278 p. GARD FLEAY, ESQ., M.A., ON THE SYNCHRONOUS 



As regards Jeroboam II, I think it is not necessary to take the 

 twenty-seven years in the manner usually taken, for I find that by 

 taking it in the ordinary manner, if Uzziah came to the throne as 

 a little child and was under a regent for a time, as may very well 

 have happened, on the sudden death, by assassination, of his father, 

 the twelve years required would be made up, and that would bring 

 us to the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam, instead of the fourteenth 

 as was supposed, about an interval of twelve or thirteen years. 



I would also say that I have consulted an eminent physician as 

 to the impossibility, or possibility, of Ahaz having a son at the age 

 of twelve years ; or, if you will carefully examine it, at the age of 

 nearly thirteen years, and Dr. Walter Kidd said it is quite possible 

 for such a thing to happen in the East. 



It is a mistake to suppose, as is generally done, that the Bible 

 gives us no other means of confirming the chronology of the twin 

 kingdoms of Judah and Israel than its fixing of the accessions in 

 one line in certain regnal years of the other line and vice versa. We 

 have one well-known sum total given as a check upon the addition 

 of the individual reigns ; and we have another which is little known 

 but more definite. I will take the second in the first place, because 

 it is more definite, that is to say, its initial as well as its final point, 

 is stated. 



In the fourth chapter of Ezekiel we read that the prophet is to 

 foretell the siege of Jerusalem which brought the kingdom of Judah 

 to an end in a manner that was common in prophecy by dramatic 

 illustration, namely, first by portraying the city upon a tile and 

 imitating the operations of a siege, and then by lying down many 

 days in succession and eating a small weighed ration of food and water 

 all the time. In directing him to do this God told him that he was to 

 be one day for every year of a certain period " three hundred and 

 ninety days " on his left side to "bear the iniquity of the house of 

 Israel," and " forty days " on his right side to " bear the iniquity of 

 the house of Judah " (vv. 4-6). 



Now if we reckon back fourteen years from the beginning of the 

 siege, we come to the revival in the twelfth year of King Josiah, 

 when he destroyed the idols throughout the land, from which time 

 it is to be presumed that little by little iniquity and idolatry gained 

 ground again. 



