or alluded to, was delivered by fome Prophet by infpiration of God, and if fo, Efdras must be here intended. What time Efdras lived is not certain; but if we are to judge of it from the chronological characters in this book, it must be in the reign of Artaxerxes Mnemon, about 390 years before Chrift, that he saw the vifions written in this book. Out of these I have selected only that defcribed in the 13th chapter; not because I think he has nothing else relating to the fame fubject, but because it contains fome circumstances which are perhaps no where else to be met with relating to the ten tribes of Ifrael. I shall for brevity fake omit the vision itself, and only fet down the angel's interpretation of it.

LIII.

ESDRAS xiii. 25. This is the meaning of the vifion: Whereas thou faweft a man coming up from 26 the midst of the fea, The fame is he whom God the highest hath kept a great feafon, which by his own felf fhall deliver his creature; and he fhall or27 der them that are left behind. And whereas thou

faweft that out of his mouth there came as à blaft 28 of wind, and fire and ftorm; And that he held neither sword nor any inftrument of war, but that the rufhing in of him deftroyed the whole multitude that came to fubdue him; this is the interpretation : 29 Behold the days will come, when the Moft High

will begin to deliver them that are upon the earth. 30 And he hall come to the astonishment of them that 31 dwell on the earth. And one fhall undertake to fight against another, one city against another, one place against another, one people against another,

32 and one realm against another. And the time shall be when these things fhall come to pafs, and the figns fhall happen which I fhewed thee before, and then fhall my fon be declared, whom thou 33 faweft as a man afcending. And when all the people hear his voice, every man shall in their own land leave the battle they have one against another, 34 And an innumerable multitude fhall be gathered

together, as thou faweft them willing to come, 35 and to overcome him by fighting. But he fhall 36 ftand upon the top of the mount Sion. And Sion fhall come, and fhall be fhewed to all men, being prepared and builded like as thou faweft the hill 37 graved without hands. And this my fon fhall rebuke the wicked inventions of thofe nations, which for their wicked life are fallen into the tempest 38 And shall lay before them their evil thoughts, and the torments wherewith they fhall begin to be tormented, which are like unto a flame; and he fhall deftroy them without labour by the law which 39 is like unto fire. And whereas thou fawest that he gathered another peaceable multitude unto him: 40 Thofe are the ten tribes which were carried away prifoners out of their own land, in the time of Ofea the king, whom Salmanazar the king of Affyria led away captive, and he carried them over the waters 41 and fo came they into another land. But they took counsel among themselves that they would leave the multitude of the heathen, and go forth into a 42 further country where never mankind dwelt: That

they might there keep their ftatutes, which they 43 never kept in their own land. And they entered into 44 Euphrates by the narrow paffages of the river. For

the Most High then shewed figns for them, and held 45 ftill the flood till they were paffed over. For through that country there was a great way to go; namely, of a year and a half: and the fame region is called Arfareth

H 2

46 Arfareth (or Ararath). Then dwelt they there until the latter time; and now when they fhall begin 47 to come, The Highest shall stay the springs of the

ftream again, that they may go through: therefore 48 faweft thou the multitude with peace. But thofe that are left behind of thy people are they that are 49 found within my borders. Now when he destroyeth the multitude of the nations that are gathered together, he shall defend his people that remain. 50 And then fhall he fhew them great wonders. 51 Then faid I, O Lord, that beareft rule, fhew me this: wherefore have I feen the man coming up 52 from the midft of the fea? And he said unto me, like

as thou canst neither feek out nor know the things which are in the deep of the fea, even fo can no man upon the earth fee my fon, or thofe that be 53 with him, but in the day time. This is the interpretation of the dream which thou faweft, and whereby thou only art here lightned.

The account we here have of the removal of the ten tribes out of the Medo-Perfian empire into a country uninhabited till that time, is fo far from being an argument against the genuineness of this book, that it is rather a strong argument for it. For it is evident, and confeffed by all, that these ten tribes were carried thither by the Affyrians, Pul, Tiglatb-Pul-Affur, and Salman-Affar. They were there till the death of Tobias, junior, who was one of them, when Nineveh was deftroyed by Nebuchadnezzar and Aftyages; yet it

* In Q. Elizabeth's translation, But in the time of that day, which gives an easy and intelligible fenfe; whereas our tranflation is unintelligible.

is.

is evident, that when Zerdusht, the great legifla-
tor of the Medes and Perfians, fet up his religion
of Abraham in that empire, which was about the
middle of the reign of Artaxerxes Mnemon, there
appeared no Jews there, as we may easily obferve
through the whole hiftory of Dr. Hyde *; and
that neither their brethren, the Jews, of the two
tribes in Judea, nor thofe in Babylon, have ever
fince been able to give us any good account of
them, or have indeed at all known where they
are, to this very day. What is the natural con-
fequence of all this? but that about the very time
here fpecified, these ten tribes really removed
themselves unto fome unknown part of the world,
as we are here particularly informed. Accord-
ingly we find an account in Plutarch's life of this
Artaxerxes Mnemon, that in the 21st year of his

reign, there were a people called Cadufians, or Jee Fuller's misest
boly people, (which was the common name for the 4.3.c.s.
Jews there in thofe days) fituate on the north-
weft parts of Media, near the beginning of the
Euphrates, whither the account fupposes the ten
tribes to have bent their courfe. We also find
thefe Cadufians, or holy people, when purfued or
attacked by the Perfians, escaping those Perfians
under the conduct of two kings, or leaders, as
their forefathers had escaped the Egyptians under
the conduct of Moses and Aaron; and probably
not without fome fuch figns or wonderful works
as Mofes and Aaron of old wrought, and of which

*Hyde de relig. vet. Perf.
H 3

our

The writers of yt universal distory (V.6.67 p.2.83) discredit- this con ture of Fuller adopted by our writer: yet they themselors (2.4.4.810 Ell us &. Strahlenberg a traveller of credit met wo numbers ont aus wat near Derbant, & of couner.

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M

+ from it country which they ascriba to it Cadiesians 15 pin. Th

our accounts here make mention; though the
Perfians endeavour to palliate the matter, by a-
fcribing their own deliverance to a stratagem of
one Tiribazus, while they confefs that otherwise
their army had been deftroyed by thefe Cadufians.
We may also take notice that yet of these Cadu-
fians we hear nothing till this time, and that Strabo
calls them foreigners that came thither from elfe-
where; and laftly we may remark, that since Ar-
taxerxes thought fit to bring no fewer than 310,000
men into the field against these Cadufians, as Plu-
tarch witneffes, it looks much more like an attempt
to recover these intire ten tribes of Ifrael, who
had long been his fubjects, his flaves, and his
captives, but were now departed out of his do-
minions, (like Pharaoh's attempt in Egypt) than
to reduce only scattered mountaineers who were
in rebellion against him, as Plutarch supposes.
Nor can this grand problem, what became of these
ten tribes in this very reign, be folved to the leaft
degree of fatisfaction, but by taking the direct
account that is here given by Efdras for a faith-
ful account, and by fuppofing this book of his
to be true and genuine at the fame time.

The next Prophecy, and the only one more
that I fhall lay before the reader out of the Apo-
crypha, fhall be that of TOBIT, who was of the
tribe of Nephthali, and was led captive in the
time of Salmanazar, king of Affyria, 721 years
before Chrift, and 133 years before the destruc-
tion of Jerufalem by Nebuchadnezzar. The tran-
flation in the fecond column is from the Hebrew