The Expositor's Bible: The First Book of Kings. Farrar Frederic William

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      The Expositor's Bible: The First Book of Kings

      AUTHORITIES CONSULTED

      Josephus, Antiquities, Books VII. to X.

      Munk, Palestine. 1845.

      Jahn, Hist. of the Hebrew Commonwealth, E. T. 1828.

      Reuss, La Bible. Hist. des Israelites. Paris, 1877.

      Renan, Histoire du Peuple Israel. 1885-1890.

      Lange, Bibelwerk (K. C. W. F. Bähr, 1868).

      Bunsen, Bibelwerk.

      Heinrich von Ewald, The History of Israel, E. T.

      " " The Rise and Splendour of the Hebrew Monarchy. London, 1871.

      Grätz, Geschichte der Israeliten, vol. ii. Leipzig, 1875.

      Hitzig, Geschichte des Volkes Israel. 1847, 1857, 1870.

      Stade, Geschichte des Volkes Israel, vol. i. 1887.

      Kuenen, Religion of Israel, E. T. 1874.

      Eisenlohr, Das Volk Israel unter der Herrschaft der Könige. Leipzig, 1856.

      Klostermann, Die Bücher Samuels und der Könige. 1887.

      Van Oort, Bible for Young People, E. T., vol. iii. 1877.

      F. W. Newmann, Hebrew Monarchy, Second Edition. 1853.

      Milman, Hist. of the Jews, 3 vols.

      Edersheim, Hist. of the Jewish Nation.

      " The Temple and its Services. 1874.

      Stanley, Lectures on the Jewish Church, Second Series. 1865.

      Kittel, Geschichte der Hebräer. Gotha, 1888, 1892.

      Wellhausen-Bleek, Einleitung, Fourth Edition. Berlin, 1878.

      Wellhausen, Geschichte Israel, E. T., Third Edition. 1891.

      Driver, Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament. 1891.

      Prof. J. R. Lumby, The First Book of Kings (Cambridge Bible for Schools). 1890.

      Canon Rawlinson, Speaker's Commentary, 1 Kings. 1872.

      Prof. Robertson Smith, The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, Second Edition. 1892.

      K. F. Keil, The Books of Kings, E. T. 1857.

      Maurice, Prophets and Kings of the Old Testament, Third Edition. 1871.

      Canon Rawlinson, The Kings of Israel and Judah (Men of the Bible). 1889.

      Farrar, Solomon (Men of the Bible). 1887.

      Prof. Milligan, Elijah (Men of the Bible).

      Prof. Robertson, Early Religion of Israel. Baird Lecture, 1887.

      Riehm, Handwörterbuch des Biblischen Altertums. Leipzig, 1884.

      Herzog, Encyclopädie, E. T. 1856.

      Smith, Dictionary of the Bible. 1860.

      Kitto, Biblical Encyclopædia. 1864.

      Duncker, Geschichte des Altherthums (Bd. II. Geschichte Israel), Fifth Edition. Leipzig, 1878.

      Oppert, Salomon et les successeurs. Paris.

      E. Maspero, Hist. anc. des peuples de l'Orient, E. T. 1892.

      Schrader, Keilinschriften u. das Alte Testament, Second Edition. Giessen, 1883.

      Brugsch-Bey, Geschichte Ægyptens. Leipzig, 1877.

      Hamburger, Real-Encyklopädie für Bibel und Talmud. Strelitz, 1865, 1883.

      Book by Book, Popular Studies in the Canon of Scripture by various authors. Isbister & Co., 1892.

      Prof. Robertson, D. D., Early Religion of Israel. Baird Lectures, 1889. Blackwood, 1892.

      Robinson, Researches in Palestine, 3 vols. 1841.

      BOOK I

      INTRODUCTION

      "Ich bin überzeugt, dass die Bibel immer schöner wird, je mehr man sie versteht, d.h. je mehr man einsieht und anschaut, dass jedes Wort, das wir allgemein auffassen und in Besondern auf uns anwenden, nach gewissen Umständen, nach Zeit- und Orts-verhältnissen einen, eigenen, besondern, unmittelbar individuellen Bezug gehabt hat." – Goethe.

      "Es bleibt dabei, das beste Lesen der Bibel, dieses Göttlichen Buchs, ist menschlich. Ich nehme dies Wort im weitesten Umfang und in der andringendsten Bedeutung. Menschlich muss man die Bibel lesen: denn sie ist ein Buch durch Menschen für Menschen geschrieben; menschlich ist die Sprache, menschlich die äussern Hülfsmittel, mit denen sie geschrieben und aufbehalten ist… Es darf also sicher geglaubt werden: je humaner (im besten Sinn des Worts) man das Wort Gottes liest, desto näher kommt man dem Zweck seines Urhebers, welcher Menschen zu seinem Bilde schuf … und für uns menschlich handelt." – Herder.

      CHAPTER I.

       THE HIGHER CRITICISM

      "God shows all things in the slow history of their ripening." – George Eliot.

      God has given us many Bibles. The book which we call the Bible consists of a series of books, and its name represents the Greek plural τὰ Βίβλια. It is not so much a book, as the extant fragments of a literature, which grew up during many centuries. Supreme as is the importance of this "Book of God," it was never meant to be the sole teacher of mankind. We mistake its purpose, we misapply its revelation, when we use it to exclude the other sources of religious knowledge. It is supremely profitable for our instruction, but, so far from being designed to absorb our exclusive attention, its work is to stimulate the eagerness with which, by its aid, we are able to learn from all other sources the will of God towards men.

      God speaks to us in many voices. In the Bible He revealed Himself to all mankind by His messages to the individual souls of some of His servants. But those messages, whether uttered or consigned to writing, were but one method of enabling us to hold communion with Him. They were not even an indispensable method. Thousands of the saints of God lived the spiritual life in close communion with their Father in heaven in ages which possessed no written book; in ages before any such book existed; in ages during which, though it existed, it was practically inaccessible; in ages during which it had been designedly kept out of their hands by priests. This fact should quicken our sense of gratitude for the inestimable boon of a Book wherein he who runs may now read, and respecting the main teaching of which wayfaring men, and even fools, need not err. But it should at the same time save us from the error of treating the Bible as though it were in itself an amulet or a fetish, as the Mohammedan treats his Koran. The Bible was written in human language, by men for men. It was written mainly in Judæa, by Jews, for Jews. "Scripture," as the old theological rule said, "is the sense of Scripture,"1 and the sense of Scripture can only be ascertained by the methods of study and the rules of criticism without which no ancient document or literature can be even approximately understood. In these respects the Bible cannot be arbitrarily or exceptionally treated. No a priori rules can be devised for its elucidation. It is what it is, not what we might have expected it to be. Language, at the best, is an imperfect and ever-varying instrument of thought. It is full of twilight, and of gracious shadows. Vast numbers of its words were originally metaphorical. When the light of metaphor has faded from them they come to mean different things at different times, under different conditions, in different contexts, on different lips. Language can at the best be but an asymptote to thought; in other words, it resembles the mathematical line which approaches nearer and nearer to the circumference of a circle, but which, even when infinitely extended, can never actually touch it. The fact that the Bible contains a Divine revelation does not alter the fact that it represents a nation's literature. It is the library of the Jewish people, or rather all that remains to us of that library,

1

"Scriptura est sensus Scripturæ." – St. Augustine.