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fore, that this royal letter was written not only before the second year of Darius, but also before his accession to the throne.

It is also obvious to conclude from the words, "There was a cessation unto the second year of Darius," that in the second year of Darius was resumed the work which had been forcibly stopped in obedience to the letter of Artaxerxes. But we learn from Haggai i. 14, 15, that in the second year of Darius the Jews set themselves earnestly to work again "in the house of the Lord of hosts their God." The Jews did this "in obedience to the voice of the Lord their God," nor were they, in thus acting, disobedient to their lawful sovereign, the king of Persia. For Cyrus had rather commanded than permitted the Jews to rebuild their temple, and Artaxerxes, without naming the temple, had merely forbidden them to rebuild their city.

If one class of writers argues from Rehum's entire silence concerning the house of God, that the temple must have already been rebuilt, may not others, with equal right, argue from Ezra's entire silence concerning the city (chap. iv. 2), that when Rehum received the letter of Artaxerxes, the Jews, if not exclusively, were chiefly and especially occupied in rebuilding the temple, a work which they afterwards resumed in the second, and completed in the sixth year of Darius Hystaspes?

Auberlen's own words go far to solve the difficulty, when he speaks of Rehum's letter as containing the slanderous reports of the Samaritans. The Samaritans, on two other occasions, endeavoured to hinder the Jews from rebuilding the temple (Ezra iv. 4, and v. 3). Rehum and his associates may have thought that, if they had complained of the Jews merely with reference to their temple, Artaxerxes might deem the matter unworthy of his notice. They accordingly, by their slanderous misrepresentations and exaggerations, led the king to suppose that the Jews were busily engaged in rebuilding the fortifications of their city, with the ulterior view of shaking off the Persian yoke. They thus obtained a decree for putting a stop to the erection of the walls, and having might on their side, on the strength of this decree against the city walls, compelled the Jews to cease from building the temple.

As the text of Ezra now stands, it would appear beyond reasonable question, that we have, in the fourth chapter, four successive Persian kings, in their regular chronological order-Cyrus, Ahasuerus, Artaxerxes, and Darius Hystaspes. No candid reader will doubt that Ezra believed each of the two intermediate sovereigns, Ahasuerus and Artaxerxes, to have possessed the same supreme authority over Media, Persia, Babylon, Samaria, and Judea, as Cyrus before them, and Darius Hystaspes after them. According to Herodotus, and, according to Eschylus, in his "Persæ," Ahasuerus must have been Cambyses, and Artaxerxes Pseudo-Smerdis.

The short reign of Pseudo-Smerdis, of seven months, may seem not to afford sufficient time to include all that Ezra, in his fourth chapter, states to have happened in the reign of Artaxerxes. It has been, however, supposed by some writers, and surely not on insufficient grounds, that when Herodotus says that Pseudo-Smerdis reigned seven months, he intends to mark the time between the death of Cambyses and the assassination of the Magian usurper, and that the latter may have seized the Persian throne, and have assumed house of God," is 7. This word undoubtedly denotes the religious service of the temple, in Ezra vi. 18. But the same term is also used with reference to the building of the material structure of the temple in Ezra v. 8, and vi. 7. No one will contend that it was the object of Rehum and Shimshai to put a stop to the daily worship of the Jews. No, they forced the Jews to cease from the work of their yet unfinished temple; and the very fact that the temple was yet unfinished, is satisfactory evidence that this interruption took place before the sixth year of Darius, when the house of God was com. pleted, and doubtless before his accession.

the royal title of Artaxerxes, two or three months before the decease of Cambyses.

Some have objected, on the ground of the utter discrepancy of the names, to identify Ahasuerus and Artaxerxes with Cambyses and Smerdis. Dr Hales observes that Ahasuerus was a title, rather than a proper name, and "that it was applied to Xerxes * (Ezra iv. 6); to Artaxerxes Longimanus in Esth. i. 1; and to Astyages, the father of Cyaxares, or of Darius the Mede." Arsaces, son of the second Darius and Parysatis, on ascending the throne, took the name of Artaxerxes, and afterwards received the popular addition of Mnemon. And, in a life of Alexander the Great, Archdeacon Williams writes :-"Many Persians came over to Alexander while remaining at Susa, and informed him that Bessus had assumed the distinctions peculiar to the King of kings-the upright tiara, the robe with the intermingled red, white, and purple stripes, and the royal name of Artaxerxes."

The Apocryphal books are in general worthless authority, and it is little to the credit of English Protestantism that they should still be allowed to be bound up in the same covers with the Old and New Testaments. The dishonour (unintentionally) so done to the Word of God is very feebly set forth in the words of Joseph Milner, the Church historian-that "the Apocrypha between the two Testaments is a shabby fellow between two gentlemen." I would, however, just observe that the pseudo-Ezra (1 Esdras ii. 16-30) evidently considers that the Artaxerxes of Ezra iv. 7-23, was the predecessor of Darius Hystaspes: he does not mention Ahasuerus.

In conclusion, it appears to me that, as the text of Ezra now stands, the following events are certainly arranged in their chronological order :-1. The letter of Rehum and Shimshai to King Artaxerxes. 2. The reply of Artaxerxes. 3. The journey of Rehum and Shimshai to Jerusalem, when they forcibly compelled the Jews to cease from the work of the house of God. And, 4. The resumption of the work of the house of God in the second year of Darius (Hystaspes). If so, Auberlen errs in thinking that the Artaxerxes of the fourth of Ezra must be identified with Longimanus-perhaps the highlygifted writer of the noble work on "the Prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation of St John," may, on fresh consideration, agree with me.

*

A CONSTANT READER.

Josephus, if I recollect aright, asserts that the Samaritans wrote a letter against the Jews to Xerxes in the beginning of his reign. This may probably have led Dr Hales and others to suppose that Ezra is speaking of Xerxes, when he says" And in the reign of Ahasuerus, in the beginning of his reign, wrote they unto him an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem." The immediately preceding verses may appear to allow us to suppose that Ahasuerus was either Cambyses or Xerxes. "Then" (in the reign of Cyrus) "the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building, and hired counsellors against them to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus the king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius of Persia." It is obvious that the succeeding verses may be either explanatory of these, shewing how the Samaritans succeeded in frustrating the great purpose of the Jews in building their temple, which I believe to be the correct view, and that Ahasuerus is Cambyses-or they may be thought to carry on the history after Darius, so that the sixth verse might be rendered, “And also, afterwards, in the reign of Ahasuerus or Xerxes," &c.; and thus the Artaxerxes of the seventh verse might be supposed to be Longimanus, the son and successor of Xerxes. But be this as it may, I think it impossible, as our present copies stand, to identify the Artaxerxes of the eighth and following verses with any successor of Darius Hystaspes. Auberlen also may think that Josephus required us to identify Ahasuerus with Xerxes, and this may have assisted in disposing him to identify the Artaxerxes of the fourth of Ezra with Longimanus.

Poetry.

THE CROSS AND THE CROWN.

No blood, no altar now;

The sacrifice is o'er,

No flame, no smoke, ascends on high,

The Lamb is slain no more:

But richer blood has flow'd from nobler veins,

To purge the soul from guilt, and cleanse the reddest stains.

We thank Thee for the blood,

The blood of Christ Thy Son,

The blood by which our peace is made,

Our victory is won:

Great victory o'er hell, and sin, and woe,

That needs no second fight, and leaves no second foe.

We thank Thee for the grace
Descending from above-

That overflows our widest guilt-
The eternal Father's love :

Love of the Father's everlasting Son,

Love of the Holy Ghost, Jehovah, Three in One.

We thank Thee for the hope,
So glad, and sure, and clear;
It holds the drooping spirit up
Till the long dawn appear:

Fair hope with what a sunshine does it cheer
Our roughest path on earth, our dreariest desert here!

We thank Thee for the crown

Of glory and of life;

'Tis no poor with'ring wreath of earth,

Man's prize in mortal strife:

'Tis incorruptible as is the throne,

The kingdom of our God and His Incarnate Son.

NOTICE.

All readers of this Journal are most earnestly besought to give it room in their prayers; that by means of it God may be honoured and His truth advanced; also, that it may be conducted in faith and love, with sobriety of judgment and discernment of the truth, in nothing carried away into error, or hasty speech, or sharp unbrotherly disputation."

BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH,

THE QUARTERLY

JOURNAL OF PROPHECY.

JULY 1858.

ART. I.-READINGS IN FIRST CHRONICLES.

CHAP. IV. 1-23.-REMNANTS OF JUDAH.

A NONCONFORMIST of Canterbury, John Durant, writes a short treatise, in which he repeatedly speaks of Christ as "restless until He had appeared for us," even as He is now restless until The Day break. And this savoury writer explains his application of such a term to our Lord, by shewing how all along, from the very first, He was intimating His coming and making preparations for His coming. We are disposed to include such a portion of the Word as that before us in the number of proofs that the thought of redemption was ever present to the mind of our Great Head. For, in directing such a chronicle or register as this is to be written by the Holy Ghost, He has taken care to make it bear on the subject of His coming in the flesh, inasmuch as it is a document fitted to assure us of the fact that Judah (from which tribe Messiah came) was not dissipated and fused among the nations at the time of the Babylonish captivity, but was so carefully kept, that even the remnants of broken branches of its families were noted down. Nor is this all. A document like the present reads us a lesson as to His Second Coming also. For we shall see that it is meant to distinguish and put honour upon those of Judah who returned from exile to re-people the land in which Messiah was

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to appear; and in so doing, it reminds us of the reward awaiting all who give up houses and lands and friends for their Lord, in the day when He opens His book of remembrance.

Ver. 1.-" The sons of Judah; Pharez, Hezron,* and Carmi, and Hur, and Shobal."

We are familiar with these names already; they all occurred in chap. ii. 4, 5, 9, 19-50. But they are again brought before us in order to form the ground of three divisions into which the names about to be mentioned are intended to be parcelled. We are about to hear a few things concerning some that descended from these heads, beginning with the last first. The three divisions are as follows:

1. Families from Shobal and his father Hur, ver. 2-4.

2. Families from Carmi and his great-grandfather Hezron, ver. 5-20.

3. Families from cotemporaries of Pharez, son of Judah, ver. 21-23.

We are aware that Bertheau has attempted to make out in these verses the exact number of twelve races, by constituting Coz, Chelub, and Kenaz the heads of new families. Ewald, also, tries the same, but does so by a different arrangement. Both attempts fail to convince the reader, being quite arbitrary; and even if they could be established, what would we gain by finding in Judah a subdivision into twelve families, in imitation of the twelve tribes? Far more important is Bertheau's idea that in this chapter we have recorded only a selection of names, and those the names of persons whose descendants came up from Babylon. We shall have occasion to make use of some of his references to Nehemiah and Ezra that go far to establish this interesting point: but we retain our own threefold division.

ron.

* We have made a mistake in our remarks on chap. ii. 24 regarding HezWe should have said that it appears that, soon after his marriage with Abiah, Hezron died, while residing at the town of which his descendants, the sons of Caleb, took possession at a later period, and to which they gave a new appellation, intended to combine commemoratively the name of Caleb and his wife, viz., Caleb-Ephratah—a felicitous combination, for it speaks of “Basketstore abundance." Hezron was a remote ancestor of Caleb's (ver. 9); but this verse seems to intimate that even before Israel left Egypt, Hezron had gone up to Canaan, and had died at the place afterwards known as Ephratah or Bethlehem. Interesting glimpse! It discovers to us the sons of Judah impatient of Egypt, and fain to anticipate the time of taking possession ; and it shews us that one of the sites fixed on at the very earliest period was Bethlehem! Perhaps Gen. xxxviii. 1 may suggest a reason why Judah's grandsons visited that neighbourhood in preference to other spots, Adullam being very near Bethlehem, and the friendship between the Adullamite and Judah being cherished by his descendants.

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