377 



David's line,* whicii was not by eldest sons, eight generations 

 amount to nearly 400; the difference is not great, which 



2 A 2 is 



" It is not to be denied that there is a considerable difficulty attendmg the genealogy 

 of David. Salmon is said to have married Rahab, the woman (as it is generally under- 

 stood) who preserved the spies in Jericho ; (Josh c. H.) this many have supposed to be 

 inconsistent with chronology, " as there are then only four generations to David from the 

 exod ;" however, we are to consider that Naashon is the only prince of Judah who is men- 

 tioned in the Pentateuch, the name of Salmon does not once occur, it should seem there- 

 fore that Naashon remained prince of Judah until the last census of the people, taken just 

 before the death of Moses, when there was found none who had been twenty years of age 

 at the exod, (except Joshua and Caleb,) and it is not unlikely that he had died in the 

 plague, immediately preceding ; (Numb. 36. 64..) Salmon was born a short time before this 

 census, he might perhaps have had a son by Rahab about the 75th year of the exod, when 

 he was 37 or 38 years of age, and she still very young, since in the 41st year of the exod 

 she is described (Jos. 2. c. 1 3.) " living in her father's house, and pleading for the lives of 

 him and of her mother, from the Israelites ; and if she is principally spoken of in the sequel, 

 it is evident, that it was because of the great services she had rendered to Israel : supposing 

 then, Boaz was born in the 7dth year of the exod, since David was born in the 410lli, 

 there are 335 years between them. If then, Boaz, " a mighty man of wealth, and an 

 eWo- of the city," (vide Ruth passim) in his 60lh year, married Ruth in the 135th year 

 of the exod, and then Obed marrying in his 50th year, or about the 186th year, might 

 have had Jesse in his sixty-fifth, (as he probably was not his eldest son) or about the 

 200th, who being a " very aged man in Israel, and having six elder sons grown to man's 

 estate, when David was only 16 or IS; the latter might have been born perhaps about 

 270, but this number is far removed from 405. 1 know not how to reconcile it, but by 

 supposing that some of the generations in the house of David are omitted ; especially, 

 since Boaz is mentioned, as of " the family of Elimelech," (R. 2. I.) of whom we find 

 no notice taken in the genealogies in the book of Chronicles ; but I may observe, how- 

 ever, in diminution of the difficulty, that Rahab is not mentioned by any Scriptural 

 authority, except St. Matthew, to have married Salmon, and it is not clear that the woman 

 of whom L" speaks was the same with the harlot of Jericho. St. Paul and St. James 



who 



