(4) National events, such as religious ceremonies (e.g. Hezekiah's Passover, 2 Chr. xxix.—xxxi.) and wars (e.g. 2 Chr. xx. 1—30) constitute as a rule the subject-matter of (5) the pious midrashic passages; so that (4) and (5) may conveniently be treated together. Midrash is not serious history, and very probably was not intended to be regarded as such even by its author. It is earnest moral and religious teaching presented in a quasi-historical dress. In all these passages the form of the tale is unhistorical, and all midrashic features, such as the incredibly and often impossibly large numbers given in Chron., must without hesitation be set aside; but it does not follow that the tale has no historical foundation whatever, that the events around which it was written were originally unreliable. In an ancient writing mythical features do not afford a proper ground for rejecting a tale as historically worthless—a fact which requires to be emphasised. An interesting example is found in the extraordinary legends which attached themselves to the life of Alexander the Great and rapidly spread throughout Europe and Asia (see Ency. Brit.11 vol. i. pp. 550 f.).
Perhaps the most striking instance in Chronicles is the amazing and bloodless victory vouchsafed to Jehoshaphat over certain Bedouin tribes who invaded Judah from the desert by the southern end of the Dead Sea (2 Chr. xx. 1—30, where see notes). As told in Chronicles, the story is a Midrash, preaching the duty of trust in God and of obedience to His will at all hazards; but it is evident that the moral and religious form of the story has been built on and around a tradition of a desert raid on Judah. Now this nucleus of the tale may easily rest on historical fact. Fierce but undisciplined invaders, advancing from the desert through the difficult country of south Judah, a land of cliffs ravines and caves, might be sorely harassed by the guerilla attacks of the shepherd population of that region, and finally broken up by the outbreak of internal dissensions, before the main Judean army from Jerusalem had
the long prayer of Solomon, found in 1 Kin. v. 2—9, viii. 22—50, and transcribed (with some expansions) in 2 Chr. ii. 3—16, vi. 12—42.
