SUPPLEMENT.

TIMES OF THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL.

In this part of my enquiry, I attempt to determine economies connected with events of which the precise date is not known: i.e. the year is given, perhaps the time of year, but not the day. In the first place, I assume the day, on the ground of some one or more remarkable economies similar to those which have been described; then I trace other and independent economies bearing on the same day. This kind of investigation might be prosecuted to an indefinite extent through the whole of scripture: it is here limited to one part of the Old Testament, the History of the Ten Tribes.

$386. The prophecy with which Moses closed his ministry, Deut. xxvii—xxxii., was addressed to all Israel, and was therefore to be fulfilled in each of the kingdoms into which the nation was divided. What Moses foretold conditionally, the Prophets, beginning with Jonah, denounced absolutely. The destinies of both kingdoms are, therefore, spiritually connected as realizations of one same vision, fulfilments of the same Word of the Lord; and hence it is that the predictions of Hosca, Amos, Isaiah, Micah, relating to the kingdom of Jeroboam, have an ulterior reference to the kingdom of the house of David: the catastrophe of the one is the pledge and pattern of the other, though separated by an interval of eight hundred years. Thus Isaiah's parable of the vineyard, which our Saviour applies to the day of Jerusalem's judgment, is expressly referred to both: The vineyard of the LORD of Hosts is the House of Israel, And the men of Judah are the planting of His delight.

He waited for good deeds, and behold deeds of blood,

For blessing, but behold oppressing.

Come now, and I will tell you what I will do to My vineyard:
I will take away its hedge, &c.

In like manner, Amos, while he seems to speak of the judgment upon Samaria, significantly points his oracles against Jerusalem. Indeed it is essential to a right understanding of the earlier Prophets, to trace this joint reference to the destinies of both kingdoms. So again, the Prophets who lived after the extinction of the Ten Tribes, speak of Samaria as the type of Jerusalem: the cup which she has drained is to be handed to her sister, Ezek. xvi. 51. xxiii. 32.

In this way of considering the matter, we get a hint of the significance of that remarkable prophecy of Isaiah concerning the birth of Immanuel. It was delivered towards the close of the times of Israel. The Prophet speaks of Immanuel as then born, or about to be born: within a few years, while yet the child is an infant, the spoil of Israel and the spoil of Syria shall be carried into Assyria. If this prophecy relates solely to the actual nativity of Messiah (seven hundred years later), this circumstance is inexplicable. For how was this birth "a sign" to Ahaz? But, if it be as we have said, that the destinies of the Ten Tribes symbolize the destinies of Judah, it is natural to suppose that some token in those times would symbolize Messiah's advent. Jewish expositors have apprehended this idea, which they have embodied in an interpretation worthy, no doubt, to be called "monstrous." (Pearson, On the Creed, p. 302). “No Messiah," say they, "cometh for Israel, seeing they have already enjoyed their Messiah,-meaning Hezekiah, who was born as Isaiah foretold, "Behold, the virgin conceiveth," &c. Now, there is in this a measure of truth. Hezekiah, doubtless, did typify Messiah, and in respect of Israel; especially, inasmuch as by him was issued the last solemn invitation to the Ten Tribes to return to the Lord and to the ordinances of His House at Jerusalem. But Hezekiah (unless there be an error in the text which specifies his age) could not be the child of whom Isaiah spake, for he was then full ten years old. Yet some child was born, for its birth was announced as a sign of an event to follow within a few years. And the prophecy itself seems to intimate who that child was. It was the Prophet's son, to whom, in the presence of two "faithful witnesses,” he gave that ominous name, "Haste to the spoil, Rush to the prey." viii. 1. For so he says, v. 17. “Lo, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me, are tokens and types in Israel, from the Lord of Hosts which dwelleth upon Mount Zion." His children are, Shear Jashub, (“the remnant shall be converted,") typifying the effects of Messiah's advent to the elect remnant, and Maher-shalal-hash-baz, who symbolizes the consequences of that advent to the reprobate. This latter is, to Israel immediately, to Judah ultimately, i. e. to the impenitent in both generations, "a sign of the Son of Man." In other words, the consequences to Judah and Jerusalem of Messiah's advent are shadowed by the consequences which ensued to Israel and Samaria upon the typical or symbolical advent betokened by the birth of the Prophet's child. And if it shall appear that the prohable time of Isaiah's prophecy-the time, namely, when Pekah of Israel, and Rezin of Syria were confederate against Jerusalem-is connected by a significant numerical relation with the time of Messiah's advent in the flesh, this view will be greatly illustrated and confirmed. We shall see presently how far this can be made good. First, however, we will endeavour to ascertain what law, if any, regulates the times of the kingdom of Israel.

§ 387. It will be remembered that Ezekiel, iv. 5, 6, has described the times of the provocation of Israel as reaching through a period of 290 years.

year

That period unquestionably ends with the catastrophe of the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem, B. c. 588: accordingly, we were led to define the year 978 as the epoch from which the years of the kings of Israel bear date. But Isaiah, in the prophecy to which we have referred, vii. 8, speaks of a term of 65 years, at the end of which Israel should be no more a nation. Now, in the first place, it is to be remarked, that 390 is 6 times 65, and that the first half of the 390 years ends and the second begins in the year B. c. 783. On turning to the history, we find that this was the year of the death of Jeroboam the Second, and, consequently, the last of Israel's prosperity as a nation, which had enjoyed under this king a second spring and revival: for by him were the coasts of the kingdom restored to the full extent of the Abrahamic covenant, in fulfilment of the word of the Lord by the first of the Prophets, Jonah the son of Amittai. Towards the close of his reign, Hosea and Amos began to denounce impending judgment and reprobation: and at his death commenced that train of calamities, within and from without, which rapidly conducted the nation to its overthrow. We may therefore consider this year as the beginning of the last times of Israel. And if it be the epoch of the 65 years of which Isaiah spake, considered as then running their course and more than half past, the term ends at 718 B. C., about 3 years after the destruction of Samaria and death of the last king of Israel, a time therefore at which Israel had, as it was foretold, ceased to be a nation. Thus, the whole term of Israel's separate existence as a nation, will be 260 or 4× 65 years. So that this period of 65 years seems to be an economical measure of time. And this seems the more likely for the following reason: -From the Babylonian to the Roman catastrophe are 588+69=657 years = 10 x 65 plus 7 years, and thence a final term of exactly 65 years (A. D. 70-135) brings to that consummation of the Abrahamic alov, the expatriation of Abraham's seed from the promised land, § 331. Now, from the year in which Abraham first set foot in the land of Canaan (2018 B. c.) to that catastrophe are 33 × 65 plus 7 years. So that from the beginning of Abraham's sojourn to the year 718 B. c. are 20 x 65, and from a year seven years later, to the destruction of the Temple-are 12× 65 years. Or, from 2018 to the schism 978 B. c., are 1040 = 16× 65 years, and thence to A. D. 63 precisely the same term1. It seems then, that the term 65 years noted in Isaiah's prophecy is a measure both of Ezekiel's period of 390 years and of the entire Abrahamic dispensation.

If it be asked, what means this intercalation (so to speak) of a term of seven years between the year 718 the end of the 20 × 65 and 711 the epoch of the 12× 65, the answer may be, that with the latter begins the respite of the house of David and kingdom of Judah. These seven years measure the time of awful suspense during which the existence of Judah

It may be worth while to remark, that of all luni-solar cycles, the most exact is a period of 1040 tropical years,

or 379,851.9364, which is short of 12863 mean lunations, or 379,851.962641a, by no more than 0.0266414 or 38m 22s.

as a nation, to man's eye, hung in the balance. One half of the nation is cut off at a stroke, and shall the other be preserved? "The Lord of Hosts causeth the mighty and strong waters of the river to come up against them, the king of Assyria and all his glory: it mounteth over all its beds, it goeth over all its banks. It presseth even into Judah, it floodeth and overfloweth, even unto the neck doth it reach, and his wings fill thy whole broad land, O Immanuel!" Isaiah viii. 7—9. It was also revealed, that though Immanuel's birth was the sign of desolation to Judah's enemies, Israel and Syria, ("before the boy learn to refuse the evil and to choose the good, the land shall be desolate, at whose two kings thou art dismayed,") "Yet the Lord bringeth upon thee (Ahaz) and upon thy people and upon thy father's house, days such as have not been since Ephraim fell away from Judah, the king of Assyria." vii. 16, 17. Now the judgment was executed upon Samaria to the uttermost: it remained to be seen whether Judah would be overwhelmed in the same flood. It was not to be. The time of Jerusalem was not full come. Her elect were reserved for Immanuel; the antecedent judgments were to be wielded by another power than that of Nineveh and Assyria. The great Image of Four Metals was yet to be set up: Nineveh was prepared for the destruction of Ephraim, but for Judah's chastisement only, and as a sign of Babylon which was to come. Therefore it was said, in immediate reference to this chastisement, "Fear nothing, my people which dwelleth in Sion, from Assyria. With the rod he smote thee, and lifted up his staff against thee as in Egypt. But yet a little while, and the chastisement is past, my wrath shall consume those. Then the Lord of Hosts swingeth the scourge as he smote Midian at the rock of Oreb.... He cometh to Aiath, he passeth through Migron, &c.... Yet one day's rest this day in Nob, then lifteth he his hand against the mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem. But lo! the LORD of Hosts strippeth the branches with might of dismay, they that are lofty of stature are hewn down, the haughty ones are laid prostrate. He heweth with the iron the thick of the forest, Lebanon is laid prostrate with mighty hand. Then sprouteth a rod from the stem of Jesse, a sapling of his roots breaketh forth." x. 24-xi. 1. This was foretold before the time even of Ephraim's visitation was come (for it is part of the prophecy of Immanuel delivered in the reign of Ahaz), and the historical chapters of Isaiah, xxxvi. xxxvii, shew how it was fulfilled in the miraculous destruction of Sennacherib's hosts, when all seemed past help or hope. Now, it is not without a meaning that those chapters are included in the volume of Isaiah. They form the significant close of the entire first part, or roll, of the prophecy. For the book of Isaiah consists of two distinct series of visions: the first, extending from the beginning of his ministry of denunciation against Jerusalem and Samaria, to the crisis when the judgment upon the latter was consummated, and the purposes of God concerning the former, and in respect of Assyria, were made manifest. This whole series, in its primary sense, relates to the Assyrian judgment; it comes to a close with

the history of the manner in which that tempest rolled away when it seemed ready to burst upon Jerusalem. The latter series, from chap. xl. to the end, relates to the futurity of Jerusalem's destinies, in respect of BABYLON and the other powers by which judgment was to be executed upon Judah. Now between these two series, and at the close of the former, stands a history which, in its symbolical sense, denotes the respite and revival granted to Jerusalem, and withal casts a glance into her future destiny in respect of Babylon. "In those days," namely in the 14th year of Hezekiah, when Sennacherib was come up against Jerusalem, (for it was fifteen years before the close of Hezekiah's life, who reigned 29 years in all,) "was Hezekiah sick unto death." Then came the Prophet, and promised him life, even 15 years. And as a sign, the shadow of the degrees went back ten degrees in the sun-dial of Ahaz, by which degrees it was gone down. Further, at this time the king of Babylon sends to congratulate Hezekiah upon his recovery; to whom, when he had displayed to the messengers the treasures of his kingdom, Isaiah says, "Hear the word of the Lord of Hosts: Behold, the days will come when all that is in thine house shall be taken away, and all that thy fathers have gathered, to BABYLON. And of thy sons which thou begettest shall they take, and make them servants in the palace of the king of Babylon.” The symbolical meaning of this incident is obvious: the respite to Hezekiah denotes the respite granted to his house and kingdom until the time of Babylon, and of those other powers of which Babylon was the head. Jerusalem is sick unto death, in the middle of her days, but she shall be spared. The shadow of her degrees is gone down toward the line of judgment in the sun-dial of Ahaz: his sins have brought judgment near: but the shadow shall go back. His fifteen years of sinning and provocation shall be, as it were, obliterated.

Now the respite to the nation was fully established, its former pros perity revived, in the year 711 B. C. For this was the sign: "Ye shall eat this year (713) that which groweth of itself, and the next year (712) that which springeth of the same. And the third year (711) ye shall sow and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruit thereof." xxxvii. 30. And from this year, as we saw, to A. D. 70 are 780 = 2 × 390= 12 × 65 years. Moreover, seven periods of fifteen years (105 years) reach to 606 B. c., the year of the Babylonian judgment, and fifty-two such periods to A. D. 70.

§ 388. The prophecy concerning Immanuel was delivered in the beginning of the reign of Ahaz, B. c. 741, and probably in the spring of the year, for that was the time usually chosen for hostile invasion, "the time when kings go forth to battle." Let us see whether the time thus marked is connected by any conspicuous economy with the time of the birth of Christ.

Now of the diurnal economies belonging to the Nativity none is more remarkable than that which is measured by the period 62 weeks or 434 days. We have seen how this appears in the history itself, Luke i. ii.; how it enters into the period of Daniel's prophecy, how it reaches back