that captivity and, as to the jubilees, there is no mention made of them any where through the whole Scriptures, saving only in that law where they are enjoined; neither is there of their sabbatical years, saving only in the same law, and the place in Chronicles abovementioned. There are indeed two other places of Scripture which some understand concerning them, (that is, 2 Kings xix, 29, and Jer. xxxiv, 8-10.) But both these passages do better admit of other interpretations: for what is said in the former of these, seems rather to refer to the desolations of the war, and the interruption of agriculture through the violences and calamity of it, than to a sabbatical year; and so Grotius and other learned men understand it. And what is said in the other by Jeremiah, about the release of servants, doth not infer a sabbatical year, nor a jubilee neither: for every Hebrew servant was to be released in the seventh year of his servitude, though it were neither a jubilee, nor a sabbatical year; and therefore this instance infers neither of them: and those who undertake to interpret the law which enjoins these jubilees and sabbatical years, very much differ concerning them, both as to the time and manner of their observance. Some will have the reckoning, both of the sabbatical years and the jubilees, to commence from the first entering of the Israelites into the land of Canaan; and therefore place the first sabbatical year in the seventh year after that entrance, and the first jubilee also according hereto; but others say, that the land was seven years in conquering and dividing, and that the eighth year was the first in which the Israelites began to sow and reap in it; and that therefore the fourteenth year was the first sabbatical year: and according to this reckoning they put the first sabbatical year, and the first jubilee, seven years later than the former, and so the numbers of all the rest that follow. And then, as to the time of the jubilee, there is this dispute, whether it be the same with the seventh sabbatical year, or the next year after. The reason of this dispute is, because if it be on the year after the seventh sabbatical year, then there will Exodus xxi, 2. 103 be two sabbatical years together, (for the year of jubilee was also a sabbatical year;) and in this case there would be the loss of two crops together; and then it will be asked, how could the people be supported? And they who, notwithstanding this objection, determine for the year next after the seventh sabbatical year to have been the year of jubilee, thought they have the Scripture on their side in this particular, yet are not agreed where to begin the next week of years (or Shemittah, as the Jews call it) after the seventh sabbatical year; that is, whether the year of jubilee, or the next year after it, was to be the first 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 sow and reap in between the jubilee (which was also a sabbatical year) and the next sabbatical year after; whereas the Scripture saith they were to have six. And if the first year of the next Shemittah were the next year after the jubilee, then the Shemittahs would not always succeed in an exact series immediately one after the other; but after the seventh Shemittah, the year of jubilee would intervene between that and the next; which disagreeth with the opinion of many. However, it is indeed the truth of the matter, and I know no objection against it, but that it exposeth the error of those, who, thinking that the sabbatical years did always happen each exactly on the seventh year after the former, have in that order and series placed them in their chronological computations, without considering, that after every forty-ninth year a jubilee year did intervene between the Shemittah that then ended, and the beginning of the next that followed. But they act most out of way in this matter, who would confine Daniel's prophecy of the seventy weeks to so many Shemittahs, as if these seventy weeks fell in exactly with seventy Shemittahs, that is, that the first week began with the first year of a Shemittah or sabbatical week, and ended with a sabbatical year, which was the last of a Shemittah; and so all the rest down to the last of the whole number: and to this end some Levit. xxv, 3.. *Levit. xxv, 11, Levit. xxv, 10. have perplexed themselves in vain to find out sabbati cal years to suit their hypothesis, and fix them to times to which they never did belong; whereas the prophecy means no more than by the seventy weeks to express seventy times seven years, that is, four hundred and ninety in the whole, without any relation had either to Shemittahs or sabbatical years. And were it otherwise, the seventy weeks of Daniel, besides the seventy Shemittahs, must have contained nine years more for the nine jubilees, which must have happened within the compass of the said seventy Shemittahs, and thereby make the whole number of those weeks to be four hundred and ninety-nine years; which no one that I know of hath ever yet said. And therefore, since there is nothing certain to be known concerning these sabbatical years and jubilees of the Jews, as to their ancient observance of them, and consequently there can be no use made of them, for the explication either of Scripture or history, 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 saying so much of them here in the Preface. In the series of this History, having often endeavoured to reduce the sums of money mentioned therein to the value they would bear with us in this present age, whether gold or silver, I think it requisite to lay down the rules whereby I make this reduction. It is to be observed, therefore, in order hereto, that, among the ancients, the way of reckoning their money was by talents. So the Hebrews, so the Babylonians, so the Greeks, and so the Romans, did reckon; and of these talents they had subdivisions, which were usually into minas and drachms, i. e. of their talents into minas, and of their minas into drachms. The Hebrews had, besides these, their shekels and half shekles, or bekas, and the Romans their denarii; which last were very near of the same value with the drachms of the Greeks. What was the value of an Hebrew talent appears from Ex. xxxviii, 25, 26; for there six hundred and three thousand five hundred and fifty persons being taxed at an half shekel an head, they must have paid in the whole three hundred and one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five shekels; and that sum is there said to amount to one hundred talents, and one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five shekels over: if, therefore, you deduct the one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five shekels from the number three hundred and one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five, and divide the remaining sum, i. e. three hundred thousand by one hundred, this will prove each of those talents to contain three thousand shekels. Each of these shekels weighed about three shillings of our money, and sixty of them,* Ezekiel tells us, made a mina, and therefore fifty of those minas made a talent. And as to their drachms, it appears, by the gospel of St. Matthew, that it was the fourth part of a shekel, that is, nine-pence of our money: for there (chap. xvii, 24,) the tribute money annually paid to the temple by every Jew (which wast half a shekel) is called Aldgaxuov, (i. e. the two-drachm piece ;) and therefore, if an half shekel contained two drachms, a drachm must have been the quarter part of a shekel, and every shekel must have contained four of them: and so Josephus tells us it did; for he saith that a shekel contained four Attic drachms; which is not exactly to be understood 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 said, was nine-pence; but what the Attic drachm fell short of the Hebrew in weight might be made up in the fineness, and its ready currency in all countries (which last the Hebrew drachm could not have,) and so might be made equivalent in common estimation 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 shekel, will be equal to one shilling and six-pence, a shekel three shillings, a mina nine pounds, and a talent four hundred and fifty pounds. So was it in the time of Moses and Ezekiel, and so was it the same, in the time of * Chap. xlv, 12. VOL. I. †Talmud in Shekalim. + Antiq. lib. 3, c. 9. Josephus, 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 money; for a litra, being the same with a Roman libra, contained twelve ounces troy weight, that is, ninety-six drachms, and therefore two litras and an half must contain two hundred and forty drachms, which being estimated at nine-pence a drachm, according to the Jewish valuation, comes exactly to sixty shekels, or nine pounds of our money. And this account exactly agrees with that of Alexandria; fort the Alexandrian talent contained twelve thousand Attic drachms, and twelve thousand Attic drachms, according to the Jewish valuation, being twelve thousand of our ninepences, they amount to four hundred and fifty pounds of sterling money, which is the same value with the Mosaic talent. But here it is to be observed, that, though the Alexandrian talent amounted to twelve thousand Attic drachms, yet they themselves reckoned it but at six thousand drachms, because every Alexandrian drachm contained two Attic drachms; and therefore, the Septuagint version being made by the Alexandrian Jews, they there render the Hebrew word shekel by the Greek Δίδραχμον, which signifieth two drachms; because two Alexandrian drachms make a shekel, two of them amounting to as much as four Attic drachms; and therefore, computing the Alexandrian money according to the same method in which we have computed the Jewish, it will be as followeth : one drachm of Alexandria will be of our money eighteen-pence; one didrachm, or shekel, consisting of two drachms of Alexandria, or four of Attica, will be three shillings; one mina, consisting of sixty didrachms, or shekels, will be nine pounds; and one talent, consisting of fifty minas, will be four hundred and fifty pounds, which is the talent of Moses, and so also it is the talent of Josephus; for he tells us, that an Hebrew *Joseph. Antiq. lib. 14, cap. 12. Festus Pompeius, Dionysius Halicarnasseus etiam dicit, talentum Alexandrinum continere 125 libras Romanas; libræ autem Komanæ 125 continent drachmas Atticas 12,000. # Varro æstimat drachmas Alexandrinas duplo superasse Atticasve Tyriasve. Ex. xxxviii, 25, 26. $ Antiq. lib. 3, c. 7. |