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Eusebius, but will not adventure to cut five years from the aristocracy; though peradventure Psammeticus was not at first one of the twelve, but succeeded, (either by election, or as next of blood,) into the place of some prince that died, and was ten years companion in that government.

Another scruple there is, though not great, which troubles this reckoning. The years of these Egyptians, as we find them set down, are more by one than serve to fill up the time between the fifth of Rehoboam, and the fourth of Jehoiakim. This may not be. Wherefore, either we must abate one year from Sethon's reign, that was of uncertain length, or else, (which I had rather do,-because Functius may have followed better authority than I know, or than himself allegeth, in giving to Sethon a time so nearly agreeing with the truth,) we must confound the last year of one reign with the first of another. Such a supposition were not insolent. For no man can suppose, that all the kings, or any great part of them, which are set down in chronological tables, reigned precisely so many years as are ascribed unto them, without any fractions; it is enough to think, that the surplusage of one man's time supplied the defect of another's. Wherefore I confound the last year of those fifteen, wherein the twelve princes ruled, with the first of Psammeticus; who surely did not fall out with his companions, fight with them, and make himself lord alone, all in one day.

Concerning this king, it is recorded, that he was the first in Egypt who entertained any strait amity with the Greeks; that he retained in pay his mercenaries of Caria, Ionia, and Arabia, to whom he gave large rewards and possessions; and that he greatly offended his Egyptian soldiers, by bestowing them in the left wing of his army, whilst his mercenaries held the right wing, (which was the more honourable place,) in an expedition that he made into Syria. Upon this disgrace, it is said, that his soldiers,

to the number of two hundred thousand, forsook their natural country of Egypt, and went into Ethiopia, to dwell there; neither could they be revoked by kind messages, nor by the king himself, who overtook them on the way; but when he told them of their country, their wives and children, they answered, that their weapons should get them a country, and that nature had enabled them to get other wives and children.

It is also reported of him, that he caused two infants to be brought up in such sort as they might not hear any word spoken; by which means he hoped to find out what nation or language was most ancient; forasmuch as it seemed likely that nature would teach the children to speak that language which men spoke at the first. The issue hereof was, that the children cried, Beccus, Beccus! which word being found to signify bread in the Phrygian tongue, served greatly to magnify the Phrygian antiquity. Goropius Becanus makes no small matter of this for the honour of his Low Dutch; in which the word, becker signifies, (as baker in English,) a maker of bread. He that will turn over any part of Goropius's works, may find enough of this kind to persuade a willing man, that Adam and all the patriarchs used none other tongue than the Low Dutch before the confusion of languages at Babel; the name itself of Babel being also Dutch, and given by occasion of this confusion; for that there they began to babble and talk one knew not what.

But I will not insist upon. all that is written of Psammeticus. The most regardable of his acts was the siege of Azotus, in Palæstina, about which he spent nine and twenty years. Never have we heard, (saith Herodotus,) that any city endured so long a siege as this; yet Psammeticus carried it at the last. This town of Azotus had been won by Tartan, a captain of Sennacherib, and was now, as it seemeth,

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@ Isa. xx, 1.

relieved, but in vain, by the Babylonian, which made it hold out so well.

SECT. III.

What reference these Egyptian matters might have to the imprisonment and enlargement of Manasseh. In what part of his reign Manasseh was taken prisoner.

WERE it certainly known in what year of his reignManasseh was taken prisoner, and how long it was before he obtained liberty, I think we should find these Egyptian troubles to have been no small occasion both of his captivity and enlargement; God so disposing of human actions, that even they, who intended only their own business, fulfilled only his high pleasure: for either the civil wars in Egypt, that followed upon the death of Sethon, or the rending of the kingdom, as it were, into twelve pieces, or the war between Psammeticus and his colleagues, or the expedition of Psammeticus into Syria, and the siege of Azotus, might minister unto the Babylonian, either such cause of hope to enlarge his dominion in the south parts, or such necessity of sending an army. into those parts to defend his own, as would greatly tempt him to make sure work with the king of Judah. The same occasions sufficed also to procure the delivery of Manasseh after he was taken; for he was taken, (as Josephus hath it,) by subtlety, not by open force; neither did they that apprehended him win his country, but only waste it. So that the Jews having learned wit, by the ill success of their folly in redeeming Amaziah, were like to be more circumspect in making their bargain upon such another accident; and the Babylonian (to whom the Egyptian matters presented more weighty arguments of hope and fear than the little kingdom of Judah could afford,) had no reason to spend his forces in pursuing a small conquest, but as full of difficulty as

1 Joseph. Antiq. l. 10. c. 4,

a greater, whereby he should compel his mightiest enemies to come to some good agreement, when, by quitting his present advantage over the Jews, he might make his way the fairer into Egypt.

Now, concerning the year of Manasseh's reign, wherein he was taken prisoner, or concerning his captivity itself, how long it lasted, the scriptures are silent, and Josephus gives no information. Yet I find cited by Torniellus three opinions; the one of Bellarmine, who thinks that Manasseh was taken in the fifteenth year of his reign; the other of the author of the greater Hebrew chronology, who affirms, that it was in his twenty-seventh year; the third, of Rabbi Kimchi, upon Ezekiel, who saith, that he was forty years an idolater, and lived fifteen years after his repentance. The first of these conjectures is upheld by Torniellus, who rejects the second as more improbable, and condemus the third as most false. Yet the reasons alleged by Torniellus in defence of the first, and refutation of the last opinion, are such as may rather prove him to favour the cardinal, as far as he may, (for where need requires he doth freely dissent from him,) than to have used his accustomed diligence in examining the matter before he gave his judgment. Two arguments he brings to maintain the opinion of Bellarmine; the one, that Ammon, the son of Manasseh, is said by Josephus to have followed the works of his father's youth; the other, that had Manasseh grown old in his sins, it is not like that he should have continued as he did,' in his amendment unto the end of his life. Touching the former of these arguments, I see no reason why the sins of Manasseh might not be distinguished from his repentance in his old age, by calling them' works of his youth,' which appeared when he was twelve years old; though it were granted that he continued in them, (according to that of Rabbi Kimchi,) until he was but fifteen years from death. Touching the second, howsoever it be a fearful thing to cast off

unto the last those good motions unto repentance, which we know not whether ever God will offer unto us again; yet were it a terrible hearing, that the sins which are not forsaken before the age of two and fifty years, shall be punished with final impenitency. But, against these two collections of Torniellus, I will lay two places of scripture, whence it may be inferred, as not unlikely, that Manasseh continued longer in his wickedness than Bellarmine hath intimated, if not as long as Rabbi Kimchi hath affirmed. In the second book of Kings, the evil which Manasseh did is remembered at large, and his repentance utterly omitted; so that his amendment may seem to have taken up no great part of his life, the story of him being thus concluded in the one and twentieth chapter: Concerning the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and all that he did, and his sin ⚫ that he sinned, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah'.' The other place is in the four and twentieth chapter of the same book, where, in rehearsing the calamities with which that nation was punished in the time of Jehoiakim, the great grand-child of this Manasseh, it is said, Surely by the commandment of the Lord came this upon Judah, that he might put them out of his sight, for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he did, and for the innocent blood that he shed, (for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood,) therefore the Lord would not pardon it". Whoso considers well these places, may find small cause to pronounce it most false, that the repentance and amendment of Manasseh was no earlier than fifteen years before his death; or, most probable, that when he was twenty-seven years old, he repented, and, becoming a new man, lived in the fear of God forty years after. I will no longer dispute about this matter, seeing that the truth cannot be discovered. It sufficeth to say, that two years of civil dissension in 2 2 Kings xxi. 17.

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3 2 Kings xxiv. 3 4.

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