Prolegomena to the History of Israel

by Julius Wellhausen

Like other heathen, therefore, they are taken account of by the sacred history only in so far as they stood in relations of friendship or hostility with the people of Jehovah properly so called, the Israel in the land of Judah (2Chronicles xxiii. 2), and in all references to them the most sedulous and undisguised partisanship on behalf of Judah is manifested, even by the inhabitants of the northern kingdom itself. /2/ If one seriously

— Footnote 2. Compare xi. 16, xv. 9, xix. 2, xx. 35 seq.. xxv 7, xxviii. 9 seq., xxx. 6. — Footnote

takes the Pentateuch as Mosaic law, this exclusion of the ten tribes is, in point of fact, an inevitable consequence, for the mere fact of their belonging to the people of Jehovah destroys the fundamental pre-supposition of that document, the unity and legitimacy of the worship as basis of the theocracy, the priests and Levites as its most important organs, "the sinews and muscles of the body politic, which keep the organism together as a living and moving whole."

VI.II.2. The reverse side is, of course, the idealisation of Judah from the point of view of the legitimate worship,—a process which the reader can imagine from the specimens already given with reference to David and Solomon. The priests and Levites who migrated from Israel are represented as having strengthened the southern kingdom (xi. 17), and here constitute the truly dominant element in the history. It is for their sake that kings exist as protectors and guardians of the cultus, with the internal arrangements of which, however, they dare not intermeddle (xxvi. 16 seq.); to deliver discourses and ordain spiritual solemnities (which figure as the culminating points in the narrative) are among the leading duties of their reign. /1/

— Footnote
1. xiii. 7 seq., xv. 10 seq., xx. 6 seq., xxix. 5 seq., xxx. 1 seq.,
xxxv. 1 seq.
— Footnote

Those among them who are good apprehend their task and are inseparable from the holy servants of Jehovah,—so, in particular, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and Josiah. Of the first mentioned we are told that in the third year of his reign he appointed a royal commission of notables, priests, and Levites, to go about with the Book of the Law, and teach in the cities of Judah (xvii. 7-9); in the larger places, in the strongholds, he further instituted colleges of justice, and over them a supreme tribunal at Jerusalem, also consisting of priests, Levites, and notables, under the presidency of the high priest for spiritual, and of the Prince of the house of Judah for secular affairs (xix. 5-11). There is nothing about this in the Book of Kings, although what is of less importance is noticed (1Kings xxii. 47); the Chronicler makes the statement in his own language, which is unmistakable, especially in the pious speeches. Probably it is the organisation of justice as existing in his own day that he here carries back to Jehoshaphat, so that here most likely we have the oldest testimony to the synedrium of Jerusalem as a court of highest instance over the provincial synedria, as also to its composition and presidency. The impossibility of such a judiciary system in antiquity is clear from its presupposing the Book of the Law as its basis, from its co-ordination of priests and Levites, and also from its actual inconsistency with incidental notices, particularly in Isaiah and the older prophets (down to Jeremiah xxvi.), in which it everywhere is taken for granted as a thing of course that the rulers are also at the same time the natural judges. Moreover, Chronicles already tells us about David something similar to what it says about Jehoshaphat (1Chronicles xxiii. 4, xxvi. 29-32); the reason why the latter is selected by preference for this work lies simply in his name "Jehovah is Judge," as he himself is made to indicate in various ways (xix. 5-11; compare Joel iv. 12). But the king of Judah is strengthened by the priests and Levites, not only in these domestic affairs, but also for war. As the trumpets of the priests give to Abijah courage and the victory against Jeroboam of Israel, so do the Levites also to Jehoshaphat against Moab and Ammon. Having fasted, and received, while praying, the comfortable assurance of the singer Jahaziel ("See God"), he advances next morning, with his army, against the enemy, having in the van the Levites, who march in sacred attire in front of the armed men and sing:

"Praise ye the Lord, for His mercy endureth for ever."

He then finds that the fighting has already been done by the enemy themselves, who, at the sound of that song of praise, have fallen upon and annihilated one another. Three days are spent in dividing the spoil, and then he returns as he came, the Levitical music leading the van, with psalteries, and harps, and trumpets to the house of Jehovah (2Chronicles xx. 1-28). Hezekiah is glorified in a similar manner. Of the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem and the memorable relief, comparatively little is made (xxxii. 1 seq.; comp. De Wette, i. 75); according to Chronicles, his master-work is that, as soon as he has mounted the throne, in the first month of the year, and of his reign (Exodus xl. 2; Leviticus ix. 1). he institutes by means of the priests and Levites, whom he addresses quite paternally as his children (xxix. 11), a great feast of consecration of the temple, alleged to have been closed and wasted by Ahaz; thereupon in the second month to celebrate the passover in the most sumptuous manner; and finally, from the third to the seventh month to concern himself about the accurate rendering of their dues to the clergy. All is described in the accustomed style, in the course of three long chapters, which tell us nothing indeed about the time of Hezekiah, but are full of information for the period in which the writer lived, particularly with reference to the method then followed in offering the sacred dues (xxix. 1-xxxi. 21). In the case of Josiah also the account of his epoch-making reformation of the worship is, on the whole, reproduced in Chronicles only in a mutilated manner, but the short notice of 2Kings xxiii. 21-23 is amplified into a very minute description of a splendid passover feast, in which, as always, the priests and above all the Levites figure as the leading personalities. In this last connection one little trait worth noticing remains, namely, that the great assembly in which the king causes the Book of the Law to be sworn to, is, in every other respect, made up in 2Chronicles xxxiv. 29 seq. exactly as it is in 2Kings xxiii. 1, , except that instead of "the priests and prophets" we find "the priests and Levites." The significance of this is best seen from the Targum, where "the priests and prophets" are translated into "the priests and scribes."

By this projection of the legitimate cultus prescribed in the Law and realised in Judaism, the Chronicler is brought however into a peculiar conflict with the statements of his authority, which show that the said cultus was not a mature thing which preceded all history, but came gradually into being in the course of history; he makes his escape as well as he can, but yet not without a strange vacillation between the timeless manner of looking at things which is natural to him, and the historical tradition which he uses and appropriates. The verses in 1Kings (xiv. 22, 23): Judah (not Rehoboam merely) did that which was evil in the sight of Jehovah and provoked Him to jealousy by their sins which they sinned, above all that their fathers had done; and they set up for themselves high places, macceboth and asherim, &c., which in the passage where they occur are, like the parallel statement regarding Israel (xii. 25 seq.), of primary importance, and cancel by one bold stroke the alleged difference of worship between the Levitical and non-Levitical kingdom, are omitted as quite too impossible, although the whole remaining context is preserved (2Chronicles xii. 1-16). In the same way the unfavourable judgment upon Rehoboam's successor Abijah (1Kings xv. 3-5) is dropped, because the first kings of Judah, inasmuch as they maintain the true religion against those of Israel who have fallen away from it, must of necessity have been good. But though the Chronicler is silent about what is bad, for the sake of Judah's honour, he cannot venture to pass over the improvement which, according to 1Kings xv. 12 seq., was introduced in Asa's day, although one does not in the least know what need there was for it, everything already having been in the best possible state. Nay, he even exaggerates this improvement, and makes of Asa another Josiah (2Chronicles xv. 1-15), represents him also (xiv. 3) as abolishing the high places, and yet after all (xv. 1 7) repeats the statement of 1Kings xv. 14 that the high places were not removed. So also of Jehoshaphat, we are told in the first place that he walked in the first ways of his father Asa and abolished the high places in Judah (2Chronicles xvii. 3, 6, xix. 3), a false generalisation from 1Kings (xxii. 43, 47); and then afterwards we learn (xx. 32, 33) that the high places still remained, word for word according to 1Kings xxii. 43, 44. To thc author it seems on the one hand an impossibility that the worship of the high places, which in spite of xxxiii.17 is to him fundamentally idolatry, should not have been repressed even by pious, i.e., law-observing kings, and yet on the other hand he mechanically transcribes his copy.

In the case of the notoriously wicked rulers his resort is to make them simply heathen and persecutors of the covenant religion, for to him they are inconceivable within the limits of Jehovism, which always in his view has had the Law for its norm, and is one and the same with the exclusive Mosaism cf Judaism. So first, in the case of Joram: he makes high places on the hills of Judah and seduces the inhabitants of Jerusalem to commit fornication, and Judah to apostatise (xxi. 11), and moreover slays all his brethren with the sword (ver. 4)—the one follows from the other. His widow Athaliah breaks up the house of Jehovah by the hand of her sons (who had been murdered, but for this purpose are revived), and makes images of Baal out of the dedicated things (xxiv. 7); none the less on that account does the public worship of Jehovah go on uninterrupted under Jehoiada the priest. Most unsparing is the treatment that Ahaz receives. According to 2Kings xvi. 10 seq., be saw at Damascus an altar which took his fancy, and he caused a similar one to be set up at Jerusalem after its pattern, while Solomon's brazen altar was probably sent to the melting-pot; it was Urijah the priest who carried out the orders of the king. One observes no sign of autonomy, or of the inviolable divine right of the sanctuary; the king commands and the priest obeys. To the Chronicler the story so told is quite incomprehensible; what does he make of it? Ahaz introduced the idolatrous worship of Damascus, abolished the worship of Jehovah, and shut up the temple (2Chronicles xxviii. 23 seq.). He regards not the person of a man, the inflexible unity of the Mosaic cultus is everything to the Chronicler, and its historical identity would be destroyed if an orthodox priest, a friend of the prophet Isaiah, had lent a helping hand to set up a foreign altar. To make idolaters pure and simple of Manasseh and Amon any heightening of what is said in 2Kings xxi. was hardly necessary; and besides, there were here special reasons against drawing the picture in too dark colours. It is wonderful also to see how the people, which is always animated with alacrity and zeal for the Law, and rewards its pious rulers for their fidelity to the covenant (xv. 15, xvii. 5, xxiv. 10, xxxi. 10), marks its censure of these wicked kings by withholding from them, or impairing, the honour of royal burial (xxi. 19, 20, xxviii. 27, xxxiii. 10),—in spite of 2Kings ix. 28, xvi. 20, xxi. 1 8.