WBC-08-The Kingdom
The Kingdom
King Saul The annals of the reign of Saul are almost destitute of chronological information. In fact it is doubtful if the length of Saul’s reign could be determined but for the statement of the apostle Paul in Acts 13:21, "And afterward they desired a king; and God gave unto them Saul, the son of Cis, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, by the space of forty years." The only statement of a chronological character in the Old Testament concerning Saul is one so remarkable that it has been quite a puzzle to chronologers. It is found in 1 Samuel 13:1-2. As rendered in the A. V. it reads: "Saul reigned one year; and when he had reigned two years over Israel, Saul chose him two thousand men of Israel," etc. The margin tells us that the words "reigned one year" read in the original Hebrew "the son of one year in his reigning." There is, however, a disagreement as to the text, which is rendered in some versions, "Saul was -- " years when he began to reign, and when he had reigned two years," etc. So we dismiss this passage as being of no importance for our present purposes, it being enough to know, from Acts 13:21, that the reign of Saul lasted 40 years.
David and Solomon
David and Solomon each reigned 40 years. We would judge that to be the normal length of the reign of a ruler; for 40 appears to be the Bible-number of a full period of testing or probation, instance the forty years of the Israelites in the wilderness, the forty days of the Lord’s trial in the wilderness, etc. There is something significant in the fact that each of the first three kings of Israel, the only three who reigned over a united kingdom, reigned each for 40 years. Of David it is recorded that "David was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years. In Hebron he reigned over Judah seven years and six months; and in Jerusalem he reigned thirty and three years over all Israel and Judah" (2 Samuel 5:4-5). During the time David reigned over Judah only, Ishbosheth, the son of Saul, reigned two years over Israel (2 Samuel 2:10). These two periods make a total of 40 1/2 years; but when reduced to calendar years they figure 40 years. The length of Solomon’s reign is stated in 2 Chronicles 9:30, "And Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel forty years."
These were typical reigns. In Saul we have the trial of the natural man; and though his unfitness to rule was quickly manifested, yet God permitted him to fill out his full term. This suggests God’s long patience and forbearance with the natural man, giving him full opportunity to prove his worth in every capacity. As regards the ideal "governor," we could have no better description than that given in the last words of David, "He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God" (2 Samuel 23:3). The natural man cannot meet this test. Indeed none can fully measure up to it save the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
David and Solomon are both typical of Christ as King. The former foreshadows Christ in His rejection and conflicts; the latter foreshadows His reign of peace and glory, when He shall have put all enemies under His feet (1 Corinthians 15:25). To each God gave a full measure of time. Hence the fitness in the type of a reign of forty years to each of those kings.
During David’s reign the materials for the building of the temple were prepared. During Solomon’s reign the temple was completed in all its marvelous beauty and glory. This suggests the fact that now, during the time of conflict with the enemies of God, the materials for the church are being gathered and made ready; and in the coming day it will be manifested with Christ in glory. The dated events of Solomon’s reign are the beginning of the temple in his fourth year (2 Chronicles 3:2); its completion in the eleventh year (1 K. 6:38, "so he was seven years in building it"); the beginning of his own house in the eleventh year, and its completion in the 24th year (1 K. 7:1, 9:10). This gives us, for the time Israel existed as a united kingdom, the following:
An. Hom. | B.C. | |
Beginning of Saul’s reign (see table seven) | 3023 | 1023 |
Beginning of David’s reign | 3063 | 983 |
Beginning of Solomon’s reign | 3103 | 943 |
Death of Solomon | 3143 | 903 |
The Divided Kingdom
We come now to a portion of Scripture, Kings and Chronicles, where difficulties abound, and where the utmost care, patience, and penetration are required, in order to elucidate the facts pertaining to chronology. But the ground has been carefully explored, and the evidences scrutinized by able men in by-gone days; so that our own task is the comparatively easy one of setting forth, in a manner as simple as possible, the results of their fruitful labours. Dr. Anstey, speaking of the period of the kings of Israel and Judah, says, "There is not a single difficulty that has been raised which is not capable of a simple and easy solution, without doing violence to the text; there is not a single difficulty that has not been satisfactorily cleared up in standard works by able chronologers, from The Chronicle of the Events of the Old Testament, by Dr. John Lightfoot, in the 17th century, down to our own day."
Dr. John Lightfoot, to whom Anstey refers, makes some quaint observations, which give a good idea of the difficulties in question, and also of the spirit in which he, and other men of God, undertook the solution of them.
"In casting up the times of the collateral kingdoms," says he, "your only way is to lay them in two columns, one justly paralleling the other, and run them both by years as the text directs you. But here nicety is needed "not to see how strangely they are reckoned, sometimes inclusive, sometimes otherwise (for this you will easily find) but "to find a reason why they be so reckoned. Rehoboam’s years are counted complete; Abijam’s are current. Whereas it is said that Jeroboam reigned 22 years, and his son Nadab 2 years, you will find by this reckoning that Nadab’s 2 years fall within the sum of his father’s 22. This may seem strange; but the solution is sweet and easy from 2 Chronicles 13:20. The Lord smote Jeroboam with some ill disease, that he could not administer or rule the kingdom, so that he was forced to substitute Nadab in his own lifetime. And in one and the same year, both father and son die." The passage to which Lightfoot here refers as giving the simple solution of this seeming contradiction, reads thus: "Neither did Jeroboam recover strength again in the days of Abijah; and the Lord struck him, and he died."
There were other instances then, as has commonly happened since, that a son has ascended the throne during his father’s lifetime. In such cases the years of their joint reigns would be reckoned to the reign of each. This is a point for which chronologers have to be continually on the lookout; but the knowledge of it enables many difficulties to be cleared up.
Continuing, Dr. Lightfoot says:
"Divers such passages as these you will find in this story of the Kings. Ahaziah two years older than his father (2 Chronicles 22:2); Baasha fighting nine years after he was dead (2 Chronicles 16:1); Jotham reigning four years after he was buried (2 K. 15:30); Joram crowned king in the 17th year of Jehoshaphat (according to 2 K. 1:17 with 1 K. 22: 51), and in the 22nd year of Jehoshaphat (according to 2 K. 8:16), and after Jeshoshaphat’s death (2 Chronicles 21:1).
"For the resolution of such ambiguities, the text will do it, if it be well searched. This way, attained to, will guide you in marking those things that seem to be contradictions in the text, or slips of the Holy Ghost, in which always is admirable wisdom.
"Admirable it is see how the Holy Spirit of God hath, in discords, showed the sweet music. But few mark this, because few take a right course in the reading of Scripture. Hence, when men are brought to see flat contradictions (as, unreconciled, there be many in it) they are at amaze, and ready to deny their Bible. A little pains, right spent, will soon amend this wavering, and settle men upon the rock whereon to be built is to be sure."
Dr. Anstey refers to an article by Willis J. Beecher on "The Kings of Israel and Judah," in the American Presbyterian Review for April, 1880, as giving "the key to the solution of all these difficulties." We quote some of the rules given by Mr. Beecher, and which, according to Anstey, "are obeyed with entire uniformity in all the dates of the period under consideration."
"Rule 1. All the years mentioned are current years of a consecutive system. The first year of a king is, not a year’s time beginning with the day and month of his accession, but, a year’s time beginning with (1) the preceding, or (2) the following New Year’s Day "i.e., the New Moon before the Passover, Nisan 1st.
"Rule 2. When a reign closes and another begins during a year, that year is counted to the previous reign (Judaite mode).
"Rule 3. Regularly in the case of the earlier kings of Israel, and occasionally in other cases, the broken year is counted to the following reign, as well as to the previous reign (Israelite mode)."
Concerning the history of the period of the divided kingdom, Dr. Anstey says
"The Hebrew text of the history of this period is self-consistent and self-contained. All the data required for the resolution of any, difficulties that may arise are to be found in the text itself. There is no need to fall back upon Josephus. Still less is there any need to introduce any of the harmonizing expedients of the LXX, or any of the "emendations," "restorations," and "corrections" of the text by modern critics, who present us with a view of the history as they think it ought to be, not with a view of the history as it is.
Similarly, the use of’ Sothic Cycles,’ the calculation of eclipses, and other astronomical methods and expedients for settling Bible dates, are all alike inadmissible. They are liable, first, to errors of observation on the part of the original observer; second, to errors of calculation on the part of the modem astronomer; and consequently, third, to errors in the identification of the observed and recorded eclipse with the eclipse reached by calculation. Those methods are used mainly in support of assumptions and pre-suppositions already arrived at by hypothesis and conjecture. They may be true or they may not. But in any case, they cannot be erected into a standard by which to correct the data given in the Hebrew text. Modern Egyptologists make much of astronomical data. Each advocate regards his own scheme as thereby invested with the certainty of a mathematical calculation. But there are many such schemes, and they differ from each other by more than a century. As Willis J. Beecher says, ’Each chain has links of the solid steel of astronomical computations, but they are tied together with the rotten twine of conjecture.’ The quasi-infallible dates arrived at by modern investigators are erected into a standard by which to amend and correct the dates of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. But this is correcting standard coin of the realm by means of counterfeit fabrications. For the authentic documents of the Hebrew Old Testament are both accurate, complete, and self-sufficient. The fact and the events, the dates and the periods, there given, are as accurate and as much to be relied upon as are those other statements upon which we base our confidence in the goodness of God, and rest in hope of eternal salvation."