Note 348 — THE HEBREW TRADITION. (continued 2)

Two points may, perhaps, strike the reader in the survey of the different statements of numbers given here from the Book of Judges, upon which I will subjoin what follows in explanation. I have placed the 20 years under the Canaanites to the right, the 20 of Sampson and Saul to the left; not arbitrarily, but from the following reason: In the first section of this epoch, which ends with Gideon, all the numbers are indeterminate except those exactly which relate to the oppressions by other nations. This does not seem to me to be accidental; why should not the times of the oppression have been firmer fixed in the memory than the other divisions of time, the recollection of which is principally connected only with celebrated persons? The number 20 does not belong to the round numbers; it bears in itself, therefore, the probability of being historical. On the other hand, the 20 years of Sampson and Saul are in the third division, in which all the remaining numbers are unhistorical, as the eight preceding are all historical. The person of Sampson is especially so poetically represented, that it is perfectly adapted to its unchronological neighbourhood. It is possible, also, that it belonged entirely to the preceding Philistine time of 40 years, and ought therefore to be quite omitted. But the 20 years of Saul was even received in the Acts of the Apostles, and by Josephus, as a round number, and was therefore exchanged with 40. The period of Saul also was certainly not better known than that of David and Solomon. The second point is, that it might appear remarkable to see the periods of oppression placed generally together with those of the separate Judges, whilst both classes are however quite heterogeneous. I would have separated them, if by that means the result would have been very different. But it is so circumstanced, that the mean number of the historical statements, if we separate the periods of oppression, amounts to 11 years, in place of 12 years; therefore the total sum is 304 years, in place of 318 years. But this is the same result to us; as we cannot look for an exact sum in the calculation, it therefore appeared more suitable, because more prudent, to leave those statements in their historical order.