My First Try In the course of charting the life, judgeship, and ruler years listed in Scripture, I discovered something interesting about how the Hebrew scribes counted those years: the Hebrew scribes did not count those year spans in the same way the Greco-Roman Western world would have counted them. I realized this when I charted the year spans literally, one following the other, and ended up with more than 480 years. For example:
And the anger of YHWH glowed against Yisrä@ël. And He gave them over into the hand of Kûshan rishøäthayim, king of @Áram naháräyim. And the benê->Yisrä@ël served Kûshan rishøäthayim eight years. | And when the be,nê->Yisrä@ël cried to YHWH, YHWH raised up a deliverer to the benê->Yisrä@ël, ØÄthenî@ël ben->Qenaz, Kälëv 's younger brother, who saved them. . . . And the land had rest forty years. And ØÄthenî@ël ben->Qenaz died. (Judge 3.8-11)
ØÄthenî@ël (Othniel) was the first judge to rule after the elders who ruled after Yehôshãø (Joshua) had all died. But according to Scripture, ØÄthenî@ël did not actually become a judge until eight years after the elders died. Once he had delivered Yisrä@ël, the land had rest for 40 years. I initially charted these year spans as eight years of servitude followed by forty years of rest for a total of forty-eight years, which is the Greco-Roman Western counting method. I did the same for the other judgeships and ended up with 450 years for the years of the judges alone. Just adding 450 years to the 40 years of the Wilderness Wanderings gave me 490 years, and I still had not added in the c. 90+ years for the conquest of Kenaøan and the United Kingdom. Obviously, this counting method did not work for the record in Scripture. My Second Try The idea the Rûãch Qödösh (Holy Spirit) brought to mind was including the years of oppression within the years of the judgeships. Had the Hebrew scribes counted the judgeships as running continuously, one after the other, no matter when the judge actually became a judge within the years of his/her judgeship? Yes, that's exactly what they did. A continuous running count of the judgeships not interrupted by the count of the years spent serving other nations came to around 345 years. That left 135 years for the other events within the 480 years. Although it took some adjusting and re-adjusting of the probable year counts for how long Yehôshãø and the elders led Yisrä@ël before the judgeships began, how long Shemû@ël was a judge, how long Shä@ûl reigned, and when Shelömöh's co-regency began within Däwïd's reign, the 135 years was enough time to work all the events recorded in Scripture from the Exodus to the fourth year of Shelömöh into the 480 year count. Antedating versus Postdating In my research,(1) I learned the Ancient Near East civilizations used two different counting methods for their kings' reigns: antedating and postdating. The scribes did not count a king's reign from the day or month the last king died (as the Romans did) but rather from the year the last king died. In antedating, the scribes counted the beginning of the next king's reign as starting in the same year as the last year of the previous king's reign. For example, using the Western calendar: If King A reigned 40 years and died in 1200 B.C., the scribes counted his reign from 1239 B.C. to 1200 B.C. They then counted his successor's reign as starting in 1200 B.C., overlapping the two kings' reign counts. In postdating, the scribes counted the next king's reign as starting in the year after the last year of the previous king's reign. The overlapping year in postdating was called the "accession year" and counted only with the previous king's reign. Taking the same example: If King A died in 1200 B.C., the scribes started the reign count for his successor in 1199 B.C. 1200 B.C. was the successor's "accession year," and not included in the successor's reign count. The Hebrew scribes antedated the judgeships using the religious (Nisan/Spring) year. When the kings began, the scribes continued to use the antedated religious year pattern until they had to deal with the co-regency of Shelömöh with his father Däwid. Perhaps what the scribes did related to the time of year Däwid made Shelömöh his co-regent or perhaps they just felt it was too confusing to count Shelömöh's co-regency using the same religious year count they were using for Däwid, but, for whatever reason, the scribes counted Shelömöh's reign using the civil year. When the kingdom split, the Yehûdäh scribes postdated the Yehûdäh kings' reigns using the civil year and the Yisrä@ël kings' reigns using the religious year. However, the Yisrä@ël scribes antedated the kings' reigns. This made charting the reigns of the kings of Yehûdäh and Yisrä@ël based on the information in Scripture quite challenging, but that's another story.
Another Time Wrinkle Then I ran across something else. I found the counting got a little weird in Scripture when the scribes dated events to a month during a Shelömöh reign year because the scribes counted the months according to the religious year but they counted Shelömöh's reign according to the civil year. What that means is the 7th to 12th months of a Shelömöh reign year occurred before the 1st to 6th months of a Shelömöh reign year.
And it happened in the four hundred and eightieth year from the going out of the benê->Yisrä@ël from the land of Mitsräyim, in the fourth year, in the month of Ziw (it is the second month) in the reigning of Shelômôh over Yisrä@ël, he built the house for YHWH. (1 Kings 6:1)
The second month (Ziw) referenced here is the month Iyaar in the religious Jewish calendar, the month following Abib (Nisan). But the count for the fourth year of Shelömöh's reign begins in the Tishri before this Ziw. Tishri is the first month in the civil calendar and the seventh month in the religious calendar. Of course, this held true for the Yehûdhäh scribes counting in any of the Yehûdhäh kings' reigns. As I said, the counting gets a little weird from the Greco-Roman Western standpoint. Conclusion While, on the surface, the Scripture record of the year spans of various events appears to include too many years, counting the way the Hebrew scribes counted resolves the problem. All the events recorded in Scripture from the Exodus to the fourth year of Shelömöh do fit within the 480 time frame given in 1 Kings 6.1.
FOOTNOTES (1) I no longer remember where I first read about antedating and postdating and I'm not finding it now. It was probably in an article in the International Standard Bible Encylopedia or in the Jewish Encylopedia Online. Return Return to blog post Return to ICB Menu
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