BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Annotations
therefore include the eight previous years when the people was under the
sway of Cushan-rishathaim, while the following eighteen years should be
included in the total of 80 years in which Ehud and Shamgar were judges.
Similarly, they also believe that the other periods of slavery are always
included in those which Scripture a⁄rms they spent in freedom. But
257 Scripture states an explicit number for the years when the Hebrews
languished in slavery and for the years when they were in liberty, and
Judges 2.18 expressly tells us that their a¡airs always £ourished while the
judges were alive. It is therefore quite clear that while attempting to
unravel such knots, the rabbi (who is otherwise a very learned man), and
those who follow in his footsteps, are just amending rather than
explaining Scripture.
The same mistake is made by those who insist Scripture means to refer, in
its usual reckoning of years, solely to periods of settled government among
the Jews without including in the total the periods of anarchy 15 and servitude
since they regarded these as unhappy, interregnal times. 16 Scripture
does indeed pass over periods of anarchy in silence but nevertheless narrates
the years of slavery no less than the years of liberty, making no
attempt to erase these from their Annals, as such people imagine.
It is also perfectly obvious that in 1 Kings chapter 6, Ezra 17 wished to
include in the total he gives for the number of years since the exodus from
Egypt every single year without exception, 18 and no scholar of the Bible
has ever doubted this. For leaving aside for a moment the exact wording of
the text, the genealogy of David, which is given at the end of the book of
Ruth and at 1 Chronicles 2, hardly allows for so large a number of years
[‘that is, 480’ ( in the French)]. For in the second year after the exodus from
Egypt Nahshon was leader of the tribe of Judah (see Numbers 7.11^12),
and therefore died in the desert 19 and his son Salmon crossed the Jordan
with Joshua. But according to this genealogy of David, 20 Salmon was
15 ‘As they call them in their aversion to popular government’ [in French].
16 ‘For to say that the Hebrews did not wish to note in their Annals the periods when their Commonwealth
£ourished, because these were times of misfortune and of interregnum, so to speak, or that
they erased from their Annals the years of servitude, if this is not an insult, it is a chimerical ¢ction
and an absolute absurdity’ [in French].
17 ‘Who is the author of these books, as we have shown’ [in French].
18 ‘Down to the fourth year of the reign of Solomon’ [in French].
19 ‘With all those who had reached the age of twenty years and were capable of bearing arms’ [in
French].
20 See Ruth, 4.18^22.
266