One of the great difficulties which beset this subject is the apparent contradiction between St. Paul's assertion (Acts xiii. 20)—after that he gave them judges for the space of 45o years—and the small number of generations recorded as oc curring in the family of David during this long Period of time. Nahshon was the Prince of Judah' at the time of the Exodus, and between him and David there intervene but four genera tions, those of Salmon, Boaz, Obed, and Jesse. This, which would give from too to 120 years to each generation, is impossible. Hence some have thought that several names have dropped out in the list of David's ancestors between Salmon and Boaz. But the genealogy is given in four places without variation in the names, and St. Matthew says particularly Salmon begat Boaz of Rachab. Moreover, this genealogy of David is not the only one by which we may judge of the time that elapsed between the Exodus and Samuel. We have the genealogies of seven of David's contem poraries traced up to Jacob, and the number of generations in the longest of them only exceeds the number in David's line by four. Thus, from Jacob to David there are ir generations, to Zadoc 14, to Heman 14, to Ahimoth 15, to Asaph (leaving out one name, which seems inserted by mistake) is, to Ethan 14, and, as nearly as can be calculated, to Abiathar 14, and to Jonathan 1. All this seems to indicate that we have no reason to suspect the loss of any links in David's pedigree, especially considering that David, Obed, and Pharez were each born in the old age of their respective fathers.
Everything, therefore, points to a curtailment of the time allotted to the rule of the Judges. The period of 45o years named by St. Paul is nowhere given in so many words in the O. T., but it is made up of the several periods of servitude and rest which are enumerated in the book of Judges and the beginning of the 1st book of Samuel. It is also supported by Jephtha's statement to the King of Ammon, that the Israelites had been in possession of certain towns and cities in Heshbon and Aroer, and along the coast of Amon, three hundred years' (Judg. xi. 26). Now, not to speak of the frequent substitutions of one number for another in the Masoretic text, from the great similarity of the letters by which the numerals are expressed (Kennicott), it is impossible to doubt that many of the events which are recorded one after another in the book of Judges occurred simultaneously in different parts of the land, and the 3oo years of Jephtha are logically and gram matically inappropriate to the connection in which they stand, while the sense would be rendered clear and consistent with history by reading 3oo cities. This reading, then, is adopted, and en ables us to place Jephtha where the general course of the sacred narrative would make him stand. In Judg. xi. r it is said Gilead begat Jephtha. This is not inconsistent with the supposition that he may have been the grandson of Gilead ; but it is irreconcileable with the view that he was a much more remote descendant, when vve consider that his immediate predecessor in the Judgeship was Jair of Havoth Jair, who was the grandson of Gilead's sister. We find a further genealogical
argument for giving a shorter time to the book of Judges, and for supposing the order of its narra tive to have been disturbed, in the facts that the Levite who acted the part of priest first to Micah and then to Dan, was the grandson of Moses (the correct reading, and not Manasseh, Judg. xviii.3o. See Adam Clarke's commentary and Lord A. Hervey on the Genealogies, pp. 234, 257) ; that ' Phineas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, was a sharer in the transactions recorded in the 2oth chapter, and that no high-priest is mentioned dur ing the whole of the time from the entrance into Canaan till the birth of Samuel, except Eleazar, Phineas, and Eli. If we are led by these and other considerations to shorten the period assigned to the Judges by about zoo years, reading 2So in stead of 4So years in r Kings vi. 1, and assenting to the testimony of the MSS. which omit St. Paul's statement, Acts xiii. 21 (Wordsworth), we not only make Scripture consistent with itself, but clear away some of the difficulties which em barras its relations with profane history (Sir Gard ner Wilkinson, Alanners and Customs of Egyp tians ; Dr. Lepsius, Letters from Egypt).
The genealogy of Joshua given in Chron. vii. 217 represents Ephraim with only one of the three sons who are assigned to him in Numbers—Shuthe lah. From him descends a single line of six indi viduals, terminating in another Shuthelah, with whom are named Ezra and Elead, who may be either his' sons or brothers, more probably the latter. The historian then states that one or both of these was slain by the men of Gath, because they came down to take away their cattle,' indicating at first sight a hostile foray on the men of Gath by the posterity of Eph raim, in which the Ephraimites were repulsed and put to death. He then goes on to say that after this event the brethren of Ephraim came to condole with him in his sorrow, and that in pro cess of time he had another son, Beriah, from whom sprung a second line of eight descendants— nine, reckoning Beriah—terminating in the great hero, Joshua, the son of Nun. Here is a strange tissue of anachronisms and incongruities. The Jewish commentators say that the Ephraimites, reckoning, the time appointed for their occupation of Canaan from the sacrifice of Abraham (Gen. xv. ro), not from the birth of Isaac, went out of Egypt in a body of two hundred thousand men, under the conduct of their leaders, 3o years before the right time, and that after their slaughter by the Philis tines of Gath, Ephraim had a son whom he called Beriah ( evil), because he was born in the time in which this evil happened to his house. But they say nothing of the incongruity of Ephraim, having a son after the death of his descendant in the seventh or eighth generation, or of the still greater incongruity of making Joshua descend by a line of eight generations from an ancestor born 3o years before the Exodus. Indeed, it must be considered that the record, as an exact enumera tion of descents, is utterly valueless.