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THE

SACRED AND PROFANE

HISTORY OF THE WORLD

CONNECTED,

FROM THE

CREATION OF THE WORLD

TO THE

DISSOLUTION OF THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE AT THE
DEATH OF SARDANAPALUS,

AND TO THE

DECLENSION OF THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH AND ISRAEL
UNDER THE REIGNS OF AHAZ AND PEKAH.

WITH THE TREATISE ON

THE CREATION AND FALL OF MAN.

BY

SAMUEL SHUCKFORD, M. A.

RECTOR OF SHELTON IN THE COUNTY OF NORFOLK.

A NEW EDITION.

VOL. II.

OXFORD,

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS.

MDCCCX.

Clar. Pres

1.0.59.

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THE

PREFACE.

THE first and fecond volumes of this hiftory, which I fome years ago offered to the public, do fo fully explain the nature and defign of my undertaking, that there can be no need of any further account of it. This third volume contains the facred hiftory from the Ifraelites having paffed the Red fea to the death of Jofhua; and I have, as in the former volumes, offered in it not only fuch obfervations as I thought might obviate or anfwer objections to, or difficulties in, the Scripture accounts of fome facts of thefe times, but alfo fuch hints of the heathen nations, as can belong to this period, and may conduce to my being able to deduce the profane history in a clear light, when I fhall come down to an age which may afford plenty of materials for a relation of the affairs of it.

I am fenfible the reader may expect from me fome account of the Jewish year, which he will not find in the enfuing volume. If the Ifraelites, when they came into Canaan, had not been inftructed to compute fuch a number of days to a year, as might come very nigh to the true meafure of it, they could not long have continued to keep their fet feasts in their proper feafons. The heathen nations had as yet no notion of the year's containing more than 360 days: but fuch a year falling fhort five days, and almost a quarter of a day of a true folar revolution, it must be evident that the stated feafts of Mofes's law, if they had been obferved in a course of such years, would have returned five days and almost a quarter of a day, in every year, fooner than the true feafon of the year for obferving them could have returned with them; and this in a very few years muft have brought them into a great confufion. Mofes ap

a See Pref. to Vol. I.

b They muft in a few years have come to celebrate the Paffover before they could have had lambs fit to be caten; the wave-fheaf-offering would VOL. II.

B

have come about before the barley was ripe to be reaped; and the Pentecoft before the time of wheat-harveft. Prideaux, Pref. to Part. I. of his Connection.

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