Joseph sold into Egypt

Death of Isaac

Joseph Gov. of Egypt

Jacob goes to Egypt

Death of Jacob

Death of Joseph

The reader will find in ch. 10, some explanations regarding the systems of Chronology by Ussher and Hales.

Hales professes to follow the text of the Greek or LXX translation of the Old Testament, correcting it by the

Jewish historian Josephus, whose dates, however, are often manifestly very inaccurate. Ussher p rofesses to

follow the Hebrew text. The modern Jewish chronology places the birth of Isaac, when Abraham was one

hundred years old, in the year of the world 2048. With this latter very nearly agrees the chronology adopted

by a celebrated modern German commentator, Professor Keil, who places it only two years earlier, viz. in

2046. We have given in the last column, according to the chronology of Keil, the succession of events after

the migration of Abram into Canaan. Keil places the latter event in the year of the world 2021, and before

Christ 2137. From this the reader will easily be able to calculate all the other dates according to the

chronology of Keil, which on the whole seems to us the most reliable. He bases it on the following data:

according to 1 Kings 6:1, the Temple of Solomon was built 480 years after the Exodus, while the deportation

of Israel into Babylon took place 406 years after the building of the Temple, that is, in all, 886 years after the

Exodus. But as the commencement of the Exile must have fallen in the year 606 before Christ, we have the

year 1492 before Christ (or 2666 after the Creation) as that of the Exodus. The year 606 before Christ is fixed

as that of the commencement of the Babylonish exile, because it ended after 70 years, in the first year of the

sole reign of Cyrus, which we know to have been the year 536 before Christ.