the dwelling-place of His name in the midst of His people, formed an important epoch so far as the Old Testament kingdom of God was concerned, inasmuch as, according to the declaration of God made through the prophet Nathan, an end would thereby be put to the provisional condition of the people of Israel in the land of Canaan, since the temple was to become a substantial pledge of the permanent possession of the inheritance promised by the Lord. The importance of this epoch is indicated by the fact, that the time when the temple was built is defined not merely in relation to the year of Solomon's reign, but also in relation to the Exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt. “In the 480th year after the Exodus of the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign, in the second month of the year, Solomon built the house of the Lord.” The correctness of the number 480, as contrasted with the 440th year of the lxx and the different statements made by Josephus, is now pretty generally admitted; and we have already proved at Jdg 3:7 that it agrees with the duration of the period of the Judges when rightly estimated.[1]
The name of the month Ziv, brilliancy, splendour, probably so called from the splendour of the flowers, is explained by the clause, “that is, the second month,” because the months had no fixed names before the captivity, and received different names after the captivity. The second month was called Jyar after the captivity. - The place where the temple was built is not given in our account, as having been sufficiently well known; though it is given in the parallel
- ↑ In opposition to the hypothesis of Böttcher, which has been repeated by Bertheau, viz., that the number 480 merely rests upon the computation of 12 x 40 years, or twelve generations of forty years each, Thenius himself has observed with perfect justice, that “where both the year and the month of the reign of the king in question are given, the principal number will certainly rest upon something more than mere computation; and if this had not been the case, the person making such a computation, if only for the purpose of obtaining the appearance of an exact statement, would have made a particular calculation of the years of Solomon's reign, and would have added them to the round number obtained, and written 'in the year 484.' Moreover, the introduction to our chapter has something annalistic in its tone; and at this early period it would be undoubtedly well known, and in a case like the present a careful calculation would be made, how long a time had elapsed since the most memorable period of the Israelitish nation had passed by.” Compare with this Ed. Preuss (Die Zeitrechnung der lxx, p. 74ff.), who has endeavoured with much greater probability to show that the alteration made by the lxx into 440 rests upon nothing more than a genealogical combination.
