Now this Darius was not Darius Nothus, but Darius Hystaspis, as I gather by considering that the second year of this Darius was the seventieth of the indignation against Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, which indignation commenced with the invasion of Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar, in the ninth year of Zedekiah, Zech. i. 12. Jer. xxxiv. 1, 7, 22. & xxxix. 1. and that the fourth year of this Darius, was the seventieth from the burning of the Temple in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, Zech. vii. 5. & Jer. lii. 12. both which are exactly true of Darius Hystaspis:  and that in the second year of this Darius there were men living who had seen the first Temple, Hagg. ii. 3. whereas the second year of Darius Nothus was 166 years after the desolation of the Temple and City.  And further, if the finishing of the Temple be deferred to the sixth year of Darius Nothus, Jeshua and Zerubbabel must have been the one High-Priest, the other Captain of the people an hundred and eighteen years together, besides their ages before; which is surely too long:  for in the first year of Cyrus the chief Priests were Serajah, Jeremiah, Ezra, Amariah, Malluch, Shechaniah, Rehum, Meremoth, Iddo, Ginnetho, Abijah, Miamin, Maadiah, Bilgah, Shemajah, Joiarib, Jedaiah, Sallu, Amok, Hilkiah, Jedaiah:  these were Priests in the days of Jeshua, and the eldest sons of them all, Merajah the son of Serajah, Hananiah the son of Jeremiah, Meshullam the son of Ezra, &c. were chief Priests in the days of Joiakim the son of Jeshua:  Nehem. xii. and therefore the High Priest-hood of Jeshua was but of an ordinary length.

I have now stated the history of the Jews in the Reigns of Cyrus, Cambyses, and Darius Hystaspis:  it remains that I state their history in the Reigns of Xerxes, and Artaxerxes Longimanus:  for I place the history of Ezra and Nehemiah in the Reign of this Artaxerxes, and not in that of Artaxerxes Mnemon:  for during all the Persian Monarchy, until the last Darius mentioned in Scripture, whom I take to be Darius Nothus, there were but six High-Priests in continual succession of father and son, namely, Jeshua, Joiakim, Eliashib, Joiada, Jonathan, Jaddua, and the seventh High-Priest was Onias the son of Jaddua, and the eighth was Simeon Justus, the Son of Onias, and the ninth was Eleazar the younger brother of Simeon.  Now, at a mean reckoning, we should allow about 27 or 28 years only to a Generation by the eldest sons