336 HISTORY OK 



firm in many particulars even at this day. Aaron, who was 

 three years the older, died the same year with his brother ; 

 a man of a readier speech, of a more facile disposition, and 

 less constant. But Phineas, grandchild of Aaron (perhaps 

 out of extraordinary grace), may be collected to have lived 

 three hundred years ; if so be the war of the Israelites 

 against the tribe of Benjamin (in which expedition Phineas 

 consulted with) were performed in the same order of time 

 in which the history hath ranked it ; he was a man of a 

 most eminent zeal. Joshua, a martial man and an excel 

 lent leader, and evermore victorious, lived to the hundred 

 and tenth year of his life. Caleb was his contemporary, 

 and seemeth to have been of as great years. Ebud, the 

 judge, seems to have been no less than a hundred years old 

 in regard that after the victory over the Moabites, the Holy 

 Land had rest under his government eighty years ; he was 

 a man fierce and undaunted, and one that in a sort neglected 

 his life for the good of his people. 



4. Job lived, after the restoration of his happiness, a 

 hundred and forty years, being, before his afflictions, of that 

 age that he had sons at man s estate ; a man politic, elo 

 quent, charitable, and the example of patience. Eli, the 

 priest, lived ninety-eight years ; a corpulent man, calm of 

 disposition, and indulgent to his children. But ElizaBus, 

 the prophet, may seem to have died when he was above a 

 hundred years old ; for he is found to have lived after the 

 assumption of Elias sixty years ; and at the time of that 

 assumption he was of those years, that the boys mocked 

 him by the name of bald head ; a man vehement and severe, 

 and of an austere life, and a contemner of riches. Also 

 Isaiah, the prophet, seemeth to have been a hundred years 

 old ; for he is found to have exercised the function of a pro 

 phet seventy years together, the years both of his beginning 

 to prophecy, and of his death, being uncertain ; a man of 

 an admirable eloquence, an evangelical prophet, full of the 

 promises of God of the New Testament, as a bottle with 

 sweet wine. 



5. Tobias, the elder, lived a hundred and fifty-eight 

 years, the younger a hundred and twenty-seven ; merciful 

 men, and great alms givers. It seems, in the time of the 

 captivity, many of the Jews who returned out of Babylon 

 were of great years, seeing they could remember both tem 

 ples (there being no less than seventy years betwixt them), 

 and wept for the unlikeness of them. Many ages after 

 that, in the time of our Saviour, lived old Simeon, to the 

 age of ninety ; a devout man, and full both of hope and 





