SCRIPTURE STUDIES

 VOLUME TWO - THE TIME IS AT HAND

 STUDY II

BIBLE CHRONOLOGY

Chronology Necessary to an Understanding of Prophecy — Indispensable Data Furnished in the Bible — From the Creation of Adam to A.D. 1873 was Six Thousand Years — A Statement of Bible Chronology in Great Periods — Its Examination in Detail — From Creation to the Day the Flood was Dried Up — To the Abrahamic Covenant — To the Giving of the Law — To the Division of Canaan among the Tribes — The Period of the Judges — The Period of the Kings — The Period of the Desolation — To A.D. 1873 — Wherein this Chronology Differs from that of Bishop Usher, Noted in our English Bibles — The True Date of our Lord’s Birth.

          IN this chapter we present the Bible evidence which indicates that six thousand years from the creation of Adam were complete with A.D. 1872; and hence that, since 1872 A.D., we are chronologically entered upon the seventh thousand or the Millennium—the forepart of which, the “Day of the Lord,” the “day of trouble,” is to witness the breaking into pieces of the kingdoms of this world and the establishment of the Kingdom of God under the whole heavens.

          Chronology is necessary, too, as a basis for the examination of the prophetic periods.  We must ascertain first of all where we are on the stream of time; and to do this, we must have reliable dates for the calculation; hence we take up the subject of chronology first in order.  And a complete chronology of human history must of necessity begin with the creation of man.

          The length of time since the creation of man is variously estimated.  Among those who accept the Bible record, there can be but little difference of opinion; but among those who reject it, the differences are enormous, varying all the [page 34] way from ten thousand to hundreds of thousands of years. These suppositions are based upon facts which afford but slight ground for such extravagant and reckless conclusions. For instance, the finding of flint arrowheads in the peat bogs of Switzerland and Ireland, at a considerable depth below the surface, is taken as a proof that their level was once the surface, and that the peat mosses gradually grew up around and above them; and the time necessary for such a growth is calculated from the present rate of growth per century, which is very slight.  If their premises were true, of course it would prove that man had lived hundreds of thousands of years ago.  But other geologists will show, and with good reason, that these peat bogs were once so soft that a flint arrowhead might easily sink to a great depth gradually, during a few centuries.

          Another instance we quote: “In making soundings in the slimy soil of the Nile valley two baked bricks were discovered, one at a depth of twenty, the other of twenty-four yards.  If we estimate the thickness of the annual deposit formed by the river at eight inches a century, we must assign to the first of these bricks an age of 12,000 years and to the second that of 14,000.  By means of analogous calculations, Burmeister [a celebrated geologist] supposes seventy-two thousand years to have elapsed since the first appearance of man upon the soil of Egypt; and Draper [another noted geologist] attributes to the European man who witnessed the last glacial epoch an antiquity of more than 250,000 years.”*

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*Prof. N. Joly, in “Man Before Metals,” page 183. 

          Of course “if we estimate” just as these great men do, we should reach the same great conclusions.  But some of us are unscientific enough to inquire, whether it is not more than probable that the slime deposits of the Nile river have been [page 35] very irregular, as of other rivers, which sometimes shift their beds and wash away their banks wonderfully in a single freshet.  Again, we remember the Flood of Noah’s day, not only particularly mentioned in the Bible, but preserved in the oldest traditions of the heathen nations, and we wonder how much slime and debris that caused, over and above the eight inches a century.  We wonder, too, why it has not occurred to these great minds, as it naturally does to some not too great, that two bricks thrown into that “slimy soil,” at a time when it was covered with water and very soft, would sink quite a distance by their own weight, being so much more dense than the slimy soil.  As for the difference in depth of the two bricks, it would seem to an unscientific mind much more reasonable to suppose that the one fell into the slime edge-wise, or end-wise, while the other, falling flat, would sink more slowly, than to suppose that men living two thousand years apart made two bricks exactly alike.

          It is not many years since the skeleton of a man was found in a former bed of the Mississippi river, and some geologists began to calculate how many thousands of years might be indicated by the many feet of silt, slime, etc., covering the skeleton, and fancied they had a very valuable sample of prehistoric man.  But finding later, several feet below the skeleton, parts of a “flat boat,” such as was in use on the Mississippi less than fifty years ago, it completely upset the calculations, and relieved mankind of “another proof” that the world is hundreds of thousands of years older than the Bible teaches.

          Leaving the discordant and wholly unreliable guessing of some geologists on this subject of chronology, we appeal to human history for information.  And what do we find? The history of the oldest of the Gentile nations can be traced back clearly and distinctly less than three thousand years.  Back of that all is dark, uncertain, mythical, fabulous, [page 36] and untrustworthy tradition.  Roman history does not extend so far back, as it is only twenty-seven hundred years since Rome was founded, and then its first centuries are wrapped in uncertain tradition.  Three thousand years back in the Babylonian, Syrian, and Egyptian histories bring us to a period where their records are fragmentary and involved in great obscurity.  In the history of China, it brings us to the Tchou dynasty, where the events of Chinese history “begin to be more trustworthy.”  In Greece, noted for its scholarship in the past three thousand years, with whom above all nations we might expect to find accurate history, what do we find?  We find its dates accurate for the last twenty-six hundred years, but no farther back.  Back of that, we come to what is known as the “fabulous, mythical or prehistoric age” of Greece.  The only reasonable and connected account of the first three thousand years of man on the earth is found in the Bible; and this fact is surely in harmony with its claim to divine origin, direction and preservation.

          As with history, so with dates: the world has, aside from the Bible, no means of tracing its chronology farther back than B.C. 776.  On this subject we quote Prof. Fisher, of Yale College.  He says: “An exact method of establishing dates was slowly reached.  The invention of eras was indispensable to this end.  The earliest definite time for the dating of events was established in Babylon—the era of Nabonassar, 747 B.C.  The Greeks (from about 300 B.C.) dated events from the first recorded victory at the Olympic games, 776 B.C.  These games occurred every fourth year. Each Olympiad was thus a period of four years.  The Romans, though not for some centuries after the founding of Rome, dated from that event; i.e., from 753 B.C.”

          In further evidence that the many so-called histories of the remote past so abound with vagaries and mythical traditions [page 37] as to make them valueless as to chronological data, and wholly unworthy of consideration, we quote as follows from the American Cyclopedia, under the caption, Chronology:

          “The history of ancient nations, unless we make an exception in the case of the Hebrews, goes back into mythical periods of thousands or millions of years; and even after the records begin to assume a historical aspect, the discrepancies are very great....The Assyrian, Babylonian and Egyptian inscriptions are in extinct languages, and in characters long obsolete....Greek and Roman dates are generally well authenticated to the first Olympiad, B.C. 776, and the establishment of the Consulate, B.C. 510, previous to which they are mainly traditional or legendary. Herodotus is valuable only as to events of his own time, about 450 B.C., and those of a century or two earlier.”

          Clinton in his work on Grecian Chronology (page 283) says, “The history contained in the Hebrew Scriptures presents a remarkable and pleasing contrast to the early accounts of the Greeks.  In the latter we trace with difficulty a few obscure facts preserved to us by the poets, who transmitted, with all the embellishments of poetry and fable, what they had received from oral tradition.  In the annals of the Hebrew nation, we have authentic narratives written by contemporaries under the guidance of inspiration.  What they have delivered to us comes accordingly under a double sanction.  They were aided by divine inspiration, in recording facts upon which, as mere human witnesses, their evidence would be valid.”

          The Bible, our God-provided history of the first three thousand years, is the only work in the world which—beginning with Adam, the first man mentioned in history, monument or inscription, whose name, the time of his creation and death are recorded, and from whom his descendants [page 38] can be traced by name and age in successive links for nearly four thousand years—furnishes us a clear and connected history down to a period where secular history is well authenticated. As we shall see, the Bible record extends to the first year of Cyrus, B.C. 536, a well established and generally accepted date.  There the thread of Bible chronology is dropped—at a point where secular history is reliable.  God has thus provided for his children a clear and connected record down to the present time.  The Bible by its prophecies even supplements history, down to the consummation of “the restitution of all things,” in the end of the seventh millennium, whence the new era of eternal blessedness will begin to date.  The Bible is therefore the only record in the world which furnishes a view of human history as a whole.  It carries us from the lost paradise of Genesis to the restored paradise of Revelation, tracing the pathway of humanity into eternity.  Taken together, the history and prophecy of the Bible afford a panoramic view of the whole course of events from the creation and fall of man to his reconciliation and restitution.  The Bible, therefore, is the chart of all history.  Without it, as has been truly said, history would be “like rivers flowing from unknown sources to unknown seas”; but under its guidance we may trace these rivers to their springs, yea, and see their glorious ending in the ocean of eternity. 

          In the Bible alone, therefore, we may expect to find a record which will order aright the inharmonious periods and chronological irregularities which the annals of human history at first sight present—into harmony with each other and with the periods of nature. 

          In starting with the question, How long is it since man’s creation? we should and do feel confident that he who gave the prophecies, and said that in the time of the end they should be understood, has provided in his Word the data necessary to enable us accurately to locate those prophecies. [page 39] However, any who expect to find these matters so plainly stated as to be convincing to the mere surface reader, or the insincere skeptic, will be disappointed.  God’s times and seasons are given in such a way as to be convincing, at this time, only to those who, by acquaintance with God, are able to recognize his characteristic methods.  The evidence is given “that the man of God may be thoroughly furnished.” (2 Tim. 3:17)  These well know that in all the paths by which their Father leads they must walk by faith and not by sight.  To all who are prepared to walk thus, we expect to be able to point out, at every step, solid statements of God’s Word—a sure foundation for reasonable faith. 

          We will not here discuss the merits of the Septuagint and Hebrew versions of the Old Testament Scriptures, their difference in chronological data, etc., but will satisfy ourselves, and we trust the reader, with the statement that the former was a translation by Egyptians, while the latter is the original Hebrew record; which facts, taken in connection with the almost superstitious veneration with which the Hebrews guarded every jot and tittle of those sacred writings, is strong evidence of the reliability of the Hebrew version.  Its acceptance by scholars is quite general, and in this volume we follow its dates, etc. 

          Here we furnish the evidence that from the creation of Adam to A.D. 1873 was six thousand years.  And though the Bible contains no direct statement that the seventh thousand will be the epoch of Christ’s reign, the great Sabbath Day of restitution to the world, yet the venerable tradition is not without a reasonable foundation.  The law given to Israel, the typical people, appointing that six days of labor and weariness should be followed by one of refreshment and rest from their own works, seems fitly to illustrate the [page 40] six thousand years in which the whole creation labors and groans under the bondage of sin and death (Rom. 8:22) in a vain endeavor to extricate itself, and the grand Millennial Day in which the weary and heavy laden may come to Christ Jesus, the shepherd and bishop of their souls, and through him find rest, refreshment and restitution—in which, through the merits of his precious blood, they may find repentance and remission of sins.  On the typical seventh day he inquired of the impotent man, “Wilt thou be made whole?” and in answer to his faith and obedience gave him strength to take up his bed and walk.  (See John 5:6-9; also Matt. 12:10,13; John 7:23; Luke 13:11-16; 14:1-5.) So, during the antitypical Sabbath, the Millennium, it will be declared to all the world that “whosoever will” may have life and health eternal if he will take the steps of faith and obedience. 

          We must not overlook the fact already noted (Vol. I, Chap. VIII), that the term day is indefinite, and signifies merely a period of time, whether of long or of short duration. The Apostle Peter intimated that the seventh thousand-year period of the world’s history would be the seventh day in God’s reckoning, saying, “Beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day....The day of the Lord will come,” etc. 2 Pet. 3:8,10 

          If, then, the seventh thousand-year period of earth’s history be an epoch specially noted as the period of Christ’s reign, we shall, by showing that it began in A.D. 1873, be proving that we are already in it.  This calls to mind what we have already noted in the preceding volume, that the Scriptures indicate that the dawn of the Millennium, or Day of the Lord, will be dark and stormy, and full of trouble upon the world and upon the nominal church, though its earliest dawning light will be full of comfort and cheer to the saints, [page 41] who draw their comfort and peace from the hope set before them in the gospel, which, as an anchor, enters beyond the time of trouble, and fastens in the precious promises of the Millennial sunrise and glory: they see, beyond the time of trouble, the glorious reign and blessings promised. 

          The general condition of the world today, and the rapid development since 1873 of Socialism, Nihilism and Communism, whose avowed object is the overturning of the powers that be, and the redistribution of the wealth of the world, are certainly not out of harmony with what we should expect, however much, in some respects, these things may be deprecated by those who love law and order and peace.  Only those who see that the coming anarchy and trouble are God’s agencies for the establishment of a yet more complete law and order, and a more lasting peace, will be relieved from overwhelming fear as they pass through it. 

          Nor is this pointing out of the seventh epoch, or Millennium, the only value of chronology; for while we shall present several lines of prophecy entirely independent of chronology, it is the measure by which several lines of prophecy are established.  The perfect agreement between these two classes of prophetic teaching, some dependent on, and some independent of, chronology, is very strong proof, not only of the correctness of those applications, but also of the correctness of the chronology which shows this harmony; on the same principle that a key which will unlock a treasure-casket difficult to open is evidently the true key. The chronology given below harmonizes the various prophetic statements relating to Christ’s Kingdom and its establishment, by showing their relative order and time. Chronology is the stem or handle by which all the prophetic time-proofs, as notches or wards of the key, are held together and operated. [page 42] 

A CONDENSED STATEMENT OF

CHRONOLOGY TO THE YEAR A.M. 6000

            The following condensed statement of chronological periods may properly be termed Bible chronology, because the Bible record alone is followed down to the first year of Cyrus, B.C. 536, a date well authenticated and generally accepted by scholars.  Here the thread of Bible chronology ends—a little beyond the period where secular history begins to be reliable.  This, in itself, is a marked evidence of divine direction and oversight, in helping us only where we are unable to help ourselves.

From the Creation of Adam

            As we consider particularly each of these periods, let the reader figure it out for himself, and see how firm a foundation for our faith is laid in God’s Word.  Two breaks in the historic narrative of the Old Testament we shall find, yet when we discover that in the New Testament God has provided bridges to span these two chasms, it should increase our confidence that God so arranged the record as to hide his times and seasons, until his due time for revealing them [page 43] had come—just as he has done with other truths already noticed.

            We will now examine the foregoing periods separately, and in their order as named above, down to the reign of Cyrus.  Have your Bible at hand and verify every quotation, that you may receive this as God’s Word and not as man’s.

Chronology of the Period from the Creation
of Adam to the Day the Flood was Dried Up

          Nothing more simple and exact to a day than this could be asked.  Let us now examine the next period. [page 44]

The Period from the Flood to the Covenant with
Abraham, at the Death of Terah, his Father

          This, too, is very simple and exact.  But the next period is not so easily traced; for the direct line of chronology is broken, until after the exodus of Israel from Egypt.  Hence we would be quite unable to proceed, were it not that Paul and Stephen, as the mouthpieces of the Spirit, furnish the connecting link.

The Period from the Covenant with Abraham
to the Giving of the Law

          Paul declares that the length of this period was four hundred and thirty years. (Gal. 3:17)  The Covenant included [page 45] the promise of the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession, and though several times reaffirmed, to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, it was always the same covenant.  (See Gen. 12:7,8; 13:14-18; 26:3,4; 35:9-12; 46:2-4; 50:24.)  As shown by a comparison of Gen. 12:1-5,7 and Acts 7:2-5, the covenant was made (according to previous promise) as soon as Abraham had fully complied with the conditions on which he was to receive it: that was, as soon as he had entered Canaan, which he did immediately after the decease of his father, who died in Haran, on the way to Canaan. Having the date of the covenant—just after Terah’s death—thus established by Stephen’s statement, and having Paul’s statement, that the Law was four hundred and thirty years after the covenant, the break in the Old Testament chronology is thus bridged by the New.  But let us read the account carefully, and mark the particularity with which the bridge is constructed: 

          “Now the Lord had [previously, before he left Mesopotamia, or Ur of the Chaldees] said unto Abraham, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house [brethren, etc.] unto a land that I will show thee; and [if you do so] I will make of thee a great nation,” etc. (Gen. 12:1,2.  Compare Acts 7:2.)  This indicates that God had proposed the covenant to Abraham before Terah, his father, died, and before he came to dwell in Haran or Charran.  But there was a stipulation which demanded Abraham’s faith and obedience before the covenant should be actually made.  This stipulation was that he must manifest faith in the promise that such a covenant would be made with him, by leaving his native country and kindred and going to the land to which he was directed.  This Abraham did, and as his wife, his nephew Lot and his aged father shared his faith and desired to share his fortunes with him, they were permitted to do so, and the four started for [page 46] the land of promise.  His father Terah died on the way, in Haran, after which Abraham passed over into Canaan, that there he might secure and bind the covenant.  As Stephen declared to Israel: “When his father was dead, he removed him into this land wherein ye now dwell.”  “So Abraham departed [out of Haran] as the Lord had spoken unto him.” (Acts 7:4; Gen. 12:4)  And the covenant was made just after he entered the land.  (See Gen. 12:5-7.)  Thus we have the date of the covenant, and the beginning of the four hundred and thirty years, fixed as immediately following Terah’s death, and the chain of chronology complete to the giving of the Law.  The first feature of the Law was the Passover, which was instituted the same day that Israel left Egypt. Exod. 12:41-43,47,50,51

          In harmony with this we read: “Now the sojourning of the children of Israel who dwelt in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years; and it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the self-same day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.” Exod. 12:40-42,51

          Some may suppose that the statements of Moses and Paul (Exod. 12:40-42 and Gal. 3:17) are not in harmony, the one affirming that the sojourning of Israel was four hundred and thirty years, and the other, that from the covenant with Abraham to the giving of the Law was four hundred and thirty years, reasoning that if only four hundred and thirty years elapsed between Abraham’s coming into Canaan and the giving of the Law, the sojourn of the children of Israel in Egypt must have been much less.  But it should be observed that the statement is not that Israel sojourned in Egypt four hundred and thirty years, but that the whole length of the sojourning of that people who for some time lived in Egypt lasted four hundred and thirty [page 47] years: “Now the sojourning of the children of Israel who dwelt in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years.”  The sojourning referred to began when Abraham first came into Canaan. (Heb. 11:8,9)  Israel sojourned in Abraham and in Isaac and in Jacob, even as Levi paid tithes to Melchizedec, while yet in the loins of his father. Heb. 7:9,10 

          The covenant with Abraham took effect from the time that, leaving Haran or Charran, he set foot in Canaan, the land of promise.  From that time, he and all Israel in him, yet unborn, became heirs of the things promised, and sojourners, or pilgrims, waiting on God for the fulfilment of the promise.  This sojourning had lasted four hundred and thirty years, to a day, when Israel left Egypt, and received that first feature of the Law, the institution of the Passover. The statements of Moses and Paul, therefore, refer to precisely the same period, thus giving most positive evidence that from the covenant with Abraham to the giving of the Law was four hundred and thirty years.  Paul gave special emphasis to the fact that the Passover must be regarded as the beginning of the Law (which Moses also shows, Exod. 12:42,43,47,50), and Moses gave special emphasis to the exactness of the period, to a day.

          Thus we have our third period clearly established.  And when we mark the Lord’s particularity to a day, in furnishing this link in the chain of chronology, it gives us strong confidence, especially when we consider that such particularity was probably of no special interest to the Church of the past, and was given for no other than the present use.

Period from the Exodus to the Division
of Canaan among the Tribes

          Israel’s forty years, or “day of temptation in the wilderness” (Deut. 8:2; Psa. 95:8-10; Heb. 3:8,9), was followed by [page 48] six years of war in Canaan, and the dividing of the land among the tribes.  One year, one month and five days elapsed from their going out of Egypt to their leaving Sinai for Paran. (Num. 33:3; 10:11-13)  And it was then, from Kadesh-barnea in the wilderness of Paran, that the spies were sent. (Num. 13:3-26; 32:8-13)  One of these, Caleb, when applying for his portion at the division of the land (Joshua 11:23; 10:42), said, “Forty years old was I when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh-barnea to espy out the land, and I brought him word again....And now, behold, the Lord hath kept me alive, as he said, these forty and five years, even since the Lord spake this word...while Israel wandered in the wilderness; and now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old.” (Joshua 14:7,10)  Thus it will be seen that it was forty-five years from the spying of the land to its division among the tribes, as affirmed by Joshua, and a little over a year from the exodus to the sending of the spies, making forty-six full years and a fraction* from the exodus to the division of the land.  As the first forty years of this period were passed in the wilderness, as shown by many scriptures, notably Acts 7:36 and Heb. 3:9, the remaining six to the division of the land were spent in Canaan, conquering and taking possession of the land of promise.

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*We take account of only the complete years, more accurate account  being impossible.  Sometimes, as above, the years are fractionally long.  And again some are short, as in the case of Zedekiah’s reign.  Zedekiah is  said to have reigned eleven years (2 Chron. 36:11; Jer. 52:1); yet, from  verses 3 to 7 of the latter chapter, it is clear that his actual reign was  ten years four months and nine days.  We believe that these fractional parts  of years counterbalance themselves; and that the Lord has thus overruled  and arranged the matter is our confidence, supported by the outcome  and the results deducible from it, and the accuracy to a day, even in large  periods, already noticed.  As illustrating God’s care and particularity in  this matter, see Gen. 7:11,13; Exod. 12:40,41.

[page 49]

The Period of the Judges

          We come now to the most difficult portion of chronology, the period from the division of the land to the anointing of Saul as king.  It is usually termed the period of the Judges, though the Judges did not fill the office continuously.  The record given in the books of Judges and 1 Samuel mentions nineteen periods, approximating a total of four hundred and fifty years; but they are disconnected, broken, lapped and tangled so much that we could arrive at no definite conclusion from them, and should be obliged to conclude as others have done, that nothing positive could be known on the subject, were it not that the New Testament supplies the deficiency.  Paul states that after God divided their land to them by lot, “He gave unto them Judges about [during] the space of four hundred and fifty years, until Samuel the Prophet.  Afterward they desired a king, and God gave unto them Saul.” Acts 13:19-21

          The Greek word rendered about in the common version is hos, and has the significance of during, or while.  The same writer uses the word in three other places where the common version translates it while, viz.: Acts 1:10; 10:17; Luke 24:32. This passage would be better translated, “He gave unto them Judges during the space of four hundred and fifty years.”  The Syriac reads thus—“And for four hundred and fifty years he gave them Judges, until Samuel the prophet”—the last of the “Judges.”

          The statement of the length of this period of the Judges, by the Apostle, we accept as a specially designed solution of the problem.  In only two instances—the four hundred and thirty years from the Covenant to the Law, and this period of the Judges—is there any reasonable uncertainty about the Old Testament chronology, and both are clearly stated in the New.  Can we suppose that this merely happened so? [page 50] It is more reasonable to suppose that God first hid the matter, by leaving the Old Testament record incomplete, and later supplied the deficiency in the New Testament, so that in due time, when attention should be called to it, those having sufficient interest to compare the accounts might find the missing links supplied in a manner calculated to teach dependence upon the Great Time-Keeper.

The Period of the Kings

          Saul’s reign was in or during the space of forty years following the last Judge, until David was anointed king, as shown above; and following him, the periods of the kings in the line of David are easily traced in Chronicles, thus:

[page 51]

The Seventy Years of Desolation

            This brings us to the period of the desolation of the land, which lasted seventy years, and was ended by the restoration of its people from Babylon, in the first year of Cyrus, B.C. 536 (See 2 Chron. 36:20,23), a date well established in secular history, and beyond which the line of Bible chronology does not extend.

Period from the Restoration to A.D. 1873

            The period from the time of the restoration of the Jews from Babylon, at the close of the seventy years desolation of their land, in the first year of Cyrus, down to the date known as A.D. 1, is not covered by Bible history.  But, as before stated, it is well established by secular history as a period of 536 years.  Ptolemy, a learned Greek-Egyptian, a geometer and astronomer, has well established these figures. They are generally accepted by scholars, and known as Ptolemy’s Canon. 

            Thus we have found a clear and connected line of chronology from creation to the beginning of the Christian era (A.D.)—in all, a period of four thousand one hundred and twenty-eight (4128) years, which, together with eighteen hundred and seventy-two years of the Christian era, make six thousand years from creation to the year 1873 A.D.

This and Usher's Chronology Compared

            It will be interesting to some to know wherein the above chronology differs from that inserted in the margin of the common version of the Bible, known as Usher’s Chronology. The difference between the two, down to the time of the seventy years of desolation, is one hundred and twenty-four (124) years.  This difference is made up of four periods of 18,4,2 and 100 years—as follows: [page 52]

            Usher dates the seventy years desolation eighteen years earlier than shown above—i.e., before the dethronement of Zedekiah, Judah’s last king—because he figured the king of Babylon took many of the people captive at that time.* (2 Chron. 36:9,10,17; 2 Kings 24:8-16)  He evidently makes the not uncommon mistake of regarding those seventy years as the period of captivity, whereas the Lord expressly declares them to be seventy years of desolation of the land, that the land should lie “desolate, without an inhabitant.” Such was not the case prior to Zedekiah’s dethronement. (2 Kings 24:14)  But the desolation which followed Zedekiah’s overthrow was complete; for, though some of the poor of the land were left to be vine-dressers and husbandmen (2 Kings 25:12), shortly even these—“all people, both small and great”—fled to Egypt for fear of the Chaldees. (Verse 26)  There can be no doubt here: and therefore in reckoning the time to the desolation of the land, all periods up to the close of Zedekiah’s reign should be counted in, as we have done.

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*Note, however, this partial captivity occurred eleven, not eighteen, years  before the dethronement of King Zedekiah.

            The four years difference is in the reign of Jehoram.  Usher gives it as a reign of four years, while the Bible says it was eight years. 2 Chron. 21:5; 2 Kings 8:17 

            Of the two years difference, one year is found in the term of the reign of Ahaz, which Usher gives as fifteen, while the Bible says it was sixteen years. (2 Chron. 28:1; 2 Kings 16:2) And the other is in the term of Jehoash, which Usher reckons as thirty-nine, while the Bible gives it as forty years. 2 Kings 12:1; 2 Chron. 24:1 

            These differences can be accounted for only by supposing that Usher followed, or attempted to follow, Josephus, a Jewish historian whose chronological dates are now generally recognized as reckless and faulty.  We rely on the Bible alone, believing that God is his own interpreter. 

            Aside from thes