“to more than 670,009. 
. 
1797. | 
rical reduGtion, by the aid of topography 
and fufpeéted interpolation. 
' Without entering inte topographical 
difcuffion, or enquiring if your corref- 
pondent had not in his choice a more 
appropriate term, I readily admit that 
the journey might have been accom- 
‘plithed in three years and fix months; 
and, ftill farther, that the I{fraelites did 
-not employ even fo much as three years 
‘and a half in the aé of travelling. 
The hiftorian, writing in a language 
avhich fupplied him with proper appel- 
Jatives, cannot be fuppofed to have ap- 
' plied them in any other than their ufual 
and peculiar fenfe ; and having pre- 
~vioully and repeatedty mentioned years 
and months, diftinétly and numerically, 
_it is very improbable that he fhould, in 
narrating fubfequent events, have con- 
‘founded them together, and fubftituted 
them indifcriminately for each other. 
Several of the places in which the 
“Tfraelites encamped, are rendered me- 
morable by important occurrences, whilft 
others, undiftinguifhed by any remark- 
able incident, are recorded with brevity ; 
-and the thirty-eight years they {pent in 
-Kadefh and its vicinity, though affording 
us few events, yet account very fufh- 
ciently for the greateft part of the term 
of forty years, without leaving any chafm 
"nthe hiftory for criticif{m to fupply. 
é 
In the fecond year of their migration, 
and in the fecond month of that year, the 
enumeration of all the males in the tribes 
“of Lfrael, from twenty years old and up- 
wards, took place, when they amounted 
All of whom, 
excepting Caleb and jofhua, were, for 
‘their difobedience, fentenced to die in 
the wildernefs, and this fentence feems 
to have been gradually fulfilled, during 
their long refidence at Kadefh In the 
laft year of their journey, they ‘were 
‘again numbered according to the former 
‘defcription, and were found to exceed 
602,000. During the courfe of forty 
years, both thefe faéts are probable ; 
“but that fuch a number of grown men 
(befides the common mortality amengit 
_their women and children) fhould die 
‘am! the {pace of 40 months, and that an 
equal number fhould, in the fame time, 
‘grow up as their fubftitutes, are facts 
‘improbable, and, I think, incredible. 
_ ‘The ages of Aaron, Mofes and Caleb, 
Pare ftated at the periods of their deaths 
refpectively, as including the forty years 
fpent in the wildernefs. Aaron wi $3 
"years old, and Mofes 80, when they 
yitood before Pharach, and the former 
Was. 123 when he died, and the latter 
Chronology of the Book of Numbers. 
21 
1203; which could not have been true, 
had not the forty years been taken into 
the account. Caleb afferts, that he was 
forty years old; when Mofes fent him,, 
with. others, to fearch out the land, and 
that he had been preferved for five and 
forty years fince that tranfaétion; fo that 
at the time in which he claimed and ob 
tained Hebron for his inheritance, which 
was when they had made a confiderable 
progrefs in the conqueft of Canaan, he 
was eighty-five years of age. Thefe 
ages imply that their refidence in the 
wildernefs had continued forty years s, 
and the fame faét is confirmed by nus 
merous references in the Old and New 
‘Feftaments. 
Although fome individuals, about that 
time, lived to a very great age (not 
greater, however, than modern inftances 
will-parallel) yet it is probable, the ge- 
neral extent of human life was, from the 
teftimony of Mofes himfelf, from feventy 
to eighty years. And it feems reafonable 
to fuppofe, that thofe whofe lives were 
extended to 120 years, were as few, 
compared with the bulk of mankind 
then, as thofe who live to the aze of 
feventy cr eighty are to the generality 
of their fpecies now : for no perfon will 
contend ‘that, what is called the age of 
man, is, atthe prefent period, the ge- 
neral ftandard of human life. + 
From thefe obfervations, it follows, 
that the dire: and incidental proof of 
the fact, is as clear and decifive as the 
evidence of teftimony is capable of afford- 
ing: and as there is nothing abfurd, 
contradictory, or evenimprobable, inthis 
part of {cripture. chrenology, I cannor 
even guefs at the motive which induced 
your correfpondent to fuggret an alter- 
ation fo fanciful and arbitrary. 
I have been in the habit of confiderin 
alunar year as confifting uf lunar months, 
and am very doubtful if the ancient 
Egyptians denominated a fingle lunation 
a year; what Plutarch relates as a report, 
and Diodorus Siculus as the conjecture 
of others, feems but feeble authority + 
but were it proved demonfiratweiy, 
there is no evidence of the mode 
having been adopted in the annals of 
the Hraelites; and when we obferve 
their hiftorian relating events which 
happened in the firft, fecond, third, 
tenth, and eleventh month, of the frit, 
{econd, or fortieth year, it is certainly ab- 
furd to fuppofe’ him employing thofe 
terms interchangeably, or applying the 
term year. to the duodecimal parts of 
which it was compofed. I am, fir, 
Bath, “Fait 7, 0797 cau lass 
