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

forgotten before they had been committed to writing.8

      3. The work of the compiler himself is easily traceable. It is seen in the constantly recurring formulæ, which come almost like the refrain of an epic poem, at the accession and close of every reign.

      They run normally as follows. For the Kings of Judah: —

      "And in the … year of … King of Israel reigned … over Judah." "And … years he reigned in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was … the daughter of… And … did that which was {right/evil} in the sight of the Lord."

      "And … slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the City of David his father. And … his son reigned in his stead." In the formulæ for the Kings of Israel "slept with his fathers" is omitted when the king was murdered; and "was buried with his fathers" is omitted because there was no unbroken dynasty and no royal burial-place. The prominent and frequent mention of the queen-mother is due to the fact that as Gebira she held a far higher rank than the favourite wife.

      4. To the compiler is also due the moral aspect given to the annals and other documents which he utilised. Something of this religious colouring he doubtless found in the prophetic histories which he consulted; and the unity of aim visible throughout the book is due to the fact that his standpoint is identical with theirs. Thus, in spite of its compilation from different sources, the book bears the impress of one hand and of one mind. Sometimes a passing touch in an earlier narrative shows the work of an editor after the Exile, as when in the story of Solomon (1 Kings iv. 20-26) we read, "And he had dominion over all the region on the other side of the river," i. e., west of the Euphrates, exactly as in Ezra iv. 10. Here the rendering of the A.V., "on this side the river," is certainly inaccurate, and is surprisingly retained in the R.V. also.9

      5. To this high moral purpose everything else is subordinated. Like all his Jewish contemporaries, the writer attaches small importance to accurate chronological data. He pays little attention to discrepancies, and does not care in every instance to harmonise his own authorities.10 Some contradictions may be due to additions made in a later recension,11 and some may have arisen from the introduction of marginal glosses,12 or from corruptions of the text which (apart from a miraculous supervision such as was not exercised) might easily, and indeed would inevitably, occur in the constant transcription of numerical letters closely resembling each other. "The numbers as they have come down to us in the Book of Kings," says Canon Rawlinson, "are untrustworthy, being in part self-contradictory, in part opposed to other Scriptural notices, in part improbable, if not impossible."13

      6. The date of the book as it stands was after b. c. 542, for the last event mentioned in it is the mercy extended by Evil-merodach, King of Babylon, to his unfortunate prisoner Jehoiachin (2 Kings xxv. 27) in the thirty-seventh year of his captivity. The language – later than that of Isaiah, and earlier than that of Ezra – confirms this conclusion. That the book appeared before b. c. 536 is clear from the fact that the compiler makes no allusion to Zerubbabel, Jeshua, or the first exiles who returned to Jerusalem after the decree of Cyrus. But it is generally agreed that the book was substantially complete before the Exile (about b. c. 600), though some exilic additions may have been made by a later editor.14 "The writer was already removed by at least six hundred years from the days of Samuel, a space of time as long as that which separates us from the first Parliament of Edward I."

      This date of the book – which cannot but have some bearing on its historic value – is admitted by all, since the peculiarities of the language from the beginning to the end are marked by the usages of later Hebrew.15 The chronicler lived some two centuries later "in about the same chronological relation to David as Professor Freeman stands to William Rufus."16

      7. Criticism cannot furnish us with the name of this great compiler.17 Jewish tradition, as preserved in the Talmud,18 assigned the Books of Kings to the prophet Jeremiah, and in the Jewish canon they are reckoned among "the earlier prophets." This would account for the strange silence about Jeremiah in the Second Book of Kings, whereas he is prominently mentioned in the Book of Chronicles, in the Apocrypha, and in Josephus. But unless we accept the late and worthless Jewish assertion that, after being carried to Egypt by Johanan, son of Kareah (Jer. xlii. 6, 7), Jeremiah escaped to Babylon,19 he could not have been the author of the last section of the book (2 Kings xxv. 27-30).20 Yet it is precisely in the closing chapters of the second book (in and after chap. xvii.) that the resemblances to the style of Jeremiah are most marked.21 That the writer was a contemporary of that prophet, was closely akin to him in his religious attitude, and was filled with the same melancholy feelings, is plain; but this, as recent critics have pointed out, is due to the fact that both writers reflect the opinions and the phraseology which we find in the Book of Deuteronomy.

      8. The critics who are so often charged with rash assumptions have been led to the conclusions which they adopt by intense and infinite labour, including the examination of various books of Scripture phrase by phrase, and even word by word. The sum total of their most important results as regards the Books of Kings is as follows: —

      i. The books are composed of older materials, retouched, sometimes expanded, and set in a suitable framework, mostly by a single author who writes throughout in the same characteristic phraseology, and judges the actions and characters of the kings from the standpoint of later centuries. The annals which he consulted, and in part incorporated, were twofold – prophetic and political. The latter were probably drawn up for each reign by the official recorder (מַזְכִּיר), who held an important place in the courts of all the greatest kings (2 Sam. viii. 16, xx. 24; 1 Kings iv. 3; 2 Kings xviii. 18), and whose duty it was to write the "acts" or "words" of the "days" of his sovereign (דברי הימים).

      ii. The compiler's work is partly of the nature of an epitome,22 and partly consists of longer narratives, of which we can sometimes trace the Northern Israelitish origin by peculiarities of form and expression.

      iii. The synchronisms which he gives between the reigns of the kings of Israel and Judah are computed by himself, or by some redactor, and only in round numbers.

      iv. The speeches, prayers, and prophecies introduced are perhaps based on tradition, but, since they reflect all the peculiarities of the compiler, must owe their ultimate form to him. This accounts for the fact that the earlier prophecies recorded in these books resemble the tone and style of Jeremiah, but do not resemble such ancient prophecies as those of Amos and Hoshea.

      v. The numbers which he adopts are sometimes so enormous as to be grossly improbable; and in these, as in some of the dates, allowance must be made for possible errors of tradition and transcription.

      vi. "Deuteronomy," says Professor Driver, "is the standard by which the compiler judges both men and actions; and the history from the beginning of Solomon's reign is presented, not in a purely 'objective' form (as e. g. in 2 Sam. ix. – xx.), but from the point of view of the Deuteronomic code.23… The principles which, in his view, the history as a whole is to exemplify, are already expressed succinctly in the charge which he represents David as giving to his son Solomon (1 Kings ii. 3, 4); they are stated by him again in chap. iii. 14, and more distinctly in chap. ix. 1-9. Obedience to the Deuteronomic law is the qualification for an approving verdict; deviation from it is the source of ill success (1 Kings xi. 9-13, xiv. 7-11, xvi. 2; 2 Kings xvii. 7-18), and the sure prelude to condemnation. Every king of the Northern Kingdom is characterised as doing 'that which was evil in the eyes of Jehovah.' In the Southern Kingdom the exceptions

8

Difference of sources is marked by the different designations of the months, which are called sometimes by their numbers, as in the Priestly Codex (1 Kings xii. 32, 33), sometimes by the old Hebrew names Zif ("blossom," April, May, 1 Kings vi. 1), Ethanim ("fruit," Sept., Oct., 1 Kings viii. 2), and Bul ("rain," 1 Kings vi. 38).

9

מִז־הַנָּהָר (compare עֲבַר־נַהֲרָה). Lit., "Beyond the river," i. e., from the Persian standpoint. It becomes a fixed geographical phrase. Traces of the editor's hand occur in 1 Kings xiii. 32 ("the cities of Samaria"); 2 Kings xiii. 23 ("as yet").

10

Comp. 2 Kings viii. 25 with ix. 29.

11

See 2 Kings xv. 30 and 33, viii. 25 and ix. 29.

12

As, perhaps, the clause "In the thirty and first year of Asa king of Judah" in 1 Kings xvi. 23; and the much more serious "in the 480th year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt," which are omitted by Origen (comm. in Johannem, ii. 20), and create many difficulties. The only narratives which critics have suggested as possible interpolations, from the occurrence of unusual grammatical forms, are 2 Kings viii. 1-6 and iv. 1-37 (in the story of Elisha); but these forms are perhaps northern provincialisms.

13

Speaker's Commentary, ii. 475. Instances will be found in 1 Kings xiv. 21, xvi. 23, 29; 2 Kings iii. 1, xiii. 10, xv. 1, 30, 33, xiv. 23, xvi. 2, xvii. 1, xviii. 2.

14

Stade, p. 79; Kalisch, Exodus, p. 495.

15

See Keil, pp. 9, 10.

16

R. F. Horton, Inspiration, p. 843.

17

He was not the author of the Book of Samuel, for the standpoint and style are quite different. In the First and Second Books of Samuel the high places are never condemned, as they are incessantly in Kings (1 Kings iii. 2, xiii. 32, xiv. 23, xv. 14, xxii. 43, etc.).

18

Baba Bathra, 15 a.

19

Seder Olam Rabba, 20.

20

Even then he would have been ninety years old.

21

There are, however, some differences between 2 Kings xxv. and Jer. lii. (see Keil, p. 12), though the manner is the same, Carpzov, Introd., i. 262-64 (Hävernick, Einleit., ii. 171). Jer. li. (verse 64) ends with "Thus far are the words of Jeremiah," excluding him from the authorship of chap. lii. (Driver, Introd., p. 109). The last chapter of Jeremiah was perhaps added to his volume by a later editor.

22

"The Old Testament does not furnish a history of Israel, though it supplies the materials from which such a history can be constructed. For example, the narrative of Kings gives but the merest outline of the events that preceded the fall of Samaria. To understand the inner history of the time we must fill up this outline with the aid of the prophets Amos and Hoshea." – Robertson Smith's Preface to translation of Wellhausen, p. vii.

23

"In der Chronik," on the other hand, "ist es der Pentateuch, d.h. vor Allem der Priestercodex, nach dessen Muster die Geschichte des alten Israels dargestellt wird" (Wellhausen, Prolegom., p. 309). It has been said that the Book of Kings reflects the political and prophetic view, and the Book of Chronicles the priestly view of Jewish history. It is about the Pentateuch, its date and composition, that the battle of the Higher Criticism chiefly rages. With that we are but indirectly concerned in considering the Book of Kings; but it is noticeable that the ablest and most competent defender of the more conservative criticism, Professor James Robertson, D.D., both in his contribution to Book by Book and in his Early Religion of Israel, makes large concessions. Thus he says, "It is particularly to be noticed that in the Book of the Pentateuch itself the Mosaic origin is not claimed" (Book by Book, p. 5). "The anonymous character of all the historical writings of the Old Testament would lead us to conclude that the ancient Hebrews had not the idea of literary property which we attach to authorship" (p. 8). "It is long since the composite character of the Pentateuch was observed" (p. 9). "There may remain doubts as to when the various parts of the Pentateuch were actually written down; it may be admitted that the later writers wrote in the light of the events and circumstances of their own times" (p. 16).