But it had one drawback, which the ancients could not have been expected to foresee. The effect of "precession," alluded to in the chapter on "The Origin of the Constellations," p. 158, would be to throw the beginning of the year, as thus determined, gradually later and later in the seasons,—roughly speaking, by a day in every seventy years,—and the time came, no doubt, when it was noticed that the terrestrial seasons no longer bore their traditional relation to the year. This probably happened at some time in the seventh or eighth centuries before our era, and was connected with the astronomical revolution that has been alluded to before; when the ecliptic was divided into twelve equal divisions, not associated with the actual stars, the Signs were substituted for the Constellations of the Zodiac, and the Ram was taken as the leader instead of the Bull. The equinox was then determined by direct measurement of the length of the day and night; for a tablet of about this period records—

"On the sixth day of the month Nisan the day and night were equal. The day was six double-hours (kasbu), and the night was six double-hours."

So long as Capella was used as the indicator star, so long the year must have begun with the sun in Taurus, the Bull; but when the re-adjustment was made, and the solar tropical year connected with the equinox was substituted for the sidereal year connected with the return of the sun to a particular star, it would be seen that the association of the beginning of the year with the sun's presence in any given constellation could no longer be kept up. The necessity for an artificial division of the zodiac would be felt, and that artificial division clearly was not made until the sun at the spring equinox was unmistakably in Aries, the Ram; or about 700 B.C.

The eclipse of 1063 B.C. incidentally proves that the old method of fixing Nisan by the conjunction of the moon and Capella was then still in use; for the eclipse took place on July 31, which is called in the record "the 26th of Sivan." Sivan being the third month, its 26th day could not have fallen so late, if the year had begun with the equinox; but it would have so fallen if the Capella method were still in vogue.

There is a set of symbols repeated over and over again on Babylonian monuments, and always given a position of eminence;—it is the so-called "Triad of Stars," a crescent lying on its back and two stars near it. They are seen very distinctly at the top of the photograph of the boundary-stone from the Louvre, given on p. 318, and also immediately above the head of the Sun-god in the photograph of the tablet from Sippar, on p. 322. Their significance is now clear. Four thousand years before the Christian era, the two Twin stars, Castor and Pollux, served as indicators of the first new moon of the year, just as Capella did two thousand years later. The "triad of stars," then, is simply a picture of what men saw, year after year, in the sunset sky at the beginning of the first month, six thousand years ago. It is the earliest record of an astronomical observation that has come down to us.



How simple and easy the observation was, and how distinctly the year was marked off by it! The month was marked off by the first sight of the new thin crescent in the evening sky. The day was marked off by the return of darkness, the evening hour in which, month by month, the new moon was first observed; so that "the evening and the morning were the first day." The year was marked off by the new moon being seen in the evening with a bright pair of stars, the stars we still know as the "Twins;" and the length of the year was shown by the evening of the month, when moon and stars came together. If on the first evening, it was a year of twelve months; if on the third, one of thirteen. There was a time when these three observations constituted the whole of primitive astronomy.

In later days the original meaning of the "Triad of Stars" would seem to have been forgotten, and they were taken as representing Sin, Samas, and Istar;—the Moon, the Sun and the planet Venus. Yet now and again a hint of the part they once played in determining the length of the year is preserved. Thus, on the tablet now in the British Museum, and shown on p. 322, sculptured with a scene representing the worship of the Sun-god in the temple of Sippar, these three symbols are shown with the explanatory inscription:—

"The Moon-god, the Sun-god, and Istar, dwellers in the abyss, Announce to the years what they are to expect;"

possibly an astrological formula, but it may well mean—"announce whether the years should expect twelve or thirteen months."

As already pointed out, this method had one drawback; it gave a sidereal year, not a tropical year, and this inconvenience must have been discovered, and Capella substituted for the Twin stars, long before the giving of the Law to Israel. The method employed by the priests of watching the progress of the ripening of the barley overcame this difficulty, and gave a year to Israel which, on the average, was a correct tropical one.

There is a detail in the history of the flood in Gen. vii. and viii. which has been taken by some as meant to indicate the length of the tropical year.

"In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened."

"And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, . . . in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried."

The interval from the commencement of the deluge to its close was therefore twelve lunar months and ten days; i. e. 364 or 365 days. The beginning of the rain would, no doubt, be sharply marked; the end of the drying would be gradual, and hence the selection of a day exactly (so far as we can tell) a full tropical year from the beginning of the flood would seem to be intentional. A complete year had been consumed by the judgment.

No such total interruption of the kindly succession of the seasons shall ever occur again:—

"While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."

The rain is no longer for judgment, but for blessing:—

"Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it, Thou greatly enrichest it; The river of God is full of water: Thou providest them corn, when Thou hast so prepared the earth. Thou waterest her furrows abundantly; Thou settlest the ridges thereof: Thou makest it soft with showers; Thou blessest the springing thereof. Thou crownest the year with Thy goodness."

FOOTNOTES:

[311:1] P. I. Hershon, Genesis with a Talmudical Commentary, p. 30.

[315:1] Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. xxxix. p. 455.



CHAPTER V

THE SABBATIC YEAR AND THE JUBILEE

The principle of the week with its sabbath of rest was carried partially into the month, and completely into the year. The seventh month of the year was marked out pre-eminently by the threefold character of its services, though every seventh month was not distinguished. But the weekly sabbath was expressed not only in days but in years, and was one both of rest and of release.

The sabbath of years was first enjoined from Mount Sinai, in the third month after the departure from Egypt, certainly within a day or so, if not on the actual day, of the second great feast of the year, variously known to the Hebrews as the Feast of Firstfruits, or the Feast of Weeks, and to us as Pentecost, that is Whitsuntide. It is most shortly given in Exod. xxi. 2, and xxiii. 10, 11:—

"If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing."

"Six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the fruits thereof: but the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still; that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thy oliveyard."

These laws are given at greater length and with fuller explanation in the twenty-fifth chapter of the Book of Leviticus. In addition there is given a promise of blessing for the fulfilment of the laws, and, in the twenty-sixth chapter, a sign to follow on their breach.

"If ye shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase: then I will command My blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years. And ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat yet of old fruit until the ninth year: until her fruits come in ye shall eat of the old store."

"Ye shall keep My sabbaths . . . and if ye walk contrary unto Me . . . I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste. Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths. As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it."

In the fifteenth chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy this sabbatic year is called a year of release. The specific injunctions here relate to loans made to a Hebrew and to a foreigner, and to the taking of a Hebrew into bondage. The laws as to loans had direct reference to the sabbath of the land, for since only Hebrews might possess the Holy Land, interest on a debt might not be exacted from a Hebrew in the sabbatic year, as the land did not then yield him wherewith he might pay. But loans to foreigners would be necessarily for commercial, not agricultural, purposes, and since commerce was not interdicted in the sabbatic year, interest on loans to foreigners might be exacted. Warning was given that the loans to a poor Hebrew should not be withheld because the sabbatic year was close at hand. The rules with respect to the Hebrew sold for debt into bondage are the same as those given in the Book of the Exodus.

In Deuteronomy it was also enjoined that—

"at the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the Feast of Tabernacles" (that is, in the feast of the seventh month), "when all Israel is come to appear before the Lord thy God in the place which He shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing."

We find no more mention of the sabbatic year until the reign of Zedekiah, the last king of Judah. He had made a covenant with all the people which were at Jerusalem, to proclaim liberty unto them, that every Hebrew bondservant should go free, but the princes and all the people caused their Hebrew bondservants to return and be in subjection to them. Then Jeremiah the prophet was sent to remind them of the covenant made with their fathers when they were brought out from the land of Egypt, from the house of bondmen; and in the Second Book of Chronicles it is said that the sign of the breaking of this covenant, already quoted from the Book of Leviticus, was being accomplished. The Captivity was—

"to fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil three-score and ten years."

After the exile, we find one reference to the sabbatic year in the covenant sealed by the princes, Levites, and priests and people, in the Book of Nehemiah:—

"That we would leave the seventh year, and the exaction of every debt."

Just as the Feast of Weeks was bound to the Feast of the Passover by numbering seven sabbaths from the day of the wave-offering—"even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days:"—so the year of Jubilee was bound to the sabbatic year:—

"Thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the Jubile to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a Jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family."

In this year of Jubilee all land, and village houses, and the houses of the Levites were to revert to their original owners. These, in other words, could be leased only, and not bought outright, the price of the lease depending upon the number of years until the next Jubilee. A foreigner might not buy a Hebrew outright as a bondslave; he could but contract with him as a servant hired for a term; this contract might be abolished by the payment of a sum dependent on the number of years until the next year of Jubilee, and in any case the Hebrew servant and his family must go out free at the year of Jubilee. In the last chapter of the Book of Numbers we get a reference again to the year of Jubilee, and indirect allusions to it are made by Isaiah, in "the acceptable year of the Lord" when liberty should be proclaimed, and in "the year of the redeemed." In his prophecy of the restoration of Israel, Ezekiel definitely refers to "the year of liberty," when the inheritance that has been granted to a servant shall return again to the prince.

The interpretation of the sabbatic year and the year of Jubilee has greatly exercised commentators. At what season did the sabbatic year begin? was it coterminous with the ecclesiastical year; or did it differ from it by six months? Was the year of Jubilee held once in every forty-nine years or once in every fifty? did it begin at the same season as the sabbatic year? did it interrupt the reckoning of the sabbatic year, so that a new cycle commenced immediately after the year of Jubilee; or was the sabbatic year every seventh, irrespective of the year of Jubilee? did the year of Jubilee always follow immediately on a sabbatic year, or did this only happen occasionally?

The problem will be much simpler if it is borne in mind that the Law, as originally proclaimed, was eminently practical and for practical men. The period of pedantry, of hair-splitting, of slavery to mere technicalities, came very late in Jewish history.

It is clear from what has been already said in the chapter on the year, that the only calendar year in the Old Testament was the sacred one, beginning with the month Abib or Nisan, in the spring. At the same time the Jews, like ourselves, would occasionally refer vaguely to the beginning, or the end, or the course of the year, without meaning to set up any hard and fast connection with the authorized calendar.

Now it is perfectly clear that the sabbatic year cannot have begun with the first day of the month Abib, because the first fruits were offered on the fifteenth of that month. That being so, the ploughing and the sowing must have taken place very considerably earlier. It is not possible to suppose that the Hebrew farmer would plough and sow his land in the last months of the previous year, knowing that he could not reap during the sabbatic year.

Similarly, it seems hardly likely that it was considered as beginning with the first of Tishri, inasmuch as the harvest festival, the Feast of the Ingathering, or Tabernacles, took place in the middle of that month. The plain and practical explanation is that, after the Feast of Tabernacles of the sixth year, the farmer would not again plough, sow, or reap his land until after the Feast of Tabernacles in the sabbatic year. The sabbatic year, in other words, was a simple agricultural year, and it did not correspond exactly with the ecclesiastical or with any calendar year.

For practical purposes the sabbatic year therefore ended with the close of the Feast of Tabernacles, when the Law was read before the whole people according to the command of Moses; and it practically began a year earlier.

The year of Jubilee appears in the directions of Lev. xxv. to have been most distinctly linked to the sabbatic year.

"The space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years, . . . and ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a Jubile unto you."

It would seem, therefore, that just as the week of days ran on continuously, uninterrupted by any feasts or fasts, so the week of years ran on continuously. And as the Feast of Pentecost was the 49th day from the offering of the first-fruits on the morrow of the Passover, so the Jubilee was the 49th year from the "morrow" of a sabbatic year; it followed immediately after a sabbatic year. The Jubilee was thus the 49th year from the previous Jubilee; it was the 50th from the particular sabbatic year from which the original reckoning was made.

Actually the year of Jubilee began before the sabbatic year was completed, because the trumpet of the Jubilee was to be blown upon the Day of Atonement, the 10th day of the seventh month—that is to say, whilst the sabbatic year was yet in progress. Indeed, literally speaking, this trumpet, "loud of sound," blown on the 10th day of the seventh month, was the Jubilee, that is to say, the sound of rejoicing, the joyful sound. A difficulty comes in here. The Israelites were commanded—

"Ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed. For it is the Jubile; it shall be holy unto you: ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field."

This would appear to mean that the Jubilee extended over a whole year following a sabbatic year, so that the land lay fallow for two consecutive years. But this seems negatived by two considerations. It is expressly laid down in the same chapter (Lev. xxv. 22) that the Israelites were to sow in the eighth year—that is to say, in the year after a sabbatic year, and the year of Jubilee would be always a year of this character. Further, if the next sabbatic year was the seventh after the one preceding the Jubilee, then the land would be tilled for only five consecutive years, not for six, though this is expressly commanded in Lev. xxv. 3. If, on the contrary, it was tilled for six years, then the run of the sabbatic years would be interrupted.

The explanation of this difficulty may possibly be found in the fact that that which distinguished the year of Jubilee was something which did not run through the whole circuit of the seasons. The land in that year was to return to its original owners. The freehold of the land was never sold; the land was inalienable, and in the year of Jubilee it reverted. "In the year of this Jubile ye shall return every man unto his possession."

It is quite clear that it could not have been left to the caprice of the owners of property as to when this transfer took place, or as to when such Hebrews as had fallen through poverty into slavery should be liberated. If the time were made optional, grasping men would put it off till the end of the year, and sooner or later that would be the general rule. There can be no doubt that the blowing of the trumpet on the 10th day of the seventh month was the proclamation of liberty throughout all the land and to all the inhabitants thereof; and that the transfer of the land must have taken place at the same time. The slave would return to the possession of his ancestors in time to keep, as a freeman, the Feast of Tabernacles on his own land. The four days between the great day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles were sufficient for this change to be carried out.

The term "Year of Jubilee" is therefore not to be taken as signifying that the events of the Jubilee were spread over twelve months, but simply, that it was the year in which the restoration of the Jubilee was accomplished. We speak of the king's "coronation year," though his coronation took place on but a single day, and the meaning that we should attach to the phrase would depend upon the particular sense in which we were using the word "year." Whilst, therefore, the Jubilee itself was strictly defined by the blowing of trumpets on the 10th day of the seventh month, it would be perfectly correct to give the title, "year of Jubilee," to any year, no matter in what season it commenced, that contained the day of that proclamation of liberty. It is also correct to say that it was the fiftieth year because it was placed at the very end of the forty-ninth year.

The difficulty still remains as to the meaning of the prohibition to sow or reap in the year of Jubilee. The command certainly reads as if the land was to lie fallow for two consecutive years; but it would seem an impracticable arrangement that the poor man returning to his inheritance should be forbidden to plough or sow until more than a twelvemonth had elapsed, and hence that he should be forbidden to reap until nearly two full years had run their course. It also, as already stated, seems directly contrary to the command to sow in the eighth year, which would also be the fiftieth. It may therefore be meant simply to emphasize the prohibition to sow and reap in the sabbatic year immediately preceding the Jubilee. The temptation would be great to a grasping man to get the most he could out of the land before parting with it for ever.

In spite of the strong array of commentators who claim that the Jubilees were to be held every fifty years as we moderns should compute it, there can be no doubt but that they followed each other at the same interval as every seventh sabbatic year; in other words, that they were held every 49 years. This is confirmed by an astronomical consideration. Forty-nine years make a convenient luni-solar cycle, reconciling the lunar month and the tropical solar year. Though not so good as the Metonic cycle of 19 years, it is quite a practical one, as the following table will show:—

3 years = 1095.73 days : 37 months = 1092.63 days 8 " = 2921.94 " : 99 " = 2923.53 " 11 " = 4017.66 " : 136 " = 4016.16 " 19 " = 6939.60 " : 235 " = 6939.69 " 49 " = 17896.87 " : 606 " = 17895.54 " 60 " = 21914.53 " : 742 " = 21911.70 "

The cycle of 49 years would therefore be amply good enough to guide the priestly authorities in drawing up their calendar in cases where there was some ambiguity due to the interruption of observations of the moon, and this was all that could be needed so long as the nation of Israel remained in its own land.

The cycle of 8 years is added above, since it has been stated that the Jews of Alexandria adopted this at one time from the Greeks. This was not so good as the cycle of 11 years would have been, and not to be compared with the combination of the two cycles in that of 19 years ascribed to Meton. The latter cycle was adopted by the Babylonian Jews, and forms the basis of the Jewish calendar in use to-day.



CHAPTER VI

THE CYCLES OF DANIEL

The cycle of 49 years, marked out by the return of the Jubilee, was a useful and practical one. It supplied, in fact, all that the Hebrews, in that age, required for the purposes of their calendar. The Babylonian basic number, 60, would have given—as will be seen from the table in the last chapter—a distinctly less accurate correspondence between the month and the tropical year.

There is another way of looking at the regulations for the Jubilee, which brings out a further significant relation. On the 10th day of the first month of any year, the lamb was selected for the Passover. On the 10th day of the seventh month of any year was the great Day of Atonement. From the 10th day of the first month of the first year after a Jubilee to the next blowing of the Jubilee trumpet on the great Day of Atonement, was 600 months, that is 50 complete lunar years. And the same interval necessarily held good between the Passover of that first year and the Feast of Tabernacles of the forty-ninth year. The Passover recalled the deliverance of Israel from the bondage of Egypt; and in like manner, the release to be given to the Hebrew slave at the year of Jubilee was expressly connected with the memory of that national deliverance.

"For they are My servants, which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as bondmen."

The day of Jubilee fell in the middle of the ecclesiastical year. From the close of the year of Jubilee—that is to say, of the ecclesiastical year in which the freeing, both of the bondmen and of the land, took place—to the next day of Jubilee was 48-1/2 solar years, or—as seen above—600 lunations, or 50 lunar years, so that there can be no doubt that the period was expressly designed to exhibit this cycle, a cycle which shows incidentally a very correct knowledge of the true lengths of the lunation and solar year.

This cycle was possessed by no other nation of antiquity; therefore the Hebrews borrowed it from none; and since they did not borrow the cycle, neither could they have borrowed the ritual with which that cycle was interwoven.

That the Hebrews possessed this knowledge throws some light upon an incident in the early life of the prophet Daniel.

"In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon unto Jerusalem, and besieged it. . . . And the king spake unto Ashpenaz the master of his eunuchs, that he should bring certain of the children of Israel, and of the king's seed, and of the princes; children in whom was no blemish, but well favoured, and skilful in all wisdom, and cunning in knowledge, and understanding science, and such as had ability in them to stand in the king's palace, and whom they might teach the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans. . . . Now among these were of the children of Judah, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah: unto whom the prince of the eunuchs gave names: for he gave unto Daniel the name of Belteshazzar; and to Hananiah, of Shadrach; and to Mishael, of Meshach; and to Azariah, of Abed-nego. . . . As for these four children, God gave them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom; and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams. Now at the end of the days that the king had said he should bring them in, then the prince of the eunuchs brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar. And the king communed with them; and among them all was found none like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah: therefore stood they before the king. And in all matters of wisdom and understanding, that the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were in all his realm."

The Hebrew children that king Nebuchadnezzar desired to be brought were to be already possessed of knowledge; they were to be further instructed in the learning and tongue of the Chaldeans. But when the four Hebrew children were brought before the king, and he communed with them, he found them wiser than his own wise men.

No account is given of the questions asked by the king, or of the answers made by the four young Hebrews; so it is merely a conjecture that possibly some question bearing on the calendar may have come up. But if it did, then certainly the information within the grasp of the Hebrews could not have failed to impress the king.

We know how highly the Greeks esteemed the discovery by Meton, in the 86th Olympiad, of that relation between the movements of the sun and moon, which gives the cycle of nineteen years, and similar knowledge would certainly have given king Nebuchadnezzar a high opinion of the young captives.

But there is evidence, from certain numbers in the book which bears his name, that Daniel was acquainted with luni-solar cycles which quite transcended that of the Jubilees in preciseness, and indicate a knowledge such as was certainly not to be found in any other ancient nation. The numbers themselves are used in a prophetic context, so that the meaning of the whole is veiled, but astronomical knowledge underlying the use of these numbers is unmistakably there.

One of these numbers is found in the eighth chapter.

"How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot? And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed."

The twelfth chapter gives the other number, but in a more veiled form:—

"And I heard the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand unto heaven, and sware by Him that liveth for ever that it shall be for a time, times, and an half; and when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished."

The numerical significance of the "time, times and an half," or, as it is expressed in the seventh chapter of Daniel, "until a time, and times, and the dividing of time," is plainly shown by the corresponding expressions in the Apocalypse, where "a time and times and half a time" would appear to be given elsewhere both as "forty and two months" and "a thousand, two hundred and three-score days." Forty-two conventional months—that is of 30 days each—make up 1260 days, whilst 3-1/2 conventional years of 360 days—that is twelve months of 30 days each—make up the same period. The word "times" is expressly used as equivalent to years in the eleventh chapter of Daniel, where it is said that the king of the north "shall come on at the end of the times, even of years, with a great army and with much substance." Then, again in the vision which Nebuchadnezzar had previous to his madness, he heard the watcher and the holy one cry concerning him:—

"Let his heart be changed from man's, and let a beast's heart be given unto him; and let seven times pass over him."

It has been generally understood that the "seven times" in this latter case meant "seven years." The "time, times and an half" are obviously meant as the half of "seven times."

The two numbers, 2,300 and 1,260, whatever be their significance in their particular context in these prophecies, have an unmistakable astronomical bearing, as the following table will show:—

2,300 solar years = 840,057 days, 1 hour. 28,447 lunar months = 840,056 " 16 hours. difference = 9 " 1,260 solar years = 460,205 " 4 " 15,584 lunar months = 460,204 " 17 " difference = " 11 "

If the one number 1,260 stood alone, the fact that it was so close a lunar cycle might easily be ascribed to a mere coincidence. Seven is a sacred number, and the days in the year may be conventionally represented as 360. Half the product of the two might, perhaps, seem to be a natural number to adopt for symbolic purposes. But the number 2,300 stands in quite a different category. It is not suggested by any combination of sacred numbers, and is not veiled under any mystic expression; the number is given as it stands—2,300. But 2,300 solar years is an exact number, not only of lunations, but also of "anomalistic" months. The "anomalistic month" is the time occupied by the moon in travelling from its perigee, that is its point of nearest approach to the earth, round to its perigee again. For the moon's orbit round the earth is not circular, but decidedly elliptical; the moon being 31,000 miles nearer to us at perigee than it is at apogee, its point of greatest distance. But it moves more rapidly when near perigee than when near apogee, so that its motion differs considerably from perfect uniformity.

But the period in which the moon travels from her perigee round to perigee again is 27 days, 13 hours, 18 minutes, 37 seconds, and there are in 2,300 solar years almost exactly 30,487 such periods or anomalistic months, which amount to 840,057 days, 2 hours.

If we take the mean of these three periods, that is to say 840,057 days, as being the cycle, it brings into harmony the day, the anomalistic month, the ordinary month, and the solar year. It is from this point of view the most perfect cycle known.

Dr. H. Grattan Guinness[343:1] has shown what a beautifully simple and accurate calendar could have been constructed on the basis of this period of 2,300 years; thus:—

2,300 solar years contain 28,447 synodic months, of which 847 are intercalary, or epact months. 2,300 years are 840,057 days:

Days. 27,600 {13,800 non-intercalary mths. of 29 d. each = 400,200 {13,800 " " " " 30 " = 414,000 847 {423 intercalary months of 30 days each = 12,690 {424 " " " 31 " " = 13,144 23 days additional for the 23 centuries = 23 ———- 840,057

The Jewish calendar on this system would have consisted of ordinary months, alternately 29 and 30 days in length. The intercalary months would have contained alternately 30 or 31 days, and once in every century one of the ordinary months would have had an additional day. Or, what would come to very much the same thing, this extra day might have been added at every alternate Jubilee.

By combining these two numbers of Daniel some cycles of extreme astronomical interest have been derived by De Cheseaux, a Swiss astronomer of the eighteenth century, and by Dr. H. Grattan Guinness, and Dr. W. Bell Dawson in our own times. Thus, the difference between 2,300 and 1,260 is 1,040, and 1,040 years give an extremely exact correspondence between the solar year and the month, whilst the mean of the two numbers gives us 1,780, and 1,780 lunar years is 1,727 solar years with extreme precision. But since these are not given directly in the Book of Daniel, and are only inferential from his numbers, there seems no need to comment upon them here.

It is fair, however, to conclude that Daniel was aware of the Metonic cycle. The 2300-year cycle gives evidence of a more accurate knowledge of the respective lengths of month and year than is involved in the cycle of 19 years. And the latter is a cycle which a Jew would be naturally led to detect, as the number of intercalary months contained in it is seven, the Hebrew sacred number.

The Book of Daniel, therefore, itself proves to us that king Nebuchadnezzar was perfectly justified in the high estimate which he formed of the attainments of the four Hebrew children. Certainly one of them, Daniel, was a better instructed mathematician and astronomer than any Chaldean who had ever been brought into his presence.

We have the right to make this assertion, for now we have an immense number of Babylonian records at our command; and can form a fairly accurate estimate as to the state there of astronomical and mathematical science at different epochs. A kind of "quasi-patriotism" has induced some Assyriologists to confuse in their accounts of Babylonian attainments the work of times close to the Christian era with that of many centuries, if not of several millenniums earlier; and the times of Sargon of Agade, whose reputed date is 3800 B.C., have seemed to be credited with the astronomical work done in Babylon in the first and second centuries before our era. This is much as if we should credit our predecessors who lived in this island at the time of Abraham with the scientific attainments of the present day.

The earlier astronomical achievements at Babylon were not, in any real sense, astronomical at all. They were simply the compilation of lists of crude astrological omens, of the most foolish and unreasoning kind. Late in Babylonian history there were observations of a high scientific order; real observations of the positions of moon and planets, made with great system and regularity. But these were made after Greek astronomy had attained a high level, and Babylon had come under Greek rule.

Whether this development of genuine astronomical observation was of native origin, or was derived from their Greek masters, is not clear. If it was native, then certainly the Babylonians were not able to use and interpret the observations which they made nearly so well as were Greek astronomers, such as Eudoxus, Thales, Pythagoras, Hipparchus and many others.

But it must not be supposed that, though their astronomical achievements have been grossly, even ludicrously, exaggerated by some popular writers, the Babylonians contributed nothing of value to the progress of the science. We may infer from such a tablet as that already quoted on page 320, when the equinox was observed on the 6th day of Nisan, since there were 6 kasbu of day and 6 kasbu of night, that some mechanical time-measurer was in use. Indeed, the record on one tablet has been interpreted as noting that the astronomer's clock or clepsydra had stopped. If this be so, then we owe to Babylon the invention of clocks of some description, and from an astronomical point of view, this is of the greatest importance.

Tradition also points to the Chaldeans as the discoverers of the Saros, the cycle of 18 years, 10 or 11 days, after which eclipses of the sun or moon recur. The fact that very careful watch was kept every month at the times of the new and of the full moon, at many different stations, to note whether an eclipse would take place, would naturally bring about the discovery of the period, sooner or later.

The achievements of a nation will be in accordance with its temperament and opportunities, and it is evident from the records which they have left us that the Babylonians, though very superstitious, were a methodical, practical, prosaic people, and a people of that order, if they are numerous, and under strong rule, will go far and do much. The discovery of the Saros was such as was within their power, and was certainly no small achievement. But it is to the Greeks, not to the Babylonians, that we trace the beginnings of mathematics and planetary theory.

We look in vain amongst such Babylonian poetry as we possess for the traces of a Homer, a Pindar, a Sophocles, or even of a poet fit to enter into competition with those of the second rank in the literature of Greece; while it must remain one of the literary mysteries of our time that any one should deem the poetry of the books of Isaiah and Job dependent on Babylonian inspiration.

There were two great hindrances under which the Babylonian man of science laboured: he was an idolater, and he was an astrologer. It is not possible for us in our freedom to fully realize how oppressive was the slavery of mind, as well as spirit, which was consequent upon this twofold superstition. The Greek was freer, insomuch that he did not worship the planets, and did not become a planetary astrologer until after he had learnt that superstition from Chaldea; in learning it he put an end to his scientific progress.

But the Hebrew, if he was faithful to the Law that had been given to him, was free in mind as well as in spirit. He could fearlessly inquire into any and all the objects of nature, for these were but things—the work of God's Hands, whereas he, made in the image of God, having the right of intercourse with God, was the superior, the ruler of everything he could see.

His religious attitude therefore gave him a great superiority for scientific advancement. Yet there was one phase of that attitude which, whilst it preserved him from erroneous conceptions, tended to check that spirit of curiosity which has led to so much of the scientific progress of modern times. "What?" "How?" and "Why?" are the three questions which man is always asking of nature, and to the Hebrew the answer to the second and third was obvious:—It is the power of God: It is the will of God. He did not need to invent for himself the crass absurdities of the cosmogonies of the heathen; but neither was he induced to go behind the appearances of things; the sufficient cause and explanation of all was God.

But of the appearances he was very observant, as I trust has become clear in the course of this imperfect review of the traces of one particular science as noticed in Holy Scripture.

If he was faithful to the Law which had been given him, the Hebrew was free in character as well as in mind. His spirit was not that of a bondman, and Nebuchadnezzar certainly never met anything more noble, anything more free, than the spirit of the men who answered him in the very view of the burning fiery furnace:—

"O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. BUT IF NOT, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up."

FOOTNOTES:

[343:1] Creation centred in Christ, p. 344.



BOOK IV

THREE ASTRONOMICAL MARVELS



CHAPTER I

JOSHUA'S "LONG DAY"[351:1]

1.—METHOD OF STUDYING THE RECORD

There are three incidents recorded in Holy Scripture which may fairly, if with no great exactness, be termed astronomical miracles;—the "long day" on the occasion of Joshua's victory at Beth-horon; the turning back of the shadow on the dial of Ahaz, as a sign of king Hezekiah's recovery from sickness; and the star which guided the wise men from the east to the birthplace of the Holy Child at Bethlehem.

As astronomy has some bearing on each of these three remarkable events, it will be of some interest to examine each of them from the point of view of our present astronomical knowledge. It does not follow that this will throw any new light upon the narratives, for we must always bear in mind that the Scriptures were not intended to teach us the physical sciences; consequently we may find that the very details have been omitted which an astronomer, if he were writing an account of an astronomical observation, would be careful to preserve. And we must further remember that we have not the slightest reason to suppose that the sacred historians received any supernatural instruction in scientific matters. Their knowledge of astronomy therefore was that which they had themselves acquired from education and research, and nothing more. In other words, the astronomy of the narrative must be read strictly in the terms of the scientific advancement of the writers.

But there is another thing that has also to be remembered. The narrative which we have before us, being the only one that we have, must be accepted exactly as it stands. That is the foundation of our inquiry; we have no right to first cut it about at our will, to omit this, to alter that, to find traces of two, three, or more original documents, and so to split up the narrative as it stands into a number of imperfect fragments, which by their very imperfection may seem to be more or less in conflict.

The scientific attitude with regard to the record of an observation cannot be too clearly defined. If that record be the only one, then we may accept it, we may reject it, we may be obliged to say, "We do not understand it," or "It is imperfect, and we can make no use of it," but we must not alter it. A moment's reflection will show that a man who would permit himself to tamper with the sole evidence upon which he purports to work, no matter how profoundly convinced he may be that his proposed corrections are sound, is one who does not understand the spirit of science, and is not going the way to arrive at scientific truth.

There is no need then to inquire as to whether the tenth chapter of the Book of Joshua comes from two or more sources; we take the narrative as it stands. And it is one which has, for the astronomer, an interest quite irrespective of any interpretation which he may place upon the account of the miracle which forms its central incident. For Joshua's exclamation:—

"Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; And thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon,"

implies that, at the moment of his speaking, the two heavenly bodies appeared to him to be, the one upon or over Gibeon, the other over the valley of Ajalon. We have therefore, in effect, a definite astronomical observation; interesting in itself, as being one of the oldest that has been preserved to us; doubly interesting in the conclusions that we are able to deduce from it.

The idea which has been most generally formed of the meaning of Joshua's command, is, that he saw Gibeon in the distance on the horizon in one direction with the sun low down in the sky immediately above it, and the valley of Ajalon in the distance, on the horizon in another direction, with the moon low down in the sky above it.

It would be quite natural to associate the sun and moon with distant objects if they were only some five or six degrees high; it would be rather straining the point to do so if they were more than ten degrees high; and if they were fifteen or more degrees high, it would be quite impossible.

They could not be both in the same quarter of the sky; both rising or both setting. For this would mean that the moon was not only very near the sun in the sky, but was very near to conjunction—in other words, to new moon. She could, therefore, have only shown a slender thread of light, and it is perfectly certain that Joshua, facing the sun in such a country as southern Palestine could not possibly have perceived the thin pale arch of light, which would have been all that the moon could then have presented to him. Therefore the one must have been rising and the other setting, and Joshua must have been standing between Gibeon and the valley of Ajalon, so that the two places were nearly in opposite directions from him. The moon must have been in the west and the sun in the east, for the valley of Ajalon is west of Gibeon. That is to say, it cannot have been more than an hour after sunrise, and it cannot have been more than an hour before moonset. Adopting therefore the usual explanation of Joshua's words, we see at once that the common idea of the reason for Joshua's command to the sun, namely, that the day was nearly over, and that he desired the daylight to be prolonged, is quite mistaken. If the sun was low down in the sky, he would have had practically the whole of the day still before him.

2.—BEFORE THE BATTLE

Before attempting to examine further into the nature of the miracle, it will be well to summarize once again the familiar history of the early days of the Hebrew invasion of Canaan. We are told that the passage of the Jordan took place on the tenth day of the first month; and that the Feast of the Passover was held on the fourteenth day of that month. These are the only two positive dates given us. The week of the Pascal celebrations would have occupied the time until the moon's last quarter. Then preparations were made for the siege of Jericho, and another week passed in the daily processions round the city before the moment came for its destruction, which must have been very nearly at the beginning of the second month of the year. Jericho having been destroyed, Joshua next ordered a reconnaissance of Ai, a small fortified town, some twenty miles distant, and some 3400 feet above the Israelite camp at Gilgal, and commanding the upper end of the valley of Achor, the chief ravine leading up from the valley of the Jordan. The reconnaissance was followed by an attack on the town, which resulted in defeat. From the dejection into which this reverse had thrown him Joshua was roused by the information that the command to devote the spoil of Jericho to utter destruction had been disobeyed. A searching investigation was held; it was found that Achan, one of the Israelite soldiers, had seized for himself a royal robe and an ingot of gold; he was tried, condemned and executed, and the army of Israel was absolved from his guilt. A second attack was made upon Ai; the town was taken; and the road was made clear for Israel to march into the heart of the country, in order to hold the great religious ceremony of the reading of the law upon the mountains of Ebal and Gerizim, which had been commanded them long before. No note is given of the date when this ceremony took place, but bearing in mind that the second month of the year must have begun at the time of the first reconnaissance of Ai, and that the original giving of the Law upon Mount Sinai had taken place upon the third day of the third month, it seems most likely that that anniversary would be chosen for a solemnity which was intended to recall the original promulgation in the most effective manner. If this were so, it would account for the circumstance, which would otherwise have seemed so strange, that Joshua should have attacked two cities only, Jericho and Ai, and then for a time have held his hand. It was the necessity of keeping the great national anniversary on the proper day which compelled him to desist from his military operations after Ai was taken.

We are not told how long the religious celebrations at Shechem lasted, but in any case the Israelites can hardly have been back in their camp at Gilgal before the third moon of the year was at the full. But after their return, events must have succeeded each other with great rapidity. The Amorites must have regarded the pilgrimage of Israel to Shechem as an unhoped-for respite, and they took advantage of it to organize a great confederacy. Whilst this confederacy was being formed, the rulers of a small state of "Hivites"—by which we must understand a community differing either in race or habits from the generality of their Amorite neighbours—had been much exercised by the course of events. They had indeed reason to be. Ai, the last conquest of Israel, was less than four miles, as the crow flies, from Bireh, which is usually identified with Beeroth, one of the four cities of the Hivite State; and the Beerothites had, without doubt, watched the cloud of smoke go up from the burning town when it was sacked; and the mound which now covered what had been so recently their neighbour city, was visible almost from their gates. That was an object-lesson which required no enforcement. The Hivites, sure that otherwise their turn would come next, resolved to make peace with Israel before they were attacked.



To do this they had to deceive the Israelites into believing that they were inhabitants of some land far from Canaan, and this they must do, not only before Joshua actually attacked them, but before he sent out another scouting party. For Beeroth would inevitably have been the very first town which it would have approached, and once Joshua's spies had surveyed it, all chance of the Hivites successfully imposing upon him would have vanished.

But they were exposed to another danger, if possible more urgent still. The headquarters of the newly formed Amorite league was at Jerusalem, on the same plateau as Gibeon, the Hivite capital, and distant from it less than six miles. A single spy, a single traitor, during the anxious time that their defection was being planned, and Adoni-zedec, the king of Jerusalem, would have heard of it in less than a couple of hours; and the Gibeonites would have been overwhelmed before Joshua had any inkling that they were anxious to treat with him. Whoever was dilatory, whoever was slow, the Gibeonites dared not be. It can, therefore, have been, at most, only a matter of hours after Joshua's return to Gilgal, before their wily embassy set forth.

But their defection had an instant result. Adoni-zedec recognized in a moment the urgency of the situation. With Joshua in possession of Gibeon and its dependencies, the Israelites would be firmly established on the plateau at his very gates, and the states of southern Palestine would be cut off from their brethren in the north.

Adoni-zedec lost no time; he sought and obtained the aid of four neighbouring kings and marched upon Gibeon. The Gibeonites sent at once the most urgent message to acquaint Joshua with their danger, and Joshua as promptly replied. He made a forced march with picked troops all that night up from Gilgal, and next day he was at their gates.

Counterblow had followed blow, swift as the clash of rapiers in a duel of fencers. All three of the parties concerned—Hivite, Amorite and Israelite—had moved with the utmost rapidity. And no wonder; the stake for which they were playing was very existence, and the forfeit, which would be exacted on failure, was extinction.

3.—DAY, HOUR, AND PLACE OF THE MIRACLE

The foregoing considerations enable us somewhat to narrow down the time of the year at which Joshua's miracle can have taken place, and from an astronomical point of view this is very important. The Israelites had entered the land of Canaan on the 10th day of the first month, that is to say, very shortly after the spring equinox—March 21 of our present calendar. Seven weeks after that equinox—May 11—the sun attains a declination of 18 deg. north. From this time its declination increases day by day until the summer solstice, when, in Joshua's time, it was nearly 24 deg. north. After that it slowly diminishes, and on August 4 it is 18 deg. again. For twelve weeks, therefore—very nearly a quarter of the entire year—the sun's northern declination is never less than 18 deg.. The date of the battle must have fallen somewhere within this period. It cannot have fallen earlier; the events recorded could not possibly have all been included in the seven weeks following the equinox. Nor, in view of the promptitude with which all the contending parties acted, and were bound to act, can we postpone the battle to a later date than the end of this midsummer period.

We thus know, roughly speaking, what was the declination of the sun—that is to say, its distance from the equator of the heavens—at the time of the battle; it was not less than 18 deg. north of the equator, it could not have been more than 24 deg..

But, if we adopt the idea most generally formed of the meaning of Joshua's command, namely, that he saw the sun low down over Gibeon in one direction, and the moon low down over the valley of Ajalon in another, we can judge of the apparent bearing of those two heavenly bodies from an examination of the map. And since, if we may judge from the map of the Palestine Exploration Fund, the valley of Ajalon lies about 17 deg. north of west from Gibeon, and runs nearly in that direction from it, the moon must, to Joshua, have seemed about 17 deg. north of west, and the sun 17 deg. south of east.

But for any date within the three summer months, the sun in the latitude of Gibeon, when it bears 17 deg. south of east, must be at least 56 deg. high. At this height it would seem overhead, and would not give the slightest idea of association with any distant terrestrial object. Not until some weeks after the autumnal equinox could the sun be seen low down on the horizon in the direction 17 deg. south of east, and at the same time the moon be as much as 17 deg. north of the west point. And, as this would mean that the different combatants had remained so close to each other, some four or five months without moving, it is clearly inadmissible. We are forced therefore to the unexpected conclusion that it is practically impossible that Joshua could have been in any place from whence he could have seen, at one and the name moment; the sun low down in the sky over Gibeon, and the moon over the valley of Ajalon.

Is the narrative in error, then? Or have we been reading into it our own erroneous impression? Is there any other sense in which a man would naturally speak of a celestial body as being "over" some locality on the earth, except when both were together on his horizon?

Most certainly. There is another position which the sun can hold in which it may naturally be said to be "over," or "upon" a given place; far more naturally and accurately than when it chances to lie in the same direction as some object on the horizon. We have no experience of that position in these northern latitudes, and hence perhaps our commentators have, as a rule, not taken it into account. But those who, in tropical or sub-tropical countries, have been in the open at high noon, when a man's foot can almost cover his shadow, will recognize how definite, how significant such a position is. In southern Palestine, during the three summer months, the sun is always so near the zenith at noon that it could never occur to any one to speak of it as anything but "overhead."

And the prose narrative expressly tells us that this was the case. It is intimated that when Joshua spoke it was noon, by the expression that the sun "hasted not to go down about a whole day," implying that the change in the rate in its apparent motion occurred only in the afternoon, and that it had reached its culmination. Further, as not a few commentators have pointed out, the expression,—"the sun stood still in the midst of heaven,"—is literally "in the bisection of heaven"; a phrase applicable indeed to any position on the meridian, but especially appropriate to the meridian close to the zenith.

This, then, is what Joshua meant by his command to the sun. Its glowing orb blazed almost in the centre of the whole celestial vault—"in the midst of heaven"—and poured down its vertical rays straight on his head. It stood over him—it stood over the place where he was—Gibeon.

We have, therefore, been able to find that the narrative gives us, by implication, two very important particulars, the place where Joshua was, and the time of the day. He was at Gibeon, and it was high noon.

The expression, "Thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon," has now a very definite signification. As we have already seen, the valley of Ajalon bears 17 deg. north of west from Gibeon, according to the map of the Palestine Exploration Fund, so that this is the azimuth which the moon had at the given moment. In other words, it was almost exactly midway between the two "points of the compass," W.b.N. and W.N.W. It was also in its "last quarter" or nearly so; that is, it was half-full, and waning. With the sun on the meridian it could not have been much more than half-full, for in that case it would have already set; nor much less than half-full, or it would have been too faint to be seen in full daylight. It was therefore almost exactly half-full, and the day was probably the 21st day of the month in the Jewish reckoning.



But the moon cannot be as far as 17 deg. north of west in latitude 31 deg. 51' N. on the 21st day of the month earlier than the fourth month of the Jewish year, or later than the eighth month. Now the 21st day of the fourth month is about seven weeks after the 3rd day of the third month; the 21st day of the fifth month is eleven weeks. Remembering how close Gilgal, Gibeon and Jerusalem were to each other, and how important was the need for promptitude to Israelite and Amorite alike, it can scarcely be disputed that eleven weeks is an inadmissible length of time to interpose between the reading of the Law and the battle; and that seven weeks is the utmost that can be allowed.

The battle took place, then, on or about the 21st day of the fourth month. But it could only have done so if that particular year began late. If the year had begun earlier than April 1st of our present calendar, the moon could not have been so far north on the day named. For the Jewish calendar is a natural one and regulated both by the sun and the moon. It begins with the new moon, and it also begins as nearly as possible with the spring equinox. But as twelve natural months fall short of a solar year by eleven days, a thirteenth month has to be intercalated from time to time; in every nineteen years, seven are years having an extra month. Now the 21st day of the fourth month must have fallen on or about July 22 according to our present reckoning, in order that the moon might have sufficient northing, and that involves a year beginning after April 1; so that the year of the battle of Beth-horon must have been an ordinary year, one of twelve months, but must have followed a year of thirteen months.

Summarizing all the conclusions at which we have now arrived, Joshua's observation was made at Gibeon itself, almost precisely at the moment of noon, on or about the 21st day of the fourth month, which day fell late in July according to our present reckoning; probably on or about the 22nd. The sun's declination must have been about 20 deg. north; probably, if anything, a little more. The sun rose therefore almost exactly at five in the morning, and set almost exactly at seven in the evening, the day being just fourteen hours long. The moon had not yet passed her third quarter, but was very near it; that is to say, she was about half full. Her declination did not differ greatly from 16 deg. north; she was probably about 5 deg. above the horizon, and was due to set in about half an hour. She had risen soon after eleven o'clock the previous evening, and had lighted the Israelites during more than half of their night march up from Gilgal.

4.—JOSHUA'S STRATEGY

These conclusions, as to the place and time of day, entirely sweep away the impression, so often formed, that Joshua's victory was practically in the nature of a night surprise. Had it been so, and had the Amorites been put to flight at daybreak, there would have seemed no conceivable reason why, with fourteen hours of daylight before him, Joshua should have been filled with anxiety for the day to have been prolonged. Nor is it possible to conceive that he would still have been at Gibeon at noon, seven hours after he had made his victorious attack upon his enemy.

The fact is that, in all probability, Joshua had no wish to make a night surprise. His attitude was like that of Nelson before the battle of Trafalgar; he had not the slightest doubt but that he would gain the victory, but he was most anxious that it should be a complete one. The great difficulty in the campaign which lay before him was the number of fortified places in the hands of the enemy, and the costliness, both in time and lives, of all siege operations at that epoch. His enemies having taken the field gave him the prospect of overcoming this difficulty, if, now that they were in the open, he could succeed in annihilating them there; to have simply scattered them would have brought him but little advantage. That this was the point to which he gave chief attention is apparent from one most significant circumstance in the history; the Amorites fled by the road to Beth-horon.

There have been several battles of Beth-horon since the days of Joshua, and the defeated army has, on more than one occasion, fled by the route now taken by the Amorites. Two of these are recorded by Josephus; the one in which Judas Maccabaeus defeated and slew Nicanor, and the other when Cestius Gallus retreated from Jerusalem. It is probable that Beth-horon was also the scene of one, if not two, battles with the Philistines, at the commencement of David's reign. In all these cases the defeated foe fled by this road because it had been their line of advance, and was their shortest way back to safety.

But the conditions were entirely reversed in the case of Joshua's battle. The Amorites fled away from their cities. Jerusalem, the capital of Adoni-zedec and the chief city of the confederation, lay in precisely the opposite direction. The other cities of their league lay beyond Jerusalem, further still to the south.

A reference to the map shows that Gilgal, the headquarters of the army of Israel, was on the plain of Jericho, close to the banks of the Jordan, at the bottom of that extraordinary ravine through which the river runs. Due west, at a distance of about sixteen or seventeen miles as the crow flies, but three thousand four hundred feet above the level of the Jordan, rises the Ridge of the Watershed, the backbone of the structure of Palestine. On this ridge are the cities of Jerusalem and Gibeon, and on it, leading down to the Maritime Plain, runs in a north-westerly direction, the road through the two Beth-horons.

The two Beth-horons are one and a half miles apart, with a descent of 700 feet from the Upper to the Lower.

The flight of the Amorites towards Beth-horon proves, beyond a doubt, that Joshua had possessed himself of the road from Gibeon to Jerusalem. It is equally clear that this could not have been done by accident, but that it must have been the deliberate purpose of his generalship. Jerusalem was a city so strong that it was not until the reign of David that the Israelites obtained possession of the whole of it, and to take it was evidently a matter beyond Joshua's ability. But to have defeated the Amorites at Gibeon, and to have left open to them the way to Jerusalem—less than six miles distant—would have been a perfectly futile proceeding. We may be sure, therefore, that from the moment when he learned that Adoni-zedek was besieging Gibeon, Joshua's first aim was to cut off the Amorite king from his capital.

The fact that the Amorites fled, not towards their cities but away from them, shows clearly that Joshua had specially manoeuvred so as to cut them off from Jerusalem. How he did it, we are not told, and any explanation offered must necessarily be merely of the nature of surmise. Yet a considerable amount of probability may attach to it. The geographical conditions are perfectly well known, and we can, to some degree, infer the course which the battle must have taken from these, just as we could infer the main lines of the strategy employed by the Germans in their war with the French in 1870, simply by noting the places where the successive battles occurred. The positions of the battlefields of Mars-la-Tour, Gravelotte, and Sedan would show clearly that the object of the Germans had been, first, to shut Bazaine up in Metz, and then to hinder MacMahon from coming to his relief. So in the present case, the fact that the Amorites fled by the way of the two Beth-horons, shows, first, that Joshua had completely cut them off from the road to Jerusalem, and next, that somehow or other when they took flight they were a long way to the north of him. Had they not been so, they could not have had any long start in their flight, and the hailstorm which occasioned them such heavy loss would have injured the Israelites almost as much.

How can these two circumstances be accounted for? I think we can make a very plausible guess at the details of Joshua's strategy from noting what he is recorded to have done in the case of Ai. On that occasion, as on this, he had felt his inability to deal with an enemy behind fortifications. His tactics therefore had consisted in making a feigned attack, followed by a feigned retreat, by which he drew his enemies completely away from their base, which he then seized by means of a detachment which he had previously placed in ambush near. Then, when the men of Ai were hopelessly cut off from their city, he brought all his forces together, surrounded his enemies in the open, and destroyed them.

It was a far more difficult task which lay before him at Gibeon, but we may suppose that he still acted on the same general principles. There were two points on the ridge of the watershed which, for very different reasons, it was important that he should seize. The one was Beeroth, one of the cities of the Hivites, his allies, close to his latest victory of Ai, and commanding the highest point on the ridge of the watershed. It is distant from Jerusalem some ten miles—a day's journey. Tradition therefore gives it as the place where the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph turned back sorrowing, seeking Jesus. For "they, supposing Him to have been in the company, went a day's journey," and Beeroth still forms the first halting-place for pilgrims from the north on their return journey.

Beeroth also was the city of the two sons of Rimmon who murdered Ishbosheth, the son of Saul. When it is remembered how Saul had attempted to extirpate the Gibeonites, and how bitter a blood feud the latter entertained against his house in consequence, it becomes very significant that the murderers of his son were men of this Gibeonite town.

Beeroth also commanded the exit from the principal ravine by which Joshua could march upwards to the ridge—the valley of Achor. The Israelites marching by this route would have the great advantage that Beeroth, in the possession of their allies, the Gibeonites, would act as a cover to them whilst in the ravines, and give them security whilst taking up a position on the plateau.

But Beeroth had one fatal disadvantage as a sole line of advance. From Beeroth Joshua would come down to Gibeon from the north, and the Amorites, if defeated, would have a line of retreat, clear and easy, to Jerusalem. It was absolutely essential that somewhere or other he should cut the Jerusalem road.

This would be a matter of great difficulty and danger, as, if his advance were detected whilst he was still in the ravines, he would have been taken at almost hopeless disadvantage. The fearful losses which the Israelites sustained in the intertribal war with Benjamin near this very place, show what Joshua might reasonably have expected had he tried to make his sole advance on the ridge near Jerusalem.

Is it not probable that he would have endeavoured, under these circumstances, to entice the Amorites as far away to the north as possible before he ventured to bring his main force out on the ridge? If so, we may imagine that he first sent a strong force by the valley of Achor to Beeroth; that they were instructed there to take up a strong position, and when firmly established, to challenge the Amorites to attack them. Then, when the Israelite general in command at Beeroth perceived that he had before him practically the whole Amorite force—for it would seem clear that the five kings themselves, together with the greater part of their army, were thus drawn away—he would signal to Joshua that the time had come for his advance. Just as Joshua himself had signalled with his spear at the taking of Ai, so the firing of a beacon placed on the summit of the ridge would suffice for the purpose. Joshua would then lead up the main body, seize the Jerusalem road, and press on to Gibeon at the utmost speed. If this were so, the small detachment of Amorites left to continue the blockade was speedily crushed, but perhaps was aware of Joshua's approach soon enough to send swift runners urging the five kings to return. The news would brook no delay; the kings would turn south immediately; but for all their haste they never reached Gibeon. They probably had but advanced as far as the ridge leading to Beth-horon, when they perceived that not only had Joshua relieved Gibeon and destroyed the force which they had left before it, but that his line, stretched out far to the right and left, already cut them off, not merely from the road to Jerusalem and Hebron, but also from the valley of Ajalon, a shorter road to the Maritime Plain than the one they actually took. East there was no escape; north was the Israelite army from Beeroth; south and west was the army of Joshua. Out-manoeuvred and out-generalled, they were in the most imminent danger of being caught between the two Israelite armies, and of being ground, like wheat, between the upper and nether millstones. They had no heart for further fight; the promise made to Joshua,—"there shall not a man of them stand before thee,"—was fulfilled; they broke and fled by the one way open to them, the way of the two Beth-horons.

Whilst this conjectural strategy attributes to Joshua a ready grasp of the essential features of the military position and skill in dealing with them, it certainly does not attribute to him any greater skill than it is reasonable to suppose he possessed. The Hebrews have repeatedly proved, not merely their valour in battle, but their mastery of the art of war, and, as Marcel Dieulafoy has recently shown,[372:1] the earliest general of whom we have record as introducing turning tactics in the field, is David in the battle of the valley of Rephaim, recorded in 2 Sam. v. 22-25 and 1 Chron. xiv. 13-17.

"The several evolutions of a complicated and hazardous nature which decided the fate of the battle would betoken, even at the present day, when successfully conducted, a consummate general, experienced lieutenants, troops well accustomed to manoeuvres, mobile, and, above all, disciplined almost into unconsciousness, so contrary is it to our instincts not to meet peril face to face. . . . In point of fact, the Israelites had just effected in the face of the Philistines a turning and enveloping movement—that is to say, an operation of war considered to be one of the boldest, most skilful, and difficult attempted by forces similar in number to those of the Hebrews, but, at the same time, very efficacious and brilliant when successful. It was the favourite manoeuvre of Frederick II, and the one on which his military reputation rests."

But though the Amorites had been discomfited by Joshua, they had not been completely surrounded; one way of escape was left open. More than this, it appears that they obtained a very ample start in the race along the north-western road. We infer this from the incident of the hailstorm which fell upon them whilst rushing down the precipitous road between the Beth-horons; a storm so sudden and so violent that more of the Amorites died by the hailstones than had fallen in the contest at Gibeon. It does not appear that the Israelites suffered from the storm; they must consequently have, at the time, been much in the rear of their foes. Probably they were still "in the way that goeth up to Beth-horon"; that is to say, in the ascent some two miles long from Gibeon till the summit of the road is reached. There would be a special appropriateness in this case in the phrasing of the record that "the Lord discomfited the Amorites before Israel, and slew them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, and chased them along the way that goeth up to Beth-horon, and smote them to Azekah and unto Makkedah." There was no slaughter on the road between Gibeon and Beth-horon. It was a simple chase; a pursuit with the enemy far in advance.

The Israelites, general and soldiers alike, had done their best. The forced march all night up the steep ravines, the plan of the battle, and the way in which it had been carried out were alike admirable. Yet when the Israelites had done their best, and the heat and their long exertions had nearly overpowered them, Joshua was compelled to recognize that he had been but partly successful. He had relieved Gibeon; the Amorites were in headlong flight; he had cut them off from the direct road to safety, but he had failed in one most important point. He had not succeeded in surrounding them, and the greater portion of their force was escaping.

5.—THE MIRACLE.

It was at this moment, when his scouts announced to him the frustration of his hopes, that Joshua in the anxiety lest the full fruits of his victory should be denied him, and in the supremest faith that the Lord God, in Whose hand are all the powers of the universe, was with him, exclaimed:

"Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon, And thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon!"

So his exclamation stands in our Authorized Version, but, as the marginal reading shows, the word translated "stand still" is more literally "be silent." There can be no doubt that this expression, so unusual in this connection, must have been employed with intention. What was it that Joshua is likely to have had in his mind when he thus spoke?

The common idea is that he simply wished for more time; for the day to be prolonged. But as we have seen, it was midday when he spoke, and he had full seven hours of daylight before him. There was a need which he must have felt more pressing. His men had now been seventeen hours on the march, for they had started at sunset—7 p.m.—on the previous evening, and it was now noon, the noon of a sub-tropical midsummer. They had marched at least twenty miles in the time, possibly considerably more according to the route which they had followed, and the march had been along the roughest of roads, and had included an ascent of 3400 feet—about the height of the summit of Snowdon above the sea-level. They must have been weary, and have felt sorely the heat of the sun, now blazing right overhead. Surely it requires no words to labour this point. Joshua's one pressing need at that moment was something to temper the fierce oppression of the sun, and to refresh his men. This was what he prayed for; this was what was granted him. For the moment the sun seemed fighting on the side of his enemies, and he bade it "Be silent." Instantly, in answer to his command, a mighty rush of dark storm-clouds came sweeping up from the sea.

Refreshed by the sudden coolness, the Israelites set out at once in the pursuit of their enemies. It is probable that for the first six miles they saw no trace of them, but when they reached Beth-horon the Upper, and stood at the top of its steep descent, they saw the Amorites again. As it had been with their fathers at the Red Sea, when the pillar of cloud had been a defence to them but the means of discomfiture to the Egyptians, so now the storm-clouds which had so revived them and restored their their strength, had brought death and destruction to their enemies. All down the rocky descent lay the wounded, the dying, the dead. For "the Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them, unto Azekah, and they died: they were more which died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword."

"The might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, Had melted like snow in the glance of the Lord."

Far below them the panic-stricken remnants of the Amorite host were fleeing for safety to the cities of the Maritime Plain. The battle proper was over; the one duty left to the army of Israel was to overtake and destroy those remnants before they could gain shelter.

But the narrative continues. "The sun stayed in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day." This statement evidently implies much more than the mere darkening of the sun by storm-clouds. For its interpretation we must return to the remaining incidents of the day.

These are soon told. Joshua pursued the Amorites to Makkedah, twenty-seven miles from Gibeon by the route taken. There the five kings had hidden themselves in a cave. A guard was placed to watch the cave; the Israelites continued the pursuit for an undefined distance farther; returned to Makkedah and took it by assault; brought the kings out of their cave, and hanged them.

"And it came to pass at the time of the going down of the sun, that Joshua commanded, and they took them down off the trees, and cast them into the cave wherein they had hidden themselves, and laid great stones on the mouth of the cave, unto this very day."

All these events—the pursuit for twenty-seven miles and more, the taking of Makkedah and the hanging of the kings—took place between noon and the going down of the sun, an interval whose normal length, for that latitude and at that time of the year, was about seven hours.

This is an abnormal feat. It is true that a single trained pedestrian might traverse the twenty-seven and odd miles, and still have time to take part in an assault on a town and to watch an execution. But it is an altogether different thing when we come to a large army. It is well known that the speed with which a body of men can move diminishes with the number. A company can march faster than a regiment; a regiment than a brigade; a brigade than an army corps. But for a large force thirty miles in the entire day is heavy work. "Thus Sir Archibald Hunter's division, in its march through Bechuanaland to the relief of Mafeking, starting at four in the morning, went on till seven or eight at night, covering as many as thirty miles a day at times." Joshua's achievement was a march fully as long as any of General Hunter's, but it was accomplished in less than seven hours instead of from fifteen to sixteen, and it followed straight on from a march seventeen hours in length which had ended in a battle. In all, between one sunset and the next he had marched between fifty and sixty miles besides fighting a battle and taking a town.

If we turn to the records of other battles fought in this neighbourhood, we find that they agree as closely as we could expect, not with Joshua's achievement, but with General Hunter's. In the case of the great victory secured by Jonathan, the gallant son of Saul, the Israelites smote the Philistines from Michmash to Ajalon;—not quite twenty miles. In the defeat of Cestius Gallus, the Jews followed him from Beth-horon to Antipatris, a little over twenty miles, the pursuit beginning at daybreak, and being evidently continued nearly till sundown. The pursuit of the Syrians under Nicanor by Judas Maccabaeus seems also to have covered about the same distance, for Nicanor was killed at the first onslaught and his troops took to flight.

It is not at all unusual to read in comments on the Book of Joshua that the "miracle" is simply the result of the dulness of the prose chronicler in accepting as literal fact an expression that originated in the poetic exuberance of an old bard. The latter, so it is urged, simply meaning to add a figure of dignity and importance to his song commemorating a great national victory, had written:—

"And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, Until the nation had avenged themselves of their enemies,"

but with no more expectation that the stay of the moon would be accepted literally, than the singers, who welcomed David after the slaying of Goliath, imagined that any one would seriously suppose that Saul had actually with his own hand killed two thousand Philistines, and David twenty thousand. But, say they, the later prose chronicler, quoting from the ballad, and accepting a piece of poetic hyperbole as actual fact, reproduced the statement in his own words, and added, "the sun stayed in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day."

Not so. The poem and the prose chronicle make one coherent whole. Working from the poem alone, treating the expressions in the first two lines merely as astronomical indications of time and place, and without the slightest reference to any miraculous interpretation, they lead to the inevitable conclusion that the time was noonday. This result certainly does not lie on the surface of the poem, and it was wholly beyond the power of the prose chronicler to have computed it, yet it is just in the supposed stupid gloss of the prose chronicler, and nowhere else, that we find this fact definitely stated: whilst the "miracle" recorded both by poem and prose narrative completely accords with the extraordinary distance traversed between noon and sunset.

Any man, however ignorant of science, if he be but careful and conscientious, can truthfully record an observation without any difficulty. But to successfully invent even the simplest astronomical observation requires very full knowledge, and is difficult even then. Every astronomer knows that there is hardly a single novelist, no matter how learned or painstaking, who can at this present day introduce a simple astronomical relation into his story, without falling into egregious error.

We are therefore quite sure that Joshua did use the words attributed to him; that the "moon" and "the valley of Ajalon" were not merely inserted in order to complete the parallelism by a bard putting a legend into poetic form. Nor was the prose narrative the result of an editor combining two or three narratives all written much after the date. The original records must have been made at the time.

All astronomers know well how absolutely essential it is to commit an observation to writing on the spot. Illustrations of this necessity could be made to any extent. One may suffice. In vol. ii. of the Life of Sir Richard Burton, by his wife, p. 244, Lady Burton says:—

"On the 6th December, 1882 . . . we were walking on the Karso (Opcona) alone; the sky was clear, and all of a sudden my niece said to me, 'Oh, look up, there is a star walking into the moon!' 'Glorious!' I answered. 'We are looking at the Transit of Venus, which crowds of scientists have gone to the end of the world to see.'"