perceive by running his eye down the table, and noting the order of the chapters of the book of Kings. Here, therefore, in the 1st chapter, the historian could not introduce a date which, if true, which it is not, would fall in the order of time in the 8th, where we come for the first time to Jehoram's reign. Again, the clause is not only mistimed, it is also informal. The author of this history is exceedingly formal. In stating the order of events at the death of any king, he has a certain formula of expression to which he closely adheres, and in the only two instances in which there is a departure from it, it is remarkable that they are both inaccuracies, and are elsewhere contradicted. This is one of them. He always ends the reign of a king by a 'so he died, and was buried,' &c., and his son reigned in his stead.' But he never adds there when he reigned. It is not till he comes, in the proper course of the narrative, to that son's reign that he then introduces it with the date of his accession, &c. But in this clause it is otherwise, and therein we detect the unskilful hand of an interpolator. All this is more evident still when we learn that Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat began to reign in the 5th year of Joram the son of Ahab, and reigned 8 years' (2 Kings viii. 16), and that his 8th year coincided with Joram's 12th, in which his son Ahaziah, who had just begun to reign, was slain along with Joram at Jezreel, when Jehu slew both kings in one day.

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JEHORAM. We have here an instance of a joint-reign of a son with his father, and it is therefore worthy of attention. It is recorded that in the 5th year of Joram-Jehoshaphat being then king of Judah-Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat began to reign' (2 Kings viii. 16). The 5th year of Joram was the 22nd of Jehoshaphat, so that his son must have reigned with him during the last 4 current years of his life. The principle upon which our table is constructed finely exhibits this fact. The distinct and decided statement of this unusual occurrence, even though there is nothing in the transactions of the period necessarily requiring it, is a proof that the writer would have also noticed the same thing in other cases, had there been such; but as he only once again, in the case of Jotham, informs the reader of such a circumstance, the conclusion is clear, that only these two instances occurred during the whole course of this history.

JEHOASH. In the reign of this grandson of Jehu occurs one of those blemishes in the narrative to which our fourth canon applies, namely, a difficulty on the one side attended by a similar difficulty on the other. He is said to have commenced his reign in the 37th year of Joash king of Judah; but as this was the 15th year only of his father's reign, they must in that case have reigned 3 current years together, of which the history is utterly

silent.

silent. Our suspicion of an inaccuracy here is confirmed by turning to the opposite column, in which we find that if Jehoash reigns with his father, Amaziah must reign the very same space of time with his father also, for he begins to reign in the 2nd year of Jehoash, and consequently any error in the placing of Jehoash will affect his reign to the very same extent. The similarity of the cases, therefore, and the mutual dependence they have on each other, naturally suggest both the cause and the correction of the error; for when the first year of Jehoash is lowered to the last of his father, the first of Amaziah falls into the same position where the tenor of the history requires them both to be. In the Aldine version of the LXX., the accession of Jehoash is dated, as we have given it, in the 39th, and not the 37th, year of Joash.

UZZIAH. This reign presents one of the greatest difficulties to be met with in the history before us: but the principles already laid down will successfully enable us to encounter it. Amaziah his father had been slain in a popular insurrection in the 14th year of Jeroboam II., when this prince was called to the throne. It is said they made a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem, and he fled to Lachish, but they sent after him to Lachish and slew him there. And they brought him on horses, and he was buried with his fathers at Jerusalem. And all the people of Judah took Uzziah (Azariah), who was 16 years old, and made him king instead of his father Amaziah' (2 Kings xiv. 19). When, however, the history comes to narrate in its proper place the life and reign of Uzziah, it commences with this statement: "Uzziah (Azariah) began to reign in the 27th year of Jeroboam, 16 years old was he when he began to reign,' &c. This date, therefore, leaves a vacancy of 12 years after the death of his father, which chronologists have too easily got over by calling it an interregnum. Many circumstances, as we shall proceed briefly to show, compel us to adopt a different opinion, namely, that the apparent discordancy here arises from a mere mis-statement of the date. 1. There is no allusion whatever in the history to such an unusual and undesirable state of public affairs as this would imply, and surely when the writer has so often noticed the most ordinary events it is not to be supposed that he would have allowed such an important fact to pass unnoticed as that for 12 years there was no king in Judah. 2. The youth of Uzziah at his father's death could form no constitutional objection to his immediate assumption of sovereignty: for though, on the supposition that the 12 years are authentic, he had been only 4 years of age when Amaziah's death took place, there was nothing in this to prevent his accession, as Joash before him was but 7 when he was made king, and Josiah after him is only 8. Though then the heir to the

crown

crown was a minor, and therefore under guardians, still the law and practice was in every such case instantly to recognize and honour him as king. 3. The history itself, when we examine it, is opposed to the notion of an interregnum. It states that Uzziah became king directly after, and in consequence of his father's death; nay, that he was even borne up into power by the same excited tumult that had thrown his father down. Indeed his election would seem to have been an extremely popular movement, for immediately that his misguided father is slain, 'all the people of Judah took Uzziah, who was 16 years old, and made him king instead of his father.' The whole strain of the narrative, the violent death of his father, and the excited state of the public mind, which, in such a case, seldom rests short in the midst of its work, show that the succession was instantaneous, and that there was originally no gap in the history. 4. Even supposing that Uzziah had become king de jure only in the 27th year of Jeroboam, and that the succession till then had been disputed, or the powers of the crown held by some sort of regency, yet, at last, as in the case of Omri, the historian would have reckoned his reign of 52 years back, de more, from the 14th of Jeroboam, including the period when his pretensions had been merely held in abeyance. 5. To admit an interval of 12 years between Uzziah and his father will have the suspicious effect of producing a similar interval of exactly 12 years in the other kingdom, between Jeroboam and his son Zechariah. It arises thus:-The reign of Zechariah is dated in a certain year of the reign of Uzziah; if, therefore, you shift down the reign of Uzziah any distance out of its true place, it will of course carry down with it the attached reign of Zechariah exactly the same space also. Now whenever such a remarkable phenomenon in history occurs, the conclusion inevitably forced upon our attention is, that both reigns have fallen by some accident, this very distance, out of their true position. This is just what has occurred here: for by lifting up the 1st year of Uzziah to its proper place at the death of his father, you at the same time cancel the gap on the other side, and restore the succession to its true condition in both cases. 6. But lastly, Josephus has fortunately preserved in his account the correct reading of the passage for which we contend, and states that Uzziah began to reign in the 14th year of Jeroboam' (Antiq. b. ix. ch. x. § 3). We are therefore required by these considerations to date the reign of Uzziah from the last year of his father, and consequently to relieve the history of the supposed interregnum that cumbered both sides of the account.

JOTHAM. The change introduced into the reign of Jotham,

by

by which he reigns 10 years in conjunction with his father, constitutes perhaps the principal feature of the present sketch of the chronology of the two kingdoms. It was first proposed by M. Volney in his 'Recherches Nouvelles sur l'Histoire Ancienne,' published in 1814; but has not yet, so far as we know, received the attention that is due to it. It admits of a much easier demonstration however upon our principles than on his. In the note to Uzziah we have, for the sake of simplicity, spoken of the interval between Jeroboam and Zechariah as only 12 years, corresponding to, and produced by, the blank existing between Amaziah and Uzziah; but this is only a part of the truth. We have now to explain further, that there is in all a vacuum of 22 years between Zechariah and his father, which is composed of two parts, 12 years attributable to the error stated in Uzziah's reign, and the remaining 10 to a misconception that has arisen out of Jotham's. With this last blank of 10 years we now proceed to

deal.

A careful perusal of the history at this point will show that all the reigns from Zechariah down to Pekah depend upon the date of Jotham's accession. That is said to have taken place in the 2nd year of Pekah king of Israel (2 Kings xv. 32). Some individual therefore, to whose ignorant interference we owe the disorder that has been created here, taking it for granted without inquiry, that Jotham's reign commenced at the death of Uzziah, found that the dates of Pekah, Pekahiah, Menahem and Zechariah did not correspond with this idea, as they were all set 10 years higher than he thought they ought to be; and therefore to correct, what seemed to him an evident anachronism, he took the liberty of lowering these altogether, so as to make the 2nd year of Pekah quadrate with the last of Uzziah. This seems to us the natural explanation of the present state of the record: for these reigns are all suited to the time of the supposed accession of Jotham; but thrown thereby out of harmony with the historical conditions of the period. It was not the case that Jotham's reign began at the death of his father; for it is expressly stated that he was called, in very melancholy circumstances, to assume the reins of government a considerable time before that period arrived. For Uzziah's impious intrusion into the temple, and usurpation of the priestly office, the Lord smote the king, so that he was a leper unto the day of his death, and dwelt in a several house; and Jotham the king's son was over the king's house, judging the people of the land' (2 Kings xv. 5 and 2 Chron. xxvi. 16, &c.). Jotham therefore ruled, or reigned, in conjunction with his father from the time that this event took place till his death; but this clearly stated fact has been wholly overlooked by the person who

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ventured

ventured to alter the dates of this period. The question now to be considered is, how long did Jotham thus reign with his father? and the solution of the difficulty, we are happy to say, is not far to seek. The vacuum of 10 years between Jeroboam and his son Zechariah most significantly supplies the answer. Accordingly when we shift up the reigns of Zechariah, Menahem, Pekahiah, and Pekah 10 years higher than they are at present dated, to where they must originally have stood, the 1st year of Jotham, attached to the 2nd of Pekah, falls into the 43rd of his father, and shows us the correct duration of his co-regency. This correction secures all that the history desiderates: it dismisses the anomalous interregnum, renders the succession of Zechariah as close and consecutive as it ought to be; clears up an interesting fact in the history of Uzziah, at what period of his life he committed the impiety with which he was chargeable, and exhibits most accurately the fact of Jotham's participation with him in the government of Judah.

It may be necessary to advert here to the only question that has not been touched, that an interregnum between Zechariah and his father is as much opposed to the tenor of the history as between Amaziah and Uzziah. This prince, the reader will find, succeeded his father immediately, and peacefully, at his death. Had there been 10 years of anarchy it could not fail to have been mentioned. The promise also made to his ancestor Jehu, that his seed to the fourth generation should sit upon the throne of Israel, while it secured to Zechariah the possession of the throne, would still more clearly secure the calculation to him at last of all the previous years of strife, as being the rightful heir. But he reigned only 6 months; Shallum, like a second Zimri, slew him and reigned a full month in Samaria, and Menahem like Omri, removed him and reigned 10 or 11 years. The cases are so similar, that the same arguments apply in this case that were supplied by the other.

РЕКАН. A reign of only 20 years is assigned to Pekah, which terminated, therefore, in the 4th of Ahaz. A singular anachronism occurs in the account given of his death. And Hoshea the son of Elah made a conspiracy against Pekah, and smote him and slew him, and reigned in his stead, in the 20th year of Jotham the son of Uzziah' (2 Kings xv. 30). But Jotham reigned only 16 years, and died in the 17th of Pekah, for at that time his son Åhaz succeeded him: so that it is evident Pekah could not be slain in the 20th year of Jotham. The critical reader will not fail, however, to recognize in the words we have put in italics the same hand that appended an exactly similar inaccurate clause to 1 Kings i. 17, in the case of Joram, and