ORIENTAL DISCOVERIES ON OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. 37 



be traced by aid of the new discoveries of places like Aduliam, 

 Haretli, etc., not previously known."* That a narracive should 

 be illuminated by such discoveries is one of the roost satisfactory 

 marks of Idstoricity. In the eiglilh chapter of 2 Samuel, we 

 have an account of David's conquests. He subdued the countries 

 on all sides, and carried his arms even to the Euphrates (verse 4). 

 That is a representation which a romancer might have found to 

 be extremely perilous. We are now able to follow the move- 

 ments of the great empires on the east and the west of Palestine 

 into times much more remote than those of David ; and it 

 might have happened that the recorded conquests of either 

 would have made belief in David's extended dominion impossible. 

 But in this instance also the records of Assyria and of Kgypt 

 are in perfect agreement with the Scripture. David's reign 

 extended from 1018 to 978 B.C. About 1100 B.C. Tiglath-Pileser 

 T. of Assyria was defeated by the Babylonians; and for more 

 than a century and a half afterwards Assyria ceased to be the 

 dominating power whicli she had formerly been, and which she 

 afterwards again became, in Mesopotamia. On the western 

 side, Kgypt was in the midst of a long period of decline. " The 

 XlXth Jjynasty," says Budge, " marks the beginning of the 

 decline of the power of Egypt ; and the decbne continued 

 without break until the end of the period of the XXIst Dynasty, 

 by which time Egypt had become like the ' bruised reed ' to 

 which she was compared in Holy Scriptures ; this period of 

 decline lasted about three hundred years. ... In the 

 XXIst Dynasty not only do we find Egypt confined to the 

 valley of the Nile, but even divided into two separate kingdoms 

 of the South and the North, as in the days of the Hyksus seven 

 hundred years before."f David's reign belongs to the period 

 of the XXIst Dynasty. There was, therefore, a broad field for 

 the achievements of the great hero-king of Israel ; and the 

 Scripture narrative is thus confirmed and explained by the 

 records of the great Empires of the East and of the "West. 



Jitdfjcs. — The earlier critics were inclined to attach a higher 

 liistorical value to the Book of Judges than is accorded to it by 

 their successors. Dr. Driver, while admitting that it contains a 

 large basis of fact, finds " embellishments," " exaggerations," and 

 " expansions " in the Book ; and adds: "The original narrative 

 has been combined with the additions in such a manner that it 

 cannot be disengaged with certainty, and is now, in all 



* The Bible and the East, p. 142. 

 t History of Egypt, vi, pp. 32, 33. 



