Companion to the Bible

by E. P. Barrows

IV. THE BOOKS OF KINGS.

15. These two books, like the two of Samuel, originally constituted a single work. The division was first made by the Greek translators, was followed by the Vulgate, and was finally admitted by Daniel Bomberg into the printed Hebrew text. The Greek version of the Seventy and the Latin version, having called the books of Samuel, the former, First and Second of the Kingdoms, the latter, First and Second of the Kings, designate these books as Third and Fourth of the Kingdoms or Kings. Each of the historical books presents the covenant people under a new aspect, and imparts new lessons of instruction. In the book of Joshua we see them taking triumphant possession of the promised land through the mighty assistance of Jehovah; the book of Judges describes the course of affairs in the Hebrew commonwealth before the existence of a central kingly government; in the books of Samuel we learn how such a central government was established, and how under the reign of David the nation was raised from the deep degradation of servitude to the summit of worldly power. But the Theocracy was only a preparatory, and therefore a temporary form of God's visible earthly kingdom. From the days of David and Solomon it began to decline in outward power and splendor, and it is with the history of this decline that the books of Kings are occupied. In the view which they present of the divine plan they are in perfect harmony with the preceding books of Samuel; but in respect to the manner of execution they differ widely. The books of Samuel give the history of Samuel, Saul, and David, with great fulness of detail, and never refer the reader to other sources of information. The books of Kings, on the contrary, give professedly only certain portions of the history of the people under the successive kings, always adding, at the close of each monarch's reign after Solomon, that the rest of his acts may be found, for the kings of Judah, in "the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah;" and, for the kings of Israel, in "the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Israel." The Chronicles referred to are not our present books of Chronicles, as has been already shown, Chap. 15, No. 8, but a larger collection of writings, from which the authors both of the books of Kings and Chronicles drew materials, in part at least, for their respective works. The history contained in the books of Kings may be conveniently divided into three periods—(1) the reign of Solomon over all Israel; (2) the history of the coexisting kingdoms of Judah and Israel; (3) the history of the kingdom of Judah after the extinction of the kingdom of Israel.

16. The history of the first period opens with the reign of Solomon, which excelled that of David in outward magnificence, as it did that of every succeeding king. 1 Kings 3:13. The great event of his reign, constituting an epoch in the history of the Theocracy, was the erection of the temple on Mount Moriah, which took the place of the ancient tabernacle constructed by divine direction in the wilderness. Thus Solomon added to the public services of the sanctuary an outward splendor and dignity corresponding with the increased wealth and glory of the nation. But in the case of his kingdom, as often elsewhere, the zenith of magnificence came after the zenith of true power. Had his profuse expenditures ceased with the erection of the temple and his own house, it would have been well; but the maintenance of such a household as his, embracing "seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines," corrupted his religion and that of the nation, burdened the people with heavy taxes, and thus prepared the way for the division of his kingdom that followed immediately after his death, as recorded in 1 Kings 12.

17. With the division of Solomon's kingdom under his son Rehoboam into two hostile nations begins the second period of the history. This division was brought about by God's appointment as a chastisement for Solomon's sins, and in it the national power received a blow from which it never recovered. The religious effect also was unspeakably calamitous so far as the kingdom of the ten tribes was concerned; for Jeroboam, the first king of Israel, established idolatry as a matter of state policy, thus corrupting the religion of his whole kingdom with a view to the establishment of his own power, a sin in which he was followed by every one of his successors. The sacred historian carries forward the history of these two kingdoms together with wonderful brevity and power. Sometimes, as in the days of Elijah and Elisha, the history of the ten tribes assumes the greater prominence, because it furnishes the fuller illustrations of God's presence and power; but as a general fact it is kept in subordination to that of Judah. It is a sad record of wicked dynasties, each established in blood and ending in blood, until the overthrow of the kingdom by the Assyrians about two hundred and fifty-four years after its establishment. Meanwhile there was in Judah an alternation of pious with idolatrous kings, and a corresponding struggle between the true religion and the idolatry of the surrounding nations, which the sacred writer also describes briefly but vividly.

18. It was during the reign of the good king Hezekiah that the extinction of the kingdom of Israel took place, and the third period of the history began. Hezekiah's efforts for the restoration of the true religion were vigorous and for the time successful. But after his death the nation relapsed again into idolatry and wickedness. The efforts of Josiah, the only pious monarch that occupied the throne after Hezekiah, could not avail to stay the progress of national degeneracy, and the kingdom of Judah was, in its turn, overthrown by the Chaldeans, and the people carried captive to Babylon.

19. The chronology of certain parts of the history embraced in the books of Kings is perplexed and uncertain. But the beginning of the Babylonish captivity is generally placed B.C. 588, three hundred and eighty-seven years after the beginning of Rehoboam's reign, and one hundred and thirty-three years after the extinction of the kingdom of Israel. Reckoning in the forty years of Solomon's reign, we have for the period included in the books of Kings to the beginning of the captivity four hundred and twenty-seven years. To this must be added twenty-six more years for the thirty-seventh year of Jehoiachin's captivity (2 Kings 25:27), the last date given by the sacred historian. The author of the books of Kings is unknown. Jewish tradition ascribes them to Jeremiah, perhaps on the ground that the last chapter of Jeremiah is mostly a repetition of 2 Kings from chap. 24:18 to the end of the book. But Jeremiah and the author of these books may both have made use of common documents. We only know that the writer lived after the accession of Evil-merodach to the throne of Babylon (2 Kings 25:27), and during the full pressure of the Babylonish captivity, since he nowhere gives any intimation of its approaching close.