of Maccabees, and of Josephus. The author of that book, and the Jewish historian, each of them contemporaries with all, or with part, at least, of the events which they record, could not have been ignorant what years were observed in their own time, and among their countrymen, as Sabbatic years; nor by what rule their recurrrence was determined. Much more inconceivable is it that four distinct, and very distant, years, such as those produced above, every one of which, as referred to its place in contemporary history, or the succession of synchronous events, admits of being determined on purely independent grounds, (which have nothing to do with the assumption that it was, or was not, a Sabbatic year,) should all be asserted to have been such, and all be found, on comparison, to be such, if they had not each been actually such. No such coincidence between them could be the effect of chance; and yet the assertion, though individually, and independently, made of each, is implicitly true of all; for if any one of them was a Sabbatic year, the rest must have been so likewise.

With respect, indeed, to the last, or the year before the destruction of Jerusalem, the assurance, a priori, might be said to have rested on tradition merely; but this year was in all respects so memorable, and so characterized in the annals of Jewish history, by its momentous and melancholy interest, above all others before or after it, that what tradition had perpetuated of this year, even a priori, it might be supposed, would be implicitly to be trusted; and tradition had certainly handed down this fact, that the temple was destroyed, and Jerusalem was taken, by Titus, In exitu anni Sabbatici-when a Sabbatic year was drawing to its close. There is nothing in Josephus, which can be shewn to militate against it, and there are some things, which may virtually be considered to confirm it; for I do not say that he has any where expressly asserted it.

He speaks in one passage of the harvest of a certain year, and such of its productions as were ripe, which the context shews was just after the Passover of A. U. 821. the beginning of the third year of the war, and the year of the death

of Nero1; and in another, directly after, with a fresh allusion to its productions, he speaks of the land as vegyòs at the timem; which is clearly a description of no Sabbatic year. In another passage he alludes to magazines of corn, which had been sometime laid up in Jerusalem, and were destroyed by the contending parties, in their rage against each other, a little before Titus invested the city". Now Titus laid siege to the city at the Passover, A. U. 823: these magazines, then, could have consisted in no part of the stores from the harvest A. U.823. but they might have been formed in part out of those of the harvest in the year before, the harvest of A. U. 822. He speaks in another of the besieged, in Jerusalem, creeping out of the city by night, in search of grass and wild herbs, to allay their hunger-and such like extremities—which, by implying the absence of all but the spontaneous productions of the ground, would so far describe a Sabbatic year.

But the most decisive indication of this fact appears to me to be furnished at v. xii. 4. where it is said, that the Roman army was supplied, during the siege, in whatever abundance, with corn not grown, nor procured, on the spot, but imported from Syria and the neighbouring provinces. Since the midsummer of A. U. 822. when Vespasian had been declared Emperor, and even from that of A. U. 821. when Nero had been deposed, the progress of the war had been altogether suspended, and Judæa in great measure evacuated by the Roman armies-until Titus renewed hostilities, by laying siege to the city, in the spring of A. U. 823. Hence, if from the autumn of A. U. 822. to the summer of A. U. 823. had not been a Sabbatic year, it is morally certain that the country would have been, more or less, cultivated as usual; and the Romans, who came before Jerusalem at the Passover, but did not take it before the following September, would have surprised each description of harvest, both the barley-harvest, and the wheat-harvest, still on the ground. In this case, they must have been converted, at 1 B. iv. vii. 2. ix. 2. " v. i. 4. xiii. 7.

m iv. ix. 7.

least in part, to the supplies of the besiegers; and Josephus could scarcely have failed to give some hint, which would have led to this discovery.

The question which concerns the succession of Sabbatic years, at this period of Jewish history, has nothing to do with the further question of the years of jubilee; for since the return from captivity, though the former were still observed, the latter, according to Maimonides, were not. At what time, even after this return, that observance itself began is a very uncertain point; there is no distinct evidence of it, either in the book of Ezra, or in that of Nehemiah, or in the writings of the contemporary prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, or Malachi: and it would be premature to conclude from Neh. viii. 1. 2. that, because the reading of the Law then took place, viz. on the first day of the seventh month, this was necessarily a year of release. What year of the mission of Nehemiah even this might be, whether the same year with that of the building of the wall, which would be its first year, or some other later than that, (for he was twelve years in Judæa altogether,) would be uncertain; but whatever year it was, the reading of the Law, as part of the ceremonial of the year of release, was fixed to the feast of Tabernacles, that is, to the fifteenth of the month Tisri at the earliest9; whereas this reading took place on the first: which proves that, however natural and appropriate such an act might have been, at any time, in itself, yet as referred to that specific direction, it was out of course. Such a ceremony, however, on the first of Tisri would coincide with the feast of Trumpets, Lev. xxiii. 24. Numb. xxix. 1: which was probably the true reason why it then took place; for the feast of Trumpets was a sabbath.

There is no strictly authenticated instance of a Sabbatic year, after the return from captivity, before B. C. 163. or the first year of Judas Maccabæus as such; from which, if we calculate backwards, and we suppose the Jews to have returned from captivity in the first of Cyrus, B. C. 536. the

P De Ann. Jub. i. 3.

a Deut. xxxi. 10. 11.

second year after that return exclusive, or B. C. 534. ought to have been such a year; for 534–163=371. a number divisible by seven without a remainder. According to the Jewish reckoning, the year before this, or B. C. 535. would have been so; and this being only one year after the return, almost before the new colony could have settled themselves in the country, and certainly before they could yet have entered on the full enjoyment of its increase-the very supposition is enough to convict it of an absurdity. In the third year after their restoration, the Jews might, perhaps, have kept a year of rest; but none so early as the second.

I do not think, however, that any such observance was yet begun, or at least had been duly kept up, from after the return, until the period of that covenant solemnly entered into in the time of Nehemiah by both princes and people; one article of which was, that they would leave the year of rest, as well as observe the other ritual ordinances of the Law'. The precise date of this covenant also may be an uncertainty; but we may conclude, from its very nature, it would much more probably be made, while a Sabbatic year was still a year or two distant, than when it was either arrived, or on the point of arriving. If it was made in the first year of Nehemiah's mission, (which on every account appears most probable-see vi. 15. ii. 1. 11. viii. 2. 13. 14. 18. ix. 1. 38. x. 31.) it was made in B. C. 444. one year before a Sabbatic year; which, calculated backwards, from B. C. 163. as before, would first fall out in B. C. 443.

The decision of this whole question, indeed, would be easy, if the results established in preceding Dissertations of the present work might be implicitly taken for granted. For I have shewn in the Appendix to Dissertation x. of vol. i.s that the cycle of Sabbatic years, as such, began B. C. 1520. or B. C. 1513. indifferently, either in the year of the Eisodus itself, or in the year next after the division of lands, B. C. 1514; and I have proved the accuracy of this computation by its agreement with a case in point, the date of a

Neh. ix. 38. x. 1-31.

• Page 390.

Sabbatic year, B. C. 709. after the deliverance of Jerusalem from the invasion of Sennacherib, in the reign of Hezekiah. Let us consider B. C. 1507-B. C. 1506. the first Sabbatic year as such. On this principle B. C. 534-B. C. 533. would be the hundred and fortieth as such; for 1507-534 =973=7x139. In like manner B. C. 443–442. would be the hundred and fifty-third; for 1507-443=1064= 7 x 152.

There is an intimation in the book of Jeremiaht, from which it may be collected that, according to the Bible chronology, the ninth year of Zedekiah, B. C. 590-589. coincided either wholly or in part with a year of release". The covenant, to which that passage alludes, was entered into first at a time when the Chaldean army was before Jerusalem; and broken again upon their temporary departure to oppose the Egyptians. After this the siege of the city was resumed on the tenth of Tebeth, the tenth month in the Jewish year, and the ninth of the reign of Zedekiahw; and prosecuted from that time forward, without any second interruption, until the ninth day of the fourth month, in the eleventh of the reigning King. I think there can be little question concerning this fact; and, therefore, that the previous siege, which was raised for a time by the approach of the Egyptians, made no part of this eighteen months' interval, dated from the tenth of Tebeth, in the ninth of Zedekiah—but was a prior incident belonging to the earlier part of the same year; either the summer, or, at least, the autumn. Nor is it to be supposed, had this not been the case, that the Chaldean army would first have laid siege to Jerusalem in the tenth month, (or in other words, the depth of a Jewish winter,) unless that siege had been merely the resumption of what had been begun before, and not the commencement of what had never been attempted as yet. Nor is it likely that the expedition from Egypt, which was manifestly intended for the relief of Jerusalem, would have been made except in the summer time, at the usual season of mi

'xxxiv. 8-22.. " Exod. xxi. 2. Deut. xv. 12. xxxvii. 5-1. w2 Kings xxv. 1. Jer. xxxix. I.

▾ Jer. xxxiv. 21. Ezek. xxiv. 1. 2.