use of intercalations, which we have shown in one form or other to have been coeval with the time of Moses. The precedent for computing time according to the Ante-diluvian solar year, as predicated of the Mosaic account of the continuance of the waters of the Flood upon the Earth, Genesis vii., 11, viii., 4, vii., 24, seems to have furnished sufficient grounds for its subsequent use on all ordinary occasions, for the obvious reason that it approximated nearer on the one

hand to post-diluvian solar time than the Jewish Lunar year; and on the other, furnished greater facilities for the computation of smaller periods, as 1 Chron. xxvii., 15. And, if applicable in this respect to the time of the kings, then also of the Prophets. Hence their adoption, in their prophetic numbers, (all of which were computed by days,) of the above year. But these prophetic numbers, counting, as they do, "each day for a year," and extending as they do, to "the end of all things," must necessarily be interpreted by the intercalary and cyclical computations, common, as well to the historic and prophetic records of the Jews from the time of Moses, as to the Gentiles.

These premises admitted, and it follows, that SACRED time, Historic and Prophetic, is the same. Also, that sacred time, by intercalations, account to the same as SOLAR time.

To return now to that GOLDEN CHAIN OF MEASUREMENT of the entire sabbatical day of God's rest of which we have already spoken, and to which the preceding disquisition respecting the Criteria of measuring time Jewish and Julian is introductory, we proceed without further delay to remark, that, for the chronological data of the first part of this chain, we shall rely upon the Historical Records of the Old Testament. It will also serve our present convenience, to divide it into the following periods.

I. The first, extends from the creation and fall, to the Deluge.

II. The second, from the Deluge, to the call of Abraham.

III. The third, from the call of Abraham, to the Exodus.

IV. The fourth, from the Exodus, to the end of the reign of Saul.

V. The fifth, from the death of Saul to the commencement of the Babylonish Captivity.

VI. The sixth, the Captivity.

VII. The interval, between the end of the Captivity, and the commencement of the seventy prophetic weeks of Daniel.

At this point, viz., the commencement of the seventy prophetic weeks of David, begins the designation of Time, reaching thence to the End of the world, by the great prophetic Chronometer, of which IT forms the basis; and which, taken in connexion with Daniel's visions of the Image of gold, silver, brass, iron and clay; (Dan. ii;) of the vision of the four beasts, &c., rising up out of the Sea; (Dan. vii;) and of the vision of the Ram and the He-Goat, &c., (Dan. viii ;) constitute, as the celebrated Mede expresses it, "the

SACRED KALENDAR AND GREAT ALMANACK OF PROPHECY."

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Let us, first, however, pass through the several periods above named, down to the point where it commences its measurement by prophecy, as beginning with the seventy prophetic weeks of Daniel.

Of the extraordinary discrepancies of scriptural Chronologists, in this department, we have already spoken.2

1. Mede's Apos. of the latter times, ch. xii. 2. See p. 153.

These discrepancies however, may be traced to predilections in favor of one rather than another, of the various sources of information on this subject.

"If we pass, however, from the Chronologies, whether Jewish or Grecian, Arabic or Christian, to the only true and original sources of the world's early Chronology, we find the question narrowed. These are, the Genealogies of the Patriarch's, antediluvian and post-diluvian, as given in the Book of Genesis, and the subsequent Chronological notices of the Judges and kings of Israel." We have already assigned the reason for adopting the Chronology of the Hebrew text in preference to any other.1 And, "were the Chronology thence deducible continuous, and the authority of the Hebrew text in them undoubted, the date of the creation and outline of early Chronology would be settled. But this is not the case. There are two breaks in the Chronology of the period between Moses and Saul; and on the numbers in the Patriarchal genealogies there is a remarkable discrepancy in the Hebrew text, the Samaritan, and that of the Septuagint translation." The tables which follow, will serve to exhibit this discrepancy, which we deem it of importance to examine, in order to a more satisfactory evidence of the entire superiority of the Hebrew text.

"It is," however, "to be remembered that the Septuagint was a Greek translation from the Hebrew, made B. C. 240, and having been soon

1. See p. 116-119.

2. Investigator, vol. iv., p. 334.

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