▼Bertheau holds a contrary opinion to that given in the text, and thinks that by the numerous sons and grandsons of Ulam the son of Eshek we are brought down to post-exilic times, seeing that if Saul lived about 1080 b.c., and thirty years are reckoned to each one of the thirteen generations (Eshek being a descendant of Saul in the thirteenth generation), Azel and Eshek must have lived about 690 b.c. But this estimate is too high, for we cannot reckon sixty years to Saul and Jonathan from 1080 onwards, since Jonathan fell along with Saul in 1055, and his son Meribbaal was then hardly five years old, and must consequently have been born in 1060. For the following generations, moreover, not more than twenty-five years on an average should be reckoned. That being the case, the children’s children of Ulam’s sons, who were the twelfth generation of Micha’s descendants, may have lived from 760 b.c. onwards, and during this period, from 760 to 700, may have increased to the troop of blooming grandchildren of Ulam mentioned in 1Ch 8:40. But even supposing that thirty years should be reckoned for each generation, the last-named generation of 150 grandsons and great-grandsons of Ulam would have lived in the period from 660 to 600, i.e., before the exile, or at least before the first great deportation of the people with Jehoiakim in the year 599 b.c.