Prolegomena to the History of Israel

another way in the seventh and sixth, and yet another in the fifth and fourth. Now, the strata of the tradition show the same arrangement as do those of the legislation. And here it makes n

roperly historical books. For on various grounds we are here able with greater certainty to assert: Such was the aspect of history at

also date the rival histories with tolerable certainty. The Books of Samuel and of Kings were edited in the Babylonian exile; Chronicles, on the other hand, was composed fully three hundred years later, after the downfall of the Persian empire, out of the very midst of fully developed Judaism. We shall now proceed to show that the mere difference of date fully accounts for the varying ways in which the two histories represent the same facts and events, and the difference of spirit arises fr

I

s not chosen, but comes with a following six hundred strong, and offers himself to the elders of Judah, whom he has already at an earlier period laid under obligations to him by various favours and gifts. In the meantime Saul's cousin Abner takes over what of the kingdom there is, not for himself but for the legitimate heir Ishbaal; from Gilead, whither the government had been transferred after the great catastrophe, he gradually reconquers the territory west of Jordan, and is scheming how to recover also the lost Judah. Thus it comes to protracted struggles between Abner and David, in which fortune is most on the side of the latter; yet he does not leave the defensive or gain the sovereignty over Israel. That falls into his hands rather by treachery. Abner himself, indignant at the ingratitude of his royal nephew, offers the crown to his rival, and enters into negotiations with him about it; but as he immediately afterwards falls a victim to blood revenge, nothing comes of the matter until Ishbaal is privily murdered in his sleep by t

throne were in sympathy and indeed already on his side, are enumerated by name and numbers in three lists (xi. 10-xii. 40), which are introduced between what is said in 2Samuel v. 1-1110 and in 2Samuel v. 11 seq. The first (xi. 10-47: "these are the mighty men who took part with him with all Isr

. 213-216), has not been understood by the Chronicler, and thus been made quite unrecognisable. In this way he has been able to bring in at the end (xi. 42-47) a string of addition

trious ancestor of the established dynasty; hence also the naive remark of ver. 29. No better is it with the third list (xii. 23-40: "these are the numbers of the bands, ready armed for the war, who came to David to Hebron"). Observe the regular enumeration of the twelve tribes, which nowhere occurs in the older historical books, and is quite artificial; then the vast numbers, which are not matters of indifference here, but the principal thing and make up the entire contents; finally, the 4600 Levites and 3700 priests, who also take their place in the martial train, and constitute the proper guard of the king; to Chronicles the distinction between secular and spiritual soldiers is not altogether clear. There are but a few details of a special kind; the remark in xii. 32 is perhaps connected with 2Samuel xx. 18; Jehoiada the prince of the house of Aaron, i.e., the high priest, alongside of the historically certain series,-Eli, Phinehas, Ahitub, Ahiah (Ahimelech ), Abiathar,-an utterly impossible person, is

re to be omitted; but after the narrative in 2Samuel vi. 1 seq. has been given down to the place "and the ark of Jehovah abode in the house of Obed-edom three months " (1Chronicles xiii. 14 = 2Samuel vi. 11), the pause of a quarter of a year is utilised for the purpose of overtaking what had been left out (xiv. 1-17 = 2Samuel v. 11-25), and then the history of the ark is completed. This indeed is to

lls that Jehovah blessed the house of Obed-edom (xiii. 14), but mentions no consequent result; again the cause is given without the effect. Another explanation is substituted; David perceived that the disaster connected with the removal of the ark was due to the fact of its not having been carried by the Levites in accordance with the Law; the Levites accordingly were made to bear it and no harm ensued (xv. 2, 13-15). This is in complete and manifest contradiction to the older narrative, and as Chronicles (chapter xiii.) copies that narrative, it also contradicts itself (xiii. 10), and that all the more strikingly as by the addition in xiii. 2 it represents the accompanying clergy as tacitly approving the carrying of the ark on the ox-cart. Then due participation in the sacred procession having been thus once secured them, 1Chronicles xv. positively revels in priests and Levites, of whom not a sing]e word is to be found in 2 Samuel vi., and moreover a sort of musical service is instituted by David himself before the ark, and a festal cantata made up by him out of post-exilian psalms is quoted (chapter xvi.). In this way, out of the original narrative, the scattered fragments of which now show themselves very strangely in the new connection, something quite different has grown.

SON shall build a house for me." Now Chronicles, for which David comes into consideration merely as the proper founder of the Solomonic temple, takes up the narrative of 2 Samuel vii. precisely on account of this interpolation, as is clear from xxii. 9, 10- increases the misunderstanding by going back to it in an addition (xvii. 14)-and at the outset destroys the original antithesis by the innocent alteration, "Thou shalt not build THE HOUSE for me" instead of "Wilt thou build A house for me? "The house can here mean only that imperatively needed one, long kept in view alike by God and men, which must by all means he built, only not by David but by Solomon; it is without any ambiguity the temple, and does not, like a house, contain that possibility of a d

of Saul (xxi. 1-14). The rude and mechanical manner in which statements about foreign wars are torn from the connection with domestic events in which they stand in the older narrative is shown in 1Chronicles xx. 1, 2, as compared with 2Samuel xi. 1, xii. 30. In 2Samuel xi. the mention of the fact that David remained in Jerusalem when the army set out against Rabbah, prepares for the story of his adultery with the wife of a captain engaged in active service in the field; but 1Chronicles xx. 1 is meaningless, and involves a contradiction with ver. 2. according to which David appears after all in the camp at Rabbah, although the connection,-namely, that he followed the army-and all the intermediate occurrences relating to Bathsheba and Uriah, are left out (De Wette, pp. 19, 20, 60). To w

nterposed passage itself, again, the quite similar lists xxi. 15-22 and xxiii. 8-39 are very closely connected; and the two songs, xxii. 1-51, xxiii. 1-7, are thus an interpolation within an interpolation. This want of order is imitated by the author of Chronicles also, who takes 2Samuel xxiii.

gel of Jehovah standing between heaven and earth, and his sword drawn in his hand and stretched out towards Jerusalem;" compare this with Sam xxiv. 16 (1Chronicles xxi. t5): "The angel stretched out his hand to Jerusalem to destroy it, and he was by the threshing floor of Araunah;" according to the older view, angels have no wings (Genesis xxviii.). Further (xxi. 25): "David gave to Araunah for his threshing-floor 600 shekels of gold ;" compare with 2Samuel xxiv. 24, 50 shekels of silver; to make the king pay right royally costs the Chronicler nothing. But lastly, his most significant addition is the fire from heaven which consumes the burnt-offering (xxi. 26); by this means the altar on the threshing-floor of Araunah, in other words, that of the sanctuary of Jerusalem, is intended to be put on a level with that of the tabern

him (xxii. 5). Accordingly he gets ready beforehand the workmen and artificers, in particular bringing into requisition the non-Israelitic population; he provides the material, stone and wood and brass and iron, and gold and silver and jewels without number; he also gives the plan or rather receives it direct from Jehovah, and that in black and white (xxviii. 19), while Moses built the tabernacle only according to his recollection of the heavenly pattern which had been shown to him on Sinai. But before all he appoints the personnel for the temple service,-priests, Levites, porters, singers,-divides their thousands into classes, and assigns to them their functions by lot. In doing so he interests himself, naturally, with special preference, in the music, being the designer of the instruments (xxiii. 5), and himself acting as principal conductor (xxv. 2, 6). And as he is still king after all, he at the close takes an inventory also of his secular state, after having duly ordered the spiritual. All this he does for the future, for his son and successor; not in reality, but only in plan, are the door-keepers, for example, assigned to their

an of war and has shed much blood, and therefore dare not set up the temple; that he had waged the wars of Jehovah, that Jehovah had given victory by his hand, would in the older warlike time have seemed no reason against but rather an argument establishing his fitness for such a work. But the worst discrepancy is that between the solemn installation of Solomon as king and of Zadok as priest with all the forms of law and publicity as related in 1Chronicles xxviii., xxix. (comp. xxii., xxiii. 1) and the older narrative of 1Kings i., ii. According to the latter it was much more an ordinary palace intrigue, by means of which one party at court succeeded in obtainin

try to combine the fundamentally different portraits into one stereoscopic image; it is only the tradition of the older source that possesses historical value. In Chronicles this is clericalised in the taste of the post-exilian time, which had no feeling longer for anything but cultus and torah, which accordingly treated as alien the old history (which, nevertheless, was bound to be a sacred history), if it did not conform with its ideas and metamorphose itself int

m Kirjath-jearim, where he had prepared for it; for he had pitched a tent for it at Jerusalem. But the brazen altar that Bezaleel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, had made, stood there, before the tabernacle of Jehovah, and Solomon and the congregation sought unto it. And Solomon offered there, upon the brazen altar, before Jehovah, by the tent of meeting, he offered a thousand burnt-offerings, and God appeared to him in a dream, saying, Ask what I shall give thee" (2Chronicles i. 3 seq.). In the older narrative there is nothing about the tabernacle, it being assumed that no apology would be either necessary or possible for Solomon having sacrificed on a high place. Chronicles, dominated in its views of antiquity by the Priestly Code, has missed the presence of the tabernacle and supplied the want in accordance with that norm; the young and pious king could not possibly have made his solemn inaugural sacrifice, for which he had expressly left Jerusalem, anywhere else than at the legally prescribed place; and still less could Jehovah otherwise have bestowed on him His blessing. It betokens the narrowness, and at the same time the boldness of the author, that he retains the expression high place used in 1Kings iii. 3, and co-ordinates it with tabernacle, although the one means precisely the opposite of the other. But it is instructive to notice how, on other occasions, he is hampered by his Mosaic central sanctuary, which he has int

ot to be satisfied with these (ii. 16 [17]) and looks after them once more (i. 18-ii. 17 [ii. 1-18]). A comparison with Ezra iii. (preparation of the second temple) shows that the story is an elaboration of the author, although suggested by 1Kings v. 16 [2] seq., and with preservation of many verbal reminiscences. While Hiram and Solomon according to the older record are on a footing of equality and make a contract based on reciprocity of service, the Tyrian king is here the vassal of the Israelite, and renders to him what he requires as tribute; instead of as there explainin

nto the tribe of Napthali, lost her husband, and as widow out of the tribe of Naphtali b

(1Kings ix. 2I), that only the Canaanite serfs were employed for this purpose; at the same time, he reckons their number from the figures supplied in 1Kings v. 29 [15] seq. Lastly, the manner in which Solomon (ii. 2 [3] ) assures Hiram that he will arrange the divine service in the new house in

travagances or appointments of later date (e.g., the specification of the gold in iii. 4 seq. 8, 9, of the ten golden tables and hundred golden basins in iv. 8, of the brass-covered doors of the outer gateway in iv. 9, of the court of the priests in iv. 9, of the curtain between the holy place and the holy of holies in iii. 14; compare Vatke, pp. 332, 333, 34

h them an hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets. And it came to pass when the trumpeters and singers were as one to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord, and when the music began with trumpets, and cymbals, and instruments, and the song of praise, Praise ye Jehovah, for He is good; for His mercy endureth for ever, then the house was filled with a cloud" (v. 11-13). Proceeding, the narrative of 1Kings viii. 22 that Solomon came in front of the altar and there prayed is indeed in the first instance copied (vi. 12), but forthwith authoritatively interpreted in the sense that the king did not really and actually stand before the altar (which was lawful for the priests alone), but upon an improvised pulpit in the inner court upon a propped-up caldron of brass (vi. 13), an excellent idea, which has met with the due commendation of expositors. The close of Solomon's prayer (1Kings viii. 49-53) is a

o Hiram twenty Galilaean cities, is changed into the opposite-that Hiram ceded the cities to Solomon, who settled them with Israelites (viii. 1, 2); and similarly the

t has been obscured; Comp. 1Kings iii. 1. In ix. 24 we must at least say betho ashe

r need to speak of viii. 12-16 (1Kings ix. 25); more indifferent in their character are the addition in vii. 12-15, a mere compilation of reminiscences, the embellishment in viii. 3-6, derived from 1Kings ix. 17-19, and the variations in viii. 17 seq., ix. 2I, misunderstoo

dark and repulsive features are removed, and their place taken by new and brilliant bits of colour not in the style of the original but in the taste of the author's period,-priests and Levites and fire from heaven, and the fulfilm

.I

ye to withstand the kingdom of Jehovah in the hand of the sons of David, because ye are a great multitude, and with you are the golden calves which Jeroboam made you for gods ? Have ye not cast out the priests of Jehovah, the sons of Aaron and the Levites, and made for yourselves priests after the manner of the Gentiles? so that whosoever cometh to fill his hands with a young bullock and seven rams, even he may become a priest for the false gods? But as for us, we have not forsaken Jehovah our God, and our priests minister to Jehova

as sent not to Judah but to Israel, the history of which had the first and fullest sympathy of his inmost soul as that of the people of Jehovah. Isaiah was the first who placed Jerusalem in the centre of his field of vision and turned away from Israel; for at the time of his first public appearance war was raging between the sister nations, and when his activity was at its acme all was over with the northern kingdom and all hope had to cling to the remnant,- the fallen tabernacle of David. As regards the cultus, certainly, matters may have been somewhat less satisfactory in Israel than in Judah, at least in the last century before the Assyrian captivity, but at the outset there was no essential difference. On all hands Jehovah was worshipped as the peculiar divinity of the nation at numerous fanes, in the service at the high places there were wanting neither in the one nor in the other sacred trees, posts, and stones, images of silver and gold (Isaiah ii. 8 seq., xvii. 8, xxxi. 22; Micah v. 12). It is a question whether in the time before Hezekiah the cultus of the kingdom at Jerusalem had so much to distinguish it above that at Bethel or at Dan; against Jeroboam's golden calves must be set the brazen serpent of Moses, and the ark of Jehovah itself-which in ancient times was an idol (1Samuel iv.-vi.) and did not become idealised into an ark of the covenant, ie., of the law, until probably it had actually disappeared. As for the prophetic reaction against the popular cultus, the in

ns, as appears almost comically in the circumstance that the priests of Jeroboam set about their heretical practices quite in accordance with the presc

y with the people of Jehovah properly so called, the Israel in the land of Judah (2Chronicles xxiii. 2), and in all references to them the most se

. 16, xv. 9, xix. 2, xx. 35 seq.. xxv 7, xxviii.

o the people of Jehovah destroys the fundamental pre-supposition of that document, the unity and legitimacy of the worship as basis of the theocracy, the pr

es who migrated from Israel are represented as having strengthened the southern kingdom (xi. 17), and here constitute the truly dominant element in the history. It is for their sake that kings exist as protectors and guardians of the cultus, with

., xv. 10 seq., xx. 6 seq., xxix. 5 seq., xxx. 1 seq.

ame time the natural judges. Moreover, Chronicles already tells us about David something similar to what it says about Jehoshaphat (1Chronicles xxiii. 4, xxvi. 29-32); the reason why the latter is selected by preference for this work lies simply in his name " Jehovah is Judge," as he himself is made to indicate in various ways (xix. 5-11; compare Joel iv. 12). But the king of Judah is strengthened by the priests and Levites, not only in these domestic affairs, but also for war. As the trumpets of the priests give to Abijah courage and the victory against Jeroboam of Israel, so do the Levites also to Jehoshaphat against Moab and Ammon. Having fasted, and received, while praying, the comfortable assurance of the singer Jahaziel ("See God"), he advances next morning, with his army, against the enemy, having in the van the Levites, who march in sacred attire in front of the armed men and sing: "Praise ye the Lord, for His mercy endureth for ever." He then finds that the fighting has already been done by the enemy themselves, who, at the sound of that song of praise, have fallen upon and annihilated one another. Three days are spent in dividing the spoil, and then he returns as he came, the Levitical music leading the van, with psalteries, and harps, and trumpets to the house of Jehovah (2Chronicles xx. 1-28). Hezekiah is glorified in a similar manner. Of the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem and the memorable relief, comparatively little is made (xxxii. 1 seq.; comp. De Wette, i. 75); according to Chronicles, his master-work is that, as soon as he has mounted the throne, in the first month of the year, and of

t regarding Israel (xii. 25 seq.), of primary importance, and cancel by one bold stroke the alleged difference of worship between the Levitical and non-Levitical kingdom, are omitted as quite too impossible, although the whole remaining context is preserved (2Chronicles xii. 1-16). In the same way the unfavourable judgment upon Rehoboam's successor Abijah (1Kings xv. 3-5) is dropped, because the first kings of Judah, inasmuch as they maintain the true religion against those of Israel who have fallen away from it, must of necessity have been good. But though the Chronicler is silent about what is bad, for the sake of Judah's honour, he cannot venture to pass over the improvement which, according to 1Kings xv. 12 seq., was introduced in Asa's day, although one does not in the least know what need there was for it, everything already having been in the best possible state. Nay, he even e

worship of Jehovah go on uninterrupted under Jehoiada the priest. Most unsparing is the treatment that Ahaz receives. According to 2Kings xvi. 10 seq., be saw at Damascus an altar which took his fancy, and he caused a similar one to be set up at Jerusalem after its pattern, while Solomon's brazen altar was probably sent to the melting-pot; it was Urijah the priest who carried out the orders of the king. One observes no sign of autonomy, or of the inviolable divine right of the sanctuary; the king commands and the priest obeys. To the Chronicler the story so told is quite incomprehensible; what does he make of it? Ahaz introduced the idolatrous worship of Damascus, abolished the worship of Jehovah, and shut up the temple (2Chronicles xxviii. 23 seq.). He regards not the person of a man, the inflexible unity of

this is done in the most thoroughgoing manner. After his predecessor has shut the doors of the house of Jehovah, put out the lights, and brought the service to an end, he sets all in operation again by means of the resuscitated priests and Levites; the first and most important act of his reign is the consecration of the temple (2Chronicles xxix.), with which is connected (xxx., xxx).) the restoration of the passover and the restitution of the temporalia to the clergy, who, as it seems, have hitherto been deprived of them. That 2Kings xviii. 1-7, although very different, has supplied the basis for all these extravagances, is seen by compa

Chronicles xxii., xxiii.; 2Kings xi., xii.). It is precisely such histories as these, almost the only circumstantially told ones relating to Judah in the Book of Kings, which though in their nature most akin to our auth

2-21, if trifling alterations be left out of account. But in the central portion also there occur passages which are taken over into 2Chronicles without any change. Only here they are inappropriate, while in the original connection they are intelligible. For the meaning and colour of the whole is entirely altered in Chronicles, as the fol

i 2CHRONI

r Jehoiada 1. In the

aptains of sent and

ners, strengthened

ariah the so

the son of

ah the so

ah the son

hat the son

venant

ites out of all the cities in Judah, and the chiefs

ouse of covenant with them, and took God with the king. And he said an oath of them in the house of unto them, Behol

: the third part of you, which do; the third part of you which enter on the Sabbath, of the enter on

house of the king, and part in the gate behind the the third part in the gate Jesod; and runners, and

he Sabbath and house of Jehovah save the priests keep the watch in the house and they of the Levit

n his hand, with his weapons in his hands, and and whosoever cometh within whosoever cometh into the house, the ranks, shall be put to sh

h his the priest had commanded, and took men, those that were to come in each his men, those that were to come on the Sabbath with those that in on the Sabbath w

to the captains of hundreds the spears spears and shields that were and the bucklers and

weapon in his hand, from the south side of the house from the south side of the house to to the north side, along by

own and the crown and the bracelet, the bracelet and they made him king, and they made him king and and Jehoiada and his

the Carians and runners. Hereby also Jehoiada comes into the place that belongs to him as sovereign of the sanctuary and of the congregation. He therefore needs no longer to set on foot in secret a conspiracy with the chiefs of the body-guard, but through his own spiritual officers calls together the Levites and heads of houses from all the cities of Judah into the temple, and causes the whole assemblage there to enter into a covenant with the young king. The glaring inconsistencies inevitably produced by the new colouring thus given to individual parts of the old picture must simply be taken as part of the bargain. If Jehoiada has unrestricted sway over such a force and sets about his revolution with the utmost publicity, then it is he and not Athaliah who has the substance of power; why then all this trouble about the deposition of the tyrant? Out of mere delight in Levitical pomp and high solemnities? What moreover is to

ehoiada in particular were blamed by the king on that account, they gave up the dues so as not to be liable to the burden. Thereupon the king set up a kind of sacred treasury, a chest with a hole in the lid, near the altar, "on the right hand as one goes into the temple," into which the priests were to cast the money which came in, with the exception of the sin and trespass moneys, which st

st came to remove the money; with it the king and the high priest paid the workmen, and what remained over was made into costly vessels (2Chronicles xxiv. 5-14). According to this account Joash makes no arrangement whatever about the sacred dues, but sets on foot an extraordinary collection, as had once been done by Moses for the building of the tabernacle (xxiv. 6, 9); following upon this, everything else also which in 2Kings xii. is a permanent arrangement, here figures as an isolated occurrence; instead of necessary repairs of the temple constantly recurring, only one extraordinary restoration of it is mentioned, and for this occasional purpose only is the treasure chest set up,- not, however, beside the altar, but only at the doorway (xxiv. 8; comp. 2Kings xii. 10). The clergy, the Levites, are charged only with making the collection, not with maintaining the building out of the sacred revenues; consequently they are not reproached with keeping the money to themselves, but only with not being heartily enough disposed towards the collection. It appears, however, that they were perfectly justified in this backw

production of the nearly related and closely connected section 2Kings

i. 2Chroni

th been brought into the house of Jehovah 9. And they came to Hilkiah which the keepers of the the high priest, and they threshold have gathered of delivered the money that had the people. been brought into the house of God which the Levites that 5. And let them deliver it into kept the threshold had gathered the hand of the doers of the from Ephraim and Manasseh and work that have the oversight all the remnant of Israel and of the house of Jehovah, and from

and to the builders to buy that is delivered into their hewn stone and timber for roofs hand,

Obadiah, the Levites, of the sons of Merari; and Zechariah and Meshullam, of the

l that wrought the work in any manner of service; and ot

rought into the house of Jehovah, Hilkiah the priest fo

scribe: I have found the book of the I have found the book of the law law in the house of Jehovah. in the hous

they are doing. house and have delivered it into the hand of them that 17. And they have emptied out do the work, that have the the money that was found in the oversight of the house of house of Jehovah, and have Jehovah. delivered it into the hand of the overseers and into 10. And S

a share in the discovery which, however, is excluded by ver. 15 (= 2Kings xxii. 8). There are other misunderstandings besides; in particular, the superintendents of the works (muphkadim), to whom, according to the original narrative, the money is handed over for payment, are degraded to the rank of simple workmen, from whom, nevertheless, they are again afterwards distinguished; and while in 2Kings xxii. 7 they are represented as dealing faithfully in paying out the money, in 2Chronicles xxxiv. 12 they deal faithfully in their work. Perhaps, however, this is no mere misunderstanding, but is connected with the endeavour to keep profane hands as far off as possible from that which is holy, and, in particul

force and validity at all normal times; only temporarily could this life-principle of the theocracy be repressed by wicked kings, forthwith to become vigorous and active again as soon as the pressure was removed. As soon as Ahaz has closed his eyes, Hezekiah, in the first month of his first year, again restores the Mosaic cultus; and as soon as Josiah reaches years of discretion he makes good the sins of his fathers. Being at his accession still too young, the eighth year of his reign is, as a tribute to propriety, selected instead of the eighth year of his life, and the great reformation assigned to that period which in point of fact he undertook at a much later date (xxxiv. 3-7 = 2Kings xxiii. 4-20> Thus the movement happily becomes separated fr

ith high priests and kings; they connect the deeds of men with the events of the course of the world, and utilise the sacred history as a theme for their preaching, as a collection of examples illustrative of the promptest operation of the righteousness of Jehovah. In doing so they do not preach what is new or free, but have at their command, like Jehovah Himself, only the Law of Mos

ts and Levites and other pious persons who had immigrated from the northern kingdom (2Chronicles xi. 17); but thereafter in the fourth year, after the kingdom of Rehoboam had been strengthened and confirmed, he forsook the Law and all Israel with him (xii.

the close of his life would not be clear. Baasha's expedition against Jerusalem, accordingly, and the Syrian invasion of Israel occasioned by Asa on that account are brought down in Chronicles to the thirty-sixth year of the latter (xvi. 1). It has been properly observed that Baasha was at that date long dead, and the proposal has accordingly been made to change the number thirty-six into sixteen,-without considering that the first half of the reign of Asa is expressly characterised as having been prosperous, that the thirty-fifth year is already reached in

e plunder (xx. 1 seq.). One cannot blame him, therefore, for once more entering into an alliance with Ahab's successor for a naval expedition to be undertaken in common, which is to sail from a port of the Red Sea, probably round Africa, to Tarshish (Spain, 2Chronicles ix. 21). But this time he is punished more seriously as Eliezer the son of Dodavah had prophesied, the ships are wrecked. Compare on the other hand 1Kings xxii. 48, 49: "Jehoshaphat made ships of Tarshish to go

.), must write to the offender a letter, the threats of which are duly put into execution by Jehovah. The Philistines and Arabians having previously pressed him hard, he falls into an incurable sickness of the bowels, which afflicts him for years, and

fate. In the sentence: "He did what was right in the sight of the Lord all his days, because Jehoiada the high priest had instructed him " (2Kings xii. 3 [2]), it alters the last expression into "all the days of Jehoiada the priest," (xxiv. 2). After the

and served them (2Chronicles xxv. 1 4). He prefers the plundered gods of a vanquished people to Jehovah at the very moment when the latter has proved victorious over them! From the time of this apostasy- a crime for which no puni

nst Jehovah his God, and went into the temple of Jehovah, to burn incense upon the altar of incense. And Azariah the priest went in after him, and with him fourscore priests of Jehovah, and withstood him and said: It is not for thee to burn incense,

eaply. By it he is delivered into the hand of the enemy: the Israelites alone slaughter 120,000 men of Judah, including the king's son and his most prominent servants, and carry off to Samaria 200,000 women and children, along with a large quantity of other booty. The Edomites and Philistines al

ained. Recently indeed it has been sought to support the credibility of these statements by means of an Assyrian inscription, from which it appears that Manasseh did pay tribute to Esarhaddon. That is to say, he had been overpowered by the Assyrians; that is again to say, that he had been thrown into chains and carried off by them. Not so rapid, but perhaps quite as accurate, would be the inference that as a tributary prince he must have kept his seat on the throne of Judah, and not have exchanged it for the prison of Babylon. In truth,

m is magnified; he is stated to have been put in irons by the Chaldaeans and carried to Babylon (xxxvi. 6)-an impossibility of course before the capture of Jerusalem, which did not take place until the third month of his successor. The last prince of David's house,

this story, on account of the accurate statement of locality (although Mareshah instead of Gath is not after all suggestive of an old source), is credible-at all events after deduction of the incredibilities? If the incredibilities are deducted, nothing at all is left. The invasion of Judah by Baasha of Israel, and Asa's deportment towards him (1Kings xv. 17 seq.), are quite enough fully to dispose of the great previous victory over the Ethiopians claimed for Asa. The case is no better with the victory of Jehoshaphat over the Ammonites and Moabites (2Chronicles xx.); here we have probably an echo of 2Kings iii., where we read of Jehoshaphat's taking part in a campaign against Moab, and where also recurs that characteristic feature of the self-destruction of the enemy, so that for the opposing force nothing remains but the work of collecting the booty (iii. 23; compare 2Chronicles xx. 23). The Chronicler has enemies always at his command when needed,-Arabians, Ethiopians (xvii. 11, xxi. 16, xxii. 1, xxvi. 7), Mehunims (xx. 1, xxvi. 1), Philistines (xvii. 11, xxi. 16, xxvi. 6 seq., xxviii. 18), Ammonites (xx. 1, xxvi. 8, xxvii. 5), whose very names

wealth of wives and children; it is only in the case of the pious kings (to the number of whom even Rehoboam and Abijah also belong) that the blessing of God manifests itself by such tokens. Power is the index of piety, with which accordingly It rises and fall. Apart from this it is of no consequence if, f

iii. 19, xiv. 5, 6 [6, 7], xvii. 12, xix. 5, xxvi. 9, 10, xxvii.

judgment on its family history of the descendants of David, the statement contained in xiii. 21 is specially helpful both in manner and substance: "And Abijah waxed mighty, and he married fourteen wives, and begat twenty and two sons, and sixteen daughters." This can only be taken as referring to the reign of Abijah, and that too after the alleged victory over Jeroboam; but he reigned altogether for only three years, and is it to be supposed that within this interval one of his sons should even have attained to man's estate? In reality, however, Abijah had no son at all, but was succeeded by his brother, for the definite and doubtless authentic statement that Maachah, the wife of Rehoboam, was the mother both of Abijah and of Asa, and that the latter removed her from her position

y it he is guided in his verdicts as to the general character of the successive sovereigns as well as in his chronological statements, although, in accordance with his plan, he as a rule omits the synchronisms (xiii. 1, xxv. 25). The positive data also, given by the epitome with reference to the legislation in matters of worship by the various kings, are for the most part reproduced word for word, and float in a fragmentary and readily distinguishable way in the mixture of festivals, sermons, choruses, law, and prophets. For this is an important v

.I

influence of contemporary motives. In the picture it gives the writer's own present is reflected, not antiquity. But neither is the case very different with the genealogical lists prefixed by

introduce all kinds of interesting matter. Material comes to one's hand, given a beginning and an end, the bridge is soon completed. Another expression of the same tendency is the inclination to give a genealogical expression to all connections and associations of human society whatsoever, to create artificial families on all hands and bring them into blood relationship, as if the whole of public life resolved itself into a matter of cousinship,-an inclination indicativ

had taken place in the conditions. While Dan continued to subsist with difficulty, Simeon and Levi had been completely broken up (Genesis xlix. 7); in the Blessing of Moses the latter name denotes something quite different from a tribe, and the former is not even so much as named, although the enumeration is supposed to be complete; in David's time it had already been absorbed by families of mingled Judaic and Edomitic descent in the district where it had once had independent footing. Eastward of Jordan Leah's first-born had a similar fate, although somewhat later. After it has been deposed from its primacy in Genesis xlix. and twitted in Judges v. with its

. 16, for Simeon, 1Chronicles iv. 24-43, with xii. 25, and 2Chronicles xv. 9, xxxiv. 6, observing that in the last two passages Simeon i

cal value thus lost by the narrative as a whole cannot be restored by the seeming truthfulness of certain details. Or is more significance really to be attached to the wars of the Simeonites and Reubenites against the Arabians than to the rest of the extemporised wars of the kings of Judah against these children of the wilderness? If only at least the names had not been "sons of Ham, and Mehunim and Hagarenes " (iv. 40 seq. [Heb.],

ia by the Chaboras and the river of Gozan. Apart from the language, which in its edifying tone is that of late Judaism, and leaving out of account the enumeration "the sons of Reuben and the Gadites and half of the tribe of Manasseh," the astonishing and highly doubtful combinations are eloquent: Pul and Tiglath-Pileser, the Chaboras and the river of Gozan, are hardly distinguished from each other; Jotham and Jeroboam, on the other hand, make so impossible a synchronism that the partisans of Chronicles will have it that none is intended,-forgetful, to be sure, of Hosea i. 2, and omitting to say what in that case Jotham of Judah has to do here at al

dotham l'beth abotham, vii. 1-5); out of Zebulun and Naphtali, again, exactly 87,000 men came to David at Hebron, to anoint him and be feasted three days,-it is carefully mentioned, however (xii. 40), that they took their provisions up with them. The proper kernel of Israel, Ephraim and Manasseh, is, in comparison with Simeon, Reuben, Gad, Issachar, treated with very scant kindness (vii. 14-29),-a suspicious sign

Th. Tijdschr., 1877, pp. 484, 488; Godsdienst v. I

ther Nun alone is known to the older sources! Into the genealogy a wonderful account of the slaying of the children of Ephraim by the men of Gath (1Samuel iv.?) has found its way, and (like viii. 6, 7) according to the prevail

itual and of the secular tribes were made again and again; so also under his successors, as may be inferred partly from express statements and partly from the precise statistics given as to the number of men capable of bearing arms: in these cases the most astounding figures are set down,-always, however, as resting on original documents and accurate enumeration. In the statistical information of Chronicles, then, so far as it relates to pre-exilic antiquity, we have to do with art

nnection which on the whole is of a very recent date. Most obtrusively striking is it that the list of the heads of the people dwelling in Jerusalem given in ix. 4-17 is simply identical with Nehemiah xi. 3-19. In this passage, introducing as it does the history of the kings (x. seq.), one is by no means prepared to hear statements about the community of the second temple; but our author is under the impression that in going there he is letting us know about the old Jerusalem; from D

to ix. 35-44, which perhaps proves the later interpola

value is to be attached to the pretensions of the latter to be derived from original documents of hoary antiquity, it is only necessary to notice the genui

n in Jerusalem, were all children of Bathsheba; the remaining seven are increased to nine by a textual error which occurs also in the LXX version of 2Samuel v. 16. Among the sons of Josiah (iii. 15 seq.), Johanan, i.e. Jehoahaz, is distinguished from Shallum (Jeremiah xxii. 11), and because he immediately succeeded his father, is represented as the first-born, though in truth Jehoiakim was older (2Kings xxiii. 3I, 36); Zedekiah, Jehoiakim's brother, i

eader is referred to the author's dissertation De gentibus et famil

all are mentioned among the families, Molid, ver. 29, being perhaps a single exception, and thus the extreme south is indicated. But this kernel is amplified by a number of post-exilian additions. In the first place, in connection with Jerahmeel, an appendix (vers. 34-41) is given which is not ethnological but purely genealogical, and brings a pedigree of fifteen members manifestly down to near the age of the Chronicler, and which moreover is only in apparent connection with what precedes it (comp. ver. 34 with ver. 31), and invariably uses the hiphil form holid, a form which occurs in vers. 25-33 never, and in vers. 42-50 only sporadically in three places open to the suspicion of later redaction (comp. especially ver. 47). Much more important, however, are the additions under Caleb; of these the one is prefixed (vers. 18-24), the other, more appropriately, brought in at the close (vers. 50-55, beginning with "and the sons of Hur, the firstborn of Ephrath," Caleb's second wife, ver. 19). Here Caleb no longer presents himself in the extreme south of Judah and the vicinity of Jerahmeel (1Samuel xxv. 3, xxvii. 10, xxx. 14, 29), where he had his settlement prior to the exile, but his families, which are all of them descended from his son Hu

Salmah), and also as the name of a Nabataean tribe in Pliny. Among the families of the Nethinim enumerated in Nehemiah vii. 46-60 the B'ne Salmah also occur, along with several otber names wh

ah which gravitated towards Israel properly so called, and stood in most intimate relations with Benjamin. Of the first three members of the genealogy, Nahshon and Amminadab occur as princes of Judah in the Priestly Code, and are fitly r

the sake of the later additions), the quite independent and parallel list, on the other hand, contained in iv. 1-23 is shown by many unmistakable indications to be a later c

f Carmi, all the more because Chelub and not Carmi appears in the third place in the subsequent expansion; for this, ascending from below, begins with Shobal (ver. 2), then goes on

uces the period of beginning public service in the case of a Levite from thirty years of age to twenty-five (Numbers iv. 3 seq., viii. 23 seq.), while in the latter David (1Chronicles xxiii. 3, 24 seq.) brings it down still further to the age of twenty; matters are still to some extent in a state of flux, and the ordering of the temple worship is a continuation of the beginning made with the tabernacle service by Moses. Now, in so far as the statistics of the clergy have a real basis at all, that basis is post-exilian. It has long ago been remarked how many of the individuals figuring under David and his successors (e.g., Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun) bear names identical with families or guilds of a later time, how the two indeed are constantly becoming confluent, and difficulty is felt in determining whether by the expression "head" a person or a family ought to be

ce of the sanctuary. Heman is the son of Joel b. Samuel b. Elkanah b. Jeroham b. Eliab b. Tahath b. Zuph, only the line does not terminate with Ephraim as in 1Samuel i. 1 (LXX) because it is Levi who is the goal; Zuph. however, is an Ephraitic district, and Tahath (Tohu, Toah, Tahan, Nahath) is an Ephraimite family (vii. 20). Further back the same elements are individually repeated more than once, Elkanah four times in all; he occurs once as early as in Exodus vi. 24, where also he is doubtless borrowed from 1Samuel i. The best of it is that, contrary to the scope of the genealogies recorded in1 Chronicles vi., which is to provide a Levitical origin for the guilds of singers, there is found in close contiguity the statement (ii. 6) that Heman and Ethan were descendants of Zerah b. Pharez, b. JUDAH. The commentators are indeed assisted in their efforts to differentiate the homonyms by their ignorance of the fact that even as late as Nehemiah's ti

ead those passages Ezekiel xliii. 7 seq., xliv. 6 seq, from which it is most unambiguously clear that the later exclusion of the laity from the sanctuary was quite unknown in the pre-exilic period. The extent of the Chronicler's knowledge about the pre-exilic priesthood is revealed most clearly in the list of the twenty-two high priests in 1Chronicles v. 29-41 (vi. 3-15). From the ninth to the eighteenth the series runs-Amariah, Ahitub, Zadok, Ahimaaz, Azariah, Johanan, Azariah, Amariah, Ahitub, Zadok. As for the first five, Azariah was not the son, but the brother of Ahimaaz, and the latter apparently not a priest (1Kings iv. 2); but Ahitub, the alleged father of Zadok, was, on the contrary, the grandfather of Zadok's rival, Abiathar, of the family of Eli (1Samuel xiv. 3, xxii. 20); the whole of the old and famous line-Eli, Phinehas, Ahitub; Ahimelech, Abiathar-which held the priesthood of the ark from thc time of the judges down into the days of David, is passed over in absolute silence, and the line of Zadok, by which it was not superseded until Solomon (1Kings ii. 35), is represented as having held the leadership of the pries

tradiction, was following older authority, but that the problem still really was, as before, how to explain the complete difference of general conception and the multitude of discrepancies in details; that the hypothesis of "sources," as held before Movers by Eichhorn, was of no service in dealing with this question, and that in the critical comparison of the two narratives, and in testing their historical character, it was after all incumbent to stick to what lay before one (Beitr., i. pp. 24, 29, 38). For so ingenious an age such principles were too obvious; Movers produced a great impression, especially as he was not so simple as to treat the letters of Hiram and Elijah as authentic documents, but was by way of being very critical. At present even Dillmann also unfortunately perceives "that the Chronicler everywhere has worked according to sources, and that in his case deliberate invention or distortion of the history are not for a m

f we are to explain the omissions by reference to the "author's plan," why may we not apply the same principle to the additions? The passion displayed by Ewald ( Jahrbb. x. 261) when, in speaking of the view that Manasseh's captivity has its basis in Jewish dogmatic, he calls it "an absurdly infelicitous idea, and a gross injustice besides to the Book of Chronicles," recalls B. Schaefer's suggestive remark about the Preacher of Solomon, that God would not use a liar to write a canonical book. What then does Ewald say to the narratives of Daniel or Jonah? Why must the new turn given to history in the case of Manasseh be judged by a different standard than in the equally gross case of Ahaz, and in the numerous analogous instances enumerated in preceding pages (p. 203 seq.). With what show of justice can the Chronicler, after his statements have over and over again been shown to be incredible, be held at discretion to pass for an unimpeachable narrator? In those cases at least where its connection with his "plan" is obvious, one ought surely to exercise some scepticism in regard to his testimony; but it ought at the same time to be considered that such connections may occur much oftener than is discernible by us, or at least by the less sharp-sighted of us. It is indeed possible that occasionally a grain of good corn may occur among the chaff, but to be conscientious one must

urther particulars can be learned, are appended as a rule, to the account of each sovereign's reign, the exceptions being in the cases of Joram, Ahaziah, Athaliah, Amon, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Zedekiah. The titles referred to in this way may be classed under two groups: (1.) The Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah, or of Judah and Israel (in the cases of Asa, Amaziah, Jotham; Ahaz, Josiah, and Jehoiakim), with which the Book of the Kings of Israel (in the cases of Jehoshaphat and Manasseh; comp. 1Chronicles ix. 1) is identical, for the kingdom of the ten tribes is not reckoned by the Chronicler. (2.) The Words of Samuel the Seer, Nathan the Prophet, and Gad the Seer (for David; 1Chronicles xxix. 29; comp. xxvii. 24; Ecclus. xlvi. 13, xlvii. 1); the Words of Nathan the Prophet, the Prophecy of Ahijah of Shiloh and the Vision

no reason for refusing to identify the "lamentations" of 2Chronicles xxxv. 25, with our Lamentations of Jeremiah: at least the reference to the death o

two, then for the most part the prophetic writing is designated as a portion of the Book of the Kings of Israel (xx. 34, xxxii. 3

LLLA| TI LEGEI )H GRAFH i.e., How stands it written in the sectio

bviously, this is the explanation of the title prophetae priores borne by the Books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings in the Jewish canon, and of the view which led to the introduction of 2Kings xviii. 18 seq. into the Book of Isaiah. The claims of history being slight, it was easy to find the needful propheta eponymus for each section. Jehu ben

of the items of information which may have been conjectured to have been derived from this source, the conclusion is forced upon us that the Book of Kings cited by the Chronicler is a late compilation far removed from actual tradition, and in relation to the canonical Book of Kings it can only be explained as an apocryphal amplification after the manner in which the scribes treated the sacred history. This conclusion, derived from the contents themselves, is supported by an important positive datum, namely, the citation in 2Chronicles xxiv. 27 of the Midrash [A.V. "Story"] of the Book of Kings, and in xiii. 22 of the Midrash of the prophet Iddo. Ewald is undoubtedly right when he recognises here the true title of the writing elsewhere named simply the Book of Kings. Of course the commentators assert that the word Midrash, which occurs in the Bible only in these two passages, there means something quite different from what it means everywhere else; but the natural sense suits admirably well and in Chronicles we find ourselves fully within the period of the scribes. Midrash is the consequence of the conservation of all the relics of antiquity, a wholly peculiar artificial