15. The mention of Merodach Baladan, son of Baladan, king of Babylon,' apparently in or not long after 14 Hezekiah, 2 Kings xx. 12, forms yet another synchronism. For Sennacherib's inscrip tion records his defeat of this king in his first year; a Marudakh Baldan appears in the Polyhistor's extract from Berosus as king in Babylon early in Senna cherib's reign, but with circumstances which make it extremely difficult to make out the identity of the three persons with each other, and with either the Afardok Empad, who in the canon reigns in Baby lon from 721 to 709, or the Mesesi lifora'ak of the same document, from 692 to 688. (See HEZEKIAH and MERODACH BAI.ADAN). Here it may be sufficient to mention, that Dr. Hincks, Trans. of Royal Irish Academy, vol. xxii. 364, retaining the 55 years of Manasseh, proposes to solve the diffi culties by placing Sennacherib's invasion of Judxa in Hezekiah's 25th instead of his 14th year, at the date 701 B.C.: Hezekiah's illness remains at its earlier date. Bunsen, tacitly adopting this construc tion, makes 3 Sennacherib fall in 24 Hezekiah, and imagines that the invasion which terminated dis astrously to the Assyrian king was a second, in Hezekiah's 28th year, on which latter occasion it was that Tirhaka came to the relief of Jerusalem (Aeg. St., b. iv. 505). Retaining for this Egyptian king an epoch, 712 B.C., which is plainly disproved by the Apis inscriptions (sec. 14), he makes it pos sible for So = Sevek II. to have been contemporary with Hoshea. It must be owned, that the received chronology of Hezekiah's reign is beset with diffi culties on the side both of Egypt and of Assyria and Babylon. But from neither have we as yet all the facts we need, and the fuller and clearer in formation which is confidently expected from the cuneiform inscriptions, in particular, will probably make much bright that is now dark. In the mean time, it will be well to remember that no man's in sight is final; he who least commits himself to per emptory conclusions now, will perhaps have least to retract by and bye.
16. Another argument tending to lower still more the whole time of the kings, and the date of the building of Solomon's Temple, is fetched from some ancient data of Tyrian chronology. It is as follows :—Josephus, c. i. 17, announces that the building of the Temple lies 143 years S months before the founding of Carthage ; he gives this on the authority of Menander of Ephesus, meaning his own summation of that author's enumeration of reigns professedly copied from public monuments. In proof, he quotes the regnal numbers of the kings from Ilirom, the friend of Solomon, to Pygmalion inclusive, eleven in all, making a sum (not however expressed) of 177 years S months. He adds, from his author,' It was in the 7th year of Pygmalion that Elisa fled from Tyre, and founded Carthage in Libya;' and, from himself ' The sum of years from the reign (epoch) of Hirom to the founding of Carthage is 155 years 8 months; and since it was in 12 Hiram that the Temple was built, the time from thence to the founding of Carthage is 143 years 8 months.' (The inter val, as the numbers stand in the text, is, in fact, 177 years S months, minus 12 of II irom and 40 of Pygmalion, i. e., only 125 years S months : it does not concern us here to consider how the mis sing IS years may be restored ; the number, 143 years 8 months, given twice by Josephus, is not affected by errors what may have crept into the de tails.) Now, the founding of Carthage is placed by (Dion. Hal. i. 74) 38 years before 01. 1, i.e., 814-13 B.C. ; by Trogus (Justin, xviii. 6) 72 years
before the building of Rome, i.e., 825 B.C. Nie buhr (the father), accepting the date 814-13 B.C. as indisputable, deduces for the building of Solomon's Temple the year 957-56 B.C. (Led. on "Inc. Hist. iii. 159) ; Movers (Phomizier, ii. I. 140, ff.), preferring the other, gets the date 969 B.C. Again, Josephus, Ant. viii. 3. r, after stating that I I Hirom is 4 Solo mon, and the year of the building of the Temple, adds (probably from Menander), that the year in question was 240 years from the building of (New) Tyre. It does not appear that he found the 11 or 12 Hirom expressed by Menander or Dius as answer ing to the 4 Solomon. Probably he obtained the synchronism from his own investigation of the various places in 2 Sam., I Kings, and i Chron., where Hiram is mentioned ; but the number 240 is probably Tyrian. Now Trogus (Justin xviii. 3) states, that Tyre was founded by the Sidonians in the year before the fall of Troy. Among the numerous ancient dates assigned to that event one is 1208 B.C. (Ephorus, followed by the Pariao Chron. and other authorities). But 1209-240=969 B. C., precisely the year which resulted from the former argument. Such is the twofold proof given by Movers, accepted by J. v. Gumpach and others, and highly applauded by A. v. Gutschmid in Rhein. thruslium, 1857. On the other hand, it should be considered-1. That between the flight of Elisa, in Pygmalion's 7th year, which, is the goal of these 143-4 years, and the founding of the city, there certainly occurred a train of events (the settlement in Byrsa = Bazrah, and the growth around it of the Magalia = IW'a'hal, which eventually became the New-Town,,Kartharasa =Carthage) which implies a considerable tract of time ; and 2. That as the ancient dates of the fall of Troy vary over a range of about 18o years, Timreus placing it at 1333, Herodotus at 1270, Eratosthenes at 1183, Are tinus, 1144, besides intermediate dates (Muller, Fragments Chronol. sec. 17), the 240 years may be so measured as to fall near enough to the time given to 4 Solomon by the usual chronology. It has been generally received hitherto that the Era of Tyre dates from cir. 1250 B.C., and there seems to be no sufficient reason to the contrary (Bunsen, iv. 280, ff.) The concurrence of the two lines of argument in the year 969 B.C. is one of those coincidences which are so perpetually occurring in chronological combinations, that the practised in quirer at last pays little heed to them. In fact, it may only imply that Justin's author got from Menander the date 384 Tyre = 7 Pygmalion, mis takenly, as by Josephus, identified with I Carthage ; and having also obtained from the same or some other source the year equivalent to 1 Tyre, would so arrive at his datum for 1 Carthage, or, vice versa, from the latter would rise to the former. And, after all, when we inquire what is the worth of Josephus as a reporter ; and, supposing him accurate, what is the value of the Tyrian annals, the answer is not of necessity unfavourable to the claims of the biblical chronology of the kings of Judah and Israel. Furnished, as this is, by an annalistic series incomparably more full and exact than any profane records of the same times which have come to us at second hand, it is not to be impeached by any but clear contemporary monu mental evidence (such as Mariette's Apis•records) ; and if the entire Hebrew tale of years from 4 So lomon to II Zedekiah is to be materially lowered on the scale of the series B.C., this can only be done by proving some capital error in the Astronomical Canon.