Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/721

CHRONICLES 707 entirely under the influence of the religious institutions of the new theocracy. This standpoint determined the nature of his interest in the early history of his people. The true importance of Hebrew history had always centred in the fact that this petty nation was the people of Jehovah, the spiritual God. The tragic interest which distinguishes the annals of Israel from the forgotten history of Moab or Damascus lies wholly in that long contest which finally vindicated the reality of spiritual things and the supremacy of Jehovah s purpose, in the political ruin of the nation which was the faithless depositary of these sacred truths. After the Captivity it was impossible to write the history of Israel s fortunes otherwise than in a spirit of religious pragmatism. But within the limits of the religious conception of the plan and purpose of the Hebrew history more than one point of view might be taken up. The book of Kings looks upon the history in the spirit of the prophets in that spirit which is still echoed by Zechariah (i. 5, G) : " Your fathers, where are they 1 and the prophets, could they live for ever ? But my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers 1 so that they turned and said, Like as Jehovah of hosts thought to do unto us ... so hath he dealt with us." But long before the Chronicler wrote the last spark of prophecy was extinct. Ths New Jerusalem of Ezra was organized as a municipality and a church, not as a nation. The centre of religious life was no longer the living prophetic word but the ordinances of the Pentateuch and the liturgical service of the sanctuary. The religious vocation of Israel was no longer national but ecclesiastical or municipal, and the historical continuity of the nation was vividly realized only within the walls of Jerusalem and the courts of the Temple, in the solemn assembly and stately ceremonial of a feast day. These influences naturally operated most strongly on those who were officially attached to the sanctuary. To a Levite, even more than to other Jews, the history of Israel meaut above all things the history of Jerusalem, of the Temple, and of the Temple ordinances. Now the author of Chronicles betrays on every page his essentially Levitical habit of mind. It even seems possible from a close attention to his descriptions of sacred ordi nances to conclude that his special interests are those of a common Levite rather than of a priest, and that of all Levitical functions he is most partial to those of the singers, a member of whose guild Ewald conjectures him to have been. To such a man the older delineation of the history of Israel, especially in the books of Samuel and Kings, could not but appear to be deficient in some directions, while in other respects its narrative seemed superfluous or open to misunderstanding, as for example by recording, and that without condemnation, things inconsistent with the Penta- teuchal law. The history of the ordinances of worship holds a very small place in the older record. Jerusalem and the Temple have not that central place in the book of Kings which they occupied in the minds of the Jewish community after the Exile. Large sections of the old history are de voted to the religion and politics of the ten tribes, which are altogether unintelligible and uninteresting when measured by a strictly Levitical standard ; and in general the whole problems and struggles of the prophetic period turn on points which had ceased to be cardinal in the life of the New Jerusalem, which was no longer called to decide between the claims of the Word of Jehovah and the exigencies of political affairs and social customs, and which could not comprehend that men absorbed in deeper spiritual contests had no leisure for the niceties of Levitical legisla tion. Thus there seemed to be room for a new history, which should confine itself to matters still interesting to the theocracy of Zion, keeping Jerusalem and the Temple in the foreground, and developing the divine pragmatism of the history, not so much with reference to the prophetic word as to the fixed legislation of the Pentateuch, so that the whole narrative might be made to teach that the glory of Israel lies in the observance of the divine law and ritual. For the sake of systematic completeness the author begins with Adam, as is the custom with later Oriental writers. But he had nothing to add to the Pentateuch, and the period from Moses to David contained little that served his purpose. He, therefore, contracts the early history into a series of genealogies, which were doubtless by no means the least interesting part of his work at a time when every Israelite was concerned to prove the purity of his Hebrew descent (cf. Ezra ii. 59, 63). From the death of Saul the history becomes fuller and runs parallel with the books of Samuel and Kings. The limitations of the author s interest in past times appear in the omission, among other particu lars, of David s reign in Hebron, of the disorders in his family and the revolt of Absalom, of the circumstances of Solomon s accession, and of many details as to the wisdom and splendour of that sovereign, as well as of his fall into idolatry. In the later histoiy the ten tribes are quite neglected, and political affairs in Judah receive attention, not in proportion to their intrinsic importance, but according as they serve to exemplify God s help to the obedient and His chastisement of the rebellious. That the author is always unwilling to speak of the misfortunes of good rulers is not to be ascribed with some critics to a deliberate sup pression of truth, but shows that the book was throughout composed not in purely historical interests, but with a view to inculcate a single practical lesson. The more important additions which the Chronicler makes to the old narrative consist partly of statistical lists (1 Chron. xii.), partly of full details on points connected with the history of the sanctuary and the great feasts or the archaeology of the Levitical ministry (1 Chron. xiii., xv., xvi., xxii.-xxix. ; 2 Chron. xxix.-xxxi., <fec.), and partly of narratives of victories and defeats, of sins and punishments, of obedience and its reward, which could be made to point a plain religious lesson in favour of faithful observance of the law (2 Chron. xiii., xiv. 9, sqq. ; xx., xxi. 11, sqq., <fec.). The minor variations of Chronicles from the books of Samuel and Kings are analogous in principle to the larger additions and omissions, so that the whole work has a consistent and well-marked character, presenting the history in quite a different perspective from that of the old narrative. Here, then, a critical question arises. Is the change of perspective wholly due to a different selection of items from authentic historical tradition ] May we assume that every thing which is new in the Chronicles has been taken exactly from older sources, or must ve judge that the standpoint of the author has not only governed the selec tion, but coloured the statement of historical facts ? Are all his novelties new data, or are some of them inferences of his own from the same data as lie before us in other books of the Bible 1 To answer these questions we must first inquire what were the historical materials at his command. The Chronicler makes frequent reference to earlier histories which he cites by a great variety of names. That the names " Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah," " Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel," " Book of the Kings of Israel," and " Affairs of the Kings of Israel " (2 Chron. xxxiii. 18, Heb.) refer to a single work is not disputed. Under one or other title this book is cited some ten times. Whether it is identical with the Midrash [E.V., story of the book of the Kings (2 Chron. xxiv. 27) is not certain. According to later usage the term Midrash would mean a commentary on the book of the Kings. But it is perhaps as plausible to suppose with Ewald that the book of the

Kings was itself called a Midrash or learned compilation.