[1] Those who have a mind to know all the family and descendants of Antipater the Idumean, and of Herod the Great, his son, and have a memory to preserve them all distinctly, may consult Josephus, Antiq. B. XVIII. ch.5. sect.4; and Of the War, B. I. ch.28. sect.4; in Havercamp's edition, p.336; and Spanheim, lb. p.402 -- 405; and Reland, Paleslin. Part I. p.178, 176.

[2] This is now wanting.

[3] Pheroras's wife, and her mother and sister, and Doris, Antipater's mother.

[4]His wife, her mother, and sister.

[5] It seems to me, by this whole story put together, that Pheroras was not himself poisoned, as is commonly supposed; for Antipater had persuaded him to poison Herod, ch. v. sect.1, which would fall to the ground if he wore himself poisoned; nor could the poisoning of Pheroras serve any design that appears now going forward; it was only the supposal of two of his freed-men, that this love-potion, or poison, which they knew was brought to Pheroras's wife, was made use of for poisoning him; whereas it appears to have been brought for her husband to poison Herod withal, as the future examinations demonstrate.

[6] That the making of images, without an intention to worship them, was not unlawful to the Jews, see the note on Antiq. B VIII. ch.7. sect.5. [7] This fact, that one Joseph was made high priest for a single day, on occasion of the action here specified, that befell Matthias, the real high priest, in his sleep, the night before the great day of expiation, is attested to both in the Mishna and Talmud, as Dr. Hudson here informs us. And indeed, from this fact, thus fully attested, we may confute that pretended rule in the Talmud here mentioned, and endeavored to be excused lay Reland, that the high priest was not suffered to sleep the night before that great day of expiation; which watching would surely rather unfit him for the many important duties he was to perform on that solemn day, than dispose him duly to perform them. Nor do such Talmudical rules, when unsupported by better evidence, much less when contradicted there by, seem to me of weight enough to deserve that so great a man as Reland should spend his time in endeavors at their vindication.

[8] This eclipse of the moon [which is the only eclipse of either of the luminaries mentioned by our Josephus in any of his writings] is of the greatest consequence for the determination of the time for the death of Herod and Antipater, and for the birth and entire chronology of Jesus Christ. It happened March 13th, in the year of the Julian period 4710, and the 4th year before the Christian era. See its calculation by the rules of astronomy, at the end of the Astronomical Lectures, edit. Lat. p.451, 452.

[9] A place for the horse-races.

[10] When it is here said that Philip the tetrarch, and Archelaus the king, or ethnarch, were own brother, or genuine brothers, if those words mean own brothers, or born of the same father and mother, there must be here some mistake; because they had indeed the same father, Herod, but different mothers; the former Cleopatra, and Archclaus Malthace. They were indeed brought up together privately at Rome like when he went to have his kingdom confirmed to him at Rome, ch.9. sect.5; and Of the War, B. II. ch.2. sect.1; which intimacy is perhaps all that Josephus intended by the words before us.

[11] These numbers of years for Herod's reign, 34 and 37, are the very same with those, Of the War, B. I. ch.33. sect.8, and are among the principal chronological characters belonging to the reign or death of Herod. See Harm. p.150 -- 155.

[12] At eight stadia or furlongs a-day, as here, Herod's funeral, conducted to Herodium, which lay at the distance from Jericho, where he died, of 200 stadia or furlongs, Of the War, B.1. ch.33. sect.9, must have taken up no less than twenty-five days.

[13] This passover, when the sedition here mentioned was moved against Archelaus, was not one, but thirteen months after the eclipse of the moon already mentioned.

[14] See Antiq. B. XIV. ch.13. sect.10; and Of the War; B. II. ch.12. sect.9.

[15] These great devastations made about the temple here, and Of the War, B. II. ch.3. sect.3, seem not to have been full re-edified in the days of Nero; till whose time there were eighteen thousand workmen continually employed in rebuilding and repairing that temple, as Josephus informs us, Antiq. B. XX. ch.9. sect.7. See the note on that place.

[16] Unless this Judas, the son of Ezekias, be the same with that Theudas, mentioned Acts 5:36, Josephus must have omitted him; for that other Thoualas, whom he afterward mentions, under Fadus the Roman governor, B. XX. ch.5. sect.1, is much too late to correspond to him that is mentioned in the Acts. The names Theudas, Thaddeus, and Judas differ but little. See Archbishop Usher's Annals at A.M.4001. However, since Josephus does not pretend to reckon up the heads of all those ten thousand disorders in Judea, which he tells us were then abroad, see sect.4 and 8, the Theudas of the Acts might be at the head of one of those seditions, though not particularly named by him. Thus he informs us here, sect.6, and Of the War, B. II. ch.4. Sect.2, that certain of the seditious came and burnt the royal palace at Amsthus, or Betharamphta, upon the river Jordan. Perhaps their leader, who is not named by Josephus, might be this Theudas.

[17] See Of the War, B. II. ch.2. sect.3.

[18] See the note, Of the War, B. II. ch.6. sect.1.

[19] He was tetrarch afterward.

[20] If any one compare that Divine prediction concerning the tyrannical power which Jewish kings would exercise over them, if they would be so foolish as to prefer it before their ancient theocracy or aristocracy, 1 Samuel 8:1-22; Antiq. B. VI. ch.4. sect.4, he will soon find that it was superabundantly fulfilled in the days of Herod, and that to such a degree, that the nation now at last seem sorely to repent of such their ancient choice, in opposition to God's better choice for them, and had much rather be subject to even a pagan Roman government, and their deputies, than to be any longer under the oppression of the family of Herod; which request of theirs Augustus did not now grant them, but did it for the one half of that nation in a few years afterward, upon fresh complaints made by the Jews against Archelaus, who, under the more humble name of an ethnarch, which Augustus only would now allow him, soon took upon him the insolence and tyranny of his father king Herod, as the remaining part of this book will inform us, and particularly ch.13. sect.2.

[21] This is not true. See Antiq. B. XIV. ch.9. sect.3, 4; and ch.12. sect.2; and ch.13. sect.1, 2. Antiq. B. XV. ch.3. sect.5; and ch.10. sect.2, 3. Antiq. B. XVI. ch.9. sect.3. Since Josephus here informs us that Archelaus had one half of the kingdom of Herod, and presently informs us further that Archelaus's annual income, after an abatement of one quarter for the present, was 600 talents, we may therefore ga ther pretty nearly what was Herod the Great's yearly income, I mean about 1600 talents, which, at the known value of 3000 shekels to a talent, and about 2s.10d. to a shekel, in the days of Josephus, see the note on Antiq. B. III. ch.8. sect.2, amounts to 680,000 sterling per annum; which income, though great in itself, bearing no proportion to his vast expenses every where visible in Josephus, and to the vast sums he left behind him in his will, ch.8. sect.1, and ch.12. sect.1, the rest must have arisen either from his confiscation of those great men's estates whom he put to death, or made to pay fine for the saving of their lives, or from some other heavy methods of oppression which such savage tyrants usually exercise upon their miserable subjects; or rather from these several methods not together, all which yet seem very much too small for his expenses, being drawn from no larger a nation than that of the Jews, which was very populous, but without the advantage of trade to bring them riches; so that I cannot but strongly suspect that no small part of this his wealth arose from another source; I mean from some vast sums he took out of David's sepulcher, but concealed from the people. See the note on Antiq. B. VII. ch.15. sect.3.

[22] Take here a very useful note of Grotias, on Luke 3:1, here quoted by Dr. Hudson: "When Josephus says that some part of the house [or possession] of Zenodorus [i.e. Abilene] was allotted to Philip, he thereby declares that the larger part of it belonged to another. This other was Lysanias, whom Luke mentions, of the posterity of that Lysanias who was possessed of the same country called Abilene, from the city Abila, and by others Chalcidene, from the city Chaleis, when the government of the East was under Antonius, and this after Ptolemy, the son of Menneus; from which Lysanias this country came to be commonly called the Country of Lysanias; and as, after the death of the former Lyanias, it was called the tetrarchy of Zenodorus, so, after the death of Zenodorus, or when the time for which he hired it was ended when another Lysanias, of the same name with the former, was possessed of the same country, it began to be called the Tetrarchy of Lysanias." However, since Josephus elsewhere [Antiq. B. XX. ch.7. sect.1] clearly distinguishes Abilene from Cilalcidcue, Groius must be here so far mistaken.

[23] Spanheim seasonably observes here, that it was forbidden the Jews to marry their brother's wife when she had children by her first husband, and that Zonaras [cites, or] interprets the clause before us accordingly.