Page:Historical Works of Venerable Bede vol. 2.djvu/303

 CHRONICLE.] which is Christ. And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was 430 years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect.

A.M. 2493 [3859].

Moses brought the children of Israel out of Egypt, and governed them in the wilderness 40 years. In the first year he constructed a tabernacle for the Lord.In seven months the work was finished, and in the first month of the second year, on the fifth day of the month, was it set up. Up to this period, as Eusebius observes, the five books of Moses contain the history of 3730 years, according to the interpretation of the seventy. The number, however, as contained in the Hebrew verity, is thus stated by Josephus, in his first book against Appian the grammarian; "The books which we possess are not numerous, nor do they disagree among themselves, but only twenty-two, which contain a history of the world, and are justly believed to have been written by divine inspiration. Of these, five are the books of Moses, and extend to the end of his life, containing rules of life, and a pedigree of the human race, and embrace a series of little less than 3000 years."

A.M. 2519 [3885]. Joshua governed Israel 26 years, according to Josephus: for the Holy Scripture does not state how many, For what reason Eusebius in his Chronicles has made it 27, we shall say by and by. In the first year of his rule, in the first month, on the tenth day of the month, the bed of the Jordan was made bare, and Joshua led the people through into the land of promise. In the self-same year, as we read in the Chronicles of the aforesaid Eusebius, was the beginning of the fifty-first Jubilee among the Hebrews; that is, 2500 years were completed from the beginning of the world, 50 years being counted to each Jubilee. Nevertheless our researches have led