Prolegomena to the History of Israel Part 15

In the older narrative there is nothing about the tabernacle, it being a.s.sumed 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 inst.i.tute 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 antic.i.p.atory 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sed 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 va.s.sal 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 G.o.d of Israel, the maker of heaven and earth, but also betrays an extraordinary acquaintance with the Pentateuchal Priestly Code. The bra.s.sfounder 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 x.x.xi. 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/

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_.

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 subst.i.tuted 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] ) a.s.sures 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 pa.s.sage (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 bra.s.s-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 cla.s.ses, 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 pa.s.s 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 bra.s.s (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 subst.i.tuted 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

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.

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 pa.s.sed 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 mult.i.tude, and with you are the golden calves which Jeroboam made you for G.o.ds ?

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 G.o.ds? But as for us, we have not forsaken Jehovah our G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, but ye have forsaken Him. And behold, G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sed 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? a.s.suredly 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 a.s.syrian 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, x.x.xi. 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 a.s.syrians (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 Pentachal 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 G.o.d, this is taken to mean their falling away from the true Israel; they have made goats and calves their G.o.ds, driven away the priests and Levites, and in a word broken quite away from the inst.i.tutions which shaped themselves in Judah during the period subsequent to Josiah and received their finishing-touches from Ezra. /1/

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 circ.u.mstance 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).

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

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

9 seq., x.x.x. 6.

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 doc.u.ment, 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 const.i.tute 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/

1. xiii. 7 seq., xv. 10 seq., xx. 6 seq., xxix. 5 seq., x.x.x. 1 seq., x.x.xv. 1 seq.

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 inst.i.tuted 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 a.s.surance of the singer Jahaziel ("See G.o.d"), 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 a.s.syrian siege of Jerusalem and the memorable relief, comparatively little is made (x.x.xii. 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 inst.i.tutes 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 pa.s.sover 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-x.x.xi. 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 pa.s.sover 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 a.s.sembly in which the king causes the Book of the Law to be sworn to, is, in every other respect, made up in 2Chronicles x.x.xiv. 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.s 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 x.x.xiii.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 ident.i.ty 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 Mana.s.seh 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, x.x.xi. 10), marks its censure of these wicked kings by withholding from them, or impairing, the honour of royal burial (xxi. 19, 20, xxviii. 27, x.x.xiii. 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 surpa.s.s 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 (x.x.x., x.x.x).) the restoration of the pa.s.sover and the rest.i.tution 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, x.x.xi. 1, 20, 21, x.x.xii. 22 only, that the king destroyed the brazen serpent Nehushtan (2Kings xviii. 4) is pa.s.sed 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_ (x.x.x). 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 circ.u.mstantially 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 embarra.s.sment, 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 pa.s.sages 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 pa.s.sage 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 ma.s.sacre 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 2CHRONICLES xxiii.

4. In the seventh year Jehoiada 1. _In the seventh year Jehoiada_ sent and took the captains of sent and took the captains of the Carians and runners, 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, and they came to Jerusalem.

and brought them to him into 3. And the whole congregation the house of Jehovah, and made a made _a covenant in the house of covenant with them, and took G.o.d_ with the king. And he said an oath of them in the house of unto them, _Behold, the king's Jehovah, and showed them the son_ shall reign, as Jehovah said king's son; concerning the sons of David.

5. And commanded them, saying, 4. _This is the thing that ye shall This is the thing that ye shall do: the third part of you, which do; the third part of you which enter on the Sabbath_, of the enter on the Sabbath and keep the priests and of the Levites, watch of the king's house, shall keep the doors.

[6. And the third part in the 5. And the third part of you shall gate of Jesod, and the third be _in the house of the king_, and part in the gate behind the the third part in the gate Jesod; and runners, and ye shall keep all the people shall be in the courts the watch in the house...]: of the house of Jehovah.

7. And the two other third parts of you, those who go 6. And no one shall come into the forth on the Sabbath and house of Jehovah save the priests keep the watch in the house and they of the Levites that minister; of Jehovah about the king. but all the people shall keep the ordinance of Jehovah.

8. Ye shall encompa.s.s the king 7. And the Levites shall _compa.s.s round about, every man with the king round about, every man his weapons in his hand, with his weapons in his hands, and and whosoever cometh within whosoever cometh_ into the house, the ranks, shall be put to _shall be put to death; and they shall death, and ye shall be with be with the king whithersoever he the king whithersoever he goeth. goeth._

9. And the captains did according 8. And the Levites and all Judah to all that Jehoiada the priest _did according to all that Jehoiada had commanded, and took each 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 with those that were to go out on the Sabbath, were to go out on the Sabbath_, for and came to Jehoiada the priest. Jehoiada the priest dismissed not the divisions.