lation, and I will not smell the savor of your sweet odors. And I will bring the land into desolation and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it. And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste. Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths. As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it. And upon them that are left alive of you, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall, when none pursueth. And they shall fall one upon another, as it were before a sword, when none pursueth: and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies, And ye shall perish among the heathen, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up, And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them."

During those punishments, the city and sanctuary were to be destroyed and desolated till the consummation, as predicted by Moses in Deut. xxviii. Jeremiah. xxv. Dan, ix. and Zechariah xiv.

We find, by Rev. xii. 6 and 14, that three and a half times is 1260 days. "And the woman

fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days. And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent." If, then, three and a half times is 1260 days, then seven times, being twice three and a half times, would be twice 1260 days, or 2520 days. If we can ascertain when these days commenced, we can ascertain when they will terminate.

We learn by Jeremiah when this dispersion was to commence. He says, (xv. 4-6:) "And I will cause them to be removed into all kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem. For who shall have pity upon thee, O Jerusalem ? or who shall bemoan thee? or who shall go aside to ask how thou doest? Thou hast forsaken me, saith the Lord, thou art gone backward: therefore will I stretch out my hand against thee, and destroy thee; I am weary with repenting." The fulfilment of this predic tion is recorded in 2 Chron. xxxiii. 3–11: "For he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had broken down; and he reared up altars for Baalim, and made

groves, and worshipped all the hosts of heaven, and served them. Also he built altars in the house of the Lord, wherefore the Lord had said, In Jerusalem shall my name be forever. And he built altars for all the host of heaven, in the two courts of the house of the Lord. And he caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom: also he observed times, and used enchantments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit, and with wizzards: he wrought much evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger. And he set a carved image, the idol which he had made, in the house of God, of which God had said to David and to Solomon his son, In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen before all the tribes of Israel, will I put my name forever: neither will I any more remove the foot of Israel out of the land which I have appointed for your fathers; so that they will take heed to do all that I have commanded them, according to the whole law and the statutes, and the ordinances by the hand of Moses. So Manasseh made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err, and to do worse than the heathen, whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel. And the Lord spake to Manasseh, and to his people: but they would not hearken. Wherefore the Lord brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh among the

thorns, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon." This, according to the chronology in the margin of all Polyglot bibles, was B. C. 677. And the sins here recorded of Manasseh are the same as were predicted should be the cause of their dispersion. Then the independence of the Jews ceased; and 2520 years, the period of their dispersion, beginning B. C. 677, would terminate A. D. 1843.

In this same year also, according to Archbishop Usher, was fulfilled the prediction in Isa. vii. 8: "For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin and within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people." 2 Kings xvii. 20-24: "And the Lord rejected all the seed of Israel, and afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of spoilers, until he had cast them out of his sight. For he rent Israel from the house of David; and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king: and Jeroboam drave Israel from following the Lord, and made them sin a great sin. For the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they departed not from them; until the Lord removed Israel out of his sight, as he had said by all his servants, the prophets. So was Israel carried away out of their own land to Assyria unto this day. And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava,

and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel: and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof."

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After Manasseh was carried to Babylon, he humbled himself and was restored to Jerusalem. 2 Chron. xxxiii. 12, 13: "And when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed unto him and he was entreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord he was God." He was, however, still dependent upon the Babylonians; and we learn by Neh. ix. that the nation never again recovered its independence.

After this nominal restoration of Manasseh, Jeremiah predicted that the Jews should be carried as a nation to Babylon. Jer. xxv. 8-12: "Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts; Because ye have not heard my words, behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the Lord, and Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations round about, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations. Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth,