could they observe the feast of tabernacles, as a feast of the in-gathering of their corn and their wine, in the month Tisri, when that month had passed into spring or summer? It is plain, that, unless Abib and Tisri always kept their places in the solar year, unless Abib were always a vernal month, and Tisri an autumnal month, the passover and the feast of tabernacles could not have been duly cbserved; whence it is no less plain, that the ancient Jews could not have reckoned by years of 360 days each without some expedient to make those years fall in with solar years. Since therefore we know that their year consisted of 12 months of 30 days each, and since no mention is made in Scripture of any intercalary month; I conclude, that, like the Egyptians, they added to the end of their year five numerary days.

super

(2.) As the passover and feast of tabernacles could only be celebrated either by solar years or by years made equivalent to solar years, so the period of years between jubilee and jubilee must by some expedient or another have been made equal to the same period of solar years. The Levitical weeks of years all began from the first day of the month Tisri; and, in the middle of this month, as I have just observed, the feast of tabernacles was celebrated, which fixed it to the autumnal season of the solar year. This being the case, a period, reckoned

from

years

*

from autumn to autumn, must necessarily be equal to a period of the same number of solar (3.) The 430 years of the sojourning of the children of Israel must plainly be computed in the same manner. The celebration of the passover was ordained on the fourteenth day of the first month, which was called Nisan or Abib; and, on the fol lowing day, or the fifteenth, the children of Israel left the land of Egypt. Upon this circumstance the inspired historian makes the following remarkable observation. "Now the sojourning of the "children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four "hundred and thirty years. And it came to pass " at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the self-same day it came to pass, that all "the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of

Egypt. It is a night to be much observed unto "the Lord for bringing them out from the land of Egypt: this is that night of the Lord to be ob"served of all the chilaren of Israel in their gene"rations t." It appears then, that precisely at the end of the 430 years even to the very day, precisely on the fifteenth day of the first month, the month (as it was styled) of green ears, the children of Is

* See Levit. xxv. 8-11. Connection. Part i. b. v. p. 293. Jubilee-Feast of tabernacles.

+ Exod. xii, 40, 41, 42,

Deut. xxxi. 10.

Prideaux's

Calmet's Dictionary. Voc.

rael

rael quitted the land of Egypt. But this month Abib is fixed to a particular season of the solar year; because, immediately after the celebration of the passover on its fourteenth day, the first-fruits of the harvest were appointed to be offered unto the Lord. Its very name indeed, the month of green ears, proves that it did not circulate through the year, as Mr. Marshall's hypothesis necessarily supposes: for, had it circulated, that name must, during by far the greater part of its circulation, have been absurdly improper. It is plain therefore, from the circumstance of the fifteenth day of the first month being specified as the very day after the expiration of the 430 years, and from the declaration that the deliverance out of Egypt took place exactly at the end of 430 years even to this very day the fifteenth day of the first month, that the first day of those 430 years must necessarily be likewise the fifteenth day of the same month Abib or Nisan. This being allowed, it is equally plain, that the 430 years must either be solar years or collectively equivalent to the same number of solar years; because by no other computation could the first day of the first year and the first day of the four hundred and thirty first year be alike the fifteenth day of a month, fixed, as its very name of Abib implies, to the spring season of the year. Hence chronologers, with much reason, compute backward from the Exodus to the

call

call of Abraham 430 solar years; because so long was the period of the sojournings of the children of Israel, either in their own persons or in those of their patriarchal progenitors, to the time of their migrating from the land of Egypt: and hence they with equal justice place the 400 years predicted to Abraham immediately by God himself* (which necessarily conterminate with the 430 years) so as to commence 30 years after the commencement of the 430 years ..

* Gen. xv. 13.

(4.) In

+ "Ablactato Isaaco, fecit Abraham convivium magnum. "Et videns Sarah filium Hagaræ Ægyptiæ ludentem, vel po"tius deludentem et contumeliosè tractantem (sicut Gen. ❝ xxxix. 14. vox ea accipitur), imo persequentem (ut Gal. "iv. 29. explicat Apostolus), Isaacum; ut qui sibi, primoge"nituræ ratione, hæreditatem deberi jactitaret; dixit Abra"hamo, Ejice ancillam istam et filium ejus, non enim futurus est

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hæres filius ancillæ istius cum filio meo, cum Isaaco. Quod licet ægerrimè primum ille ferret, perfecit tamen, accedente "jussu Dei, illi edicentis, In Isaaco vocabitur tibi semen (Gen. “xxi. 8-12. cum Rom. ix. 7, 8. et Heb. xi. 17, 18. ubi ob"serva Isaacum hac ratione unigenitum illius filium appella"tum). Inter Hebræos autem varia opinio est, asserentibus aliis quinto anno ablactationis tempus statutum aliis duodecimum annum vendicantibus. Nos igitur, ut breviorem eligamus æta"tem, post decem et octo annos Ismael supputavimus ejectum esse cum matre: inquit Hieronymus, Traditionibus Hebraicis in "Genesim. Unde ab hac electi seminis designatione et per"secutione (ut appellat Apostolus), quam a filio Ægyptiæ sustinuit,

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(4.) In short, if the lunar year of 360 days were used by the ancient Jews without either the requisite addition of supernumerary days at the end of each year, or the due occasional intercalation of a month, it will be impossible to reconcile their history with the histories of other ancient nations connected with them. The duration of the several reigns of their kings both over Judah and Israel is regularly specified, and the contemporaneousness of those kings with the neighbouring sovereigns is likewise specified, as must obviously be the case in the history of any people. Consequently, as it was well observed by Lyranus, those, who represent the Hebrews as computing collectively by lunar years, dislocate the whole chronological series of the Old Testament*.

5. The

"sustinuit, 400 annorum initium complures deducunt; qui"bus Abrahami semen perigrinum futurum in terra non sua et affligendum Deus prædixerat (Gen. xv. 13. Acts vii. 6.). "In exitu enim Israelitarum ex Ægypto eos terminandos esse,

ex Gen. xv. 14. et Exod. xii. 35, 36. inter se collatis liquet. "Quanquam Glossa ordinaria ex Augustino initium annorum "istorum ad ipsam nativitatem Isaaci referat: ac si 405

annos, summa solida et numero rotundo, 400 Scripturà dix"erit." Usser. Annal. in ann. A. C. 1891.

"Quia scriptura passim non lunaribus, sed communibus "et solaribus, utitur annis; et quia, licet Hebræi uterentur "annis lunaribus, tamen tertio quoque anno, ex diebus qui "excreverant,

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