By
Professor of Old Testament Languages and Literature, Mackney and New Colleges; Sometime Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge
New York
George H, Doran Company
To expound
Chronicles in a series which has dealt with Samuel, Kings, Ezra, and
Nehemiah is to glean scattered ears from a field already harvested.
Sections common to Chronicles with the older histories have therefore
been treated as briefly as is consistent with preserving the
continuity of the narrative. Moreover, an exposition of Chronicles
does not demand or warrant an attempt to write the history of Judah.
To recombine with Chronicles matter which its author deliberately
omitted would only obscure the characteristic teaching he intended to
convey. On the one hand, his selection of material has a religious
significance, which must be ascertained by careful comparison with
Samuel and Kings; on the other hand, we can only do justice to the
chronicler as we ourselves adopt, for the time being, his own
attitude towards the history of Hebrew politics, literature, and
religion. In the more strictly expository
Amongst other obligations to friends, I must specially mention my indebtedness to the Rev. T. H. Darlow, M.A., for a careful reading of the proof-sheets and many very valuable suggestions.
One object I have had in view has been to attempt to show the fresh force and clearness with which modern methods of Biblical study have emphasised the spiritual teaching of Chronicles.
Chronicles is a
curious literary torso. A comparison with Ezra and Nehemiah shows
that the three originally formed a single whole. They are written
in the same peculiar late Hebrew style; they use their sources in
the same mechanical way; they are all saturated with the
ecclesiastical spirit; and their Church order and doctrine rest
upon the complete Pentateuch, and especially upon the Priestly
Code. They take the same keen interest in genealogies, statistics,
building operations, Temple ritual, priests and Levites, and most
of all in the Levitical doorkeepers and singers. Ezra and Nehemiah
form an obvious continuation of Chronicles; the latter work breaks
off in the middle of a paragraph intended to introduce the account
of the return from the Captivity; Ezra repeats the beginning of the
paragraph and gives its conclusion. Similarly the register of the
high-priests is begun in
We may compare
the whole work to the image in Daniel's vision whose head was of
fine gold, his breast and arms of silver, his belly and his thighs
of brass, his legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.
Ezra and Nehemiah preserve some of the finest historical material
in the Old Testament, and are our only
The date Cf. Ezra;
Nehemiah; Esther,
by Professor Adeney, in “Expositor's
Bible.”
There is no evidence whatever as to the name of the author; but his intense interest in the Levites and in the musical service of the Temple, with its orchestra and choir, renders it extremely probable that he was a Levite and a Temple-singer or musician. We might compare the Temple, with its extensive buildings and numerous priesthood, to an English cathedral establishment, and the author of Chronicles to some vicar-choral, or, perhaps better, to the more dignified precentor. He would be enthusiastic over his music, a cleric of studious habits and scholarly tastes, not a man of the world, but absorbed in the affairs of the Temple, as a monk in the life of his convent or a minor canon in the politics and society of the minster close. The times were uncritical, and so our author was occasionally somewhat easy of belief as to the enormous magnitude of ancient Hebrew armies and the splendour and wealth of ancient Hebrew kings; the narrow range of his interests and experience gave him an appetite for innocent gossip, professional or otherwise. But his sterling religious character is shown by the earnest piety and serene faith which pervade his work. If we venture to turn to English fiction for a rough illustration of the position and history of our chronicler, the name that at once suggests itself is that of Mr. Harding, the precentor in Barchester Towers. We must however remember that there is very little to distinguish the chronicler from his later authorities; and the term “chronicler” is often used for “the chronicler or one of his predecessors.”
In the previous chapter it has been necessary to deal with the chronicler as the author of the whole work of which Chronicles is only a part, and to go over again ground already covered in the volume on Ezra and Nehemiah; but from this point we can confine our attention to Chronicles and treat it as a separate book. Such a course is not merely justified, it is necessitated, by the different relations of the chronicler to his subject in Ezra and Nehemiah on the one hand and in Chronicles on the other. In the former case he is writing the history of the social and ecclesiastical order to which he himself belonged, but he is separated by a deep and wide gulf from the period of the kingdom of Judah. About three hundred years intervened between the chronicler and the death of the last king of Judah. A similar interval separates us from Queen Elizabeth; but the course of these three centuries of English life has been an almost unbroken continuity compared with the changing fortunes of the Jewish people from the fall of the monarchy to the early years of the Greek empire. This interval included the Babylonian captivity and the return, the establishment of the Law, the use of the Persian empire, and the conquests of Alexander.
The first three
of these events were revolutions of supreme importance to the
internal development of Judaism; the last two rank in the history
of the world with the fall of the Roman empire and the French
Revolution. Let us consider them briefly in detail. The Captivity,
the rise of the Persian empire, and the Return are closely
connected, and can only be treated as features of one great social,
political, and religious convulsion, an upheaval which broke the
continuity of all the strata, of Eastern life and opened an
impassable gulf between the old order and the new. For a time, men
who had lived through these revolutions were still able to carry
across this gulf the loosely twisted strands of memory, but when
they died the threads snapped; only here and there a lingering
tradition supplemented the written records. Hebrew slowly ceased to
be the vernacular language, and was supplanted by Aramaic; the
ancient history only reached the people by means of an oral
translation. Under this new dispensation the ideas of ancient
Israel were no longer intelligible; its circumstances could not be
realised by those who lived under entirely different conditions.
Various causes contributed to bring about this change. First, there
was an interval of fifty years, during which Jerusalem lay a heap
of ruins. After the recapture of Rome by Totila the Visigoth in
a.d. 546 the city was
abandoned during forty days to desolate and dreary solitude. Even
this temporary depopulation of the Eternal City is emphasised by
historians as full of dramatic interest, but the fifty years'
desolation of Jerusalem involved important practical results. Most
of the returning exiles must have either been born in Babylon or
else have spent all their earliest years in exile. Very few can
have been old enough to have
Nearly a century
and a half elapsed between the first captivity under Jehoiachin
(b.c. 598) and the mission
of Ezra (b.c. 458); no doubt in the
succeeding period Jews still continued to return from Babylon to
Judæa, and thus the new community at Jerusalem, amongst whom the
chronicler grew up, counted Babylonian Jews amongst their ancestors
for two or even for many generations. A Zulu tribe exhibited for a
year in London could not return and build their kraal afresh and
take up the old African life at the point where they had left it.
If a community of Russian Jews went to their old home after a few
years' sojourn in Whitechapel, the old life resumed would be very
different from what it was before their migration. Now the
Babylonian Jews were neither uncivilised African savages nor
stupefied Russian helots; they
Besides these external changes, the Captivity was a period of important and many-sided development of Jewish literature and religion. Men had leisure to study the prophecies of Jeremiah and the legislation of Deuteronomy; their attention was claimed for Ezekiel's suggestions as to ritual, and for the new theology, variously expounded by Ezekiel, the later Isaiah, the book of Job, and the psalmists. The Deuteronomic school systematised and interpreted the records of the national history. In its wealth of Divine revelation the period from Josiah to Ezra is only second to the apostolic age.
Thus the
restored Jewish community was a new creation, baptised into a new
spirit; the restored city was as much a new Jerusalem as that which
St. John beheld descending out of heaven; and, in the words of the
prophet of the Restoration, the Jews returned to a “new heaven and a new earth.”
The establishment of the Law by Ezra and Nehemiah was the triumph of a school whose most important and effective work had been done at Babylon, though not necessarily within the half-century specially called the Captivity. Their triumph was retrospective: it not only established a rigid and elaborate system unknown to the monarchy, but, by identifying this system with the law traditionally ascribed to Moses, it led men very widely astray as to the ancient history of Israel. A later generation naturally assumed that the good kings must have kept this law, and that the sin of the bad kings was their failure to observe its ordinances.
The events of
the century and a half or thereabouts between Ezra and the
chronicler have only a minor importance for us. The change of
language from Hebrew to Aramaic, the Samaritan schism, the few
political incidents of which any account has survived, are all
trivial compared to the literature and history crowded into the
century after the fall of the monarchy. Even the far-reaching
results of the conquests of Alexander do not materially concern us
here. Josephus
Nor need much be said of the relation of the chronicler to the later Jewish literature of the Apocalypses and Wisdom. If the spirit of this literature were already stirring in some Jewish circles, the chronicler himself was not moved by it. Ecclesiastes, as far as he could have understood it, would have pained and shocked him. But his work lay in that direct line of subtle rabbinic teaching which, beginning with Ezra, reached its climax in the Talmud. Chronicles is really an anthology gleaned from ancient historic sources and supplemented by early specimens of Midrash and Hagada.
In order to
understand the book of Chronicles, we have to keep two or three
simple facts constantly and clearly in mind. In the first place,
the chronicler was separated from the monarchy by an aggregate of
changes which involved a complete breach of continuity between the
old and the new order: instead of a nation there was a Church;
instead of a king there were a high-priest and a foreign governor.
Secondly, the effects of these changes had been at work for two or
three hundred years, effacing all trustworthy recollection of the
ancient order and schooling men to regard the Levitical
dispensation as their one original and antique
Our impressions
as to the sources of Chronicles are derived from the general
character of its contents, from a comparison with other books of
the Old Testament, and from the actual statements of Chronicles
itself. To take the last first: there are numerous references to
authorities in Chronicles which at first sight seem to indicate a
dependence on rich and varied sources. To begin with, there are
“The Book of the Kings of Judah and
Israel,” Quoted for Asa ( Quoted for Jotham
( Quoted for Manasseh (2 Chron. xxxiii,
18).
Other titles
furnish us with an imposing array of prophetic authorities. There
are “The Words” of Samuel the
Seer Quoted for David
( Quoted for David
( Quoted for David
( Quoted for Rehoboam ( Quoted for Jehoshaphat ( Quoted for Manasseh ( Quoted for Solomon
( Quoted for Hezekiah ( Quoted for Joash
( Quoted for Abijah
(2 Chron. xiii, 22). Quoted for Uzziah
( Quoted for Solomon
(
Further
examination, however, soon discloses the fact that these prophetic
titles merely indicate different sections of “The Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah.” On
turning to our book of Kings, we find that from Rehoboam onwards
each of the references in Chronicles corresponds to a reference by
the book of Kings to the “Chronicles Cf. pp. 17, 18.
In two instances
Chronicles clearly states that its prophetic authorities were found
as sections of the larger work. “The Words
of Jehu the son of Hanani” were “inserted in the Book of the Kings of
Israel,” Chron. xxxii. 32.
These
conclusions may be illustrated and supported by what we know of the
arrangement of the contents of ancient books. Our convenient modern
subdivisions of chapter and verse did not exist, but the Jews were
not without some means of indicating the particular section of a
book to which they wished to refer. Instead of numbers they used
names, derived from the subject of a section or from the most
important person mentioned in it. For the history of the monarchy
the prophets were the most important personages, and each section
of the history is named after its leading prophet or prophets. This
nomenclature naturally encouraged the belief that the history had
been originally written by these prophets. Instances of the use of
such nomenclature are found in the New Testament, e.g.,
R.V. marg. R.V.
While, however,
most of the references to “Words,”
“Visions,” etc., are to sections of
the larger work, we need not at once conclude that all
references to authorities in Chronicles are to this same book. The
E.g., the wars of Jotham (
Reserving for a
moment the view which specially commends itself to us, we may note
two main tendencies of opinion. First, it is maintained that
Chronicles
The second view is that either Chronicles used Kings, or that the “Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah” used by Chronicles was a post-Exilic work, incorporating statistical matter and dealing with the history of the two kingdoms in a spirit congenial to the temper and interests of the restored community. This “post-Exilic” predecessor of Chronicles is supposed to have been based upon Kings itself, or upon the sources of Kings, or upon both; but in any case it was not much earlier than Chronicles and was written under the same influences and in a similar spirit. Being virtually an earlier edition of Chronicles, it could claim no higher authority, and would scarcely deserve either recognition or treatment as a separate work. Chronicles would still rest substantially on the authority of Kings.
It is possible
to accept a somewhat simpler view, and to dispense with this
shadowy and ineffectual first edition of Chronicles. In the first
place, the chronicler does not appeal to the “Words” and “Visions” and the rest of his “Book of Kings” as authorities for his own
statements; he merely refers his reader to them for further
information which he himself does not furnish. This “Book of Kings” so often mentioned
In any case,
whether directly or through the medium of a preliminary edition,
called “The Book of the Kings
Thus we fail to find in these various references to the “Book of Kings,” etc., any clear indication of the origin of matter peculiar to Chronicles; nevertheless it is not difficult to determine the nature of the sources from which this material was derived. Doubtless some of it was still current in the form of oral tradition when the chronicler wrote, and owed to him its permanent record. Some he borrowed from manuscripts, which formed part of the scanty and fragmentary literature of the later period of the Restoration. His genealogies and statistics suggest the use of public and ecclesiastical archives, as well as of family records, in which ancient legend and anecdote lay embedded among lists of forgotten ancestors. Apparently the chronicler harvested pretty freely from that literary aftermath that sprang up when the Pentateuch and the earlier historical books had taken final shape.
But it is to
these earlier books that the chronicler owes most. His work is very
largely a mosaic of paragraphs and phrases taken from the older
books. His chief sources are Samuel and Kings; he also lays the
Pentateuch, Joshua, and Ruth under contribution. Much is taken over
without even verbal alteration, and the greater part is unaltered
in substance; yet, as is the custom in ancient literature, no
acknowledgment is made. The literary conscience was not yet aware
of the sin of plagiarism. Indeed, neither an author nor his friends
took any pains to secure the permanent
Chronicles,
however, illustrates ancient methods of historical composition, not
only by its free appropriation of the actual form and substance of
older works, but also by its curious blending of identical
reproduction with large additions of quite heterogeneous matter, or
with a series of minute but significant alterations. The primitive
ideas and classical style of paragraphs from Samuel and Kings are
broken in upon by the ritualistic fervour and late Hebrew of the
chronicler's additions. The vivid and picturesque narrative of the
bringing of the Ark to Zion is interpolated with uninteresting
statistics of the names, numbers, and musical instruments of the
Levites. Cf. Cf.
Before attempting to expound in detail the religious significance of Chronicles, we may conclude our introduction by a brief general statement of the leading features which render the book interesting and valuable to the Christian student.
The material of
Chronicles may be divided into three parts: the matter taken
directly from the older historical books; material derived from
traditions and writings of the chronicler's own age; the various
additions and modifications which are the chronicler's own
work. The last two classes are not easily
distinguished; but the additions which introduce the Levitical
system into earlier history are clearly the work of the chronicler
or his immediate predecessor, if such a predecessor be assumed, or
were found in somewhat late sources. This is also probably true of
other explanatory matter.
The excerpts
from the older histories are, of course, by far the best material
in the book for the period of the monarchy. If Samuel and Kings had
perished, we should have been under great obligations to the
chronicler for preserving to us large portions of their
Cf.
The material
derived from traditions and writings of the chronicler's own age is
of uncertain historical value, and cannot be clearly discriminated
from the author's free composition. Much of it was the natural
product of the thought and feeling of the late Persian and early
Greek period, and shares the importance which attaches to the
chronicler's own work. This material, however, includes a certain
amount of neutral matter: genealogies, family histories and
anecdotes, and notes on ancient life and custom. We have no
Cf. Book II., Chap. IV.
But naturally
the most characteristic, and therefore the most important, section
of the contents of Chronicles is that made up of the additions and
modifications which are the work of the chronicler or his immediate
predecessors. It is unnecessary to point out that these do not add
much to our knowledge of the history of the monarchy; their
significance consists in the light that they throw upon the period
towards whose close the chronicler lived: the period between the
final establishment of Pentateuchal Judaism and the attempt of
Antiochus Epiphanes to stamp it out of existence; the period
between Ezra and Judas Maccabæus. The chronicler is no exceptional
and epoch-making writer, has little personal importance, and is
therefore all the more important as a typical representative of the
current ideas of his class and generation. He translates the
history of the past into the ideas and circumstances of his own
age, and thus gives us almost as much information about the civil
and religious institutions he lived under as if he had actually
described them. Moreover, in stating its estimate of past history,
each generation pronounces unconscious judgment upon itself. The
chronicler's interpretation and philosophy
The first nine
chapters of Chronicles form, with a few slight exceptions, a
continuous list of names. It is the largest extant collection of
Hebrew names. Hence these chapters may be used as a text for the
exposition of any spiritual significance to be derived from Hebrew
names either individually or collectively. Old Testament
genealogies have often exercised the ingenuity of the preacher, and
the student of homiletics will readily recollect the methods of
extracting a moral from what at first sight seems a barren theme.
For instance, those names of which little or nothing is recorded
are held up as awful examples of wasted lives. We are asked to take
warning from Mahalalel and Methuselah, who spent their long
centuries so ineffectually that there was nothing to record except
that they begat sons and daughters and died. Such teaching is not
fairly derived from its text. The sacred writers implied no
reflection upon the Patriarchs of whom they gave so short and
conventional an account. Least of all could such teaching be based
upon the lists in Chronicles, because the men who are there merely
mentioned by name include Adam, Noah, Abraham, and other heroes
The significance of these lists of names is rather to be looked for in an opposite direction. It is not that a name and one or two commonplace incidents mean so little, but that they suggest so much. A mere parish register is not in itself attractive, but if we consider even such a list, the very names interest us and kindle our imagination. It is almost impossible to linger in a country churchyard, reading the half-effaced inscriptions upon the headstones, without forming some dim picture of the character and history and even the outward semblance of the men and women who once bore the names.
“For though a name is neither ... hand, nor foot, Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part Belonging to a man,”
yet, to use a
somewhat technical phrase, it connotes a man. A name implies the
existence of a distinct personality, with a peculiar and unique
history, and
But the names in these nine chapters have also a collective significance: they stand for more than their individual owners. They are typical and representative, the names of kings, and priests, and captains; they sum up the tribes of Israel, both as a Church and a nation, down all the generations of its history. The inclusion of these names in the sacred record, as the express introduction to the annals of the Temple, and the sacred city, and the elect house of David, is the formal recognition of the sanctity of the nation and of national life. We are entirely in the spirit of the Bible when we see this same sanctity in all organised societies: in the parish, the municipality, and the state; when we attach a Divine significance to registers of electors and census returns, and claim all such lists as symbols of religious privilege and responsibility.
But names do not
merely suggest individuals and communities: the meanings of the
names reveal the ideas of the people who used them. It has been
well said that “the names of every nation
are an important monument of national spirit and manners, and thus
the Hebrew names bear important testimony to the peculiar vocation
of this nation. No nation of antiquity has such a proportion of
names of religious import.” Oehler, Old Testament
Theology, i. 283 (Eng. trans.). Nestle, Die Israelitischen
Eigennamen, p. 27. The present chapter is largely
indebted to this standard monograph. Nestle. Philo, De Cong. Quær. Erud.
Grat., 8. Hiller's Onomasticon
ap., Nestle 11. vii. 8. i. 35. xviii. 15.
Modern
scholarship is more rational in its methods, but attaches no less
importance to these ancient names, and finds in them weighty
evidence on problems of criticism and theology; and before
proceeding to more serious matters, we may note a few somewhat
exceptional names. As pointed in the present Hebrew text,
Hazarmaveth i. 20. viii. 36. ii. 18. iii. 20. iv. 3. Bertheau, i. 1. iv. 22. iv. 22. The translation of these words is not
quite certain.
These examples of interesting etymologies might easily be multiplied; they serve, at any rate, to indicate a rich mine of suggestive teaching. It must, however, be remembered that a name is not necessarily a personal name because it occurs in a genealogy; cities, districts, and tribes mingle freely with persons in these lists. In the same connection we note that the female names are few and far between, and that of those which do occur the “sisters” probably stand for allied and related families, and not for individuals.
As regards Old
Testament theology, we may first notice the light thrown by
personal names on the relation of the religion of Israel to that of
other Semitic peoples. Of the names in these chapters and
elsewhere, a large proportion are compounded of one or other of the
Divine names. El is the first
element in Elishama,
Eliphelet, Eliada, etc.; it is the second
in Othniel,
Jehaleleel, Asareel, etc. Similarly
Jehovah is represented by the
initial Jeho- in
Jehoshaphat, Jehoiakim, Jehoram, etc., by the final
-iah in Amaziah, Azariah, Hezekiah, etc. It has been
calculated that there are a hundred and ninety names Nestle, p. 68.
There are also
numerous compounds of other Divine names. Zur, rock, is found in
Pedahzur, Cf. p. 40.
This use of Divine names is capable of very varied illustration. Modern languages have Christian and Christopher, Emmanuel, Theodosius, Theodora, etc.; names like Hermogenes and Heliogabalus are found in the classical languages. But the practice is specially characteristic of Semitic languages. Mohammedan princes are still called Abdurrahman, servant of the Merciful, and Abdallah, servant of God; ancient Phœnician kings were named Ethbaal and Abdalonim, where alonim is a plural Divine name, and the bal in Hannibal and Hasdrubal = baal. The Assyrian and Chaldæan kings were named after the gods Sin, Nebo, Assur, Merodach, e.g., Sin-akki-irib (Sennacherib); Nebuchadnezzar; Assur-bani-pal; Merodach-baladan.
Of these Divine
names El and Baal are common to Israel and other Semitic peoples,
and it has been held xi. 30; vii. 25 (Nestle).
Another question concerns the origin and use of the name Jehovah. Our lists conclusively prove its free use during the monarchy and its existence under the judges. On the other hand, its apparent presence in Jochebed, the name of the mother of Moses, seems to carry it back beyond Moses. Possibly it was a Divine name peculiar to his family or clan. Its occurrence in Yahubidi, a king of Hamath, in the time of Sargon may be due to direct Israelite influence. Hamath had frequent relations with Israel and Judah.
Turning to
matters of practical religion, how far do these names help us to
understand the spiritual life of ancient Israel? The Israelites
made constant use of El and Jehovah in their names, and we have no
parallel practice. Were they then so much more religious than we
are? Probably in a sense they were. It is true that the etymology
and even the original significance of a name in common use are for
all practical purposes quickly and entirely forgotten. A man may go
through a life-time bearing the name of Christopher and never know
its etymological meaning. At Cambridge and
“The East bowed low before the blast In patient, deep disdain; She let the legions thunder past, And plunged in thought again.”
But the Christian Church is mistress of a more compelling magic than even Eastern patience and tenacity: out of the storms that threaten her, she draws new energies for service, and learns a more expressive language in which to declare the glory of God.
Let us glance
for a moment at the meanings of the group of Divine names given
above. We have said that, in addition to Melech in Malchi-, Abi, Ahi, and Ammi are to be regarded as
Divine names. One reason for this is that their use as prefixes is
strictly analogous to that of El and Jeho-. We have Abijah and Ahijah as well as Elijah, Abiel and Ammiel as well as Eliel, Abiram and Ahiram as well as Jehoram; Ammishaddai compares with
Zurishaddai, and Ammizabad with Jehozabad, nor would it be
difficult to add many other examples. If this view be correct,
Ammi will have nothing to do
with the Hebrew word for “people,”
but will rather be connected with the corresponding Arabic word for
“uncle.” Nestle.
The history of
these names illustrates yet another phenomenon. In some narrow and
imperfect sense the early Semitic peoples seem to have called God
“Father” and “Brother.” Because the terms were limited to a
narrow sense, the Israelites grew to a level of religious truth at
which they could no longer use them; but as they made yet further
progress they came to know more
Turning from
these obsolete names to those in common use—El; Jehovah; Shaddai; Zur; Melech—probably the prevailing
idea popularly associated with them all was that of strength:
El, strength in the abstract;
Jehovah, strength shown in
permanence and independence; Shaddai, the strength that
causes terror, the Almighty from whom cometh destruction
We must not, however, suppose that pious Israelites would consciously and systematically discriminate between these names, any more than ordinary Christians do between God, Lord, Father, Christ, Saviour, Jesus. Their usage would be governed by changing currents of sentiment very difficult to understand and explain after the lapse of thousands of years. In the year a.d. 3000, for instance, it will be difficult for the historian of dogmatics to explain accurately why some nineteenth-century Christians preferred to speak of “dear Jesus” and others of “the Christ.”
But the simple
Divine names reveal comparatively little; much more may be learnt
from the numerous compounds they help to form. Some of the more
curious have already been noticed, but the real significance of
this nomenclature is to be looked for in the more ordinary and
natural names. Here, as before, we can only select from the long
and varied list. Let us take some of the favourite names and some
of the roots most often used, almost always, be it remembered, in
combination with Divine names. The different varieties of these
sacred names rendered it possible to construct various personal
names embodying the same idea. Also the same Divine name might be
used either as prefix or affix. For instance, the idea that
“God knows” is equally well
expressed in the names Eliada
(El-yada'), Jediael
(Yada'-el), Jehoiada
(Jeho-yada'), and Jedaiah
(Yada'-yah). “God remembers” is
expressed alike by Zachariah and Jozachar; “God hears” by Elishama (El-shama'),
Samuel (if for Shama'-el),
Ishmael (also from Shama'-el),
Shemaiah, and Ishmaiah (both
from Shama' and Yah); “God gives” by Elnathan, Nethaneel, Jonathan, and Nethaniah; “God helps” by Eliezer, Azareel, Joezer, and Azariah;
The way in which the changes are rung upon these ideas shows how the ancient Israelites loved to dwell upon them. Nestle reckons that in the Old Testament sixty-one persons have names formed from the root nathan, to give; fifty-seven from shama, to hear; fifty-six from 'azar, to help; forty-five from hanan, to be gracious; forty-four from zakhar, to remember. Many persons, too, bear names from the root yada', to know. The favourite name is Zechariah, which is borne by twenty-five different persons.
Hence, according
to the testimony of names, the Israelites' favourite ideas about
God were that He heard, and knew, and remembered; that He was
gracious, and helped men, and gave them gifts: but they loved best
to think of Him as God the Giver. Their nomenclature recognises
many other attributes, but these take the first place. The value of
this testimony is enhanced by its utter unconsciousness and
naturalness; it brings us nearer to the average man in his
religious moments than any psalm or prophetic utterance. Men's
chief interest in God was as the Giver. The idea has proved very
permanent; St. James amplifies it: God is the Giver of every good
and perfect gift. It lies latent in names: Theodosius, Theodore,
Theodora, and Dorothea. The other favourite ideas are all related
to this. God hears men's prayers, and knows their needs, and
remembers them; He is gracious, and helps them by His gifts. Could
anything be more pathetic than this artless self-revelation? Men's
minds have
Possibly these old-world saints were not more preoccupied with their material needs than most modern Christians. Perhaps it is necessary to believe in a God who rules on earth before we can understand the Father who is in heaven. Does a man really trust in God for eternal life if he cannot trust Him for daily bread? But in any case these names provide us with very comprehensive formulæ, which we are at liberty to apply as freely as we please: the God who knows, and hears, and remembers, who is gracious, and helps men, and gives them gifts. To begin with, note how in a great array of Old Testament names God is the Subject, Actor, and Worker; the supreme facts of life are God and God's doings, not man and man's doings, what God is to man, not what man is to God. This is a foreshadowing of the Christian doctrines of grace and of the Divine sovereignty. And again we are left to fill in the objects of the sentences for ourselves: God hears, and remembers, and gives—what? All that we have to say to Him and all that we are capable of receiving from Him.
It has been said
that Religion is the great discoverer of truth, while Science
follows her slowly and after a long interval. Heredity, so much
discussed just now, is sometimes treated as if its principles were
a great discovery of the present century. Popular science is apt to
ignore history and to mistake a fresh nomenclature for an entirely
new system of truth, and yet the immense and far-reaching
importance of heredity has been one of the commonplaces of thought
ever since history began. Science has been anticipated, not merely
by religious feeling, but by a universal instinct. In the old world
political and social systems have been based upon the recognition
of the principle of heredity, and religion has sanctioned such
recognition. Caste in India is a religious even more than a social
institution; and we use the term figuratively in reference to
ancient and modern life, even when the institution has not formally
existed. Without the aid of definite civil or religious law the
force of sentiment and circumstances suffices to establish an
informal system of caste. Thus the feudal aristocracy and guilds of
the Middle Ages were not without their rough counterparts in the
Old Testament. Moreover, the local divisions of the Hebrew kingdoms
corresponded in theory, at any rate,
But the
genealogies had a deeper significance. Israel was Jehovah's chosen
people, His son, to whom special privileges were guaranteed by
solemn covenant. A man's claim to share in this covenant depended
on his genuine Israelite descent, and the proof of such descent was
an authentic genealogy. In these chapters the chronicler has taken
infinite pains to collect pedigrees from all available sources and
to construct a complete set of genealogies exhibiting the lines of
descent of the families of Israel. His interest in this research
was not merely antiquarian: he was investigating matters of the
greatest social and religious importance to all the members of the
Jewish community, and especially to his colleagues and friends in
the Temple service. These chapters, which seem to us so dry and
useless, were probably regarded by the chronicler's contemporaries
as the most important part of his work. The preservation or
discovery of a genealogy was almost a matter of life and death.
Witness the episode in Ezra and Nehemiah
We will now
briefly consider the genealogies in these chapters in the order in
which they are given. Chap. i. contains genealogies of the
patriarchal period selected from Genesis. The existing races of the
world are all traced back through Shem, Ham, and Japheth to Noah,
and through him to Adam. The
For the
antediluvian period only the Sethite genealogy is given. The
chronicler's object was simply to give the origin of existing
races; and the descendants of Cain were omitted, as entirely
destroyed by the Flood. Following the example of Genesis, the
chronicler gives the genealogies of other races at the points at
which they diverged from the ancestral line of Israel, and then
continues the family history of the chosen race. In this way the
descendants of Japheth and
The relations of Israel with Edom were always close and mostly hostile. The Edomites had taken advantage of the overthrow of the southern kingdom to appropriate the south of Judah, and still continued to occupy it. The keen interest felt by the chronicler in Edom is shown by the large space devoted to the Edomites. The close contiguity of the Jews and Idumæans tended to promote mutual intercourse between them, and even threatened an eventual fusion of the two peoples. As a matter of fact, the Idumæan Herods became rulers of Judæa. To guard against such dangers to the separateness of the Jewish people, the chronicler emphasises the historical distinction of race between them and the Edomites.
From the
beginning of the second chapter onwards the genealogies are wholly
occupied with Israelites. The author's special interest in Judah is
at once manifested. After giving the list of the twelve Patriarchs
he devotes two and a half chapters to the families of Judah. Here
again the materials have been mostly obtained from the earlier
historical books. They are, however, combined with more recent
traditions, so that in this chapter matter from different sources
is pieced together in a very confusing fashion. One source of this
confusion was the principle that the Jewish community could only
consist of families of genuine Israelite descent. Now a large
number of the returned exiles traced their descent to two brothers,
Caleb and Jerahmeel; but in the older narratives Caleb and
Jerahmeel are not Israelites. Caleb is a Kenizzite, 1 Sam. xxvii 10. Ver. 55. The occurrence of Caleb the son of
Jephunneh in iv, 15, vi. 56, in no way militates against this view:
the chronicler, like other redactors, is simply inserting borrowed
material without correcting it. Chelubai in ii. 9 stands for
Caleb; cf. ii. 18.
Of the section containing the genealogies of Judah, the lion's share is naturally given to the house of David, to which a part of the second chapter and the whole of the third are devoted.
Next follow genealogies of the remaining tribes, those of Levi and Benjamin being by far the most complete. Chap. vi., which is devoted to Levi, affords evidence of the use by the chronicler of independent and sometimes inconsistent sources, and also illustrates his special interest in the priesthood and the Temple choir. A list of high-priests from Aaron to Ahimaaz is given twice over (vv. 4-8 and 49-53), but only one line of high-priests is recognised, the house of Zadok, whom Josiah's reforms had made the one priestly family in Israel. Their ancient rivals the high-priests of the house of Eli are as entirely ignored as the antediluvian Cainites. The existing high-priestly dynasty had been so long established that these other priests of Saul and David seemed no longer to have any significance for the religion of Israel.
The pedigree of the three Levitical families of Gershom, Kohath, and Merari is also given twice over: in vv. 16-30 and 31-49. The former pedigree begins with the sons of Levi, and proceeds to their descendants; the latter begins with the founders of the guilds of singers, Heman, Asaph, and Ethan, and traces back their genealogies to Kohath, Gershom, and Merari respectively. But the pedigrees do not agree; compare, for instance, the lists of the Kohathites:—
22-24. | 36-38. |
Kohath | Kohath |
Amminadab | Izhar |
Korah | Korah |
Assir | |
Elkanah | |
Ebiasaph | Ebiasaph |
Assir | Assir |
Tahath | Tahath |
Uriel | Zephaniah |
Uzziah | Azariah |
Shaul | etc. |
We have here one of many illustrations of the fact that the chronicler used materials of very different value. To attempt to prove the absolute consistency of all his genealogies would be mere waste of time. It is by no means certain that he himself supposed them to be consistent. The frank juxtaposition of varying lists of ancestors rather suggests that he was prompted by a scholarly desire to preserve for his readers all available evidence of every kind.
In reading the
genealogies of the tribe of Benjamin, it is specially interesting
to find that in the Jewish community of the Restoration there were
families tracing their descent through Mephibosheth and Jonathan to
Saul. viii. 33-40; ix. 35-44. We have used
Mephibosheth as more familiar, but Chronicles reads Meribbaal,
which is more correct.
The rest of the ninth chapter deals with the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the ministry of the Temple after the return from the Captivity, and is partly identical with sections of Ezra and Nehemiah. It closes the family history, as it were, of Israel, and its position indicates the standpoint and ruling interests of the chronicler.
Thus the nine opening chapters of genealogies and kindred matter strike the key-notes of the whole book. Some are personal and professional; some are religious. On the one hand, we have the origin of existing families and institutions; on the other hand, we have the election of the tribe of Judah and the house of David, of the tribe of Levi and the house of Aaron.
Let us consider
first the hereditary character of the Jewish religion and
priesthood. Here, as elsewhere, the formal doctrine only recognised
and accepted actual facts. The conditions which received the
sanction of religion were first imposed by the force of
circumstances. In primitive times, if there was to be any religion
at all, it had to be national; if God was to be worshipped at all,
His worship was necessarily national, and He became in some measure
a national God. Sympathies are limited by knowledge and by common
interest. The ordinary Israelite knew very little of any other
people than his own. There was little international comity in
primitive times, and nations were slow to recognise that they had
common interests. It was difficult for an Israelite to believe that
his beloved Jehovah, in whom he had been taught to trust, was also
the God of the Arabs and Syrians, who periodically raided his
crops, and cattle, and slaves, and sometimes carried off his
children, or of the Chaldæans, who made deliberate and complete
arrangements for plundering the whole country, rasing its cities to
the ground, and carrying away the population into distant exile. By
a supreme act of faith, the prophets claimed the enemies and
oppressors of Israel as instruments of the will of Jehovah, and the
chronicler's genealogies show that he shared this faith; but it was
still inevitable that the Jews should look out upon the world at
“God was
wroth,
And greatly abhorred
Israel,
So that He forsook the
tabernacle of Shiloh,
The tent which He placed among
men;
He refused the tent of
Joseph,
And chose not the tribe of
Ephraim,
But chose the tribe of
Judah,
The Mount Zion which He
loved:
And He built His sanctuary like
the heights,
Like the earth, which He hath established
for ever.”
We are doubtless
right in criticising those Jews whose limitations led them to
regard Jehovah as a kind of personal possession, the inheritance of
their own nation, and not of other peoples. But even here we can
only blame their negations. Jehovah was
their inheritance and personal possession; but then He was also the
inheritance of other nations. This Jewish heresy is by no means
extinct: white men do not always believe that their God is equally
the God of the negro; Englishmen are inclined to think that God is
the God of England in a more especial way than He is the God of
France. When we discourse concerning God in history, we
We have great and perhaps sufficient excuses, but we must let the Jews have the benefit of them. God is as much the God of one nation as of another; but He fulfils Himself to different nations in different ways, by a various providential discipline. Each people is bound to believe that God has specially adapted His dealings to its needs, nor can we be surprised if men forget or fail to observe that God has done no less for their neighbours. Each nation rightly regards its religious ideas, and life, and literature as a precious inheritance peculiarly its own; and it should not be too severely blamed for being ignorant that other nations have their inheritance also. Such considerations largely justify the interest in heredity shown by the chronicler's genealogies. On the positive, practical side, religion is largely a matter of heredity, and ought to be. The Christian sacrament of baptism is a continual profession of this truth: our children are “clean”; they are within the covenant of grace; we claim for them the privileges of the Church to which we belong. That was also part of the meaning of the genealogies.
In the broad
field of social and religious life the problems of heredity are in
some ways less complicated than in the more exact discussions of
physical science. Practical effects can be considered without
attempting an accurate analysis of causes. Family history not
iv. 14, 21-23.
The recognition
of these facts should tend to foster our humility and reverence, to
encourage patriotism and philanthropy. We are the creatures and
debtors of the past, though we are slow to own our obligations. We
have nothing that we have not received; but we are apt to consider
ourselves self-made men, the architects and builders of our own
fortunes, who have the right to be self-satisfied, self-assertive,
and selfish. The heir of all the ages, in the full vigour of youth,
takes his place
We learn reverence for the workers and achievements of the past, and most of all for God. We are reminded of the scale of the Divine working:—
“A thousand years in Thy sight Are but as yesterday when it is past And as a watch in the night.”
A genealogy is a
brief and pointed reminder that God has been working through all
the countless generations behind us. The bare series of names is an
expressive diagram of His mighty process. Each name in the earlier
lists stands for a generation or even for several generations. The
genealogies go back into dim, prehistoric periods; they suggest a
past too remote for
Later on we see the pedigree of our race dividing into countless branches, all of which are represented in this sacred diagram of humanity. The Divine working not only extends over all time, but also embraces all the complicated circumstances and relationships of the families of mankind. These genealogies suggest a lesson probably not intended by the chronicler. We recognise the unique character of the history of Israel, but in some measure we discern in this one full and detailed narrative of the chosen people a type of the history of every race. Others had not the election of Israel, but each had its own vocation. God's power, and wisdom, and love are manifested in the history of one chosen people on a scale commensurate with our limited faculties, so that we may gain some faint idea of the marvellous providence in all history of the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.
Another
principle closely allied to heredity and also discussed in modern
times is the solidarity of the race. Humanity is supposed to
possess something akin to a common consciousness, personality, or
individuality. Such a quality evidently becomes more intense as we
narrow its scope from the race to the nation, the clan, and the
family; it has its roots in family relationships. Tribal, national,
humanitarian feelings indicate that the larger societies have taken
upon themselves something of the character of the
Before closing
this chapter something may be said on one or two special points.
Women are virtually ignored in these genealogies, a fact that
rather indicates a failure to recognise their influence than the
absence of such influence. Here and there a woman is mentioned for
some special reason. For instance, the names of Zeruiah and Abigail
are inserted in order to
Again, much caution is necessary in applying any principle of heredity. A genealogy, as we have seen, suggests our dependence in many ways upon our ancestry. But a man's relations to his kindred are many and complicated; a quality, for instance, may be latent for one or more generations and then reappear, so that to all appearance a man inherits from his grandfather or from a more remote ancestor rather than from his father or mother. Conversely the presence of certain traits of character in a child does not show that any corresponding tendency has necessarily been active in the life of either parent. Neither must the influence of circumstances be confounded with that of heredity. Moreover, very large allowance must be made for our ignorance of the laws that govern the human will, an ignorance that will often baffle our attempts to find in heredity any simple explanation of men's characters and actions. Thomas Fuller has a quaint “Scripture observation” that gives an important practical application of these principles:—
“Lord, I find the genealogy of my Saviour strangely
“1. ‘Rehoboam begat Abiam’; that is, a bad father begat a bad son.
“2. ‘Abiam begat Asa’; that is, a bad father a good son.
“3. ‘Asa begat Jehosaphat’; that is, a good father a good son.
“4. ‘Jehosaphat begat Joram’; that is, a good father a bad son.
“I see, Lord, from hence that my father's piety cannot be entailed; that is bad news for me. But I see also that actual impiety is not always hereditary; that is good news for my son.”
Statistics play
an important part in Chronicles and in the Old Testament generally.
To begin with, there are the genealogies and other lists of names,
such as the lists of David's counsellors and the roll of honour of
his mighty men. The chronicler specially delights in lists of
names, and most of all in lists of Levitical choristers. He gives
us lists of the orchestras and choirs who performed when the Ark
was brought to Zion Cf.
We find also in
the Old Testament the specifications and subscription-lists for the
Tabernacle and for Solomon's temple. Exod. xxv-xxxix.;
The Old
Testament is also rich in census returns and statements as to the
numbers of armies and of the divisions of which they were composed.
There are the returns of the census taken twice in the wilderness
and accounts of the numbers of the different families who came from
Babylon with Zerubbabel and later on with Ezra; there is a census
of the Levites in David's time according to their several
families
Statistics
therefore occupy a conspicuous position in the inspired record of
Divine revelation, and yet we often hesitate to connect such terms
as “inspiration” and “revelation” with numbers, and names, and
details of civil and ecclesiastical organisation. We are afraid
lest any stress laid on purely accidental details should distract
men's attention from the eternal essence of the Gospel, lest any
suggestion that the certainty of Christian truth is dependent on
the accuracy of these statistics should become a stumbling-block
and destroy
But Biblical statistics are also examples in accuracy and thoroughness of information, and recognitions of the more obscure and prosaic manifestations of the higher life. Indeed, in these and other ways the Bible gives an anticipatory sanction to the exact sciences.
The mention of
accuracy in connection with Chronicles may be received by some
readers with a contemptuous smile. But we are indebted to the
chronicler for exact
This Biblical example is the more useful because statistics are often evil spoken of, and they have no outward attractiveness to shield them from popular prejudice. We are told that “nothing is so false as statistics,” and that “figures will prove anything”; and the polemic is sustained by works like Hard Times and the awful example of Mr. Gradgrind. Properly understood, these proverbs illustrate the very general impatience of any demand for exact thought and expression. If “figures” will prove anything, so will texts.
Though this
popular prejudice cannot be altogether ignored, yet it need not be
taken too seriously. The opposite principle, when stated, will at
once be seen to be a truism. For it amounts to this: exact and
comprehensive knowledge is the basis of a right understanding of
history, and is a necessary condition of right action. This
principle is often neglected because
Statistics, too,
are the only form in which many acts of service can be recognised
and recorded. Literature can only deal with typical instances, and
naturally it selects the more dramatic. The missionary report can
only tell the story of a few striking conversions; it may give the
history of the exceptional self-denial involved in one or two of
its subscriptions; for the rest we must be content with tables and
subscription-lists. But these dry statistics represent an
infinitude of patience and self-denial, of work and prayer, of
Divine grace and blessing. The city missionary may narrate his
experiences with a few inquirers and penitents, but the great bulk
of his work can only be
Our chronicler's
interest in statistics lays healthy emphasis on the practical
character of religion. There is a danger of identifying spiritual
force with literary and rhetorical gifts; to recognise the
religious value of statistics is the most forcible protest against
such identification. The permanent contribution of any age to
religious thought will naturally take a literary form, and the
higher the literary qualities of religious writing, the more likely
it is to survive. Shakespeare, Milton, and Bunyan have probably
exercised a more powerful direct religious influence on subsequent
generations than all the theologians of the seventeenth century.
But the supreme service of the Church in any age is its influence
on its own generation, by which it moulds the generation
immediately following. That influence can only be estimated by a
careful study of all possible information, and especially of
statistics. We cannot assign mathematical values to spiritual
effects and tabulate them like Board of Trade returns; but real
spiritual movements will before long have practical issues, that
can be heard, and seen, and felt, and even admit of being put into
tables. “The wind bloweth where it listeth,
and thou hearest the voice thereof, but knowest not whence it
cometh and whither it goeth”
Chronicles is
not the most important witness to a sympathetic relationship
between the Bible and exact science. The first chapter of Genesis
is the classic example of the appropriation by an inspired writer
of the scientific spirit and method. Some chapters in Job show a
distinctly scientific interest in natural phenomena. Moreover, the
direct concern of Chronicles is in the religious aspects of social
science. And yet there is a patient accumulation of data with no
obvious dramatic value: names, dates, numbers, specifications, and
ritual which do not improve the literary character of the
narrative. This conscientious recording of dry facts, this noting
down of anything and everything that connects with the subject, is
closely akin to the initial processes of the inductive sciences.
True, the chronicler's interests are in some directions narrowed by
personal and professional feeling; but within these limits he is
anxious to make a complete record, which, as we have seen,
sometimes leads to repetition. Now inductive science is based on
unlimited statistics. The astronomer and biologist share the
chronicler's appetite
Chronicles is a
miniature Old Testament, and may have been meant as a handbook for
ordinary people, who had no access to the whole library of sacred
writings. It contains nothing corresponding to the books of Wisdom
or the apocalyptic literature; but all the other types of Old
Testament literature are represented. There are genealogies,
statistics, ritual, history, psalms, and prophecies. The interest
shown by Chronicles in family traditions harmonises with the stress
laid by the Hebrew Scriptures upon family life. The other
historical books are largely occupied with the family history of
the Patriarchs, of Moses, of Jephthah, Gideon, Samson, Saul, and
David. The chronicler intersperses his genealogies with short
anecdotes about the different families and tribes. Some of these
are borrowed from the older books; but others are peculiar to our
author, and were doubtless obtained by him from the family records
and traditions of his contemporaries. The statements that
“Nimrod began to be mighty upon the
earth” i. 10. i. 19. i. 46.
In one
instance, Cf. I.e., Achan (ii. 3, 7).
Let us turn to the episodes of family life only found in Chronicles. They may mostly be arranged in little groups of two or three, and some of the groups present us with an interesting contrast.
We learn from
ii. 34-41 and iv. 18 that two Jewish families traced their descent
from Egyptian ancestors. Sheshan, according to Chronicles, was
eighth in descent from Judah and fifth from Jerahmeel, the brother
of Caleb. Having daughters but no son, he gave one of his daughters
in marriage to an Egyptian slave named Jarha. The descendants of
this union are traced for thirteen generations. Genealogies,
however, are not always complete; and our other data do not suffice
to determine even approximately the date of this marriage. But the
five generations between Jerahmeel and Sheshan indicate a period
long after the
“He
bringeth low, He also lifteth up;
He raiseth up the poor out of
the dust:
He lifteth up the needy from the
dunghill,
To make them sit with
princes
And inherit the throne of
glory.”
This song might have been sung at Jarha's wedding as well as at Joseph's.
Both these marriages throw a sidelight upon the character of Eastern slavery. They show how sharply and deeply it was divided from the hopeless degradation of negro slavery in America. Israelites did not recognise distinctions of race and colour between themselves and their bondsmen so as to treat them as worse than pariahs and regard them with physical loathing. An American considers himself disgraced by a slight taint of negro blood in his ancestry, but a noble Jewish family was proud to trace its descent from an Egyptian slave.
The other story
is somewhat different, and rests upon an obscure and corrupt
passage in iv. 18. The confusion makes it impossible to arrive at
any date, Vv. 17, 18, as they stand, do not make
sense. The second sentence of ver. 18 should be read before
“and she bare Miriam” in ver. 17.
Mered and Bithiah formed a tempting subject for the rabbis, and
gave occasion for some of their usual grotesque fancies. Mered has
been identified by them both with Caleb and Moses.
Both Egyptian
alliances occur among the Kenizzites, the descendants of the
brothers Caleb and Jerahmeel. In one case a Jewess marries an
Egyptian slave; in the other a Jew marries an Egyptian princess.
Doubtless these marriages did not stand alone, and there were
Such marriages with Egyptians must have had some influence on the religion of the south of Judah, but probably the foreigners usually followed the example of Ruth, and adopted the faith of the families into which they came. When they said, “Thy people shall be my people,” they did not fail to add, “and thy God shall be my God.” When the Egyptian princess married the head of a Jewish clan, she became one of Jehovah's people; and her adoption into the family of the God of Israel was symbolised by a new name: “Bithiah,” “daughter of Jehovah.” Whether later Judaism owed anything to Egyptian influences can only be matter of conjecture; at any rate, they did not pervert the southern clans from their old faith. The Calebites and Jerahmeelites were the backbone of Judah both before and after the Captivity.
The remaining
traditions relate to the warfare of the Israelites with their
neighbours. The first is a colourless reminiscence, that might have
been recorded of iv. 9, 10.
‘If Thou
wilt indeed bless m: 90%" id="iv.iv-p12.5">By enlarging my
possessions,
And Thy hand be with me
To provide pasture,
The reading on which this translation
is based is obtained by an alteration of the vowels of the
Masoretic text; cf. Bertheau, i. 1.
And God brought about what he asked.” The
chronicler has evidently inserted here a broken and disconnected
fragment from one of his sources; and we are puzzled to understand
why he gives so much, and no more. Surely not merely to introduce
the etymologies of Jabez; or if Jabez were so important that it was
worth while to interrupt the genealogies to furnish two derivations
of his name, why are we not told more about him? Who was he, when
and where did he live, and at whose expense were his possessions
We have next a series of much more definite statements about Israelite prowess and success in wars against Moab and other enemies.
In iv. 21, 22,
we read, “The sons of Shelah the son of
Judah: Er the father of Lecah, and Laadah the father of Mareshah,
and the families of the house of them that wrought fine linen, of
the house of Ashbea; and Jokim, and the men of Cozeba, and Joash,
and Saraph, who had dominion in Moab and returned to This translation is obtained by
slightly altering the Masoretic text.
The incident in iv. 34-43 differs from the preceding in having a definite date assigned to it. In the time of Hezekiah some Simeonite clans had largely increased in number and found themselves straitened for room for their flocks. They accordingly went in search of new pasturage. One company went to Gedor, another to Mount Seir.
The situation of
Gedor is not clearly known. It cannot be the Gedor of iv. 41; cf. R.V.
Then follows in the simplest and most unconscious way the only justification that is offered for the behaviour of the invaders: “because there was pasture there for their flocks.” The narrative takes for granted—
“The good old rule, the simple plan, That they should take who have the power, And they should keep who can.”
The expedition
to Mount Seir appears to have been a sequel to the attack on Gedor.
Five hundred of the victors emigrated into Edom, and smote the
remnant of the Amalekites who had survived the massacre under
Saul
In substance, style, and ideas this passage closely resembles the books of Joshua and Judges, where the phrase “unto this day” frequently occurs. Here, of course, the “day” in question is the time of the chronicler's authority. When Chronicles was written the Simeonites in Gedor and Mount Seir had long ago shared the fate of their victims.
The conquest of
Gedor reminds us how in the early days of the Israelite occupation
of Palestine “Judah
The moral of these incidents is obvious. When a prosperous people is peaceable and defenceless, it is a clear sign that God has delivered them into the hand of any warlike and enterprising nation that knows how to use its opportunities. The chronicler, however, is not responsible for this morality, but he does not feel compelled to make any protest against the ethical views of his source. There is a refreshing frankness about these ancient narratives. The wolf devours the lamb without inventing any flimsy pretext about troubled waters.
But in criticising these Hebrew clans who lived in the dawn of history and religion we condemn ourselves. If we make adequate allowance for the influence of Christ, and the New Testament, and centuries of Christian teaching, Simeon and Dan do not compare unfavourably with modern nations. As we review the wars of Christendom, we shall often be puzzled to find any ground for the outbreak of hostilities other than the defencelessness of the weaker combatant. The Spanish conquest of America and the English conquest of India afford examples of the treatment of weaker races which fairly rank with those of the Old Testament. Even to-day the independence of the smaller European states is mainly guaranteed by the jealousies of the Great Powers. Still there has been progress in international morality; we have got at last to the stage of Æsop's fable. Public opinion condemns wanton aggression against a weak state; and the stronger power employs the resources of civilised diplomacy in showing that not only the absent, but also the helpless, are always wrong. There has also been a substantial advance in humanity towards conquered peoples. Christian warfare even since the Middle Ages has been stained with the horrors of the Thirty Years' War and many other barbarities; the treatment of the American Indians by settlers has often been cruel and unjust; but no civilised nation would now systematically massacre men, women, and children in cold blood. We are thankful for any progress towards better things, but we cannot feel that men have yet realised that Christ has a message for nations as well as for individuals. As His disciples we can only pray more earnestly that the kingdoms of the earth may in deed and truth become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.
The next
incident is more honourable to the Israelites. “The sons of Reuben, and the Gadites, and the
half-tribe of Manasseh” did not merely surprise and
slaughter quiet and peaceable people: they conquered formidable
enemies in fair fight. Vv. 7-10, 18-22.
Here, as
elsewhere, these Transjordanic tribes are spoken of as “valiant
“The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites, Moab and the Hagarenes Gebal and Ammon and Amalek, Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre, Assyria also is joined with them; They have holpen the children of Lot.”
There could be
no question of unprovoked aggression against these children of
Ishmael, that “wild ass of a man, whose
hand was against every man, and every man's hand against
him.”
“...
over border, dale, and fell
Full wide and far was terror
spread;
For pathless marsh and mountain
cell
The peasant left his lowly
shed:
The frightened flocks and herds
were pent
Beneath the peel's rude
battlement,
Lay of the Last Minstrel, iv.
3.
But the Israelite expedition was on a larger scale than any “warden raid,” and Eastern passions are fiercer and shriller than those sung by the Last Minstrel: the maids and matrons of the desert would shriek and wail instead of “dropping a tear.”
In this great raid of ancient times “the war was of God,” not, as at Laish, because God found for them helpless and easy victims, but because He helped them in a desperate struggle. When the fierce Israelite and Arab borderers joined battle, the issue was at first doubtful; and then “they cried to God, and He was entreated of them, because they put their trust in Him,” “and they were helped against” their enemies; “and the Hagrites were delivered into their hand, and all that were with them, and there fell many slain, because the war was of God”; “and they took away their cattle: of their camels fifty thousand, and of sheep two hundred and fifty thousand, and of asses two thousand, and of slaves a hundred thousand.” “And they dwelt in their stead until the captivity.”
This
“captivity” is the subject of
another short note. The chronicler apparently was anxious to
distribute his historical narratives equally among the tribes. The
genealogies of Reuben and Gad each conclude with a notice of a war,
and a similar account follows that of Eastern
Manasseh:—“And they trespassed against the
God of their fathers, and went a-whoring after the gods of the
peoples of the land, whom God destroyed before them. And the God of
Vv. 25, 26. Note the curious spelling
Tilgath-pilneser for the more
usual Tiglath-pileser.
The last two incidents which we shall deal with in this chapter serve to illustrate afresh the rough-and-ready methods by which the chronicler has knotted together threads of heterogeneous tradition into one tangled skein. We shall see further how ready ancient writers were to represent a tribe by the ancestor from whom it traced its descent. We read in vii. 20, 21, “The sons of Ephraim: Shuthelah, and Bered his son, and Tahath his son, and Eleadah his son, and Zabad his son, and Shuthelah his son, and Ezer and Elead, whom the men of Gath that were born in the land slew, because they came down to take away their cattle.”
Ezer and Elead
are apparently brothers of the second Shuthelah; at any rate, as
six generations are mentioned between them and Ephraim, they would
seem to have lived long after the Patriarch. Moreover, they
Taking these
words literally, Ezer and Elead were the actual sons of Ephraim;
and as Ephraim and his family were born in Egypt and lived there
all their days, these patriarchal cattle-lifters did not come down
from any neighbouring highlands, but must have come up from Egypt,
all the way from the land of Goshen, across the desert and past
several Philistine and Canaanite towns. This literal sense is
simply impossible. The author from whom the chronicler borrowed
this narrative is clearly using a natural and beautiful figure to
describe the distress in the tribe of Ephraim when two of its clans
were cut off, and the fact that a new clan named Beriah was formed to take their
place. Possibly we are not without information as to how this new
clan arose. In viii. 13 we read of two Benjamites, “Beriah and
Shema, who were heads of fathers' houses of the inhabitants of
Aijalon, who put to flight the inhabitants of Gath.” Beriah
and Shema probably, coming to the aid of Ephraim, avenged the
defeat of Ezer and Elead; and in return received the possessions of
the clans, who had been cut off, and Beriah was thus reckoned among
the children of Ephraim. Cf. Bertheau, i. 1.
The language of
ver. 22 is very similar to that of
Let us now
reconstruct the story and consider its significance. Two Ephraimite
clans, Ezer and Elead, set out to drive the cattle “of the men of Gath, who were born in the land,”
i.e., of the aboriginal Avvites,
who had been dispossessed by the Philistines, but still retained
some of the pasture-lands. Falling into an ambush or taken by
surprise when encumbered with their plunder, the Ephraimites were
cut off, and nearly all the fighting men of the clans perished. The
Avvites, reinforced by the Philistines of Gath, pressed their
advantage, and invaded the territory of Ephraim, whose border
districts, stripped of their defenders, lay at the mercy of the
conquerors. From this danger they were rescued by the Benjamite
clans Shema and Beriah, then occupying Aijalon In
The account of
this memorable cattle foray is a necessary note to the genealogies
to explain the origin of an important clan and its double
connection
In reviewing the
scanty religious ideas involved in this little group of family
traditions, we have to remember that they belong to a period of
Israelite history much older than that of the chronicler; in
estimating their value, we have to make large allowance for the
conventional ethics of the times. Religion not only serves to raise
the standard of morality, but also to keep the average man up to
the conventional standard; it helps and encourages him to do what
he believes to be right as well as gives him a better understanding
of what right means. Primitive religion is not to be disparaged
because it did not at once convert the rough Israelite clansmen
into Havelocks and Gordons. In those early days, courage,
patriotism, and loyalty to one's tribesmen were the most necessary
and approved virtues. They were fostered and stimulated by the
current belief in a God of battles, who gave victory to His
faithful people. Moreover, the
We have already referred to the light thrown by Chronicles on this subject. Besides the direct information given in Ezra and Nehemiah, and sometimes in Chronicles itself, the chronicler by describing the past in terms of the present often unconsciously helps us to reconstruct the picture of his own day. We shall have to make occasional reference to the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, but the age of the chronicler is later than the events which they describe, and we shall be traversing different ground from that covered by the volume of the “Expositor's Bible” which deals with them.
Chronicles is
full of evidence that the civil and ecclesiastical system of the
Pentateuch had become fully established long before the chronicler
wrote. Its gradual origin had been forgotten, and it was assumed
that the Law in its final and complete form had been known and
observed from the time of David onwards. At every stage of the
history Levites are introduced, occupying the subordinate position
and discharging the menial duties assigned to them by the latest
documents of the Pentateuch. In other matters small and
We have also to
remember that at this period the
Besides all
these the Jewish community had its sacred writings. As one of the
ministers of the Temple, and, moreover, both a student of the
national literature and himself an author, the chronicler
represents the best literary knowledge of contemporary Palestinian
Judaism; and his somewhat mechanical methods of composition make it
easy for us to discern his indebtedness to older writers. We turn
his pages with interest to learn what books were known and read by
the most cultured Jews of his time. First and foremost, and
overshadowing all the rest, there appears the Pentateuch. Then
there is the whole array of earlier Historical Books: Joshua, Ruth,
Samuel, and Kings. The plan of Chronicles excludes a direct use of
Judges, but it must have been well known to our author. His
appreciation of the Psalms is shown by his inserting in his history
of David a cento of passages from
There are also
traces of the Prophets. Hanani the seer in his address to Asa
There are of course references to Isaiah and Jeremiah and traces of other prophets; but when account is taken of them all, it is seen that the chronicler makes scanty use, on the whole, of the Prophetical Books. It is true that the idea of illustrating and supplementing information derived from annals by means of contemporary literature not in narrative form had not yet dawned upon historians; but if the chronicler had taken a tithe of the interest in the Prophets that he took in the Pentateuch and the Psalms, his work would show many more distinct marks of their influence.
An apocalypse like Daniel and works like Job, Proverbs, and the other books of Wisdom lay so far outside the plan and subject of Chronicles that we can scarcely consider the absence of any clear trace of them a proof that the chronicler did not either know them or care for them.
Our brief review
suggests that the literary concern
We also find in Chronicles that the Hebrew language had degenerated from its ancient classical purity, and that Jewish writers had already come very much under the influence of Aramaic.
We may next
consider the evidence supplied by the chronicler as to the elements
and distribution of the Jewish community in his time. In Ezra and
Nehemiah we find the returning exiles divided into the men of
Judah, the men of Benjamin, and the priests, Levites, etc. In
We see therefore that in the interval between Nehemiah and the chronicler the inferior ranks of the Temple ministry had been reorganised, the musical staff had been enlarged and doubtless otherwise improved, and the singers, porters, Nethinim, and other Temple servants had been promoted to the position of Levites. Under the monarchy many of the Temple servants had been slaves of foreign birth; but now a sacred character was given to the humblest menial who shared in the work of the house of God. In after-times Herod the Great had a number of priests trained as masons, in order that no profane hand might take part in the building of his temple.
Some details have been preserved of the organisation of the Levites. We read how the porters were distributed among the different gates, and of Levites who were over the chambers and the treasuries, and of other Levites how—
“They lodged round about the house of God, because the charge was upon them, and to them pertained the opening thereof morning by morning.
“And certain of them had charge of the vessels of service; for by tale were they brought in, and by tale were they taken out.
“Some of them also were appointed over the furniture, and over all the vessels of the sanctuary, and over the fine flour, and the wine, and the oil, and the frankincense, and the spices.
“And some of the sons of the priests prepared the confection of the spices.
“And Mattithiah, one of the Levites who was the first-born of Shallum the Korahite, had the set office over the things that were baked in pans.
“And some of their brethren, of the sons of the
Kohathites, were over the shewbread to prepare it every
sabbath.”
This account is
found in a chapter partly identical with
Our author's
strong feeling for his own Levitical order shows itself in his
narrative of Hezekiah's great sacrifices. The victims were so
numerous that there
There were, too,
other reasons for increasing the efficiency of the Levitical order
by lengthening their
Still the task
of expounding and enforcing the Law brought with it compensations
in the shape of dignity, influence, and emolument; and the Levites
would soon be reconciled to their work as scribes, and would
discover with regret that they could not retain the exposition of
the Law in their own hands. Traditions were cherished in certain
Levitical families that their ancestors had been “officers and judges” under David Wellhausen, History of
Israel, p. 191; cf.
It will appear
from this brief survey that the Levites were very completely
organised. There were not only the great classes, the scribes,
officers, porters, singers, and the Levites proper, so to speak,
who assisted the priests, but special families had been made
responsible for details of service: “Mattithiah had the set office over the things that
were baked in pans; and some of their brethren, of the sons of the
Kohathites, were over the shewbread, to prepare it every
sabbath.”
The priests were
organised quite differently. The small number of Levites
necessitated careful arrangements for using them to the best
advantage; of priests there were enough and to spare. The four
thousand two hundred and eighty-nine priests who returned with
Zerubbabel were an extravagant and impossible allowance for a
single temple, and we are told that the numbers increased largely
as time went on. The problem was to devise some means by which all
the priests should have some share in the honours and emoluments of
the Temple, and its solution was found in the “courses.” The priests who returned with
Zerubbabel are registered in four families: “the children of Jedaiah, of the house of Jeshua; ...
the children of Immer; ... the children of Pashhur; ... the
children Bell. Jud., IV. iii. 8.
These twenty-four courses discharged the priestly duties each in its turn. One was busy at the temple while the other twenty-three were at home, some perhaps living on the profits of their office, others at work on their farms. The high-priest, of course, was always at the Temple; and the continuity of the ritual would necessitate the appointment of other priests as a permanent staff. The high-priest and the staff, being always on the spot, would have great opportunities for improving their own position at the expense of the other members of the courses, who were only there occasionally for a short time. Accordingly we are told later on that a few families had appropriated nearly all the priestly emoluments.
Courses of the
Levites are sometimes mentioned in connection with those of the
priests, as if the Levites had an exactly similar
organisation.
“I-have-magnified, I-have-exalted-help; Sitting-in-distress, I-have-spoken In-abundance
Visions” Recently a complaint was received at
the General Post-office that some newspapers sent from France had
failed to arrive. It was stated that the names of the papers
were—Il
me manque; Plusieurs; Journaux; i.e., I
am short of “Several” “Papers.”
Thus the
chronicler provides material for a fairly complete account of the
service and ministers of the Temple; but his interest in other
matters was less close and personal, so that he gives us
comparatively little information about civil persons and affairs.
The restored Jewish community was, of course, made up of
descendants of the members of the old kingdom of Levi of course excepted.
The genealogies seem to imply that no descendants of the Transjordanic tribes or of Simeon were found in Judah in the age of the chronicler.
Concerning the
tribe of Judah, we have already noted that it included two families
which traced their descent to Egyptian ancestors, and that the
Kenizzite clans of Caleb and Jerahmeel had been entirely
incorporated in Judah and formed the most important part of the
tribe. A comparison of the parallel genealogies of the house of
Caleb gives us important information as to the territory occupied
by the Jews. In ii. 42-49 we find the Calebites at Hebron and other
towns of the south country, in accordance with the older history;
but in ii. 50-55 they occupy Bethlehem and Kirjath-jearim and other
towns in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem. The two paragraphs are
really giving their territory before and after the Exile; during
the Captivity Southern Judah had been occupied by the Edomites. It
is indeed stated in
We have already
noted that much of the space allotted to the genealogies of Judah
is devoted to the house of David.
The genealogies
of Judah include one or two references which throw a little light
on the social organisation of the times. There were “families of scribes which dwelt at Jabez” ii. 55. iv. 21-23.
As regards the tribe of Benjamin, we have seen that there was a family claiming descent from Saul.
The slight and
meagre information given about Judah and Benjamin cannot accurately
represent their importance as compared with the priests and
Levites, but the general impression conveyed by the chronicler is
confirmed by our other authorities. In his time the supreme
interests of the Jews were religious. The one great institution was
the Temple; the highest order was the priesthood. All Jews were in
a measure servants of the Temple; Ephesus indeed was proud to be
called
In a previous chapter the Temple and its ministry were compared to a mediæval monastery or the establishment of a modern cathedral. In the same way Jerusalem might be compared to cities, like Ely or Canterbury, which exist mainly for the sake of their cathedrals, only both the sanctuary and city of the Jews came to be on a larger scale. Or, again, if the Temple be represented by the great abbey of St. Edmundsbury, Bury St. Edmunds itself might stand for Jerusalem, and the wide lands of the abbey for the surrounding districts, from which the Jewish priests derived their free-will offerings, and first-fruits, and tithes. Still in both these English instances there was a vigorous and independent secular life far beyond any that existed in Judæa.
A closer
parallel to the temple on Zion is to be
The following is
an account of the possessions of the Theban temple of Amen,
supposed to be given by an Egyptian living about b.c. 1350 Maspero, Ancient Egypt and
Assyria, p. 60.
“Since the accession of the eighteenth dynasty, Amen
has profited more than any other god, perhaps even more than
Pharaoh himself, by the Egyptian victories over the peoples of
Syria and Ethiopia. Each success has brought him a considerable
share of the spoil collected upon the battle-fields, indemnities
levied from the enemy, prisoners carried into slavery. He possesses
lands and gardens by the hundred in Thebes and the rest of Egypt,
fields and meadows, woods, hunting-grounds, and fisheries; he has
colonies in Ethiopia or in the oases of the Libyan desert, and at
the extremity of the land of Canaan there are cities under
vassalage to him, for Pharaoh allows him to receive the tribute
from them. The administration of these vast properties requires as
many officials and departments as that of a kingdom. It includes
innumerable bailiffs for the agriculture; overseers for the cattle
and poultry; treasurers of twenty kinds for the gold, silver, and
copper, the vases and valuable stuffs; foremen for the workshops
and manufactures; engineers; architects; boatmen; a fleet and an
army
Many of the details of this picture would not be true for the temple of Zion; but the Jews were even more devoted to Jehovah than the Thebans to Amen, and the administration of the Jewish temple was more than “a state within the state”: it was the state itself.
“And David the king said, ... Who then offereth willingly?... And they gave for the service of the house of God ... ten thousand darics.”—1 Chron. xxix. 1, 5, 7.
Teaching by anachronism is a very common and effective form of religious instruction; and Chronicles, as the best Scriptural example of this method, affords a good opportunity for its discussion and illustration.
All history is more or less guilty of anachronism; every historian perforce imports some of the ideas and circumstances of his own time into his narratives and pictures of the past: but we may distinguish three degrees of anachronism. Some writers or speakers make little or no attempt at archæological accuracy; others temper the generally anachronistic character of their compositions by occasional reference to the manners and customs of the period they are describing; and, again, there are a few trained students who succeed in drawing fairly accurate and consistent pictures of ancient life and history.
We will briefly consider the last two classes before returning to the first, in which we are chiefly interested.
Accurate archæology is, of course, part of the ideal of the scientific historian. By long and careful study of literature and monuments and by the exercise of a lively and well-trained imagination, the student obtains a vision of ancient societies. Nineveh and Babylon, Thebes and Memphis, rise from their ashes and stand before him in all their former splendour; he walks their streets and mixes with the crowds in the market-place and the throng of worshippers at the temple, each “in his habit as he lived.” Rameses and Sennacherib, Ptolemy and Antiochus, all play their proper parts in this drama of his fancy. He can not only recall their costumes and features: he can even think their thoughts and feel their emotions; he actually lives in the past. In Marius the Epicurean, in Ebers's Uarda, in Maspero's Sketches of Assyrian and Egyptian Life, and in other more serious works we have some of the fruits of this enlightened study of antiquity, and are enabled to see the visions at second hand and in some measure to live at once in the present and the past, to illustrate and interpret the one by the other, to measure progress and decay, and to understand the Divine meaning of all history. Our more recent histories and works on life and manners and even our historical romances, especially those of Walter Scott, have rendered a similar service to students of English history. And yet at its very best such realisation of the past is imperfect; the gaps in our information are unconsciously filled in from our experience, and the ideas of the present always colour our reproduction of ancient thought and feeling. The most accurate history is only a rough approximation to exact truth; but, like many other rough approximations, it is exact enough for many important practical purposes.
But scholarly familiarity with the past has its drawbacks. The scholar may come to live so much amongst ancient memories that he loses touch with his own present. He may gain large stores of information about ancient Israelite life, and yet not know enough of his own generation to be able to make them sharers of his knowledge. Their living needs and circumstances lie outside his practical experience; he cannot explain the past to them because he does not sympathise with their present; he cannot apply its lessons to difficulties and dangers which he does not understand.
Nor is the usefulness of the archæologist merely limited by his own lack of sympathy and experience. He may have both, and yet find that there are few of his contemporaries who can follow him in his excursions into bygone time. These limitations and drawbacks do not seriously diminish the value of archæology, but they have to be taken into account in discussing teaching by anachronism, and they have an important bearing on the practical application of archæological knowledge. We shall return to these points later on.
The second
degree of anachronism is very common. We are constantly hearing and
reading descriptions of Bible scenes and events in which the
centuries before and after Christ are most oddly blended. Here and
there will be a costume after an ancient monument, a Biblical
description of Jewish customs, a few Scriptural phrases; but these
are embedded in paragraphs which simply reproduce the social and
religious ideas of the nineteenth century. For instance, in a
recent work, amidst much display of archæological knowledge, we
have the very modern ideas that Joseph and Mary went up to
Bethlehem at the census, because Joseph and perhaps Mary also had
property in Bethlehem, and
We have laid so much stress on the drawbacks attaching to a little archæology because they will emphasise what we have to say about the use of pure anachronism. Our last illustration, however, reminds us that these drawbacks detract but little from the influence of earnest men. If the acting be good, we forget the scenery and costumes; the genius of a great preacher more than atones for poor archæology, because, in spite of dress and custom, he makes his hearers feel that the characters of the Bible were instinct with rich and passionate life. We thus arrive at our third degree of pure anachronism.
Most people read
their Bible without any reference to archæology. If they dramatise
the stories, they do so in terms of their own experience. The
characters are dressed like the men and women they know: Nazareth
is like their native village, and Jerusalem is like the county
town; the conversations are carried on in the English of the
Authorised Version. This reading of Scripture is well illustrated
by the description in a recent writer of a modern prophet in
Tennessee Craddock, Despot of Bromsgrove
Edge. Teck Jepson is, of course, an imaginary
character, but none the less representative.
“There was nought in the scene to suggest to a mind
familiar with the facts an Oriental landscape—nought akin to the
hills of Judæa. It was essentially of the New World, essentially of
the Great Smoky Mountains. Yet ignorance has its licence. It never
occurred to Teck Jepson that his Bible heroes had lived elsewhere.
Their history had to him an intimate personal relation, as of the
story of an ancestor, in the homestead ways and closely familiar.
He brooded
Another and more familiar example of “singular alterations in date and circumstances” is the version in Ivanhoe of the war between Benjamin and the other tribes:—
“How long since in Palestine a deadly feud arose
between the tribe of Benjamin and the rest of the Israelitish
nation; and how they cut to pieces well-nigh all the chivalry of
that tribe; and how they swore by our blessed Lady that they would
not permit those who remained to marry in their lineage; and how
they became grieved for their vow, and sent to consult his Holiness
the Pope how they might be absolved from it; and how, by the advice
of the Holy Father, the youth of the tribe of Benjamin carried off
from a superb tournament all the ladies who were there present, and
It is needless to say that the chronicler was not thus hopelessly at sea about the circumstances of ancient Hebrew history; but he wrote in the same simple, straightforward, childlike spirit. Israel had always been the Israel of his own experience, and it never occurred to him that its institutions under the kings had been other than those with which he was familiar. He had no more hesitation in filling up the gaps in the book of Kings from what he saw round about him than a painter would have in putting the white clouds and blue waters of to-day into a picture of skies and seas a thousand years ago. He attributes to the pious kings of Judah the observance of the ritual of his own times. Their prophets use phrases taken from post-Exilic writings. David is regarded as the author of the existing ecclesiastical system in almost all matters that do not date back to Moses, and especially as the organiser of the familiar music of the Temple. David's choristers sing the hymns of the second Temple. Amongst the contributions of his nobles towards the building of the Temple, we read of ten thousand darics, the daric being a coin introduced by the Persian king Darius.
But we must be
careful to recognise that the chronicler writes in perfect good
faith. These views of the monarchy were common to all educated and
thoughtful men of his time; they were embodied in current
tradition, and were probably already to be met with in writing. To
charge him with inventing them is absurd; they already existed, and
did not need to be invented. He cannot have coloured his narrative
in the interests of the Temple and the priesthood. When
And doubtless
the author of Chronicles “served his own
generation by the will of God,” and served them in the way
he intended. He made the history of the monarchy more real and
living to them, and enabled them to understand better that the
reforming kings of Judah were loyal servants of Jehovah and had
been used by Him for the furtherance of true religion. The pictures
drawn by Samuel and Kings of David and the best of his successors
would not have enabled the Jews of his time to appreciate these
facts. They had no idea of any piety that was not expressed in the
current observances of the Law, and Samuel and Kings did not
ascribe such observances to the earlier kings of Judah. But the
chronicler and his authorities were able to discern in the ancient
Scriptures the genuine piety of David and Hezekiah and other kings,
and drew what seemed to them the obvious conclusion that these
pious kings observed the Law. They then proceeded to rewrite the
history in order that the true character of the kings and their
relation to Jehovah might be made intelligible to the people. The
only piety which the chronicler could conceive was combined with
observance of the Law; naturally therefore it was only thus that he
could describe piety. His work would be read with eager interest,
and would play a definite and
And in this it remains our example. Chronicles may fall very far short of the ideal and yet be superior to more accurate histories which fail to make themselves intelligible to their own generation. The ideal history no doubt would tell the story with archæological precision, and then interpret it by modern parallels; the historian would show us what we should actually have seen and heard if we had lived in the period he is describing; he would also help our weak imagination by pointing us to such modern events or persons as best illustrate those ancient times. No doubt Chronicles fails to bring before our eyes an accurate vision of the history of the monarchy; but, as we have said, all history fails somewhat in this respect. It is simply impossible to fulfil the demand for history that shall have the accuracy of an architect's plans of a house or an astronomer's diagrams of the orbit of a planet. Chronicles, however, fails more seriously than most history, and on the whole rather more than most commentaries and sermons.
But this lack of
archæological accuracy is far less serious than a failure to make
it clear that the events of ancient history were as real and as
interesting as those of modern times, and that its personages were
actual men and women, with a full equipment of body, mind, and
soul. There have been many teachers and preachers, innocent of
archæology, who have yet been able to apply Bible narratives with
convincing power
Enlightened and well-informed Christian teachers may still learn something from the example of the chronicler. The uncritical character of his age affords no excuse to them for shutting their eyes to the fuller light which God has given to their generation. But we are reminded that permanently significant stories have their parallels in every age. There are always prodigal sons, and foolish virgins, importunate widows, and good Samaritans. The ancient narratives are interesting as quaint and picturesque stories of former times; but it is our duty as teachers to discover the modern parallels of their eternal meaning: their lessons are often best enforced by telling them afresh as they would have been told if their authors had lived in our time, in other words by a frank use of anachronism.
It may be objected that the result in the case of Chronicles is not encouraging. Chronicles is far less interesting than Kings, and far less useful in furnishing materials for the historian. These facts, however, are not inconsistent with the usefulness of the book for its own age. Teaching by anachronism simply seeks to render a service to its own generation; its purpose is didactic, and not historical. How many people read the sermons of eighteenth-century divines? But each generation has a right to this special service. The first duty of the religious teacher is for the men and women that look to him for spiritual help and guidance. He may incidentally produce literary work of permanent value for posterity; but a Church whose ministry sacrificed practical usefulness in the attempt to be learned and literary would be false to its most sacred functions. The noblest self-denial of Christian service may often lie in putting aside all such ambition and devoting the ability which might have made a successful author to making Divine truth intelligible and interesting to the uncultured and the unimaginative. Authors themselves are sometimes led to make a similar sacrifice; they write to help the many to-day when they might have written to delight men of literary taste in all ages. Few things are so ephemeral as popular religious literature; it is as quickly and entirely forgotten as last year's sunsets: but it is as necessary and as useful as the sunshine and the clouds, which are being always spent and always renewed. Chronicles is a specimen of this class of literature, and its presence in the canon testifies to the duty of providing a special application of the sacred truths of ancient history for each succeeding generation.
A more serious charge has been brought against Chronicles than that dealt with in the last chapter. Besides anachronisms, additions, and alterations, the chronicler has made omissions that give an entirely new complexion to the history. He omits, for instance, almost everything that detracts from the character and achievements of David and Solomon; he almost entirely ignores the reigns of Saul and Ishbosheth, and of all the northern kings. These facts are obvious to the most casual reader, and a moment's reflection shows that David as we should know him if we had only Chronicles is entirely different from the historical David of Samuel and Kings. The latter David has noble qualities, but displays great weakness and falls into grievous sin; the David of Chronicles is almost always an hero and a blameless saint.
All this is
unquestionably true, and yet the purpose and spirit of Chronicles
are honest and praiseworthy. Our judgment must be governed by the
relation which the chronicler intended his work to sustain towards
the older history. Did he hope that Samuel and Kings would be
altogether superseded by this new version of the history of the
monarchy, and so eventually be
Indeed, the principles of selection adopted by the chronicler are common to many historians. A school history does not dwell on the domestic vices of kings or on the private failings of statesmen. It requires no great stretch of imagination to conceive of a Royalist history of England, that should entirely ignore the Commonwealth. Indeed, historians of Christian missions sometimes show about the same interest in the work of other Churches than their own that Chronicles takes in the northern kingdom. The work of the chronicler may also be compared to monographs which confine themselves to some special aspect of their subject. We have every reason to be thankful that the Divine providence has preserved for us the richer and fuller narrative of Samuel and Kings, but we cannot blame the chronicler because he has observed some of the ordinary canons for the composition of historical text-books.
The chronicler's
selective method, however, is carried so far that the historical
value of his work is seriously impaired; yet in this respect also
he is kept in countenance by very respectable authorities. We are
more concerned, however, to point out the positive results of the
method. Instead of historical portraits, we are presented with a
gallery of ideals, types of character which we are asked either to
admire or to condemn. On
Before examining these types in detail, we may devote a little space to some general considerations upon teaching by types. For the present we will confine ourselves to a non-theological sense of type, using the word to mean any individual who is representative or typical of a class. But the chronicler's individuals do not represent classes of actual persons, but good men as they seem to their most devoted admirers and bad men as they seem to their worst enemies. They are ideal types. Chronicles is not the only literature in which such ideal types are found. They occur in the funeral sermons and obituary notices of popular favourites, and in the pictures which politicians draw in election speeches of their opponents, only in these there is a note of personal feeling from which the chronicler is free.
In fact, all
biography tends to idealise; human nature
Such an ideal picture appeals to us with pathetic emphasis. It seems to say, “In spite of temptation, and sin, and grievous falls, this is what I ever aimed at and desired to be. Do not thou content thyself with any lower ideal. My higher nature had its achievements as well as its aspirations. Remember that in thy weakness thou mayest also achieve.”
“What I aspired to be, And was not, comforts me; All I could never be, All men ignored in me, This I was worth to God....”
But we may take
these ideals as types, not only in a general sense, but also in a
modification of the Cave, Scripture Doctrine of
Sacrifice, p. 163.
But the Holy Spirit guided the hopes and intuitions of the sacred writers to a special fulfilment. We can see that their types have one antitype in the growth of the Church and the progress of mankind; but the Old Testament looked for their chief fulfilment in a Divine Messenger and Deliverer: its ideals are types of the Messiah. The higher life of a good man was a revelation of God and a promise of His highest and best manifestation in Christ. We shall endeavour to show in subsequent chapters how Chronicles served to develop the idea of the Messiah.
But the
chronicler's types are not all prophecies of future progress or
Messianic glory. The brighter portions of his picture are thrown
into relief by a dark background. The good in Jeroboam is as
completely ignored as the evil in David. Apart from any question of
historical accuracy, the type is unfortunately a true one. There is
a leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod, as well as a leaven of the
kingdom. If the base leaven be left to work by itself, it will
leaven the whole mass;
The strange
power of teaching by types has been well expressed by one who was
herself a great mistress of the art: “Ideas
are often poor ghosts: our sun-filled eyes cannot discern them;
they pass athwart us in thin vapour, and cannot make themselves
felt; they breathe upon us with warm breath, they touch us with
soft, responsive hands; they look at us with sad, sincere eyes, and
speak to us in appealing tones; they are clothed in a living human
soul; ... their presence is a power.” George Eliot, Janet's
Repentance, chap. xix.
King and kingdom
were so bound up in ancient life that an ideal for the one implied
an ideal for the other; all distinction and glory possessed by
either was shared by both. The tribe and kingdom of Judah were
exalted by the fame of David and Solomon; but, on the other hand, a
specially exalted position is accorded to David in the Old
Testament because he is the representative of the people of
Jehovah. David himself had been anointed by Divine command to be
king of Israel, and he thus became the founder of the only
legitimate dynasty of Hebrew kings. Saul and Ishbosheth had no
significance for the later religious history of the nation.
Apparently to the chronicler the history of true religion in Israel
was a blank between Joshua and David; the revival began when the
Ark was brought to Zion, and the first steps were taken to rear the
Temple in succession to the Mosaic tabernacle. He therefore omits
the history of the Judges and Saul. But the battle of Gilboa is
given to introduce the reign of David, and incidental condemnation
is passed on Saul: “So Saul died for his
trespass which he committed against the Lord, because of the word
of the Lord, which he kept not, and also for that he asked counsel
of one that had a familiar spirit, to inquire
The reign of Saul had been an unsuccessful experiment; its only real value had been to prepare the way for David. At the same time the portrait of Saul is not given at full length, like those of the wicked kings, partly perhaps because the chronicler had little interest for anything before the time of David and the Temple, but partly, we may hope, because the record of David's affection for Saul kept alive a kindly feeling towards the founder of the monarchy.
Inasmuch as Jehovah had “turned the kingdom unto David,” the reign of Ishbosheth was evidently the intrusion of an illegitimate pretender; and the chronicler treats it as such. If we had only Chronicles, we should know nothing about the reign of Ishbosheth, and should suppose that, on the death of Saul, David succeeded at once to an undisputed sovereignty over all Israel. The interval of conflict is ignored because, according to the chronicler's views, David was, from the first, king de jure over the whole nation. Complete silence as to Ishbosheth was the most effective way of expressing this fact.
The same
sentiment of hereditary legitimacy, the same formal and exclusive
recognition of a de jure
sovereign, has been shown in modern times by titles like Louis
XVIII. and Napoleon III. For both schools of Legitimists the
absence of de facto
sovereignty did not prevent Louis XVII. and Napoleon II. from
having been lawful rulers of France. In Israel, moreover, the
Divine right of the one chosen dynasty had religious as well as
political importance. We have already seen that Israel claimed a
hereditary title to
We have already noticed that, in spite of this general attitude towards Saul, the genealogy of some of his descendants is given twice over in the earlier chapters. No doubt the chronicler made this concession to gratify friends or to conciliate an influential family. It is interesting to note how personal feeling may interfere with the symmetrical development of a theological theory. At the same time we are enabled to discern a practical reason for rigidly ignoring the kingship of Saul and Ishbosheth. To have recognised Saul as the Lord's anointed, like David, would have complicated contemporary dogmatics, and might possibly have given rise to jealousies between the descendants of Saul and those of David. Within the narrow limits of the Jewish community such quarrels might have been inconvenient and even dangerous.
The reasons for denying the legitimacy of the northern kings were obvious and conclusive. Successful rebels who had destroyed the political and religious unity of Israel could not inherit “the sure mercies of David” or be included in the covenant which secured the permanence of his dynasty.
The exclusive
association of Messianic ideas with a
But the choice
of the house of David involved the choice of the tribe of Judah and
the rejection of the kingdom of Samaria. The ten tribes, as well as
the kings of Israel, had cut themselves off both from the Temple
and the sacred dynasty, and therefore from the covenant into which
Jehovah had entered with “the man after his
own heart.” Such a limitation of the chosen people was
suggested by many precedents. Chronicles, following the Pentateuch,
tells how the call came to Abraham, but only some of the
descendants of one of his sons inherited the promise. Why should
not a selection be made from among the sons of Jacob? But the
twelve tribes had been explicitly and solemnly included in the
unity of Israel, largely through David himself. The glory of David
and Solomon consisted in their sovereignty over a united people.
The national recollection of this golden age loved to dwell on the
union of the twelve tribes. The Pentateuch added legal sanction to
ancient sentiment. The twelve tribes were associated together in
national lyrics, like the “Blessing of
Jacob” and the “Blessing of
Moses.” The song of Deborah told how the northern tribes
“came to the help of the Lord against the
mighty.” It was simply impossible for the chronicler to
absolutely repudiate the ten tribes; and so they are formally
included in the genealogies of Israel, and are recognised in the
history of David and
On the other
hand, it is more than once implied that Judah, with the Levites,
and the remnants of Simeon and Benjamin, are the true Israel. When
Rehoboam “was strong he forsook the law of
the Lord, and all Israel with him.” After Shishak's
invasion, “the princes of Israel and the
king humbled themselves.”
The attitude of the chronicler towards the prophets of the northern kingdom does not in any way represent the actual importance of these prophets to the religion of Israel; but it is a very striking expression of the fact that after the Captivity the ten tribes had long ceased to exercise any influence upon the spiritual life of their nation.
The chronicler's
attitude is also open to criticism on another side. He is dominated
by his own surroundings, and in his references to the Judaism of
his own time there is no formal recognition of the Jewish community
in Babylon; and yet even his own casual allusions confirm what we
know from other sources, namely that the wealth and learning of the
Jews in Babylon were an important factor in Judaism until a very
late date. This point perhaps rather concerns Ezra and Nehemiah
than Chronicles, but it is closely connected with our present
subject, and is most naturally treated along with it. The
chronicler might have justified himself by saying that the true
home of Israel must be in Palestine, and that a community in
Babylon could only be considered as subsidiary to the nation in its
own home and worshipping at the Temple. Such a sentiment, at any
rate, would have met with universal approval amongst Palestinian
Jews. The chronicler might also have replied that the Jews in
The chronicler was possessed and inspired by the actual living present round about him; he was content to let the dead past bury its dead. He was probably inclined to believe that the absent are mostly wrong, and that the men who worked with him for the Lord and His temple were the true Israel and the Church of God. He was enthusiastic in his own vocation and loyal to his brethren. If his interests were somewhat narrowed by the urgency of present circumstances, most men suffer from the same limitations. Few Englishmen realise that the battle of Agincourt is part of the history of the United States, and that Canterbury Cathedral is a monument of certain stages in the growth of the religion of New England. We are not altogether willing to admit that these voluntary exiles from our Holy Land belong to the true Anglo-Saxon Israel.
Churches are
still apt to ignore their obligations to teachers who, like the
prophets of Samaria, seem to have been associated with alien or
hostile branches of the family of God. A religious movement which
fails to secure for itself a permanent monument is usually labelled
heresy. If it has neither obtained recognition within the Church
nor yet organised a sect
The nineteenth century prides itself on a more liberal spirit. But Romanist historians are not eager to acknowledge the debt of their Church to the Reformers; and there are Protestant partisans who deny that we are the heirs of the Christian life and thought of the mediæval Church and are anxious to trace the genealogy of pure religion exclusively through a supposed succession of obscure and half-mythical sects. Limitations like those of the chronicler still narrow the sympathies of earnest and devout Christians.
But it is time
to return to the more positive aspects of the teaching of
Chronicles, and to see how far we have already traced its
exposition of the Messianic idea. The plan of the book implies a
spiritual claim on behalf of the Jewish community of the
Restoration. Because they believed in Jehovah, whose providence had
in former times controlled the destinies of Israel, they returned
to their ancestral home that they might serve and worship the God
of their fathers. Their faith survived the ruin of Judah and their
own captivity; they recognised the power, and wisdom, and love of
God alike in the prosperity and in the misfortunes of their race.
“They believed God, and it was counted unto
them for righteousness.” The great prophet of the
Restoration had regarded this new Israel as itself a Messianic
people, perhaps even “a light to the
Gentiles” and “salvation unto the
ends of the earth.”
Under the monarchy the fortunes of Jerusalem had been bound up with those of the house of David. The chronicler brings out all that was best in the history of the ancient kings of Judah, that this ideal picture of the state and its rulers might encourage and inspire to future hope and effort. The character and achievements of David and his successors were of permanent significance. The grace and favour accorded to them symbolised the Divine promise for the future, and this promise was to be realised through a Son of David.
In order to understand why the chronicler entirely recasts the graphic and candid history of David given in the book of Samuel, we have to consider the place that David had come to fill in Jewish religion. It seems probable that among the sources used by the author of the book of Samuel was a history of David, written not long after his death, by some one familiar with the inner life of the court. “No one,” says the proverb, “is an hero to his valet”; very much what a valet is to a private gentleman courtiers are to a king: their knowledge of their master approaches to the familiarity which breeds contempt. Not that David was ever a subject for contempt or less than an hero even to his own courtiers; but they knew him as a very human hero, great in his vices as well as in his virtues, daring in battle and wise in counsel, sometimes also reckless in sin, yet capable of unbounded repentance, loving not wisely, but too well. And as they knew him, so they described him; and their picture is an immortal possession for all students of sacred life and literature. But it is not the portrait of a Messiah; when we think of the “Son of David,” we do not want to be reminded of Bath-sheba.
During the six
or seven centuries that elapsed between
Even the
prophets of the eighth century connect the future destiny of Israel
with David and his house. The child, of whom Isaiah prophesied, was
to sit “upon the throne of David”
and be “over his kingdom, to establish it
and to uphold it with judgment and with righteousness from
henceforth even for ever.” Acts ii 29. Written after the death of
Pompey. Schultz, Old Testament
Theology, ii. 444.
David's name was also familiar as the author of many psalms. The inhabitants of Jerusalem would often hear them sung at the Temple, and they were probably used for private devotion. In this way especially the name of David had become associated with the deepest and purest spiritual experiences.
This brief survey shows how utterly impossible it was for the chronicler to transfer the older narrative bodily from the book of Samuel to his own pages. Large omissions were absolutely necessary. He could not sit down in cold blood to tell his readers that the man whose name they associated with the most sacred memories and the noblest hopes of Israel had been guilty of treacherous murder, and had offered himself to the Philistines as an ally against the people of Jehovah.
From this point
of view let us consider the chronicler's omissions somewhat more in
detail. In the first place, An incidental reference is made to
these facts in
We have already
seen that the events of David's reign at Hebron and his struggle
with Ishbosheth are omitted because the chronicler does not
recognise Ishbosheth as a legitimate king. The omission would also
commend itself because this section contains the account of Joab's
murder of Abner and David's inability to do more than protest
against the crime. “I am this day weak,
though anointed king; and these men the sons of Zeruiah are too
hard for me,”
The next point
to notice is one of those significant alterations that mark the
chronicler's industry as a redactor. In
The next omission was obviously a necessary one; it is the incident of Uriah and Bath-sheba. The name Bath-sheba never occurs in Chronicles. When it is necessary to mention the mother of Solomon, she is called Bath-shua, possibly in order that the disgraceful incident might not be suggested even by the use of the name. The New Testament genealogies differ in this matter in somewhat the same way as Samuel and Chronicles. St. Matthew expressly mentions Uriah's wife as an ancestress of our Lord, but St. Luke does not mention her or any other ancestress.
The next
omission is equally extensive and important. It includes the whole
series of events connected with the revolt of Absalom, from the
incident of Tamar to the suppression of the rebellion of Sheba the
son of Bichri. Various motives may have contributed to this
omission. The narrative contains unedifying incidents, which are
passed over as lightly as possible by modern writers like Stanley.
It was probably a relief to the chronicler to be able to omit them
altogether. There is no heinous sin like the murder of Uriah, but
the story leaves a general impression of great weakness on David's
part. Joab murders Amasa as he had murdered Abner, and this time
there is no record of any protest even on the part of David. But
probably the main
The touching
story of Rizpah is omitted; the hanging of her sons does not
exhibit David in a very amiable light. The Gibeonites propose that
“they shall hang them up unto the Lord in
Gibeah of Saul, the chosen of the Lord,” and David accepts
the proposal. This punishment of the children for the sin of their
father was expressly against the Law
In
Then follow two
omissions that are not easily accounted for.
Finally, the chronicler omits the attempt of Adonijah to seize the throne, and David's dying commands to Solomon. The opening chapters of the book of Kings present a graphic and pathetic picture of the closing scenes of David's life. The king is exhausted with old age. His authoritative sanction to the coronation of Solomon is only obtained when he has been roused and directed by the promptings and suggestions of the women of his harem. The scene is partly a parallel and partly a contrast to the last days of Queen Elizabeth; for when her bodily strength failed, the obstinate Tudor spirit refused to be guided by the suggestions of her courtiers. The chronicler was depicting a person of almost Divine dignity, in whom incidents of human weakness would have been out of keeping; and therefore they are omitted.
David's charge
to Solomon is equally human. Solomon is to make up for David's
weakness and
Constantine is reported to have said that, for the honour of the Church, he would conceal the sin of a bishop with his own imperial purple. David was more to the chronicler than the whole Christian episcopate to Constantine. His life of David is compiled in the spirit and upon the principles of lives of saints generally, and his omissions are made in perfect good faith.
Let us now
consider the positive picture of David as it is drawn for us in
Chronicles. Chronicles would be published separately, each copy
written out on a roll of its own. There may have been Jews who had
Chronicles, but not Samuel and Kings, and who knew nothing about
David except what they learned from Chronicles. Possibly the
chronicler and his friends would recommend the work as suitable for
the education of children and the instruction of the common people.
It would save its readers from being perplexed by the religious
difficulties suggested by Samuel and Kings. There were many
obstacles, however, to the success of such a scheme; the
persecutions of Antiochus and the wars of the Maccabees took the
leadership out of the hands of scholars and gave it to soldiers and
statesmen. The latter perhaps felt more drawn to the real David
than to the ideal, and the new priestly dynasty would not be
anxious to emphasise the Messianic hopes of the house of David. But
let us put ourselves for a moment in the position of a student of
Hebrew history who
Our first
impression as we read the book is that David comes into the history
as abruptly as Elijah or Melchizedek. Jehovah slew Saul
“and turned the kingdom unto David the son
of Jesse.” Cf. xi. 1-9; xii. 23-xiii. 14;
xv.
We are not told
who David the son of Jesse was, or why the Divine choice fell upon
him, or how he had been prepared for his responsible position, or
how he had so commended himself to Israel as to be accepted with
universal acclaim. He must, however, have been of noble family and
high character; and it is hinted that he had had a distinguished
career as a soldier.
As we read
further we come to other references which throw some light on
David's early career, and at the same time somewhat mar the
symmetry of the xii. 20.
This chapter partly explains David's popularity after Saul's death; but it only carries the mystery a stage further back. How did this outlaw and apparently unpatriotic rebel get so strong a hold on the affections of Israel?
Chap. xii. also
provides material for plausible explanations of another difficulty.
In chap. x. the army of Israel is routed, the inhabitants of the
land take to flight, and the Philistines occupy their cities; in
Elsewhere,
however, we find a statement that renders other explanations
possible. David reigned seven years in Hebron,
The main thread
of the history is interrupted here and later on xi. 10-47; xx. 4-8. xiii. 14-xvi.
The narrative
returns to its main subject: the history of the sanctuary at
Jerusalem. As soon as the Ark was duly installed in its tent, and
David was established in his new palace, he was struck by the
contrast between the tent and the palace: “Lo, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of the
covenant of the Lord dwelleth under curtains.” He proposed
to substitute a temple for the tent, but was forbidden by his
prophet Nathan, xvii.
Then we read of
the wars, victories, and conquests of David. He is no longer
absorbed in the defence of Israel against the Philistines. He takes
the aggressive and conquers Gath; he conquers Edom, Moab, Ammon,
and Amalek; he and his armies defeat the Syrians in several
battles, the Syrians become tributary, and David occupies Damascus
with a garrison. “And the Lord gave victory
to David whithersoever he went.” The conquered were treated
after the manner of those barbarous times. David and his generals
carried off much spoil, especially brass, and silver, and gold; and
when he conquered Rabbah, the capital of Ammon, “he brought forth the people that were therein, and cut
them with saws, and with harrows of iron, and with axes. And thus
did David unto all the cities of the children of Ammon.”
Meanwhile his home administration was as honourable as his foreign
wars were glorious: “He executed judgment
and justice unto all his people”; and the government was
duly organised with commanders of the host and the bodyguard, with
priests and scribes. xviii.; xx. 3.
Then follows a
mysterious and painful dispensation of Providence, which the
historian would gladly have omitted, if his respect for the memory
of his hero had not been overruled by his sense of the supreme
importance of the Temple. David, like Job, was given over for a
season to Satan, and while possessed by this evil spirit displeased
God by numbering Israel. His punishment took the form of a great
pestilence, which decimated I.e., virtually Jehovah our God
and the only true God. For a more detailed treatment of this
incident see chap. ix.
This revelation
of the Divine will as to the position of the Temple led David to
proceed at once with preparations for its erection by Solomon,
which occupied all his energies for the remainder of his
life. xxi.-xxix.
Then follows the
closing scene of David's life. The sun of Israel sets amid the
flaming glories of the western sky. No clouds or mists rob him of
accustomed splendour. David calls a great assembly of princes and
warriors; he addresses a solemn exhortation to them and to Solomon;
he delivers to his son instructions for “all the works” which “I
have been made to understand in writing from the hand of
Jehovah.” It is almost as though the plans of the Temple had
shared with the first tables of stone the honour of being written
with the very finger of God Himself, and David were even greater
than Moses. He reminds Solomon of all the preparations he had made,
and xxix. 20-22, 28.
The Roman expressed his idea of a becoming death more simply: “An emperor should die standing.” The chronicler has given us the same view at greater length; this is how the chronicler would have wished to die if he had been David, and how, therefore, he conceives that God honoured the last hours of the man after His own heart.
It is a strange
contrast to the companion picture in the book of Kings. There the
king is bedridden, dying slowly of old age; the life-blood creeps
coldly through his veins. The quiet of the sick-room is invaded by
the shrill outcry of an aggrieved woman, and the dying king is
roused to hear that once more eager hands are clutching at his
crown. If the chronicler has done nothing else, he has helped us
What idea does
Chronicles give us of the man and his character? He is first and
foremost a man of earnest piety and deep spiritual feeling. Like
the great religious leaders of the chronicler's own time, his piety
found its chief expression in ritual. The main business of his life
was to provide for the sanctuary and its services; that is, for the
highest fellowship of God and man, according to the ideas then
current. But David is no mere formalist; the psalm of thanksgiving
for the return of the Ark to Jerusalem is a worthy tribute to the
power and faithfulness of Jehovah. xvi. 8-36. xvii. 16-27. For a short exposition of this passage
see Book. IV., Chap. i.
Next to David's enthusiasm for the Temple, his most conspicuous qualities are those of a general and soldier: he has great personal strength and courage, and is uniformly successful in wars against numerous and powerful enemies; his government is both able and upright; his great powers as an organiser and administrator are exercised both in secular and ecclesiastical matters; in a word, he is in more senses than one an ideal king.
Moreover, like
Alexander, Marlborough, Napoleon, and other epoch-making
conquerors, he had a great charm of personal attractiveness; he
inspired his officers and soldiers with enthusiasm and devotion to
xxix. 20.
In drawing an ideal picture, our author has naturally omitted incidents that might have revealed the defects of his hero. Such omissions deceive no one, and are not meant to deceive any one. Yet David's failings are not altogether absent from this history. He has those vices which were characteristic alike of his own age and of the chronicler's, and which indeed are not yet wholly extinct. He could treat his prisoners with barbarous cruelty. His pride led him to number Israel, but his repentance was prompt and thorough; and the incident brings out alike both his faith in God and his care for his people. When the whole episode is before us, it does not lessen our love and respect for David. The reference to his alliance with the Philistines is vague and incidental. If this were our only account of the matter, we should interpret it by the rest of his life, and conclude that if all the facts were known, they would justify his conduct.
In forming a general estimate of David according to Chronicles, we may fairly neglect these less satisfactory episodes. Briefly David is perfect saint and perfect king, beloved of God and man.
A portrait
reveals the artist as well as the model and the chronicler in
depicting David gives indications of the morality of his own times.
We may deduce from his omissions a certain progress in moral
sensitiveness. The book of Samuel emphatically condemns David's
treachery towards Uriah, and is conscious of the discreditable
nature of many incidents connected with the revolts of Absalom and
Adonijah; but the silence of Chronicles implies an even severer
condemnation. In other matters, however, the chronicler
“judges himself in that which he
approveth.”
In estimating the personal character of David, we have seen that one element of it was his ideal kingship. Apart from his personality, his name is significant for Old Testament theology, as that of the typical king. From the time when the royal title “Messiah” began to be a synonym for the hope of Israel, down to the period when the Anglican Church taught the Divine right of kings, and Calvinists insisted on the Divine sovereignty or royal authority of God, the dignity and power of the King of kings have always been illustrated by, and sometimes associated with, the state of an earthly monarch—whereof David is the most striking example.
The times of the
chronicler were favourable to the development of the idea of the
perfect king of Israel, the prince of the house of David. There was
no king in Israel; and, as far as we can gather, the living
representatives of the house of David held no very prominent
position in the community. It is much easier to draw a satisfactory
picture of the ideal monarch when the imagination is not checked
and hampered by the faults and failings of an actual Ahaz or
Hezekiah. In earlier times the prophetic hopes for the house of
David had often been rudely disappointed, but there had been
On the other
hand, there was no temptation to flatter any living Davidic king,
so that the semi-Divine character of the kingship of David is not
set forth after the gross and almost blasphemous style of Roman
emperors or Turkish sultans. It is indeed said that the people
worshipped Jehovah and the king; but the essential character of
Jewish thought made it impossible that the ideal king should sit
“in the temple of God, setting himself
forth as God.” David and Solomon could not share with the
pagan emperors the honours of Divine worship in their life-time and
apotheosis after their death. Nothing addressed to any Hebrew king
parallels the panegyric to the Christian emperor Theodosius, in
which allusion is made to his “sacred
mind,” and he is told that “as the
Fates are said to assist with their tablets that God who is the
partner in your majesty, so does some Divine power
serve your bidding, which writes down and in due time suggests to
your memory the promises which you have made.” Hodgkin, Italy and her
Invaders, i. 205.
Indeed, the
title of the royal house of Judah rested upon Divine appointment.
“Jehovah ... turned the x. 14; xi. 3. xii. 38. xxix. 1, 22.
The authority
derived from God and the people continued to rest on the same
basis. David sought Divine direction alike for the building of the
Temple and for his campaigns against the Philistines. At the same
time, when he wished to bring up the Ark to Jerusalem, he
“consulted with the captains of thousands
and of hundreds, even with every leader; and David said unto all
the assembly of Israel, If it seem good unto you, xiii. 2-4.
It is
interesting to see how a member of a great ecclesiastical
community, imbued, as we should suppose, with all the spirit of
priestcraft, yet insists upon the royal supremacy both in state and
Church. But to have done otherwise would have been to go in the
teeth of all history; even in the Pentateuch the “king in Jeshurun” is greater than the priest.
Moreover, the chronicler was not a priest, but a Levite; and there
are indications that the Levites' ancient jealousy of the priests
had by no means died out. In Chronicles, at any rate, there is no
question of priests interfering with the king's secular
administration. They are not even mentioned as obtaining oracles
for David as
The king is
equally supreme also in ecclesiastical affairs; we might even say
that the civil authorities generally shared this supremacy.
Somewhat after the fashion of Cromwell and his major-generals,
David utilised “the captains of the
host” as a kind of ministry of public worship; they joined
with him in organising the orchestra and choir for the services of
the sanctuary xxv. 1, 2. xiii. 1. xxviii. 1. xxix. 22. But cf. Cf. xvii. 4-15 and xxviii. 2-10.
We see then that
the monarchy rested on Divine and national election, and was guided
by the will of God and of the people. Indeed, in bringing up the
Ark xiii. 1-14.
One at least of these principles is so widely accepted that it is quite independent of any Scriptural sanction from Chronicles. The consent of the people has long been accepted as an essential condition of any stable government. The sanctity of civil government and the sacredness of its responsibilities are coming to be recognised, at present perhaps rather in theory than in practice. We have not yet fully realised how the truth underlying the doctrine of the Divine right of kings applies to modern conditions. Formerly the king was the representative of the state, or even the state itself; that is to say, the king directly or indirectly maintained social order, and provided for the security of life and property. The Divine appointment and authority of the king expressed the sanctity of law and order as the essential conditions of moral and spiritual progress. The king is no longer the state. His Divine right, however, belongs to him, not as a person or as a member of a family, but as the embodiment of the state, the champion of social order against anarchy. The “Divinity that doth hedge a king” is now shared by the sovereign with all the various departments of government. The state—that is to say, the community organised for the common good and for mutual help—is now to be recognised as of Divine appointment and as wielding a Divine authority. “The Lord has turned the kingdom to” the people.
This revolution
is so tremendous that it would not be safe to apply to the modern
state the remaining principles of the chronicler. Before we could
do so
In one point the new democracies agree with the chronicler: they are not inclined to submit secular affairs to the domination of ecclesiastical officials.
The questions of the supremacy of the state over the Church and of the state establishment of the Church involve larger and more complicated issues than existed in the mind or experience of the chronicler. But his picture of the ideal king suggests one idea that is in harmony with some modern aspirations. In Chronicles the king, as the representative of the state, is the special agent in providing for the highest spiritual needs of the people. May we venture to hope that out of the moral consciousness of a nation united in mutual sympathy and service there may arise a new enthusiasm to obey and worship God? Human cruelty is the greatest stumbling-block to belief and fellowship; when the state has somewhat mitigated the misery of “man's inhumanity to man,” faith in God will be easier.
The chronicler's history of Solomon is constructed on the same principles as that of David, and for similar reasons. The builder of the first Temple commanded the grateful reverence of a community whose national and religious life centred in the second Temple. While the Davidic king became the symbol of the hope of Israel, the Jews could not forget that this symbol derived much of its significance from the widespread dominion and royal magnificence of Solomon. The chronicler, indeed, attributes great splendour to the court of David, and ascribes to him a lion's share in the Temple itself. He provided his successor with treasure and materials and even the complete plans, so that on the principle, “Qui facit per alium, facit per se,” David might have been credited with the actual building. Solomon was almost in the position of a modern engineer who puts together a steamer that has been built in sections. But, with all these limitations, the clear and obvious fact remained that Solomon actually built and dedicated the Temple. Moreover, the memory of his wealth and grandeur kept a firm hold on the popular imagination; and these conspicuous blessings were received as certain tokens of the favour of Jehovah.
Solomon's fame, however, was threefold: he was not only the Divinely appointed builder of the Temple and, by the same Divine grace, the richest and most powerful king of Israel: he had also received from Jehovah the gift of “wisdom and knowledge.” In his royal splendour and his sacred buildings he only differed in degree from other kings; but in his wisdom he stood alone, not only without equal, but almost without competitor. Herein he was under no obligation to his father, and the glory of Solomon could not be diminished by representing that he had been anticipated by David. Hence the name of Solomon came to symbolise Hebrew learning and philosophy.
In religious
significance, however, Solomon cannot rank with David. The dynasty
of Judah could have only one representative, and the founder and
eponym of the royal house was the most important figure for the
subsequent theology. The interest that later generations felt in
Solomon lay apart from the main line of Jewish orthodoxy, and he is
never mentioned by the prophets. The casual reference in
Moreover, the
darker aspects of Solomon's reign made more impression upon
succeeding generations than even David's sins and misfortunes.
Occasional lapses into vice and cruelty might be forgiven or even
forgotten; but the systematic oppression of Solomon rankled for
long generations in the hearts of the people, and the prophets
always remembered his wanton idolatry. His memory was further
discredited by the disasters which marked the close of his own
reign and the beginning of Rehoboam's. Centuries later these
But as time went
on Judah fell into growing poverty and distress, which came to a
head in the Captivity, and were renewed with the Restoration. The
Jews were willing to forget Solomon's faults in order that they
might indulge in fond recollections of the material prosperity of
his reign. Their experience of the culture of Babylon led them to
feel greater interest and pride in his wisdom, and the figure of
Solomon began to assume a mysterious grandeur, which has since
become the nucleus for Jewish and Mohammedan legends. The chief
monument of his fame in Jewish literature is the book of Proverbs,
but his growing reputation is shown by the numerous Biblical and
apocryphal works ascribed to him. His name was no doubt attached to
Canticles because of a feature in his character which the
chronicler ignores. His supposed authorship of Ecclesiastes and of
the Wisdom of Solomon testifies to the fame of his wisdom, while
the titles of the “Psalms of
Solomon” and even of some canonical psalms credit him with
spiritual feeling and poetic power.
When the Wisdom
of Jesus the Son of Sirach proposes to “praise famous men,” it dwells upon Solomon's
temple and his wealth, and especially upon his wisdom; but it does
not forget his failings.
The structure of
the narrative in Kings rendered the task comparatively easy: it
could be accomplished by removing the opening and closing sections
and making
In Kings the
history of Solomon closes with a long account of his numerous wives
and concubines, his idolatry and consequent misfortunes. All this
is omitted by the chronicler; but later on, with his usual
inconsistency, he allows Nehemiah to point the moral of a tale he
has left untold: “Did not Solomon, king of
Israel, sin by these things?... Even him did strange women cause to
sin.” Such changes occur throughout, and
need not be further noticed unless some special interest attaches
to them. Kings v. 13; ix. 22, which seems to
contradict this, is an editorial note.
The other
instance relates to Solomon's alliance with Hiram, king of Tyre. In
the book of Kings we are told that “Solomon
gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee.”
We will now
reproduce the story of Solomon as given by the chronicler. Solomon
was the youngest of four sons born to David at Jerusalem by
Bath-shua, the daughter of Ammiel. Besides these three brothers, he
had at least six other elder brothers. As in the cases of Isaac,
Jacob, Judah, and David himself, the birthright fell to a younger
son. In the prophetic utterance which foretold his birth, he was
designated to succeed to his father's throne and to build the
Temple. At the great assembly which closed his father's reign he
received instructions as to the plans and services of the
Temple,
His first act
after his accession was to sacrifice before the brazen altar of the
ancient Tabernacle at Gibeon. That night God appeared unto him
“and said unto him, Ask what I shall give
thee.” Solomon chose wisdom and knowledge to qualify him for
the arduous task of government. Having thus “sought first the kingdom of God and His
righteousness,” all other things—“riches, wealth, and honour”—were added unto
him.
He returned to
Jerusalem, gathered a great array of
He next
proceeded with the building of the Temple, collected workmen,
obtained timber from Lebanon and an artificer from Tyre. The Temple
was duly erected and dedicated, the king taking the chief and most
conspicuous part in all the proceedings. Special reference,
however, is made to the presence of the priests and Levites at the
dedication. On this occasion the ministry of the sanctuary was not
confined to the course whose turn it was to officiate, but
“all the priests that were present had
sanctified themselves and did not keep their courses; also the
Levites, which were the singers, all of them, even Asaph, Heman,
Jeduthun, and their sons and their brethren, arrayed in fine linen,
with cymbals, and psalteries, and harps, stood at the east end of
the altar, and with them a hundred and twenty priests sounding with
trumpets.” v. 11, 12, peculiar to
Chronicles.
Solomon's
dedication prayer concludes with special petitions for the priests,
the saints, and the king: “Now therefore
arise, O Jehovah Elohim, into Thy resting-place, Thou and the ark
of Thy strength; let Thy priests, O Jehovah Elohim, be clothed with
salvation, and let Thy saints rejoice in goodness. O Jehovah
Elohim, turn not away the face of Thine anointed; remember the
mercies of David Thy servant.” vi. 41, 42, peculiar to Chronicles,
apparently based on
When David
sacrificed at the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite, the place
had been indicated as the site of the future Temple by the descent
of fire from heaven; and now, in token that the mercy shown to
vii. 8-10, mostly peculiar to
Chronicles. The text in
Afterwards
Jehovah appeared again to Solomon, as He had before at Gibeon, and
told him that this prayer was accepted. Taking up the several
petitions that the king had offered, He promised, “If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I
send pestilence among My people; if My people, which are called by
My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and
turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will
forgive their sin, and will heal their land. Now Mine eyes shall be
open, and Mine ears attent, unto the prayer that is made in this
place.” Thus Jehovah, in His gracious condescension, adopts
Solomon's own words vii. 13-15, peculiar to
Chronicles.
Besides the
Temple, Solomon built palaces for himself and his wife, and
fortified many cities, among the rest Hamath-zobah, formerly allied
to David. viii. 3, 4, peculiar to Chronicles.
Hamath is apparently referred to as a possession of Judah in
As far as the account of his reign is concerned, the Solomon of Chronicles appears as “the husband of one wife”; and that wife is the daughter of Pharaoh. A second, however, is mentioned later on as the mother of Rehoboam; she too was a “strange woman,” an Ammonitess, Naamah by name.
Meanwhile
Solomon was careful to maintain all the sacrifices and festivals
ordained in the Levitical law, and all the musical and other
arrangements for the sanctuary commanded by David, the man of
God. viii. 12-16, peculiar in this form to
Chronicles, but based upon
We read next of
his commerce by sea and land, his great wealth and wisdom, and the
romantic visit of the queen of Sheba. ix., as in
And so the story of Solomon closes with this picture of royal state,—
“The wealth of Ormus and of Ind, Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold.”
Wealth was combined with imperial power and Divine wisdom. Here, as in the case of Plato's own pupils Dionysius and Dion of Syracuse, Plato's dream came true; the prince was a philosopher, and the philosopher a prince.
At first sight it seems as if this marriage of authority and wisdom had happier issue at Jerusalem than at Syracuse. Solomon's history closes as brilliantly as David's, and Solomon was subject to no Satanic possession and brought no pestilence upon Israel. But testimonials are chiefly significant in what they omit; and when we compare the conclusions of the histories of David and Solomon, we note suggestive differences.
Solomon's life
does not close with any scene in which his people and his heir
assemble to do him honour and to receive his last injunctions.
There are no “last words” of the
wise king; and it is not said of him that “he died in a good old age, full of days, riches, and
honour.” “Solomon slept with his
fathers, and he was buried in the city of David his father; and
Rehoboam his son reigned in his stead” ix. 31.
Thus the Solomon
of Chronicles shows the same piety and devotion to the Temple and
its ritual which were shown by his father. His prayer at the
dedication of the Temple is parallel to similar utterances of
David. Instead of being a general and a soldier, he is a scholar
and a philosopher. He succeeded to the administrative abilities of
his father; and his prayer displays a deep interest in the welfare
of his subjects. His record—in Chronicles—is even more faultless
than that of David. And yet the careful student with nothing but
Chronicles, even without Ezra and Nehemiah, might somehow get the
impression that the story of Solomon, like that of Cambuscan, had
been “left half told.” In addition
to the points suggested by a comparison with the history of David,
there is a certain abruptness about its conclusion. The last fact
noted of Solomon, before the formal statistics about “the rest of his acts” and the years of his
reign, is that horses were brought for him “out of Egypt and out of all lands.” Elsewhere
ix. 28.
Perhaps we are
apt to read into Chronicles what we know from the book of Kings;
yet surely this abrupt conclusion would have raised a suspicion
that there were omissions, that facts had been suppressed because
they could not bear the light. Upon the splendid figure of the
great king, with his wealth and wisdom, his piety and devotion,
rests the vague shadow of unnamed sins and unrecorded misfortunes.
A suggestion of unhallowed mystery attaches itself to the name of
the builder of the Temple, and Solomon is already on the way to
become the Master of the Genii and the chief of magicians. It is not suggested that the
chronicler intended to convey this impression, or that it would be
felt by most of his readers.
When we turn to
consider the spiritual significance of this ideal picture of the
history and character of Solomon, we are confronted by a difficulty
that attends the exposition of any ideal history. An author's ideal
of kingship in the early stages of literature is usually as much
one and indivisible as his ideal of priesthood, of the office of
the prophet, and of the wicked king. His authorities may record
different incidents in connection with each individual; but he
emphasises those which correspond with his ideal, or even
anticipates the higher criticism by constructing incidents which
seem required by the character and circumstances of his heroes. On
the other hand, where the priest, or the prophet, or the king
departs from the ideal, the incidents are minimised or passed over
in silence. There will still be a certain variety because different
individuals may present different elements of the ideal, and the
chronicler does not insist on each of his good kings possessing all
the characteristics of royal perfection. Still the tendency of the
process is to make all the good kings alike. It would be monotonous
to take each of them separately and deduce the lessons taught by
their virtues, because the chronicler's intention is that
The leading points have already been indicated from the chronicler's history of David. The first and most indispensable feature is devotion to the temple at Jerusalem and the ritual of the Pentateuch. This has been abundantly illustrated from the account of Solomon. Taking the reforming kings in their order:—
Asa removed the
high places which were rivals of the Temple, xiv. 3, 5, contradicting xv. 8-14, peculiar to Chronicles. xv. 18, 19.
Similarly
Jehoshaphat took away the high places, xvii. 6 contradicts xvii. 7-9, peculiar to
Chronicles.
Joash repaired
the Temple xxiv. 1-14. xxi. 11, peculiar to Chronicles.
Amaziah was
careful to observe “the law in the book of
Moses” that “the children should not
die for the fathers,” xxv. 4.
Hezekiah had a
special opportunity of showing his devotion to the Temple and the
Law. The Temple had been polluted and closed by Ahaz, and its
services discontinued. Hezekiah purified the Temple, reinstated the
priests and Levites, and renewed the services; he made arrangements
for the payment of the Temple revenues according to the provisions
of the Levitical law, and took away the high places. He also held a
reopening festival and a passover with numerous sacrifices.
Manasseh's
repentance is indicated by the restoration of the Temple
ritual. xxxiii. 16.
Josiah took away
the high places, repaired the Temple, made the people enter into a
covenant to observe the rediscovered Law, and, like Hezekiah, held
a great passover. xxxiv.; xxxv.
The reforming
kings, like David and Solomon, are specially interested in the
music of the Temple and in
Zeal for Jehovah
and His temple is still combined with uncompromising assertion of
the royal supremacy in matters of religion. The king, and not the
priest, is the highest spiritual authority in the nation. Solomon,
Hezekiah, and Josiah control the arrangements for public worship as
completely as Moses or David. Solomon receives Divine
communications without the intervention of either priest or
prophet; he himself offers the great dedication prayer, and when he
makes an end of praying, fire comes down from heaven. Under
Hezekiah the civil authorities decide when the passover shall be
observed: “For the king had taken counsel,
and his princes, and all the congregation in Jerusalem, to keep the
passover in the second month.” xxx. 2.
The title to the
crown rests throughout on the grace of God and the will of the
people. In Judah, however, the principle of hereditary succession
prevails throughout. Athaliah is not really an exception: she
reigned as the widow of a Davidic king. The double election
Ahaziah, Joash,
Uzziah, Josiah, Jehoahaz, were all set upon the throne by the
inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem. xxii. 1; xxiii. 1-15; xxvi. 1; xxxiii.
25; xxxvi. 1.
It is
interesting to note that the chronicler does not hesitate to record
that of the last three sovereigns of Judah two were appointed by
foreign kings: Jehoiakim was the nominee of Pharaoh Neco, king of
Egypt; and the last king of all, Zedekiah, was appointed by
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. In like manner, the Herods, the
last rulers of the restored kingdom of Judah, were the nominees of
the Roman emperors. Such nominations forcibly illustrate the
degradations and ruin of the theocratic monarchy. But yet,
according to the teaching of the prophets, Pharaoh and
Nebuchadnezzar were tools in the hand of Jehovah; and their
nomination was still an indirect Divine appointment. In the
chronicler's time, however, Judah was
Thus the reforming kings illustrate the ideal kingship set forth in the history of David and Solomon: the royal authority originates in, and is controlled by, the will of God and the consent of the people; the king's highest duty is the maintenance of the worship of Jehovah; but the king and people are supreme both in Church and state.
The personal character of the good kings is also very similar to that of David and Solomon. Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and Josiah are men of spiritual feeling as well as careful observers of correct ritual. None of the good kings, with the exception of Joash and Josiah, are unsuccessful in war; and good reasons are given for the exceptions. They all display administrative ability by their buildings, the organisation of the Temple services and the army, and the arrangements for the collection of the revenue, especially the dues of the priests and Levites.
There is nothing, however, to indicate that the personal charm of David's character was inherited by his descendants; but when biography is made merely a means of edification, it often loses those touches of nature which make the whole world kin, and are capable of exciting either admiration or disgust.
The later
narrative affords another illustration of the absence of any
sentiment of humanity towards enemies. As in the case of David, the
chronicler records the cruelty of a good king as if it were quite
consistent with loyalty to Jehovah. Before he turned away from
following Jehovah, Amariah defeated the Edomites and xxv. 12.
But in one
respect the reforming kings are sharply distinguished from David
and Solomon. The record of their lives is by no means blameless,
and their sins are visited by condign chastisement. They all, with
the single exception of Jotham, come to a bad end. Asa consulted
physicians, and was punished by being allowed to die of a painful
disease. xvi. 12. xx. 37. xxiv. 20-27. xxv. 14-27. xxvi. 16-23. xxxii. 25-33. xxxv. 20-27.
The melancholy
record of the misfortunes of the good kings in their closing years
is also found in the book of Kings. There too Asa in his old age
was diseased in his feet, Jehoshaphat's ships were wrecked, Joash
and Amaziah were assassinated, Uzziah became a leper, Hezekiah was
rebuked for his pride, and Josiah slain at Megiddo. But, except in
the case of Hezekiah, the book of Kings says nothing about the sins
which, according to Chronicles, occasioned these sufferings and
catastrophes. The narrative in the book of Kings carries upon the
face of it the lesson that piety is not usually rewarded with
unbroken prosperity, and that a pious career does not necessarily
ensure a happy deathbed. The significance of the chronicler's
additions will be considered elsewhere;
By developing this contrast, the chronicler renders the position of David and Solomon even more unique, illustrious, and full of religious significance.
Thus as illustrations of ideal kingship the accounts of the good kings of Judah are altogether subordinate to the history of David and Solomon. While these kings of Judah remain loyal to Jehovah, they further illustrate the virtues of their great predecessors by showing how these virtues might have been exercised under different circumstances: how David would have dealt with an Ethiopian invasion and what Solomon would have done if he had found the Temple desecrated and its services stopped. But no essential feature is added to the earlier pictures.
The lapses of kings who began to walk in the law of the Lord and then fell away serve as foils to the undimmed glory of David and Solomon. Abrupt transitions within the limits of the individual lives of Asa, Joash, and Amaziah bring out the contrast between piety and apostacy with startling, dramatic effect.
We return from
this brief survey to consider the significance of the life of
Solomon according to Chronicles. Its relation to the life of David
is summed up in the name Solomon, the Prince of peace. David is the
ideal king, winning by force of arms for Israel empire and victory,
security at home and tribute from abroad. Utterly subdued by his
prowess, the natural enemies of Israel no longer venture to disturb
her tranquillity. His successor inherits wide dominion, immense
wealth, and assured peace. Solomon, the Prince of peace, is the
ideal king, administering a great inheritance for the glory of
Jehovah and His temple. His history in Chronicles is one of
unbroken calm. He has a great army and many strong fortresses, but
he never has occasion to use them. He implores Jehovah to be
merciful to Israel when they suffer from
“No war
or battle's sound
Was heard the world
around:
The idle spear and shield were
high uphung;
The hookèd chariot stood
Unstained with hostile
blood;
The trumpet spake not to the armèd
throng.” Milton, Hymn to the Nativity.
Perhaps, to use a paradox, the greatest proof of Solomon's wisdom was that he asked for wisdom. He realised at the outset of his career that a wide dominion is more easily won than governed, that to use great wealth honourably requires more skill and character than are needed to amass it. To-day the world can boast half a dozen empires surpassing not merely Israel, but even Rome, in extent of dominion; the aggregate wealth of the world is far beyond the wildest dreams of the chronicler: but still the people perish for lack of knowledge. The physical and moral foulness of modern cities taints all the culture and tarnishes all the splendour of our civilisation; classes and trades, employers and employed, maim and crush one another in blind struggles to work out a selfish salvation; newly devised organisations move their unwieldy masses—
“...
like dragons of the prime
That tare each other.” Tennyson, In Memoriam.
They have a giant's strength, and use it like a giant. Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers; and the world waits for the reign of the Prince of peace who is not only the wise king, but the incarnate wisdom of God.
Thus one
striking suggestion of the chronicler's
Too much stress, however, must not be laid on the twofold personality of the ideal king. This feature is adopted from the history, and does not express any opinion of the chronicler that the characteristic gifts of David and Solomon could not be combined in a single individual. Many great generals have also been successful administrators. Before Julius Cæsar was assassinated he had already shown his capacity to restore order and tranquillity to the Roman world; Alexander's plans for the civil government of his conquests were as far-reaching as his warlike ambition; Diocletian reorganised the empire which his sword had re-established; Cromwell's schemes of reform showed an almost prophetic insight into the future needs of the English people; the glory of Napoleon's victories is a doubtful legacy to France compared with the solid benefits of his internal reforms.
But even these instances, which illustrate the union of military genius and administrative ability, remind us that the assignment of success in war to one king and a reign of peace to the next is, after all, typical. The limits of human life narrow its possibilities. Cæsar's work had to be completed by Augustus; the great schemes of Alexander and Cromwell fell to the ground because no one arose to play Solomon to their David.
The chronicler
has specially emphasised the indebtedness of Solomon to David.
According to his narrative, the great achievement of Solomon's
reign, the building of the Temple, has been rendered possible by
David's preparations. Quite apart from plans and
By compelling our attention to the dependence of the Prince of Peace upon the man who “had shed much blood,” the chronicler admonishes us against forgetting the price that has been paid for liberty and culture. The splendid courtiers whose “apparel” specially pleased the feminine tastes of the queen of Sheba might feel all the contempt of the superior person for David's war-worn veterans. The latter probably were more at home in the “store cities” than at Jerusalem. But without the blood and toil of these rough soldiers Solomon would have had no opportunity to exchange riddles with his fair visitor and to dazzle her admiring eyes with the glories of his temple and palaces.
The blessings of
peace are not likely to be preserved unless men still appreciate
and cherish the stern virtues that flourish in troubled times. If
our own times become troubled, and their serenity be invaded by
fierce conflict, it will be ours to remember that the rugged life
of “the hold in the wilderness” and
the struggles with the Philistines may enable a later generation to
build its temple to the Lord and to learn the answers to
“hard questions.”
“... sudden in a minute All is accomplished, and the work is done,”
we are very Esaus, eager to sell the birthright of the future for a mess of pottage to-day.
And the
continuity of the Divine purpose is only realised through the
continuity of human effort. We must indeed serve our own
generation; but part of that service consists in providing that the
next generation shall be trained to carry on the work, and that
after David shall come Solomon—the Solomon of Chronicles, and not
the Solomon of Kings—and that, if possible, Solomon shall not be
succeeded by Rehoboam. As we attain this larger outlook, we shall
be less tempted to employ doubtful means, which are supposed to be
justified by their end; we shall be less enthusiastic for processes
that bring “quick returns,” but give
very “small profits” in the long
run. Christian workers are a little too fond of spiritual
jerry-building, as if sites in the kingdom of heaven were let out
on
To complete the chronicler's picture of the ideal king, we have to add David's warlike prowess and Solomon's wisdom and splendour to the piety and graces common to both. The result is unique among the many pictures that have been drawn by historians, philosophers, and poets. It has a value of its own, because the chronicler's gifts in the way of history, philosophy, and poetry were entirely subordinated to his interest in theology; and most theologians have only been interested in the doctrine of the king when they could use it to gratify the vanity of a royal patron.
The full-length
portrait in Chronicles contrasts curiously with the little vignette
preserved in the book which bears the name of Solomon. There, in
the oracle which King Lemuel's mother taught him, the king is
simply admonished to avoid strange women and strong drink, to
“judge righteously, and minister judgment
to the poor and needy.”
To pass to more modern theology, the theory of the king that is implied in Chronicles has much in common with Wyclif's doctrine of dominion: they both recognise the sanctity of the royal power and its temporal supremacy, and they both hold that obedience to God is the condition of the continued exercise of legitimate rule. But the priest of Lutterworth was less ecclesiastical and more democratic than our Levite.
A more orthodox
authority on the Protestant doctrine of the king would be the
Thirty-nine Articles. These, however, deal with the subject
somewhat slightly. As Articles XXI. and XXXVII.
Outside theology the ideal of the king has been stated with greater fulness and freedom, but not many of the pictures drawn have much in common with the chronicler's David and Solomon. Machiavelli's prince and Bolingbroke's patriot king belong to a different world; moreover, their method is philosophical, and not historical: they state a theory rather than draw a picture. Tennyson's Arthur is, what he himself calls him, an “ideal knight” rather than an ideal king. Perhaps the best parallels to David are to be found in the Cyrus of the Greek historians and philosophers and the Alfred of English story. Alfred indeed combines many of the features both of David and Solomon: he secured English unity, and was the founder of English culture and literature; he had a keen interest in ecclesiastical affairs, great gifts of administration, and much personal attractiveness. Cyrus, again, specially illustrates what we may call the posthumous fortunes of David: his name stood for the ideal of kingship with both Greeks and Persians, and in the Cyropædia his life and character are made the basis of a picture of the ideal king.
Many points are
of course common to almost all
But to-day the doctrine of the state takes the place of the doctrine of the king. Instead of Cyropædias we have Utopias. We are asked sometimes to look back, not to an ideal king, but to an ideal commonwealth, to the age of the Antonines or to some happy century of English history when we are told that the human race or the English people were “most happy and prosperous”; oftener we are invited to contemplate an imaginary future. We may add to those already made one or two further applications of the chronicler's principles to the modern state. His method suggests that the perfect society will have the virtues of our actual life without its vices, and that the possibilities of the future are best divined from a careful study of the past. The devotion of his kings to the Temple symbolises the truth that the ideal state is impossible without recognition of a Divine presence and obedience to a Divine will.
The type of the wicked king is not worked out with any fulness in Chronicles. There are wicked kings, but no one is raised to the “bad eminence” of an evil counterpart to David; there is no anti-David, so to speak, no prototype of antichrist. The story of Ahaz, for instance, is not given at the same length and with the same wealth of detail as that of David. The subject was not so congenial to the kindly heart of the chronicler. He was not imbued with the unhappy spirit of modern realism, which loves to dwell on all that is foul and ghastly in life and character; he lingered affectionately over his heroes, and contented himself with brief notices of his villains. In so doing he was largely following his main authority: the books of Samuel and Kings. There too the stories of David and Solomon, of Elijah and Elisha, are told much more fully than those of Jeroboam and Ahab.
But the mention
of these names reminds us that the chronicler's limitation of his
subject to the history of Judah excludes much of the material that
might have been drawn from the earlier history for a picture of the
wicked king. If it had been part of the chronicler's plan to tell
the story of Ahab, he might
Hence the wicked
kings in Chronicles are of the house of David. Therefore the
chronicler has a certain tenderness for them, partly for the sake
of their great ancestor, partly because they are kings of Judah,
partly because of the sanctity and religious significance of the
Messianic dynasty. These kings are not Esaus, for whom there is no
place of repentance. The chronicler is happy in being able to
discover and record the conversion, as we should term it, of some
kings whose reigns began in rebellion and apostacy. By a curious
compensation, the kings who begin well end badly, and those who
begin badly end well; they all tend to about the same average. We
read of Rehoboam
There remain seven wicked kings of whom nothing but evil is recorded: Jehoram, Ahaziah, Ahaz, Amon, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah. Of these we may take Ahaz as the most typical instance. As in the cases of David and Solomon, we will first see how the chronicler has dealt with the material derived from the book of Kings; then we will give his account of the career of Ahaz; and finally, by a brief comparison of what is told of Ahaz with the history of the other wicked kings, we will try to construct the chronicler's idea of the wicked king and to deduce its lessons.
The importance
of the additions made by the chronicler to the history in the book
of Kings will appear later on. In his account of the attack made
upon Ahaz by Rezin, king of Damascus, and Pekah, king of Israel, he
emphasises the incidents most discreditable to Ahaz. The book of
Kings simply states that the two allies “came up to Jerusalem to war; and they besieged Ahaz,
but could not overcome him”
The book of
Kings also contains an interesting account of alterations made by
Ahaz in the Temple and its furniture. By his orders the high-priest
Urijah made a new brazen altar for the Temple after the pattern of
an altar that Ahaz had seen in Damascus. As Chronicles narrates the
closing of the Temple by Ahaz, it naturally omits these previous
alterations. Moreover, Urijah appears in the book of Isaiah as a
friend of the prophet, and is referred to by him as a “faithful witness.”
The chronicler's
story of Ahaz runs thus. This wicked king had been preceded by
three good kings: Amaziah, Uzziah, and Jotham. Amaziah indeed had
turned away from following Jehovah at the end of his reign, but
Uzziah had been zealous for Jehovah throughout, not wisely, but too
well; and Jotham shares with Solomon the honour of a blameless
record. Without counting Amaziah's reign, king and people had been
loyal to Jehovah for sixty or seventy years. The court of the good
kings would be the centre of piety and devotion. Ahaz, no doubt,
had been carefully trained in obedience to the law of Jehovah, and
had grown up in the atmosphere of true religion. Possibly he had
known his grandfather Uzziah in the days of his power and glory;
but at any rate, while Ahaz was
Ahaz was twenty years old when he came to the throne, so that he had time to profit by a complete education, and should scarcely have found opportunity to break away from its influence. His mother's name is not mentioned, so that we cannot say whether, as may have been the case with Rehoboam, some Ammonite woman led him astray from the God of his fathers. As far as we can learn from our author, Ahaz sinned against light and knowledge; with every opportunity and incentive to keep in the right path, he yet went astray.
This is a common
feature in the careers of the wicked kings. It has often been
remarked that the first great specialist on education failed
utterly in the application of his theories to his own son.
Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and Josiah were the most distinguished and
the most virtuous of the reforming kings, yet Jehoshaphat was
succeeded by Jehoram, who was almost as wicked as Ahaz; Hezekiah's
son “Manasseh made Judah and the
inhabitants of Jerusalem to err, so that they did evil more than
did the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the children of
Israel”;
Many reasons may
be suggested for this too familiar spectacle: the impious son of a
godly father, the bad successor of a good king. Heirs-apparent have
always been inclined to head an opposition to their fathers'
policy, and sometimes on their accession they have
Moreover, a young king of Judah was subject to the evil influence of his northern neighbour. Judah was often politically subservient to Samaria, and politics and religion have always been very intimately associated. At the accession of Ahaz the throne of Samaria was filled by Pekah, whose twenty years' tenure of authority indicates ability and strength of character. It is not difficult to understand how Ahaz was led “to walk in the ways of the kings of Israel” and “to make molten images for the Baals.”
Nothing is told
us of the actual circumstances of these innovations. The new reign
was probably inaugurated by the dismissal of Jotham's ministers and
the appointment of the personal favourites of the new king. The
restoration of old idolatrous cults would be a natural
advertisement of a new departure in the government. So when the
establishment of Christianity was a novelty in the empire, and men
were not assured of its permanence, Julian's accession was
accompanied by an apostacy to paganism; and later aspirants to the
purple promised to follow his example. But the worship of Jehovah
was not at once suppressed. He was not deposed from His throne as
the
But although the Temple services might still be performed, the king was mainly interested in introducing and observing a variety of heathen rites. The priesthood of the Temple saw their exclusive privileges disregarded and the rival sanctuaries of the high places and the sacred trees taken under royal patronage. But the king's apostacy was not confined to the milder forms of idolatry. His weak mind was irresistibly attracted by the morbid fascination of the cruel rites of Moloch: “He burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burnt his children in the fire, according to the abomination of the heathen, whom the Lord cast out before the children of Israel.”
The king's
devotions to his new gods were rudely interrupted. The insulted
majesty of Jehovah was vindicated by two disastrous invasions.
First, Ahaz was defeated by Rezin, king of Syria, who carried away
a great multitude of captives to Damascus; the next enemy was one
of those kings of Israel in whose idolatrous ways Ahaz had chosen
to walk. The delicate flattery implied by Ahaz becoming Pekah's
proselyte failed to conciliate that monarch. He too defeated the
Jews with great slaughter. Amongst his warriors was a certain
Zichri, whose achievements recalled the prowess of David's mighty
men: he slew Maaseiah the king's son and Azrikam, the ruler of the
house, the Lord High Chamberlain, and Elkanah, that was next unto
the king, the Prime Minister. With these notables, there perished
in a single day a hundred and twenty thousand Jews, all of them
valiant men. Their wives and children, to the number of two hundred
And yet Jehovah in wrath remembered mercy. The Israelite army approached Samaria with their endless train of miserable captives, women and children, ragged and barefoot, some even naked, filthy and footsore with forced marches, left hungry and thirsty after prisoners' scanty rations. Multiply a thousandfold the scenes depicted on Egyptian and Assyrian monuments, and you have the picture of this great slave caravan. The captives probably had no reason to fear the barbarities which the Assyrians loved to inflict upon their prisoners, but yet their prospects were sufficiently gloomy. Before them lay a life of drudgery and degradation in Samaria. The more wealthy might hope to be ransomed by their friends; others, again, might be sold to the Phœnician traders, to be carried by them to the great slave marts of Nineveh and Babylon or even oversea to Greece. But in a moment all was changed. “There was a prophet of Jehovah, whose name was Oded, and he went out to meet the army and said unto them, Behold, because Jehovah, the God of your fathers, was wroth with Judah, He hath delivered them into your hand; and ye have slain them in a rage which hath reached up unto heaven. And now ye purpose to keep the children of Judah and of Jerusalem for male and female slaves; but are there not even with you trespasses of your own against Jehovah your God? Now hear me therefore, and send back the captives, for the fierce wrath of Jehovah is upon you.”
Meanwhile
“the princes and all the congregation of
Samaria” were waiting to welcome their victorious
Apart from incidental allusions, this is the last reference in Chronicles to the northern kingdom. The long history of division and hostility closes with this humane recognition of the brotherhood of Israel and Judah. The sun, so to speak, did not go down upon their wrath. But the king of Israel had no personal share in this gracious act. At the first it was Jeroboam that made Israel to sin; throughout the history the responsibility for the continued division would specially rest upon the kings, and at the last there is no sign of Pekah's repentance and no prospect of his pardon.
The various
incidents of the invasions of Rezin and Pekah were alike a solemn
warning and an impressive appeal to the apostate king of Judah. He
had multiplied to himself gods of the nations round about, and yet
had been left without an ally, at the mercy of a hostile
confederation, against whom his new gods either could not or would
not defend him. The wrath of Jehovah had brought upon Ahaz one
crushing defeat after another, and yet the only mitigation of the
sufferings of Judah had also been the work of Jehovah. The
returning captives would tell Ahaz and his princes how in
schismatic and idolatrous Samaria a prophet of Jehovah had stood
forth to secure their release and obtain for them permission to
return home. The princes and people of Samaria had hearkened to his
message, and the two hundred thousand captives stood there as the
monument of Jehovah's compassion and of the obedient piety of
Israel. Sin was bound to bring punishment; and yet Jehovah waited
to be gracious. Wherever there was room for mercy, He would show
mercy. His wrath and His compassion had alike been displayed before
Ahaz. Other gods could not protect their worshippers against Him;
He only could deliver and restore His
Such Divine goodness was thrown away upon Ahaz; there was no token of repentance, no promise of amendment; and so Jehovah sent further judgments upon the king and his unhappy people. The Edomites came and smote Judah, and carried away captives; the Philistines also invaded the cities of the lowland and of the south of Judah, and took Beth-shemesh, Aijalon, Gederoth, Soco, Timnah, Gimzo, and their dependent villages, and dwelt in them; and Jehovah brought Judah low because of Ahaz. And the king hardened his heart yet more against Jehovah, and cast away all restraint, and trespassed sore against Jehovah. Instead of submitting himself, he sought the aid of the kings of Assyria, only to receive another proof of the vanity of all earthly help so long as he remained unreconciled to Heaven. Tilgath-pilneser, king of Assyria, welcomed this opportunity of interfering in the affairs of Western Asia, and saw attractive prospects of levying blackmail impartially on his ally and his enemies. He came unto Ahaz, “and distressed him, but strengthened him not.” These new troubles were the occasion of fresh wickedness on the part of the king: to pay the price of this worse than useless intervention, he took away a portion not only from his own treasury and from the princes, but also from the treasury of the Temple, and gave it to the king of Assyria.
Thus betrayed
and plundered by his new ally, he trespassed “yet more against Jehovah, this same king Ahaz.”
It is almost incredible that one man could be
Hitherto Jehovah
had still received some share of the worship of this most religious
king, but apparently Ahaz came to regard Him as the least powerful
of his many supernatural allies. He attributed his misfortunes, not
to the anger, but to the helplessness, of Jehovah. Jehovah was
specially the God of Israel; if disaster after disaster fell upon
His people, He was evidently less potent than Baal, or Moloch, or
Rimmon. It was a useless expense to maintain the worship of so
impotent a deity. Perhaps the apostate king was acting in the
blasphemous spirit of the savage who flogs his idol when his
prayers are not answered. Jehovah, he thought, should be punished
for His neglect of the interests
And thus it came
to pass that in the Holy City, “which
Jehovah had chosen to cause His name to dwell there,” almost
the only deity who was not worshipped was Jehovah. Ahaz did homage
to the gods of all the nations before whom he had been humiliated;
the royal sacrifices smoked upon a hundred altars, but no sweet
savour of burnt offering ascended to Jehovah. The fragrance of the
perpetual incense no longer filled the holy place morning and
evening; the seven lamps of the golden candlestick were put out,
and the Temple was given up to darkness and desolation. Ahaz had
contented himself with stripping the sanctuary of its treasures;
but the building itself, though closed, suffered no serious injury.
A stranger visiting the city, and finding it full of idols, could
not fail to notice the great pile of the Temple and to inquire what
image, splendid above all others, occupied that magnificent shrine.
Like Pompey, he would learn with surprise that it was not the
dwelling-place of any image, but the symbol of an almighty and
invisible presence. Even if the stranger were some Moabite
worshipper of Chemosh, he would feel dismay at the wanton profanity
with which Ahaz had abjured the God of his fathers and desecrated
the temple built by his great ancestors. The annals of Egypt and
Babylon told of the misfortunes which had befallen those monarchs
who were unfaithful to their national gods. The pious heathen
Meanwhile the
ministers of the Temple shared its ruin and degradation; but they
could feel the assurance that Jehovah would yet recall His people
to their allegiance and manifest Himself once more in the Temple.
The house of Aaron and the tribe of Levi possessed their souls in
patience till the final judgment of Jehovah should fall upon the
apostate. They had not long to wait: after a reign of only sixteen
years, Ahaz died at the early age of thirty-six. We are not told
that he died in battle or by the visitation of God. His health may
have been broken by his many misfortunes, or by vicious practices
that would naturally accompany his manifold idolatries; but in any
case his early death would be regarded as a Divine judgment. The
breath was scarcely out of his body before his religious
innovations were swept away by a violent reaction. The people at
once passed sentence of condemnation on his memory: “They brought him not into the sepulchres of the kings
of Israel.” xxviii. 27, peculiar to
Chronicles.
The leading
features of this career are common to most of the wicked kings and
to the evil days of the good kings “Walking
in the ways of the kings of Israel” was the great crime of
Jehoshaphat and his successors Jehoram and Ahaziah. Other kings,
like
Thus the supreme sin of the wicked kings naturally contrasts with the highest virtue of the good kings. The standing of both is determined by their attitude towards Jehovah. The character of the good kings is developed in greater detail than that of their wicked brethren; but we should not misrepresent the chronicler's views, if we ascribed to the wicked kings all the vices antithetic to the virtues of his royal ideal. Nevertheless the picture actually drawn fixes our attention upon their impious denial of the God of Israel. Much Church history has been written on the same principle: Constantine is a saint because he established Christianity; Julian is an incarnation of wickedness because he became an apostate; we praise the orthodox Theodosius, and blame the Arian Valens. Protestant historians have canonised Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, and have prefixed an unholy epithet to the name of their kinswoman, while Romanist writers interchange these verdicts. But underlying even such opposite judgments there is the same valid principle, the principle that was in the mind of the chronicler: that the king's relation to the highest and purest truth accessible to him, whatever that truth may be, is a just criterion of his whole character. The historian may err in applying the criterion, but its general principle is none the less sound.
For the
character of the wicked nation we are not left to the general
suggestions that may be derived from the wicked king. The prophets
show us that it was by no vicarious condemnation that priests and
people shared the ruin of their sovereign. In their
Any detailed treatment of this theme in Scripture would need an exposition, not merely of Chronicles, but of the whole Bible. We may, however, make one general application of the chronicler's principle that the wicked nation is the nation that forgets God. We do not now measure a people's religion by the number and magnificence of its priests and churches, or by the amount of money devoted to the maintenance of public worship. The most fatal symptoms of national depravity are the absence of a healthy public opinion, indifference to character in politics, neglect of education as a means of developing character, and the stifling of the spirit of brotherhood in a desperate struggle for existence. When God is thus forgotten, and the gracious influences of His Spirit are no longer recognised in public and private life, a country may well be degraded into the ranks of the wicked nations.
The perfectly general terms in which the doings and experiences of Ahaz are described facilitate the application of their warnings to the ordinary individual. His royal station only appears in the form and scale of his wickedness, which in its essence is common to him with the humblest sinner. Every young man enters, like Ahaz, upon a royal inheritance; character and career are as all-important to a peasant or a shopgirl as they are to an emperor or a queen. When a girl of seventeen or a youth of twenty succeeds to some historic throne, we are moved to think of the heavy burden of responsibility laid upon inexperienced shoulders and of the grave issues that must be determined during the swiftly passing years of their early manhood and womanhood. Alas, this heavy burden and these grave issues are but the common lot. The young sovereign is happy in the fierce light that beats upon his throne, for he is not allowed to forget the dignity and importance of life. History, with its stories of good and wicked kings, has obviously been written for his instruction; if the time be out of joint, as it mostly is, he has been born to set it right. It is all true, yet it is equally true for every one of his subjects. His lot is only the common lot set upon a hill, in the full sunlight, to illustrate, interpret, and influence lower and obscurer lives. People take such eager interest in the doings of royal families, their christenings, weddings, and funerals, because therein the common experience is, as it were, glorified into adequate dignity and importance.
“Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and
he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem”; but most men and
women begin to reign before they are twenty. The history of Judah
for those sixteen years was really determined long before Ahaz was
invested with crown
We have kept our
sovereign waiting too long on the threshold of his kingdom; his
courtiers and his people are impatient to know the character and
intentions of their new master. So with every heir who succeeds to
his royal inheritance. The fortunes of millions may depend upon the
will of some young Czar or Kaiser; the happiness of a hundred
tenants or of a thousand workmen may rest on the disposition of the
youthful inheritor of a wide estate or a huge factory; but none the
less in the poorest cottage mother and father and friends wait with
trembling anxiety to see how the boy or girl will “turn out” when they take their destinies into
their own hands and begin to reign. Already perhaps some tender
maiden watches in hope and fear, in mingled pride and misgiving,
the rapidly unfolding
And to each one in turn there comes the choice of Hercules; according to the chronicler's phrase, the young king may either “do right in the eyes of Jehovah, like David his father,” or he may walk “in the ways of the kings of Israel, and make molten images for the Baals.”
The “right doings of David his father” may point to family traditions, which set a high standard of noble conduct for each succeeding generation. The teaching and influence of the pious Jotham are represented by the example of godliness set in many a Christian home, by the wise and loving counsel of parents and friends. And Ahaz has many modern parallels, sons and daughters upon whom every good influence seems spent in vain. They are led astray into the ways of the kings of Israel, and make molten images for the Baals. There were several dynasties of the kings of Israel, and the Baals were many and various; there are many tempters who deliberately or unconsciously lay snares for souls, and they serve different powers of evil. Israel was for the most part more powerful, wealthy, and cultured than Judah. When Ahaz came to the throne as a mere youth, Pekah was apparently in the prime of life and the zenith of power. He is no inapt symbol of what the modern tempter at any rate desires to appear: the showy, pretentious man of the world, who parades his knowledge of life, and impresses the inexperienced youth with his shrewdness and success, and makes his victim eager to imitate him, to walk in the ways of the kings of Israel.
Moreover, the
prospect of making molten images for the Baals is an insidious
temptation. Ahaz perhaps
The next step in
the history of Ahaz is also typical of many a rake's progress. The
king of Israel, in whose ways he has walked, turns upon him and
plunders him; the experienced man of the world gives his pupil
painful proof of his superiority, and calls in his confederates to
share the spoil. Now surely the victim's eyes will be opened to the
life he is leading and the character of his associates. By no
means. Ahaz has been conquered by Syria, and therefore
All this while
he has still paid some external homage to religion; he has observed
the conventions of honour and good breeding. There have been
services, as it were, in the temple of Jehovah. Now he begins to
feel that this deference has not met with an adequate reward; he
has been no better treated than the flagrantly disreputable:
indeed, these men have often got the better of him. “It is vain to serve God; what profit is there in
keeping His charge and in walking mournfully before the Lord of
hosts? The proud are called happy; they that work wickedness are
built up: they tempt God, and are delivered.” His moods
vary; and, with reckless inconsistency, he sometimes derides
religion as worthless and unmeaning, and sometimes seeks to make
God responsible for his sins and misfortunes. At one time he says
he knows all about religion and has seen through it; he was brought
up to pious ways, and his mature judgment has shown
At last, in what should be the prime of manhood, the sinner, broken-hearted, worn out in mind and body, sinks into a dishonoured grave.
The career and fate of Ahaz may have other parallels besides this, but it is sufficiently clear that the chronicler's picture of the wicked king is no mere antiquarian study of a vanished past. It lends itself with startling facility to illustrate the fatal downward course of any man who, entering on the royal inheritance of human life, allies himself with the powers of darkness and finally becomes their slave.
The Israelite
priesthood must be held to include the Levites. Their functions and
status differed from those of the house of Aaron in degree, and not
in kind. They formed a hereditary caste set apart for the service
of the sanctuary, and as such they shared the revenues of the
Temple with the sons of Aaron. The priestly character of the
Levites is more than once implied in Chronicles. After the
disruption, we are told that “the priests
and the Levites that were in all Israel resorted to
Rehoboam,” because “Jeroboam and his
sons cast them off, that they should not exercise the priest's
office unto Jehovah.” On an emergency, as at Hezekiah's
great feast at the reopening of the Temple, the Levites might even
discharge priestly functions. Moreover, the chronicler seems to
recognise the priestly character of the whole tribe of Levi by
retaining in a similar connection the old phrase “the priests the Levites.”
The relation of
the Levites to the priests, the sons of Aaron, was not that of
laymen to clergy, but of an inferior clerical order to their
superiors. When I.e., in the view given us by
the chronicler of the period of the monarchy, after the Return the
priests were far more numerous than the Levites.
Before
considering the central and essential idea of the priest as a
minister of public worship, we will notice some of his minor
duties. We have seen that the sanctity of civil government is
emphasised by the religious supremacy of the king; the same truth
is also illustrated by the fact that the priests and Levites were
sometimes the king's officers for civil affairs. Under David,
certain Levites of Hebron are spoken of as having the oversight of
all Israel, both east and
The chronicler
refers more than once to the educational work of the priests, and
especially of the Levites. The English version probably gives his
real meaning when it attributes to him the phrase “teaching priest.”
The next
characteristic of the priesthood is not so much in accordance with
Christian theory and practice. The house of Aaron and the tribe of
Levi were a Church militant in a very literal sense. In the
beginning of their history the tribe of Levi earned the blessing of
Jehovah by the pious zeal with which they flew to arms in His cause
and executed His judgment upon their guilty
fellow-countrymen.
“And so
the plague was stayed,
And that was counted unto him
for righteousness
Unto all generations for
evermore.”
But the militant
character of the priesthood was not confined to its early history.
Amongst those who “came armed for war to
David to Hebron to turn the kingdom of Saul to him, according to
the word of Jehovah,” were four thousand six hundred of the
children of Levi and three thousand seven hundred of the house of
Aaron, “and Zadok, a young man mighty of
valour, and twenty-two captains of his father's
house.”
David's
Hebronite overseers were all “mighty men of
valour.” When Judah went out to war, the trumpets
Christianity has aroused a new sentiment with regard to war. We believe that the servant of the Lord must not strive in earthly battles. Arms may be lawful for the Christian citizen, but it is felt to be unseemly that the ministers who are the ambassadors of the Prince of Peace should themselves be men of blood. Even in the Middle Ages fighting prelates like Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, were felt to be exceptional anomalies; and the prince-bishops and electoral archbishops were often ecclesiastics only in name. To-day the Catholic Church in France resents the conscription of its seminarists as an act of vindictive persecution.
And yet the
growth of Christian sentiment in favour
The
characteristic function, however, of the Jewish priesthood was
their ministry in public worship, in which they represented the
people before Jehovah. In this connection public worship does not
necessarily imply that the public were present, or that the worship
in question was the united act of a great assembly. Such
worshipping assemblies were not uncommon, especially at the feasts;
but ordinary public worship was worship on behalf of the people,
not by the people. The priests and Levites were part of an
elaborate system of symbolic ritual. Worshippers might gather in
the Temple courts, but the Temple itself was not a place in which
public meetings for worship were held, and the people were not
admitted into it. The Temple was Jehovah's house, and His presence
there was symbolised by the Ark. In this system of ritual the
priests and Levites represented Israel; their sacrifices and
ministrations were the acceptable offerings of the nation to God.
If the sacrifices were duly offered by
When an assembly
gathered for public worship at a feast or any other time, the
priests and Levites expressed the devotion of the people. They
performed the sacrificial rites, they blew the trumpets and played
upon the psalteries, and harps, and cymbals, and sang the praises
of Jehovah. The people were dismissed by the priestly blessing.
When an individual offered a sacrifice as an act of private
worship, the assistance of the priests and Levites was still
necessary. At the same time the king as well as the priesthood
might lead the people in praise and prayer, and the Temple psalmody
was not confined to the Levitical choir. When the Ark was brought
away from Kirjath-jearim, “David and all
Israel played before God with all their might, even with songs, and
with harps, and with psalteries, and with timbrels, and with
cymbals, and with trumpets”; and when at last the Ark had
been safely housed in Jerusalem, and the due sacrifices had all
been offered, David dismissed the people in priestly fashion by
blessing them in the name of Jehovah.
The priesthood,
like the Ark, the Temple, and the ritual, belonged essentially to
the system of religious symbolism. This was their peculiar domain,
into which no outsider might intrude. Only the Levites could touch
the Ark. When the unhappy Uzzah “put forth
his hand to the Ark,” “the anger of
Jehovah was kindled against him; and he smote Uzzah so that he
Thus the symbolic and representative character of the priesthood and ritual gave the sacrifices and other ceremonies a value in themselves, apart alike from the presence of worshippers and the feelings or “intention” of the officiating minister. They were the provision made by Israel for the expression of its prayer, its penitence and thanksgiving. When sin had estranged Jehovah from His people, the sons of Aaron made atonement for Israel; they performed the Divinely appointed ritual by which the nation made submission to its offended King and cast itself upon His mercy. The Jewish sacrifices had features which have survived in the sacrifice of the Mass, and the multiplication of sacrifices arose from motives similar to those that lead to the offering up of many masses.
One would
expect, as has happened in the Christian Church, that the
ministrants of the symbolic ritual would annex the other acts of
public worship, not only praise, but also prayer and exhortation.
Considerations of convenience would suggest such an amalgamation of
functions; and among the priests, while the more ambitious would
see in preaching a means of extending their authority, the more
earnest would be anxious to use their unique position to promote
the spiritual life of the people. Chronicles, however, affords few
traces of any such tendency; and the great scene in the book of
Nehemiah in which Ezra and the
The
representative character of the priesthood has another aspect.
Strictly the priest represented the nation before Jehovah; but in
doing so it was inevitable that he should also in some measure
represent Jehovah to the nation. He could not be the channel of
worship offered to God without being also the channel of Divine
grace to man. From the priest the worshipper learnt the will of God
as to correct ritual, and received the assurance that the atoning
sacrifice was duly accepted. The high-priest entered within the
veil to make atonement for Israel; he came forth as the bearer of
Divine forgiveness and renewed grace, and as he blessed the people
he spoke in the name of Jehovah. We have been able to discern the
presence of these ideas in Chronicles, but they are not very
conspicuous. The chronicler was not a layman; he was too familiar
with priests to feel any profound reverence for them. On the other
hand, he was not himself a priest, but was specially preoccupied
with the musicians, the Levites, and the doorkeepers; so that
probably he does not give us an adequate idea of the relative
dignity of the priests and the honour in which they were held by
the
The chronicler
deals more fully with a matter in which priests and Levites were
alike interested: the revenues of the Temple. He was doubtless
aware of the bountiful provision made by the Law for his order, and
loved to hold up this liberality of kings, princes, and people in
ancient days for his contemporaries to admire and imitate. He
records again and again the tens of thousands of sheep and oxen
provided for sacrifice, not altogether unmindful of the rich dues
that must have accrued to the priests out of all this abundance; he
tells us how Hezekiah first set the good example of appointing
“a portion of his substance for the burnt
offerings,” and then “commanded the
people that dwelt at Jerusalem to give the portion of the priests
and the Levites that they might give themselves to the law of the
Lord. And as soon as the commandment came abroad the children of
Israel gave in abundance the first-fruits of corn, wine, and oil,
and honey, and of all the increase of the field; and the tithe of
all things brought they in abundantly.”
Let us now restore the complete picture of the chronicler's priest from his scattered references to the subject. The priest represents the nation before Jehovah, and in a less degree represents Jehovah to the nation; he leads their public worship, especially at the great festal gatherings; he teaches the people the Law. The high character, culture, and ability of the priests and Levites occasions their employment as judges and in other responsible civil offices. If occasion required, they could show themselves mighty men of valour in their country's wars. Under pious kings, they enjoyed ample revenues which gave them independence, added to their importance in the eyes of the people, and left them at leisure to devote themselves exclusively to their sacred duties.
In considering
the significance of this picture, we can pass over without special
notice the exercise by priests and Levites of the functions of
leadership in public worship, teaching, and civil government. They
are not essential to the priesthood, but are entirely consistent
with the tenure of the priestly office, and naturally become
associated with it. Warlike prowess was certainly no part of the
priesthood; but, whatever may be true of Christian ministers, it is
difficult to charge the priests of the Lord of hosts with
inconsistency because, like Jehovah Himself, they were men of
war
With regard to the representative character of the priests, it would be out of place here to enter upon the burning questions of sacerdotalism; but we may briefly point out the permanent truth underlying the ancient idea of the priesthood. The ideal spiritual life in every Church is one of direct fellowship between God and the believer.
“Speak to Him, thou, for He hears, and spirit with spirit can meet; Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.”
And yet a man
may be truly religious and not realise this ideal, or only realise
it very imperfectly. The gift of an intense and real spiritual life
may belong to the humblest and poorest, to men of little intellect
and less learning; but, none the less, it is not within the
immediate reach of every believer, or indeed of any believer at
every time. The descendants of Mr. Little-faith and Mr.
Ready-to-halt are amongst us still, and there is no immediate
prospect of their race becoming extinct. Times come when we are all
glad to put ourselves under the safe conduct of Mr. Great-heart.
There are many whose prayers seem to themselves too feebly winged
to rise to the throne of grace; they are encouraged and helped when
their petitions are borne upwards on the strong pinions of
another's faith. George Eliot has pictured the Florentines as awed
spectators of Savonarola's audiences with Heaven. To a congregation
sometimes the minister's prayers are a sacred and solemn spectacle;
his spiritual feeling is beyond them; he intercedes for blessings
they neither desire nor understand; they miss the heavenly vision
which stirs his soul. He is not their spokesman, but
The ancient priest held a representative position in a symbolic ritual, a position partly independent of his character and spiritual powers. Where symbolic ritual is best suited for popular needs, there may be room for a similar priesthood to-day. Otherwise the Christian priesthood is required to represent the people not in symbol, but in reality, to carry not the blood of dead victims into a material Holy of holies, but living souls into the heavenly temple.
There remains
one feature of the Jewish priestly system upon which the chronicler
lays great stress: the endowments and priestly dues. In the case of
the high-priest and the Levites, whose whole time was devoted to
sacred duties, it was obviously necessary that those who served the
altar should live by the altar. The same principle would apply, but
with much less force, to the twenty-four courses of priests, each
The application
of these principles leads directly to the question of a paid
ministry; but the connection is not so close as it appears at first
sight, nor are we yet in possession of all the data which the
chronicler furnishes for its discussion. Priestly duties form an
essential, but not predominant, part of the work of most Christian
ministers. Still the loyal believer must always be anxious that the
buildings, the services, and the men which, for himself and for the
world, represent his devotion to Christ, should be worthy of their
high calling. But his ideas of the symbolism suitable for spiritual
realities are not altogether those of the chronicler: he is less
concerned with number, size, and weight, with tens of thousands of
sheep and oxen, vast quantities of stone and timber, brass and
iron, and innumerable talents of gold and silver. Moreover, in this
special connection the secondary priestly function of representing
God to man has been expressly transferred by Christ to the least of
His brethren. Those who wish to honour God with their substance in
the person of His earthly representatives are enjoined
This is only one among many illustrations of the truth that in Christ the symbolism of religion took a new departure. His Church enjoys the spiritual realities prefigured by the Jewish temple and its ministry. Even where Christian symbols are parallel to those of Judaism, they are less conventional and richer in their direct spiritual suggestiveness.
One remarkable feature of Chronicles as compared with the book of Kings is the greater interest shown by the former in the prophets of Judah. The chronicler, by confining his attention to the southern kingdom, was compelled to omit almost all reference to Elijah and Elisha, and thus exclude from his work some of the most thrilling chapters in the history of the prophets of Israel. Nevertheless the prophets as a whole play almost as important a part in Chronicles as in the book of Kings. Compensation is made for the omission of the two great northern prophets by inserting accounts of several prophets whose messages were addressed to the kings of Judah.
The chronicler's interest in the prophets was very different from the interest he took in the priests and Levites. The latter belonged to the institutions of his own time, and formed his own immediate circle. In dealing with their past, he was reconstructing the history of his own order; he was able to illustrate and supplement from observation and experience the information afforded by his sources.
But when the
chronicler wrote, prophets had ceased to be a living institution in
Judah. The light that had shone so brightly in Isaiah and Jeremiah
burned feebly in Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, and then went out.
“We see
not our signs;
There is no more any
prophet.”
When Judas
Maccabæus appointed certain priests to cleanse the Temple after its
pollution by the Syrians, they pulled down the altar of burnt
offerings because the heathen had defiled it, and laid up the
stones in the mountain of the Temple in a convenient place, until
there should come a prophet to show what should be done with
them.
Thus the
chronicler had never seen a prophet; his conception of the
personality and office of the prophet was entirely based upon
ancient literature, and he took no professional interest in the
order. At the same time he had no prejudice against them; they had
no living successors to compete for influence and endowments
Let us briefly
examine the part played by the prophets in the history of Judah as
given by Chronicles. We have first, as in the book of Kings, the
references to Nathan and Gad: they make known to David the will of
Jehovah as regards the building of the Temple and the punishment of
David's pride in taking the census of Israel. David unhesitatingly
accepts their messages as the word of Jehovah. It is important to
notice that when Nathan is consulted about building the Temple he
first answers, apparently giving a mere private opinion,
“Do all that is in thine heart, for God is
with thee”; but when “the word of
God comes” to him, he retracts his former judgment and
forbids David to build the Temple. Here again the plan of the
chronicler's work leads to an important omission: his silence as to
the murder of Uriah prevents him from giving the beautiful and
instructive account of the way in which Nathan rebuked the guilty
king. Later narratives exhibit other prophets in the act of
rebuking most of the kings of Judah, but none of these incidents
are equally striking and pathetic. At the end of the histories of
David and of most of the later kings we find notes which apparently
indicate that, in the chronicler's time, the prophets were credited
with having written the annals of the kings with whom they were
contemporary. In connection with Hezekiah's reformation we are
incidentally told that Nathan and Gad were associated with David in
making arrangements
In the account of Solomon's reign, the chronicler omits the interview of Ahijah the Shilonite with Jeroboam, but refers to it in the history of Rehoboam. From this point, in accordance with his general plan, he omits almost all missions of prophets to the northern kings.
In Rehoboam's
reign, we have recorded, as in the book of Kings, a message from
Jehovah by Shemaiah forbidding the king and his two tribes of Judah
and Benjamin to attempt to compel the northern tribes to return to
their allegiance to the house of David. Later on, when Shishak
invaded Judah, Shemaiah was commissioned to deliver to the king and
princes the message, “Thus saith Jehovah:
Ye have forsaken Me; therefore have I also left you in the hand of
Shishak.”
Asa's
reformation was due to the inspired exhortations of a prophet
called both Oded and Azariah the son of Oded. Later on Hanani the
seer rebuked the king for his alliance with Benhadad, king of
Syria. “Then Asa was wroth with the seer,
and put him in the prison-house; for he was in a rage with him
because of this thing.”
Jehoshaphat's
alliance with Ahab and his consequent visit to Samaria enabled the
chronicler to introduce from the book of Kings the striking
narrative of Micaiah the son of Imlah; but this alliance with
Israel earned for the king the rebukes of Jehu the son of Hanani
the seer and Eliezar the son of Dodavahu of Mareshah. However, on
the occasion of the Moabite and Ammonite invasion Jehoshaphat and
his people received the promise of Divine deliverance from
“Jahaziel the son of Zechariah, the son of
Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mattaniah the Levite, of the
sons of Asaph.”
The punishment
of the wicked king Jehoram was announced to him by a “writing from Elijah the prophet.” xxi. 12-15, peculiar to
Chronicles. xxiv. 18-22, peculiar to
Chronicles.
When Amaziah
bowed down before the gods of Edom and burned incense unto them,
Jehovah sent unto him a prophet whose name is not recorded. His
mission failed, like that of Zechariah the son of Jehoiada; and
Amaziah, like Joash, showed no respect for the person of the
messenger of Jehovah. In this case the prophet escaped with his
life. He began to deliver his message, but the king's patience soon
failed, and he said unto the prophet, “Have
we made thee of xiv. 15, 16, peculiar to
Chronicles.
We have now reached the period of the prophets whose writings are extant. We learn from the headings of their works that Isaiah saw his “vision,” and that the word of Jehovah came unto Hosea, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah; that the word of Jehovah came to Micah in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah; and that Amos “saw” his “words” in the days of Uzziah. But the chronicler makes no reference to any of these prophets in connection with either Uzziah, Jotham, or Ahaz. Their writings would have afforded the best possible materials for his history, yet he entirely neglected them. In view of his anxiety to introduce into his narrative all missions of prophets of which he found any record, we can only suppose that he was so little interested in the prophetical writings that he neither referred to them nor recollected their dates.
To Ahaz in
Chronicles, in spite of all his manifold and persistent idolatry,
no prophet was sent. The absence of Divine warning marks his
extraordinary wickedness. In the book of Samuel the culmination of
Jehovah's displeasure against Saul is shown by His refusal to
answer him either by dreams, by Urim, or by prophets. He sends no
prophet to Ahaz, because the wicked king of Judah is utterly
reprobate. Prophecy,
The chronicler's
history of the reign of Hezekiah further illustrates his
indifference to the prophets whose writings are extant. In the book
of Kings great prominence is given to Isaiah. In the account of
Sennacherib's invasion his messages to Hezekiah are given at
considerable length. xxxii. 20.
Indeed, at the
very point where prophecy began to exercise a controlling influence
over the religion of Judah the chronicler's interest in the subject
altogether flags. He tells us that Jehovah spake to Manasseh and to
his people, and refers to “the words of the
seers that spake to him in the name of Jehovah, the God of
Israel”; xxxiii. 10, 18.
The chroniclers
narrative of Josiah's reign adheres more closely to the book of
Kings. He reproduces the mission from the king to the prophetess
Huldah and her Divine message of present forbearance and future
judgment. The other prophet of this reign is the heathen king
Pharaoh Necho, through whose mouth the Divine warning is given to
Josiah. Jeremiah is only mentioned as lamenting over the last good
king. xxxv. 21, 22, 25, peculiar to
Chronicles.
Before
considering the general idea of the prophet that may be collected
from the various notices in Chronicles, we may devote a little
space to the chronicler's curious attitude towards our canonical
prophets. For the most part he simply follows the book of Kings in
making no reference to them; but his almost entire silence as to
Isaiah suggests that his imitation of his authority in other cases
is deliberate and intentional, especially as we find him inserting
one or two references to Jeremiah not taken from the book of Kings.
The chronicler had much more opportunity of using the canonical
prophets than the author or authors of the book of Kings. The
latter wrote before Hebrew literature had been collected and
edited; but the chronicler had access to all the literature of the
monarchy, Captivity, and even later times. His numerous extracts
from almost the entire range of the Historical
Let us now turn
to the picture of the prophets drawn for us by the chronicler. Both
prophet and priest are religious personages, otherwise they differ
widely in almost every particular; we cannot even speak of them as
both holding religious offices. The term “office” has to be almost unjustifiably strained
in order to apply it to the prophet, and to use it thus without
explanation would be misleading. The qualifications, status,
duties, and rewards of the priests are all fully prescribed by
rigid and elaborate rules; but the prophets were the children of
the Spirit: “The wind bloweth where it
listeth, and thou hearest the voice thereof, but knowest not whence
it cometh and whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the
The authority
and status of the prophets rested on no official or material
conditions, such as hedged in the priestly office on every side.
Accordingly their ancestry, previous history, and social standing
are matters with which the historian has no concern. If the prophet
happens also to be a priest or Levite, the chronicler, of course,
knows and records his genealogy. It was essential that the
genealogy of a priest should be known, but there are no genealogies
of the prophets; their order was like that of Melchizedek, standing
on the page of history “without father,
without mother, without genealogy”; they appear abruptly,
with no personal introduction, they deliver their message, and then
disappear with equal abruptness. Sometimes not even their names are
given. They had the one qualification compared with which birth and
sex, rank and reputation, were trivial and meaningless things. The
living word of Jehovah was on their lips; the power of His Spirit
controlled their hearers; messenger and message were alike their
own credentials. The supreme religious authority of the prophet
testified to the subordinate and accidental character of all rites
and symbols. On the other hand, the combination of
The gifts and functions of the prophets did not lend themselves to any regular discipline or organisation; but we can roughly distinguish between two classes of prophets. One class seem to have exercised their gifts more systematically and continuously than others. Gad and Nathan, Isaiah and Jeremiah, became practically the domestic chaplains and spiritual advisers of David, Hezekiah, and the last kings of Judah. Others are only mentioned as delivering a single message; their ministry seems to have been occasional, perhaps confined to a single period of their lives. The Divine Spirit was free to take the whole life or to take a part only; He was not to be conditioned even by gifts of His own bestowal.
Human
organisation naturally attempted to classify the possessors of the
prophetic gift, to set them apart as a regular order, perhaps even
to provide them with a suitable training, and, still more
impossible task, to select the proper recipients of the gift and to
produce and foster the prophetic inspiration. We read elsewhere of
“schools of the prophets” and
“sons of the prophets.” The
chronicler omits all reference to such institutions or societies;
he declines to assign them any place in the prophetic succession in
Israel. The gift of prophecy was absolutely dependent on the Divine
will, and could not be claimed as a necessary appurtenance
The chronicler, in fact, does not recognise the professional prophet. The fifty sons of the prophets that watched Elisha divide the waters in the name of the God of Elijah were no more prophets for him than the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of the Asherah that ate at Jezebel's table. The true prophet, like Amos, need not be either a prophet or the son of a prophet in the professional sense. Long before the chronicler's time the history and teaching of the great prophets had clearly established the distinction between the professional prophet, who was appointed by man or by himself, and the inspired messenger, who received a direct commission from Jehovah.
In describing
the prophet's sole qualification we have also stated his function.
He was the messenger of Jehovah, and declared His will. The priest
in his ministrations represented Israel before God, and in a
measure represented God to Israel. The rites and ceremonies over
which he presided symbolised the permanent and unchanging features
of man's religious experience and me eternal righteousness and
mercy of Him who is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. From
generation to generation men received the good gifts of God, and
brought the offerings of their gratitude; they sinned against God
and came to seek
The prophet, too, represented God to man; his words were the words of God; through him the Divine presence and the Divine Spirit exerted their influence over the hearts and consciences of his hearers. But while the priestly ministrations symbolised the fixity and permanence of God's eternal majesty, the prophets expressed the infinite variety of His Divine nature and its continual adaptation to all the changes of human life. They came to the individual and to the nation in each crisis of history with the Divine message that enabled them to suit themselves to altered circumstances, to grapple with new difficulties, and to solve new problems. The priest and the prophet together set forth the great paradox that the unchanging God is the source of all change.
“Lord God, by whom all change is wrought, By whom new things to birth are brought, In whom no change is known, To Thee we rise, in Thee we rest; We stay at home, we go in quest, Still Thou art our abode: The rapture swells, the wonder grows, As full on us new life still flows From our unchanging God.”
The prophetic
utterances recorded by the chronicler illustrate the work of the
prophets in delivering the message that met the present needs of
the people. There is nothing in Chronicles to encourage the
unspiritual notion that the main object of prophecy
Often, however,
the prophetic message gives the interpretation of history, the
Divine judgment upon conduct, with its sentence of punishment or
reward. Hanani the seer, for instance, comes to Asa to show him the
real value of his apparently satisfactory alliance with Benhadad,
king of Syria: “Because thou hast relied on
the king of Syria, and hast not relied on Jehovah thy God,
therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped out of thine
hand.... Herein thou hast done foolishly; for from henceforth thou
shalt have wars.” Jehoshaphat is told why his ships were
broken: “Because thou hast joined thyself
with
There are,
however, one or two elements in the chronicler's notices of the
prophets that scarcely harmonise with this general picture. The
scanty references of the books of Samuel and Kings to the
“schools” and sons of the prophets
have suggested the theory that the prophets were the guardians of
national education,
The striking
contrast we have been able to trace between the priests and the
prophets in their qualifications and duties extends also to their
rewards. The book of Kings gives us glimpses of the way in which
the reverent gratitude of the people made some provision for the
maintenance of the prophets. We are all familiar with the
hospitality of the Shunammite, and
We have seen
that the modern ministry presents certain parallels to the ancient
priesthood. Where are we to look for an analogue to the prophet? If
the minister be, in a sense, a priest when he leads the worship of
the people, is he also a prophet when he preaches to them?
Preaching is intended to be—perhaps we may venture to say that it
mostly is—a declaration of the will of God. Moreover, it is not the
exposition of a fixed and unchangeable ritual or even of a set of
rigid theological formulæ. The preacher, like the prophet, seeks to
meet the demands for new light that are made by constantly changing
circumstances; he seeks to adapt the eternal truth to the varying
needs of individual lives. So far he is a prophet, but the
essential qualifications of the prophet are still to be
We naturally expect to find that the official ministry affords the most suitable sphere for the exercise of the gift of prophecy. Those who are conscious of a Divine message will often seek the special opportunities which the ministry affords. But our study of Chronicles reminds us that the vocation of the prophet cannot be limited to any external organisation; it was not confined to the official ministry of Israel; it cannot be conditioned by recognition by bishops, presbyteries, conferences, or Churches; it will often find its only external credential in a gracious influence over individual lives. Nay, the prophet may have his Divine vocation and be entirely rejected of men. In Chronicles we find prophets, like Zechariah the son of Jehoiada, whose one Divine message is received with scorn and defiance.
In practice, if
not in theory, the Churches have long
We have here stumbled upon another modern controversy: the desirability of women preaching. Chronicles mentions prophetesses as well as prophets; on the other hand, there were no Jewish priestesses. The modern minister combines some priestly duties with the opportunity, at least, of exercising the gift of prophecy. The mention of only two or three prophetesses in the Old Testament shows that the possession of the gift by women was exceptional. These few instances, however, are sufficient to prove that God did not in old times limit the gift to men; they suggest at any rate the possibility of its being possessed by women now, and when women have a Divine message the Church will not venture to quench the Spirit. Of course the application of these broad principles would have to be adapted to the circumstances of individual Churches. Huldah, for instance, is not described as delivering any public address to the people; the king sent his ministers to consult her in her own house. Whatever hesitation may be felt about the public ministry of women, no one will question their Divine commission to carry the messages of God to the bedsides of the sick and the homes of the poor. Most of us have known women to whom men have gone, as Josiah's ministers went to Huldah, to “inquire of the Lord.”
Another
practical question, the payment of the ministers of religion, has
already been raised by the Abbott, Through Nature to
Christ, p. 295.
The slight and accidental connection of the payment of ministers with their prophetic gifts is further illustrated by the free exercise of such gifts by men and women who have no ecclesiastical status and do not seek any material reward. Here again any exact adoption of ancient methods is impossible; we may accept from the chronicler the great principle that loyal believers will make all adequate provision for the service and work of Jehovah, and that they will be prepared to honour Him in the persons of those whom they choose to represent them before Him, and also of those whom they recognise as delivering to them His messages. On the other hand, the prophet—and for our present purpose we may extend the term to the humblest and least gifted Christian who in any way seeks to speak for Christ—the prophet speaks by the impulse of the Spirit and from no meaner motive.
With regard to
the functions of the prophet, the
Turning,
however, to more directly ecclesiastical affairs, we have noted
that Asa's reformation received its first impulse from the
utterances of the prophet Azariah or Oded, and also that one
feature of the prophet's work is to provide for the fresh needs
developed by changing circumstances. A priesthood or any other
official ministry is often wanting in elasticity; it is necessarily
attached to an established organisation and trammelled by custom
and tradition. The Holy Spirit in all ages has commissioned
prophets as the free agents in new movements in the Divine
government of the world.
But the
chronicler's picture of the work of the prophets has its darker
side. Few were privileged to give the signal for an immediate and
happy reformation. Most of the prophets were charged with messages
of rebuke and condemnation, so that they were ready to cry out with
Jeremiah, “Woe is me, my mother, that thou
hast borne me, a man of strife and
Perhaps even to-day the prophetic spirit often charges its possessors with equally unwelcome duties. We trust that the Christian conscience is more sensitive than that of ancient Israel, and that the Church is more ready to profit by the warnings addressed to it; but the response to the sterner teaching of the Spirit is not always accompanied by a kindly feeling towards the teacher, and even where there is progress, the progress is slow compared to the eager longing of the prophet for the spiritual growth of his hearers. And yet the sequel of the chronicler's history suggests some relief to the gloomier side of the picture. Prophet after prophet utters his unavailing and seemingly useless rebuke, and delivers his announcement of coming ruin, and at last the ruin falls upon the nation. But that is not the end. Before the chronicler wrote there had arisen a restored Israel, purified from idolatry and delivered from many of its former troubles. The Restoration was only rendered possible through the continued testimony of the prophets to the Lord and His righteousness. However barren of immediate results such testimony may seem to-day, it is still the word of the Lord that cannot return unto Him void, but shall accomplish that which He pleaseth and shall prosper in the thing whereto He sent it.
The chronicler's
conception of the prophetic character of the historian, whereby his
narrative sets forth God's win and interprets His purposes, is not
altogether popular at present. The teleological view of history is
In concluding
our inquiry as to how far modern Church life is illustrated by the
work of the prophets, one is tempted to dwell for a moment on the
methods they did not use and the subjects not dealt with in their
utterances. This theme, however, scarcely belongs to the exposition
of Chronicles; it would be more appropriate to a complete
examination of the history and writings of the prophets. One point,
however, may be noticed. Their utterances in Chronicles lay less
direct stress on moral considerations than the writings of the
canonical prophets, not because of any indifference to morality,
but because, seen in the distance of a remote past, all other sins
seemed to be summed up in faithlessness to Jehovah. Perhaps we may
see in this a suggestion of a final judgment of history, which
should be equally instructive to the religious man who has any
inclination to disparage
Our review and
discussion of the varied references of Chronicles to the prophets
brings home to us with fresh force the keen interest felt in them
by the chronicler and the supreme importance he attached to their
work. The reverent homage of a Levite of the second Temple
centuries after the golden age of prophecy is an eloquent testimony
to the unique position of the prophets in Israel. His treatment of
the subject shows that the lofty ideal of their office and mission
had lost nothing in the course of the development of Judaism; his
selection from the older material emphasises the independence of
the true prophet of any professional status or consideration of
material reward; his sense of the importance of the prophets to the
State and Church in Judah is an encouragement to those “who look for redemption in Jerusalem,” and who
trust the eternal promise of God that in all times of His people's
need He “will raise up a prophet from among
their brethren, ... and I will put My words in his mouth, and he
shall speak unto them all that I shall command them.”
“And again the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Israel, and He moved David against them saying, Go, number Israel and Judah.”—2 Sam. xxiv. 1.
“And Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel.”—1 Chron. xxi. 1.
“Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempteth no man: but each man is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed.”—James i, 13, 14.
The census of David is found both in the book of Samuel and in Chronicles, in very much the same form; but the chronicler has made a number of small but important alterations and additions. Taken together, these changes involve a new interpretation of the history, and bring out lessons that cannot so easily be deduced from the narrative in the book of Samuel. Hence it is necessary to give a separate exposition of the narrative in Chronicles.
As before, we
will first review the alterations made by the chronicler and then
expound the narrative in the form in which it left his hand, or
rather in the form in which it stands in the Masoretic text. Any
attempt to deal with the peculiarly complicated problem of the
textual criticism of Chronicles would be out of
At the very
outset the chronicler substitutes Satan for Jehovah, and thus
changes the whole significance of the narrative. This point is too
important to be dealt with casually, and must be reserved for
special consideration later on. In ver. 2 there is a slight change
that marks the different points of the views of the Chronicler and
the author of the narrative in the book of Samuel. The latter had
written that Joab numbered the people from Dan to Beersheba, a
merely conventional phrase indicating the extent of the census. It
might possibly, however, have been taken to denote that the census
began in the north and was concluded in the south. To the
chronicler, whose interests all centred in Judah, such an
arrangement seemed absurd; and he carefully guarded against any
mistake by altering “Dan to
Beersheba” into “Beersheba to
Dan.” In ver. 3 the substance of Joab's words is not
altered, but various slight touches are added to bring out more
clearly and forcibly what is implied in the book of Samuel. Joab
had spoken of the census as being the king's pleasure. R.V. “delight
in” is somewhat too strong.
In ver. 5 the
numbers in Chronicles differ not only from those of the older
narrative, but also from the chronicler's own statistics in chap.
xxvii. In this last account the men of war are divided into twelve
courses of twenty-four thousand each, making a total of two hundred
and eighty-eight thousand; in the book of Samuel Israel numbers
eight hundred thousand, and Judah five hundred thousand; but in our
passage Israel is increased to eleven hundred thousand, and Judah
is reduced to four hundred and seventy thousand. Possibly the
statistics in chap. xxvii. are not intended to include all the
fighting men, otherwise the figures cannot be harmonised. The
discrepancy between our passage and the book of Samuel is perhaps
partly explained by the following verse, which is an addition of
the chronicler. In the book of Samuel the census is completed, but
our additional verse states that Levi and Benjamin were not
included in the census. The chronicler understood that the five
hundred thousand assigned to Judah in the older narrative were the
joint total of Judah and Benjamin; he accordingly reduced the total
by thirty thousand, because, according to his view, Benjamin was
omitted from the census. The increase in the number of the
Israelites is unexpected. The chronicler does not usually overrate
the northern tribes. Later on Jeroboam, eighteen years after the
disruption, takes the field against Abijah with “eight hundred thousand
In ver. 7 we
have a very striking alteration. According to the book of Samuel,
David's repentance was entirely spontaneous: “David's heart smote him after that he had numbered the
people” It is, however, possible that the text
in Samuel is a corruption of text more closely parallel to that of
Chronicles.
Ver. 16, which
describes David's vision of the angel with the drawn sword, is an
expansion of the simple statement of the book of Samuel that David
saw the angel. In ver. 18 we are not merely told that Gad spake to
David, but that he spake by the command of the angel of Jehovah.
Ver. 20, which tells us how Ornan saw the angel, is an addition of
the chronicler's. All these changes lay stress upon the
intervention of the angel, and illustrate the interest
In ver. 22 the
reference to “a full price” and
other changes in the form of David's words are probably due to the
influence of
In ver. 25 David
pays much more dearly for Ornan's threshing-floor than in the book
of Samuel. In the latter the price is fifty shekels of silver, in
the former six hundred shekels of gold. Most ingenious attempts
have been made to harmonise the two statements. It has been
suggested that fifty shekels of silver means silver to the value of
fifty shekels of gold and paid in gold, and that six hundred
shekels of gold means the value of six hundred shekels of silver
paid in gold. A more lucid but equally impossible explanation is
that David paid fifty shekels for every tribe, six hundred in
all. Noldius and R. Salom. apud
Bertheau i. 1.
Chaps. xxi. 27-xxii. 1 are an addition. According to the Levitical law, David was falling into grievous sin in sacrificing anywhere except before the Mosaic altar of burnt offering. The chronicler therefore states the special circumstances that palliated this offence against the exclusive privileges of the one sanctuary of Jehovah. He also reminds us that this threshing-floor became the site of the altar of burnt offering for Solomon's temple. Here he probably follows an ancient and historical tradition; the prominence given to the threshing-floor in the book of Samuel indicates the special sanctity of the site. The Temple is the only sanctuary whose site could be thus connected with the last days of David. When the book of Samuel was written, the facts were too familiar to need any explanation; every one knew that the Temple stood on the site of Araunah's threshing-floor. The chronicler, writing centuries later, felt it necessary to make an explicit statement on the subject.
Having thus
attempted to understand how our narrative assumed its present form,
we will now tell the chronicler's story of these incidents. The
long reign of David was drawing to a close. Hitherto he had been
blessed with uninterrupted prosperity and success. His armies had
been victorious over all the enemies of Israel, the borders of the
land of Jehovah had been extended, David himself was lodged with
princely splendour, and the services of the Ark were
Benjamin was
probably omitted in order to protect the Holy City, the chronicler
following that form of the ancient tradition which assigned
Jerusalem to Benjamin.
At last the census, so far as it was carried out at all, was finished, and the results were presented to the king. They are meagre and bald compared to the volumes of tables which form the report of a modern census. Only two divisions of the country are recognised: “Judah” and “Israel,” or the ten tribes. The total is given for each: eleven hundred thousand for Israel, four hundred and seventy thousand for Judah, in all fifteen hundred and seventy thousand. Whatever details may have been given to the king, he would be chiefly interested in the grand total. Its figures would be the most striking symbol of the extent of his authority and the glory of his kingdom.
Perhaps during
the months occupied in taking the census David had forgotten the
ineffectual protests of Joab, and was able to receive his report
without any presentiment of coming evil. Even if his mind were not
altogether at ease, all misgivings would for the time be forgotten.
He probably made or had made for him some rough calculation as to
the total of men, women, and children that would correspond to the
vast array of fighting men. His servants would not reckon the
entire population at less than nine or ten millions. His heart
would be uplifted with pride as he contemplated the statement of
the multitudes that were the subjects of his crown and prepared to
fight at his bidding. The numbers are moderate compared with the
vast populations and enormous armies of the great powers of modern
Europe; they were far surpassed by the Roman empire and the teeming
populations of the valleys of the Nile, the Euphrates, and the
Tigris; but during the Middle Ages it was not often possible to
find in Western Europe so large a population under one government
or so numerous an army under one banner. The resources
But the king was
not long left in undisturbed enjoyment of his greatness. In the
very moment of his exaltation, some sense of the Divine displeasure
fell upon him. Ver. 7 is apparently a general
anticipation of the narrative in vv. 9-15.
When the revulsion of feeling came, it was complete. The king at once humbled himself under the mighty hand of God, and made full acknowledgment of his sin and folly: “I have sinned greatly in that I have done this thing: but now put away, I beseech Thee, the iniquity of Thy servant, for I have done very foolishly.”
The narrative
continues as in the book of Samuel. Repentance could not avert
punishment, and the punishment struck directly at David's pride of
power and glory. The great population was to be decimated either by
famine, war, or pestilence. The king chose to suffer from the
pestilence, “the sword of Jehovah”:
“Let me fall now into the hand of Jehovah,
for very great are His mercies; and let me not fall into the hand
of man. So Jehovah sent a pestilence upon Israel, and there fell of
Israel seventy thousand men.” Not three days since Joab
handed in his report, and already a deduction of seventy thousand
would have to be made from its total; and still the pestilence was
not checked, for “God sent an angel unto
Jerusalem to destroy it.” If, as we have supposed, Joab had
withheld Jerusalem from the census, his pious caution was now
rewarded: “Jehovah repented Him of the
evil, and said to the destroying angel, It is enough; now stay
thine hand.” At the very last moment the crowning
catastrophe was averted. In the Divine counsels Jerusalem was
already delivered, but to human eyes its fate still trembled in the
balance: “And David lifted up his eyes, and
saw the angel of Jehovah stand between the earth and the heaven,
having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over
Jerusalem.” So another great Israelite soldier lifted up his
eyes beside Jericho and beheld the captain of the host of Jehovah
standing over against him with his sword drawn in his hand.
The awful
presence returned no answer to the guilty king, but addressed
itself to the prophet Gad, and commanded him to
bid David go up and build an altar to Jehovah in the
threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite. The command was a message of
mercy. Jehovah permitted David to build Him an altar; He was
prepared to accept an offering at his hands. The king's prayers
were heard, and Jerusalem was saved from the pestilence. But still
the angel stretched out his drawn sword over Jerusalem; he waited
till the reconciliation of Jehovah with His people should have been
duly ratified by solemn sacrifices. At the bidding of the prophet,
David went up to the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite. Sorrow
and reassurance, hope and fear, contended for the mastery. No
sacrifice could call back to life the seventy thousand victims whom
the pestilence had already destroyed, and yet the horror of its
ravages was almost forgotten in relief at the deliverance of
Jerusalem from the calamity that had all but overtaken it. Even now
the uplifted sword might be only back for a time; Satan might yet
bring about some heedless and sinful act, and the respite might end
not in pardon, but in the execution of God's purpose of vengeance.
Saul had been condemned because he sacrificed too soon; now perhaps
delay would be fatal. Uzzah had been smitten because he touched the
Ark; till the sacrifice was actually offered who could tell whether
some thoughtless blunder would not again
But, as he went up to the threshing-floor, he was still troubled and anxious. The burden was partly lifted from his heart, but he still craved full assurance of pardon. The menacing attitude of the destroying angel seemed to hold out little promise of mercy and forgiveness, and yet the command to sacrifice would be cruel mockery if Jehovah did not intend to be gracious to His people and His anointed.
At the
threshing-floor Ornan and his four sons were threshing wheat,
apparently unmoved by the prospect of the threatened pestilence. In
Egypt the Israelites were protected from the plagues with which
their oppressors were punished. Possibly now the situation was
reversed, and the remnant of the Canaanites in Palestine were not
afflicted by the pestilence that fell upon Israel. But Ornan turned
back and saw the angel; he may not have known the grim mission with
which the Lord's messenger had been entrusted, but the aspect of
the destroyer, his threatening attitude, and
Before long, however, Ornan's terrors were somewhat relieved by the approach of less formidable visitors. The king and his followers had ventured to show themselves openly, in spite of the destroying angel; and they had ventured with impunity. Ornan went forth and bowed himself to David with his face to the ground. In ancient days the father of the faithful, oppressed by the burden of his bereavement, went to the Hittites to purchase a burying-place for his wife. Now the last of the Patriarchs, mourning for the sufferings of his people, came by Divine command to the Jebusite to purchase the ground on which to offer sacrifices, that the plague might be stayed from the people. The form of bargaining was somewhat similar in both cases. We are told that bargains are concluded in much the same fashion to-day. Abraham had paid four hundred shekels of silver for the field of Ephron in Machpelah, “with the cave which was therein, and all the trees that were in the field.” The price of Ornan's threshing-floor was in proportion to the dignity and wealth of the royal purchaser and the sacred purpose for which it was designed. The fortunate Jebusite received no less than six hundred shekels of gold.
David built his
altar, and offered up his sacrifices and prayers to Jehovah. Then,
in answer to David's prayers, as later in answer to Solomon's, fire
fell from heaven upon the altar of burnt offering, and all this
while the sword of Jehovah flamed across the heavens
The use of
Machpelah as a patriarchal burying-place led to the establishment
of a sanctuary at Hebron, which continued to be the seat of a
debased and degenerate worship even after the coming of Christ. It
is even now a Mohammedan holy place. But on the threshing-floor of
Ornan the Jebusite there was to arise a more worthy memorial of the
mercy and judgment of Jehovah. Without the aid of priestly oracle
or prophetic utterance, David was led by the Spirit of the Lord to
discern the significance of the command to perform an irregular
sacrifice in a hitherto unconsecrated place. When the sword of the
destroying angel interposed between David and the Mosaic tabernacle
and altar of Gibeon, the way was not merely barred against the king
and his court on one exceptional occasion. The incidents of this
crisis symbolised the cutting off for ever of the worship of Israel
from its ancient shrine and the transference of the Divinely
appointed centre of the worship of Jehovah to the threshing-floor
of Ornan the Jebusite, that is
The lessons of this incident, so far as the chronicler has simply borrowed from his authority, belong to the exposition of the book of Samuel. The main features peculiar to Chronicles are the introduction of the evil angel Satan, together with the greater prominence given to the angel of Jehovah, and the express statement that the scene of David's sacrifice became the site of Solomon's altar of burnt offering.
The stress laid
upon angelic agency is characteristic of later Jewish literature,
and is especially marked in Zechariah and Daniel. It was no doubt
partly due to the influence of the Persian religion, but it was
also a development from the primitive faith of Israel, and the
development was favoured by the course of Jewish history. The
Captivity and the Restoration, with the events that preceded and
accompanied these revolutions, enlarged the Jewish experience of
nature and man. The captives in Babylon and the fugitives in Egypt
saw that the world was larger than they had imagined. In Josiah's
reign the Scythians from the far North swept over Western Asia, and
the Medes and Persians broke in upon Assyria and Chaldæa from the
remote East. The prophets claimed Scythians, Medes, and Persians as
the instruments of Jehovah. The Jewish appreciation of the majesty
of Jehovah, the Maker and Ruler of the world, increased as they
learnt more of the world He had made and ruled; but the invasion of
a remote and unknown people impressed them with the idea of
infinite dominion and unlimited resources, beyond all knowledge and
experience. The course of Israelite history between David and Ezra
involved as great a widening of man's ideas of the universe as
On the other
hand, the recognition of Satan, the evil angel, marks an equally
great change from the theology of the book of Samuel. The primitive
Israelite religion had not yet reached the stage at which the
origin and existence of moral evil became an urgent problem of
religious thought; men had not yet realised the logical
consequences of the doctrine of Divine unity and omnipotence. Not
only was material evil traced to Jehovah as the expression of His
just wrath against sin, but “morally
pernicious acts were quite frankly ascribed to the direct agency of
God.” Schultz, Old Testament
Theology, ii. 270.
The
ultra-Calvinism, so to speak, of earlier Israelite religion was
only possible so long as its full significance was not understood.
An emphatic assertion of the
But the conscience of Israel could not always rest in this view of the origin of evil. As the standard of morality was raised, and its obligations were more fully insisted on, as men shrank from causing evil themselves and from the use of deceit and violence, they hesitated more and more to ascribe to Jehovah what they sought to avoid themselves. And yet no easy way of escape presented itself. The facts remained; the temptation to do evil was part of the punishment of the sinner and of the discipline of the saint. It was impossible to deny that sin had its place in God's government of the world; and in view of men's growing reverence and moral sensitiveness, it was becoming almost equally impossible to admit without qualification or explanation that God was Himself the Author of evil. Jewish thought found itself face to face with the dilemma against which the human intellect vainly beats its wings, like a bird against the bars of its cage.
However, even in
the older literature there were suggestions, not indeed of a
solution of the problem, but of a less objectionable way of stating
facts. In Eden the temptation to evil comes from the serpent; and,
as the story is told, the serpent is quite independent of God; and
the question of any Divine authority or permission for its action
is not in any way dealt
Trained in this school, the chronicler must have read with something of a shock that Jehovah moved David to commit the sin of numbering Israel. He was familiar with the idea that in such matters Jehovah used or permitted the activity of Satan. Accordingly he carefully avoids reproducing any words from the book of Samuel that imply a direct Divine temptation of David, and ascribes it to the well-known and crafty animosity of Satan against Israel. In so doing, he has gone somewhat further than his predecessors: he is not careful to emphasise any Divine permission given to Satan or Divine control exercised over him. The subsequent narrative implies an overruling for good, and the chronicler may have expected his readers to understand that Satan here stood in the same relation to God as in Job and Zechariah; but the abrupt and isolated introduction of Satan to bring about the fall of David invests the arch-enemy with a new and more independent dignity.
The progress of the Jews in moral and spiritual life had given them a keener appreciation both of good and evil, and of the contrast and opposition between them. Over against the pictures of the good kings, and of the angel of the Lord, the generation of the chronicler set the complementary pictures of the wicked kings and the evil angel. They had a higher ideal to strive after, a clearer vision of the kingdom of God; they also saw more vividly the depths of Satan and recoiled with horror from the abyss revealed to them.
Our text affords
a striking illustration of the tendency to emphasise the
recognition of Satan as
“... reasoned high Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate, Fixed fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute, And found no end, in wandering mazes lost.”
On the other
hand, it is supremely important that the believer should clearly
understand the reality of temptation as an evil spiritual force
opposed to Divine grace. Sometimes this power of Satan will show
itself as “the alien law in his members,
warring against the law of his mind and bringing him into captivity
under the law of sin, which is in his members.” He will be
conscious that “he is drawn away by his own
lust and enticed.” But sometimes temptation will rather come
from the outside. A man will find his “adversary” in circumstances, in evil
companions, in “the sight of means to do
ill deeds”; the serpent whispers in his ear, and Satan moves
him to wrong-doing. Let him not imagine for a moment that he is
delivered over to the powers of evil; let him realise clearly that
with every temptation God provides a way of escape. Every
Indeed, the chronicler is at one with the books of Job and Zechariah in showing us the malice of Satan overruled for man's good and God's glory. In Job the affliction of the Patriarch only serves to bring out his faith and devotion, and is eventually rewarded by renewed and increased prosperity; in Zechariah the protest of Satan against God's gracious purposes for Israel is made the occasion of a singular display of God's favour towards His people and their priest. In Chronicles the malicious intervention of Satan leads up to the building of the Temple.
Long ago Jehovah had promised to choose a place in Israel wherein to set His name; but, as the chronicler read in the history of his nation, the Israelites dwelt for centuries in Palestine, and Jehovah made no sign: the ark of God still dwelt in curtains. Those who still looked for the fulfilment of this ancient promise must often have wondered by what prophetic utterance or vision Jehovah would make known His choice. Bethel had been consecrated by the vision of Jacob, when he was a solitary fugitive from Esau, paying the penalty of his selfish craft; but the lessons of past history are not often applied practically, and probably no one ever expected that Jehovah's choice of the site for His one temple would be made known to His chosen king, the first true Messiah of Israel, in a moment of even deeper humiliation than Jacob's, or that the Divine announcement would be the climax of a series of events initiated by the successful machinations of Satan.
Yet herein lies
one of the main lessons of the incident. Satan's machinations are
not really successful;
And in the larger life of the Church and the world Satan's triumphs are still the heralds of his utter defeat. He prompted the Jews to slay Stephen; and the Church were scattered abroad, and went about preaching the word; and the young man at whose feet the witnesses laid down their garments became the Apostle of the Gentiles. He tricked the reluctant Diocletian into ordering the greatest of the persecutions, and in a few years Christianity was an established religion in the empire. In more secular matters the apparent triumph of an evil principle is usually the signal for its downfall. In America the slave-holders of the Southern States rode rough-shod over the Northerners for more than a generation, and then came the Civil War.
These are not isolated instances, and they serve to warn us against undue depression and despondency when for a season God seems to refrain from any intervention with some of the evils of the world. We are apt to ask in our impatience,—
“Is there not wrong too bitter for atoning? What are these desperate and hideous years? Hast Thou not heard Thy whole creation groaning, Sighs of the bondsman, and a woman's tears?”
The works of
Satan are as earthly as they are devilish; they belong to the
world; which passeth away, with the lust thereof: but the gracious
providence of God has all infinity and all eternity to work in.
Where to-day we can see nothing but the destroying angel with his
David's sin, and penitence, and pardon were no inappropriate preludes to this consecration of Mount Moriah. The Temple was not built for the use of blameless saints, but the worship of ordinary men and women. Israel through countless generations was to bring the burden of its sins to the altar of Jehovah. The sacred splendour of Solomon's dedication festival duly represented the national dignity of Israel and the majesty of the God of Jacob; but the self-abandonment of David's repentance, the deliverance of Jerusalem from impending pestilence, the Divine pardon of presumptuous sin, constituted a still more solemn inauguration of the place where Jehovah had chosen to set His name. The sinner, seeking the assurance of pardon in atoning sacrifice, would remember how David had then received pardon for his sin, and how the acceptance of his offerings had been the signal for the disappearance of the destroying angel. So in the Middle Ages penitents founded churches to expiate their sins. Such sanctuaries would symbolise to sinners in after-times the possibility of forgiveness; they were monuments of God's mercy as well as of the founders' penitence. To-day churches, both in fabric and fellowship, have been made sacred for individual worshippers because in them the Spirit of God has moved them to repentance and bestowed upon them the assurance of pardon. Moreover, this solemn experience consecrates for God His most acceptable temples in the souls of those that love Him.
One other lesson
is suggested by the happy issues of Satan's malign interference in
the history of Israel as understood by the chronicler. The
inauguration of the
The principles
here involved are of very wide application.
In dealing with
the various subjects of this book, we have reserved for separate
treatment their relation to the Messianic hopes of the Jews and to
the realisation of these hopes in Christ. The Messianic teaching of
Chronicles is only complete when we collect and combine the noblest
traits in its pictures of David and Solomon, of prophets, priests,
and kings. We cannot ascribe to Chronicles any great influence on
the subsequent development of the Jewish idea of the Messiah. In
the first place, the chronicler does not point out the bearing
which his treatment of history has upon the expectation of a future
deliverer. He has no formal intention of describing the character
and office of the Messiah; he merely wishes to write a history so
as to emphasise the facts which most forcibly illustrated the
sacred mission of Israel. And, in the second place, Chronicles
never exercised any great influence over Jewish thought, and never
attained to anything like the popularity of the books of Samuel and
Kings. Many circumstances conspired to prevent the Temple ministry
from obtaining an undivided authority over later Judaism. The
growth of their power was broken in upon by the persecutions of
Antiochus and the wars of the Maccabees. The ministry of the Temple
under
But Chronicles reveals to us the position and tendencies of Jewish thought in the interval between Ezra and the Maccabees. The Messiah was expected to renew the ancient glories of the chosen people, “to restore the kingdom to Israel”; we learn from Chronicles what sort of a kingdom He was to restore. We see the features of the ancient monarchy that were dear to the memories of the Jews, the characters of the prophets, priests, and kings whom they delighted to honour. As their ideas of the past shaped and coloured their hopes for the future, their conception of what was noblest and best in the history of the monarchy was at the same time the measure of what they expected in the Messiah. However little influence Chronicles may have exerted as a piece of literature, the tendencies of which it is a monument continued to leaven the thought of Israel, and are everywhere manifest in the New Testament.
We have to bear
in mind that Messiah, “Anointed,”
was the familiar title of the Israelite kings; its use
But for the
chronicler the Messiah, the Anointed of Jehovah, is no mere secular
prince. We have seen how the chronicler tends to include religious
duties and prerogatives among the functions of the king. David and
Solomon and their pious successors are supreme alike in Church and
state as the earthly representatives of Jehovah. The actual titles
of priest and prophet are not bestowed upon the kings, but they are
virtually priests in their care for and control over the buildings
and ritual of the Temple, and they are prophets when, like David
and Solomon, they hold direct fellowship with Jehovah and announce
His will to the people. Moreover, David, as “the Psalmist of Israel,” had become the
inspired interpreter of the religious experience of the Jews. The
ancient idea of the king as the victorious conqueror was gradually
giving place to a more spiritual conception of his office; the
Messiah was becoming more and more a definitely religious
personage. Thus Chronicles prepared the way for the acceptance of
Christ as a spiritual Deliverer, who was not only King, but also
Priest and Prophet. In fact, we may claim the chronicler's own
implied authority for including in the picture of the coming King
the characteristics he ascribes to the priest and the prophet. Thus
the Messiah of Chronicles is
Let us see how the chronicler's history of the house of David illustrates the person and work of the Son of David, who came to restore the ancient monarchy in the spiritual kingdom of which it was the symbol. The Gospels introduce our Lord very much as the chronicler introduces David: they give us His genealogy, and pass almost immediately to His public ministry. Of His training and preparation for that ministry, of the chain of earthly circumstances that determined the time and method of His entry upon the career of a public Teacher, they tell us next to nothing. We are only allowed one brief glimpse of the life of the holy Child; our attention is mainly directed to the royal Saviour when He has entered upon His kingdom; and His Divine nature finds expression in mature manhood, when none of the limitations of childhood detract from the fulness of His redeeming service and sacrifice.
The authority of
Christ rests on the same basis as that of the ancient kings: it is
at once human and Divine. In Christ indeed this twofold authority
is in one sense peculiar to Himself; but in the practical
application of His authority to the hearts and consciences of men
He treads in the footsteps of His ancestors. His kingdom rests on
His own Divine commission and on the consent of His subjects. God
The shadows that
darken the history of the kings of Judah and even the life of David
himself remind us that the Messiah moved upon a far higher moral
and spiritual level than the monarchs whose royal dignity was a
type of His own. Like David, He
The great priestly work of David and Solomon was the building of the Temple and the organisation of its ritual and ministry. By this work the kings made splendid provision for fellowship between Jehovah and His people, and for the system of sacrifices, whereby a sinful nation expressed their penitence and received the assurance of forgiveness. This has been the supreme work of Christ: through Him we have access to God; we enter into the holy place, into the Divine presence, by a new and living way, that is to say His flesh; He has brought us into the perpetual fellowship of the Spirit. And whereas Solomon could only build one temple, to which the believer paid occasional visits and obtained the sense of Divine fellowship through the ministry of the priests, Christ makes every faithful heart the temple of sacred service, and He has offered for us the one sacrifice, and provides a universal atonement.
In His priesthood, as in His sacrifice, He represents us before God, and this representation is not merely technical and symbolic: in Him we find ourselves brought near to God, and our desires and aspirations are presented as petitions at the throne of the heavenly grace. But, on the other hand, in His love and righteousness He represents God to us, and brings the assurance of our acceptance.
Other minor
features of the office and rights of the priests and Levites find a
parallel in Christ. He also is our Teacher and our Judge; to Him
and to His service all worldly wealth may be consecrated. Christ
But in Chronicles special stress is laid on the darker aspects of the work of the prophets. They constantly appear to administer rebukes and announce coming punishment. Both Christ and His apostles were compelled to assume the same attitude towards Israel. Like Jeremiah, their hearts sank under the burden of so stern a duty. Christ denounced the Pharisees, and wept over the city that knew not the things belonging to its peace; He declared the impending ruin of the Temple and the Holy City. Even so His Spirit still rebukes sin, and warns the impenitent of inevitable punishment.
We have seen also in Chronicles that no stress was laid on any material rewards for the prophets, and that their fidelity was sometimes recompensed with persecution and death. Like Christ Himself, they had nothing to do with priestly wealth and splendour. The silence of the chronicler to the income of these prophets makes them fitting types of Him who had not where to lay His head. A discussion of the income of Christ would almost savour of blasphemy; we should shrink from inquiring how far “those who derived spiritual profit from His teaching gave Him substantial proofs of their appreciation of His ministry.” Christ's recompense at the hands of the world and of the Jewish Church was that which former prophets had received. Like Zechariah the son of Jehoiada, He was persecuted and slain; He delivered a prophet's message, and died a prophet's death.
But, besides the
chronicler's treatment of the offices of prophet, priest, and king,
there was another feature of his teaching which would prepare the
way for a clear comprehension of the person and work of Christ. We
have noticed how the growing sense of the power and majesty of
Jehovah seemed to set Him at a distance from man, and how the Jews
welcomed the idea of the mediation of an angelic ministry. And yet
the angels were too vague and unfamiliar, too little known, and too
imperfectly understood to satisfy men's longing for some means of
fellowship between themselves and the remote majesty of an almighty
God; while still their ministry served to maintain faith in the
possibility of mediation, and to quicken the yearning after some
better way of access to Jehovah. When Christ came He found this
faith and yearning waiting to be satisfied; they opened a door
through which Christ found
“... O Saul, it shall be A face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me Thou shalt love and be loved by for ever; a Hand like this hand Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!”
We have thus seen how the figures of the chronicler's history—prophet, priest, king, and angel—were types and foreshadowings of Christ. We may sum up this aspect of his teaching by a quotation from a modern exponent of Old Testament theology:—
“Moses the prophet is the first type of the Mediator.
By his side stands Aaron the priest, who connects the people with
God, and consecrates it.... But from the time of David both these
figures pale in the imagination of the people before the picture of
the Davidic king. His is the figure which appears the most
indispensable condition of all true happiness for Israel. David is
the third and by far the most perfect type of the
Consummator.” Schultz, Old Testament
Theology, ii. 353.
This recurrence
to the king as the most perfect type of the Redeemer suggests a
last application of the Messianic teaching of the chronicler. In
discussing his
When we see how
the Messianic hope of Israel was purified and ennobled to receive a
fulfilment glorious
In order to do justice to the chronicler's method of presenting us with a number of very similar illustrations of the same principle, we have in the previous book grouped much of his material under a few leading subjects. There remains the general thread of the history, which is, of course, very much the same in Chronicles as in the book of Kings, and need not be dwelt on at any length. At the same time some brief survey is necessary for the sake of completeness and in order to bring out the different complexion given to the history by the chronicler's alterations and omissions. Moreover, there are a number of minor points that are most conveniently dealt with in the course of a running exposition.
The special
importance attached by the chronicler to David and Solomon has
enabled us to treat their reigns at length in discussing his
picture of the ideal king; and similarly the reign of Ahaz has
served as an illustration of the character and fortunes of the
wicked kings. We therefore take up the history at the accession of
Rehoboam, and shall simply indicate very briefly the connection of
the reign of Ahaz with what
The occasion of this prayer was the great closing scene of David's life, which we have already described. The prayer is a thanksgiving for the assurance David had received that the accomplishment of the great purpose of his life, the erection of a temple to Jehovah, was virtually secured. He had been permitted to collect the materials for the building, he had received the plans of the Temple from Jehovah, and had placed them in the willing hands of his successor. The princes and the people had caught his own enthusiasm and lavishly supplemented the bountiful provision already made for the future work. Solomon had been accepted as king by popular acclamation. Every possible preparation had been made that could be made, and the aged king poured out his heart in praise to God for His grace and favour.
The prayer falls
naturally into four subdivisions: vv. 10-13 are a kind of doxology
in honour of Jehovah; in vv. 14-16 David acknowledges that Israel
is entirely dependent upon Jehovah for the means of rendering Him
acceptable service; in ver. 17 he claims that he and his people
have offered willingly unto Jehovah; and
In the doxology God is addressed as “Jehovah, the God of Israel, our Father,” and similarly in ver. 18 as “Jehovah, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel.” For the chronicler the accession of David is the starting-point of Israelite history and religion, but here, as in the genealogies, he links his narrative to that of the Pentateuch, and reminds his readers that the crowning dispensation of the worship of Jehovah in the Temple rested on the earlier revelations to Abraham, Isaac, and Israel.
We are at once
struck by the divergence from the usual formula: “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” Moreover, when God
is referred to as the God of the Patriarch personally, the usual
phrase is “the God of Jacob.” The
formula, “God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Israel,” occurs again in Chronicles in the account of
Hezekiah's reformation; it only occurs elsewhere in the history of
Elijah in the book of Kings.
In the doxology that follows the resources of language are almost exhausted in the attempt to set forth adequately “the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty, ... the riches and honour, ... the power and might,” of Jehovah. These verses read like an expansion of the simple Christian doxology, “Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory,” but in all probability the latter is an abbreviation from our text. In both there is the same recognition of the ruling omnipotence of God; but the chronicler, having in mind the glory and power of David and his magnificent offerings for the building of the Temple, is specially careful to intimate that Jehovah is the source of all worldly greatness: “Both riches and honour come of Thee, ... and in Thy hand it is to make great and to give strength unto all.”
The
complementary truth, the entire dependence of Israel on Jehovah, is
dealt with in the next verses. David has learnt humility from the
tragic consequences of his fatal census; his heart is no longer
uplifted with pride at the wealth and glory of his kingdom; he
claims no credit for the spontaneous impulse of generosity that
prompted his munificence. Everything is traced back to Jehovah:
“All things come of Thee, and of Thine own
have we given Thee.” Before, when David contemplated the
vast population of Israel and the great array of his warriors, the
sense of God's displeasure fell upon him; now, when the riches and
honour of his kingdom were displayed before him, he may have felt
the chastening influence of his former experience. A touch of
melancholy darkened his spirit for a moment; standing upon the
brink of the dim, mysterious Sheol,
He turns from these sombre thoughts to the consoling reflection that in all his preparations he has been the instrument of a Divine purpose, and has served Jehovah willingly. To-day he can approach God with a clear conscience: “I know also, my God, that Thou triest the heart and hast pleasure in uprightness. As for me, in the uprightness of my heart I have willingly offered all these things.” He rejoiced, moreover, that the people had offered willingly. The chronicler anticipates the teaching of St. Paul that “the Lord loveth a cheerful giver.” David gives of his abundance in the same spirit in which the widow gave her mite. The two narratives are mutually supplementary. It is possible to apply the story of the widow's mite so as to suggest that God values our offerings in inverse proportion to their amount. We are reminded by the willing munificence of David that the rich may give of his abundance as simply and humbly and as acceptably as the poor man gives of his poverty.
But however grateful David might be for the pious and generous spirit by which his people were now possessed, he did not forget that they could only abide in that spirit by the continued enjoyment of Divine help and grace. His thanksgiving concludes with prayer. Spiritual depression is apt to follow very speedily in the train of spiritual exaltation; days of joy and light are granted to us that we may make provision for future necessity.
David does not merely ask that Israel may be kept in external obedience and devotion: his prayer goes deeper. He knows that out of the heart are the issues of life, and he prays that the heart of Solomon and the thoughts of the heart of the people may be kept right with God. Unless the fountain of life were pure, it would be useless to cleanse the stream. David's special desire is that the Temple may be built, but this desire is only the expression of his loyalty to the Law. Without the Temple the commandments, and testimonies, and statutes of the Law could not be rightly observed. But he does not ask that the people may be constrained to build the Temple and keeping the Law in order that their hearts may be made perfect; their hearts are to be made perfect that they may keep the Law.
Henceforward throughout his history the chronicler's criterion of a perfect heart, a righteous life, in king and people, is their attitude towards the Law and the Temple. Because their ordinances and worship formed the accepted standard of religion and morality, through which men's goodness would naturally express themselves. Similarly only under a supreme sense of duty to God and man may the Christian willingly violate the established canons of religious and social life.
We may conclude
by noticing a curious feature in the wording of David's prayer. In
the nineteenth, as in the first, verse of this chapter the Temple,
according to our English versions, is referred to as “the palace.” The original word bîrâ is probably Persian, though
a parallel form is quoted from the Assyrian. As a Hebrew word it
belongs to the latest and most corrupt stage of the language as
found in the Old Testament; and only occurs in Chronicles,
Nehemiah, Esther, and Daniel. In putting this word into the mouth
of David, the chronicler is guilty of an anachronism, parallel to
his use of the word “darics.” The
word bîrâ appears to
have first become familiar to the Jews as the name of a Persian
palace or fortress in Susa; it is used in Nehemiah of the castle
attached to the Temple, and in later times the derivative Greek
name Baris had the
same meaning. It is curious to find the chronicler, in his effort
to find a sufficiently dignified title for the temple of Jehovah,
driven to borrow a word which belonged originally to the royal
magnificence of a heathen empire, and which was used later on to
denote the fortress whence a Roman garrison controlled the
fanaticism of Jewish worship. Called, however, at that time
Antonia.
The transition
from Solomon to Rehoboam brings to light a serious drawback of the
chronicler's principle of selection. In the history of Solomon we
read of nothing but wealth, splendour, unchallenged dominion, and
superhuman wisdom; and yet the breath is hardly out of the body of
the wisest and greatest king of Israel before his empire falls to
pieces. We are told, as in the book of Kings, that the people met
Rehoboam with a demand for release from “the grievous service of thy father,” and yet we
were expressly told only two chapters before that “of the children of Israel did Solomon make no servants
for his work; but they were men of war, and chief of his captains,
and rulers of his chariots and of his horsemen.” viii. 9.
The chronicler here and elsewhere shows his anxiety not to perplex simple minds with unnecessary difficulties. They might be harassed and disturbed by the discovery that the king, who built the Temple and was specially endowed with Divine wisdom, had fallen into grievous sin and been visited with condign punishment. Accordingly everything that discredits Solomon and detracts from his glory is omitted. The general principle is sound; an earnest teacher, alive to his responsibility, will not wantonly obtrude difficulties upon his hearers; when silence does not involve disloyalty to truth, he will be willing that they should remain in ignorance of some of the more mysterious dealings of God in nature and history. But silence was more possible and less dangerous in the chronicler's time than in the nineteenth century. He could count upon a docile and submissive spirit in his readers; they would not inquire beyond what they were told: they would not discover the difficulties for themselves. Jewish youths were not exposed to the attacks of eager and militant sceptics, who would force these difficulties upon their notice in an exaggerated form, and at once demand that they should cease to believe in anything human or Divine.
And yet, though
the chronicler had great advantages in this matter, his own
narrative illustrates the narrow limits within which the principle
of the suppression of difficulties can be safely applied. His
silence as to Solomon's sins and misfortunes makes the revolt of
the ten tribes utterly inexplicable. After the account of the
perfect wisdom, peace, and prosperity of Solomon's reign, the
revolt comes upon an intelligent
In the next
section xi. 5-xii. 1, peculiar to
Chronicles.
Prosperity and
security turned the head of Rehoboam as they had done that of
David: “He forsook the law of Jehovah, and
all Israel with him.” “All
Israel” means
The chronicler
explains why Rehoboam was not more severely punished. xii. 2-8, 12, peculiar to
Chronicles.
Unhappily the
repentance inspired by trouble and distress is not always real and
permanent. Many will humble themselves before the Lord in order to
avert imminent ruin, and will forsake Him when the danger has
passed away. Apparently Rehoboam soon fell away again into sin, for
the final judgment upon him is, “He did
that which was evil, because he set not his heart to seek
Jehovah.” xii. 14, peculiar to Chronicles.
Rehoboam was
succeeded by his son Abijah, concerning whom we are told in the
book of Kings that “he walked in all the
sins of his father, which he had done before him; and his heart was
not perfect with Jehovah his God, as the heart of David his
father.” The chronicler omits this unfavourable verdict; he
does not indeed classify Abijah among the good kings by the usual
formal statement that “he did that which
was good and right in the eyes of Jehovah,” but Abijah
delivers a hortatory speech and by Divine assistance
The
section xiii. 3-22, peculiar to
Chronicles.
Abijah and
Jeroboam had each gathered an immense army, but the army of Israel
was twice as large as that of Judah: Jeroboam had eight hundred
thousand to Abijah's four hundred thousand. Jeroboam advanced,
confident in his overwhelming superiority and happy in the belief
that Providence sides with the strongest battalions. Abijah,
however, was nothing dismayed by the odds against him; his
confidence was in Jehovah. The two armies met in the neighbourhood
of Mount Zemaraim, upon which Abijah fixed his camp. Mount Zemaraim
was in the hill-country of Ephraim, but its position cannot be
determined with certainty; it was probably near the border of the
two kingdoms. Possibly it was the site of the Benjamite city of the
same name mentioned in the book of Joshua in close connection with
Bethel.
Before the
battle, Abijah made an effort to induce his enemies to depart in
peace. From the vantage-ground of his mountain camp he addressed
Jeroboam and his army as Jotham had addressed the men of Shechem
from Mount Gerizim.
The indignant
prince of the house of David not unnaturally forgets that the
disruption was Jehovah's own work, and that Jeroboam rose up
against his master, not at the instigation of Satan, but by the
command of the prophet Ahijah.
While Abijah is severe upon Jeroboam and his accomplices and calls them “vain men, sons of Belial,” he shows a filial tenderness for the memory of Rehoboam. That unfortunate king had been taken at a disadvantage, when he was young and tender-hearted and unable to deal sternly with rebels. The tenderness which could threaten to chastise his people with scorpions must have been of the kind—
“That dared to look on torture and could not look on war”;
it only appears in the history in Rehoboam's headlong flight to Jerusalem. No one, however, will censure Abijah for taking an unduly favourable view of his father's character.
But whatever
advantage Jeroboam may have found in his first revolt, Abijah warns
him that now he need not think to withstand the kingdom of Jehovah
in the hands of the sons of David. He is no longer opposed to an
unseasoned youth, but to men who know their overwhelming advantage.
Jeroboam need not think to
This speech, we
are told, “has been much admired. It was
well suited to its object, and exhibits correct notions of the
theocratical institutions.” But, like much
Abijah's speech is unique. There have been other instances in which commanders have tried to make oratory take the place of arms, and, like Abijah, they have mostly been unsuccessful; but they have usually appealed to lower motives. Sennacherib's envoys tried ineffectually to seduce the garrison of Jerusalem from their allegiance to Hezekiah, but they relied on threats of destruction and promises of “a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of oil olive and honey.” There is, however, a parallel instance of more successful persuasion. When Octavian was at war with his fellow-triumvir Lepidus, he made a daring attempt to win over his enemy's army. He did not address them from the safe elevation of a neighbouring mountain, but rode openly into the hostile camp. He appealed to the soldiers by motives as lofty as those urged by Abijah, and called upon them to save their country from civil war by deserting Lepidus. At the moment his appeal failed, and he only escaped with a wound in his breast; but after a while his enemy's soldiers came over to him in detachments, and eventually Lepidus was compelled to surrender to his rival. But the deserters were not altogether influenced by pure patriotism. Octavian had carefully prepared the way for his dramatic appearance in the camp of Lepidus, and had used grosser means of persuasion than arguments addressed to patriotic feeling.
Another instance
of a successful appeal to a hostile
At first,
however, things went hardly with Judah. They were outgeneralled as
well as outnumbered; Jeroboam's main body attacked them in front,
and the ambush assailed their rear. Like the men of Ai,
“when Judah looked back, behold, the battle
was before and behind them.” But Jehovah, who fought against
Ai, was fighting for Judah, and they cried unto Jehovah; and then,
as at Jericho, “the men of Judah gave a
shout, and when they shouted, God smote Jeroboam and all Israel
before Abijah and Judah.” The rout was complete, and was
accompanied by terrible slaughter. No fewer than five hundred
thousand Israelites were slain by the men of Judah. The latter
pressed their advantage, and took the neighbouring city of Bethel
and other Israelite towns. For the time This verse must of course be
understood to give his whole family history, and not merely that of
his three years' reign.
The lesson which the chronicler intends to teach by his narrative is obviously the importance of ritual, not the importance of ritual apart from the worship of the true God; he emphasises the presence of Jehovah with Judah, in contrast to the Israelite worship of calves and those that are no gods. The chronicler dwells upon the maintenance of the legitimate priesthood and the prescribed ritual as the natural expression and clear proof of the devotion of the men of Judah to their God.
It may help us to realise the significance of Abijah's speech, if we try to construct an appeal in the same spirit for a Catholic general in the Thirty Years' War addressing a hostile Protestant army. Imagine Wallenstein or Tilly, moved by some unwonted spirit of pious oratory, addressing the soldiers of Gustavus Adolphus:—
“We have a pope who sits in Peter's chair, bishops and
priests ministering unto the Lord, in the true apostolical
succession. The sacrifice of the Mass is daily offered; matins,
laud, vespers, and compline are all duly celebrated; our churches
are fragrant with incense and glorious with stained glass and
images; we have crucifixes, and lamps, and candles; and
As Protestants
we may find it difficult to sympathise with the feelings of a
devout Romanist or even with those of a faithful observer of the
complicated Mosaic ritual. We could not construct so close a
parallel to Abijah's speech in terms of any Protestant order of
service, and yet the objections which any modern denomination feels
to departures from its own forms of worship rest on the same
principles as those of Abijah. In the abstract the speech teaches
two main lessons: the importance of an official and duly accredited
ministry and of a suitable and authoritative ritual. These
principles are perfectly general, and are not confined to what is
usually known as sacerdotalism and ritualism. Every Church has in
practice some official ministry, even those Churches that profess
to owe their separate existence to the necessity for protesting
against an official ministry. Men whose chief occupation is to
denounce priestcraft may themselves be saturated with the
sacerdotal spirit. Every Church, too, has its ritual. The silence
of a Friends' meeting is as much a rite as the most elaborate
genuflexion before a highly ornamented altar. To regard either the
absence or presence of rites as essential is equally ritualistic.
The man who leaves his wonted place of worship because “Amen” is sung at the end of a hymn is as
bigoted a ritualist as his brother who dare not pass an altar
without crossing himself. Let us then consider the chronicler's two
principles in this
Another point
that the chronicler objects to in Jeroboam's priests is the want of
any other than a property qualification. Any one who chose could be
a priest. Such a system combined what might seem opposite vices. It
preserved an official ministry; these self-appointed priests formed
a clerical order; and yet it gave no guarantee whatever of either
fitness or
But though the
best method of obtaining a suitable ministry varies with changing
circumstances, the chronicler's main principle is of permanent and
universal application. The Church has always felt a just concern
that the official representatives of its faith and order should
commend themselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.
The prophet needs neither testimonials
The chronicler's
other principle is the importance of a suitable and authoritative
ritual. We have already noticed that any order of service that is
fixed by the constitution or custom of a Church involves the
principle of ritual. Abijah's speech does not insist that only the
established ritual should be tolerated; such questions had not come
within the chronicler's horizon. The merit of Judah lay in
possessing and practising a legitimate ritual, that is to say in
observing the Pauline injunction to do all things decently and in
order. The present generation is not inclined to enforce any very
stringent obedience to Paul's teaching, and finds it difficult to
sympathise with Abijah's enthusiasm for the symbolism of worship.
But men to-day are not radically different from the chronicler's
contemporaries, and it is as legitimate to appeal to spiritual
sensibility through the eye as through the ear; architecture and
decoration are neither more nor less spiritual than an attractive
voice and impressive elocution. Novelty and variety have, or should
have, their legitimate place in public worship; but the Church has
its obligations to those who have more regular spiritual wants.
Most of us find much of the helpfulness of public worship in the
influence of old and familiar spiritual associations, which can
only be maintained by a measure of permanence and fixity in Divine
service. The symbolism of the Lord's Supper never loses its
freshness, and yet it is restful because familiar and impressive
because ancient. On the other hand, the maintenance of this
Ritual, too, has its negative value. By observing the Levitical ordinances the Jews were protected from the vagaries of any ambitious owner of a young bullock and seven rams. While we grant liberty to all to use the form of worship in which they find most spiritual profit, we need to have Churches whose ritual will be comparatively fixed. Christians who find themselves most helped by the more quiet and regular methods of devotion naturally look to a settled order of service to protect them from undue and distracting excitement.
In spite of the wide interval that separates the modern Church from Judaism, we can still discern a unity of principle, and are glad to confirm the judgment of Christian experience from the lessons of an older and different dispensation. But we should do injustice to the chronicler's teaching if we forgot that for his own times his teaching was capable of much more definite and forcible application. Christianity and Islam have purified religious worship throughout Europe, America, and a large portion of Asia. We are no longer tempted by the cruel and loathsome rites of heathenism. The Jews knew the wild extravagance, gross immorality, and ruthless cruelty of Phœnician and Syrian worship. If we had lived in the chronicler's age and had shared his experience of idolatrous rites, we should have also shared his enthusiasm for the pure and lofty ritual of the Pentateuch. We should have regarded it as a Divine barrier between Israel and the abominations of heathenism, and should have been jealous for its strict observance.
Abijah, dying,
as far as we can gather from Chronicles, in the odour of sanctity,
was succeeded by his son Asa. The chronicler's history of Asa is
much fuller than that which is given in the book of Kings. The
older narrative is used as a framework into which material from
later sources is freely inserted. The beginning of the new reign
was singularly promising. Abijah had been a very David, he had
fought the battles of Jehovah, and had assured the security and
independence of Judah. Asa, like Solomon, entered into the peaceful
enjoyment of his predecessor's exertions in the field. “In his days the land was quiet ten years,” as
in the days when the judges had delivered Israel, and he was able
to exhort his people to prudent effort by reminding them that
Jehovah had given them rest on every side. xiv. 1, 7, peculiar to
Chronicles. xiv. 3-9, peculiar to Chronicles.
These references
to buildings, especially fortresses, to military stores and the
vast numbers of Jewish and Israelite armies, form a distinct class
amongst the additions made by the chronicler to the material taken
from the book of Kings. They are found in the narratives of the
reigns of David, Rehoboam, Jehoshaphat, Uzziah, Jotham, Manasseh,
in fact in the reigns of nearly all the good kings; Manasseh's
building was done after he had turned from his evil ways.
Asa's warlike
preparations were possibly intended, like those of the Triple
Alliance, to enable him to maintain peace; but if so, their sequel
did not illustrate the maxim, “Si vis
pacem, para bellum.” The rumour of his vast armaments
reached a powerful monarch: “Zerah the
Ethiopian.” xiv. 9-15.
Jehovah
justified the trust reposed in Him. He smote the Ethiopians, and
they fled towards the south-west in the direction of Egypt; and Asa
and his army pursued them as far as Gerar, with fearful slaughter,
so that of Zerah's million followers not one remained alive. So R.V. marg.; R.V. text (with which
A.V. is in substantial agreement): “There
fell of the Ethiopians so many that they could not recover
themselves”; i.e., the routed army were never
able to rally.
This victory is closely parallel to that of Abijah over Jeroboam. In both the numbers of the armies are reckoned by hundreds of thousands; and the hostile host outnumbers the army of Judah in the one case by exactly two to one, in the other by nearly that proportion: in both the king of Judah trusts with calm assurance to the assistance of Jehovah, and Jehovah smites the enemy; the Jews then massacre the defeated army and spoil or capture the neighbouring cities.
These victories over superior numbers may easily be paralleled or surpassed by numerous striking examples from secular history. The odds were greater at Agincourt, where at least sixty thousand French were defeated by not more than twenty thousand Englishmen; at Marathon the Greeks routed a Persian army ten times as numerous as their own; in India English generals have defeated innumerable hordes of native warriors, as when Wellesley—
“Against the myriads of Assaye Clashed with his fiery few and won.”
For the most part victorious generals have been ready to acknowledge the succouring arm of the God of battles. Shakespeare's Henry V. after Agincourt speaks altogether in the spirit of Asa's prayer:—
“... O God, Thy arm was here; And not to us, but to Thy arm alone, Ascribe we all.... ... Take it, God, For it is only Thine.”
When the small craft that made up Elizabeth's fleet defeated the huge Spanish galleons and galleasses, and the storms of the northern seas finished the work of destruction, the grateful piety of Protestant England felt that its foes had been destroyed by the breath of the Lord; “Afflavit Deus et dissipantur.”
The principle that underlies such feelings is quite independent of the exact proportions of opposing armies. The victories of inferior numbers in a righteous cause are the most striking, but not the most significant, illustrations of the superiority of moral to material force. In the wider movements of international politics we may find even more characteristic instances. It is true of nations as well as of individuals that—
“The Lord killeth and maketh alive; He bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up: The Lord maketh poor and maketh rich; He bringeth low, He also lifteth up: He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, He lifteth up the needy from the dunghill, To make them sit with princes And inherit the throne of glory.”
Italy in the
eighteenth century seemed as hopelessly divided as Israel under the
judges, and Greece as completely enslaved to the “unspeakable Turk” as the Jews to
Nebuchadnezzar; and yet, destitute as they were of any material
resources, these nations had at their disposal great moral forces:
the memory of ancient greatness and the sentiment of nationality;
and to-day Italy can count hundreds of thousands like the
But the principle has a wider application. A little examination of the more obscure and complicated movements of social life will show moral forces everywhere overcoming and controlling the apparently irresistible material forces opposed to them. The English and American pioneers of the movements for the abolition of slavery had to face what seemed an impenetrable phalanx of powerful interests and influences; but probably any impartial student of history would have foreseen the ultimate triumph of a handful of earnest men over all the wealth and political power of the slave-owners. The moral forces at the disposal of the abolitionists were obviously irresistible. But the soldier in the midst of smoke and tumult may still be anxious and despondent at the very moment when the spectator sees clearly that the battle is won; and the most earnest Christian workers sometimes falter when they realise the vast and terrible forces that fight against them. At such times we are both rebuked and encouraged by the simple faith of the chronicler in the overruling power of God.
It may be
objected that if victory were to be secured by Divine intervention,
there was no need to muster five hundred and eighty thousand men or
indeed any army at all. If in any and every case God disposes, what
need is there for the devotion to His service of our best strength,
and energy, and culture, or of any human effort at all? A wholesome
spiritual instinct leads the chronicler to emphasise the great
preparations of Abijah and Asa. We have no right to look for Divine
co-operation till we have done our best; we are not to
This principle may be put in another way. Even to the hundreds of thousands the Divine help is still necessary. The leaders of great hosts are as dependent upon Divine help as Jonathan and his armour-bearer fighting single-handed against a Philistine garrison, or David arming himself with a sling and stone against Goliath of Gath. The most competent Christian worker in the prime of his spiritual strength needs grace as much as the untried youth making his first venture in the Lord's service.
At this point we
meet with another of the chronicler's obvious self-contradictions.
At the beginning of the narrative of Asa's reign we are told that
the king did away with the high places and the symbols of
idolatrous worship, and that, because Judah had thus sought
Jehovah, He gave them rest. The deliverance from Zerah is another
mark of Divine favour. And yet in the fifteenth chapter Asa, in
obedience to prophetic admonition, takes away the abominations from
his dominions, as if there had been no previous reformation, but we
are told that the high places were not taken out of Israel. The
context would naturally suggest that Israel here means Asa's
kingdom, as the true Israel of God; but as the verse is borrowed
from the book of Kings, and “out of
Israel” is an editorial addition made by the chronicler, it
is probably intended to
Again, in Asa's
first reformation he commanded Judah to seek Jehovah and to do the
Law and the commandments; and accordingly Judah sought the Lord.
Moreover, Abijah, about seventeen years The second reformation is dated early
in Asa's fifteenth year, and Abijah only reigned three years.
Another minor
discrepancy is found in the statement
Such
contradictions render it impossible to give a complete and
continuous exposition of Chronicles that shall be at the same time
consistent. Nevertheless they are not without their value for the
Christian student. They afford evidence of the good faith of the
chronicler. His contradictions are clearly due to his use of
independent and discrepant sources, and not to any tampering with
the statements of his authorities. They are also an indication that
the chronicler attaches much more importance to spiritual
edification than to historical accuracy. When he seeks to set
before his contemporaries the higher nature and better life of the
great national heroes, and thus to provide them with an ideal of
kingship, he is scrupulously and painfully careful to remove
everything that would weaken the force of the lesson which he is
trying to teach; but he is comparatively indifferent to accuracy of
historical detail. When his authorities contradict each other as to
the number or the date of Asa's reformations, or even the character
of his later years, he does not hesitate to place the two
narratives side by side and practically to draw lessons from both.
The work of the chronicler and its presence with the Pentateuch and
the Synoptic Gospels in the sacred canon imply an emphatic
declaration of the judgment of the Spirit and the Church that
detailed historical accuracy is not a necessary consequence of
inspiration. In expounding this second narrative of a reformation
by Asa, we shall make no attempt at complete harmony with the rest
of Chronicles; any inconsistency between the exposition here and
The occasion
then of Asa's second reformation xv., based upon
“Now for long seasons Israel was without the true God, and without teaching priest, and without law.”
Judges tells how again and again Israel fell away from Jehovah. “But when in their distress they turned unto Jehovah, the God of Israel, and sought Him, He was found of them.”
Oded's address
is very similar to another and somewhat fuller summary of the
history of the judges, contained in Samuel's farewell to the
people, in which he reminded them how when they forgot Jehovah,
their God, He sold them into the hand of their enemies, and when
they cried unto Jehovah, He sent Zerubbabel, and Barak, and
Jephthah, and Samuel, and delivered them out of the hand of their
enemies on every side, and they dwelt in safety.
Deborah's song
records great vexations: the highways were unoccupied, and the
travellers walked through by-ways; the rulers ceased in Israel;
Gideon “threshed wheat by the winepress to
hide it from the Midianites.” The breaking of nation against
nation and city against city will refer to the destruction of
Succoth and Penuel by Gideon, the sieges of Shechem and Thebez by
Abimelech, the massacre of the Ephraimites by Jephthah, and the
civil war between Benjamin and the rest of Israel and the
consequent destruction of Jabesh-gilead.
“But,” said Oded, “be ye
strong, and let not your hands be slack, for your work shall be
rewarded.” Oded implies that abuses were prevalent in Judah
which might spread and corrupt the whole people, so as to draw down
upon them the wrath of God and plunge them into all the miseries of
the times of the judges. These abuses were wide-spread, supported
by powerful interests and numerous adherents. The queen-mother, one
of the most important personages in an Eastern state, was herself
devoted to heathen observances. Their suppression needed courage,
energy, and pertinacity; but if they were resolutely grappled with,
Jehovah would reward the efforts of His servants with success, and
Judah would enjoy prosperity. Accordingly Asa took courage and put
away the abominations out of Judah and Benjamin and the cities he
held in Ephraim. The abominations were the idols and all the cruel
and obscene accompaniments of heathen worship. Cf.
Asa's
reformation was constructive as well as destructive; the toleration
of “abominations” had diminished the
zeal of the people for Jehovah, and even the altar of Jehovah
before the porch of the Temple had suffered from neglect: it was
now renewed, and Asa assembled the people for a great festival.
Under Rehoboam many pious Israelites had left the northern kingdom
to dwell where they could freely worship at the Temple; under Asa
there was a new migration, “for they fell
to him out of Israel in abundance when they saw that Jehovah his
God was with him.” And so it came about that in the great
assembly which Asa gathered together at Jerusalem not only Judah
and Benjamin, but also Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon, were
represented. The chronicler has already told us that after the
return from the Captivity some of the children of Ephraim and
Manasseh dwelt at Jerusalem with the children of Judah and
Benjamin,
Asa's festival
was held in the third month of his fifteenth year, the month Sivan,
corresponding roughly to our June. The Feast of Weeks, at which
first-fruits were offered, fell in this month; and his festival was
probably a special celebration of this feast. The sacrifice of
seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep out of the spoil taken
from the Ethiopians and their allies might be considered a kind of
first-fruits. The people pledged themselves most solemnly to
permanent obedience to Jehovah; this festival and its offerings
were to be first-fruits or earnest of future loyalty. “They entered into a covenant to seek Jehovah, the God
of their fathers, with all their heart and with all their soul; ...
they sware unto Jehovah with a loud voice, and with shouting, and
with trumpets, and with cornets.” The observance of this
covenant was not to be left to the uncertainties of individual
loyalty; the community were to be on their guard against offenders,
Achans who might trouble Israel. According to the stern law of the
Pentateuch,
Having thus entered into covenant with Jehovah, “all Judah rejoiced at their oath because they had sworn with all their heart, and sought Him with their whole desire.” At the beginning, no doubt, they, like their king, “took courage”; they addressed themselves with reluctance and apprehension to an unwelcome and hazardous enterprise. They now rejoiced over the Divine grace that had inspired their efforts and been manifested in their courage and devotion, over the happy issue of their enterprise, and over the universal enthusiasm for Jehovah; and He set the seal of His approval upon their gladness, He was found of them, and Jehovah gave them rest round about, so that there was no more war for twenty years: unto the thirty-fifth year of Asa's reign. It is an unsavoury task to put away abominations: many foul nests of unclean birds are disturbed in the process; men would not choose to have this particular cross laid upon them, but only those who take up their cross and follow Christ can hope to enter into the joy of the Lord.
The narrative of
this second reformation is completed by the addition of details
borrowed from the book of Kings. The chronicler next recounts how
in the thirty-sixth year of Asa's reign Baasha began to fortify
Ramah as an outpost against Judah, but was forced to abandon his
undertaking by the intervention of the Syrian king, Benhadad, whom
Asa hired with his own treasures and those of the Temple; whereupon
Asa carried off Baasha's stones and timber and built Geba
After his
victory over Zerah, Asa received a Divine message xvi. 7-10, peculiar to
Chronicles.
Here the
chronicler echoes one of the key-notes of the great prophets.
Isaiah had protested against the alliance which Ahaz concluded with
Assyria in order to obtain assistance against the united onset of
Rezin,
In their successive calamities the Jews could derive no comfort from a study of previous history; the pretext upon which each of their oppressors had intervened in the affairs of Palestine had been an invitation from Judah. In their trouble they had sought a remedy worse than the disease; the consequences of this political quackery had always demanded still more desperate and fatal medicines. Freedom from the border raids of the Ephraimites was secured at the price of the ruthless devastations of Hazael; deliverance from Rezin only led to the wholesale massacres and spoliation of Sennacherib. Foreign alliance was an opiate that had to be taken in continually increasing doses, till at last it caused the death of the patient.
Nevertheless
these are not the lessons which the seer seeks to impress upon Asa.
Hanani takes a
Sin like Asa's
has been the supreme apostacy of the Church in all her branches and
through all her generations: Christ has been denied, not by lack of
devotion, but by want of faith. Champions of the truth, reformers
and guardians of the Temple, like Asa, have been eager to attach to
their holy cause the cruel prejudices of ignorance and folly, the
greed and vindictiveness of selfish men. They have feared lest
these potent forces should be arrayed amongst the enemies of the
Church and her Master. Sects and parties have eagerly contested the
privilege of counselling a profligate prince how he should satisfy
his
The evil
consequences of Asa's policy were not confined to the loss of a
great opportunity, nor were his treasures the only price he was to
pay for fortifying Geba and Mizpah with Baasha's building
materials. Hanani declared to him that from henceforth he should
have wars. This purchased alliance was only the beginning, and not
the end, of troubles. Instead of the complete and decisive victory
which had disposed of the Ethiopians once for all, Asa and his
people were harassed and exhausted by continual warfare. The
Christian life would have more decisive victories, and
Oded's message
of warning had been accepted and obeyed, but Asa was now no longer
docile to Divine discipline. David and Hezekiah submitted
themselves to the censure of Gad and Isaiah; but Asa was wroth with
Hanani and put him in prison, because the prophet had ventured to
rebuke him. His sin against God corrupted even his civil
administration; and the ally of a heathen king, the persecutor of
God's prophet, also oppressed the people. Three years The date, as before, is peculiar to
Chronicles. xvi. 12b,
peculiar to Chronicles.
In discussing the chronicler's picture of the good kings, we have noticed that, while Chronicles and the book of Kings agree in mentioning the misfortunes which as a rule darkened their closing years, Chronicles in each case records some lapse into sin as preceding these misfortunes. From the theological standpoint of the chronicler's school, these invidious records of the sins of good kings were necessary in order to account for their misfortunes. The devout student of the book of Kings read with surprise that of the pious kings who had been devoted to Jehovah and His temple, whose acceptance by Him had been shown by the victories vouchsafed to them, one had died of a painful disease in his feet, another in a lazar-house, two had been assassinated, and one slain in battle. Why had faith and devotion been so ill rewarded? Was it not vain to serve God? What profit was there in keeping His ordinances? The chronicler felt himself fortunate in discovering amongst his later authorities additional information which explained these mysteries and justified the ways of God to man. Even the good kings had not been without reproach, and their misfortunes had been the righteous judgment on their sins.
The principle
which guided the chronicler in this selection of material was that
sin was always punished by complete, immediate, and manifest
retribution in this life, and that conversely all misfortune was
the punishment of sin. There is a simplicity and apparent justice
about this theory that has always made it the
Like many other simple and logical doctrines, this Jewish theory of retribution came into collision with obvious facts, and seemed to set the law of God at variance with the enlightened conscience. “Beneath the simplest forms of truth the subtlest error lurks.” The prosperity of the wicked and the sufferings of the righteous were a standing religious difficulty to the devout Israelite. The popular doctrine held its ground tenaciously, supported not only by ancient prescription, but also by the most influential classes in society. All who were young, robust, wealthy, powerful, or successful were interested in maintaining a doctrine that made health, riches, rank, and success the outward and visible signs of righteousness. Accordingly the simplicity of the original doctrine was hedged about with an ingenious and elaborate apologetic. The prosperity of the wicked was held to be only for a season; before he died the judgment of God would overtake him. It was a mistake to speak of the sufferings of the righteous: these very sufferings showed that his righteousness was only apparent, and that in secret he had been guilty of grievous sin.
Of all the
cruelty inflicted in the name of orthodoxy there is little that can
surpass the refined torture due to this Jewish apologetic. Its
cynical teaching met the sufferer in the anguish of bereavement, in
the pain and depression of disease, when he was crushed by sudden
and ruinous losses or publicly disgraced by the unjust sentence of
a venal law-court. Instead of receiving sympathy and help, he found
himself looked upon as a moral outcast and pariah on account of his
misfortunes; when he most needed Divine grace, he was bidden to
The book of Job is an inspired protest against the current theory of retribution, and the full discussion of the question belongs to the exposition of that book. But the narrative of Chronicles, like much Church history in all ages, is largely controlled by the controversial interests of the school from which it emanated. In the hands of the chronicler the story of the kings of Judah is told in such a way that it becomes a polemic against the book of Job. The tragic and disgraceful death of good kings presented a crucial difficulty to the chronicler's theology. A good man's other misfortunes might be compensated for by prosperity in his latter days; but in a theory of retribution which required a complete satisfaction of justice in this life there could be no compensation for a dishonourable death. Hence the chronicler's anxiety to record any lapses of good kings in their latter days.
The criticism
and correction of this doctrine belongs, as we have said, to the
exposition of the book of Job. Here we are rather concerned to
discover the permanent truth of which the theory is at once an
imperfect and exaggerated expression. To begin with, there are sins
which bring upon the transgressor a swift, obvious, and dramatic
punishment. Human law deals thus with some sins; the laws of health
visit others with a similar severity; at times the Divine judgment
strikes down men and nations before an awe-stricken world. Amongst
such judgments we might reckon the punishments of royal sins so
frequent in the pages of Chronicles. Time and Tide, xii. 67. George Eliot, Romola,
xxi.
Indeed, the
consequences of sin are regular and exact; and the judgments upon
the kings of Judah in Chronicles accurately symbolise the
operations of Divine discipline. But pain, and ruin, and disgrace
are only secondary elements in God's judgments; and most often they
are not judgments at all. They have their uses as chastisements;
but if we dwell upon them with too emphatic an insistence, men
suppose that pain is a worse evil than sin, and that sin is only to
be avoided because it causes suffering to the sinner. The really
serious Part II., Chap. IX.
Asa was
succeeded by his son Jehoshaphat, and his reign began even more
auspiciously xvii., peculiar to Chronicles.
Because the new
king thus earnestly and consistently sought the God of his fathers,
Jehovah was with him, and established the kingdom in his hand.
Jehoshaphat received all the marks of Divine favour usually
bestowed upon good kings. He waxed great exceedingly; he had many
fortresses, an immense army, and much wealth; he built castles and
cities of store; he had arsenals for the supply of war material in
the cities of Judah. And these cities, together with other
defensible positions and the border cities of Ephraim occupied by
Judah, were held by strong garrisons. While David had contented
himself with two hundred and eighty-eight thousand men from all
Israel, and Abijah had led forth four hundred thousand, and Asa
five hundred and eighty thousand, there waited on Jehoshaphat, in
addition to his numerous garrisons, eleven hundred and
sixty thousand men. Of these seven hundred and eighty
thousand were men of Judah in three divisions, and
The chronicler records the names of the captains of the five divisions. Two of them are singled out for special commendation: Eliada the Benjamite is styled “a mighty man of valour,” and of the Jewish captain Amaziah the son of Zichri it is said that he offered either himself or his possessions willingly to Jehovah, as David and his princes had offered, for the building of the Temple. The devout king had devout officers.
He had also devoted subjects. All Judah brought him presents, so that he had great riches and ample means to sustain his royal power and splendour. Moreover, as in the case of Solomon and Asa, his piety was rewarded with freedom from war: “The fear of Jehovah fell upon all the kingdoms round about, so that they made no war against Jehoshaphat.” Some of his weaker neighbours were overawed by the spectacle of his great power; the Philistines brought him presents and tribute money, and the Arabians immense flocks of rams and he-goats, seven thousand seven hundred of each.
Great prosperity
had the usual fatal effect upon Jehoshaphat's character. In the
beginning of his reign he had strengthened himself against Israel
and had refused to walk in their ways; now power had developed
ambition, and he sought and obtained the honour of marrying his son
Jehoram to Athaliah the daughter of Ahab, the mighty and
magnificent king of Israel, possibly also the daughter of the
Phœnician princess Jezebel, the devotee of Baal. This family
connection of course implied political alliance. After a time
Then follows the
familiar story of Micaiah the son of Imlah, the disastrous
expedition of the two kings, and the death of Ahab, almost exactly
as in the book of Kings. There is one significant alteration: both
narratives tell us how the Syrian captains attacked Jehoshaphat
because they took him for the king of Israel and gave up their
pursuit when he cried out, and they discovered their mistake; but
the chronicler adds the explanation that Jehovah helped him and God
moved them to depart from him. And so the master of more than a
million soldiers was happy in being allowed to escape on account of
his insignificance, and returned in peace to Jerusalem. Oded and
Hanani had met his predecessors on their return from victory; now
Jehu the son of Hanani xix. 1-3, peculiar to Chronicles.
The chronicler's
addition to the account of the king's escape from the Syrian
captains reminds us that God still watches over and protects His
children even when they are in the very act of sinning against Him.
When Jehu's
father Hanani rebuked Asa, the king flew into a passion, and cast
the prophet into prison; Jehoshaphat received Jehu's reproof in a
very different spirit xix. 4-11, peculiar to
Chronicles.
The principle
that good government must be a necessary consequence of piety in
the rulers has not been so uniformly observed in later times as in
the pages of Chronicles. The testimony of history on this point is
not altogether consistent. In spite of all the faults of the
orthodox and devout Greek Milman, Latin
Christianity, Book XI., Chap. I.
Possibly the
martial tone of the sentence that concludes the account of
Jehoshaphat as the Jewish Justinian is due to the influence upon
the chronicler's mind of the incident xx. 1-30, peculiar to Chronicles.
Jehoshaphat's
next experience was parallel to that of Asa with Zerah. When his
new reforms were completed, he was menaced with a formidable
invasion. His new enemies were almost as distant and strange as the
Ethiopians and Lubim who had followed Zerah. We hear nothing about
any king of Israel or Damascus, the usual leaders of assaults upon
Judah; we hear instead of a triple alliance against Judah. Two of
the allies are Moab and Ammon; but the Jewish kings were not wont
to regard these as irresistible foes, so that the extreme dismay
which takes possession of king and people must be due to the third
ally: the “Meunim.” So R.V. marg., with the LXX. The
Targum has “Edomites,” the A.V. is
not justified by the Hebrew, and the R.V. does not make sense. Cf. One Hebrew manuscript is quoted as
having this reading. A.R.V., with the ordinary Masoretic text, have
“Syria”; but it is simply absurd to
suppose that a multitude from beyond the sea from Syria would first
make their appearance on the western shore of the Dead Sea.
On this occasion
Jehoshaphat does not seek any foreign alliance. He does not appeal
to Syria, like Asa, nor does he ask Ahab's successor to repay in
kind the assistance given to Ahab at Ramoth-gilead, partly perhaps
because there was no time, but chiefly because he had learnt the
truth which Hanani had sought to teach his father, and which
Hanani's son had taught him. He does not even trust in his own
hundreds of
Here Jehoshaphat stood up as the spokesman of the nation, and prayed to Jehovah on their behalf and on his own. He recalls the Divine omnipotence; Jehovah is God of earth and heaven, God of Israel and Ruler of the heathen, and therefore able to help even in this great emergency:—
“O Jehovah, God of our fathers, art Thou not God in heaven? Dost Thou not rule all the kingdoms of the heathen? And in Thy hand is power and might, so that none is able to withstand Thee.”
The land of Israel had been the special gift of Jehovah to His people, in fulfilment of His ancient promise to Abraham:—
“Didst not Thou, O our God, dispossess the inhabitants
of this land in favour of Thy people Israel,
And now long possession had given Israel a prescriptive right to the Land of Promise; and they had, so to speak, claimed their rights in the most formal and solemn fashion by erecting a temple to the God of Israel. Moreover, the prayer of Solomon at the dedication of the Temple had been accepted by Jehovah as the basis of His covenant with Israel, and Jehoshaphat quotes a clause from that prayer or covenant which had expressly provided for such emergencies as the present:—
“And they” (Israel) “dwelt in the land, and built Thee therein a sanctuary
for Thy name, saying, If evil come upon us, the sword, judgment,
pestilence, or famine, we will stand before this house and before
Thee (for Thy name is in this house), and cry unto Thee in our
affliction; and Thou wilt hear and save.” Ver. 9; cf.
Moreover, the present invasion was not only an attempt to set aside Jehovah's disposition of Palestine and the long-established rights of Israel: it was also gross ingratitude, a base return for the ancient forbearance of Israel towards her present enemies:—
“And now, behold, the children of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir, whom Thou wouldest not let Israel invade when they came out of the land of Egypt, but they turned aside from them and destroyed them not—behold how they reward us by coming to dispossess us of Thy possession which Thou hast caused us to possess.”
For this
nefarious purpose the enemies of Israel had
“O our God, wilt Thou not execute judgment against them? for we have no might against this great company that cometh against us, neither know we what to do, but our eyes are upon Thee.”
Meanwhile the great assemblage stood in the attitude of supplication before Jehovah, not a gathering of mighty men of valour praying for blessing upon their strength and courage, but a mixed multitude, men and women, children and infants, seeking sanctuary, as it were, at the Temple, and casting themselves in their extremity upon the protecting care of Jehovah. Possibly when the king finished his prayer the assembly broke out into loud, wailing cries of dismay and agonised entreaty; but the silence of the narrative rather suggests that Jehoshaphat's strong, calm faith communicated itself to the people, and they waited quietly for Jehovah's answer, for some token or promise of deliverance. Instead of the confused cries of an excited crowd, there was a hush of expectancy, such as sometimes falls upon an assembly when a great statesman has risen to utter words which will be big with the fate of empires.
And the answer
came, not by fire from heaven or any visible sign, not by voice of
thunder accompanied by angelic trumpets, nor by angel or archangel,
but by a familiar voice hitherto unsuspected of any supernatural
gifts, by a prophetic utterance whose only credentials were given
by the influence of the Spirit upon the speaker and his audience.
The chronicler relates with evident satisfaction how, in the midst
of that great congregation, the Spirit of Jehovah came,
Jahaziel's
message showed that Jehoshaphat's prayer had been accepted; Jehovah
responded without reserve to the confidence reposed in Him: He
would vindicate His own authority by delivering Judah; Jehoshaphat
should have blessed proof of the immense superiority of simple
trust in Jehovah over an alliance with Ahab or the king of
Damascus. Twice the prophet exhorts the king and people in the very
words that Jehovah had used to encourage Joshua when the death of
Moses had thrown upon him all the heavy responsibilities of
leadership: “Fear not, nor be
dismayed.” They need no longer cling like frightened
suppliants to the sanctuary, but are to go forth at once, the very
next day, against the enemy. That they may lose no time in looking
for them, Jehovah announces the exact spot where the enemy are to
be found: “Behold, they are coming by the
ascent of Hazziz, Not Ziz, as A.R.V.
The general situation, however, is fairly clear: the allied invaders would come up from the coast into the highlands of Judah by one of the wadies leading inland; they were to be met by Jehoshaphat and his people on one of the “wildernesses,” or plateaus of pasture-land, in the neighbourhood of Tekoa.
But the Jews went forth, not as an army, but in order to be the passive spectators of a great manifestation of the power of Jehovah. They had no concern with the numbers and prowess of their enemies; Jehovah Himself would lay bare His mighty arm, and Judah should see that no foreign ally, no millions of native warriors, were necessary for their salvation: “Ye shall not need to fight in this battle; take up your position, stand still and see the deliverance of Jehovah with you, O Judah and Jerusalem.”
Thus had Moses
addressed Israel on the eve of the passage of the Red Sea.
Jehoshaphat and his people owned and honoured the Divine message as
if Jahaziel were another Moses; they prostrated themselves on the
ground before Jehovah. The sons of Asaph had already been
privileged to provide Jehovah with His prophet; these Asaphites
represented the Levitical clan of Gershom: but now the Kohathites,
with their guild of singers, the sons of Korah, “stood up to praise Jehovah, the God of Israel, with an
exceeding loud voice,” as the Levites sang when the
foundations of the second Temple were laid, and when Ezra and
Accordingly on the morrow the people rose early in the morning and went out to the wilderness of Tekoa, ten or twelve miles south of Jerusalem. In ancient times generals were wont to make a set speech to their armies before they led them into battle, so Jehoshaphat addresses his subjects as they pass out before him. He does not seek to make them confident in their own strength and prowess; he does not inflame their passions against Moab and Ammon, nor exhort them to be brave and remind them that they fight this day for the ashes of their fathers and the temple of their God. Such an address would have been entirely out of place, because the Jews were not going to fight at all. Jehoshaphat only bids them have faith in Jehovah and His prophets. It is a curious anticipation of Pauline teaching. Judah is to be “saved by faith” from Moab and Ammon, as the Christian is delivered by faith from sin and its penalty. The incident might almost seem to have been recorded in order to illustrate the truth that St. Paul was to teach. It is strange that there is no reference to this chapter in the epistles of St. Paul and St. James, and that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews does not remind us how “by faith Jehoshaphat was delivered from Moab and Ammon.”
There is no
question of military order, no reference to the five great
divisions into which the armies of Judah and Benjamin are divided
in chap. xvii. Here, as at Jericho, the captain of Israel is
chiefly concerned to provide musicians to lead his army. When David
was arranging for the musical services before the Ark, he took
counsel with his captains. In this unique military expedition there
is no mention of
The Levitical
singers, dressed in the splendid robes הדרת קדש, literally, as A.R.V.,
“beauty of holiness”; i.e.,
sacred robes. Translate with R.V. marg. “praise in the beauty of holiness,” not, as
A.R.V., “praise the beauty of
holiness.”
And so Judah, a pilgrim caravan rather than an army, went on to its Divinely appointed tryst with its enemies, and at its head the Levitical choir sang the Temple hymns. It was not a campaign, but a sacred function, on a much larger scale a procession such as may be seen winding its way, with chants and incense, banners, images, and crucifixes, through the streets of Catholic cities.
Meanwhile
Jehovah was preparing a spectacle to gladden the eyes of His people
and reward their implicit faith and exact obedience; He was working
for those who were waiting for Him. Though Judah was
While this
tragedy was enacting, and the air was rent with the cruel yells of
that death struggle,
“Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.”
There is no touch of pity for the wretched victims of their own sins. Greeks of every city and tribe could feel the pathos of the tragic end of the Athenian expedition against Syracuse; but the Jews had no ruth for the kindred tribes that dwelt along their frontier, and the age of the chronicler had not yet learnt that Jehovah had either tenderness or compassion for the enemies of Israel.
The spectators
of this carnage—we cannot call them victors—did not neglect to
profit to the utmost by their great opportunity. They spent three
days in With R.V. marg.
In collecting
the spoil, the Jews had become dispersed through all the wide area
over which the fighting between the confederates must have
extended; but on the fourth day they gathered together again in a
neighbouring valley and gave solemn thanks for their deliverance:
“There they blessed Jehovah; therefore the
name of that place was called the valley of Berachah unto this
day.” West of Tekoa, The identification of the valley of
Berachah with the valley of Jehoshaphat, close to Jerusalem and
mentioned by Josephus, is a mere theory, quite at variance with the
topographical evidence.
When the spoil
was all collected, they returned to Jerusalem as they came, in
solemn procession, headed, no doubt, by the Levites, with
psalteries, and harps, and trumpets. They came back to the scene of
their anxious supplications: to the house of Jehovah. But
yesterday, as it were, they had assembled before Jehovah,
terror-stricken at the report of an irresistible host of invaders;
and to-day their enemies were utterly destroyed. They had
experienced a deliverance that might rank with the Exodus; and as
at that former deliverance they had spoiled the Egyptians, so now
they had returned
Then follow the regular summary and conclusion of the history of the reign taken from the book of Kings, with the usual alterations in the reference to further sources of information. We are told here, in direct contradiction to xvii. 6 and to the whole tenor of the previous chapters, that the high places were not taken away, another illustration of the slight importance the chronicler attached to accuracy in details. He either overlooks the contradiction between passages borrowed from different sources, or else does not think it worth while to harmonise his inconsistent materials.
But after the
narrative of the reign is thus formally closed the chronicler
inserts a postscript, perhaps by a kind of after-thought. The book
of Kings narrates Kings xxii. 48, 49.
We have next to notice the chronicler's most important omissions. The book of Kings narrates another alliance of Jehoshaphat with Jehoram, king of Israel, like his alliances with Ahab and Ahaziah. The narrative of this incident closely resembles that of the earlier joint expedition to Ramoth-gilead. As then Jehoshaphat marched out with Ahab, so now he accompanies Ahab's son Jehoram, taking with him his subject ally the king of Edom. Here also a prophet appears upon the scene; but on this occasion Elisha addresses no rebuke to Jehoshaphat for his alliance with Israel, but treats him with marked respect: and the allied army wins a great victory. If this narrative had been included in Chronicles, the reign of Jehoshaphat would not have afforded an altogether satisfactory illustration of the main lesson which the chronicler intended it to teach.
This main lesson
was that the chosen people should not look for protection against
their enemies either to foreign alliances or to their own military
strength, but solely to the grace and omnipotence of Jehovah. One
negative aspect of this principle has been enforced by the
condemnation of Asa's alliance with Syria and
The peculiar
value to the chronicler of the deliverance from Moab, Ammon, and
the Meunim lay in the fact that no human arm divided the glory with
Jehovah. It was shown conclusively not merely that Judah could
safely be contented with an army smaller than those of its
neighbours, but that Judah would be equally safe with no army at
all. We feel that this lesson is taught with added force when we
remember that Jehoshaphat had a larger army than is ascribed to any
Israelite or Jewish king after David. Yet he places no confidence
in his eleven hundred and sixty thousand warriors, and he is not
allowed to make any use of them. In the case of a king with small
military resources, to trust in Jehovah might be merely making a
virtue of necessity; but if Jehoshaphat, with his immense army,
felt that his only real help was in his God, the example furnished
an à fortiori
argument which would conclusively show
When they were
thus helpless, Jehovah wrought for Israel, as He had destroyed the
enemies of Jehoshaphat in the wilderness of Jeruel. The Jews stood
still and saw the working out of their deliverance; great empires
wrestled together like Moab, Ammon, and Edom, in the agony of the
death struggle: and over all the tumult of battle Israel heard the
voice of Jehovah, “The battle is not yours,
but God's; ... set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the
deliverance of Jehovah with you, O Judah and Jerusalem.”
Before their eyes there passed the scenes of that great drama which
for a time
After the Restoration God's protecting providence asked no armed assistance from Judah. The mandates of a distant court authorised the rebuilding of the Temple and the fortifying of the city. The Jews solaced their national pride and found consolation for their weakness and subjection in the thought that their ostensible masters were in reality only the instruments which Jehovah used to provide for the security and prosperity of His children.
We have already
noticed that this philosophy of history is not peculiar to Israel.
Every nation has a similar system, and regards its own interests as
the supreme care of Providence. We have seen, too, that moral
influences have controlled and checkmated material forces; God has
fought against the biggest battalions. Similarly the Jews are not
the only people for whom deliverances have been worked out almost
without any co-operation on their own part. It was not a negro
revolt, for instance, that set free the slaves of our colonies or
of the Southern States. Italy regained her Eternal City as an
incidental effect of a great war in which she herself took no part.
Important political movements and great struggles involve
consequences
The chronicler
has found disciples in these latter days of a kindlier spirit and
more catholic sympathies. He and they have reached their common
doctrines by different paths, but the chronicler teaches
non-resistance as clearly as the Society of Friends. “When you have fully yielded yourself to the Divine
teaching,” he says, “you will
neither fight yourself nor ask others to fight for you; you will
simply stand still and watch a Divine providence protecting you and
destroying your enemies.” The Friends could almost echo this
teaching, not perhaps laying quite so much stress on the
destruction of the enemy, though among the visions of the earlier
Friends there were many that revealed the coming judgments of the
Lord; and the modern enthusiast is still apt to consider that his
enemies, are the Lord's enemies and
If the chronicler had lived to-day, the history of the Society of Friends might have furnished him with illustrations almost as apt as the destruction of the allied invaders of Judah. He would have rejoiced to tell us how a people that repudiated any resort to violence succeeded in conciliating savage tribes and founding the flourishing colony of Pennsylvania, and would have seen the hand of the Lord in the wealth and honour that have been accorded to a once despised and persecuted sect.
We should be passing to matters that were still beyond the chronicler's horizon, if we were to connect his teaching with our Lord's injunction, “Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” Such a sentiment scarcely harmonises with the three days' stripping of dead bodies in the wilderness of Jeruel. But though the chronicler's motives for non-resistance were not touched and softened with the Divine gentleness of Jesus of Nazareth, and his object was not to persuade his hearers to patient endurance of wrong, yet he had conceived the possibility of a mighty faith that could put its fortunes unreservedly into the hands of God and trust Him with the issues. If we are ever to be worthy citizens of the kingdom of our Lord, it can only be by the sustaining power and inspiring influence of a like faith.
When we come to
ask how far the people for whom he wrote responded to his teaching
and carried it into practical life, we are met with one of the many
instances of the grim irony of history. Probably the
Circumstances
were soon to test the readiness of the Jews, in times of national
danger, to observe the attitude of passive spectators and wait for
a Divine deliverance. It was not altogether in this spirit that the
priests met the savage persecutions of Antiochus. They made no vain
attempts to exorcise this evil spirit with hymns, and psalteries,
and harps, and trumpets; but the priest Mattathias and his sons
slew the king's commissioner and raised the standard of armed
revolt. We do indeed find indications of something like obedience
to the chronicler's principles. A body of the revolted Jews were
attacked on the Sabbath Day; they made no attempt to defend
themselves: “When they gave them battle
with all speed, they answered them not, neither cast they a stone
at them, nor stopped the places where they lay hid, ... and their
enemies rose up against them on the sabbath, and slew them, with
their wives, and their children, and their cattle, to the number of
a thousand people.”
The accession of
Jehoram is one of the instances in which a wicked son succeeded to
a conspicuously pious father, but in this case there is no
difficulty in explaining the phenomenon: the depraved character and
evil deeds of Jehoram, Ahaziah, and Athaliah are at once accounted
for when we remember that they were respectively the son-in-law,
grandson, and daughter of Ahab, and possibly of Jezebel. If,
however, Jezebel were really the mother of Athaliah, it is
difficult to believe that the chronicler understood or at any rate
realised the fact. In the books of Ezra and Nehemiah the chronicler
lays great stress upon the iniquity and inexpediency of marriage
with strange wives, and he has been careful to insert a note into
the history of Jehoshaphat to call attention to the fact that the
king of Judah had joined affinity with Ahab. If he had understood
that this implied joining affinity with a Phœnician devotee of
Baal, this significant fact would not have been passed over in
silence. Moreover, the names Athaliah and Ahaziah are both
compounded with the sacred name Jehovah. A Phœnician
Baal-worshipper may very well have been sufficiently eclectic
We have seen
that, after giving the concluding formula for the reign of
Jehoshaphat, the chronicler adds a postscript narrating an incident
discreditable to the king. Similarly he prefaces the introductory
formula for the reign of Jehoram by inserting a cruel deed of the
new king. Before telling us Jehoram's age at his accession and the
length of his reign, the chronicler relates xxi. 2-4, peculiar to Chronicles.
For the next few
verses Vv. 5-10; cf.
Then the
chronicler proceeds xxi. 11-19, peculiar to
Chronicles. So R.V. marg., with LXX. and Vulgate
A.R.V. have “mountains,” with
Masoretic text.
The other
prophets of Judah delivered their messages by word of mouth, but
this communication is made by means of “a
writing.” This, however, is not without parallel: Jeremiah
sent a letter to the captives in Babylon, and also sent a written
collection of his prophecies to Jehoiakim.
Elijah writes in the name of Jehovah, the God of David, and condemns Jehoram because he was not walking in the ways of Asa and Jehoshaphat, but in the ways of the kings of Israel and the house of Ahab. It is pleasant to find that, in spite of the sins which marked the latter days of Asa and Jehoshaphat, their “ways” were as a whole such as could be held up as an example by the prophet of Jehovah. Here and elsewhere God appeals to the better feelings that spring from pride of birth. Noblesse oblige. Jehoram held his throne as representative of the house of David, and was proud to trace his descent to the founder of the Israelite monarchy and to inherit the glory of the great reigns of Asa and Jehoshaphat; but this pride of race implied that to depart from their ways was dishonourable apostacy. There is no more pitiful spectacle than an effeminate libertine pluming himself on his noble ancestry.
Elijah further
rebukes Jehoram for the massacre of
“Truly the tender mercies of the weak, As of the wicked, are but cruel.”
There is nothing
so cruel as the terror of a selfish man. The Inquisition is the
measure not only of the inhumanity, but also of the weakness, of
the mediæval Church; and the massacre of St. Bartholomew was due to
the feebleness of Charles IX. as well as to the “revenge or the blind instinct of
self-preservation” Green's Shorter
History, p. 404.
The chronicler's
condemnation of Jehoram's massacre marks the superiority of the
standard of later Judaism to the current Oriental morality. For his
sins Jehoram was to be punished by sore disease and by a great
“plague” which would fall upon his
people, and his
These marauding
bands succeeded where the huge hosts of Zerah had failed; they
broke into Judah, and carried off all the king's treasure, together
with his sons and his wives, only leaving him his youngest son:
Jehoahaz or Ahaziah. They afterwards slew the princes they had
taken captive. xxii. 1b,
peculiar to Chronicles. The Hebrew original of the A.R.V.,
“departed without being desired,” is
as obscure as the English of our versions. The most probable
translation is, “He behaved so as to please
no one.” The A.R.V. apparently mean that no one regretted
his death.
The chronicler's
account of the reign of Ahaziah We need not discuss in detail the
question of Ahaziah's age at his accession. The age of forty-two,
given in xiii. 7a,
peculiar to Chronicles.
The book of
Kings had stated that Jehu slew forty-two brethren of Ahaziah. It
is, of course, perfectly
The chronicler next narrates Athaliah's murder of the seed royal of Judah and her usurpation of the throne of David, in terms almost identical with those of the narrative in the book of Kings. But his previous additions and modifications are hard to reconcile with the account he here borrows from his ancient authority. According to the chronicler, Jehoram had massacred all the other sons of Jehoshaphat, and the Arabians had slain all Jehoram's sons except Ahaziah, and Jehu had slain their sons; so that Ahaziah was the only living descendant in the male line of his grandfather Jehoshaphat; he himself apparently died at the age of twenty-three. It is intelligible enough that he should have a son Joash and possibly other sons; but still it is difficult to understand where Athaliah found “all the seed royal” and “the king's sons” whom she put to death. It is at any rate clear that Jehoram's slaughter of his brethren met with an appropriate punishment: all his own sons and grandsons were similarly slain, except the child Joash.
The chronicler's
narrative of the revolution by which Cf. p. 20.
A distinguished authority on European history is fond of pointing to the evil effects of royal marriages as one of the chief drawbacks to the monarchical system of government. A crown may at any time devolve upon a woman, and by her marriage with a powerful reigning prince her country may virtually be subjected to a foreign yoke. If it happens that the new sovereign professes a different religion from that of his wife's subjects, the evils arising from the marriage are seriously aggravated. Some such fate befell the Netherlands as the result of the marriage of Mary of Burgundy with the Emperor Maximilian, and England was only saved from the danger of transference to Catholic dominion by the caution and patriotism of Queen Elizabeth.
Athaliah's
usurpation was a bold attempt to reverse the usual process and
transfer the husband's dominions to the authority and faith of the
wife's family. It is probable that Athaliah's permanent success
would have led to the absorption of Judah in the northern kingdom.
This last misfortune was averted by the energy and courage of
Jehoiada, but in the meantime the half-heathen queen had succeeded
in causing untold harm and suffering to her adopted country. Our
own history furnishes numerous illustrations of the evil influences
that come in the train of foreign queens. Edward II.
But no foreign queen of England has had the opportunities for mischief that were enjoyed and fully utilised by Athaliah. She corrupted her husband and her son, and she was probably at once the instigator of their crimes and the instrument of their punishment. By corrupting the rulers of Judah and by her own misgovernment, she exercised an evil influence over the nation; and as the people suffered, not for their sins only, but also for those of their kings, Athaliah brought misfortunes and calamity upon Judah. Unfortunately such experiences are not confined to royal families; the peace and honour, and prosperity of godly families in all ranks of life have been disturbed and often destroyed by the marriage of one of their members with a woman of alien spirit and temperament. Here is a very general and practical application of the chronicler's objection to intercourse with the house of Omri.
For Chronicles,
as for the book of Kings, the main interest of the reign of Joash
is the repairing of the Temple; but the later narrative introduces
modifications which give a somewhat different complexion to the
story. Both authorities tell us that Joash did that which was right
in the eyes of Jehovah all the days of Jehoiada, but the book of
Kings immediately adds that “the high
places were not taken away: the people still sacrificed and burnt
incense in the high places.” Cf. xxv. 2 with
In the earlier
narrative of the repairing of the Temple
There were several points in this earlier narrative which would have furnished very inconvenient precedents, and were so much out of keeping with the ideas and practices of the second Temple that, by the time the chronicler wrote, a new and more intelligible version of the story was current among the ministers of the Temple. To begin with, there was an omission which would have grated very unpleasantly on the feelings of the chronicler. In this long narrative, wholly taken up with the affairs of the Temple, nothing is said about the Levites. The collecting and receiving of money might well be supposed to belong to them; and accordingly in Chronicles the Levites are first associated with the priests in this matter, and then the priests drop out of the narrative, and the Levites alone carry out the financial arrangements.
Again, it might
be understood from the book of Kings that sacred dues and
offerings, which formed the revenue of the priests and Levites,
were diverted by
Having remonstrated with Jehoiada, the king took matters into his own hands; and he, not Jehoiada, had a chest made and placed, not beside the altar—such an arrangement savoured of profanity—but without at the gate of the Temple. This little touch is very suggestive. The noise and bustle of paying over money, receiving it, and putting it into the chest, would have mingled distractingly with the solemn ritual of sacrifice. In modern times the tinkle of threepenny pieces often tends to mar the effect of an impressive appeal and to disturb the quiet influences of a communion service. The Scotch arrangement, by which a plate covered with a fair white cloth is placed in the porch of a church and guarded by two modern Levites or elders, is much more in accordance with Chronicles.
Then, instead of
sending out Levites to collect the
As in the book of Kings, the chest was emptied at suitable intervals; but instead of the high-priest being associated with the king's scribe, as if they were on a level and both of them officials of the royal court, the chief priest's officer assists the king's scribe, so that the chief priest is placed on a level with the king himself.
The details of the repairs in the two narratives differ considerably in form, but for the most part agree in substance; the only striking point is that they are apparently at variance as to whether vessels of silver or gold were or were not made for the renovated Temple.
Then follows the
account xxiv. 14-22, peculiar to
Chronicles. Curiously enough, Jehoiada's name does
not occur in the list of high-priests in Cf.
The chronicler's
biography of Joash might have been specially designed to remind his
readers that the most careful education must sometimes fail of its
purpose. Joash had been trained from his earliest years in the
Temple itself, under the care of Jehoiada and of his aunt
Jehoshabeath, the high-priest's wife. He had no doubt been
carefully instructed in the religion and sacred history of Israel,
and had been continually surrounded by the best religious
influences of his age. For
And yet all this
fair promise was blighted in a day. The piety carefully fostered
for half a life-time gave way before the first assaults of
temptation, and never even attempted to reassert itself. Possibly
the brief and fragmentary records from which the chronicler had to
make his selection unduly emphasise the contrast between the
earlier and later years of the reign of Joash; but the picture he
draws of the failure of best of tutors and governors is
unfortunately only too typical. Julian the Apostate was educated by
a distinguished Christian prelate, Eusebius of Nicomedia, and was
trained in a strict routine of religious observances; yet he
repudiated Christianity at the earliest safe opportunity. His
apostacy, like that of Joash, was probably characterised by base
ingratitude. At Constantine's death the troops in Constantinople
The parallel of Julian may suggest a partial explanation of the fall of Joash. The tutelage of Jehoiada may have been too strict, monotonous, and prolonged; in choosing wives for the young king, the aged priest may not have made an altogether happy selection; Jehoiada may have kept Joash under control until he was incapable of independence and could only pass from one dominant influence to another. When the high-priest's death gave the king an opportunity of changing his masters, a reaction from the too urgent insistence upon his duty to the Temple may have inclined Joash to listen favourably to the solicitations of the princes.
But perhaps the sins of Joash are sufficiently accounted for by his ancestry. His mother was Zibiah of Beersheba, and therefore probably a Jewess. Of her we know nothing further good or bad. Otherwise his ancestors for two generations had been uniformly bad. His father and grandfather were the wicked kings Jehoram and Ahaziah; his grandmother was Athaliah; and he was descended from Ahab, and possibly from Jezebel. When we recollect that his mother Zibiah was a wife of Ahaziah and had probably been selected by Athaliah, we cannot suppose that the element she contributed to his character would do much to counteract the evil he inherited from his father.
The chronicler's
account of his successor Amaziah is equally disappointing; he also
began well and ended miserably. In the opening formulæ of the
history of the new reign and in the account of the punishment of
the assassins of Joash, the chronicler closely follows the earlier
narrative, omitting, as usual, the statement that this good king
did not take away the high places. Like his pious predecessors,
Amaziah in his earlier and better years was rewarded with a great
army xxv. 5-13, peculiar to Chronicles,
except that the account of the war with Edom is expanded from the
brief note in Kings. Cf. ver. 11b with
These were not
sufficient for the king's ambition; by the Divine grace, he had
already amassed wealth, in spite of the Syrian ravages at the close
of the preceding reign: and he laid out a hundred talents of silver
in purchasing the services of as many thousand Israelites, thus
falling into the sin for which Jehoshaphat had twice been reproved
and punished. Jehovah, however, arrested Amaziah's employment of
unholy allies at the outset. A man of God came to him and exhorted
him not to let the army of Israel go with him, because “Jehovah is not with Israel”; if he had courage
and faith to go with only his three hundred thousand Jews, all
would be well, otherwise God would cast him down, as He had done
Ahaziah. The statement that Jehovah was not with Israel might have
been understood in a sense that would seem almost blasphemous to
the
Amaziah obeyed the prophet, but was naturally distressed at the thought that he had spent a hundred talents for nothing: “What shall we do for the hundred talents which I have given to the army of Israel?” He did not realise that the Divine alliance would be worth more to him than many hundred talents of silver; or perhaps he reflected that Divine grace is free, and that he might have saved his money. One would like to believe that he was anxious to recover this silver in order to devote it to the service of the sanctuary; but he was evidently one of those sordid souls who like, as the phrase goes, “to get their religion for nothing.” No wonder Amaziah went astray! We can scarcely be wrong in detecting a vein of contempt in the prophet's answer: “Jehovah can give thee much more than this.”
This little episode carries with it a great principle. Every crusade against an established abuse is met with the cry, “What shall we do for the hundred talents?”—for the capital invested in slaves or in gin-shops; for English revenues from alcohol or Indian revenues from opium? Few have faith to believe that the Lord can provide for financial deficits, or, if we may venture to indicate the method in which the Lord provides, that a nation will ever be able to pay its way by honest finance. Let us note, however, that Amaziah was asked to sacrifice his own talents, and not other people's.
Accordingly
Amaziah sent the mercenaries home; and they returned in great
dudgeon, offended by the slight put upon them and disappointed at
the loss of prospective plunder. The king's sin in hiring Israelite
In the phrase “from Samaria to Beth-horon,” “Samaria” apparently means the northern kingdom,
and not the city, i.e., from the borders of
Samaria; the chronicler has fallen into the nomenclature of his own
age.
Meanwhile Amaziah and his army were reaping direct fruits of their obedience in Edom, where they gained a great victory, and followed it up by a massacre of ten thousand captives, whom they killed by throwing down from the top of a precipice. Yet, after all, Amaziah's victory over Edom was of small profit to him, for he was thereby seduced into idolatry. Amongst his other prisoners, he had brought away the gods of Edom; and instead of throwing them over a precipice, as a pious king should have done, “he set them up to be his gods, and bowed down himself before them, and burned incense unto them.”
Then Jehovah, in
His anger, sent a prophet to demand, “Why
hast thou sought after foreign gods, which have not delivered their
own people out of thine hand?” According to current ideas
outside of Israel, a nation might very reasonably seek after the
gods of their conquerors. Such conquest could only be attributed to
the superior power and grace of the gods of the victors: the gods
of the defeated were vanquished along with their worshippers, and
were obviously incompetent and unworthy of further confidence. But
to act like Amaziah—to go out to battle in the name of Jehovah,
directed and encouraged by His prophet, to conquer by the grace of
the God of Israel, and then to desert Jehovah of hosts, the Giver
of victory, for
Apparently Amaziah was at first inclined to discuss the question: he and the prophet talked together; but the king soon became irritated, and broke off the interview with abrupt discourtesy: “Have we made thee of the king's counsel? Forbear; why shouldest thou be smitten?” Prosperity seems to have been invariably fatal to the Jewish kings who began to reign well; the success that rewarded, at the same time destroyed their virtue. Before his victory Amaziah had been courteous and submissive to the messenger of Jehovah; now he defied Him and treated His prophet roughly. The latter disappeared, but not before he had declared the Divine condemnation of the stubborn king.
The rest of the
history of Amaziah—his presumptuous war with Joash, king of Israel,
his defeat and degradation, and his assassination—is taken verbatim
from the book of Kings, with a few modifications and editorial
notes by the chronicler to harmonise these sections with the rest
of his narrative. For instance, in the book of Kings the account of
the war with Joash begins somewhat abruptly: Amaziah sends his
defiance before
For the discussion of the chronicler's account of Ahaz see Book III., Chap. VII.
After the assassination of Amaziah, all the people of Judah took his son Uzziah, a lad of sixteen, called in the book of Kings Azariah, and made him king. The chronicler borrows from the older narrative the statement that “Uzziah did that which was right in the eyes of Jehovah, according to all that his father Amaziah had done.” In the light of the sins attributed both to Amaziah and Uzziah in Chronicles, this is a somewhat doubtful compliment. Sarcasm, however, is not one of the chronicler's failings; he simply allows the older history to speak for itself, and leaves the reader to combine its judgment with the statement of later tradition as best he can. But yet we might modify this verse, and read that Uzziah did good and evil, prospered and fell into misfortune, according to all that his father Amaziah had done, or an even closer parallel might be drawn between what Uzziah did and suffered and the chequered character and fortunes of Joash.
Though much
older than the latter, at his accession Uzziah was young enough to
be very much under So R.V. marg., with LXX., Targum,
Syriac and Arabic versions, Talmud, Rashi, Kimchi, and some Hebrew
manuscripts (Bertheau, i. 1). A.R.V., “had
understanding in the visions” (R.V. vision) “of God.” The difference between the two Hebrew
readings is very slight. Vv. 5-20, with the exception of the bare
fact of the leprosy are peculiar to Chronicles.
Under the guidance of this otherwise unknown prophet, the young king was led to conform his private life and public administration to the will of God. In “seeking God,” Uzziah would be careful to maintain and attend the Temple services, to honour the priests of Jehovah and make due provision for their wants; and “as long as he sought Jehovah God gave him prosperity.”
Uzziah received
all the rewards usually bestowed upon pious kings: he was
victorious in war, and exacted tribute from neighbouring states; he
built fortresses, and had abundance of cattle and slaves, a large
and well-equipped army, and well-supplied arsenals. Like other
powerful kings of Judah, he asserted his supremacy over the tribes
along the southern frontier of his kingdom. God helped him against
the Philistines, the Arabians of Gur-baal, and the Meunim. He
destroyed the fortifications of Gath, Jabne, and Ashdod, and built
forts of his own in the country of the
Moreover, Uzziah
added to the fortifications of Jerusalem; and because he loved
husbandry and had cattle, and husbandmen, and vine-dressers in the
open country and outlying districts of Judah, he built towers for
their protection. His army was of about the same strength as that
of Amaziah, three hundred thousand men, so that in this, as in his
character and exploits, he did according to all that his father had
done, except that he was content with his own Jewish warriors and
did not waste his talents in purchasing worse than useless
reinforcements from Israel. Uzziah's army was well disciplined,
carefully organised, and constantly employed; they were men of
mighty power, and went out to war by bands, to collect the king's
tribute and enlarge his dominions and revenue by new conquests. The
war material in his arsenals is described at greater length than
that of any previous king: shields, spears, helmets, coats of mail,
bows and stones for slings. The great advance of military science
in Uzziah's reign was marked by the invention of engines of war for
the defence of Jerusalem; some, like the Roman catapulta, were for arrows, and
others, like the ballista, to
hurl Cf. Pliny, vii. 56 apud
Smith's Bible Dictionary.
The student of
Chronicles will by this time be prepared for the invariable sequel
to God-given prosperity. Like David, Rehoboam, Asa, and Amaziah,
when Uzziah “was strong, his heart was
lifted up to his destruction.” The most powerful of the
kings of Judah died a leper. An attack of leprosy admitted of only
one explanation: it was a plague inflicted by Jehovah Himself as
the punishment of sin; and so the book of Kings tells us that
“Jehovah smote the king,” but says
nothing about the sin thus punished. The chronicler was able to
supply the omission: Uzziah had dared to go into the Temple and
with irregular zeal to burn incense on the altar of incense. In so
doing, he was violating the Law, which made the priestly office
The moral of this incident is obvious. In attempting to understand its significance, we need not trouble ourselves about the relative authority of kings and priests; the principle vindicated by the punishment of Uzziah was the simple duty of obedience to an express command of Jehovah. However trivial the burning of incense may be in itself, it formed part of an elaborate and complicated system of ritual. To interfere with the Divine ordinances in one detail would mar the significance and impressiveness of the whole Temple service. One arbitrary innovation would be a precedent for others, and would constitute a serious danger for a system whose value lay in continuous uniformity. Moreover, Uzziah was stubborn in disobedience. His attempt to burn incense might have been sufficiently punished by the public and humiliating reproof of the high-priest. His leprosy came upon him because when thwarted in an unholy purpose he gave way to ungoverned passion.
In its
consequences we see a practical application of the lessons of the
incident. How often is the sinner only provoked to greater
wickedness by the obstacles which Divine grace opposes to his
wrongdoing! How few men will tolerate the suggestion that their
intentions are cruel, selfish, or dishonourable! Remonstrance is an
insult, an offence against their personal dignity; they feel that
their self-respect demands that they should persevere in their
purpose, and that they should resent and punish any one who
Uzziah was
succeeded by Jotham, who had already governed for some time as
regent. In recording the favourable judgment of the book of Kings,
“He did that which was right in the eyes of
Jehovah, according to all that his father Uzziah had done,”
the chronicler is careful to add, “Howbeit
he entered not into the temple of Jehovah”; the exclusive
privilege of the house of Aaron had been established once for all.
The story of Jotham's reign comes like a quiet and pleasant oasis
Kimchi interprets “those days” as meaning “after the death of Jotham.”
Jotham, again,
had the rewards of a pious king: he added a gate to the Temple, and
strengthened the wall of Ophel The reference to the wall of Ophel is
peculiar to Chronicles: indeed, Ophel is only mentioned in
Chronicles and Nehemiah; it was the southern spur of Mount Moriah
(
We have had repeated occasion to notice that in his accounts of the good kings the chronicler almost always omits the qualifying clause to the effect that they did not take away the high places. He does so here; but, contrary to his usual practice, he inserts a qualifying clause of his own: “The people did yet corruptly.” He probably had in view the unmitigated wickedness of the following reign, and was glad to retain the evidence that Ahaz found encouragement and support in his idolatry; he is careful, however, to state the fact so that no shadow of blame falls upon Jotham.
The life of Ahaz has been dealt with elsewhere. Here we need merely repeat that for the sixteen years of his reign Judah was to all appearance utterly given over to every form of idolatry, and was oppressed and brought low by Israel, Syria, and Assyria.
The bent of the chroniclers mind is well illustrated by the proportion of space assigned to ritual by him and by the book of Kings respectively. In the latter a few lines only are devoted to ritual, and the bulk of the space is given to the invasion of Sennacherib, the embassy from Babylon, etc., while in Chronicles ritual occupies about three times as many verses as personal and public affairs.
Hezekiah, though not blameless, was all but perfect in his loyalty to Jehovah. The chronicler reproduces the customary formula for a good king: “He did that which was right in the eyes of Jehovah, according to all that David his father had done”; but his cautious judgment rejects the somewhat rhetorical statement in Kings that “after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him.”
Hezekiah's
policy was made clear immediately after his accession. His zeal for
reformation could tolerate no delay; the first month This is usually understood as Nisan,
the first month of the ecclesiastical year. xxix. 3-xxxi. 21 (the cleansing of the
Temple and accompanying feast, Passover, organisation of the
priests and Levites) are substantially peculiar to Chronicles,
though in a sense they expand
Hezekiah began
by opening and repairing the doors of the Temple. Its closed doors
had been a symbol of the national repudiation of Jehovah; to reopen
them
Hezekiah reminded the Levites of the misdoings of Ahaz and his adherents and the wrath which they had brought upon Judah and Jerusalem; he told them it was his purpose to conciliate Jehovah by making a covenant with Him; he appealed to them as the chosen ministers of Jehovah and His temple to co-operate heartily in this good work.
The Levites
responded to his appeal apparently rather in acts than words. No
spokesman replies to the king's speech, but with prompt obedience
they set about their work forthwith; they arose, Kohathites, sons
of Merari, Gershonites, sons of Elizaphan, Asaph, Heman, and
Jeduthun—the chronicler has a Homeric fondness for catalogues of
high-sounding names—the leaders of all these divisions are duly
mentioned. Kohath, Gershon, and Merari are well known as the three
great clans of the house of Levi; and here we find the three guilds
of singers—Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun—placed on a level with the
older clans. Elizaphan
The chiefs of the Levites gathered their brethren together, and having performed the necessary rites of ceremonial cleansing for themselves, went in to cleanse the Temple; that is to say, the priests went into the holy place and the Holy of holies and brought out “all the uncleanness” into the court, and the Levites carried it away to the brook Kidron: but before the building itself could be reached eight days were spent in cleansing the courts, and then the priests went into the Temple itself and spent eight days in cleansing it, in the manner described above. Then they reported to the king that the cleansing was finished, and especially that “all the vessels which King Ahaz cast away” had been recovered and reconsecrated with due ceremony. We were told in the previous chapter that Ahaz had cut to pieces the vessels of the Temple, but these may have been other vessels.
Then Hezekiah
celebrated a great dedication feast; seven bullocks, seven rams,
seven lambs, and seven he-goats were offered as a sin-offering for
the dynasty, So Strack-Zockler, i. 1.
When the people had been formally reconciled to Jehovah by this representative national sacrifice, and thus purified from the uncleanness of idolatry and consecrated afresh to their God, they were permitted and invited to make individual sacrifices, thank-offerings and burnt offerings. Each man might enjoy for himself the renewed privilege of access to Jehovah, and obtain the assurance of pardon for his sins, and offer thanksgiving for his own special blessings. And they brought offerings in abundance: seventy bullocks, a hundred rams, and two hundred lambs for a burnt offering; and six hundred oxen and three thousand sheep for thank-offerings. Thus were the Temple services restored and reinaugurated; and Hezekiah and the people rejoiced because they felt that this unpremeditated outburst of enthusiasm was due to the gracious influence of the Spirit of Jehovah.
The chronicler's
narrative is somewhat marred by a touch of professional jealousy.
According to the ordinary ritual,
Hezekiah had now
provided for the regular services of the Temple, and had given the
inhabitants of Jerusalem a full opportunity of returning to
Jehovah; but the people of the provinces were chiefly acquainted
with the Temple through the great annual festivals. These, too, had
long been in abeyance; and special steps had to be taken to secure
their future observance. In order to do this, it was necessary to
recall the provincials to their allegiance to Jehovah. Under
ordinary circumstances the great festival of the Passover would
have been observed in the first month, but at the time appointed
for the paschal feast the Temple was still unclean, and the priests
and Levites were occupied in its purification. But Hezekiah could
not endure that the first year of his reign should be marked by the
omission of this great feast. He took counsel with the princes and
public assembly—nothing is said about the priests—and they decided
to hold the Passover in the second month instead of the first. We
gather from casual allusions in vv. 6-8 that the kingdom of Samaria
had already come to an end; the people had been carried into
captivity, and only a remnant were left in the land. According to
“So the posts passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh, even unto Zebulun.” Either Zebulun is used in a broad sense for all the Galilean tribes, or the phrase “from Beersheba to Dan” is merely rhetorical, for to the north, between Zebulun and Dan, lay the territories of Asher and Naphtali. It is to be noticed that the tribes beyond Jordan are nowhere referred to; they had already fallen out of the history of Israel, and were scarcely remembered in the time of the chronicler.
Hezekiah's
appeal to the surviving communities of the northern kingdom failed:
they laughed his messengers to scorn, and mocked them; but
individuals responded to his invitation in such numbers that they
are spoken of as “a multitude of the
people, even many of Ephraim and Manasseh, Issachar and
Zebulun.” There were also men of Asher among the northern
pilgrims. Cf xxx. 11, 18.
The pious enthusiasm of Judah stood out in vivid contrast to the stubborn impenitence of the majority of the ten tribes. By the grace of God, Judah was of one heart to observe the feast appointed by Jehovah through the king and princes, so that there was gathered in Jerusalem a very great assembly of worshippers, surpassing even the great gatherings which the chronicler had witnessed at the annual feasts.
But though the
Temple had been cleansed, the Holy City was not yet free from the
taint of idolatry. The character of the Passover demanded that not
only the Temple, but the whole city, should be pure. The paschal
lamb was eaten at home, and the doorposts of the house were
sprinkled with its blood. But Ahaz had set up altars at every
corner of the city; no devout Israelite could tolerate the symbols
of idolatrous worship close to the house in which he celebrated the
solemn rites of the Passover. Accordingly before the Passover was
killed these altars were removed. xxx. 14; cf.
Then the great
feast began; but after long years of idolatry neither the people
nor the priests and Levites were sufficiently familiar with the
rites of the festival to be able to perform them without some
difficulty and confusion. As a rule each head of a household killed
his own lamb; but many of the worshippers, especially those from
the north, were not ceremonially clean: and this task devolved upon
the Levites. The immense concourse of worshippers and the
additional work thrown upon the Temple ministry must have made
extraordinary demands on their zeal and energy. Cf. xxix. 34, xxx. 3.
But a further
difficulty remained: uncleanness not only disqualified from killing
the paschal lambs, but from taking any part in the Passover; and a
multitude of the people were unclean. Yet it would have been
ungracious and even dangerous to discourage their newborn zeal by
excluding them from the festival; moreover, many of them were
worshippers from among the ten tribes, who had come in response to
a special invitation, which most of their fellow-countrymen had
rejected with scorn and contempt. If they had been sent back
because they had failed to cleanse themselves according to a ritual
of which they were ignorant, and of which Hezekiah might have known
they would be ignorant, both the king and his guests would have
incurred measureless ridicule from the impious northerners.
Accordingly they were allowed to take part in the Passover despite
their uncleanness. But this permission could only be granted with
serious apprehensions as to its consequences. The Law threatened
with death any one who attended the services of the sanctuary in a
state of uncleanness. So Bertheau, i. 1, slightly
paraphrasing.
And so the feast
went on happily and prosperously, and was prolonged by acclamation
for an additional seven days. During fourteen days king and
princes, priests and Levites, Jews and Israelites, rejoiced before
Jehovah; thousands of bullocks and sheep smoked upon the altar; and
now the priests were not backward: great numbers purified
themselves to serve the popular devotion. The priests and Levites
sang and made melody to Jehovah, so that the Levites earned the
king's special commendation. The great festival ended with a solemn
benediction: “The priests A.R.V., with Masoretic text,
“the priests the Levites”; LXX.,
Vulg. Syr., “the priests and the
Levites.” The former is more likely to be correct. The verse
is partly an echo of
We have already
more than once had occasion to
The work of purification and restoration, however, was still incomplete: the Temple had been cleansed from the pollutions of idolatry, the heathen altars had been removed from Jerusalem, but the high places remained in all the cities of Judah. When the Passover was at last finished, the assembled multitude, “all Israel that were present,” set out, like the English or Scotch Puritans, on a great iconoclastic expedition. Throughout the length and breadth of the Land of Promise, throughout Judah and Benjamin, Ephraim and Manasseh, they brake in pieces the sacred pillars, and hewed down the Asherim, and brake down the high places and altars; then they went home.
Meanwhile Hezekiah was engaged in reorganising the priests and Levites and arranging for the payment and distribution of the sacred dues. The king set an example of liberality by making provision for the daily, weekly, monthly, and festival offerings. The people were not slow to imitate him; they brought first-fruits and tithes in such abundance that four months were spent in piling up heaps of offerings.
“Thus did Hezekiah throughout all Judah; and he wrought that which was good, and right, and faithful before Jehovah his God; and in every work that he began in the service of the Temple, and in the Law, and in the commandments, to seek his God, he did it with all his heart, and brought it to a successful issue.”
Then follow an
account of the deliverance from Sennacherib and of Hezekiah's
recovery from sickness, a reference to his undue pride in the
matter of the embassy from Babylon, and a description of the
prosperity of his reign, all for the most part abridged
The
chronicler xxxii. 2-8, peculiar to
Chronicles.
Probably the
stopping of the water supply outside the walls was connected with
an operation mentioned at the close of the narrative of Hezekiah's
reign: “Hezekiah also stopped the upper
spring of the waters of Gihon, and brought them straight down on
the west side of the city of David.” xxxii. 30.
The reign of
Hezekiah appears a suitable opportunity to introduce a few remarks
on the importance which the chronicler attaches to the music of the
Temple services. Though the music is not more prominent with him
than with some earlier kings, yet in the case of David, Solomon,
and Jehoshaphat other subjects presented themselves for special
treatment; and Hezekiah's reign being the last in which the music
of the sanctuary is specially dwelt upon, we are able here to
review the various references to this subject. For the most part
the chronicler tells his story of the virtuous days of the good
kings to a continual accompaniment of Temple music. We hear of the
playing and singing when the Ark was brought to the house of
Obed-edom; when it was taken into the city of David; at the
dedication of the Temple; at the battle between Abijah and
Jeroboam; at Asa's reformation; in connection with the overthrow of
the Ammonites, Moabites, and Meunim in the reign of Jehoshaphat; at
the coronation of Joash; at Hezekiah's feasts; and
We have spoken
of the chronicler so far chiefly as a professional musician, but it
should be clearly understood that the term must be taken in its
best sense. He was by no means so absorbed in the technique of his
art as to forget its sacred significance; he was not less a
worshipper himself because he was the minister or agent of the
common worship. His accounts of the festivals show a hearty
appreciation of the entire ritual; and his references to the music
do not give us the technical circumstances of its production, but
rather emphasise its general effect. The chronicler's sense of the
religious value of music is largely that of a devout worshipper,
who is led to set forth for the benefit of others a truth which is
the fruit of his own experience. This experience is not confined to
trained musicians; indeed, a scientific knowledge of the art may
sometimes interfere with its devotional influence. Criticism may
take the place of worship; and the hearer, instead of yielding to
the sacred suggestions of hymn or anthem, may be distracted by his
æsthetic judgment as to the
Music, as a mode of utterance moving within the restraints of a regular order, naturally attaches itself to ritual. As the earliest literature is poetry, the earliest liturgy is musical. Melody is the simplest and most obvious means by which the utterances of a body of worshippers can be combined into a seemly act of worship. The mere repetition of the same words by a congregation in ordinary speech is apt to be wanting in impressiveness or even in decorum; the use of tune enables a congregation to unite in worship even when many of its members are strangers to each other.
Again, music may
be regarded as an expansion of language: not new dialect, but a
collection of symbols that can express thought, and more especially
emotion, for which mere speech has no vocabulary. This new form of
language naturally becomes an auxiliary of
Browning makes Abt Vogler say of the most enduring and supreme hopes that God has granted to men, “'Tis we musicians know”; but the message of music comes home with power to many who have no skill in its art.
In telling the melancholy story of the wickedness of Manasseh in the first period of his reign, the chronicler reproduces the book of Kings, with one or two omissions and other slight alterations. He omits the name of Manasseh's mother; she was called Hephzi-bah—“My pleasure is in her.” In any case, when the son of a godly father turns out badly, and nothing is known about the mother, uncharitable people might credit her with his wickedness. But the chronicler's readers were familiar with the great influence of the queen-mother in Oriental states. When they read that the son of Hezekiah came to the throne at the age of twelve and afterwards gave himself up to every form of idolatry, they would naturally ascribe his departure from his father's ways to the suggestions of his mother. The chronicler is not willing that the pious Hezekiah should lie under the imputation of having taken delight in an ungodly woman, and so her name is omitted.
The contents of
From the point
of view of the chronicler, the history
However, the
history reached the chronicler in a more satisfactory form.
Manasseh was duly punished, and his long reign fully accounted
for. xxxiii. 11-19, peculiar to
Chronicles. So R.V.: A.V., “among the thorns”; R.V. marg., “with hooks”, if so in a figurative sense.
Others take the word as a proper name: Hohim.
The Assyrian
invasion referred to here is partially confirmed by the fact that
the name of Manasseh occurs amongst the tributaries of Esarhaddon
and his successor, Assur-bani-pal. The mention of Babylon as his
place of captivity rather than Nineveh may be accounted for by
supposing that Manasseh was taken
If these were the terms of Manasseh's prayers, they were heard and answered; and the captive king returned to Jerusalem a devout worshipper and faithful servant of Jehovah. He at once set to work to undo the evil he had wrought in the former period of his reign. He took away the idol and the heathen altars from the Temple, restored the altar of Jehovah, and re-established the Temple services. In earlier days he had led the people into idolatry; now he commanded them to serve Jehovah, and the people obediently followed the king's example. Apparently he found it impracticable to interfere with the high places; but they were so far purified from corruption that, though the people still sacrificed at these illegal sanctuaries, they worshipped exclusively Jehovah, the God of Israel.
Like most of the
pious kings, his prosperity was partly shown by his extensive
building operations. Following in the footsteps of Jotham, he
strengthened
The life of
Manasseh practically completes the chronicler's series of
object-lessons in the doctrine of retribution; the history of the
later kings only provides illustrations similar to those already
given. These object-lessons are closely connected with the teaching
of Ezekiel. In dealing with the question of heredity in guilt, the
prophet is led to set forth the character and fortunes of four
different classes of men. First
We reached this
point in our discussion of the doctrine of retribution in
connection with Asa. So far the lessons taught were salutary: they
might deter from sin; but they were gloomy and depressing: they
gave little encouragement to hope for success in the struggle after
righteousness, and suggested that few would escape terrible
penalties of failure. David and Solomon formed a class by
themselves; an ordinary man could not aspire to their almost
supernatural virtue. In his later history the chronicler is chiefly
bent on illustrating the frailty of man and the wrath of God. The
New Testament teaches a similar lesson when it asks, “If the righteous is scarcely saved, where shall the
ungodly and sinner appear?” Peter iv. 18.
But this sombre
picture is relieved by occasional gleams of light. Ezekiel
furnishes a fourth type of religious experience: “If the wicked turn from all his sins that he hath
committed, and keep all My statutes, and do that which is lawful
and right, he shall live; he shall not die. None of his
transgressions that he hath committed shall be remembered against
him; in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live. Have I
any pleasure in the death of the wicked, saith the
The chronicler's
theology is as simple and straightforward as that of Ezekiel.
Manasseh repents, submits himself, and is forgiven. His captivity
apparently had expiated his guilt, as far as expiation was
necessary. Neither prophet nor chronicler was conscious of the
moral difficulties that have been found in so simple a
These incidents afford another illustration of the necessary limitations of ritual. In the great crisis of Manasseh's spiritual life, the Levitical ordinances played no part; they moved on a lower level, and ministered to less urgent needs. Probably the worship of Jehovah was still suspended during Manasseh's captivity; none the less Manasseh was able to make his peace with God. Even if they were punctually observed, of what use were services at the Temple in Jerusalem to a penitent sinner at Babylon? When Manasseh returned to Jerusalem, he restored the Temple worship, and offered sacrifices of peace-offerings and of thanksgiving; nothing is said about sin-offerings. His sacrifices were not the condition of his pardon, but the seal and token of a reconciliation already effected. The experience of Manasseh anticipated that of the Jews of the Captivity: he discovered the possibility of fellowship with Jehovah, far away from the Holy Land, without temple, priest, or sacrifice. The chronicler, perhaps unconsciously already foreshadows the coming of the hour when men should worship the Father neither in the holy mountain of Samaria nor yet in Jerusalem.
Before relating
the outward acts which testified the sincerity of Manasseh's
repentance, the chronicler devotes a single sentence to the happy
influence of forgiveness and deliverance upon Manasseh himself.
When his prayer had been heard, and his exile was at an end, then
Manasseh knew and acknowledged that Jehovah was God. Men first
begin to know God when they have been forgiven. The alienated and
disobedient, if they think of Him at all, merely have glimpses of
His vengeance and try to persuade themselves
“There
is forgiveness with Thee,
That Thou mayest be
feared.”
The words that stand in the forefront of the Lord's Prayer, “Hallowed be Thy name,” are virtually a petition that sinners may repent, and be converted, and obtain forgiveness.
In seeking for a
Christian parallel to the doctrine expounded by Ezekiel and
illustrated by Chronicles, we have to remember that the permanent
elements in primitive doctrine are often to be found by removing
the limitations which imperfect faith has imposed on the
possibilities of human nature and Divine mercy. We have already
suggested that the chronicler's somewhat rigid doctrine of temporal
rewards and punishments symbolises the inevitable influence of
conduct on the development of character. The doctrine of God's
attitude towards backsliding and repentance seems somewhat
arbitrary as set forth by Ezekiel and Chronicles. A man apparently
is not to be judged by his whole life, but only by the moral period
that is closed by his death. If his last years be pious, his former
transgressions are forgotten; if his last years be evil, his
righteous deeds are equally forgotten. While we gratefully accept
the forgiveness of sinners, such teaching as to backsliders seems a
little cynical; and though, by God's grace and discipline, a man
may be led through and out of sin into righteousness, we are
naturally suspicious of a life of “righteous deeds” which towards its close lapses
into gross and open sin. “Nemo repente
turpissimus fit.” We are inclined to believe that the final
lapse reveals the true bias of the whole character. But the
chronicler suggests more than this: by his history of the almost
uniform failure of the pious kings to persevere to the end, he
seems to teach that the piety of early and mature life is either
unreal or else is unable to survive as body and mind wear out. This
doctrine has sometimes, inconsiderately no doubt, been taught from
Christian pulpits; and yet the truth of which the doctrine is a
misrepresentation supplies a correction of the former principle
If our author's
statement of these truths seem unsatisfactory, we must remember
that his lack of a doctrine of the future life placed him at a
serious disadvantage. He wished to exhibit a complete picture of
God's dealings with the characters of his history, so that
Whatever influence Manasseh's reformation exercised over his people generally, the taint of idolatry was not removed from his own family. His son Amon succeeded him at the age of two-and-twenty. Into his reign of two years he compressed all the varieties of wickedness once practised by his father, and undid the good work of Manasseh's later years. He recovered the graven images which Manasseh had discarded, replaced them in their shrines, and worshipped them instead of Jehovah. But in his case there was no repentance, and he was cut off in his youth.
In the absence of any conclusive evidence as to the date of Manasseh's reformation, we cannot determine with certainty whether Amon received his early training before or after his father returned to the worship of Jehovah. In either case Manasseh's earlier history would make it difficult for him to counteract any evil influence that drew Amon towards idolatry. Amon could set the example and perhaps the teaching of his father's former days against any later exhortations to righteousness. When a father has helped to lead his children astray, he cannot be sure that he will carry them with him in his repentance.
After Amon's assassination the people placed his son Josiah on the throne. Like Joash and Manasseh, Josiah was a child, only eight years old. The chronicler follows the general line of the history in the book of Kings, modifying, abridging, and expanding, but introducing no new incidents; the reformation, the repairing of the Temple, the discovery of the book of the Law, the Passover, Josiah's defeat and death at Megiddo, are narrated by both historians. We have only to notice differences in a somewhat similar treatment of the same subject.
Beyond the general statement that Josiah “did that which was right in the eyes of Jehovah” we hear nothing about him in the book of Kings till the eighteenth year of his reign, and his reformation and putting away of idolatry is placed in that year. The chronicler's authorities corrected the statement that the pious king tolerated idolatry for eighteen years. They record how in the eighth year of his reign, when he was sixteen, he began to seek after the God of David; and in his twelfth year he set about the work of utterly destroying idols throughout the whole territory of Israel, in the cities and ruins of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali, as well as in Judah and Benjamin. Seeing that the cities assigned to Simeon were in the south of Judah, it is a little difficult to understand why they appear with the northern tribes, unless they are reckoned with them technically to make up the ancient number.
The consequence
of this change of date is that in Chronicles the reformation
precedes the discovery of the book of the Law, whereas in the older
history this discovery is the cause of the reformation. The
chronicler's account of the idols and other apparatus of
The account of the repairing of the Temple is enlarged by the insertion of various details as to the names, functions, and zeal of the Levites, amongst whom those who had skill in instruments of music seem to have had the oversight of the workmen. We are reminded of the walls of Thebes, which rose out of the ground while Orpheus played upon his flute. Similarly in the account of the assembly called to hear the contents of the book of the Law the Levites are substituted for the prophets. This book of the Law is said in Chronicles to have been given by Moses, but his name is not connected with the book in the parallel narrative in the book of Kings.
The earlier
authority simply states that Josiah held a great passover;
Chronicles, as usual, describes the festival in detail. First of
all, the king commanded the priests and Levites to purify
themselves and take their places in due order, so that they might
be ready to perform their sacred duties. The narrative is very
obscure, but it seems that either during the apostacy of Amon or on
account of the recent Temple repairs the Ark had been removed from
the Holy of holies. The Law had specially assigned to the Levites
the duty of carrying the Tabernacle and its furniture, and they
seem to have thought that they were only bound to exercise the
function of carrying the Ark; they perhaps proposed to bear it in
solemn procession round the city as part of the celebration of the
Passover, forgetting the words of David
Next, the king
and his nobles provided beasts of various kinds for the sacrifices
and the Passover meal. Josiah's gifts were even more munificent
than those of Hezekiah. The latter had given a thousand bullocks
and ten thousand sheep; Josiah gave just three times as many.
Moreover, at Hezekiah's passover no offerings of the princes are
mentioned, but now they added their gifts to those of the king. The
heads of the priesthood provided three hundred oxen and two
thousand six hundred small cattle for the priests, and the chiefs
of the Levites five hundred oxen and five thousand small
Then began the actual work of the sacrifices: the victims were killed and flayed, and their blood was sprinkled on the altar; the burnt offerings were distributed among the people; the Passover lambs were roasted, and the other offerings boiled, and the Levites “carried them quickly to all the children of the people.” Apparently private individuals could not find the means of cooking the bountiful provision made for them; and, to meet the necessity of the case, the Temple courts were made kitchen as well as slaughterhouse for the assembled worshippers. The other offerings would not be eaten with the Passover lamb, but would serve for the remaining days of the feast.
The Levites not only provided for the people, for themselves, and the priests, but the Levites who ministered in the matter of the sacrifices also prepared for their brethren who were singers and porters, so that the latter were enabled to attend undisturbed to their own special duties; all the members of the guild of porters were at the gates maintaining order among the crowd of worshippers; and the full strength of the orchestra and choir contributed to the beauty and solemnity of the services. It was the greatest Passover held by any Israelite king.
Josiah's
passover, like that of Hezekiah, was followed by a formidable
foreign invasion; but whereas
The chronicler
had no motive for lingering over the last sad days of the monarchy;
the rest of his narrative is almost entirely abridged from the book
of Kings. Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah pass over
the scene in rapid and melancholy succession. In the case of
Jehoahaz, who only reigned three months, the chronicler omits the
unfavourable judgment recorded in the book of Kings; but he repeats
it for the other three, Jehoiachin. The ordinary reading in
Each of these
kings in turn was deposed and carried away into captivity, unless
indeed Jehoiakim is an exception. In the book of Kings we are told
that he slept with his fathers, i.e.,
that he died and was buried in the royal tombs at Jerusalem, a
statement which the LXX. inserts here also, specifying, however,
that he was buried in the garden of Uzza. If the pious Josiah were
punished for a single error by defeat and death, why was the wicked
Jehoiakim allowed to reign till the end of his life and then die in
his bed? The chronicler's information differed from that of the
earlier narrative in a way that removed, or at any rate suppressed
the difficulty. He omits the statement that Jehoiakim slept with
his fathers, and tells us 2 xxxvi. 6b,
peculiar to Chronicles.
The real
conclusion of the chronicler's history of the kings of the house of
David is a summary of the sins of the last days of the monarchy and
of the history of its final ruin in xxxvi. 14-20. Mostly peculiar to Chronicles.
However, to this
peroration a note is added that the length of the Captivity was
fixed at seventy years, in order that the land might “enjoy her sabbaths.” This note rests upon
Moreover, the
editor who separated Chronicles from the book of Ezra and Nehemiah
was loath to allow the first part of the history to end in a gloomy
record of sin and ruin. Modern Jews, in reading the last chapter of
Isaiah, rather than conclude with the ill-omened words of the last
two verses, repeat a previous portion of the chapter. So here to
the history of the ruin of
Such a
conclusion suggests two considerations which will form a fitting
close to our exposition. Chronicles is not a finished work; it has
no formal end; it rather breaks off abruptly like an interrupted
diary. In like manner the book of Kings concludes with a note as to
the treatment of the captive Jehoiachin at Babylon: the last verse
runs, “And for his allowance there was a
continual allowance given him of the king, every day a portion, all
the days of his life.” The book of Nehemiah has a short
final prayer: “Remember me, O my God, for
good”; but the preceding paragraph is simply occupied with
the arrangements for the wood oFffering and the first-fruits. So in
the New Testament the history of the Church breaks off with the
statement that St. Paul abode two whole years in his own hired
house, preaching the kingdom of God. The sacred writers recognise
the continuity of God's dealings with His people; they do not
suggest that one period can be marked off by a clear dividing line
or interval from another. Each historian leaves, as it were, the
loose ends of his work ready to be taken up and continued by his
successors. The Holy Spirit seeks to stimulate the Church to a
forward outlook, that it may expect and work for a future wherein
the power and grace of God will be no less manifest than in the
past. Moreover, the final editor of Chronicles has shown himself
unwilling that the book should conclude with a gloomy
Genesis
16:12 23:4 23:9 25:15 28:20 32:28 33:20 36:24 37:34 37:35
Exodus
4:21 6:18 6:22 14:30 15:3 22:20 30:7 30:11-16 32:26-35
Leviticus
Numbers
1:6 1:10 1:12 3:30 4:3 4:23 4:35 18:7 18:19 25:3
Deuteronomy
7:3 13:5 13:9 13:15 17:16 17:17 18:18 24:16 26:15 33:20
Joshua
5:13 11:20 14:6 15:58 15:63 18:22 18:28 19:42 23:12
Judges
1:8 1:17 1:21 1:22-26 1:34 5:6 5:7 6:11 8:15-17 9 9:8 10:12 12:1-7 18 20 21 21:6
1 Samuel
2:7 2:8 15 19:9 19:10 23:9-13 30:7-8
2 Samuel
3:39 4 5:21 5:21 6:12-20 7:7 12:9-11 12:31 17:25 21:15-17 21:19 24:1
1 Kings
6 8:5 8:65 9:11 9:12 9:25 10:1-13 11:3-8 15:3 15:12 15:13-15 15:14 15:16 15:32 15:33 18:36 22:20-23 22:43
2 Kings
4:42 8:17-22 8:26 11 12:9 12:17 12:18 14:4 14:7 14:28 15:4 15:34 16:5 16:5 16:6 16:7-18 18:4 18:4-7 18:10 19:5-7 19:20-34 20:20 21:10-16 23:32 24
1 Chronicles
1 1:10 1:19 1:40 1:46 2:3 2:7 2:15 2:17 2:34 3 3 4:9-10 4:18 4:22 4:27 4:34-43 4:41 5:10 5:17 5:18-22 6:1-12 6:4-15 6:31-48 6:33 6:37 7:14 7:21-23 8:13 8:34 9 9:3 9:3 9:26-32 9:31 9:32 10:14 11:2 11:15-19 12 12:1 12:8 12:18 12:19 12:19 12:21 12:23-28 12:23-37 13:8 13:10 14:12 15 15:4-10 16:2 16:13 16:17 16:38 16:42 17:6 18:1-3 20:3 20:5 21 21:26 22:9 23:24 23:24-32 23:26 23:27 24:1-19 24:6 24:20-31 25 25:4 26 26:29 26:30-32 27:5 27:23 27:24 28:9 28:19 29 29:10-19 29:10-19 29:23 29:24 29:25 29:27 29:29 29:29 29:29
2 Chronicles
1:7-13 1:14-17 1:14-17 2:2 2:17 2:18 4:9 6 6:28 7:1-3 7:5 7:19 8:1 8:2 8:11 9:1 9:22 9:23 9:29 9:29 9:29 10 10:15 11:5 11:10 11:13 11:14 12:1 12:5-8 12:6 12:12 12:15 13:12 13:22 14 15 15:3 15:17 16:9 16:11 17 17:7 17:8 17:9 19:2 19:3 19:4-11 19:4-11 20:4-13 20:20 20:33 20:34 20:34 21 22:2 23 23:7 24 24:24 24:27 24:27 25:4 25:26 26 26 26:7 26:16-23 26:22 27:7 27:7 28 28:5-15 28:16-25 28:24 28:26 29 29 29:6 29:12 29:25 29:27 29:28 30:6 30:6-9 30:18-21 30:27 31:2 31:3-5 31:10 32:32 33 33:9 33:11-20 33:18 33:19 34 34:13 35 35:3 35:3 35:25 35:26 35:27 36:5 36:8 36:11
Ezra
2 2:2 2:36-39 2:61-63 2:63 3:12 5:1 6:14 6:18 9:1
Nehemiah
3:26 3:27 4:17 6:14 10:32 11 11:25-30 11:36 12:10 12:10 12:11 12:11 13:23 13:26
Job
Psalms
18 18 20:7 39:13 72 74:8 74:9 78:59 78:60 78:67-69 88 106 106:30 106:31 130:4 132:8-10
Proverbs
Isaiah
4:2 7:9 7:17 8:2 9:7 13:6 16:5 22 30:3 31:1 37:35 38:5 45:7 49:6 66:22
Jeremiah
2:27 2:36 7:12-14 15:10 23:5 23:6 26:6 29 36 52:20
Lamentations
Ezekiel
18:20 18:21-23 26:9 34:23 34:24 37:24-25
Hosea
Joel
Amos
Micah
Haggai
Zechariah
Malachi
Matthew
Mark
Luke
John
Acts
Romans
Ephesians
Colossians
Hebrews
1 Maccabees
1 Esdras
Sirach
v vi 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 27 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 123 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450 451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459 460 461 462 463 464