Aufh Hachodeh, which hath been publifhed in a very good Latin tranflation by Lewis de Veil, under the title, De Confecratione Calendarum, where he will find it very exactly and perfpicuously described. Thefe having been the forms of the Jewish year, that is, the inartificial form ufed by the ancients in the land of Canaan, and the artificial and aftronomical form now in ufe among the moderna throughout all their difperfions; according to neither of them can the days of the Jewish months be fixed to any certain days of the months in the Julian year: for, in both of them, the months bein lunar, and the intercalations made of one whole lunar month au once, the days of those months, to the full extent of one full lunar month, fell fometimes fooner, and fometimes later in the folar form. Since the Jewish kalendar hath beca fixed by Rabbi Hild, upon the certain foundations of aftronomy, tables may indeed be made, which may point out to what day in that kalendar every day in the Julian year fhall anfwer: but this cannot be done for the time before; because, while they went inartificially to work in this matter by the phalis and appearance of the moon, both for the beginning of their months and years, and the making of their intercolations, they did not always do it exactly; but often varied from the aftronomical truth herein. And this latter having been their way through all the times of which this Hiftory treats, we cannot, when we find the day of any Jewish month mentioned either in the fcriptures, or in Jofephus, reduce it exactly to its time in the Julian year, or there fix it any nearer, than within the compass of a month fooner or later. Kepler indeed holds, that the Jewifh year was a folar year, confifting of 12 months of 30 days each, and an addition of five days after the last of them; and our countrymen Archbishop Ufher, and Mr Lydiat, two of the most eminent chronologers that any age hath produced, go into the fame opinion. Such a year, I acknowledge, was in ufe among the Chaldeans, from whom Abraham was defcended; and alfo among the Egyptians, with whom the Ifraelites long lived: and I doubt not, but that, before their coming out of the land of Egypt, they alfo reckoned their time by the fame form. For the time of the flood is manifcally computed by it in the book of Genefis, an hundred and fifty days being there made equal to five months, which proves thofe months to have been thirty-day months. But that the Ifraelites made use of this fort of year, after their coming out of Egypt, can never be made confifting with the Mofaical law. According to that, their year must be made up of months purely lunar, and could no otherwife, than by an intercalary month, be reduced to the folar form a and there being a neceffity of making this intercalation for the keeping of their feftivals to their proper fcafons, by this means it comes to pafs, that the beginnings of their months cannot be fixed to any certain day in the Julian kalendar, but they fell always within the compafs of 30 days fooner or later therein. That the thing may a 4 Chap. vii. II. compared with chap. viii. 3. 4. appear appear the clearer to the reader, I fhall exprefs it in this following fcheme, wherein the first column gives the names of the Jewish months, and the fecond of the Julian months, within the compafs of which the faid Jewish months fet over againft them have always fooner or later their beginning and ending; and this is the nearest view that can be given of the correfpondency of the one with the other. The 13th month called Veadar, or the fecond Adar, answered moft the end of our March, it being then only intercalated, or caft in, when the beginning of Nifan would otherwife be carried back into the end of February. I have, in the series of this Hiftory, taken no notice either of the jubilees, or the fabbatical years of the Jews, both because of the ufeleffnefs, and alfo of the uncertainty of them. They are ufelefs, because they help not to the explaining of any thing, either in the holy feriptures, or the hiftories of the times which I treat of; and they are uncertain, because it doth not appear when or how they were obferved. It is acknowledged by moft learned men, that the jubilees were no more regarded after the Babylonifh captivity: and it is manifeft from feripture, that the fabbatical years were wholly neglected for many ages before it. For the defolation, which happened to the country of Judea, under that captivity, is faid, in the fecond book of Chronicles (chap. xxxvi. 21.), to have been brought upon it for this very reafon, that the land might enjoy its fabbaths, that is, thofe fabbatical years of reft, which the Jews, in neglecting the law of God concerning this matter, had deprived it of: and therefore, if we reckon to this defolation only the 52 years, that were from the deftruction of the city and temple of Jerufalem, to the end of the Babylonish captivity (in which the land was wholly defolated), this will prove the obferving of those fabbatical years to have been neglected for 364 years before that captivity. But, if we add hereto the other 18 years of that cap. tivity, in which it was only in part defolated, and take in the whole 70 years of it into this reckoning, it will then carry up the time of this neglect much higher, even to 490 years before that captivity: and, as to the jubilees, there is no mention made of them any where through the whole fcriptures, faving only in that law where they are enjoined; neither is there of their fabbatical years, faving only in the fame law, and the place in Chronicles above mentioned. There are indeed two other places of fcripture which fome undertand concerning them (that is, 2 Kings xix. 29. and Jeremiah xxxiv. xxxiv. S-10.) But both thefe paffages do better admit of other interpretations: for what is faid in the former of thefe, feems rather to refer to the defolations of the war, and the interruption of agriculture through the violences and calamity of it, than to a fabbatical year; and fo Grotius and other learned men understand it. And what is faid in the other by Jeremiah, about the release of fervarts, doth not infer a sabbatical year, nor a jubilee neither: for every Hebrew fervant was to be releafed in the 7th year of his fervitude, though it were neither a jubilee, nor a fabbatical year, and therefore this inftance infèrs neither of them: and those who undertake to interpret the law which enjoins thefe jubilees and fabbatical years, very much differ concerning them, both as to the time and manner of their observance. Some will have the reckoning, both of the fabbatical years and the jubilees, to commence from the first entering of the Ifraelites into the land of Canaan; and therefore place the first fabbatical year in the 7th year after that entrance, and the firft jubilee alfo according hereto : but others say, that the land was feven years in conquering and dividing, and that the 8th year was the first in which the Ifraelites began to fow and reap in it; and that therefore the 14th year was the firft fabbatical year and according to this reckoning they put the first fabbatical year, and the firft jubilee, feven years later than the former, and fo the numbers of all the reft that follow. And then, as to the time of the jubilee, there is this difpute, whether it be the fame with the feventh fabbatical year, or the next year after. The reason of this difpute is, because if it be on the year after the 7th fabbatical year, then there will be two fabbatical years together, (for the year of jubilee was alfo ba fabbatical year); and in this cafe there would be the lofs of two crops together; and then it will be asked, how Could the people be fupported? And they who, notwithstanding this objection, determine for the year next after the 7th fabbatical year to have been the year of jubilee, though they have the fcripture on their fide in this particular, yet are not agreed where to begin the next week of years (or Shemittah, as the Jews call it) after that 7th fabbatical year; that is, whether the year of jubilce, or the next year after it, was to be the firft year of that week or Shemittah. If the jubilee year were the first year of that week, then there would have been but five years for them to fow and reap in between the jubilee (which was alfo a fabbatical year), and the next fabbatical year after; whereas the fcripture faith they were to have ix. And if the first year of the next Shemittah were the next year after the jubilee, then the Shemittahs would not always fucceed in an exact feries immediately one after the other; but after the 7th Shiemittah, the year of jubilee would intervene between that and the next; which dilagreeth with the opinion of many. However, it is indeed the truth of the matter, and I know no ob d jcction jection against it, but that it expofeth the error of thofe, who, thinking that the fabbatical years did always happen each exactly on the 7th year after the former, have in that order and feries placed them in their chronological computations, without confidering, that after every 49th year a jubilee year did intervene between the Shemittah that then ended, and the beginning of the next that fol lowed. But they act most out of way in this matter, who would confine Daniel's prophecy of the 70 weeks to fo many Shemittahs, as if thefe 70 weeks fell in exactly with 70 Shemittahs, that is, that the firft week began with the first year of a Shemittah or fabbatical week, and ended with a fabbatical year, which was the last of a Shemittah; and fo all the reft down to the laft of the whole number: and to this end fome have perplexed themfelves in vain to find out fabbatical years to fuit their hypothefes, and fix them to times to which they did never belong; whereas the prophecy means no more, than by the 70 weeks to exprefs 70 times 7 years, that is, 490 in the whole, without any relation had either to Shemittahs or fabbatical years. And were it otherwife, the 70 weeks of Daniel, befides the 70 Shemittals, must have contained 9 years more for the 9 jubilees, which muft have happened within the compafs of the faid 70 Shemittahs, and thereby make the whole number of those weeks to be 499 years; which no one that I know of hath ever yet faid. And therefore, fince there is nothing certain to be known concerning thefe fabbatical years and jubilees of the Jews, as to their ancient obfervance of them, and confequently there can be no ufe made of them, for the explication either of fcripture or hiftory, I have not troubled the reader with them in the body of this History; and I wish I have not troubled him too far in faying fo much of them here in the Preface. In the series of this Hiflory, having often endeavoured to reduce the fums of money mentioned therein to the value they would bear with us in this prefent age, whether gold or filver, I think it requifite to lay down the rules whereby I make this reduction. It is to be obferved, therefore, in onder hereto, that, among the ancients, the way of reckoning their money was by talents. So the Hebrews, fo the Babylonians, fo the Greeks, and fo the Romans, did reckon; and of thefe talents they had fubdivifions, which were ufually into minas and drachms, i. e. of their talents into minas, and of their minas into drachms. The Hebrews had, befides thefe, their fhekels and half fiekels, or bekas, and the Romans their denarii; which last were very near of the fame value with the drachms of the Greeks. What was the value of an Hebrew talent appears from Exodus xxxviii. 25. 26.; for there 603,550 perfons being taxed at an half thekel an head, they must have paid in the whole 301,775 fhekels; and that fum is there faid to amount to 100 talents, and 1775 fhekels over: if, therefore, you deduct the 1775 shekels from the number 301,775, and divide the remaining fum, i. e. 300,000, by 100, this will prove cach of these talents to contain 3000 fhekels. Each of these fhekels weighed с a weighed about three fhillings of our money, and 60 of them, Ezekiel tells us, made a mina, and therefore 50 of those minas made a talent. And as to their drachms, it appears, by the gofpel of St Matthew, that it was the fourth part of a fhekel, that is, nine pence of our money: for there (chap. xvii. 24.) the tribute money annually paid to the temple by every Jew (which was half a fhekel) is called A. deaxuor, (i. e. the two drachm piece); and therefore, if an half thekel contained two drachms, a drachm must have been the quarter part of a shekel, and every fhekel must have contained four of them and fo Jofephus tells us it did; for he faith, that a fhekel contained four Attic drachms; which is not exactly to be underftood according to the weight, but according to the valuation in the currency of common payments: for, according to the weight, the heaviest Attic drachms did not exceed eight pence farthing half farthing of our money, and an Hebrew drachm, as I have faid, was nine pence; but what the Attic drachm fell short of the Hebrew in weight might be made up in the finenefs, and its ready currency in all countries (which laft the Hebrew drachm could not have), and fo might be made equivalent in common eftimation among the Jews. Allowing, therefore, a drachm, as well Attic as Jewish, as valued in Judea, to be equivalent to nine pence of our money, a beka, or half hekel, will be equal to one fhilling and fix pence, a fhekel three fhillings, a mina nine pounds, and a talent 450 pounds. So was it in the time of Mofes and Ezekiel, and fo was it the fame, in the time of Jofephus, among that people; for he tells us, that an Hebrew mina contained two litras and an half, which comes exactly to nine pounds of our inoney; for a litra, being the fame with a Roman Libra, contained 12 ounces Troy weight, that is, 96 drachms, and therefore two litras and an half muft contain 240 drachms, which being eftimated at nine pence a drachm, according to the Jewish valuation, comes exactly to 60 fhekels, or nine pounds of our money. And this account exactly agrees with that of Alexandria; for the Alexandrian talent contained 12,000 Attic drachms, and 12,000 Attic drachms, according to the Jewish valuation, being 12,000 of our nine pences, they amount to 450 pounds of Sterling money, which is the fame value with the Mofaic talent. But here it is to be observed, that, though the Alexandrian talent amounted to 12,000 Attic drachms, yet they themselves reckoned it but at 6000 drachms, because every Alexandrian drachm contained two Attic drachms; and therefore, the Septuagint verfion being made by the Alexandrian Jews, they there render the Hebrew word fhekel by the Greek Adenxuor, which fignifieth two drachms; because two Alexandrian drachms make a fhekel, two of them amounting to as much as four Attic * Chap xlv. 12. d с d Jofeph. Antiq. lib 14. cap. 12 Feftus Pompeius, Dionyfius Halicarnaffeus etiam dicit, talentum Alexan drinum continere 125 libras Romanas; libræ autem Romanæ 125 continent drachmas Atticas 12,000. V.110 flimat drachmas Alexandrinas duplo fuperaffe Atticasve Tyriasve. |