BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Theological-Political Treatise
And Jair 03
The people were again in the power of the
Philistines and of the Ammonites 18
Jephthah was judge 06
Ibzan of Bethlehem 07
Elon the Zebulunite 10
Abdon the Pirathonite 08
The people was again under the sway of the Philistines 40
Samson was judge 12 20
And Eli 40
The people was again under the sway of the
Philistines until it was liberated by Samuel 20
David reigned 40
Solomon before he built the temple 04
Add these up and the total number of years is 580
133 [8] To this we must add the years of the generation following the
death of Joshua in which the Hebrew state £ourished until conquered
by Cushan-rishathaim. I believe it to have been many years. I cannot
accept that immediately following Joshua’s death, all those who had
witnessed his prodigious deeds perished in a moment, or that their
successors abandoned the laws at a single stroke falling from the highest
virtue into the deepest wickedness and idleness, or that Cushanrishathaim
conquered them with a single blow. 13 Each one of these
events requires almost a life-time in itself, and there is hence little
doubt that Scripture compressed into Judges 2.7^10 the history of
many years which it passed over in silence. We should add further the
years when Samuel was judge, whose number is not given in Scripture,
and also the years of Saul’s reign which I omitted from my earlier calculation,
because it is unclear from the account of him how many years
he reigned.
[9] It is indeed asserted at 1 Samuel 13.1 that Saul reigned for two years,
but that text has been mutilated and from the actual account given of him
we obtain a larger number. That the text has been mutilated cannot be
doubted by anyone who has even a passing acquaintance with Hebrew.
12 Spinoza’s footnote: see Annotation 17.
13 ‘Dictum factum’:Terence,The Self Tormentor, 760.
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