Abraham Kuenen
Published: 2012-02
Total Pages: 206
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: NOTES. 1.?Seep. 99, n.; p. 143, n. . The returns of the number of Judaeans who were carried away and of those who went back to their native land, considered both separately and together, present difficulties which have not yet been removed. Although I myself am not in a position to clear up everything, I think it my duty to make the reader acquainted with the real state of the case, and to make an attempt at a solution. We will begin by studying the returns themselves. In doing this let us remember that the Israelites only included and counted the men in their genealogies (comp., e.g., Exod. xxx. 11?16; Num. i. xxvi.; whenever this rule was broken there were special reasons for so doing, e.g. Num. iii. 39?51, and even then the women were not included). This will also be the case with the figures relating to those who were carried away and to those who came back; and also with Jer. Iii, 29, 30, although in this passage souls are mentioned; for it is said of Jacob that he and his were seventy souls, in which number the women, with the exception of Dinah, are not included (Gen. xlvi. 26, 27). Therefore, in order to get at the full number, we must always multiply our returns by four or five. The first transportation took place in the year 597 B.c. How many it affected we learn from 2 Kings xxiv. 14?16, on which verses compare Thenius and Keil. In the passage quoted only the exiles from Jerusalem are enumerated, but it does not appear that inhabitants of the country were carried to Babylonia besides these. The total amounts (verse 14) to 10,000, which are subsequently divided into three groups: 7000 men of means, 1000 craftsmen and smiths (?) and (therefore 2000) courtiers, princes, and men of high rank. Of course this is entirely a round number, the accuracy of whic...