merely in the sense that the conduct of the Jews would determine whether they should begin or not,—that is too plain to be mistaken, vs. 14-18; but after they had been inflicted in part, and the different forms of the threatened punishment had begun, the remainder of it might have been suspended or remitted; for after the first threatening of the punishment, it says, vs. 23, 24,"And IF ye will not be reformed by me by these things, but will walk contrary unto me; THEN will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you YET SEVEN TIMES for your sins,"-implying that, after the judgments had begun, if they would hearken and do his commandments, he would not punish them to the full; but if not, then he would punish them yet seven times,—the full punishment of the first threatening shall be poured out upon them. So the prophets understood the subject, and in accordance with it they addressed their countrymen, until they finally rebelled by rejecting their Lord, and the wrath came upon them to the uttermost. Jer. iii. 7-20; iv. 1, 2; vii. 5-7; xvii. 19-26; xxii. 1—4. 3. Why commence the seven times at the captivity of Manasseh, B. C. 677? 1. The prediction itself points to that event. The first form of their punishment stated in connection with the first mention of the period is," And I will break the pride of your power." If their kingly form of civil government is here referred to, it was never "broken" until the captivity of Manasseh. Although it was the case, after the division of the Hebrews into the ten tribes and two tribes, that they were several times made tributary to foreigners, still one division remained independent while the other was subdued and tributary until his captivity; but at this period the ten tribes had lost their king, (2 Kings xvii. 1-18,) and as soon as Manasseh, the king of the remaining division, was carried into captivity, their "power,' as an inde pendent people, was gone. Manasseh was the pride and the ruin of the Jews. Again; the prediction specifies the particular sins on account of which this evil should befall them. Some of these sins are as specifically charged upon Manasseh and the Jews as the direct cause of their calamity. Compare Lev. xxvi. 14, 18, 27, with 2 Kings xxi. 9-13; and Lev. xxvi. 1, 2, with 2 Kings xxi. 2-8; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 2—11. 2. Those texts which speak of the instruments of Providence in effecting this judgment, all point to his captivity as the time for the commencement of the period. Compare Isaiah x. 5, 6, with 2 Kings xxi. 10— 14. 2 Chron xxxiii. 10, 11. Neh. ix. 32. 3. The sacred historians refer to Manasseh's sins as the cause of their captivity and sufferings long after his captivity. 2 Kings xxiii. 26, 27; xxiv. 1-4 ; Jer. xv. 1-7.. 4. Although Manasseh was restored to his throne, and there were a few other kings of the Jewish nation after him, they have never been an independent people "from the day of the kings of Assyria unto this day." Neh. ix. 32. Nebuchadnezzar brought the kingdom, in its subjected form, to an end; when Babylon was conquered by Cyrus, the Jews passed under the power of the Medes and Persians; then under that of the Greeks; in the division of Greece, they were connected with Egypt; as a part of Egypt, were conquered by Syria; they prospered awhile under the Maccabees, and the protection of the Romans, who eventually "took away their place and nation." Since the destruction of their city, they have been " wanderers among the nations,' —a hissing and a by-word, -pitying none, pitied by none. 5. The prophets, who lived long before the captivity of Manasseh, point to that event as the time of the passing away of the Jewish independence, by connecting it with other events. One of them gives the date. Hosea, more than a hundred years before, had said,"And the pride of Israel (the ten tribes) doth testify to his face therefore shall Israel and Ephraim (the principal tribe of the ten) fall in their iniquity; JUDAH (the other division) SHALL ALSO FALL WITH THEM." Hosea v. 5. Isaiah, in the year 742 B. C., according to date in the margin, had said,—“And within threescore and five years SHALL EPHRAIM BE BROKEN that it be not a people." vii. 8. From 742 deduct 65 leaves B. C. 677,-the only date ever given, I believe, for the captivity of Manasseh. For an explanation of the quotations from Hosea and Isaiah, and for the most authentic history of the period before us, we add the following HISTORY. "In the eleventh Prideaux's Con., vol. i., pp. 149-151. year of Manasseh, B. C. 688, died Tirhakah,* king of Egypt, after he had reigned there eighteen years, who was the last of the Ethiopian kings that reigned in that country. "The same year that this happened in Egypt, by the death of Tirhakah, the like happened in Babylon, by the death of Mesessimordacus. For, he leaving no son behind him to inherit the kingdom, an interregnum of anarchy and confusion followed there for eight years together,† of which Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, taking the advantage, seized Babylon, and, adding it to his former empire, thenceforth reigned over both for thirteen years; he is, in the canon of Ptolemy, called Assar-Adinus. And in the scriptures he is spoken of as king of Babylon and Assyria jointly together.§ In the 22d year of Manasseh, B. C. 677, Esarhaddon, after he had now entered on the fourth year of his reign in Babylon, and fully settled his authority *Africans and Cyncellum, p. 74. † Canon Ptolemaei. Canon Ptolemaei. § He is said, as king of Assyria, to have brought a colony out of Babylon into Samaria, 2 Kings xvii. 24. Ezra iv. 9, 10, which he could not have done, if he had not been king of Babylon, as well as of Assyria, at that time. And in 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11, he is said, as king of Assyria, to have taken Manasseh prisoner, and to have carried him to Babylon, which argues him, at that time, to have been king of Babylon also. there, began to set his thoughts on the recovery of what had been lost to the empire of the Assyrians in Syria and Palestine, on the destruction of his father's army in Judea, and on that doleful retreat which thereon he was forced to make from thence; and, being encouraged to this undertaking by the great augmentation of strength which he had acquired by adding Babylon and Chaldea to his former kingdom of Assyria, he prepared a great army, and marched into those parts, and again added them to the Assyrian empire. And then was accomplished the prophecy which was spoken by Isaiah, in the first year of Ahaz, against Samaria,* that, within threescore and five years, Ephraim should be absolutely broken, so as to be from thenceforth no more a people. For this year, being exactly sixty-five years from the first of Ahaz, Esarhaddon, after he had settled all affairs in Syria, marched into the land of Israel, and there taking captive all those who were the remains of the former captivity, (excepting only some few, who escaped his hands and continued still in the land,) carried them away into Babylon and Assyria; and, to prevent the land from becoming desolate, he brought others fromt Babylon, and Cutha, and from Avah, and Hamath, and Sepharvaim, to dwell in the cities of Samaria in their stead. And the ten tribes of Israel, which had separated from the house of David, were brought to a full and utter destruction, and never after recovered themselves again. Esarhaddon, after he had thus possessed himself of the land of Israel, sent some of his princes, with parts of his army, into Judea, to reduce that country also under his subjection; who, having vanquished Manasseh in battle, and taking him, hid in a thicket of thorns, brought him prisoner to Esarhaddon, who bound him in fetters and carried him to Babylon. *Isa. vii. 8. Ezra iv. 2, 10. Joseph. Antiq. lib. 10, 4. Archbishop Usher, after referring to the above facts in the history of Egypt and Babylon, stated by Prideaux, in reference to the points in question, says :— "Year of the world 3327. Julian period 4037. Before Christ 677. This year also was fulfilled the prophecy of the prophet Isaiah, (chap. vii. 8,) in the beginning of the reign of Ahaz, "Within sixty and five years, Ephraim shall be broken in pieces so that it shall be no more a people.' For although the greatest part of them were carried away by Salmaneser 44 years before, and the kingdom utterly abolished, yet among them which were left there was some show of government. But now they left off to be any more a people by reason of the great multitude of foreigners which came to dwell there. New colonies or companies were sent out of Babel, Cuth, Hava, and Sepharvaim; and this was done by Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, as is easy to be understood, by the confession of the Cuthites, mentioned Ezra iv. 2, 10. "At which time, also, as it should seem, and in the same expedition, whereby these things were done in the land of Israel, some of the chief commanders of the Assyrian army made an inroad into Judea, and then took Manasseh the king, as he lay hid in a thicket; after binding him with chains of brass, carried him away to Babylon. Jacobus Capellus hath noted in his Chron. that the Jews in Sedar Olam Rabba, and the Tal mudists, cited by Rabbi Kimchi upon Ezra, chap. iv., do deliver, that Manasseh, 22 of his reign, was carried away captive into Babylon, and that he repented him of his sin thirty-three years before his death."-[Usher's Annals of the World, p. 75. Lond., 1658. See also Newton on Prophecy, pp. 98, 99. Rollin, B. iii., chap. 2.] From all the light we have upon the event to which this prophecy refers, and from which the seven times should commence, no other date could be named for, the event-no other point for the starting-point, any. more than we could fix upon any other date than 1776 for the date of American Independence. Having thus disposed of the difficulties connected with this first and most important detailed prediction of the history of the Jews, so far as it relates to the prophetic period it contains, we will close our remarks by showing that it must terminate in 1843; and by referring to those texts which assure us that the com ing of Christ, and the end of all things, in their pres |