David, we are here told, In this chapter the bequest is bequeathed to Solomon for the stated to have been only 3,000 temple the fabulous sum of talents of gold, and 7,000 of 100,000 talents of gold, and a silver. This would amount to million talents of silver. In £166,650,000 English money. A English money this would be seven good round sum for a petty state thousand million sterling (say not bigger than Yorkshire, but 7,000,000,000!). still considerably reduced from that given in the previous record. 2 Chron. iii., 15. Jeremiah lii., 21, 22. According to the chronicler the Jeremiah tells us the shaft of height of the two pillars made by each was only 18 cubits high. He Solomon for the temple was 35 agrees in the height of the cubits in the shaft, on which was chapiter (five cubits). a chapiter of five cubits. According to Jeremiah the entire Altogether about 80 feet!! height was about 40 feet, or half that of the chronicler. Jeremiah lii., 28–30. Ezra ii., 64. The “prophet” informs us that the Ezra states that of the captives total number of captives taken taken to Babylon only 42,360 were from Judah to Babylon was only willing to return. All the rest 4,600. A modest number enough, preferred to remain where they compared with the number of were. No doubt Ezra would give fighting men, which averaged us to understand that more 300,000, according to the Bible remained in Babylon than went up historians. to the land of their fathers. The “prophet” has made a mistake in his sum. The three captivities were 3,320 + 832 + 745=4,897, not 4,600. One is puzzled to understand how 4,000 captives should have so stripped the kingdom as to leave it a wilderness; we find hundreds of thousands falling in a single battle without exhausting the country at all. Matt. xvii., 1–2. Luke ix., 28. Here we read “After _six_ days Luke says “About an _eight_ days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and after . . . he took Peter, John, John, and bringeth them up into a and James, and went up into a high mountain . . . and was mountain, and was transfigured.” transfigured before them.” Mark vi., 40. Luke ix., 14. Mark says of the 5000 who were Luke says that Jesus directed his fed with five barley loaves and disciples “to make them sit down two fishes: “They sat down in by fifties in a company.” ranks, by hundreds and by fifties.”