INTRODUCTION TO THE HAGIOGRAPHIC HISTORICAL
humanity and the tribal ancestors of the people of Israel, borrowed from Genesis, the genealogical part contains only a collection of genealogical and topographical fragments differing in plan, execution, and extent, relating to the chief families of the most prominent tribes and their dwelling-places. The historical part contains, certainly, historical sketches from the history of all Israel during the reigns of the kings David and Solomon; but from the division of the kingdom, after the death of Solomon, they contain only the history of the kingdom of Judah, with special reference to the Levitical worship, to the exclusion of the history of the kingdom of the ten tribes. From a comparison of the manner of representing the history in the Chronicles with that in the books of Samuel and the Kings, we can clearly see that the chronicler did not purpose to portray the development of the Israelitic theocracy in general, nor the facts and events which conditioned and constituted that development objectively, according to their general course. He has, on the contrary, so connected the historical facts with the attitude of the kings and the people to the Lord, and to His law, that they teach how the Lord rewarded fidelity to His covenant with blessing and success both to people and kingdom, but punished with calamity and judgments every faithless revolt from His covenant ordinances. Now since Israel, as the people and congregation of Jahve, could openly show its adherence to the covenant only by faithful observance of the covenant laws, particularly of the ordinances for worship, the author of the Chronicles has kept this side of the life of the people especially in view, in order that he might hold up before his contemporaries as a mirror the attitude of the fathers to the God-appointed dwelling-place of His gracious presence in the holy place of the congregation. He does this, that they might behold how the faithful maintenance of communion with the covenant God in His temple would assure to them the fulfilment of the gracious promises of the covenant, and how falling away into idolatry, on the contrary, would bring misfortune and destruction. This special reference to the worship meets us also in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which describe the deliverance of the Jews from exile, and their restoration as the covenant people in the land of their fathers. The book of Ezra narrates, on the one hand, the return out of the Babylonian exile into the land of their fathers of a great part of the Jews who had been led away by Nebuchadnezzar, - partly in the first
