Josephus, in books 5th and 6th of the Antiquities, must have originally contained the true Scriptural numbers, although now we find the following errors have supervened. The first error is in Book vii. 5, 4, where, speaking of the form of the Hebrew Government under Moses and Joshua, he says, “but after his [or their] death, for _the whole_ 18 years, anarchy ruled their people.”[89] The words τοῖς πᾶσι, _the whole_, seem plainly to indicate that a connecting sentence has been omitted here; and that _these 18 years_ must have been part of the government of Joshua and the Elders, which appears to have been so mild and _Patriarchal_, after the division of the land, when “the Lord had given rest unto Israel from all their enemies round about,” that humanly speaking, they were _without government_, although they were living under the best of all governments—_a Theocracy_. After the death of Joshua and the Elders, indeed, there must have been a short period of anarchy, perhaps about two years,[90] when the children of Israel “forsook the Lord and served Baal and Ashtaroth,” and when “an angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim” to reprove them for their Idolatry, (Judges ii. 1–5,) previous to their being “sold into the hand of the King of Mesopotamia;” (iii. 8.) This _anarchal period of two years_, with the _18 years of rest under Joshua_, and the _7 years of his active government_ during the war and the allotment of the land, will clearly make up the number of 27 years, a period to which all the ancient chronographers bear the most distinct and unequivocal testimony;—“Frequens tamen opinio est 27 annis eum [Jesum] Hebræis præfuisse.”[91] A further proof of the opinion we have here advanced respecting the 18 years, is that Josephus does not make the slightest mention of them at the proper place in the history, where he speaks of the death of Joshua, and the accession of Judah to power according to the Divine word, Judges i. 2; but incidentally introduces them into a reflection which he makes on the different forms of the Hebrew government, on the occasion of the renewal of the Kingdom to Saul at Gilgal; 1 Samuel xi. 14.