The care with which the chronicler has used his authorities may be seen, on a comparison of the narratives common to the Chronicle with the books of Samuel and Kings, not only from the fact that in these parallel sections the story of the chronicler agrees in all essential points with the accounts of these books, but also from the variations which are to be met with. For these variations, in respect to their matter, give us in many ways more accurate and fuller information, and in every other respect are of a purely formal kind, in great part affecting only the language and style of expression, or arising from the hortatory-didactic aim of the narrative. But this hortatory aim has nowhere had a prejudicial effect on the objective truth of the statement of historical facts, as appears on every hand on deeper and more attentive observation, but has only imparted to the history a more subjective impress, as compared with the objective style of the books of Kings.
Now, since the parallel places are of such a character, we are, as Bertheau and Dillmann frankly acknowledge, justified in believing that the author of the Chronicle, in the communication of narratives not elsewhere to be found in the Old Testament, has followed his authorities very closely, and that not only the many registers which we find in his work-the lists in 1 Chron 12; 23:1-27:34; the catalogue of cities fortified by Rehoboam, 2Ch 11:6-12; the family intelligence, 2Ch 11:18-23; 2Ch 21:2, and such matters-have been communicated in exact accordance with his authorities, but also the accounts of the wars
