Timeline of the Bible · The Wilderness & the Judges
The Philistines Oppress Israel
Oppression · 1156–1117 BC
What the Bible Says
- “the LORD delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years” Judges 13:1
Each year here fits these numbers, as the years between the points they count from.
The Years
- Began 1156 BC
- “to wit, about the beginning of the third moneth, which was, afterward called Sivan”
- Ended 1117 BC
- “after seven moneths space, by the advice of their Priests, the Philistines, they sent home the Ark again”
Ussher has the forty years begin seven months after Eli began to judge, and end seven months after his death, when the ark was sent home (1 Samuel 6:1).
Dated by Archbishop James Ussher’s Annals of the World (1658), quoted as printed, whose dates were printed in the margins of King James Bibles for two centuries.
