Note 22 — Chapter IV · EXTENT OF THE THIRD AGE OF THE WORLD.

Although the extent of the third age is clearly established by the reference of Paul to the period of 430 years, from the confirmation of the covenant to Abraham to the promulgation of the law from Mount Sinai, yet it will be satisfactory to observe, that the passage cited from the book of Exodus originally stood as follows:—“And the sojourning of the children of Israel, which they and their fathers sojourned in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, was 430 years. And it came to pass, after the 430 years, that all the host of the Lord went out of the land of Egypt by night;” see the Septuagint, Alexandrine edition, and the Samaritan Pentateuch, Exod. xii. 40, 41. The words in Italics in this passage are omitted in the Hebrew text, and the words “even the self-same day,” are interpolated. That this is an interpolation is quite evident, for even in the Hebrew, in the very next verse, we are twice told that “It is a night much to be observed unto the Lord,” for this great deliverance. Thus, by the testimony of three witnesses against one, the true reading is established. Nevertheless, Archbishop Usher calls the passage just cited from the Septuagint a paraphrastic explanation of the words of Moses; and he says that the corresponding passage in the Samaritan text is interpolated from the Greek version!—“Chronologia Sacra,” cap. viii. p. 127. Biblical critics and commentators, in general, now admit that these texts have preserved the true reading; see the note on this passage, by the editor of the Religious Tract Society’s Commentary on the Bible, from Henry and Scott. Mr. Clinton also very properly defends the right interpretation of the passage; for he says, “some modern writers have very unreasonably doubted this portion of the Hebrew chronology;” see “Fasti Hellenici,” vol. i. page 299.