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/
— Footnote 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. — Footnote
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.