Joash, according to 2Kings xii., was a pious ruler, but met with misfortune; he was compelled to buy off Hazael, who had laid siege to Jerusalem, at a heavy price, and finally he died by the assassin's hand. Chronicles is able to tell how he deserved this fate. In the sentence: "He did what was right in the sight of the Lord all his days, because Jehoiada the high priest had instructed him " (2Kings xii. 3 [2]), it alters the last expression into "all the days of Jehoiada the priest," (xxiv. 2). After the death of his benefactor he fell away, and showed his family the basest ingratitude; at the end of that very year the Syrians invade him; after their departure his misfortunes are increased by a dreadful illness, under which he is murdered (xxiv. 17 seq.).

Amaziah was defeated, made prisoner, and severely punished by Jehoash, king of Samaria, whom he had audaciously challenged (2Kings xiv. 8 seq.). Why? because he had set up in Jerusalem idols which had been carried off from Edom, and served them (2Chronicles xxv. 1 4). He prefers the plundered gods of a vanquished people to Jehovah at the very moment when the latter has proved victorious over them! From the time of this apostasy— a crime for which no punishment could be too great—his own servants are also stated to have conspired against him and put him to death (xxv. 27), and yet we are assured in ver. 25 (after 2Kings xiv. I;) that Amaziah survived his adversary by fifteen years.

Uzziah, one of the best kings of Judah, became a leper, and was compelled to hand over the regency to his son Jotham (2Kings xv. 5); for, adds Chronicles, "when he had become strong, his heart was lifted up, even to ruin, so that he transgressed against Jehovah his God, and went into the temple of Jehovah, to burn incense upon the altar of incense. And Azariah the priest went in after him, and with him fourscore priests of Jehovah, and withstood him and said: It is not for thee to burn incense, but only for the sons of Aaron who are consecrated thereto. Then Uzziah was wroth and laid not the censer aside, and the leprosy rose up in his forehead, and the priests thrust him out from thence" (xxvi. 16-20). The matter is now no longer a mystery.

Ahaz was a king of little worth, and yet he got fairly well out of the difficulty into which the invasion of the allied Syrians and Israelites had brought him by making his kingdom tributary to the Assyrian Tiglath-Pileser (2Kings xvi. 1 seq.). But Chronicles could not possibly let him off so cheaply. By it he is delivered into the hand of the enemy: the Israelites alone slaughter 120,000 men of Judah, including the king's son and his most prominent servants, and carry off to Samaria 200,000 women and children, along with a large quantity of other booty. The Edomites and Philistines also fall upon Ahaz, while the Assyrians whom he has summoned to his aid misunderstand him, and come up against Jerusalem with hostile intent; they do not, indeed, carry the city, but yet become possessors, without trouble, of its treasures, which the king himself hands over to them (xxviii. 1-21).

The Book of Kings knows no worse ruler than Manasseh was; yet he reigned undisturbed for fifty-five years—a longer period than was enjoyed by any other king (2Kings xxi.1-18). This is a stone of stumbling that Chronicles must remove. It tells that Manasseh was carried in chains by the Assyrians to Babylon, but there prayed to Jehovah, who restored him to his kingdom; he then abolished idolatry in Judah (xxxiii. 11-20). Thus on the one hand he does not escape punishment, while on the other hand the length of his reign is nevertheless explained. Recently indeed it has been sought to support the credibility of these statements by means of an Assyrian inscription, from which it appears that Manasseh did pay tribute to Esarhaddon. That is to say, he had been overpowered by the Assyrians; that is again to say, that he had been thrown into chains and carried off by them. Not so rapid, but perhaps quite as accurate, would be the inference that as a tributary prince he must have kept his seat on the throne of Judah, and not have exchanged it for the prison of Babylon. In truth, Manasseh's temporary deposition is entirely on the same plane with Nebuchadnezzar's temporary grass-eating. The unhistorical character of the intermezzo (the motives of which are perfectly transparent) follows not only from the silence of the Book of Kings (a circumstance of no small importance indeed), but also, for example, from Jeremiah xv. 4; for when it is there said that all Judah and Jerusalem are to be given up to destruction because of Manasseh, it is not presupposed that his guilt has been already borne and atoned for by himself.

To justify the fact of Josiah's defeat and death at Megiddo, there is attached to him the blame of not having given heed to the words of Necho from the mouth of God warning him against the struggle (xxxv. 21, 22). Contrariwise, the punishment of the godless Jehoiakim is magnified; he is stated to have been put in irons by the Chaldaeans and carried to Babylon (xxxvi. 6)—an impossibility of course before the capture of Jerusalem, which did not take place until the third month of his successor. The last prince of David's house, Zedekiah, having suffered more severely than all his predecessors, must therefore have been stiff-necked and rebellious (xxxvi.12, 13),—characteristics to which, according to the authentic evidence of the prophet Jeremiah, he had in reality the least possible claim.

It is thus apparent how inventions of the most circumstantial kind have arisen out of this plan of writing history, as it is euphemistically called. One is hardly warranted, therefore, in taking the definiteness of statements vouched for by Chronicles alone as proof of their accuracy. The story about Zerah the Ethiopian (2Chronicles xiv. 9 seq.) is just as apocryphal as that of Chushan-Rishathaim (Judges iii 10). Des Vignoles has indeed identified the first-named with the Osorthon of Manetho, who again occurs in the Egyptian monuments as Osorkon, son of Shishak, though not as renewing the war against Palestine; but Osorkon was an Egyptian, Zerah an Ethiopian, and the resemblance of the names is after all not too obvious. But, even if Zerah were really a historical personage, of what avail would this be for the unhistorical connection? With a million of men the king of the Libyans and Moors, stepping over Egypt, comes against Judah. Asa, ruler of a land of about sixty German square miles, goes to meet the enemy with 580,000, and defeats him on the plain to the north of Mareshah so effectually that not a single soul survives. Shall it be said that this story, on account of the accurate statement of locality (although Mareshah instead of Gath is not after all suggestive of an old source), is credible-at all events after deduction of the incredibilities? If the incredibilities are deducted, nothing at all is left. The invasion of Judah by Baasha of Israel, and Asa's deportment towards him (1Kings xv. 17 seq.), are quite enough fully to dispose of the great previous victory over the Ethiopians claimed for Asa. The case is no better with the victory of Jehoshaphat over the Ammonites and Moabites (2Chronicles xx.); here we have probably an echo of 2Kings iii., where we read of Jehoshaphat's taking part in a campaign against Moab, and where also recurs that characteristic feature of the self-destruction of the enemy, so that for the opposing force nothing remains but the work of collecting the booty (iii. 23; compare 2Chronicles xx. 23). The Chronicler has enemies always at his command when needed,—Arabians, Ethiopians (xvii. 11, xxi. 16, xxii. 1, xxvi. 7), Mehunims (xx. 1, xxvi. 1), Philistines (xvii. 11, xxi. 16, xxvi. 6 seq., xxviii. 18), Ammonites (xx. 1, xxvi. 8, xxvii. 5), whose very names in some cases put them out of the question for the older time. Such statements as that the Ammonites became subject to Kings Uzziah and Jotham, are, in the perfect silence of the credible sources, condemned by their inherent impossibility; for at that period the highway to Ammon was Moab, and this country was by no means then in the possession of Judah, nor is it anywhere said that it was. The Philistines as vindictive enemies are rendered necessary by the plan of the history (xxi. 16, xxviii. 18), and this of itself throws suspicion upon the previous statements (xvii. 11, xxvi. 6 seq.) that they were laid under tribute by Jehoshaphat, and subjugated by Uzziah; it is utterly impossible to believe that the latter should have broken down the walls of Ashdod (Amos i. 7), or have established fortresses in Philistia. According to the Book of Kings, he did indeed conquer Edom anew; Edom is according to this authority the one land to which the descendants of David lay claim and against which they wage war, while Moab and Philistia (the most important towns being excepted, however, in the case of the latter) virtually belong to the territory of Ephraim.

The triumphs given by the Chronicler to his favourites have none of them any historical effect, but merely serve to add a momentary splendour to their reigns. Merit is always the obverse of success. Joram, Joash, Ahaz, who are all depicted as reprobates, build no fortresses, command no great armies, have no wealth of wives and children; it is only in the case of the pious kings (to the number of whom even Rehoboam and Abijah also belong) that the blessing of God manifests itself by such tokens. Power is the index of piety, with which accordingly It rises and fall. Apart from this it is of no consequence if, for example, Jehoshaphat possesses more than 1,100.000 soldiers (xvii, 14 seq.), for they are not used for purposes of war; the victory comes from God and from the music of the Levites (chap. xx.). In the statements about fortress-building which regularly recur in connection with the names of good rulers, /1/

**************************************** 1 viii. 3-6, xi. 5-12, xiii. 19, xiv. 5, 6 [6, 7], xvii. 12, xix. 5, xxvi. 9, 10, xxvii. 4, xxxii. 5,, xxxiii. 14. ***************************************

general statements, such as those of Hosea viii. 14, 2Kings xviii. 13, are illustrated by concrete examples, a few elements of tradition being also employed (Lachish). It is not possible, but, indeed, neither is it necessary, to demonstrate in every case the imaginary character of the statements; according to xix. 5 it would appear as if simply every city of any kind of consequence was regarded as a fortress and in the list given in chap. xi. 6 seq., we chiefly meet with names which were also familiar in the post-exile period. That Abijah deprived Jeroboam of Bethel amongst others, and that Jehoshaphat set governors over the Ephraimite cities which had been taken by Asa his father (xiii. 19, xvii. 2), would excite surprise if it stood anywhere else than in Chronicles. In forming a judgment on its family history of the descendants of David, the statement contained in xiii. 21 is specially helpful both in manner and substance: "And Abijah waxed mighty, and he married fourteen wives, and begat twenty and two sons, and sixteen daughters." This can only be taken as referring to the reign of Abijah, and that too after the alleged victory over Jeroboam; but he reigned altogether for only three years, and is it to be supposed that within this interval one of his sons should even have attained to man's estate? In reality, however, Abijah had no son at all, but was succeeded by his brother, for the definite and doubtless authentic statement that Maachah, the wife of Rehoboam, was the mother both of Abijah and of Asa, and that the latter removed her from her position at court (1Kings xv. 2, 10, 13), must override the allegation of ver. 8, that the successor of Abijah was his son. After Jehoshaphat's death it is said in the first place that Jehoram slew all his brethren (2 Chr. xxi. 4), and afterwards that the Arabians slew all Jehoram's children with the exception of one (xxii. 1); how many of the Davidic house in that case survive for Jehu, who nevertheless slew forty-two of them (2Kings x. 14)? In short, the family history of the house of David is of equal historical value with all the other matters on which the Chronicler is more widely and better informed than all the older canonical books. The remark applies to names and numbers as well; about such trifles, which produce an appearance of accuracy, the author is never in any embarrassment.

VI.II.4. The Book of Kings then everywhere crops up as the real foundation of the portion of Chronicles relating to Judah after the period of Solomon. Where the narrative of the former is detailed and minute, our author also has fuller and more interesting material at his command; so, for example, in the history relating to the temple and to the common and mutual relations of Judah and Israel (2 Chr. x., xviii., xxiii., seq., xxv. 17-24, xxxiii. seq.). Elsewhere he is restricted to the epitome that constitutes the framework of the Book of Kings; by it he is guided in his verdicts as to the general character of the successive sovereigns as well as in his chronological statements, although, in accordance with his plan, he as a rule omits the synchronisms (xiii. 1, xxv. 25). The positive data also, given by the epitome with reference to the legislation in matters of worship by the various kings, are for the most part reproduced word for word, and float in a fragmentary and readily distinguishable way in the mixture of festivals, sermons, choruses, law, and prophets. For this is an important verification of all the results already obtained; all in Chronicles that is not derived from Samuel and Kings, has a uniform character not only in its substance, but also in its awkward and frequently unintelligible language—plainly belonging to a time in which Hebrew was approaching extinction—in its artificiality of style, deriving its vitality exclusively from Biblical reminiscences. This is not the place for the proof of these points, but the reader may compare Staehelin's Einleitung (1862), p. 139 seq.; Bertheau, p. xiv. seq., and Graf, p. 116.

VI.III.

VI.III.1. When the narrative of Chronicles runs parallel with the older historical books of the canon, it makes no real additions, but the tradition is merely differently coloured, under the influence of contemporary motives. In the picture it gives the writer's own present is reflected, not antiquity. But neither is the case very different with the genealogical lists prefixed by way of introduction in 1Chronicles i.-ix.; they also are in the main valid only for the period at which they were drawn up—whether for its actual condition or for its conceptions of the past.

The penchant for pedigrees and genealogical registers, made up from a mixture of genealogico-historical and ethnologico-statistical elements, is a characteristic feature of Judaism; along with the thing the word YX# also first came into use during the later times. Compendious histories are written in the form of TLDWT and YWX#YN. The thread is thin and inconspicuous, and yet apparently strong and coherent; one does not commit oneself to much, and yet has opportunity to introduce all kinds of interesting matter. Material comes to one's hand, given a beginning and an end, the bridge is soon completed. Another expression of the same tendency is the inclination to give a genealogical expression to all connections and associations of human society whatsoever, to create artificial families on all hands and bring them into blood relationship, as if the whole of public life resolved itself into a matter of cousinship,—an inclination indicative of the times of political stagnation then prevalent. We hear of the families of the scribes at Jabesh, of the potters and gardeners and byssus-workers, of the sons of the goldsmiths, apothecaries, and fullers, these corporations being placed on the same plane with actual families. The division into classes of the persons engaged in religious service is merely the most logical development of this artificial system which is applied to all other social relations as well.

Proceeding now to a fuller examination of the contents of 1 Chron i.-ix. and other texts connected with that, we have here, apart from the first chapter, which does not demand further attention, an ethno-genealogical survey of the twelve tribes of Israel, which is based mostly on the data of the Priestly Code (Genesis xlvi.; um. xxvi.), expanded now more now less. But while the statements of the Priestly Code have to hold good for the Mosaic period only, those of Chronicles have also to apply to the succeeding ages,—those, for example, of Saul and David, of Tiglath-Pileser and Hezekiah. As early as the time of the judges, however, very important changes had taken place in the conditions. While Dan continued to subsist with difficulty, Simeon and Levi had been completely broken up (Genesis xlix. 7); in the Blessing of Moses the latter name denotes something quite different from a tribe, and the former is not even so much as named, although the enumeration is supposed to be complete; in David's time it had already been absorbed by families of mingled Judaic and Edomitic descent in the district where it had once had independent footing. Eastward of Jordan Leah's first-born had a similar fate, although somewhat later. After it has been deposed from its primacy in Genesis xlix. and twitted in Judges v. with its brave words unaccompanied by corresponding deeds, the faint and desponding wish is expressed in Deuteronomy xxxiii. 6 that "Reuben may live and not die," and King Mesha is unaware that any other than the Gadite had ever dwelt in the land which, properly speaking, was the heritage of Reuben. But in Chronicles these extinct tribes again come to life—and not Levi alone, which is a special case, but also Simeon and Reuben, with which alone we are here to deal—and they exist as independent integral twelfths of Israel, precisely like Ephraim and Manasseh, throughout the whole period of the monarchy down to the destruction of the kingdom by the Assyrians. /1/ This is

***************************************** 1. For Reuben see (in addition to 1Chronicles v. 1-10) v. 18, xi. 42, xii. 37. xxvi. 32, xxvii. 16, for Simeon, 1Chronicles iv. 24-43, with xii. 25, and 2Chronicles xv. 9, xxxiv. 6, observing that in the last two passages Simeon is reckoned as belonging to the northern kingdom, so as to complete the number of the ten tribes. ****************************************

diametrically opposed to all authentic tradition; for to maintain that nothing else is intended than a continued subsistence of individual Simeonite and Reubenite families within other tribes is merely a desperate resort of the harmonists, and every attempt to tone down the fact that those extinct and half-mythical tribes are in Chronicles placed side by side with the rest without any distinction is equally illegitimate. The historical value thus lost by the narrative as a whole cannot be restored by the seeming truthfulness of certain details. Or is more significance really to be attached to the wars of the Simeonites and Reubenites against the Arabians than to the rest of the extemporised wars of the kings of Judah against these children of the wilderness? If only at least the names had not been "sons of Ham, and Mehunim and Hagarenes " (iv. 40 seq. [Heb.], v. 10)! As for the pedigrees and genealogical lists, are they to be accepted as historical merely because their construction is not apparent to us, and they evade our criticism? The language affords no room for the conjecture that we here possess extracts from documents of high antiquity (iv. 33, 38, 4I, v. 1 seq., 7, 9 seq.), and proper names such as Elioenai and the like (iv. 35 seq.) are not striking for their antique originality.

Of the remaining tribes, so far as they belong to Israel and not to Judah, the next in the series after Reuben are the trans-Jordanic (v. 11-26). They are said to have been numbered in the days of Jotham of Judah and Jeroboam of Israel, on which occasion 44,760 warriors were returned; they took the field against the Hagarenes, Ituraeans, Nephishites, and Nabataeans, gaining the victory and carrying off much booty, "for they cried to God in the battle, and He was entreated of them because they put their trust in Him." But afterwards they fell away from the God of their fathers, and as a punishment were carried off by Pul and Tiglath-Pileser to Armenia by the Chaboras and the river of Gozan. Apart from the language, which in its edifying tone is that of late Judaism, and leaving out of account the enumeration "the sons of Reuben and the Gadites and half of the tribe of Manasseh," the astonishing and highly doubtful combinations are eloquent: Pul and Tiglath-Pileser, the Chaboras and the river of Gozan, are hardly distinguished from each other; Jotham and Jeroboam, on the other hand, make so impossible a synchronism that the partisans of Chronicles will have it that none is intended,—forgetful, to be sure, of Hosea i. 2, and omitting to say what in that case Jotham of Judah has to do here at all in this connection. The Hagarenes and Ituraeans too, instead of (say) the Moabites and Ammonites, furnish food for reflection, as also do the geographical statements that Gad had his seat in Bashan and Manasseh in and near Lebanon. As for the proper names of families and their heads, they are certainly beyond our means of judging; the phrases however of the scheme they fill (anshe shemoth rashe l'beth abotham, migrash, jahes) are peculiar to the Priestly Code and Chronicles, and alongside of elements which are old and attested from other quarters, occur others that look very recent, as for example (v. 24) Eliel, Azriel, Jeremiah, Hodaviah, Jahdiel.

In the introduction the Galilaean tribes have no prominent place, but in the rest of the book they make a favourable appearance (see especially 1Chronicles xii. 32-34, 40, and 2Chronicles xxx. 10, 11, 18); it readily occurs to one, especially in the last-cited passage, to think of the later Judaising process in Galilee. In Issachar there are stated to have been 87,000 fighting men in David's time (misparam l'toledotham l'beth abotham, vii. 1-5); out of Zebulun and Naphtali, again, exactly 87,000 men came to David at Hebron, to anoint him and be feasted three days,—it is carefully mentioned, however (xii. 40), that they took their provisions up with them. The proper kernel of Israel, Ephraim and Manasseh, is, in comparison with Simeon, Reuben, Gad, Issachar, treated with very scant kindness (vii. 14-29),—a suspicious sign. The list of the families of Manasseh is an artificial rechauffe of elements gleaned anywhere; Maachah passes for the wife as well as the sister of Machir, but being a Gileaditess (Beth-Maachah), ought not to have been mentioned at all in this place where the cis-Jordanic Manasseh is being spoken of; to fill up blanks every contribution is thankfully received. /1/ In the case of Ephraim a long and meagre genealogy

***************************************** 1 Kuenen, Th. Tijdschr., 1877, pp. 484, 488; Godsdienst v. Isr., i. 165. ****************************************

only is given, which, begun in vers. 20, 21, and continued in ver. 25, constantly repeats the same names (Tahath, Tahan, 1Samuel i. 1; Eladah, Laadan, Shuthelah, Telah), and finally reaches its end and goal in Joshua, whose father Nun alone is known to the older sources! Into the genealogy a wonderful account of the slaying of the children of Ephraim by the men of Gath (1Samuel iv.?) has found its way, and (like viii. 6, 7) according to the prevailing view must be of venerable antiquity. But in that case the statement of iv. 9 must also be very ancient, which yet obviously is connected with the rise of the schools of the scribes stated in ii. 55 to have existed in Jabez.

Everywhere it is presupposed that Israel throughout the entire period of the monarchy was organised on the basis of the twelve tribes (ii.-ix.; xii.; xxvii.), but the assumption is certainly utterly false, as can be seen for example from 1Kings iv. Further, the penchant of later Judaism for statistics is carried back to the earlier time, to which surveys and censuses were repugnant in the extreme. In spite of 2Samuel xxiv., we are told that under David enumerations both of the spiritual and of the secular tribes were made again and again; so also under his successors, as may be inferred partly from express statements and partly from the precise statistics given as to the number of men capable of bearing arms: in these cases the most astounding figures are set down,—always, however, as resting on original documents and accurate enumeration. In the statistical information of Chronicles, then, so far as it relates to pre-exilic antiquity, we have to do with artificial compositions. It is possible, and occasionally demonstrable, that in these some elements derived from tradition have been used. But it is certain that quite as many have been simply invented; and the combination of the elements—the point of chief importance— dates, as both form and matter show, from the very latest period. One might as well try to hear the grass growing as attempt to derive from such a source as this a historical knowledge of the conditions of ancient Israel.

VI.III.2. As regards Judah and Benjamin, and to a certain extent Levi also, the case of course is somewhat different from that of the ten extinct tribes. It is conceivable that here a living ethno-genealogical tradition may have kept the present connected with the past. Nevertheless, on closer examination, it comes out that most of what the Chronicler here relates has reference to the post-exilic time, and that the few fragments which go up to a higher antiquity are wrought into a connection which on the whole is of a very recent date. Most obtrusively striking is it that the list of the heads of the people dwelling in Jerusalem given in ix. 4—17 is simply identical with Nehemiah xi. 3-19. In this passage, introducing as it does the history of the kings (x. seq.), one is by no means prepared to hear statements about the community of the second temple; but our author is under the impression that in going there he is letting us know about the old Jerusalem; from David to Nehemiah is no leap for him, the times are not distinct from one another to his mind. For chap. viii. also, containing a full enumeration of the Benjamite families, with special reference to those which had their seat in the capital, Bertheau has proved the post-exilic reference; it is interesting that in the later Jerusalem there existed a widespread family which wished to deduce its origin from Saul and rested its claims to this descent on a long genealogy (viii. 33-40). /1/

***************************************** 1. Equivalent to ix. 35-44, which perhaps proves the later interpolation of ix. 1-34. ***************************************

It cannot be said that this produces a very favourable impression for the high antiquity of the other list of the Benjamites in vii. 6-11; to see how little value is to be attached to the pretensions of the latter to be derived from original documents of hoary antiquity, it is only necessary to notice the genuinely Jewish phraseology of vers. 7, 9, 11, such proper names as Elioenai, and the numbers given (22,034 + 20,200 + 17,200, making in all 59,434 fighting men).

The registers of greatest historical value are those relating to the tribe of Judah (ii. 1-iV. 23). But in this statement the genealogy of the descendants of David must be excepted (chapter iii.), the interest of which begins only with Zerubbabel, the rest being merely an exceedingly poor compilation of materials still accessible to us in the older historical books of the canon, and in Jeremiah. According to iii. 5, the first four of David's sons, born in Jerusalem, were all children of Bathsheba; the remaining seven are increased to nine by a textual error which occurs also in the LXX version of 2Samuel v. 16. Among the sons of Josiah (iii. 15 seq.), Johanan, i.e. Jehoahaz, is distinguished from Shallum (Jeremiah xxii. 11), and because he immediately succeeded his father, is represented as the first-born, though in truth Jehoiakim was older (2Kings xxiii. 3I, 36); Zedekiah, Jehoiakim's brother, is given out to be the son of Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, because he was the successor of Jeconiah, who succeeded Jehoiakim. Similar things occur also in the Book of Daniel, but are usually overlooked, with a mistaken piety. Whoever has eyes to see cannot assign any high value except to the two great Jewish genealogies in chaps. ii. and iv. Yet even here the most heterogeneous elements are tossed together, and chaff is found mingled with wheat. /1/

************************************** 1. For further details the reader is referred to the author's dissertation De gentibus et familiis Judaeis, Gottingen, 1870. **************************************

Apart from the introduction, vers.1-8, chap. ii. is a genealogy of the children of Hezron, a tribe which in David's time had not yet been wholly amalgamated with Judah, but which even then constituted the real strength of that tribe and afterwards became completely one with it. The following scheme discloses itself amid the accompanying matters: "The sons of Hezron are Jerahmeel and Celubai" (Caleb) (ver. 9). "and the sons of Jerahmeel, the first-born of Hezron, were..." (ver. 25). "These were the sons of Jerahmeel. And the sons of Caleb the brother of Jerahmeel were..." (ver. 42). "These were the sons of Caleb " (ver. 50 a). That which is thus formally defined and kept by itself apart (compare in this connection "Jerahmeel the first-born of Hezron," "Caleb the brother of Jerahmeel") is materially also distinguished from all else. It is the kernel of the whole, and refers to the pre-exilian time. Even the unusual et fuerunt (vers. 25, 33, 50) points to this conclusion, as well as, in the case of Caleb, the positive fact that the towns named in ver. 42-49 are all situated near Hebron and in the Negeb of Judah, where after the exile the Idumaeans were settled, and, in the case of Jerahmeel, the negative circumstance that here no towns at all are mentioned among the families, Molid, ver. 29, being perhaps a single exception, and thus the extreme south is indicated. But this kernel is amplified by a number of post-exilian additions. In the first place, in connection with Jerahmeel, an appendix (vers. 34-41) is given which is not ethnological but purely genealogical, and brings a pedigree of fifteen members manifestly down to near the age of the Chronicler, and which moreover is only in apparent connection with what precedes it (comp. ver. 34 with ver. 31), and invariably uses the hiphil form holid, a form which occurs in vers. 25-33 never, and in vers. 42-50 only sporadically in three places open to the suspicion of later redaction (comp. especially ver. 47). Much more important, however, are the additions under Caleb; of these the one is prefixed (vers. 18-24), the other, more appropriately, brought in at the close (vers. 50-55, beginning with "and the sons of Hur, the firstborn of Ephrath," Caleb's second wife, ver. 19). Here Caleb no longer presents himself in the extreme south of Judah and the vicinity of Jerahmeel (1Samuel xxv. 3, xxvii. 10, xxx. 14, 29), where he had his settlement prior to the exile, but his families, which are all of them descended from his son Hur, inhabit Bethlehem, Kirjath-jearim, Zorah, Esthaol, and other towns in the north, frequently mentioned in Ezra and Nehemiah. Thus the Calebites in consequence of the exile have forsaken their old seats and have taken up new ones on their return; this fact is expressed in ver. 18 to the effect that Caleb's first wife Azubah bath Jerioth (Deserta filia Nomadum) had died, and that he had then married a second, Ephrath, by whom he became the father of Hur: Ephrath is the name of the district in which Bethlehem and Kirjath- jearim are situated, and properly speaking is merely another form of Ephraim, as is shown by the word Ephrathite. In addition to these appendices to Jerahmeel and Caleb, we have also the genealogy of David (vers. 10-17). The Book of Samuel knows only of his father Jesse; on the other hand, Saul's genealogy is carried further back, and there was no reason for not doing so in David's case also if the materials had existed. But here, as in Ruth, the pedigree is traced backwards through Jesse, Obed, Boaz, up to Salma. Salma is the father of Bethlehem (ii. 54), and hence the father of David. But Salma is the father of Bethlehem and the neighbouring towns or fractions of towns AFTER THE EXILE; he belongs to Kaleb Abi Hur. /1/

***************************************** I In the Targum, Caleb's kindred the Kenites are designated as Salmaeans; the name also occurs in Canticles (i. 5, the tents of Kedar, the curtains of Salmah), and also as the name of a Nabataean tribe in Pliny. Among the families of the Nethinim enumerated in Nehemiah vii. 46-60 the B'ne Salmah also occur, along with several otber names which enable us distinctly to recognise (Ezekiel xliv.) the non-Israelite and foreign origin of these temple slaves; see, for example, vers. 48, 52, 55, 57. ***************************************

But if anything at all is certain, it is this, that in ancient times the Calebites lived in the south and not in the north of Judah, and in particular that David by his nativity belonged not to them but rather to the older portion of Judah which gravitated towards Israel properly so called, and stood in most intimate relations with Benjamin. Of the first three members of the genealogy, Nahshon and Amminadab occur as princes of Judah in the Priestly Code, and are fitly regarded as the ancestors of those who come after them; Ram is the first-born of Hezron's first-born (ver. 25), and by the meaning of his name also (Ram = the high one), is, like Abram, qualified to stand at the head of the princely line.

While in chap ii. we thus in point of fact fall in with an old kernel, and one that necessarily goes back to sound tradition (apparently preserved indeed, however, merely for the sake of the later additions), the quite independent and parallel list, on the other hand, contained in iv. 1-23 is shown by many unmistakable indications to be a later composition having its reference only to post-exilian conditions, perhaps incorporating a few older elements, which, however, it is impossible with any certainty to detect. /2/

***************************************** I Pharez, Hezron, Carmi, Hur, Shobal (iv. 1), is a genealogically descending series; Chelubai must therefore of necessity be read instead of Carmi, all the more because Chelub and not Carmi appears in the third place in the subsequent expansion; for this, ascending from below, begins with Shobal (ver. 2), then goes on to Hur (vers. 5-10), who stands in the same relation to Ash-hur as Tob to Ish-tob, and finally deals with Chelub or Caleb (vers. 11-15). ********************************************

Levi of course receives the fullest treatment (1Chronicles v. 27 [vi. 1]-vi. 66 [81], ix. 10 seq., xv., xvi., xxiii.-xxvii., &c.). We know that this clerical tribe is an artificial production, and that its hierarchical subdivision, as worked out in the Priestly Code, was the result of the centralisation of the cultus in Jerusalem. Further, it has been already shown that in the history as recorded in Chronicles the effort is most conspicuous to represent the sons of Aaron and the Levites, in all cases where they are absent from the older historical books of the canon, as playing the part to which they are entitled according to the Priestly Code. How immediate is the connection with the last-named document, how in a certain sense that code is even carried further by Chronicles, can be seen for example from this circumstance, that in the former Moses in a novel reduces the period of beginning public service in the case of a Levite from thirty years of age to twenty-five (Numbers iv. 3 seq., viii. 23 seq.), while in the latter David (1Chronicles xxiii. 3, 24 seq.) brings it down still further to the age of twenty; matters are still to some extent in a state of flux, and the ordering of the temple worship is a continuation of the beginning made with the tabernacle service by Moses. Now, in so far as the statistics of the clergy have a real basis at all, that basis is post-exilian. It has long ago been remarked how many of the individuals figuring under David and his successors (e.g., Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun) bear names identical with families or guilds of a later time, how the two indeed are constantly becoming confluent, and difficulty is felt in determining whether by the expression "head" a person or a family ought to be understood. But, inasmuch as the Chronicler nevertheless desires to depict the older time and not his own, he by no means adheres closely to contemporary statistics, but gives free play at the same time to his idealising imagination; whence it comes that in spite of the numerous and apparently precise data afforded, the reader still finds himself unable to form any clear picture of the organisation of the clergy,—the ordering of the families and tribes, the distribution of the offices,—nay, rather, is involved in a maze of contradictions. Obededom, Jeduthun, Shelomith, Korah, occur in the most different connections, belong now to one, now to another section of the Levites, and discharge at one time this function, at another, that. Naturally the commentators are prompt with their help by distinguishing names that are alike, and identifying names that are different.

Some characteristic details may still be mentioned here. The names of the six Levitical classes according to 1Chronicles xxv. 4, Giddalti, V'romamti-Ezer, Joshbekashah, Mallothi, Hothir, Mahazioth, are simply the fragments of a consecutive sentence which runs: I have magnified and exalted the help of him who sat in need: I have spoken abundance of prophecies. The watchman or singer Obededom who is alleged to have discharged his functions in the days of David and Amaziah, is no other than the captain to whom David intrusted for three months the custody of the ark, a Philistine of Gath. The composition of the singers' pedigrees is very transparent, especially in the case of Heman (1Chronicles vi. 7-l2 [22-27] = ver 18-23, [33-37]). Apart from Exodus vi. 16-l9, use is chiefly made of what is said about the family of Samuel (1Samuel i. 1, viii. 2), who must of course have been of Levitical descent, because his mother consecrated him to the service of the sanctuary. Heman is the son of Joel b. Samuel b. Elkanah b. Jeroham b. Eliab b. Tahath b. Zuph, only the line does not terminate with Ephraim as in 1Samuel i. 1 (LXX) because it is Levi who is the goal; Zuph. however, is an Ephraitic district, and Tahath (Tohu, Toah, Tahan, Nahath) is an Ephraimite family (vii. 20). Further back the same elements are individually repeated more than once, Elkanah four times in all; he occurs once as early as in Exodus vi. 24, where also he is doubtless borrowed from 1Samuel i. The best of it is that, contrary to the scope of the genealogies recorded in1 Chronicles vi., which is to provide a Levitical origin for the guilds of singers, there is found in close contiguity the statement (ii. 6) that Heman and Ethan were descendants of Zerah b. Pharez, b. JUDAH. The commentators are indeed assisted in their efforts to differentiate the homonyms by their ignorance of the fact that even as late as Nehemiah's time the singers did not yet pass for Levites, but their endeavours are wrecked by the circumstance that the names of fathers as well as of sons are identical (Psalm lxxxviii. 1, lxxxix. 1; Ewald, iii. 380 seq.). In point of history these musicians of the second temple are descended of course neither from Levi nor from the sons of Mahol (1Kings v. 11 [iv. 31), but they have at least derived their names from the latter. On all hands we meet with such artificial names in the case of Levites. One is called Issachar; it would not be surprising to meet with a Naphtali Cebi, or Judah b. Jacob. Jeduthun is, properly speaking, the name of a tune or musical mode (Psalm xxxix. 1, lxii. 1, [xxvii. 1), whence also of a choir trained in that. Particularly interesting are a few pagan names, as for example Henadad, Bakbuk, and some others, which, originally borne by the temple servitors (Nehemiah vii. 46 seq.), were doubtless transferred along with these to the Levites.

With the priests, of whom so many are named at all periods of the history of Israel, matters are no better than with the inferior Levites, so far as the Books of Samuel and Kings are not drawn upon. In particular, the twenty-four priestly courses or orders are an institution, not of King David, but of the post-exilic period. When Hitzig, annotating Ezekiel viii. 16, remarks that the five-and-twenty men standing between the temple and the altar worshipping the sun toward the east are the heads of the twenty-four priestly courses with the high priest at their head (because no one else had the right to stand in the inner court between temple and altar), he reveals a trait that is characteristic, not only of himself, but also of the entire so-called historico-critical school, who exert their whole subtlety on case after case, but never give themselves time to think matters over in their connection with each other; nay, rather simply retain the traditional view as a whole, only allowing themselves by way of gratification a number of heresies. It is almost impossible to believe that Hitzig, when he annotated Ezekiel viii., could have read those passages Ezekiel xliii. 7 seq., xliv. 6 seq, from which it is most unambiguously clear that the later exclusion of the laity from the sanctuary was quite unknown in the pre-exilic period. The extent of the Chronicler's knowledge about the pre-exilic priesthood is revealed most clearly in the list of the twenty-two high priests in 1Chronicles v. 29-41 (vi. 3-15). From the ninth to the eighteenth the series runs—Amariah, Ahitub, Zadok, Ahimaaz, Azariah, Johanan, Azariah, Amariah, Ahitub, Zadok. As for the first five, Azariah was not the son, but the brother of Ahimaaz, and the latter apparently not a priest (1Kings iv. 2); but Ahitub, the alleged father of Zadok, was, on the contrary, the grandfather of Zadok's rival, Abiathar, of the family of Eli (1Samuel xiv. 3, xxii. 20); the whole of the old and famous line—Eli, Phinehas, Ahitub; Ahimelech, Abiathar—which held the priesthood of the ark from thc time of the judges down into the days of David, is passed over in absolute silence, and the line of Zadok, by which it was not superseded until Solomon (1Kings ii. 35), is represented as having held the leadership of the priesthood since Moses. As for the last four in the above-cited list, they simply repeat the earlier. In the Book of Kings, Azariah II., Amariah, Ahitub, Zadok, do not occur, but, on the contrary, other contemporary high priests, Jehoiada and Urijah, omitted from the enumeration in Chronicles. At the same time this enumeration cannot be asserted to be defective; for, according to Jewish chronology, the ancient history is divided into two periods, each of 480 years, the one extending from the exodus to the building of the temple, the other from that epoch down to the establishment of the second theocracy. Now, 480 years are twelve generations of forty years, and in 1Chronicles v. there are twelve high priests reckoned to the period during which there was no temple (ver. 36b to come after ver. 35a), and thence eleven down to the exile; that is to say, twelve generations, when the exile is included. The historical value of the genealogy in 1Chronicles v. 26-41 is thus inevitably condemned. But if Chronicles knew nothing about the priestly princes of the olden time, its statements about ordinary priests are obviously little to be relied on.

VI.III.3. To speak of a tradition handed down from pre-exilic times as being found in Chronicles, either in 1Chronicles i.-ix. or in 1Chronicles x.-2Chronicles xxxvi., is thus manifestly out of the question. As early as 1806 this had been conclusively shown by the youthful De Wette (then twenty-six years of age). But since that date many a theological Sisyphus has toiled to roll the stone again wholly or half-way up the hill—Movers especially, in genius it might seem the superior of the sober Protestant critic—with peculiar results. This scholar mixed up the inquiry into the historical value of those statements in Chronicles which we are able to control, with the other question as to the probable sources of its variations from the older historical books of the canon. In vain had De Wette, at the outset, protested against such a procedure, contending that it was not only possible, but conceded that Chronicles, where at variance or in contradiction, was following older authority, but that the problem still really was, as before, how to explain the complete difference of general conception and the multitude of discrepancies in details; that the hypothesis of "sources," as held before Movers by Eichhorn, was of no service in dealing with this question, and that in the critical comparison of the two narratives, and in testing their historical character, it was after all incumbent to stick to what lay before one (Beitr., i. pp. 24, 29, 38). For so ingenious an age such principles were too obvious; Movers produced a great impression, especially as he was not so simple as to treat the letters of Hiram and Elijah as authentic documents, but was by way of being very critical. At present even Dillmann also unfortunately perceives "that the Chronicler everywhere has worked according to sources, and that in his case deliberate invention or distortion of the history are not for a moment to be spoken of" (Herzog, Realencyk., ii. p. 693, 1st edit.; iii. 223, 2d edit.). And from the lofty heights of science the author of Part V. of the Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament looks compassionately down upon K. H. Graf, "who has loitered so far behind the march of Old Testament research, as to have thought of resuscitating the views of De Wette;" in fact, that Chronicles may be established on an independent footing and placed on a level with the Books of Samuel and Kings, he utterly denies any indebtedness at all, on its part, to these, and in cases where the transcription is word for word, maintains that separate independent sources were made use of,—a needless exaggeration of the scientific spirit, for the author of the Book of Kings himself wrote the prayer of Solomon and the epitome, at least, without borrowing from another source; the Chronicler therefore can have derived it, directly or indirectly, only from him.

In reply to all this, one can only repeat what has already been said by De Wette. It may be that the Chronicler has produced this picture of old Israel, so different in outline and colour from the genuine tradition, not of his own suggestion and on his own responsibility, but on the ground of documents that lay before him. But the historical character of the work is not hereby altered in the smallest degree, it is merely shared by the so-called "sources." 2Maccabees and a multitude of other compositions have also made use of "sources," but how does this enhance the value of their statements? That value must in the long run be estimated according to their contents, which, again, must be judged, not by means of the primary sources which have been lost, but by means of the secondary literary products which have survived. The whole question ultimately resolves itself into that of historical credibility; and to what conclusions this ]eads we have already seen. The alterations and additions of Chronicles are all traceable to the same fountain-head—the Judaising of the past, in which otherwise the people of that day would have been unable to recognise their ideal. It was not because tradition gave the Law and the hierocracy and the Deus ex Machina as sole efficient factor in the sacred narrative, but because these elements were felt to be missing, that they were thus introduced. If we are to explain the omissions by reference to the "author's plan," why may we not apply the same principle to the additions? The passion displayed by Ewald ( Jahrbb. x. 261) when, in speaking of the view that Manasseh's captivity has its basis in Jewish dogmatic, he calls it "an absurdly infelicitous idea, and a gross injustice besides to the Book of Chronicles," recalls B. Schaefer's suggestive remark about the Preacher of Solomon, that God would not use a liar to write a canonical book. What then does Ewald say to the narratives of Daniel or Jonah? Why must the new turn given to history in the case of Manasseh be judged by a different standard than in the equally gross case of Ahaz, and in the numerous analogous instances enumerated in preceding pages (p. 203 seq.). With what show of justice can the Chronicler, after his statements have over and over again been shown to be incredible, be held at discretion to pass for an unimpeachable narrator? In those cases at least where its connection with his "plan" is obvious, one ought surely to exercise some scepticism in regard to his testimony; but it ought at the same time to be considered that such connections may occur much oftener than is discernible by us, or at least by the less sharp-sighted of us. It is indeed possible that occasionally a grain of good corn may occur among the chaff, but to be conscientious one must neglect this possibility of exceptions, and give due honour to the probability of the rule. For it is only too easy to deceive oneself in thinking that one has come upon some sound particular in a tainted whole. To what is said in 2Samuel v. 9, "So David dwelt in the stronghold (Jebus), and he called it the city of David, and he built round about from the rampart and inward," there is added in 1Chronicles xi. 8, the statement that "Joab restored the rest of the city (Jerusalem)." This looks innocent enough, and is generally accepted as a fact. But the word XYH for BNH shows the comparatively modern date of the statement, and on closer consideration one remembers also that the town of Jebus at the time of its conquest by David consisted only of the citadel, and the new town did not come into existence at all until later, and therefore could not have been repaired by Joab; in what interest the statement was made can be gathered from Nehemiah vii. 11. In many cases it is usual to regard such additions as having had their origin in a better text of Samuel and Kings which lay before the Chronicler; and this certainly is the most likely way in which good additions could have got in. But the textual critics of the Exegetical Handbook are only too like-minded with the Chronicler, and are always eagerly seizing with both hands his paste pearls and the similar gifts of the Septuagint.

It must be allowed that Chronicles owes its origin, not to the arbitrary caprice of an individual, but to a general tendency of its period. It is the inevitable product of the conviction that the Mosaic law is the starting-point of Israel's history, and that in it these is operative a play of sacred forces such as finds no other analogy; this conviction could not but lead to a complete transformation of the ancient tradition. Starting from a similar assumption, such an author as C. F. Keil could even at the present day write a book of Chronicles, if this were not already in existence. Now, in this aspect, for the purpose of appraising Chronicles as the type of that conception of history which the scribes cherished, the inquiry into its "sources" is really important and interesting. References to other writings, from which further particulars can be learned, are appended as a rule, to the account of each sovereign's reign, the exceptions being in the cases of Joram, Ahaziah, Athaliah, Amon, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Zedekiah. The titles referred to in this way may be classed under two groups: (1.) The Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah, or of Judah and Israel (in the cases of Asa, Amaziah, Jotham; Ahaz, Josiah, and Jehoiakim), with which the Book of the Kings of Israel (in the cases of Jehoshaphat and Manasseh; comp. 1Chronicles ix. 1) is identical, for the kingdom of the ten tribes is not reckoned by the Chronicler. (2.) The Words of Samuel the Seer, Nathan the Prophet, and Gad the Seer (for David; 1Chronicles xxix. 29; comp. xxvii. 24; Ecclus. xlvi. 13, xlvii. 1); the Words of Nathan the Prophet, the Prophecy of Ahijah of Shiloh and the Vision of Iddo the Seer concerning Jeroboam ben Nebat (for Solomon; 2Chronicles ix. 29); the Words of Shemaiah the Prophet and Iddo the Seer (for Rehoboam; xii. 15); the words of Jehu ben Hanani, which are taken over into the Book of the Kings of Israel (Jehoshaphat; xx. 34); a writing of Isaiah the prophet (Uzziah; xxvi. 22), more precisely cited as the Vision of Isaiah the Prophet, the son of Amoz, in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel (Hezekiah; xxxii. 32); the Words of the Seer in the Book of the Kings of Israel (Manasseh; xxxiii. 18; comp. also ver. 19). Following in the footsteps of Movers, Bertheau and others have shown that under these different citations it is always one and the same book that is intended, whether by its collective title, or by the conventional sub-titles of its separate sections. /1/ Bertheau calls

******************************************* 1. In Ezra and Nehemiah also the Chronicler has not used so many sources as are usually supposed. There is no reason for refusing to identify the "lamentations" of 2Chronicles xxxv. 25, with our Lamentations of Jeremiah: at least the reference to the death of Josiah (Jos., Ant. x. 5, 1), erroneously attributed to them, ought not in candour to be regarded as such. *******************************************

attention to the fact that ordinarily it is either the one or the other title that is given, and when, as is less usual, there are two, then for the most part the prophetic writing is designated as a portion of the Book of the Kings of Israel (xx. 34, xxxii. 32; and, quite vaguely, xxxiii. 18). The peculiar mode of naming the individual section-/1/-at a time when chapters and verses were

****************************************** 1 Romans xi. 2: )EN (HLLLA TI LEGEI )H GRAFH i.e., How stands it written in the section relating to Elijah? *******************************************

unknown—has its origin in the idea that each period of the sacred history has its leading prophet [)AXRIBHS TWN PROFHTWN DIADOXH; Jos., c. Ap. i. 8), but also at the same time involves (according to xxvi. 22, in spite of ix. 29, xii. 15, xiii. 22; 1Chronicles xxix. 29) the notion that each prophet has himself written the history of his own period. Obviously, this is the explanation of the title prophetae priores borne by the Books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings in the Jewish canon, and of the view which led to the introduction of 2Kings xviii. 18 seq. into the Book of Isaiah. The claims of history being slight, it was easy to find the needful propheta eponymus for each section. Jehu ben Hanani, a northern Israelite of Baasha's time, has to do duty for Asa, and also for Jehoshaphat as well. Iddo the seer, who prophesied against Jeroboam ben Nebat, is the anonymous prophet of 1Kings xiii. (Jos., Ant. viii. 8, 5; Jer. on Zechariah i. 1); by this time it was possible, also, to give the names of the wives of Cain, and of the patriarchs.

As regards a more definite determination of the date of the "Book of Kings" which lies at the foundation of Chronicles, a co-ordination of the two series of the Kings of Israel and Judah can only have been made after both had been brought to a close; in other words, not before the Babylonian exile. And in the Babylonian exile it was that the canonical Book of Kings actually came into existence, and the "Chronicles" of Israel and those of Judah were for the first time worked together by its author; at least he refers only to the separate works and knows of no previous combination of them. It would seem, therefore, very natural to identify the work alluded to in Chronicles with our present canonical book, which is similar in title and has corresponding contents. But this we cannot do, for in the former there were matters of which there are in the latter no trace; for example, according to 1Chronicles ix. 1, it contained family and numerical statistics for the whole of Israel after the manner of 1Chronicles i.-ix. (chapters for the most part borrowed from it) and according to 1Chronicles xxxiii 19, the Prayer of Manasseh. From these two data, as well as from the character of the items of information which may have been conjectured to have been derived from this source, the conclusion is forced upon us that the Book of Kings cited by the Chronicler is a late compilation far removed from actual tradition, and in relation to the canonical Book of Kings it can only be explained as an apocryphal amplification after the manner in which the scribes treated the sacred history. This conclusion, derived from the contents themselves, is supported by an important positive datum, namely, the citation in 2Chronicles xxiv. 27 of the Midrash [A.V. "Story"] of the Book of Kings, and in xiii. 22 of the Midrash of the prophet Iddo. Ewald is undoubtedly right when he recognises here the true title of the writing elsewhere named simply the Book of Kings. Of course the commentators assert that the word Midrash, which occurs in the Bible only in these two passages, there means something quite different from what it means everywhere else; but the natural sense suits admirably well and in Chronicles we find ourselves fully within the period of the scribes. Midrash is the consequence of the conservation of all the relics of antiquity, a wholly peculiar artificial reawakening of dry bones, especially by literary means, as is shown by the preference for lists of names and numbers. Like ivy it overspreads the dead trunk with extraneous life, blending old and new in a strange combination. It is a high estimate of tradition that leads to its being thus modernised; but in the process it is twisted and perverted, and set off with foreign accretions in the most arbitrary way. Jonah as well as Daniel and a multitude of apocryphal writings (2Maccabees ii. 13) are connected with this tendency to cast the reflection of the present back into the past; the Prayer of Manasseh, which now survives only in Greek, appears, as Ewald has conjectured, actually to have been taken direct from the book quoted in 2Chronicles xxxiii. 19. Within this sphere, wherein all Judaism moves, Chronicles also has had its rise. Thus whether one says Chromcles or Midrash of the Book of Kings is on the whole a matter of perfect indifference; they are children of the same mother, and indistinguishable in spirit and language, while on the other hand the portions which have been retained verbatim from the canonical Book of Kings at once betray themselves in both respects.



CHAPTER VII. JUDGES, SAMUEL, AND KINGS.

In the history of Hebrew literature, so full as it is of unfortunate accidents, one lucky circumstance at least requires to be specially mentioned. Chronicles did not succeed in superseding the historical books upon which it was founded; the older and the newer version have been preserved together. But in Judges, Samuel, and Kings even, we are not presented with tradition purely in its original condition; already it is overgrown with later accretions. Alongside of an older narrative a new one has sprung up, formerly independent, and intelligible in itself, though in many instances of course adapting itself to the former. More frequently the new forces have not caused the old root to send forth a new stock, or even so much as a complete branch; they have only nourished parasitic growths; the earlier narrative has become clothed with minor and dependent additions. To vary the metaphor, the whole area of tradition has finally been uniformly covered with an alluvial deposit by which the configuration of the surface has been determined. It is with this last that we have to deal in the first instance; to ascertain its character, to find out what the active forces were by which it was produced. Only afterwards are we in a position to attempt to discern in the earlier underlying formation the changing spirit of each successive period.

VII.I.

VII.I.1. The following prologue supplies us with the point of view from which the period of the judges is estimated. "After the death of Joshua, the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and forsook the Lord God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were round about them, the Baals and Astartes. And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and He delivered them into the hands of spoilers, that spoiled them and sold them into the hand of their enemies round about; whithersoever they went out the hand of the Lord was against them for evil, as the Lord had said, and as the Lord had sworn unto them; and they were greatly distressed. Nevertheless the Lord raised up unto them judges, and was with the judge, and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge, for it repented the Lord because of their groanings, by reason of them that oppressed them and vexed them. And it came to pass when the judge was dead that they returned and corrupted themselves more than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them; they ceased not from their own doings, nor from their stubborn way. And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel," &c. &c. (Judges ii.).

Such is the text, afterwards come the examples. "And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and forget the Lord their God, and served the Baals and Astartes. Therefore the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and He sold them into the hand of Chushan-Rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia, and they served him eight years. And when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised up to them a helper, Othniel b. Kenaz, and delivered the king of Mesopotamia into his hand, and the land had rest forty years. And Othniel b. Kenaz died." The same points of view and also for the most part the same expressions as those which in the case of Othniel fill up the entire cadre, recur in the cases of Ehud, Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson, but there form only at the beginning and at the end of the narratives a frame which encloses more copious and richer contents, occasionally they expand into more exhaustive disquisitions, as in vi. 7, x. 6. It is in this way that Judges ii.-xvi. has been constructed with the workman-like regularity it displays. Only the six great judges, however are included within the scheme; the six small ones stand in an external relation to it, and have a special scheme to themselves, doubtless having been first added by way of appendix to complete the number twelve.

The features which characterise this method of historical work are few and strongly distinctive. A continuous chronology connects the times of rest and their separating intervals, and thereby the continuity of the periods is secured. In order justly to estimate this chronology, it is necessary to travel somewhat beyond the limits of Judges. The key to it is to be found in 1Kings vi. 1. "In the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of the reign of Solomon, he began to build the house of the Lord." As observed by Bertheau, and afterwards by Noldeke, who has still farther pursued the subject, these 480 years correspond to 12 generations of 40 years each. Analogously in 1Chronicles v. 29-34 [vi. 2-8], 12 high priests from Aaron to Ahimaaz are assumed for the same period of time, and the attempt was made to make their successions determine those of the generations (Numbers xxxv. 28). Now it is certainly by no means at once clear how this total is to be brought into accord with the individual entries. Yet even these make it abundantly plain that 40 is the fundamental number of the reckoning. The wandering in the wilderness, during which the generation born in Egypt dies out, lasts for 40 years; the land has 40 years of rest under Othniel, Deborah, and again under Gideon; it has 80 under Ehud; the domination of the Philistines lasts for 40 years, the duration also of David's reign. On the necessary assumption that the period of the Philistines (Judges xiii. 1), which far exceeds the ordinary duration of the foreign dominations, coincides with that of Eli (1Samuel iv. 18), and at the same time includes the 20 years of Samson (Judges xvi. 31), and the 20 of the interregnum before Samuel (1Samuel vii. 2), we have already 8 x 40 accounted for, while 4 x 40 still remain. For these we must take into account first the years of the two generations for which no numbers are given, namely, the generation of Joshua and his surviving contemporaries (Judges ii. 7), and that of Samuel to Saul, each, it may be conjectured, having the normal 40, and the two together certainly reckoning 80 years. For the remaining 80 the most disputable elements are the 71 years of interregna or of foreign dominations, and the 70 of the minor judges. One perceives that these two figures cannot both be counted in,—they are mutually exclusive equivalents. For my own part, I prefer to retain the interregna; they alone, so far as we can see at present, being appropriate to the peculiar scheme of the Book of Judges. The balance of 9 or IO years still remaining to be applied are distributed between Jephthah (6 years), and Solomon (down to the building of the temple), who claims 3 or 4 years, or, if these are left out of account, 3 years may be given to Abimelech.

The main thing, however, is not the chronology, but the religious connection of the events. The two are intimately associated, not only formally, as can be gathered from the scheme, but also by a real inner connection. For what is aimed at in both alike is a connected view of large periods of time, a continuous survey of the connection and succession of race after race, the detailed particulars of the occurrences being disregarded; the historical factors with which the religious pragmatism here has to do are so uniform that the individual periods in reality need only to be filled up with the numbers of the years. One is reminded of the "Satz," '"Gegensatz," and "Vermittelung" of the Hegelian philosophy when one's ear has once been caught by the monotonous beat with which the history here advances, or rather moves in a circle. Rebellion, affliction, conversion, peace; rebellion, affliction, conversion, peace. The sole subjects of all that is said are Jehovah and Israel; their mutual relation alone it is that keeps the course of things in motion, and that too in opposite directions, so that in the end matters always return to their original position.

"They did what was evil in the sight of Jehovah, they went a-whoring after strange gods,"-such is the uninterrupted key-note. Although Jehovistic monolatry is so potently recommended from without, it yet takes no firm root, never becomes natural to the people, always remains a precept above and beyond their powers. For decennia on end indeed they hold fast to it, but soon their idolatrous tendency, which has only been repressed by fear of the judge during his lifetime, again finds expression; they must have a change. Now this rebellion is indeed quite indispensable for the pragmatism, because otherwise there would be nothing at all to tell; it is on the unrest in the clock that the whole movement depends. But at the same time this is of course no extenuation; the conduct of the people is manifestly totally inexcusable, the main actions, the deeds of the judges, are for this manner of historical treatment always only proofs of Israel's sin and of the unmerited grace of Jehovah that puts them to shame.

That all this is no part of the original contents of the tradition, but merely a uniform in which it is clothed, is admitted. Numero Deus impare gaudet. It is usual to call this later revision Deuteronomistic. The law which Jehovah has enjoined upon the fathers, and the breach of which He has threatened severely to punish (ii. 15, 21), is not indeed more definitely characterised, but it is impossible to doubt that its quintessence is the injunction to worship Jehovah alone and no other God. Now in this connection it is impossible to think of the Priestly Code, for in that document such a command is nowhere expressly enjoined, but, on the contrary, is assumed as a matter of course. Deuteronomy, on the other hand, has in fact no precept on which it lays greater emphasis than the "Hear, O Israel-"-that Jehovah is the only God, and the worship of strange gods the sin of sins. This precept was apprehended much more clearly by contemporaries than the moral demands in the interest of humanity and kindness which are also insisted on in Deuteronomy, but are not new, being derived from older collections; on this side alone, in so far as it follows up the monotheism of the prophets into its practical consequences within the sphere of worship, has Josiah's law-book had historical importance, on this side alone has it continued to act upon Ezekiel and those who came after him. If, then, the norm of the theocratic relationship assumed in the redaction of the Book of Judges is to be sought in a written Torah, this can indubitably only be that of Deuteronomy. The decisive settlement of the question depends in a comparison with the Book of Kings, and must accordingly be postponed until then.

VII.I.2. As for the relation between this superstructure and that on which it rests, there is a striking difference between the two styles. The revised form in which the Book of Judges found its way into the canon is unquestionably of Judaean origin, but the histories themselves are not such,—nay, in the song of Deborah, Judah is not reckoned at all as belonging to Israel. The one judge who belongs to the tribe of Judah is Othniel, who however is not a person, but only a clan. What is said of him is quite void of contents, and is made up merely of the schematic devices of the redactor, who has set himself to work here, so as to make the series open with a man of Judah; the selection of Othniel was readily suggested by Judges i. 12-15. Here again we have an exception which proves the rule. More important are the inner differences which reveal themselves. To begin with the most general,—the historical continuity on which so much stress is laid by the scheme, is in no way shown in the individual narratives of the Book of Judges. These stand beside one another unconnectedly and without any regard to order or sequence, like isolated points of light which emerge here and there out of the darkness of forgetfulness. They make no presence of actually filling up any considerable space of time; they afford no points of attachment whereon to fasten a chronology. In truth, it is hardly the dim semblance of a continuity that is imparted to the tradition by the empty framework of the scheme. The conception of a period of the judges between Joshua and Saul, during which judges ruled over Israel and succeeded one another almost as regularly as did the kings at a later period, is quite foreign to that tradition. It is impossible to doubt that Judges i., xvii., xviii. have the best right to be reckoned as belonging to the original stock; but these portions are excluded from reception within the scheme, because they have nothing to say about any judges, and give a picture of the general state of affairs which accords but ill with that plan. /1/

********************************************** 1. The redaction, as is well knows, extends only from ii. 6 xvi. 31, thus excluding both i. 1-ii. 5, and xvii. 1-xxi. 24. But it is easy to perceive how excellently the first portion fits into its place as a general introduction to the period between Moses and the monarchy, and how much more informing and instructive it is in this respect than the section which follows. There exists besides a formal connection between i. 16 and iv. 11. As regards chaps. xvii., xviii., this story relating to the migration of Dan northwards is plainly connected with that immediately preceding where the tribe still finds itself "in tbe camp of Dan," but is hard pressed and obtains no relief even with the aid of Samson. In the case of chaps. xix.-xxi., indeed, it admits of doubt whether they were excluded from the redaction, or whether they were not extant as yet; but it is worth noticing that here also chaps. xvii., xviii. are assumed as having gone before. The Levite of Bethlehem-Judah testifies to this, and especially the reminiscence contained in xix. 1, which, as we shall see, has nothing to rest on in chaps. xix.-xxi. Compare further xx. 19 with i. 1 seq. ********************************************

At the bottom of the spurious continuity lies an erroneous widening of the areas in which the judges exerted their influence. Out of local contiguity has arisen succession in time, what was true of the part having been transferred to the whole; it is always the children of Israel in a body who come upon the scene, are oppressed by the enemy, and ruled by the judges. In reality it is only the individual tribes that come into the action; the judges are tribal heroes,—Ehud of Benjamin, Barak and Deborah of Issachar, Gideon of Joseph, Jephthah of Gilead, Samson of Dan. It was only for the struggle against Sisera that a number of tribes were united, receiving on that account extraordinary praise in the song of Deborah. It is nowhere said "at the time when the judges ruled," but "at the time when there was yet no king over Israel, and every man did what was right in his own eyes; " the regular constitution of the period is the patriarchal anarchy of the system of families and septs. And in chap. i, division and isolation are made to appear not unclearly as the reason why the Canaanites were so long of being driven out from the greater cities; matters did not change until Israel became strong, that is to say, until his forces were welded into one by means of the monarchy.

But the unity of Israel is the presupposition upon which rests the theocratic relation, the reciprocal attitude between Israel and Jehovah, whereby according to the scheme the course of the history is solely conditioned. In the genuine tradition the presupposition disappears, and in connection with this the whole historical process assumes an essentially different, not to say a more natural aspect. The people are no longer as a body driven hither and thither by the same internal and external impulses, and everything that happens is no longer made to depend on the attraction and repulsion exercised by Jehovah. Instead of the alternating see-saw of absolute peace and absolute affliction, there prevails throughout the whole period a relative unrest; here peace, there struggle and conflict. Failure and success alternate, but not as the uniform consequences of loyalty or disobedience to the covenant. When the anonymous prophet who, in the insertion in the last redaction (chap. vi. 7-10), makes his appearance as suddenly as his withdrawal is abrupt, improves the visitation of the Midianites as the text for a penitential discourse, the matter is nevertheless looked at immediately thereafter with quite different eyes. For to the greeting of the angel, "Jehovah is with thee, thou mighty man of velour," Gideon answers, "If Jehovah be with us, why then is all this befallen us? and where be all His miracles, of which our fathers told us ? "He knows nothing about any guilt on the part of Israel. Similarly the heroic figures of the judges refuse to fit in with the story of sin and rebellion: they are the pride of their countrymen, and not humiliating reminders that Jehovah had undeservedly again and again made good that which men had destroyed. Finally, with what artificiality the sins which appear to be called for are produced, is incidentally made very clear. After the death of Gideon we read in chap. viii. 33, "the children of Israel went a-whoring after the Baals, and made Baal Berith their god." But from the following chapter it appears that Baal or El Berith was only the patron god of Shechem and some other cities belonging to the Canaanites; the redactor transforms the local worship of the Canaanites into an idolatrous worship on the part of all Israel. In other cases his procedure is still more simple,—for example, in x. 6 seq., where the number seven in the case of the deities corresponds with the number seven of the nations mentioned in that connection. Ordinarily he is content with "Baals " or "Astartes " or "Asheras," where the plural number is enough to show how little of what is individual or positive underlies the idea, not to mention that Asheras are no divinities at all, but only sacred trees or poles.

In short, what is usually given out as the peculiar theocratic element in the history of Israel is the element which has been introduced by the redaction. There sin and grace are introduced as forces into the order of events in the most mechanical way, the course of events is systematically withdrawn from all analogy, miracles are nothing extraordinary, but are the regular form in which things occur, are matters of course, and produce absolutely no impression. This pedantic supra-naturalism, "sacred history" according to the approved recipe, is not to be found in the original accounts. In these Israel is a people just like other people, nor is even his relationship to Jehovah otherwise conceived of than is for example that of Moab to Chemosh (chap. xi. 24). Of theophanies and manifestations of the Godhead there is no lack, but the wonders are such as to make one really wonder. Once and again they interrupt the earthly nexus, but at the same time they form no connected system; they are poetry, not prose and dogma. But on the whole the process of history, although to appearance rougher and more perplexed, is nevertheless in reality much more intelligible, and though seemingly more broken up, actually advances more continuously. There is an ascent upward to the monarchy, not a descent from the splendid times of Moses and Joshua (Judges i. 28-35, xiii. 5, xviii. 1).

One narrative, it is true, apart from that relating to Othniel, which is not to be reckoned here, is exactly what sacred history ought to be in order to fit into the theoretical scheme,—I mean Judges xix.-xxi. To appreciate it rightly it will be well first of all to cast a glance upon the preceding narrative relating to the migration of the tribe of Dan to the north. The Danites, 600 strong, fall upon the Canaanite town of Laish not because it lies within the limits assigned to the people of God, and because its conquest is a duty—though they inquire of the oracle, they are nevertheless far from relying on the divine right so plainly made known in the Book of Joshua—but because it is inhabited by a peaceable and unsuspecting people, which is quite defenceless against such a band of desperadoes; and they have as little scruple in practicing the same treachery to Israelites such as Micah. They take it that might is right, and recognise no restraining consideration; their conduct is natural to the verge of absolute shamelessness. And yet they are pious in their way; how highly they value Jehovah they show by this, that they steal His image out of the house of God, and the priest who keeps it into the bargain. As for the religious usages mentioned in the two chapters, hardly an abomination forbidden by the Law is wanting: the private sanctuary in the possession of the Ephraimite Micah, the grandson of Moses as priest in his service and pay, ephod and teraphim as the requisite necessaries in the worship of Jehovah; and yet all this is so recounted by the narrator as if it were all quite regular and void of offence, although his purpose in doing so is not to narrate temporary departures from rule, but the origin of permanent institutions at a chief sanctuary of ancient Israel. One is translated into another world on passing from this to the narrative immediately following, about the shameful deed of the Benjamites and their exemplary punishment; a greater or more instructive contrast as regards religious history is hardly to be found in all the Old Testament. In Judges xx.-xxi. it is not as invariably elsewhere the individual tribes which act, not even the people Israel, but the congregation of the covenant, which has its basis in the unity of worship. The occasion of their action is a sin committed in their midst which must be done away; it is the sanctity of the theocracy which brings these 400,000 men to arms and fills them at once with unction and with sanguinary zeal. The clerical instincts have entirely taken possession of this uniform mass, have passed into their flesh and blood, and moulded them into a single automaton, so that all that takes place is invariably done by all at once. No individuals come to the front, not even by name, still less by deeds of velour; the moral tone is anything but heroic. When the godless reprobates of Gibeah seek to assail the person of the Levite who is passing the night there, he hands over to them his wife in order to save himself, and all Israel finds nothing objectionable in this revolting act of cowardice, the opinion probably being that by his conduct the holy man had kept the sinners from still graver guilt. "Of the Mosaic law not a word is said in these chapters, but who could fail to perceive that the spirit which finds its expression in the law pervaded the community which acted thus? Had we more narratives of similar contents we should be able to solve many a riddle of the Pentateuch. Where under the monarchy could we find an Israel so united, vigorous, earnest, so willing to enter upon the severest conflict for the sake of the highest ends? "Thus Bertheau, rightly feeling that this story has a quite exceptional position, and contradicts all that we learn from other quarters of the period of the judges or even the kings. Only we cannot reckon it a proof of the historic value of the story, that it gives the lie to the rest of the tradition in the Books of Judges, Samuel, and Kings, and is homogeneous not with these books but with the Law. On the other hand, the writer betrays himself with a self-contradiction, when, unconsciously remembering the preceding chapters, he laments the disorganisation of the time he is dealing with (xix. 1, xxi. 25), and yet describes Israel to us as existing in a religious centralisation, such as demonstrably was never attained in the earlier life of the nation, but only came about as a consequence of the exile, and is the distinctive mark of Judaism.

As this narrative is not one of those included in the Deuteronomistic scheme of the Book of Judges, there may be a question whether it presupposes the Deuteronomic law only, or the priestly law as well. Its language has most points of contact with Deuteronomy; but one extremely important expression and notion, that of "the congregation of the children of Israel," points rather to the Priestly Code. The same may be said of Phinehas ben Eleazar ben Aaron (xx. 28). The latter, however, occurs but once, and that in a gloss which forms a very awkward interruption between "and the children of Israel inquired of Jehovah," and the word "saying" which belongs to that phrase. We have also to remark that there is no mention of the tabernacle, for which there is no room in addition to Mizpeh (p. 256), so that the principal mark of the Priestly Code is wanting. It is only in preparation, it has not yet appeared: we are still standing on the ground of Deuteronomy, but the way is being prepared for the transition.

VII.I.3. Going a step further back from the last revision we meet with an earlier effort in the same direction, which, however, is less systematically worked out, in certain supplements and emendations, which have here and there been patched on to the original narratives. These may be due in part to the mere love of amplification or of talking for talking's sake, and in so far we have no further business with them here. But they originated partly in the difficulty felt by a later age in sympathising with the religious usages and ideas of older times. Two instances of this kind occur in the history of Gideon. We read (vi. 25-32), that in the night after his call Gideon destroyed, at the commandment of Jehovah, the altar of Baal in Ophra, his native town, as well as the Ashera which stood beside it; and that in place of it he built an altar to Jehovah, and burned on it a yearling bullock, with the wood of the Ashera for fuel. The next morning the people of Ophra were full of indignation, and demanded that the author of the outrage should be given up to them to be put to death; his father, however, withstood them, saying, "Will ye contend for Baal? Will ye save him? If he be a god, let Baal contend (Heb. Jareb Baal) for himself." In consequence of this speech Gideon received his second name of Jerubbaal. This conflicts with what is said in an earlier part of the chapter. There Gideon has already made an altar of the great stone under the oak of Ophra, where he saw Jehovah sitting, and has offered upon it the first sacrifice, which was devoured by flames breaking out of themselves, the Deity Himself ascending in the flames to heaven. Why the two altars and the two stories of their inauguration, both tracing their origin to the patron of Ophra? They do not agree together, and the reason is plain why the second was added. The altar of a single stone, the flames bursting out of it, the evergreen tree, the very name of which, Ela, seems to indicate a natural connection with El, /1/—all this was in the eyes of a later

*************************************** 1. )LH, )LWN, in Aramaic simply tree, in Hebrew the evergreen, and in general the holy tree (Isaiah i. 29 seq.) mostly without distinguishing the species. Not only are oaks and terebinths included, but also palms. For the )LWN DBWRH at Bethel is elsewhere called TMR; Elim derives its names from the 70 palms, and the same may be the case with Elath on the Red sea. ***************************************

generation far from correct, indeed it was Baal-work. A desire that the piety of Gideon should be above suspicion gave rise to the second story, in which he erects an altar of Jehovah in place of the former altar of Baal. How far this desire attained its end we may best judge from the kindred effort to remove another ground of offence, which lies in the name Jerubbaal. In accordance with the occasion out of which the name is said to have arisen it is said to mean, "Let Baal contend." Etymologically this derivation is extremely far-fetched, and from every point of view impossible: the name of a god is only assumed by those who are his worshippers. In Hebrew antiquity Baal and El are interchangeable and used indifferently; Jehovah Himself is spoken of up to the times of the prophet Hosea as the Baal, i.e., the lord. This is distinctly proved by a series of proper names in the families of Saul and David, Ishbaal, Meribaal, Baaljada, to which we may now add the name Jerubbaal given to the conqueror of Midian. If then even in the time of the kings Baal was by no means simply the antipode of Jehovah, whence the hostile relation of the two deities, which Jerubbaal displays by the acts he does, although he praises the great Baal by wearing his name? The view, also, that the Ashera was incompatible with the worship of Jehovah, does not agree with the belief of the earlier age; according to Deuteronomy xvi. 21, these artificial trees must have stood often enough beside the altars of Jehovah. The inserted passage itself betrays in a remarkable manner that its writer felt this sort of zeal for the legitimate worship to be above the level of the age in question. We receive the impression that the inhabitants of Ophra do not know their worship of Baal to be illegitimate, that Gideon also had taken part in it in good faith, and that there had never been an altar of Jehovah in the place before.

Of a somewhat different form is a correction which is to be found at the close of the history of Gideon (viii. 22 seq.). After the victory over the Midianites the Israelites are said to have asked Gideon to be king over them. This he declined out of regard to Jehovah the sole ruler of Israel, but he asked for the gold nose-rings which had been taken from the enemy, and made of them an image of Jehovah, an ephod, which he set up in Ophra to be worshipped. "And all Israel went thither a-whoring after it, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his house." Now the way in which such a man acts in such a moment is good authority for the state of the worship of Israel at the time, and not only so, but we cannot impute it to the original narrator that he chose to represent his hero as showing his thankfulness to the Deity by the most gratuitous declension from His worship, as in fact crowning His victory with an act of idolatry. This is seen to be the more impossible when we consider that according to the testimony of Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah, such images were even in the Assyrian period a regular part of the belongings of the "houses of God" not only in Samaria but in Judah as well. We have also to remember that the contradiction between a human kingship and the kingship of Jehovah, such as is spoken of in these verses, rests upon theories which arose later, and of which we shall have more to say. /1/ Studer will thus be correct in his assertion that the

****************************************** 1. "The words of Gideon are only intelligible on the presupposition that the rule of Jehovah had a visible representative prophet or priest. But this was not the case in the period of the judges, as Gideon's own history shows us." Vatke, p. 263. We see besides from ix. 1 seq. that Gideon really was the ruler of Ephraim and Manasseh. *****************************************

old tradition could not see anything in Gideon's refusing the gold for himself and dedicating it to God but a fine proof of his unselfishness and piety, and that in viii. 22-27 we have a secondary product, in which the original features of the story are distorted so as to make them suit later tastes. The second hand has unfortunately supplanted in this instance the work of the first. The older narrative breaks off (viii. 21) with the words: "Gideon took away the ornaments that were on the necks of the camels of the kings." What he did with them we do not learn, but naturally we must suppose that it was of them that he made the ephod. According to the secondary passage, which begins immediately after viii. 21, he used for this purpose the nose-rings which the whole of Israel had taken from all the Midianites, amounting in weight to 1700 shekels, besides the ornaments of the kings and of their camels. The proportion is similar to that between the 600 Danites in chap. xviii. and the 25,700 Benjamites in chap. xx., or between the 40,000 men of Israel in v. 8, and the 400,000 in xx. 2.

VII.I.4. In the last place it is possible to trace even in the original narratives themselves certain differences of religious attitude which indicate to us unobtrusively and yet clearly that tendency in the development of the tradition which reached its end in the revision and ornamentation of which we have hitherto been speaking. This is especially the case with regard to those narratives which are preserved to us in a double form. These are not frequent in Judges, but they do occur. A very simple case of the kind is seen on comparing chap. iv. with chap. v.

The Canaanites again lift their heads under their great king Sisera, and from their towns in the plains harass the hill villages of the new settlers. Deborah unites the Hebrew tribes for the contest. From the North and from the South the hosts of Jehovah descend before our eyes towards Jezreel, the prophetess Deborah at their head, the warrior Barak at her side. The conflict takes place at the brook Kishon, and ends with the defeat of the kings of Canaan. Sisera himself is killed in the flight by Jael, the wife of a nomad Kenite. Such are the contents of the song in chap. v. In the preceding narrative (chap. iv.) we should expect to find a historical commentary on the song, but we find a mere reproduction in which the special features of the story are blurred and falsified. Instead of the kings of Canaan we have the king of Canaan, as if Canaan had been a kingdom. Sisera, the head of the Canaanite kings, is transformed into a mere general; the oppression of the Hebrews is made general and indefinite. Jael murders Sisera when he is Iying in a deep sleep by driving a tent-peg into the ground through his temples. There is nothing of this in the song: there he is drinking when she strikes the blow, and is conceived as standing at the time, else he could not bow down at her feet and fall, and lie struck dead where he fell (ver. 27).

In the song the campaign is prepared with human means. Negotiations are carried on among the tribes, and in the course of these differences crop up. The lukewarmness or the swelling words of some tribes are reproved, the energetic public spirit and warlike courage of others praised. In the narrative, on the contrary, the deliverance is the work of Jehovah alone; the men of Israel are mere dummies, who show no merit and deserve no praise. To make up for this, interest is concentrated on the act of Jael, which instead of being an episode becomes the central point of the whole narrative. Indeed it is announced as being so, for Deborah prophesies to Barak that the glory of the conflict will not be his but a woman's, into whose hand the enemy is to be sold; it is not the hero, not human strength, that accomplishes what is done: Jehovah shows His strength in man's weakness. And Barak's part in the work is depreciated in yet another way. Deborah summons him to go not to the battle, but to the holy hill of Tabor, where Jehovah will bring about what is further to happen; he, however, objects to this, and insists that the prophetess herself shall go with him. This is regarded as a caprice of unbelief, because the prophetess is thought to have exhausted her mission when she transmitted the command of the Deity to His instrument: she has appeared for no end but to make it known through her prophecy that Jehovah alone brings everything to pass. In the song this is different. There Barak is not summoned against his will; on the contrary, he has a personal motive for taking up arms: "Arise, Barak; take captive thy captors, thou son of Ahinoam." And the prophetess has not only to prophesy; she works in a more psychological manner; she is part of the battle, and inflames with her song the courage of the fighting battalions: "Awake, Deborah, awake, sing the song!" /1/ Throughout these variations of

********************************************** 1. Ver. 12 is a summons to begin the battle, and Deborah cannot here be singing the song of triumph which celebrates its happy issue. For a similar reason the translation given above, "take captive thy captors," is the more natural and correct. ************************************************

the prose reproduction we feel that the rich colour of the events as they occurred is bleached out of them by the one universal first cause, Jehovah. The presence and energy of Jehovah are not wanting in the song; they are felt in the enthusiasm which fills the Hebrew warriors, and in the terror and panic which confound the prancing vigour of the foe. But in the prose narrative, the Divine action is stripped of all mystery, and mechanic prophecy finds no difficulty in showing distinctly and with sober accuracy what the part of the Deity in the history has been. But the more special the intervention of Deity, the further is it from us; the more precise the statements about it, the less do we feel it to be there.

There is another instance in the Book of Judges of the occurrence of the same historical material in two different forms; it is the story of Gideon of the Manassite house of Abiezer. Studer saw that there is a break between viii. 3 and viii. 4, and that the two stories, from the one of which we pass to the other at that point, have to be understood separately; viii. 1-3 is the conclusion of the first story. We have been told how, after the success of the first attack on the Midianites, Gideon raised the levy of all Israel for the pursuit, and how then the Ephraimites seized the fords of the Jordan before the arrival of the flying nomads and got the two leaders of the Midianites into their hands. Now we hear in conclusion that the Ephraimites, elated by their success began to find fault with Gideon, but that he pacified their wrath by saying, "What have I done now in comparison of you? Is not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abiezer? God hath delivered into your hand the princes of Midian, and what was I able to do in comparison of you?" A domestic contention like this about the respective shares in the victory could only arise when the victory had been gained, when the strife with the enemy was fought out; the metaphor of harvest and gleaning shows that the victory was complete and all the fruits of it gathered in. Chapter viii. 1-3 concludes the business, and the following narrative is not a continuation of what has gone before, but a second version of the story in which many of the circumstances are quite different. According to vii. 23 seq. there was a great army on foot, but in viii. 4 seq. Gideon has only his own three hundred men with him. In viii. 1-3 the vintage and the gleaning are over and the object of the fighting is attained; but in viii. 4 seq. Gideon pursues the enemy without any interruption, and when he asks the men of Succoth and Penuel for bread for his wearied and hungry troops, they inquire sarcastically whether he is already certain of success, so that it should be necessary for them to espouse his cause. The two chiefs who in the former account are called the princes Oreb and Zeeb, and are already taken, are here called the kings Zebah and Zalmunna, and are not taken yet. Unfortunately the beginning of viii. 4 seq. is not preserved, and we cannot make out whether the pursuit in which we find Gideon here engaged was preceded by an action. Such a supposition is not exactly impossible, yet the distance to which the nomads had carried their booty, and their carelessness in camp, make it more likely that the occurrence was like that in 1Samuel xxx. This, however, makes no difference as to the particulars with regard to which the two narratives conflict with each other.