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26 July 2022 index-topical-hb
The Chronology of Judges is murky and problematic, and constitutes, in a way, a detour on the road to building a coherent Chronology of the Hebrew Bible.
In what we might call the "main line" of biblical chronology, the 480 years of 1 Kings 6:1 one allows one to leapfrog directly from the Exodus all the way to the reign of Solomon without needing to grapple with the troublesome chronological data of Joshua, Judges, and Samuel -- of which Judges contains by far the most interesting material.
And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the Lord.
For this exercise, we will recalculate, to the extent that such a thing is possible, the time span from the Exodus until Solomon, but without making use of 1 Kings 6:1. This will require some almost algebraic accounting due to the nature of the sources. We will count all years from the Exodus, which we may abbreviate as A.E., After Exodus.
Quotations in this article come from the ASV unless otherwise noted.
After the Exodus, we read that the Israelites wandered about for forty years prior to entering the land of Canaan (Joshua 5:6 et al). And so they begin their invasion of Canaan in the year 40 A.E.
Next, they are ruled by Joshua for an unspecified time.
And Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua, and which had known all the works of the Lord, that he had done for Israel. (Judges 2:7).
Joshua dies, and so do all the elders who outlived Joshua (Judges 2). Then the Israelites lapse into a neglect of Yahweh, and Yahweh becomes angry. Judges 3:8 begins:
Therefore the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of Cushan-rishathaim king of Mesopotamia ...
We are not told how long Joshua reigned (let's call this period X1), how long the Israelites continued to behave well under the leadership of the elders (X2), or how long the Israelites took after the death of the elders to lapse into sin and provoke God until he sold them into the hand of Cushan Rishathaim (X3). But anyhow, when they come under the dominion of Cushan Rishathaim, it is now the year 40 + X1 + X2 + X3 A.E.
Now we read that, still in Judges 3:8,
... the children of Israel served Cushan-rishathaim eight years.
And so the time when the children of Israel stop serving Cushan Rishathaim will be the year 48 + X1 + X2 + X3 A.E.
9 And when the children of Israel cried unto Jehovah, Jehovah raised up a saviour to the children of Israel, who saved them, even Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother. 10 And the Spirit of Jehovah came upon him, and he judged Israel; and he went out to war, and Jehovah delivered Cushan-rishathaim king of [b]Mesopotamia into his hand: and his hand prevailed against Cushan-rishathaim. 11 And the land had rest forty years. And Othniel the son of Kenaz died.
So Othniel defeats Cushan Rishathaim and rules peacefully of Israel forty years, bringing us to the year 88 + X1 + X2 + X3 A.E.
12 And the children of Israel again did that which was evil in the sight of Jehovah: and Jehovah strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel, because they had done that which was evil in the sight of Jehovah. 13 And he gathered unto him the children of Ammon and Amalek; and he went and smote Israel, and they possessed the city of palm-trees.
So, for some unspecified period of time after the death of Kenaz (X4), the Israelites do evil, until Yahweh is provoked enough to bring them under the subjugation of Eglon. The beginning of Eglon's rule of Israel is thus 88 + X1 + X2 + X3 + X4 A.E. That is becoming unwieldly. Let's introduce a new notation and call it 88 + Xs(4), in which Xs(4) means X's 1 through 4 added together.
14 And the children of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab eighteen years.
This means the end of Eglon's reign will come in the year 106 + Xs(4).
15 But when the children of Israel cried unto Jehovah, Jehovah raised them up a saviour, Ehud the son of Gera, the Benjamite, a man left-handed. ... 30 So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel. And the land had rest fourscore years.
So the great peace that arrived after Ehud's deliverance extends until 186 + Xs(4).
31 And after him was Shamgar the son of Anath, who smote of the Philistines six hundred men with an ox-goad: and he also saved Israel.
We're given no chronology at all for Shamgar, nor for how long -- if they ruled Israel at all -- the Philistines ruled Israel prior to Shamgar delivering them. Let us simply lump any possible time-frame associated with Shamgar into another blank space we will call X5.
And the children of Israel again did that which was evil in the sight of Jehovah, when Ehud was dead. 2 And Jehovah sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, that reigned in Hazor; the captain of whose host was Sisera, who dwelt in Harosheth of the Gentiles.
We are not told how long a time passed between the death of Ehud and the establishment of Jabin's rule over Israel. And perhaps we are supposed to fit the time associated with Shamgar into that timeframe as well. So let's just dump any additional years created by this gap into X5 alongside any possible years associated with Shamgar. So Jabin comes to power in the year 186 + X5.
3 And the children of Israel cried unto Jehovah: for he had nine hundred chariots of iron; and twenty years he mightily oppressed the children of Israel.
So Jabin's rule over Israel extends to 206 + Xs(5).
In Judges 4 and 5, various events are related detailing how Jabin is defeated, and then, according to 5:31,
... the land had rest forty years.
This brings us to the year 246 + Xs(5).
1 And the children of Israel did that which was evil in the sight of Jehovah: and Jehovah delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years.
We'll call the period in which Israel was doing evil X6, and adding another seven years brings us, at the end of Midian's rule, to 253 + Xs(6). The rest of the chapter details God selecting a new champion for Israel, Gideon.
We read various details of how Gideon delivered Israel and then, in verse 28:
And the land had rest forty years in the days of Gideon.
So the land has rest until the year 293 + Xs(6).
33 And it came to pass, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the children of Israel turned again, and played the harlot after the Baalim, and made Baal-berith their god. 34 And the children of Israel remembered not Jehovah their God, who had delivered them out of the hand of all their enemies on every side; 35 neither showed they kindness to the house of Jerubbaal, who is Gideon, according to all the goodness which he had showed unto Israel.
We are not told how long this evil behavior occurred, so let's call it X7.
22 And Abimelech was prince over Israel three years.
This brings us to the year 296 + Xs(7).
1 And after Abimelech there arose to save Israel Tola the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, a man of Issachar; and he dwelt in Shamir in the hill-country of Ephraim. 2 And he judged Israel twenty and three years, and died, and was buried in Shamir.
How long after Abimelech did Tola save Israel? We'll call this unspecified time X8. So Tola died in the year 319 + Xs(8).
3 And after him arose Jair, the Gileadite; and he judged Israel twenty and two years.
This brings us to the year 341 + Xs(8)
6 And the children of Israel again did that which was evil in the sight of Jehovah ... 7 And the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the children of Ammon. 8 And they vexed and oppressed the children of Israel that year: eighteen years oppressed they all the children of Israel that were beyond the Jordan in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead.
This brings us to the year 359 + Xs(9).
7 And Jephthah judged Israel six years. Then died Jephthah the Gileadite, and was buried in one of the cities of Gilead.
This brings us to the year 365 + Xs(9).
8 And after him Ibzan of Beth-lehem judged Israel. 9 And he had thirty sons; and thirty daughters he sent abroad, and thirty daughters he brought in from abroad for his sons. And he judged Israel seven years. 10 And Ibzan died, and was buried at Beth-lehem.
This brings us to the year 372 + Xs(9).
11 And after him Elon the Zebulunite judged Israel; and he judged Israel ten years.
This brings us to the year 382 + Xs(9).
13 And after him Abdon the son of Hillel the Pirathonite judged Israel. 14 And he had forty sons and thirty sons’ sons, that rode on threescore and ten ass colts: and he judged Israel eight years.
This brings us to the year 390 + Xs(9).
13 And the children of Israel again did that which was evil in the sight of Jehovah; and Jehovah delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years.
This brings us to the year 430 + Xs(9).
The Israelites are next delivered by Samson.
20 And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.
This brings us to the year 450 + Xs(9).
Samson loses control of his life, and is captured by the Philistines. He dies in a suicide attack after being imprisoned an unspecified length of time, bringing us to the year 450 + Xs(10).
The rest of Judges contains various events, but without chronological details. We can lump these all together as X11.
At the opening of Samuel, we find Israel under the leadership of Eli, a priest at Shiloh.
18 And it came to pass, when he made mention of the ark of God, that Eli fell from off his seat backward by the side of the gate; and his neck brake, and he died: for he was an old man, and heavy. And he had judged Israel forty years.
The death of Eli brings us to the year 490 + Xs(11).
And it came to pass, when Samuel was old, that he made his sons judges over Israel.
After the death of Eli, we are not given a specific timeframe for how long Samuel and sons ruled over Israel. We may call this X12. Saul will become king at 490 + Xs(12).
For the first verse of Samuel, the Masoretic Text reads, as I translate it,
Saul was a year old when he became king, and he ruled over Israel for two years.
The general consensus is that something has gone wrong with this verse, as Saul certainly seems older than one year old in the narratives about his ruling over Israel, and certainly seems more than three years old the entire time as well. We may try to repair the Masoretic Text here in various ways, but instead I suggest for our present purposes that we may simply call Saul's reign X13.[1]
4 David was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years.
This brings us to the year 530 + Xs(13), at which point Solomon becomes king.
As we've shown, if we take the chronology of the book of Judges at face value, 530 years plus some additional unknown periods of time pass between the Exodus and the accession of Solomon. These unknown periods include, among other things, the time that Joshua and his successor "elders" ruled Israel, and the time Israel was under Eli, Samuel, and Saul.
And yet, according to 1 Kings 6:1,
And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month Ziv, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of Jehovah.
So here is our problem. 1 Kings 6 indicates that 480 years pass from the Exodus to the beginning of work on the temple. But tracing the chronology through the biblical passages between Exodus and Kings indicates 534 years plus a number of undefined periods. That's 54 excess years before we even attempt to estimate the periods of time that are not precisely accounted for.
Let's retrace those unnacounted-for periods, and give a plausible estimate for each. Now, any of these estimates will be arguable, but no matter what estimates you substitute, the problem remains because we've already found 54 years more than 1 Kings 6 allows.
On top of these 54, let's add 25 years for Joshua's rule over Israel, and 25 years for the elders after him. Those fifty years are probably a little short, but they at least give enough time for a generation to arise who had little living memory of the time in the wilderness. Say, perhaps, 5 years of rebellion afterward before God intervenes. Let's say another 5 years for the rebellion after Othniel dies. Shamgar comes "after" Ehud (see above), so instead of just enfolding him into Ehud's reign, let's allot 20 years for all the events associated with Shamgar. Let's say there is no period of evildoing distinct from the "80 years of peace" that occur after Ehud's deliveranc, so 0 years. Let's say the Israelites do evil for 5 years after the death of Jair and before the Philistines and Ammonites dominate Israel. Let's put Samson in prison for 10 years, and allot another 10 years to the various events between Eli's death and Samson becoming judge. Let's say the ark's twenty years at Kiriath Jearim all occur during Samuel's leadership. After the ark leaves Kiriath Jarim, let's give Samuel 20 years as a judge, to give him time to become old before people start asking him to appoint his replacement. Let's give Saul 40 years, following the New Testament's lead.
These plausible but very debateable numbers add up to 190 years, bringing the Exodus-to-Temple period to 724 years. If Solomon dedicates the Temple around 960 BC, then that pushes the Exodus all the way back to 1684 BC, a far earlier date than you'll usually hear about.
Now, 960 is a conventional date for the reign of Solomon. If you work out the length of the Judahite kingdom by simply adding up the reign of its kings, there are 430 years between the beginning of work on the Temple and the destruction of Jerusalem in 587. That would push the dedication of the Temple back to 1017 — 57 years earlier, which would in turn push the Exodus back 57 more years, perhaps to 1742. Of course, due to the squishiness of all the unspecified periods, you could wiggle that number back or forward in either direction.
Conclusion
The Bible does not contain a single consistent account of the time that passed between the Exodus and the reign of Solomon. While it was once traditional to see the Exodus as a 13th-century event, the trend lately has been to abandon the idea that the Exodus happened at all in real history. It is still an interesting exercise to reconstruct the Bible’s own notion about when the Exodus happened.
Within the biblical narrative, the “short” chronology of 1 Kings 6 places the Exodus around the middle of the fifteenth century, if paired with a conventional date of the kingdom of Solomon. But the Bible’s own more detailed account of events between the Exodus and Solomon could place the Exodus as early as the seventeenth or eighteenth century.
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