(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 680,000sterling 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 Icannot 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.
