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most part with certain standing formulas; in all important events he gives the chronology carefully (1Ki 6:1, 1Ki 6:37-38; 1Ki 7:1; 1Ki 9:10; 1Ki 11:42; 1Ki 14:20-21, 1Ki 14:25; 1Ki 15:1-2, 1Ki 15:9-10, etc.); he judges the conduct of the kings throughout according to the standard of the law of Moses (1Ki 2:3; 1Ki 3:14; 2Ki 10:31; 2Ki 11:12; 2Ki 14:6; 2Ki 17:37; 2Ki 18:6; 2Ki 21:8; 2Ki 22:8., 2Ki 23:3, 2Ki 23:21, etc.); and he nearly always employs the same expressions when describing the commencement, the character, and the close of each reign, as well as the death and burial of the kings (compare 1Ki 11:43; 1Ki 14:20, 1Ki 14:31; 1Ki 15:8, 1Ki 15:24; 1Ki 22:51; 2Ki 8:24; 2Ki 13:9; 2Ki 14:29; and for the characteristics of the several kings of Judah, 1Ki 15:3, 1Ki 15:11; 1Ki 22:43; 2Ki 12:3; 2Ki 14:3; 2Ki 15:3, etc.; and for those of the kings of Israel, 1Ki 14:8; 1Ki 15:26, 1Ki 15:34; 1Ki 16:19, 1Ki 16:26, 1Ki 16:30; 1Ki 22:53; 2Ki 3:2-3; 2Ki 10:29, 2Ki 10:31; 2Ki 13:2, 2Ki 13:11, etc.). And so, again, the language of the books remains uniform in every part of the work, if we except certain variations occasioned by the differences in the sources employed; since we find throughout isolated expressions and forms of a later date, and words traceable to the Assyrian and Chaldaean epoch, such as כּר for חמר in 1Ki 5:11; צדנין in 1Ki 11:33; רצין in 2Ki 11:13; מדינות in 1Ki 20:14-15, 1Ki 20:17, 1Ki 20:19; קבל in 2Ki 15:10; החילים שׂרי in 1Ki 15:20; 2Ki 25:23, 2Ki 25:26; טבּחים רב in 2Ki 25:8; פּחה in 1Ki 10:15; 1Ki 20:24; 2Ki 18:24; and many others, which do not occur in the earlier historical books. - The books of the Kings are essentially distinguished from the books of Samuel through these characteristic peculiarities; but not so much through the quotations which are so prominent in the historical narrative, for these are common to all the historical books of the Old Testament, and are only more conspicuous in these books, especially in the history of the kings of the two kingdoms, because in the case of all the kings, even of those in relation to whom there was nothing to record of any importance to the kingdom of God except the length and general characteristics of their reign, there are notices of the writings which contain further information concerning their reigns. - The unity of authorship is therefore generally admitted, since, as De Wette himself acknowledges, “you cannot anywhere clearly detect the interpolation or combination of different accounts.” The direct and indirect contradictions, however, which Thenius imagines that he has discovered, prove to