councillors and satrap of all Syria." (Diod. according to Ctesias, i. 4.) He saw the lovely Philistine maidwhose name signifies "the hovering (the pigeon) of the height (heaven)," an epithet of the Goddess Derketoin an official tour to Gaza; he fell in love with her, and received her from her foster-father, who was an inspector of the royal troops, as his wife.

But we do not require the help of such a tradition (which, however, can hardly be a religious myth) to establish the fact of all Mesopotamia having been, at a very early stage, an appurtenance of the empire of Ninus, and having necessarily been governed by a satrap on the Euphrates. He must have kept an eye upon Palestine, even if it were not placed immediately under his charge, like the Roman governor under the satrap of Syria.

This relationship did exist, however, in the time of Nehemiah (iii. 7.). Certain workmen, who were employed by Nehemiah, the governor, in repairing the ruins, are said to belong "to the throne (Kisse') of the governor on this side the river" (i. e. speaking as a Persian or Assyrian, literally, on the other side of the stream, the Euphrates).

The name Kusan-Ris'hathayim, however, seems not to have any other meaning. It has hitherto been an enigma to all expositors, and the explanation of it in Gesenius' Dictionary-"most insolent Ethiopian”—requires a mark of admiration after the mark of interrogation. What had the Kushites to do in Mesopotamia at that time, especially if they signify men from Southern Arabia ?

The dual termination, indeed, is a proof that the name signified a duality, namely Mesopotamia, the land of the two rivers, Naharaïna, as the man in the Book of Judges is once called "king of Aram," and another time "king of Naharayim." Mesopotamia, in fact, i. e. East-Syria, as contrasted with the Syria of Damascus, is called

properly Aram-Naharayim, the high land between the two rivers.

We may consider Ris'hathayim, from the analogy of the Arabic, Resata, kingdom, to mean the land of the two kingdoms (this side and that side). It seems to us, however, more natural to suppose that Kusan is the well-known Hebrew or Aramaic word Kes, Kisse, throne, judgment-seat. It is the very expression used in the passage of Nehemiah above alluded to. An is the person-ending, which we also find as a Canaanitish. form in the Philistine word seren, prince; in Hebrew, sar. This formative syllable is not unfrequently used in the Bible in the same sense.147 It probably also occurs on Assyrian monuments. The explanation of Ris, therefore, is res, ros chief, president. The AssyroArabic name for river is Set (used in Hebrew only in the sense of alarm, outbreak, but signifying originally fluctuation); it is found in the present Arabic name of the Pasitigris, Sat-el-Arab. In Assyrian, therefore, it was pronounced Kusan-res-Satain, i. e. first judge (governor, satrap) of Mesopotamia.

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But whether this be the explanation or not, the socalled king of Mesopotamia can have been merely an Assyrian satrap, and the phenomenon can only be accounted for, and, as I believe, the name also, by the coincidence of the Assyrians being then dominant in these districts.

This synchronism, however, is the key to the whole Jewish history of the time. Let us for a moment dispassionately compare the epoch of Joshua with the state of Israel at the end of the 18 years of anarchy after his

147 See Movers, Phoenicians, ii. A. p. 5. note 20. He remarks that Kus and Kusan are interchanged (Hab. iii. 7): Yeter and Yitran (1 Chron. vii. 38., compared with verse 37.; Gen. xxxvi. 26.): Qayin and Qeïnan (Gen. iv. 1., v. 9.): Loth and Lothan (Gen. xiii. 1., xxxvi. 20. 29.).

death, and keep steadily in view that we are dealing with a strictly historical narrative. The conquest by Joshua of the whole of the highlands is authentic, and the best accounts after his death state that the inhabitants of the plain were, for the most part, tributary to the Israelites. Suddenly everything is changed. The native inhabitants lift up their heads; Israel has to fight on both sides of the river for a bare existence; they become tributary, indeed, in which condition they remain during 175 years with only occasional intermissions, and those of short duration.

Much of this, certainly, may be accounted for by the total absence of a rational federal constitution, with a federal tribunal and federal power. There are two considerations which will enable the historian to comprehend how such institutions could fail to exist, consistently with the great and profound political views which formed the basis of the Mosaic constitution. One is the tenacity with which they adhered to a tribe life as being the extension of family life; the other, the thorough incompatibility of clear insight and the rude and savage state of this the only people of universal history. But in the present case the transition is too rapid. It can only arise from a total change of external relations.

Such were the rise and establishment of the Assyrian power. The old inhabitants of Canaan, including the cities of Phoenicia with Sidon at their head, mortally exasperated as they were, must necessarily have attached themselves to that supremacy as well as the Israelites. But they would not forget when an opportunity offered to bring forward their grievances against the Jews. Everything that occurred in Nehemiah's time must, as was intimated above, have also happened then in one shape or the other. Now the conquest of Asia was complete in the 17th year of Ninus, and whatever the appearance of things in Egypt may then have

been, whose star so suddenly paled at the very moment when the sun was rising on the Tigris, Palestine at least must have at that epoch very soon felt the influence of Assyria. It was nearer, and formed a bridge to Egypt.

This too when Semiramis overran Egypt, which Ninus had conquered, and from thence advanced upon Ethiopia-herself a Philistine from Gaza or Askalon, and apparently a fanatical worshipper of the Queen of Heaven, who was called in the old world Astarte !

The first shape, therefore, in which the Assyrian supremacy was exercised over the Israelites was through the satrap of Mesopotamia. No mighty empire of Damascus then existed, and in Eastern Syria there can never have been an empire coexistent with Assyria and Babylonia.

Precisely as might have been expected this Pacha abused his power. He drove the Jews to desperation, and was expelled by Hothniel, never to appear again, either he or his successor, as an oppressor of Israel.

Although we have no further explanation of the mode in which they were subjected to tribute on the three next occasions, by the Moabites and Midianites from the other side Jordan, and between the two by the Northern Canaanites, their aggressions must necessarily have had some connexion with the Assyrian domination, and, even if not directly instigated by that power, they must have been acquiesced in, and liberally paid for, by "the king of kings." There is no other way of accounting for the historical fact transmitted to us. The maxim,

"divide et impera" is so congenial to the feelings of all tyrants and autocrats, that we may be sure Semiramis was not displeased to see the old races make head again against the new intruders. Her successors were obliged, nevertheless, to strain every nerve to subdue merely the northern portion of the realm of Israel, when the people at length resolved to establish a monarchical

form of government, as a means of deliverance from their state of disunion as tribes and from sacerdotal rule.

Between the supremacy of Midian and the ascendency of the Philistines, which Samson struggled against with heroic courage, but which was not overthrown till the time of Saul and David, the judicature of Gideon intervened. This, with the 3 years of his son, the tyrant of Sichem, we suppose to have lasted 13 years. He was succeeded by the series of Judges in Israel from Tola to Abdon, the well authenticated length of whose judicature was 48 years.

Ewald has ingeniously shown that the Philistines must during that period have received reinforcements from the islands of the Mediterranean, especially Cyprus and Crete (Kaphthor and Kittim), to have enabled them to acquire such an ascendency. These troops who returned from foreign service were probably the class of body-guards or Swiss mercenaries of the king of Assyria, the so-called Krethi and Pelethi, that is, Cretans and Philistines.

In a word, we have here an intelligible history in a suitable period, instead of an unintelligible chaos during a period devoid of all historical facts. Instead of an isolated narrative wholly at variance with the real history of Asia and Egypt, and which, in spite of the inexhaustible, because unfounded, devices of theologians, can never be made to harmonize with it, we have an organic connexion which removes the possibility any doubt as to its reality.

of

IV. THE YEARS OF SAUL AND DAVID.

WE in conclusion to say a few words upon propose the chronology we have adopted for the reigns of Saul and David. From the time that the monarchy was established we have specific strictly historical dates. When a consciousness of constitutional unity is felt,