Prolegomena to the History of Israel Part 17

VI.II.4. The Book of Kings then everywhere crops up as the real foundation of the portion of Chronicles relating to Judah after the period of Solomon. Where the narrative of the former is detailed and minute, our author also has fuller and more interesting material at his command; so, for example, in the history relating to the temple and to the common and mutual relations of Judah and Israel (2 Chr. x., xviii., xxiii., seq., xxv. 17-24, x.x.xiii. seq.). Elsewhere he is restricted to the epitome that const.i.tutes the framework of the Book of Kings; by it he is guided in his verdicts as to the general character of the successive sovereigns as well as in his chronological statements, although, in accordance with his plan, he as a rule omits the synchronisms (xiii. 1, xxv. 25). The positive data also, given by the epitome with reference to the legislation in matters of worship by the various kings, are for the most part reproduced word for word, and float in a fragmentary and readily distinguishable way in the mixture of festivals, sermons, choruses, law, and prophets. For this is an important verification of all the results already obtained; all in Chronicles that is not derived from Samuel and Kings, has a uniform character not only in its substance, but also in its awkward and frequently unintelligible language--plainly belonging to a time in which Hebrew was approaching extinction--in its artificiality of style, deriving its vitality exclusively from Biblical reminiscences. This is not the place for the proof of these points, but the reader may compare Staehelin's Einleitung (1862), p. 139 seq.; Bertheau, p. xiv. seq., and Graf, p. 116.

VI.III.

VI.III.1. When the narrative of Chronicles runs parallel with the older historical books of the canon, it makes no real additions, but the tradition is merely differently coloured, under the influence of contemporary motives. In the picture it gives the writer's own present is reflected, not antiquity. But neither is the case very different with the genealogical lists prefixed by way of introduction in 1Chronicles i.-ix.; they also are in the main valid only for the period at which they were drawn up--whether for its actual condition or for its conceptions of the past.

The penchant for pedigrees and genealogical registers, made up from a mixture of genealogico-historical and ethnologico-statistical elements, is a characteristic feature of Judaism; along with the thing the word YX# also first came into use during the later times. Compendious histories are written in the form of TLDWT and YWX#YN. The thread is thin and inconspicuous, and yet apparently strong and coherent; one does not commit oneself to much, and yet has opportunity to introduce all kinds of interesting matter.

Material comes to one's hand, given a beginning and an end, the bridge is soon completed. Another expression of the same tendency is the inclination to give a genealogical expression to all connections and a.s.sociations of human society whatsoever, to create artificial families on all hands and bring them into blood relationship, as if the whole of public life resolved itself into a matter of cousinship,--an inclination indicative of the times of political stagnation then prevalent. We hear of the families of the scribes at Jabesh, of the potters and gardeners and byssus-workers, of the sons of the goldsmiths, apothecaries, and fullers, these corporations being placed on the same plane with actual families. The division into cla.s.ses of the persons engaged in religious service is merely the most logical development of this artificial system which is applied to all other social relations as well.

Proceeding now to a fuller examination of the contents of 1 Chron i.-ix. and other texts connected with that, we have here, apart from the first chapter, which does not demand further attention, an ethno-genealogical survey of the twelve tribes of Israel, which is based mostly on the data of the Priestly Code (Genesis xlvi.; um. xxvi.), expanded now more now less. But while the statements of the Priestly Code have to hold good for the Mosaic period only, those of Chronicles have also to apply to the succeeding ages,--those, for example, of Saul and David, of Tiglath-Pileser and Hezekiah. As early as the time of the judges, however, very important changes had taken place in the conditions. While Dan continued to subsist with difficulty, Simeon and Levi had been completely broken up (Genesis xlix. 7); in the Blessing of Moses the latter name denotes something quite different from a tribe, and the former is not even so much as named, although the enumeration is supposed to be complete; in David's time it had already been absorbed by families of mingled Judaic and Edomitic descent in the district where it had once had independent footing. Eastward of Jordan Leah's first-born had a similar fate, although somewhat later. After it has been deposed from its primacy in Genesis xlix.

and twitted in Judges v. with its brave words unaccompanied by corresponding deeds, the faint and desponding wish is expressed in Deuteronomy x.x.xiii. 6 that "Reuben may live and not die," and King Mesha is unaware that any other than the Gadite had ever dwelt in the land which, properly speaking, was the heritage of Reuben.

But in Chronicles these extinct tribes again come to life--and not Levi alone, which is a special case, but also Simeon and Reuben, with which alone we are here to deal--and they exist as independent integral twelfths of Israel, precisely like Ephraim and Mana.s.seh, throughout the whole period of the monarchy down to the destruction of the kingdom by the a.s.syrians. /1/ This is

1. For Reuben see (in addition to 1Chronicles v. 1-10) v. 18, xi.

42, xii. 37. xxvi. 32, xxvii. 16, for Simeon, 1Chronicles iv.

24-43, with xii. 25, and 2Chronicles xv. 9, x.x.xiv. 6, observing that in the last two pa.s.sages Simeon is reckoned as belonging to the northern kingdom, so as to complete the number of the ten tribes.

diametrically opposed to all authentic tradition; for to maintain that nothing else is intended than a continued subsistence of individual Simeonite and Reubenite families within other tribes is merely a desperate resort of the harmonists, and every attempt to tone down the fact that those extinct and half-mythical tribes are in Chronicles placed side by side with the rest without any distinction is equally illegitimate. The historical value thus lost by the narrative as a whole cannot be restored by the seeming truthfulness of certain details. Or is more significance really to be attached to the wars of the Simeonites and Reubenites against the Arabians than to the rest of the extemporised wars of the kings of Judah against these children of the wilderness?

If only at least the names had not been "sons of Ham, and Mehunim and Hagarenes " (iv. 40 seq. [Heb.], v. 10)! As for the pedigrees and genealogical lists, are they to be accepted as historical merely because their construction is not apparent to us, and they evade our criticism? The language affords no room for the conjecture that we here possess extracts from doc.u.ments of high antiquity (iv. 33, 38, 4I, v. 1 seq., 7, 9 seq.), and proper names such as Elioenai and the like (iv. 35 seq.) are not striking for their antique originality.

Of the remaining tribes, so far as they belong to Israel and not to Judah, the next in the series after Reuben are the trans-Jordanic (v. 11-26). They are said to have been numbered in the days of Jotham of Judah and Jeroboam of Israel, on which occasion 44,760 warriors were returned; they took the field against the Hagarenes, Ituraeans, Nephis.h.i.tes, and Nabataeans, gaining the victory and carrying off much booty, "for they cried to G.o.d in the battle, and He was entreated of them because they put their trust in Him." But afterwards they fell away from the G.o.d of their fathers, and as a punishment were carried off by Pul and Tiglath-Pileser to Armenia by the Chaboras and the river of Gozan. Apart from the language, which in its edifying tone is that of late Judaism, and leaving out of account the enumeration "the sons of Reuben and the Gadites and half of the tribe of Mana.s.seh," the astonishing and highly doubtful combinations are eloquent: Pul and Tiglath-Pileser, the Chaboras and the river of Gozan, are hardly distinguished from each other; Jotham and Jeroboam, on the other hand, make so impossible a synchronism that the partisans of Chronicles will have it that none is intended,--forgetful, to be sure, of Hosea i. 2, and omitting to say what in that case Jotham of Judah has to do here at all in this connection. The Hagarenes and Ituraeans too, instead of (say) the Moabites and Ammonites, furnish food for reflection, as also do the geographical statements that Gad had his seat in Bashan and Mana.s.seh in and near Lebanon. As for the proper names of families and their heads, they are certainly beyond our means of judging; the phrases however of the scheme they fill (anshe shemoth rashe l'beth abotham, migrash, jahes) are peculiar to the Priestly Code and Chronicles, and alongside of elements which are old and attested from other quarters, occur others that look very recent, as for example (v. 24) Eliel, Azriel, Jeremiah, Hodaviah, Jahdiel.

In the introduction the Galilaean tribes have no prominent place, but in the rest of the book they make a favourable appearance (see especially 1Chronicles xii. 32-34, 40, and 2Chronicles x.x.x.

10, 11, 18); it readily occurs to one, especially in the last-cited pa.s.sage, to think of the later Judaising process in Galilee. In Issachar there are stated to have been 87,000 fighting men in David's time (misparam l'toledotham l'beth abotham, vii. 1-5); out of Zebulun and Naphtali, again, exactly 87,000 men came to David at Hebron, to anoint him and be feasted three days,--it is carefully mentioned, however (xii. 40), that they took their provisions up with them. The proper kernel of Israel, Ephraim and Mana.s.seh, is, in comparison with Simeon, Reuben, Gad, Issachar, treated with very scant kindness (vii.

14-29),--a suspicious sign. The list of the families of Mana.s.seh is an artificial _rechauffe_ of elements gleaned anywhere; Maachah pa.s.ses for the wife as well as the sister of Machir, but being a Gileaditess (Beth-Maachah), ought not to have been mentioned at all in this place where the cis-Jordanic Mana.s.seh is being spoken of; to fill up blanks every contribution is thankfully received. /1/ In the case of Ephraim a long and meagre genealogy

1 Kuenen, Th. Tijdschr., 1877, pp. 484, 488; G.o.dsdienst v.

Isr., i. 165.

only is given, which, begun in vers. 20, 21, and continued in ver. 25, constantly repeats the same names (Tahath, Tahan, 1Samuel i. 1; Eladah, Laadan, Shuthelah, Telah), and finally reaches its end and goal in Joshua, whose father Nun alone is known to the older sources! Into the genealogy a wonderful account of the slaying of the children of Ephraim by the men of Gath (1Samuel iv.?) has found its way, and (like viii. 6, 7) according to the prevailing view must be of venerable antiquity.

But in that case the statement of iv. 9 must also be very ancient, which yet obviously is connected with the rise of the schools of the scribes stated in ii. 55 to have existed in Jabez.

Everywhere it is presupposed that Israel throughout the entire period of the monarchy was organised on the basis of the twelve tribes (ii.-ix.; xii.; xxvii.), but the a.s.sumption is certainly utterly false, as can be seen for example from 1Kings iv.

Further, the _penchant_ of later Judaism for statistics is carried back to the earlier time, to which surveys and censuses were repugnant in the extreme. In spite of 2Samuel xxiv., we are told that under David enumerations both of the spiritual and of the secular tribes were made again and again; so also under his successors, as may be inferred partly from express statements and partly from the precise statistics given as to the number of men capable of bearing arms: in these cases the most astounding figures are set down,--always, however, as resting on original doc.u.ments and accurate enumeration. In the statistical information of Chronicles, then, so far as it relates to pre-exilic antiquity, we have to do with artificial compositions.

It is possible, and occasionally demonstrable, that in these some elements derived from tradition have been used. But it is certain that quite as many have been simply invented; and the combination of the elements--the point of chief importance-- dates, as both form and matter show, from the very latest period.

One might as well try to hear the gra.s.s growing as attempt to derive from such a source as this a historical knowledge of the conditions of ancient Israel.

VI.III.2. As regards Judah and Benjamin, and to a certain extent Levi also, the case of course is somewhat different from that of the ten extinct tribes. It is conceivable that here a living ethno-genealogical tradition may have kept the present connected with the past. Nevertheless, on closer examination, it comes out that most of what the Chronicler here relates has reference to the post-exilic time, and that the few fragments which go up to a higher antiquity are wrought into a connection which on the whole is of a very recent date. Most obtrusively striking is it that the list of the heads of the people dwelling in Jerusalem given in ix. 4--17 is simply identical with Nehemiah xi. 3-19. In this pa.s.sage, introducing as it does the history of the kings (x.

seq.), one is by no means prepared to hear statements about the community of the second temple; but our author is under the impression that in going there he is letting us know about the old Jerusalem; from David to Nehemiah is no leap for him, the times are not distinct from one another to his mind. For chap. viii.

also, containing a full enumeration of the Benjamite families, with special reference to those which had their seat in the capital, Bertheau has proved the post-exilic reference; it is interesting that in the later Jerusalem there existed a widespread family which wished to deduce its origin from Saul and rested its claims to this descent on a long genealogy (viii. 33-40). /1/

1. Equivalent to ix. 35-44, which perhaps proves the later interpolation of ix. 1-34.

It cannot be said that this produces a very favourable impression for the high antiquity of the other list of the Benjamites in vii.

6-11; to see how little value is to be attached to the pretensions of the latter to be derived from original doc.u.ments of h.o.a.ry antiquity, it is only necessary to notice the genuinely Jewish phraseology of vers. 7, 9, 11, such proper names as Elioenai, and the numbers given (22,034 + 20,200 + 17,200, making in all 59,434 fighting men).

The registers of greatest historical value are those relating to the tribe of Judah (ii. 1-iV. 23). But in this statement the genealogy of the descendants of David must be excepted (chapter iii.), the interest of which begins only with Zerubbabel, the rest being merely an exceedingly poor compilation of materials still accessible to us in the older historical books of the canon, and in Jeremiah. According to iii. 5, the first four of David's sons, born in Jerusalem, were all children of Bathsheba; the remaining seven are increased to nine by a textual error which occurs also in the LXX version of 2Samuel v. 16. Among the sons of Josiah (iii. 15 seq.), Johanan, i.e. Jehoahaz, is distinguished from Shallum (Jeremiah xxii. 11), and because he immediately succeeded his father, is represented as the first-born, though in truth Jehoiakim was older (2Kings xxiii.

3I, 36); Zedekiah, Jehoiakim's brother, is given out to be the son of Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, because he was the successor of Jeconiah, who succeeded Jehoiakim. Similar things occur also in the Book of Daniel, but are usually overlooked, with a mistaken piety. Whoever has eyes to see cannot a.s.sign any high value except to the two great Jewish genealogies in chaps. ii.

and iv. Yet even here the most heterogeneous elements are tossed together, and chaff is found mingled with wheat. /1/

1. For further details the reader is referred to the author's dissertation De gentibus et familiis Judaeis, Gottingen, 1870.

Apart from the introduction, vers.1-8, chap. ii. is a genealogy of the children of Hezron, a tribe which in David's time had not yet been wholly amalgamated with Judah, but which even then const.i.tuted the real strength of that tribe and afterwards became completely one with it. The following scheme discloses itself amid the accompanying matters: "The sons of Hezron are Jerahmeel and Celubai" (Caleb) (ver. 9). "and the sons of Jerahmeel, the first-born of Hezron, were..." (ver. 25). "These were the sons of Jerahmeel. And the sons of Caleb the brother of Jerahmeel were..." (ver. 42). "These were the sons of Caleb " (ver. 50 a).

That which is thus formally defined and kept by itself apart (compare in this connection "Jerahmeel the first-born of Hezron,"

"Caleb the brother of Jerahmeel") is materially also distinguished from all else. It is the kernel of the whole, and refers to the pre-exilian time. Even the unusual _et fuerunt_ (vers. 25, 33, 50) points to this conclusion, as well as, in the case of Caleb, the positive fact that the towns named in ver. 42-49 are all situated near Hebron and in the Negeb of Judah, where after the exile the Idumaeans were settled, and, in the case of Jerahmeel, the negative circ.u.mstance that here no towns at all are mentioned among the families, Molid, ver. 29, being perhaps a single exception, and thus the extreme south is indicated. But this kernel is amplified by a number of post-exilian additions. In the first place, in connection with Jerahmeel, an appendix (vers. 34-41) is given which is not ethnological but purely genealogical, and brings a pedigree of fifteen members manifestly down to near the age of the Chronicler, and which moreover is only in apparent connection with what precedes it (comp. ver. 34 with ver. 31), and invariably uses the hiphil form _holid_, a form which occurs in vers. 25-33 never, and in vers. 42-50 only sporadically in three places open to the suspicion of later redaction (comp. especially ver. 47). Much more important, however, are the additions under Caleb; of these the one is prefixed (vers. 18-24), the other, more appropriately, brought in at the close (vers. 50-55, beginning with "and the sons of Hur, the firstborn of Ephrath," Caleb's second wife, ver. 19). Here Caleb no longer presents himself in the extreme south of Judah and the vicinity of Jerahmeel (1Samuel xxv. 3, xxvii. 10, x.x.x. 14, 29), where he had his settlement prior to the exile, but his families, which are all of them descended from his son Hur, inhabit Bethlehem, Kirjath-jearim, Zorah, Esthaol, and other towns in the north, frequently mentioned in Ezra and Nehemiah. Thus the Calebites in consequence of the exile have forsaken their old seats and have taken up new ones on their return; this fact is expressed in ver. 18 to the effect that Caleb's first wife Azubah bath Jerioth (Deserta filia Nomadum) had died, and that he had then married a second, Ephrath, by whom he became the father of Hur: Ephrath is the name of the district in which Bethlehem and Kirjath- jearim are situated, and properly speaking is merely another form of Ephraim, as is shown by the word Ephrathite. In addition to these appendices to Jerahmeel and Caleb, we have also the genealogy of David (vers. 10-17). The Book of Samuel knows only of his father Jesse; on the other hand, Saul's genealogy is carried further back, and there was no reason for not doing so in David's case also if the materials had existed. But here, as in Ruth, the pedigree is traced backwards through Jesse, Obed, Boaz, up to Salma. Salma is the father of Bethlehem (ii. 54), and hence the father of David. But Salma is the father of Bethlehem and the neighbouring towns or fractions of towns AFTER THE EXILE; he belongs to Kaleb Abi Hur. /1/

I In the Targum, Caleb's kindred the Kenites are designated as Salmaeans; the name also occurs in Canticles (i. 5, the tents of Kedar, the curtains of Salmah), and also as the name of a Nabataean tribe in Pliny. Among the families of the Nethinim enumerated in Nehemiah vii. 46-60 the B'ne Salmah also occur, along with several otber names which enable us distinctly to recognise (Ezekiel xliv.) the non-Israelite and foreign origin of these temple slaves; see, for example, vers. 48, 52, 55, 57.

But if anything at all is certain, it is this, that in ancient times the Calebites lived in the south and not in the north of Judah, and in particular that David by his nativity belonged not to them but rather to the older portion of Judah which gravitated towards Israel properly so called, and stood in most intimate relations with Benjamin. Of the first three members of the genealogy, Nahshon and Amminadab occur as princes of Judah in the Priestly Code, and are fitly regarded as the ancestors of those who come after them; Ram is the first-born of Hezron's first-born (ver.

25), and by the meaning of his name also (Ram = the high one), is, like Abram, qualified to stand at the head of the princely line.

While in chap ii. we thus in point of fact fall in with an old kernel, and one that necessarily goes back to sound tradition (apparently preserved indeed, however, merely for the sake of the later additions), the quite independent and parallel list, on the other hand, contained in iv. 1-23 is shown by many unmistakable indications to be a later composition having its reference only to post-exilian conditions, perhaps incorporating a few older elements, which, however, it is impossible with any certainty to detect. /2/

I Pharez, Hezron, Carmi, Hur, Shobal (iv. 1), is a genealogically descending series; Chelubai must therefore of necessity be read instead of Carmi, all the more because Chelub and not Carmi appears in the third place in the subsequent expansion; for this, ascending from below, begins with Shobal (ver. 2), then goes on to Hur (vers. 5-10), who stands in the same relation to Ash-hur as Tob to Ish-tob, and finally deals with Chelub or Caleb (vers. 11-15).

Levi of course receives the fullest treatment (1Chronicles v. 27 [vi. 1]-vi. 66 [81], ix. 10 seq., xv., xvi., xxiii.-xxvii., &c.). We know that this clerical tribe is an artificial production, and that its hierarchical subdivision, as worked out in the Priestly Code, was the result of the centralisation of the cultus in Jerusalem. Further, it has been already shown that in the history as recorded in Chronicles the effort is most conspicuous to represent the sons of Aaron and the Levites, in all cases where they are absent from the older historical books of the canon, as playing the part to which they are ent.i.tled according to the Priestly Code. How immediate is the connection with the last-named doc.u.ment, how in a certain sense that code is even carried further by Chronicles, can be seen for example from this circ.u.mstance, that in the former Moses in a novel reduces the period of beginning public service in the case of a Levite from thirty years of age to twenty-five (Numbers iv. 3 seq., viii. 23 seq.), while in the latter David (1Chronicles xxiii. 3, 24 seq.) brings it down still further to the age of twenty; matters are still to some extent in a state of flux, and the ordering of the temple worship is a continuation of the beginning made with the tabernacle service by Moses. Now, in so far as the statistics of the clergy have a real basis at all, that basis is post-exilian.

It has long ago been remarked how many of the individuals figuring under David and his successors (e.g., Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun) bear names identical with families or guilds of a later time, how the two indeed are constantly becoming confluent, and difficulty is felt in determining whether by the expression "head" a person or a family ought to be understood. But, inasmuch as the Chronicler nevertheless desires to depict the older time and not his own, he by no means adheres closely to contemporary statistics, but gives free play at the same time to his idealising imagination; whence it comes that in spite of the numerous and apparently precise data afforded, the reader still finds himself unable to form any clear picture of the organisation of the clergy,--the ordering of the families and tribes, the distribution of the offices,--nay, rather, is involved in a maze of contradictions. Obededom, Jeduthun, Shelomith, Korah, occur in the most different connections, belong now to one, now to another section of the Levites, and discharge at one time this function, at another, that. Naturally the commentators are prompt with their help by distinguishing names that are alike, and identifying names that are different.

Some characteristic details may still be mentioned here. The names of the six Levitical cla.s.ses according to 1Chronicles xxv. 4, Giddalti, V'romamti-Ezer, Joshbekashah, Mallothi, Hothir, Mahazioth, are simply the fragments of a consecutive sentence which runs: I have magnified and exalted the help of him who sat in need: I have spoken abundance of prophecies. The watchman or singer Obededom who is alleged to have discharged his functions in the days of David and Amaziah, is no other than the captain to whom David intrusted for three months the custody of the ark, a Philistine of Gath. The composition of the singers'

pedigrees is very transparent, especially in the case of Heman (1Chronicles vi. 7-l2 [22-27] = ver 18-23, [33-37]). Apart from Exodus vi. 16-l9, use is chiefly made of what is said about the family of Samuel (1Samuel i. 1, viii. 2), who must of course have been of Levitical descent, because his mother consecrated him to the service of the sanctuary. Heman is the son of Joel b. Samuel b. Elkanah b. Jeroham b. Eliab b. Tahath b. Zuph, only the line does not terminate with Ephraim as in 1Samuel i. 1 (LXX) because it is Levi who is the goal; Zuph. however, is an Ephraitic district, and Tahath (Tohu, Toah, Tahan, Nahath) is an Ephraimite family (vii. 20). Further back the same elements are individually repeated more than once, Elkanah four times in all; he occurs once as early as in Exodus vi. 24, where also he is doubtless borrowed from 1Samuel i. The best of it is that, contrary to the scope of the genealogies recorded in1 Chronicles vi., which is to provide a Levitical origin for the guilds of singers, there is found in close contiguity the statement (ii. 6) that Heman and Ethan were descendants of Zerah b. Pharez, b. JUDAH. The commentators are indeed a.s.sisted in their efforts to differentiate the h.o.m.onyms by their ignorance of the fact that even as late as Nehemiah's time the singers did not yet pa.s.s for Levites, but their endeavours are wrecked by the circ.u.mstance that the names of fathers as well as of sons are identical (Psalm lx.x.xviii. 1, lx.x.xix. 1; Ewald, iii. 380 seq.). In point of history these musicians of the second temple are descended of course neither from Levi nor from the sons of Mahol (1Kings v. 11 [iv. 31), but they have at least derived their names from the latter. On all hands we meet with such artificial names in the case of Levites.

One is called Issachar; it would not be surprising to meet with a Naphtali Cebi, or Judah b. Jacob. Jeduthun is, properly speaking, the name of a tune or musical mode (Psalm x.x.xix. 1, lxii. 1, [xxvii. 1), whence also of a choir trained in that.

Particularly interesting are a few pagan names, as for example Henadad, Bakbuk, and some others, which, originally borne by the temple servitors (Nehemiah vii. 46 seq.), were doubtless transferred along with these to the Levites.

With the priests, of whom so many are named at all periods of the history of Israel, matters are no better than with the inferior Levites, so far as the Books of Samuel and Kings are not drawn upon. In particular, the twenty-four priestly courses or orders are an inst.i.tution, not of King David, but of the post-exilic period.

When Hitzig, annotating Ezekiel viii. 16, remarks that the five-and-twenty men standing between the temple and the altar worshipping the sun toward the east are the heads of the twenty-four priestly courses with the high priest at their head (because no one else had the right to stand in the inner court between temple and altar), he reveals a trait that is characteristic, not only of himself, but also of the entire so-called historico-critical school, who exert their whole subtlety on case after case, but never give themselves time to think matters over in their connection with each other; nay, rather simply retain the traditional view as a whole, only allowing themselves by way of gratification a number of heresies. It is almost impossible to believe that Hitzig, when he annotated Ezekiel viii., could have read those pa.s.sages Ezekiel xliii. 7 seq., xliv. 6 seq, from which it is most unambiguously clear that the later exclusion of the laity from the sanctuary was quite unknown in the pre-exilic period. The extent of the Chronicler's knowledge about the pre-exilic priesthood is revealed most clearly in the list of the twenty-two high priests in 1Chronicles v. 29-41 (vi. 3-15). From the ninth to the eighteenth the series runs--Amariah, Ahitub, Zadok, Ahimaaz, Azariah, Johanan, Azariah, Amariah, Ahitub, Zadok. As for the first five, Azariah was not the son, but the brother of Ahimaaz, and the latter apparently not a priest (1Kings iv. 2); but Ahitub, the alleged father of Zadok, was, on the contrary, the grandfather of Zadok's rival, Abiathar, of the family of Eli (1Samuel xiv. 3, xxii. 20); the whole of the old and famous line--Eli, Phinehas, Ahitub; Ahimelech, Abiathar--which held the priesthood of the ark from thc time of the judges down into the days of David, is pa.s.sed over in absolute silence, and the line of Zadok, by which it was not superseded until Solomon (1Kings ii. 35), is represented as having held the leadership of the priesthood since Moses. As for the last four in the above-cited list, they simply repeat the earlier. In the Book of Kings, Azariah II., Amariah, Ahitub, Zadok, do not occur, but, on the contrary, other contemporary high priests, Jehoiada and Urijah, omitted from the enumeration in Chronicles. At the same time this enumeration cannot be a.s.serted to be defective; for, according to Jewish chronology, the ancient history is divided into two periods, each of 480 years, the one extending from the exodus to the building of the temple, the other from that epoch down to the establishment of the second theocracy.

Now, 480 years are twelve generations of forty years, and in 1Chronicles v. there are twelve high priests reckoned to the period during which there was no temple (ver. 36b to come after ver. 35a), and thence eleven down to the exile; that is to say, twelve generations, when the exile is included. The historical value of the genealogy in 1Chronicles v. 26-41 is thus inevitably condemned. But if Chronicles knew nothing about the priestly princes of the olden time, its statements about ordinary priests are obviously little to be relied on.

VI.III.3. To speak of a tradition handed down from pre-exilic times as being found in Chronicles, either in 1Chronicles i.-ix. or in 1Chronicles x.-2Chronicles x.x.xvi., is thus manifestly out of the question. As early as 1806 this had been conclusively shown by the youthful De Wette (then twenty-six years of age). But since that date many a theological Sisyphus has toiled to roll the stone again wholly or half-way up the hill--Movers especially, in genius it might seem the superior of the sober Protestant critic--with peculiar results. This scholar mixed up the inquiry into the historical value of those statements in Chronicles which we are able to control, with the other question as to the probable sources of its variations from the older historical books of the canon. In vain had De Wette, at the outset, protested against such a procedure, contending that it was not only possible, but conceded that Chronicles, where at variance or in contradiction, was following older authority, but that the problem still really was, as before, how to explain the complete difference of general conception and the mult.i.tude of discrepancies in details; that the hypothesis of "sources," as held before Movers by Eichhorn, was of no service in dealing with this question, and that in the critical comparison of the two narratives, and in testing their historical character, it was after all inc.u.mbent to stick to what lay before one (Beitr., i. pp. 24, 29, 38). For so ingenious an age such principles were too obvious; Movers produced a great impression, especially as he was not so simple as to treat the letters of Hiram and Elijah as authentic doc.u.ments, but was by way of being very critical. At present even Dillmann also unfortunately perceives "that the Chronicler everywhere has worked according to sources, and that in his case deliberate invention or distortion of the history are not for a moment to be spoken of" (Herzog, Realencyk., ii. p. 693, 1st edit.; iii.

223, 2d edit.). And from the lofty heights of science the author of Part V. of the Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament looks compa.s.sionately down upon K. H. Graf, "who has loitered so far behind the march of Old Testament research, as to have thought of resuscitating the views of De Wette;" in fact, that Chronicles may be established on an independent footing and placed on a level with the Books of Samuel and Kings, he utterly denies any indebtedness at all, on its part, to these, and in cases where the transcription is word for word, maintains that separate independent sources were made use of,--a needless exaggeration of the scientific spirit, for the author of the Book of Kings himself wrote the prayer of Solomon and the epitome, at least, without borrowing from another source; the Chronicler therefore can have derived it, directly or indirectly, only from him.

In reply to all this, one can only repeat what has already been said by De Wette. It may be that the Chronicler has produced this picture of old Israel, so different in outline and colour from the genuine tradition, not of his own suggestion and on his own responsibility, but on the ground of doc.u.ments that lay before him. But the historical character of the work is not hereby altered in the smallest degree, it is merely shared by the so-called "sources." 2Maccabees and a mult.i.tude of other compositions have also made use of "sources," but how does this enhance the value of their statements? That value must in the long run be estimated according to their contents, which, again, must be judged, not by means of the primary sources which have been lost, but by means of the secondary literary products which have survived. The whole question ultimately resolves itself into that of historical credibility; and to what conclusions this ]eads we have already seen. The alterations and additions of Chronicles are all traceable to the same fountain-head--the Judaising of the past, in which otherwise the people of that day would have been unable to recognise their ideal. It was not because tradition gave the Law and the hierocracy and the _Deus ex Machina_ as sole efficient factor in the sacred narrative, but because these elements were felt to be missing, that they were thus introduced. If we are to explain the _omissions_ by reference to the "author's plan," why may we not apply the same principle to the _additions_? The pa.s.sion displayed by Ewald ( Jahrbb. x. 261) when, in speaking of the view that Mana.s.seh's captivity has its basis in Jewish dogmatic, he calls it "an absurdly infelicitous idea, and a gross injustice besides to the Book of Chronicles," recalls B. Schaefer's suggestive remark about the Preacher of Solomon, that G.o.d would not use a liar to write a canonical book. What then does Ewald say to the narratives of Daniel or Jonah? Why must the new turn given to history in the case of Mana.s.seh be judged by a different standard than in the equally gross case of Ahaz, and in the numerous a.n.a.logous instances enumerated in preceding pages (p. 203 seq.).

With what show of justice can the Chronicler, after his statements have over and over again been shown to be incredible, be held at discretion to pa.s.s for an unimpeachable narrator? In those cases at least where its connection with his "plan" is obvious, one ought surely to exercise some scepticism in regard to his testimony; but it ought at the same time to be considered that such connections may occur much oftener than is discernible by us, or at least by the less sharp-sighted of us. It is indeed possible that occasionally a grain of good corn may occur among the chaff, but to be conscientious one must neglect this possibility of exceptions, and give due honour to the probability of the rule.

For it is only too easy to deceive oneself in thinking that one has come upon some sound particular in a tainted whole. To what is said in 2Samuel v. 9, "So David dwelt in the stronghold (Jebus), and he called it the city of David, and he built round about from the rampart and inward," there is added in 1Chronicles xi. 8, the statement that "Joab restored the rest of the city (Jerusalem)."

This looks innocent enough, and is generally accepted as a fact.

But the word XYH for BNH shows the comparatively modern date of the statement, and on closer consideration one remembers also that the town of Jebus at the time of its conquest by David consisted only of the citadel, and the new town did not come into existence at all until later, and therefore could not have been repaired by Joab; in what interest the statement was made can be gathered from Nehemiah vii. 11. In many cases it is usual to regard such additions as having had their origin in a better text of Samuel and Kings which lay before the Chronicler; and this certainly is the most likely way in which good additions could have got in.

But the textual critics of the _Exegetical Handbook_ are only too like-minded with the Chronicler, and are always eagerly seizing with both hands his paste pearls and the similar gifts of the Septuagint.