se men of Merodach-Baladan that he should have sent all
the way from Babylon to Jerusalem "to inquire of the wonder that was
done in the land" if the wonder was nothing more than a wrongly mounted
dial.

Others have hazarded the extreme hypothesis, that there might have been
an earthquake at the time which dipped the dial in the proper direction,
and then restored it to its proper place; presumably, of course, without
doing harm to Jerusalem, or any of its buildings, and passing unnoticed
by both king and people.

A much more ingenious theory than any of those was communicated by the
late J. W. Bosanquet to the Royal Asiatic Society in 1854. An eclipse of
the sun took place on January 11, 689 B.C. It was an annular eclipse
in Asia Minor, and a very large partial eclipse at Jerusalem, the
greatest phase taking place nearly at local noon. Mr. Bosanquet
considers that the effect of the partial eclipse would be to practically
shift the centre of the bright body casting the shadow. At the beginning
of the annular phase, the part of the sun uncovered would be a crescent
in a nearly vertical position; at mid eclipse the crescent would be in a
horizontal position; at the end of the annular phase the crescent would
again be in a vertical position; so that the exposed part of the sun
would appear to move down and up in the sky over a very small distance.
It is extremely doubtful whether any perceptible effect could be so
produced on the shadow, and one wholly fails to understand why the
eclipse itself should not have been given as the sign, and why neither
the king nor the people seem to have noticed that it was in progress. It
is, however, sufficient to say that modern chronology shows that
Hezekiah died ten years before the eclipse in question, so that it fell
a quarter of a century too late for the purpose, and no other eclipse is
available to take its place during the lifetime of Hezekiah.

But there is no reason to think that the word rendered in our Authorized
Version as "dial" was a sundial at all. The word translated "dial" is
the same which is also rendered "degrees" in the A.V. and "steps" in the
R.V., as is shown in the margin of the latter. It occurs in the prophecy
of Amos, where it is rendered "stories" or "ascensions." It means an
"ascent," a "going up," a "step." Thus king Solomon's throne had six
_steps_, and there are fifteen Psalms (cxx.-cxxxiv.)--that are called
"songs of degrees," that is "songs of steps."