and seventy thousand men, capable of bearing arms, and after the same rate, the population of the Holy Land, in the reign of David, amounted to nine millions four hundred and twenty thousand persons, which is even greater than the total, afforded by the account given in the book of Samuel.

7. Error in the number of Solomon's officers.

In I Kings ix, 23, we read:

These were the chief of the officers that were over Solomon's work, five hundred and fifty, which bare rule over the people that wrought in the work.

The number of officers is very different in II Chron. viii, 10;

And these were the chief of king Solomon's officers, even two hundred and fifty, that bare rule over the people.

The explanation which Bishop Patrick gives of this discrepancy, in a note on I Kings ix, 23, is simply a conjecture, founded on no fact or reason whatever :

At 2 Chron. viii, 10 the number is stated at 250. The most probable solution is that there were 250 set over those who wrought in the temple; and the rest had the superintendence of public works in other places.

Numbers, when expressed by short ideagraphic signs, such as Arabian or Roman numerals, are always liable to corruption but the care taken by the Jews to preserve their scriptures from error, renders it unlikely that these scriptures should have been corrupted like other books. Yet we find so many disagreements in numbers between Kings and Chronicles, that it is necessary to assign some reason for the fact. One general explanation may be given of all these discrepancies. The separate documents differed originally because they proceeded from different authors who wrote independently, one of the other, and like all

historians, differed from each other in the minor details of their histories. The compilers who collected those records retained the narratives in their original form, and with all these inaccuracies uncorrected.

8. Error in the number of talents brought from Ophir.

In I Kings ix, 28, it is said that the ships built by King Solomon

came to Ophir, and fetched from thence gold, four hundred and twenty talents, and brought it to king Solomon.

Bishop Patrick writes the following note on this verse :

It is said at II Chron. vi, 18, that they brought 450 talents : a difference which is of little importance, whether we attribute it to a variation in the value of the talent, or in the quantity of the metal, the one referring to the quantity of pure gold, the other of gold with alloy; or whether we suppose 450 talents to be the gross produce of the voyage, 420 the produce with the deduction of expenses.

Such annotations as these are unworthy the importance of the subject, and the positive nature of the statements. The difference of thirty talents is decided: it arose, no doubt; from an inaccuracy in the ancient records, and this inaccuracy has been perpetuated by the compiler, who valued and preserved the genuiness of his materials, even though they were slightly discrepant the one with the other.

9. Concerning the situation of Tarshish.

The passages of the Old Testament, in which Tarshish is named, involve a doubt whether that city was situated on the Red Sea or the Mediterranean:

I KINGS X, 22. For the king [Solomon] had at sea a navy at Tharshish with the navy of Hiram: once in three years came the navy of Tharshish, bringing gold and silver, ivory, apes and peacocks.

The Tyrians certainly had their navy in the Mediterranean, and not on the Red Sea, from which they were separated by the Israelites, the Philistines, and other tribes.

I KINGS Xxii, 48. Jehoshaphat made ships of Tharshish to go to

Ophir for gold but they went not; for the ships were broken at Ezion geber.

Now Ezion-geber was a port on the Red Sea, and, if we might judge from this verse alone, the city of Tharshish was situated there also. This is confirmed by the parallel passage in II Chronicles, xx, 36—37 :

And he [Jehoshaphat] joined himself with him [Ahaziah] to make ships to go to Tarshish; and they made the ships at Ezion-gaber. Then Eliezer the son of Dodavah of Mareshah prophesied against Jehoshaphat, saying, "Because thou hast joined thyself with Ahaziah, the Lord hath broken thy works." And the ships were broken, that they were not able to go to Tarshish.

10. The Law of Moses not observed by the Israelites.

It is difficult to imagine that the Law of Moses, as we now have it, could have been in public and active operation during the times of the Hebrew commonwealth and monarchy; for in the history of the kings we find the most flagrant breaches of that law without any marks of censure from the writer, who, as far as we learn by his narrative, appears to have known little more than the name of Moses or of his Laws.

Thus, in DeuteRONOMY Xvii, 14-28, a passage which, according to the theory now proposed, was written after the case, which is there put, had been realized, we find the following:

When thou art come unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me; thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee thou mayst not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother.

Rut he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses: forasmuch as the Lord hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no more that way.

Neither shall he multiply wives to himself that his heart turn not

:

away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold. And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites: and it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them: that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand or to the left: to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he, and his children, in the midst of Israel.

Such were the commands of Moses on three specific points: 1. Horses, 2. Wives, and 3. Copying out the Law. The following texts shew how Solomon obeyed these 'commands:

1 KINGS iv, 26. And Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen.

xi, 3, And he [Solomon] had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart.

The writer of this history censures, it is true, the multiplication of wives, but he does not point out the flagrant breach of the Law which Solomon committed; and as regards the copying of the Law, he observes a deep and total silence upon the subject.

11. Inconsistency between Samuel's picture of a king and that ascribed to Moses in Deut. xvii.

The description of a king, just cited from Deuteronomy xvii, 16-20, presents nothing offensive to the feelings, or injurious to the happiness of the people: nor does it seem to imply that the Almighty would disapprove of the Israelites choosing for themselves a king when they should be settled in the land of promise. On the contrary it conveys an idea that the request would be a natural one, and it explains the mode in which the petition should be complied with. Is it then likely that Samuel had read this description when he cautioned the people against choosing

a king, by giving the following picture of his tyranny and his rapacity?

I SAM. viii, 11-18. This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you he will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen ; and some shall run before his chariots.

And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties, and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants. And he will take your menservants, and your maid-. servants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work.

He will take the tenth of your sheep; and ye shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day.

These words of Samuel will seem highly reasonable, to those who know the nature of oriental despotism, if we only suppose that Samuel had never read the 17th chapter of Deuteronomy, which deals so much more leniently with the same contingency.

It is something also to our present point that neither does Samuel cause Saul to copy out the book of the Law, as before alluded to, and this seems to prove that there was no book of the Law, besides the two tables of stone, then in existence.

There are many other inaccuracies and contradictions in the Old Testament, which prove that the books are not contemporary with the events which they describe. Those which have been enumerated may suffice; the reader who wishes to examine the others for himself will have no difficulty in finding them out, particularly the following:

In I Chron. iii, 16, Zedekiah, who was Mattaniah, is