Under the influence of the spirit of each successive age,
traditions originally derived from one source were very
variously apprehended and shaped; one way in the ninth and
eighth centuries, 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 no difference whether the tradition be legendary or
historical, whether it relates to pre-historic or to historic
times; the change in the prevailing ideas shows itself equally in
either case. To show the truth of this in the case of the
Hexateuch is of course our primary object, but we make our
commencement rather with the properly historical books. For on
various grounds we are here able with greater certainty to
assert: Such was the aspect of history at this period and such
at that; such were the influences that had the ascendancy at
one time, and such those which prevailed at another.
We begin the inquiry where the matter is clearest--namely, with
the Book of Chronicles. Chronicles, which properly speaking forms
but a single book along with Ezra and Nehemiah, is a second
history running parallel with the Books of Samuel and Kings,
and we are here in the favourable position of starting with the
objects of comparison distinctly defined, instead of having as
usual to begin by a critical separation of sources of various age
combined in one document. And, what is more, we can 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 from the influence of the Priestly
Code which came into existence in the interval. De Wette's "Critical
Essay on the Credibility of the Books of Chronicles" (Beitraege,
i.; 1806), is throughout taken as the basis of the discussion:
that essay has not been improved on by Graf (Gesch. Bucher d.
A. T. p. 114 seq.), for here the difficulty, better grappled
with by the former, is not to collect the details of evidence,
but so to shape the superabundant material as to convey a right
total impression.
VI.I.
VI.I.1. After Jehovah had slain Saul (so begins the narrative of
Chronicles), He turned the kingdom unto David the son of Jesse.
All Israel gathered themselves unto David to Hebron and anointed
him king over Israel, according to the word of Jehovah by Samuel
(I Chronicles x. 1.-xi. 3). How simply and smoothly and wholly
without human intervention according to this version did the thing
come to pass! Quite otherwise is it in the narrative of the Book
of Samuel. This also indeed has the statement of Chronicles word
for word, but it has something over and above which gives a quite
different aspect to the matter. Here David, on the lowest step to
the throne, is the guerilla leader in the wilderness of Judah who
finally is compelled by Saul's persecutions to pass over to
Philistine territory, there under the protection of the enemies
of his nation, carrying on his freebooter life. After the battle of
Gilboa he avails himself of the dissolution of the kingdom to set
up a separate principality in the south as a vassal of the
Philistines; he is 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 two of his captains; then at last the elders
of Israel come to Hebron, and David becomes king in succession
to Saul. What a length of time these affairs demand, how natural
is their development, how many human elements mingle in their
course,--cunning, and treachery, and battle, and murder!
Chronicles indeed knows them all well enough, as is clear from
incidental expressions in chaps. xi. and xii., but they are
passed over in silence. Immediately after his predecessor's death
the son of Jesse is freely chosen by all Israel to be king,
according to the word of Jehovah by Samuel. The sequence of x.
13, 14, xi. 1 does not admit of being understood in any other
way, nor is it in point of fact otherwise understood, for it has
actually been successful, at least to this extent, that the
kingship of Ishbaal has virtually dropped out of traditional Bible
history; after Saul came David is what is said. We have before
us a deliberate and in its motives a very transparent mutilation
of the original narrative as preserved for us in the Book of
Samuel.
As all Israel has made David the successor of Saul, and all Israel
gone out with him to the conquest of Jerusalem (xi. 4),--in 2Samuel
v. 6 we hear only of David's following,--so now immediately
afterwards, the noblest representatives of all the tribes of
Israel, who even before he had attained the 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 Israel to make him king") is the list of
2Samuel xxiii., which the Chronicler, as he betrays in chaps. xx.,
xxi., was acquainted with as it stood in that place, and here
gives much too early, for it is for the most part warriors of
David's later campaigns who are enumerated. /1/ The second list (xii.
-- Footnote
1. The division into a group of three and another of thirty heroes,
obscured in 2Samuel xxiii. by corruption of the text (Text der
BB. Sam. p. 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
additional names exceeding the number of thirty. In ver. 42 his
style unmistakably betrays itself, wherever it may be that he
met with the elements.
-- Footnote
1-22: "these are they that came to David to Ziklag, while he yet
kept himself close because of Saul") is not taken from the Book of
Samuel, but one also observes this difference: along with old
and genuine there are extremely common names, and hardly one
that occurs here only; the notes of ancestry carefully given
in chap. xi. are almost always wanting; and instead of performing
before our eyes such deeds as the rescue of a field of barley
from the enemy, the purchase of a draught of water with blood,
the slaying of a lion in a pit, the heroes receive all sorts
of _epitheta ornantia_ (xii. 1-3) and titles of honour (xii. 14,
20), and ordinarily talk a highly spiritual language (xii. 17, 18).
And as for the historical situation, how impossible that a great
Israelite army should have been gathered around David as the
feudatory of the Philistines in Ziklag (xii. 2 2), with a crowd
of captains of hundreds and thousands! Plainly the banished
fugitive is according to this representation the splendid king
and illustrious 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 a reflection of the Jehoiada of 2Kings xi., xii., and
the allegation that Zadok at that time joined David at the head of
twenty-two chief priests is a hardly credible substitute for what
is stated in Samuel, according to which Abiathar, whose older
claims were disagreeable to the B'ne Zadok and those who came
later, was the priest who from the beginning held with David; the
twenty-two chief priests appear to correspond to the heads of the
twenty-two post-exilian priestly families (Nehemiah xii. 1-7,
12-21, x. 3-9; 1Chronicles xxiv. 7-18). Yet it is hardly necessary
to go so minutely into the contents of the above lists, for the
purpose with which they are given is stated without
circumlocution at the close (2Chronicles xii. 38, 39): "All these
men of war, in order of battle, came with a perfect heart to Hebron
to make David king over all Israel, and all the rest of Israel also
were of one heart to make David king. And they were there with David
three days, eating and drinking, for there was joy in Israel."
After the explication of the idea "all Israel" thus inappropriately
interpolated, the narrative proceeds to reproduce the contents of 2
Samuel v.-vii. David's first deed, after the conquest of the
stronghold of Jebus, is in Chronicles to make it the holy city
by transferring the ark of Jehovah thither (xiii. 1 seq.). It
seems as if the building of a palace and the Philistine war
(2Samuel v. 11-25) were 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 separate things mutually
connected, but at the same time the secular business which,
according to the older narrative, is the nearest and most
pressing, is reduced to the level of a mere episode in the midst of
the sacred. That there is no room for the building of a house and
a Philistine war within the three months which offer themselves so
conveniently for the interpolation is a subordinate affair.
As regards the sacred business, the transference of the ark to
Zion, almost everything that is said in 2Samuel vi. is repeated
word for word in Chronicles also (xiii., xv., xvi., xvii. 1).
Two traits only are absent in Chronicles, and in neither case is
the omission helpful to the connection David's wife Michal, it is
said in 2Samuel vi. 16, 20-23, when she saw the king dancing and
leaping in the procession, despised him in her heart; afterwards
when he came home she told him what she thought of his unworthy
conduct. The first of these two statements is found in Chronicles
also (xv. 29), but the second is (all but the introductory
notice, xvi. 43 = 2Samuel vi. 20, here torn from its connection)
omitted, although it contains the principal fact, for the
historical event was the expression of her contempt, not its
psychological origin; a woman--such is the idea--must not say a
thing like that to David. The other case is quite similar. On
account of the calamity by which those who were bringing up the
ark were overtaken, David does not at first venture to receive it
into his citadel, but deposits it in the house of Obed-edom, one
of his captains; but when Jehovah blesses the house of Obed-edom,
he takes courage to bring the ark to his own home (2Samuel vi. 10-12).
Chronicles also tells 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. "In the former everything is
free, simply the affair of king and people, here all is priestly
ceremonial; there the people with their king shout and dance with
joy before the ark,, here the levites are the musicians and
singers in formal order. To seek to combine the two versions is
wholly against the laws of historical interpretation. If the
first were curt and condensed the unification of the two might
perhaps be possible, but no story could be more particular or
graphic, and could it have been that the Levites alone should be
passed over in silence if they had played so very important a
part? The author of Chronicles was able to introduce them only
by distorting and mutilating his original and landing himself in
contradiction after all. He cannot allow anything to happen
without Levites; and was the ark of the covenant to be fetched to
Jerusalem without them? was the Law to be even a second time
broken under the pious king David? This seemed to him impossible.
That Uzzah perished in the first attempt to fetch the ark, and
that on the second occasion--when only a quite short journey is
spoken of--the ark was carried, ~2Samuel vi. 13, may have been
the suggestions by which he was led. Fertile in combinations,
he profited by the hint." So, justly, De Wette (Beitraege, i.
88-91).
The narrative of 2Samuel vi. having been broken off at the first
half of ver. 19 (1Chronicles xvi. 3), the second half of the verse
and the beginning of the next are reproduced (xvi. 43) after the
interpolation of xvi. 4-42, and then 2Samuel vii. is appended
word for word (1Chronicles xvii.),--the resolution of David to build
a house for the ark, and what Jehovah said to him about the
subject through Nathan. The point of the prophet's address turns
on the antithesis (2Samuel vii.). "Thou wilt build a house FOR
ME? rather will I build a house FOR THEE;" the house of David
is of course the Davidic dynasty. But an interpolation has
already crept into the text of Samuel (vii. 13), which
apprehends the antithesis thus: "THOU wilt build a house for me?
Nay, THY 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 double meaning on
which the original point depends. It is interesting also to compare
2Samuel vii. 14 with 1Chronicles xvii. 13: "I will be to thy seed
a father, and he shall be to me a son. _If he commit iniquity,
then I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes
of the sons of men; but_ my mercy shall not depart from him."
The words in italics are wanting in Chronicles; the meaning, that
Jehovah will not withdraw His grace from the dynasty of Judah
altogether, even though some of its members should deserve
punishment, is thereby destroyed and volatilised into an abstract
idealism, which shows that to the writer the Davidic kingly
family is known only as a dissolving view, and not by historical
experience as it is to the author of 2Samuel vii.
In chaps xviii.-xx., Chronicles seems to refresh itself with a
little variety, relating as it does the foreign wars of David
after the order of 2Samuel, viii., x., xi. 1, xii. 30, 30, xxi.
18-22. But in this it still keeps in view its purpose, which is
directed towards David as founder of the Jerusalem worship;
those wars brought him the wealth that was required for the
building of the temple. On the other hand, everything so
fully and beautifully told in the Book of Samuel about the
home occurrences of that period is omitted, for after all
it does not contribute much to the glorification of the king.
So the story of Meribaal and Ziba (chap. ix.), of Bathsheba and
Uriah (xi., xii.), of Tamar and Amnon (xiii., xiv.), of Absalom's
rebellion (xv.-xx.), and of the delivering-up of the sons 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 what extent the veil is
drawn over the scandalous falls of saints may be judged also from
the fact that from the list of David's foreign encounters also,
which are otherwise fully given, a single one is omitted which he
is supposed not to have come through with absolute honour, that
with the giant Ishbi-benob (2Samuel xxi. 15-17). Lastly, the
alteration made in 1Chronicles xx. 5 is remarkable. Elhanan the
son of Jair of Bethlehem, we read in 2Samuel xxi. 19, was he who
slew Goliath of Gath, the shaft of whose spear was as thick as a
weaver's beam. But on the other hand, had not David of Bethlehem
according to 1Samuel xvii. vanquished Goliath the giant, the
shaft of whose spear was as thick as a weaver's beam? In
Chronicles accordingly Elhanan smites the brother of the
veritable Goliath.
2. The closing chapters of 2Samuel (xxi.-xxiv.) are, admittedly,
an appendix of very peculiar structure. The thread of xxi. 1-14
is continued in xxiv. 1-25, but in the interval between the two
passages occurs xxi. 15-xxiii. 39, in a very irrational manner,
perhaps wholly due to chance. In this interposed 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. 8-39 as separated from xxi. 15-22,
and gives 2Samuel xxiv. last, a position which does not belong
to it from any material considerations, but merely because it
had originally been tagged on as an appendix, and besides had
been separated from its connection with xxi. 1-14 by a
large interpolation.
1Chronicles xxi. (the pestilence as punishment of David's sin
in numbering the people, and the theophany as occasioning the
building of an altar on the threshing-floor of Araunah) is on the
whole a copy of 2Samuel xxiv., but with omission of the precise
and interesting geographical details of ver. 5 seq, and with
introduction of a variety of improving touches. Thus (xxi. 1):
"And Satan stood up against Israel and moved David;" instead
of: "And the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Israel, and he
moved David." Similarly (xxi. 6): "Levi and Benjamin Joab
counted not among them; for the king's word was abominable to him,"--
an addition which finds its explanation on the one hand in Numbers
i. 49, and on the other in the circumstance that the holy city lay
within the territory of Benjamin. Again (xxi. 16, 27): "David
saw the angel 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 tabernacle, its predecessor, the fire
on which was also kindled from heaven (Leviticus ix. 24).
Whoever has understood the narratives of altar-buildings by
the Patriarchs, by Joshua, Gideon, and Manoah, will grant that
the author of Chronicles has quite correctly understood the
intention of 2Samuel xxiv., in accordance with which he here
proposes to relate the divine inauguration of the place of worship
at Jerusalem; but what in that passage, as in similar older
legends about the indication of consecrated places by means of a
theophany, is only hinted at for contemporaries who understood
the idea conveyed, he requires to retouch strongly in order that
a later generation may notice it; and yet he has half spoiled
the point by making the angel not stand by the threshing-floor of
Araunah on the sacred spot, but hover aloft in the air.
2Samuel xxiv. = 1Chronicles xxi. serves further as a starting point
for the free construction of 1Chronicles xxii.-xxix. The
circumstance that in the last chapter of the Book of Samuel David
builds the altar at Jerusalem is expanded into the statement that
in the last year of his reign he prepared beforehand the building
of the temple of Solomon in all its parts down to the minutest
detail. Unhampered by historical tradition, the author here
expatiates with absolute freedom in his proper element. All that
has hitherto been said about the king on the basis of the older
source is by means of additions and omissions fashioned into what
shall serve as a mere prologue to the proper work of his life,
which is now described thoroughly _con amore_. He himself
unfortunately has not been allowed to build the house, having
shed much blood and carried on great wars (xxii. 8, xxviii. 3),
but he yet in the last year of his reign forestalls from his
successor the whole merit of the business (xxiii. 1, xxviii. 1).
My son Solomon, he says, is young and tender, but the house to be
built for Jehovah must be great and glorious; I will therefore
prepare it for 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 posts (xxvi. 12 seq.), but none
the less with strictest specification and designation of the
localities of the temple,--and that too the second temple! His
preparations concluded, David calls a great assembly of prelates
and notables (xxiii. 1, xxviii. 1), has Solomon anointed as king,
and Zadok as priest (xxix. 22), and in a long discourse hands over
to the former along with the kingdom the task of his reign,
namely, the execution of what he himself has prepared and
appointed; on this occasion yet more precious stones and noble
metals--among them gold of Ophir and Persian darics--are presented
by David and the princes for the sacred building. The whole
section 1Chronicles xxii.-xxix. is a startling instance of that
statistical phantasy of the Jews which revels in vast sums of
money on paper (xxii. 14), in artificial marshallings of names
and numbers (xxiii.-xxvii.), in the enumeration of mere subjects
without predicates, which simply stand on parade and neither
signify nor do anything. The monotony is occasionally broken
only by unctuous phrases, but without refreshing the reader.
Let the experiment of reading the chapters through be tried.
According to 1Kings i., ii., King David in his closing days was
sick and feeble in body and mind, and very far from being in a
condition thus to make preparations on behalf of his successor
shortly before his own death, or to prepare his bread for him so
far that nothing remained but to put it into the oven. His
purpose of building a house to Jehovah is indeed spoken of in
2 Samuel vii. in connection with vi. 17, but it is definitively
abandoned in consequence of Jehovah's refusal, on the ground that
it is not man's part to build a house for God, but God's to build
a house for man. In strange contrast with this explanation is
that of Chronicles that David is a man 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
obtaining from the old king, enfeebled with age, his sanction for
Solomon's succession. Until then Adonijah had been regarded as
heir-apparent to the throne, by David himself, by all Israel,
and the great officers of the kingdom, Joab and Abiathar; what
above all things turned the scale in favour of Solomon was the
weight of Benaiah's six hundred praetorians, a formidable force
in the circumstances of the period. The author of Chronicles
naively supposes he has successfully evaded all difficulties
by giving out the coronation of Solomon related by himself
to be the second (xxix. 22),--an advertence to 1Kings i., ii.
which does not remove but only betrays the contradiction.
Yet this is as nothing over against the disharmony of the total
impression. See what Chronicles has made out of David! The
founder of the kingdom has become the founder of the temple and
the public worship, the king and hero at the head of his
companions in arms has become the singer and master of ceremonies
at the head of a swarm of priests and Levites; his clearly cut
figure has become a feeble holy picture, seen through a cloud of
incense. It is obviously vain to 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 into
church history. Just as the law framed by Ezra as the foundation
of Judaism was regarded as having been the work of Moses, so what
upon this basis had been developed after Moses--particularly the
music of the sanctuary and the ordering of the temple
_personnel_---was carried back to King David, the sweet singer of
Israel, who had now to place his music at the service of the
cultus, and write psalms along with Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun,
the Levitical singing families.
VI.I.3. With regard to Solomon, Chronicles (2Chronicles i.-ix.)
nowhere departs very far from the lines of the Book of Kings.
As the story of 1Kings i., ii., which is not an edifying one, and
mercilessly assails that of 1Chronicles xxii.-xxix., required to
be omitted, the narrative accordingly begins with 1Kings iii., with
Solomon's accession, sacrifices on the great altar at Gibeon, and
the revelation of Jehovah, which was thereupon communicated to him
in a dream. This last is transcribed with slight alterations,
but at the outset a characteristic divergence is found. "Solomon
loved Jehovah, walking in the statutes of David his father, only
he sacrificed and burnt incense on the high places (because
there was no house built unto the name of Jehovah until those
days). And the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there; for that
was the great high place; a thousand burnt-offerings did Solomon
offer upon that altar, and Jehovah appeared unto him in a dream:
Ask what I shall give thee." So 1Kings iii. 2 seq. Chronicles,
after its manner, first surrounds the king with a great assemblage
of captains of hundreds and thousands, of judges and princes
and heads of houses, and purely Pentateuchal dignities, and then
proceeds:
"And Solomon and all the congregation with him went to
the high place in Gibeon, for there was God's tent of meeting,
which Moses, the servant of God, had made in the wilderness.
But the ark of God had David brought up from 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 introduced _ad hoc_ into the history. According to 1Chronicles
xvi. David is in the best position to institute also a sacrificial
service beside the ark of Jehovah, which he has transferred to
Zion; but he dare not, for the Mosaic altar stands at Gibeon, and
he must content himself with a musical surrogate (vers. 37-42).
The narrative of 1Chronicles xxi., that David was led by the
theophany at the threshing-floor of Araunah to build an altar
there, and present upon it an offering that was accepted by
heaven, is at its close maimed and spoiled in a similar way by
the remark, with anticipatory reference to 2Chronicles i., that the
Mosaic tabernacle and altar of burnt offering were indeed at that
time in the high place at Gibeon, but that the king had not the
strength to go before it to inquire of Jehovah, being so smitten
with fear of the angel with the drawn sword. So also must the
sacrifice which Solomon should have offered on his return from
Gibeon before the ark at Jerusalem be similarly ignored (2Chronicles
i. 13), because it uould destroy the force of the previous
explanation of the high place at Gibeon. Thus the shadow takes
the air from the body. In other places the tabernacle is
significantly confounded with the temple of Jerusalem (Graf, p. 56),
but on the whole it remains a tolerably inert conception, only made
use of in the passage before us (2Chronicles i.) in an _ex machina_
manner in order to clear Solomon of a heavy reproach.
Upon the last solemn act of worship at the Mosaic sanctuary
immediately follows the building of the temple (i. 18 [ii.1]-vii. 11),
1Kings iii. 10-v. 14 [AV. 34] being passed over. A few little
touches are however brought in to show the wealth of Solomon
(i. 14-17); they do not occur in Kings until chap. x. (vers. 26-29),
and are also repeated in Chronicles (ix. 25 seq.) in this much
more appropriate connection (comp. 1Kings iii., LXX). Strictly
speaking indeed, David has taken the preparations for the sacred
building out of the hands of his successor, but the latter
appears not 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 explaining himself by word of mouth, he here
writes a letter in which he not only openly avows his faith in
Jehovah the God of Israel, the maker of heaven and earth, but
also betrays an extraordinary acquaintance with the Pentateuchal
Priestly Code. The brassfounder whom Solomon brings from Tyre
(1Kings vii. 13, 14) is (ii. 13) described as a very Daedalus
and prodigy of artistic skill, like Bezaleel (Exodus xxxi. 2 seq.);
his being made the son of a woman of Dan and not of a widow of
Naphtali supplies interpreters with the materials for the
construction of a little family romance, /1/
-- Footnote
1. She was by birth a woman of Dan, married into the tribe of
Napthali, lost her husband, and as widow out of the tribe of
Naphtali became the wife of the Tyrian. So Bertheau _in loc_.
-- Footnote
but has no more real value than the idea that sandalwood is
obtained from Lebanon. The statement of 1Kings v. 27 [13]
(xi. 28, xii. 4) that Israel was requisitioned in large numbers
to render forced service to the king has substituted for it by
the Chronicler that which occurs in another place (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 a thoroughly correct manner according
to the ordinance of the Priestly Code, is also characteristic;
similar remarks, from which the uninterrupted practice of the
Mosaic cultus according to the rules of the Law is made to appear,
are afterwards repeated from time to time (viii. 12-16, xiii. 11).
In chaps. iii., iv. the author repeats the description of the
temple in 1Kings vi., vii., with the omission of what relates to
profane buildings. Perhaps in one passage (1Kings vii. 23) he
found the now very corrupt text in a better state; otherwise he
has excerpted from it in a wretchedly careless style or word for
word transcribed it, adding merely a few extravagances 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, 340, 341). To deny that the
original (to which reference must in many places be made in order
that the meaning may be understood) exists in 1Kings vi., vii.,
requires an exercise of courage which might be much better
employed, all the more because in 2Chronicles iv. 11-v. 1, the
summary list follows the description of details precisely as in
1Kings vii. 40 - 51.
While the concrete and material details of 1Kings vi., vii. are
reproduced only in an imperfect and cursory manner, the act of
consecration on the other hand, and the discourse delivered by
Solomon on the occasion, is accurately and fully given (v. 2-vii.
10) in accordance with 1Kings viii.; such additions and
omissions as occur are all deliberate. In 1Kings viii. the
priests and Levites on an occasion which so closely concerned
their interests do not play any adequate part, and in particular
give none of the music which nevertheless is quite indispensable
at any such solemnity. Accordingly, the Chronicler at the word
"priests" inserts between the violently separated clauses of 1Kings
viii. 10, 11, the following:
"For all the priests present had sanctified themselves without
distinction of classes, and the Levites, the singers, all stood in
white linen with cymbals and psalteries and harps at the east end
of the altar, and with 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 abridged (vi. 39, 40)--perhaps in order to get rid
of viii. 50--and there is substituted for it an original epilogue
(vi. 41, 42) recalling post-exilian psalms. Then comes a larger
omission, that of 1Kings viii. 54-61, explained by the difficulty
involved in the king's here kneeling, not upon the caldron,
but before the altar, then standing up and blessing like a priest;
in place of this it is told (vii. 1-3) how the altar was consecrated
by fire from heaven, which indeed had already descended upon it
(1Chronicles xxi.26), but as it appears had unaccountably gone out.
In vii. 4 the author again returns to his original at 1Kings
viii. 62 seq., but tricks it out, wherever it appears to him too
bare, with trumpeting priests and singing Levites (vii. 6),
and finally dismisses the people, not on the eighth day of
the feast of tabernacles (1Kings viii. 66), but on the ninth
(vii. to), in accordance with the enactment in Numbers xxix. 35.
The rest of Solomon's history (vii. 11-ix. 28) is taken over from
1Kings ix., x. In doing so what is said in 1Kings ix. 10-IO,
to the effect that Solomon handed over to 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 already observed statement of 1Kings ix. 24
about the removal of Solomon's Egyptian wife out of the city of
David into his new palace /1/ is altered and put in quite a
-- Footnote
1. Even in the text of Kings this statement has been obscured;
Comp. 1Kings iii. 1. In ix. 24 we must at least say _betho
asher bana lo_, but this perhaps is not enough.
-- Footnote
false light:
"Solomon brought up the daughter of Pharaoh out of the
city of David unto the house that he had built for her; for he
said, No woman shall dwell in the house of David, for the place
is holy whereunto the ark of Jehovah hath come" (viii. 11).
There is no further 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, misunderstood from 1Kings ix. 26 seq.,
x. 22. The concluding chapter on Solomon's reign (1Kings xi.),
in which the king does not appear in his most glorious aspect, is
passed over in silence, for the same motives as those which
dictated the omission of the two chapters at the beginning.
The history of the son is treated after the same plan and by the
same means as that of the father, only the subject accommodates
itself more readily to the purpose of the change. The old
picture is retouched in such wise that all 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 fulfilment of all righteousness of the law, and much music,
and all sorts of harmless legendary anachronisms and
exaggerations besides. The material of tradition seems broken up
in an extraneous medium, the spirit of post-exilian Judaism.
VI.II.
VI.II.1. After Solomon's death the history of Israel in Chronicles
is traced only through Jehovah's kingdom in the hand of the sons
of David, and all that relates to the ten tribes is put aside.
For according to the notions of the Judaistic period Israel is the
congregation of true worship, and this last is connected with the
temple at Jerusalem, in which of course the Samaritans have no
part. Abijah of Judah makes this point of view clear to Jeroboam
I. and his army in a speech delivered from Mount Zemaraim before
the battle.
"Think 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 Jehovah, the sons of Aaron and the
Levites in the service; and they burn unto Jehovah every morning
and every evening burnt sacrifices and sweet incense; the shewbread
also is upon the pure table; for we have maintained the service of
Jehovah our God, but ye have forsaken Him. And behold, God Himself
is with us at our head, and His priests, and the loud-sounding
trumpets to cry an alarm against you. O children of Israel,
fight ye not against Jehovah the God of your fathers, for ye shall
not prosper" (2Chronicles xiii. 8-12; comp. xi. 13-17).
The kingdom which bore the name of Israel was actually in point of
fact in the olden time the proper Israel, and Judah was merely a
kind of appendage to it. When Amaziah of Judah after the
conquest of the Edomites challenged to battle King Jehoash of
Samaria, whose territory had at that time suffered to the utmost
under the continual wars with the Syrians, the latter bid say to
him:
"The thistle that was in Lebanon sent to the cedar that was
in Lebanon, saying, Give thy daughter to my son to wife;--then
passed by a wild beast that was in Lebanon and trode down the
thistle. Thou hast indeed smitten Edom, and thy heart hath
lifted thee up. Enjoy thy glory, but tarry at home."
(2Kings xiv. 9, 10). And as the other would not listen, he
punished him as if he had been a naughty boy and then let him go.
Religiously the relative importance of the two corresponded
pretty nearly to what it was politically and historically.
Israel was the cradle of prophecy; Samuel, Elijah, and Elisha
exercised their activity there; what contemporary figure from
Judah is there to place alongside of these? Assuredly the author
of the Book of Kings would not have forgotten them had any such
there been, for he is a Judaean with all his heart, yet is compelled
purely by the nature of the case to interest himself chiefly about
the northern kingdom. And yet again at the very close it was the
impending fall of Samaria that called into life a new phase of
prophecy; he who inaugurated it, the Judaean Amos of Tekoah, was
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 instance of Hosea shows that it came into activity as
early and as powerfully in Israel as in Judah. Even after
Josiah's reformation Jeremiah complains that the sister who
hitherto had been spared is in no respect better than the other
who a hundred years before had fallen a victim to the Assyrians
(iii. 6-1O); and though in principle the author of the Book of
Kings, taking his stand upon Deuteronomy, prefers Judah and
Jerusalem, yet he does not out of deference to this judgment alter
the facts which show that old Israel was not further than old
Judah from compliance with the Deuteronomic precepts. Chronicles,
on the other hand, not only takes the Law--the Penta<teu>chal Law
as a whole, but more particularly the Priestly Code therein
preponderating--as its rule of judgment on the past; but also
idealises the facts in accordance with that norm, and figures to
itself the old Hebrew people as in exact conformity with the
pattern of the later Jewish community,--as a monarchically graded
hierocracy with a strictly centralised cultus of rigidly
prescribed form at the holy place of Jerusalem. When,
accordingly, the ten tribes fail to exhibit all the marks of the
kingdom of God, this is taken to mean their falling away from the
true Israel; they have made goats and calves their gods, driven
away the priests and Levites, and in a word broken quite away
from the institutions which shaped themselves in Judah during the
period subsequent to Josiah and received their finishing-touches
from Ezra. /1/
-- Footnote
1. The Chronicler indeed is unable, even in the case of these
schismatics, to divest himself of his legal notions, as appears
almost comically in the circumstance that the priests of Jeroboam
set about their heretical practices quite in accordance with the
prescriptions of the Priestly Code, and procure their
consecration by means of a great sacrifice (2 Chron xiii. 9).
-- Footnote
Like other heathen, therefore, they are taken account of by the
sacred history only in so far as they stood in relations of
friendship or hostility 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 sedulous and undisguised
partisanship on behalf of Judah is manifested, even by the
inhabitants of the northern kingdom itself. /2/ If one seriously
-- Footnote
2. Compare xi. 16, xv. 9, xix. 2, xx. 35 seq.. xxv 7, xxviii.
9 seq., xxx. 6.
-- Footnote
takes the Pentateuch as Mosaic law, this exclusion of the ten
tribes is, in point of fact, an inevitable consequence, for the
mere fact of their belonging to 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 priests
and Levites as its most important organs, "the sinews and muscles
of the body politic, which keep the organism together as a living
and moving whole."
VI.II.2. The reverse side is, of course, the idealisation of Judah
from the point of view of the legitimate worship,--a process which
the reader can imagine from the specimens already given with
reference to David and Solomon. The priests and Levites 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 the internal
arrangements of which, however, they dare not intermeddle (xxvi.
16 seq.); to deliver discourses and ordain spiritual solemnities
(which figure as the culminating points in the narrative) are
among the leading duties of their reign. /1/
-- Footnote
1. xiii. 7 seq., xv. 10 seq., xx. 6 seq., xxix. 5 seq., xxx. 1 seq.,
xxxv. 1 seq.
-- Footnote
Those among them who are good apprehend their task and are
inseparable from the holy servants of Jehovah,--so, in particular,
Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and Josiah. Of the first mentioned we are
told that in the third year of his reign he appointed a royal
commission of notables, priests, and Levites, to go about with the
Book of the Law, and teach in the cities of Judah (xvii. 7-9); in
the larger places, in the strongholds, he further instituted
colleges of justice, and over them a supreme tribunal at
Jerusalem, also consisting of priests, Levites, and notables,
under the presidency of the high priest for spiritual, and of the
Prince of the house of Judah for secular affairs (xix. 5-11).
There is nothing about this in the Book of Kings, although what is
of less importance is noticed (1Kings xxii. 47); the Chronicler
makes the statement in his own language, which is unmistakable,
especially in the pious speeches. Probably it is the
organisation of justice as existing in his own day that he here
carries back to Jehoshaphat, so that here most likely we have the
oldest testimony to the synedrium of Jerusalem as a court of
highest instance over the provincial synedria, as also to its
composition and presidency. The impossibility of such a judiciary
system in antiquity is clear from its presupposing the Book of
the Law as its basis, from its co-ordination of priests and
Levites, and also from its actual inconsistency with incidental
notices, particularly in Isaiah and the older prophets (down to
Jeremiah xxvi.), in which it everywhere is taken for granted as a
thing of course that the rulers are also at the same 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 his reign (Exodus xl. 2; Leviticus
ix. 1). he institutes by means of the priests and Levites, whom
he addresses quite paternally as his children (xxix. 11), a
great feast of consecration of the temple, alleged to have been
closed and wasted by Ahaz; thereupon in the second month to
celebrate the passover in the most sumptuous manner; and finally,
from the third to the seventh month to concern himself about the
accurate rendering of their dues to the clergy. All is described
in the accustomed style, in the course of three long chapters,
which tell us nothing indeed about the time of Hezekiah, but are
full of information for the period in which the writer lived,
particularly with reference to the method then followed in
offering the sacred dues (xxix. 1-xxxi. 21). In the case of
Josiah also the account of his epoch-making reformation of the
worship is, on the whole, reproduced in Chronicles only in a
mutilated manner, but the short notice of 2Kings xxiii. 21-23
is amplified into a very minute description of a splendid
passover feast, in which, as always, the priests and above all
the Levites figure as the leading personalities. In this last
connection one little trait worth noticing remains, namely, that
the great assembly in which the king causes the Book of the Law
to be sworn to, is, in every other respect, made up in 2Chronicles
xxxiv. 29 seq. exactly as it is in 2Kings xxiii. 1, , except
that instead of "the priests and _prophets_" we find "the priests
and _Levites_." The significance of this is best seen from the
Targum, where "the priests and prophets" are translated into "the
priests and scribes."
By this projection of the legitimate cultus prescribed in the Law
and realised in Judaism, the Chronicler is brought however into a
peculiar conflict with the statements of his authority, which show
that the said cultus was not a mature thing which preceded all
history, but came gradually into being in the course of history;
he makes his escape as well as he can, but yet not without a
strange vacillation between the timeless manner of looking at
things which is natural to him, and the historical tradition
which he uses and appropriates. The verses in 1Kings (xiv. 22, 23):
Judah (not Rehoboam merely) did that which was evil in the sight
of Jehovah and provoked Him to jealousy by their sins which
they sinned, above all that their fathers had done; and they
set up for themselves high places, macceboth and asherim, &c.,
which in the passage where they occur are, like the parallel
statement 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 exaggerates this improvement, and makes of
Asa another Josiah (2Chronicles xv. 1-15), represents him also
(xiv. 3) as abolishing the high places, and yet after all (xv. 1
7) repeats the statement of 1Kings xv. 14 that the high places
were not removed. So also of Jehoshaphat, we are told in the
first place that he walked in the first ways of his father Asa
and abolished the high places in Judah (2Chronicles xvii. 3, 6,
xix. 3), a false generalisation from 1Kings (xxii. 43, 47);
and then afterwards we learn (xx. 32, 33) that the high places
still remained, word for word according to 1Kings xxii. 43, 44.
To thc author it seems on the one hand an impossibility that
the worship of the high places, which in spite of xxxiii.17 is
to him fundamentally idolatry, should not have been repressed
even by pious, i.e., law-observing kings, and yet on the other
hand he mechanically transcribes his copy.
In the case of the notoriously wicked rulers his resort is to make
them simply heathen and persecutors of the covenant religion,
for to him they are inconceivable within the limits of Jehovism,
which always in his view has had the Law for its norm, and is one
and the same with the exclusive Mosaism cf Judaism. So first, in
the case of Joram: he makes high places on the hills of Judah and
seduces the inhabitants of Jerusalem to commit fornication, and
Judah to apostatise (xxi. 11), and moreover slays all his brethren
with the sword (ver. 4)--the one follows from the other. His widow
Athaliah breaks up the house of Jehovah by the hand of her sons
(who had been murdered, but for this purpose are revived), and
makes images of Baal out of the dedicated things (xxiv. 7); none
the less on that account does the public 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 the Mosaic cultus is everything
to the Chronicler, and its historical identity would be destroyed
if an orthodox priest, a friend of the prophet Isaiah, had lent a
helping hand to set up a foreign altar. To make idolaters pure
and simple of Manasseh and Amon any heightening of what is said
in 2Kings xxi. was hardly necessary; and besides, there were
here special reasons against drawing the picture in too dark
colours. It is wonderful also to see how the people, which is
always animated with alacrity and zeal for the Law, and rewards
its pious rulers for their fidelity to the covenant (xv. 15,
xvii. 5, xxiv. 10, xxxi. 10), marks its censure of these wicked
kings by withholding from them, or impairing, the honour of royal
burial (xxi. 19, 20, xxviii. 27, xxxiii. 10),--in spite of 2Kings
ix. 28, xvi. 20, xxi. 1 8.
The periodically recurring invasions of heathenism help, at the
same time, to an understanding of the consequent reforms, which
otherwise surpass the comprehension of the Jewish scribe.
According to the Books of Kings, Joash, Hezekiah, and Josiah hit
upon praiseworthy innovations in the temple cultus, set aside
deeply rooted and immemorial customs, and reformed the public
worship of Jehovah. These advances WITHIN Jehovism, which, of
course, are quite incompatible with its Mosaic fixity, are made
by the Chronicler to be simple restorations of the pure religion
following upon its temporary violent suspension. It is in Hezekiah's
case that 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 comparing 2Chronicles xxix. 1, 2, xxxi. 1, 20, 21,
xxxii. 22 only, that the king destroyed the brazen serpent
Nehushtan (2Kings xviii. 4) is passed over in silence, as if
it were incredible that such an image should have been worshipped
down to that date in the belief that it had come down from the
time of Moses; the not less offensive statement, on the other
hand, that he took away _the Asherah_ (by which only that of
the temple altar can be understood; comp. Deuteronomy xvi. 21)
is got over by charging the singular into the plural; he took
away _the Asherahs_ (xxx). 1 ), which occurred here and there
throughout Judah, of course at heathen altars.
In the cases of Joash and Josiah the free flight of the
Chronicler's law-crazed fancy is hampered by the copy to which
he is tied, and which gives not the results merely, but the
details of the proceedings themselves (2Chronicles 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 author's preference for cultus, bring him into the greatest
embarrassment, by introducing details which to his notions are
wholly against the Law, and yet must not be represented otherwise
than in the most favourable light.
It cannot be doubted that the sections about Joash in 2Kings
(xi. 1-xii. 17 [16]), having their scene end subject laid in the
temple, are at bottom identical with 2Chronicles xxii. 10-xxiv.
14. In the case of 2Kings xi., to begin with, the beginning and
the close, vers. 1-3, vers. 13-20, recur verbatim in 2Chronicles
xxii. 10-12, xxiii. 12-21, 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 following
comparison in the main passage will show; to understand it one
must bear in mind that the regent Athaliah has put to death all
the members of the house of David who had escaped the massacre of
Jehu, with the exception of the child Joash, who, with the
knowledge of Jehoiada, the priest, has found hiding and protection
in the temple.
2 KINGS xi
4. In the seventh year Jehoiada
sent and took the captains of
the Carians and runners,
2CHRONICLES xxiii.
1. _In the seventh year Jehoiada_
sent and took the captains of
strengthened himself and _took the
captains_, Azariah the son of Jeroham,
and Ishmael the son of Jehohanan,
and Azariah the son of Obed,
and Maaseiah the son of Adaiah,
and Elishaphat the son of Zichri,
into covenant with him.
2. And they went about in Judah
and gathered the Levites out of
all the cities in Judah, and the
chiefs of the fathers of Israel,
land they came to Jerusalem.
2 KINGS xi
and brought them to him into
the house of Jehovah, and made a
covenant with them, and took
an oath of them in the house of
Jehovah, and showed them the
king's son;
2CHRONICLES xxiii.
3. And the whole congregation
made _a covenant in the house of
God_ with the king. And he said
unto them, _Behold, the king's
son_ shall reign, as Jehovah said
concerning the sons of David.
2 KINGS xi
5. And commanded them, saying,
This is the thing that ye shall
do; the third part of you which
enter on the Sabbath and keep the
watch of the king's house,
2CHRONICLES xxiii.
4. _This is the thing that ye shall
do: the third part of you, which
enter on the Sabbath_, of the
priests and of the Levites,
shall keep the doors.
2 KINGS xi
[6. And the third part in the
gate of Jesod, and the third
part in the gate behind the
runners, and ye shall keep
the watch in the house...]:
2CHRONICLES xxiii.
5. And the third part of you shall
be _in the house of the king_, and
the third part in the gate Jesod; and
all the people shall be in the courts
of the house of Jehovah.
2 KINGS xi
7. And the two other third
parts of you, those who go
forth on the Sabbath and
keep the watch in the house
of Jehovah about the king.
2CHRONICLES xxiii.
6. And no one shall come into the
house of Jehovah save the priests
and they of the Levites that minister;
but all the people shall keep the
ordinance of Jehovah.
2 KINGS xi
8. Ye shall encompass the king
round about, every man with
his weapons in his hand,
and whosoever cometh within
the ranks, shall be put to
death, and ye shall be with
the king whithersoever he goeth.
2CHRONICLES xxiii.
7. And the Levites shall _compass
the king round about, every man
with his weapons in his hands, and
whosoever cometh_ into the house,
_shall be put to death; and they shall
be with the king whithersoever he
goeth._
2 KINGS xi
9. And the captains did according
to all that Jehoiada the priest
had commanded, and took each his
men, those that were to come in
on the Sabbath with those that
were to go out on the Sabbath,
and came to Jehoiada the priest.
2CHRONICLES xxiii.
8. And the Levites and all Judah
_did according to all that Jehoiada
the priest had commanded, and took
each his men, those that were to come
in on the Sabbath with those that
were to go out on the Sabbath_, for
Jehoiada the priest dismissed not
the divisions.
2 KINGS xi
10. And to the captains the
priest gave King David's
spears and shields that were
in the house of Jehovah.
2CHRONICLES xxiii.
9. And Jehoiada the priest delivered
to the captains of hundreds the spears
and the bucklers and the shields that
King David had, which were in the
house of God.
2 KINGS xi
11. And the runners stood, every
man with his weapons in his hand,
from the south side of the house
to the north side, along by
the altar and the house,
round about the king.
2CHRONICLES xxiii.
10. And he set all the people, _every
man having his weapon in his hand,
from the south side of the house to
the north side, along by the altar
and the house, round about the king_.
2 KINGS xi
12. And he brought forth the
king's son and put upon him
the crown and the bracelet,
and they made him king and
anointed him, and they clapped
their hands and said:
Long live the king.
2CHRONICLES xxiii.
11. _And they brought out the king's
son and put upon him the crown and
the bracelet and they made him king_,
and Jehoiada and his sons _anointed
him and said:
Long live the king_.
Can the enthronement of Joash, as on a former occasion that of
Solomon, possibly have been accomplished by the agency of the
bodyguard of the kings of Judah? Is it possible that the high
priest should have made a covenant with the captains within the
house of Jehovah, and himself have held out the inducement to
those half-pagan mercenaries to penetrate into the temple
precincts? That were indeed an outrage upon the Law not lightly
to be imputed to so holy a man! Why then did not Jehoiada make
use of his own guard, the myriads of Levites who were at his
command? Such a course was the only right one, and therefore
that which was followed. "No one shall come into the house of
Jehovah save the priests and they of the Levites that minister:"
in accordance with this fundamental principle stated by himself
(xxiii. 6; comp ver. 7 INTO THE HOUSE instead of WITHIN THE RANKS),
our pious historian substitutes his priests and Levites for 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 be done with the captains who are retained in xxiii. 1, 9,
and in ver. 14 are even called officers of the host as in 2Kings
xi 15, after their soldiers have been taken from them or
metamorphosed? Had the Levites a military organisation, and,
divided into three companies, did they change places every
week in the temple service? The commentators are inclined to call
in to their aid such inventive assumptions, with which, however,
they may go on for ever without attaining their end, for the error
multiplies itself. As a specially striking instance of the manner
in which the procedure of Chronicles avenges itself may be mentioned
chapter xxiii. 8: "and they took each his men," &c. The words are
taken from 2Kings xi. 9, but there refer to the captains, while
here the antecedents are the Levites and all the men of Judah--as
if each one of these last had a company of his own which entered
upon service, or left it, every Sabbath day.
The comparison of 2Chronicles xxiv. 4-14 with 2Kings xii. 5-17
[4-16] is not much less instructive. According to 2Kings xii.
Joash enjoined that all the money dues payable to the temple
should in future fall to the priests, who in turn were to be under
obligation to maintain the building in good repair. But they took
the money and neglected the other side of the bargain, and when
they and Jehoiada 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 still belonged to them. And as often as
the chest became full, the king's scribes and the chief priest
removed the money, weighed it, and handed it over to the
contractors for payment of the workmen; that none of it was to be
employed for sacred vessels is expressly said (ver. 14). This
arrangement by King Joash was a lasting one, and still subsisted
in Josiah's time (2Kings . . xxii. 3 seq.).