22 EEV. JOHX URQUHAKT^ ON THE BEARING OF RECENT 



upon them by oriental arch.Tolo^uy. l^rofessor Hommel and Di', 

 Glaser see in tliem the Miiiieans of Southern Arabia, whoso 

 power extended at one time as far north as Gaza . . . Ai^ 

 the power of the MiikTans waned l)erore that of Saba, or Sheba, 

 any notice of their presence on the borders of Palestine must go 

 back to a considerable antiquity. If, therefore, their identi- 

 hcation with the Mehunims of the chronicler is correct, the 

 reference to them bears the stamp of contemporaneous, 

 autliority."* 



Eesearches and excr.vations in Palestine have furtlier illus- 

 trated the minute accuracy of Chronicles. These books 

 describe Hezekiah's preparations for meeting the Assyrian 

 invasion imder Sennacherib. " He took counsel," we are told, 

 "with his princes and his mighty men, to stop (or conceal) the 

 waters of the fountains which were without the city ; and they 

 did help him . . . This same Hezekiali also stopped (or 

 concealed) the upper w^ater-conr.-^e of Gihon, and brought it 

 straiglit down to tlie west side of the city of David " (2 Cln^on. 

 xxNii, 3, 30). Subterranean channels and tunnels have been 

 found which show that work of this very kind was done ; and 

 it was done with engineering knowledge and skill that astonish 

 us.t A further trace of this great work was found in an 

 inscription discovered in 1880, in what Professor Sayce believes 

 to be Hezekiah's tunnel. It is as follows : — " (Behold the) 

 excavation. Now this is tlie history of tlie excavation. While- 

 the excavators were still lifting up the pick, eaclr toward his 

 neighbour, and while there were yet three cubits to (excavate),, 

 there was heard the voice of one man calling; to his neighbour, 

 for there was an excess C^.) of the rock on the light hand (and on 

 the left?). And after that on the day of excavating tho 

 excavators had struck pick against pick, one against another, 

 the waters tlowed from the spring to the ].ool for a distance of 

 1,200 cubits. And (part) of a cubit w^as the height of the 

 rock over the head of the excavators."! 



The same minute accuracy is displayed in a passage which 

 was set aside by criticism as apocryphal. In 2 Chron. xxxiii, 

 10-13, we read, "And tlie Lord spake to Manasseli and to his 

 people; but they would not hearken. Wherefore the Lord 



* T/tf Jl!(j/ipr Criticism and the Monuments, p. 468. 



t ISec Hai'per, The Bible and Modern Discoveries, pp. 515-519 ; and 

 King, Recent Discoveries on the Temple Hill, pp. 141-148. E. Hull, 

 " Scripture lllustratod and ( 'onlirnicd by Ivecent iJiscoveries," T rans. \ict, 

 Inst., vol. xxviii, p. 130 (1801). 



\ Records of the Vast (New •Serie s), vol. i, pp. 174 175. 



