VI.II.4. The Book of Kings then everywhere crops up as the real foundation of the portion of Chronicles relating to Judah after the period of Solomon. Where the narrative of the former is detailed and minute, our author also has fuller and more interesting material at his command; so, for example, in the history relating to the temple and to the common and mutual relations of Judah and Israel (2 Chr. x., xviii., xxiii., seq., xxv. 17-24, xxxiii. seq.). Elsewhere he is restricted to the epitome that constitutes the framework of the Book of Kings; by it he is guided in his verdicts as to the general character of the successive sovereigns as well as in his chronological statements, although, in accordance with his plan, he as a rule omits the synchronisms (xiii. 1, xxv. 25). The positive data also, given by the epitome with reference to the legislation in matters of worship by the various kings, are for the most part reproduced word for word, and float in a fragmentary and readily distinguishable way in the mixture of festivals, sermons, choruses, law, and prophets. For this is an important verification of all the results already obtained; all in Chronicles that is not derived from Samuel and Kings, has a uniform character not only in its substance, but also in its awkward and frequently unintelligible language—plainly belonging to a time in which Hebrew was approaching extinction—in its artificiality of style, deriving its vitality exclusively from Biblical reminiscences. This is not the place for the proof of these points, but the reader may compare Staehelin's Einleitung (1862), p. 139 seq.; Bertheau, p. xiv. seq., and Graf, p. 116.
VI.III.
VI.III.1. When the narrative of Chronicles runs parallel with the older historical books of the canon, it makes no real additions, but the tradition is merely differently coloured, under the influence of contemporary motives. In the picture it gives the writer's own present is reflected, not antiquity. But neither is the case very different with the genealogical lists prefixed by way of introduction in 1Chronicles i.-ix.; they also are in the main valid only for the period at which they were drawn up—whether for its actual condition or for its conceptions of the past.
The penchant for pedigrees and genealogical registers, made up from a mixture of genealogico-historical and ethnologico-statistical elements, is a characteristic feature of Judaism; along with the thing the word YX# also first came into use during the later times. Compendious histories are written in the form of TLDWT and YWX#YN. The thread is thin and inconspicuous, and yet apparently strong and coherent; one does not commit oneself to much, and yet has opportunity to introduce all kinds of interesting matter. Material comes to one's hand, given a beginning and an end, the bridge is soon completed. Another expression of the same tendency is the inclination to give a genealogical expression to all connections and associations of human society whatsoever, to create artificial families on all hands and bring them into blood relationship, as if the whole of public life resolved itself into a matter of cousinship,—an inclination indicative of the times of political stagnation then prevalent. We hear of the families of the scribes at Jabesh, of the potters and gardeners and byssus-workers, of the sons of the goldsmiths, apothecaries, and fullers, these corporations being placed on the same plane with actual families. The division into classes of the persons engaged in religious service is merely the most logical development of this artificial system which is applied to all other social relations as well.
Proceeding now to a fuller examination of the contents of 1 Chron i.-ix. and other texts connected with that, we have here, apart from the first chapter, which does not demand further attention, an ethno-genealogical survey of the twelve tribes of Israel, which is based mostly on the data of the Priestly Code (Genesis xlvi.; um. <?> xxvi.), expanded now more now less. But while the statements of the Priestly Code have to hold good for the Mosaic period only, those of Chronicles have also to apply to the succeeding ages,—those, for example, of Saul and David, of Tiglath-Pileser and Hezekiah. As early as the time of the judges, however, very important changes had taken place in the conditions. While Dan continued to subsist with difficulty, Simeon and Levi had been completely broken up (Genesis xlix. 7); in the Blessing of Moses the latter name denotes something quite different from a tribe, and the former is not even so much as named, although the enumeration is supposed to be complete; in David's time it had already been absorbed by families of mingled Judaic and Edomitic descent in the district where it had once had independent footing. Eastward of Jordan Leah's first-born had a similar fate, although somewhat later. After it has been deposed from its primacy in Genesis xlix. and twitted in Judges v. with its brave words unaccompanied by corresponding deeds, the faint and desponding wish is expressed in Deuteronomy xxxiii. 6 that "Reuben may live and not die," and King Mesha is unaware that any other than the Gadite had ever dwelt in the land which, properly speaking, was the heritage of Reuben. But in Chronicles these extinct tribes again come to life—and not Levi alone, which is a special case, but also Simeon and Reuben, with which alone we are here to deal—and they exist as independent integral twelfths of Israel, precisely like Ephraim and Manasseh, throughout the whole period of the monarchy down to the destruction of the kingdom by the Assyrians. /1/ This is
— Footnote 1. For Reuben see (in addition to 1Chronicles v. 1-10) v. 18, xi. 42, xii. 37. xxvi. 32, xxvii. 16, for Simeon, 1Chronicles iv. 24-43, with xii. 25, and 2Chronicles xv. 9, xxxiv. 6, observing that in the last two passages Simeon is reckoned as belonging to the northern kingdom, so as to complete the number of the ten tribes. — Footnote
diametrically opposed to all authentic tradition; for to maintain that nothing else is intended than a continued subsistence of individual Simeonite and Reubenite families within other tribes is merely a desperate resort of the harmonists, and every attempt to tone down the fact that those extinct and half-mythical tribes are in Chronicles placed side by side with the rest without any distinction is equally illegitimate. The historical value thus lost by the narrative as a whole cannot be restored by the seeming truthfulness of certain details. Or is more significance really to be attached to the wars of the Simeonites and Reubenites against the Arabians than to the rest of the extemporised wars of the kings of Judah against these children of the wilderness? If only at least the names had not been "sons of Ham, and Mehunim and Hagarenes " (iv. 40 seq. [Heb.], v. 10)! As for the pedigrees and genealogical lists, are they to be accepted as historical merely because their construction is not apparent to us, and they evade our criticism? The language affords no room for the conjecture that we here possess extracts from documents of high antiquity (iv. 33, 38, 4I, v. 1 seq., 7, 9 seq.), and proper names such as Elioenai and the like (iv. 35 seq.) are not striking for their antique originality.
Of the remaining tribes, so far as they belong to Israel and not to Judah, the next in the series after Reuben are the trans-Jordanic (v. 11-26). They are said to have been numbered in the days of Jotham of Judah and Jeroboam of Israel, on which occasion 44,760 warriors were returned; they took the field against the Hagarenes, Ituraeans, Nephishites, and Nabataeans, gaining the victory and carrying off much booty, "for they cried to God in the battle, and He was entreated of them because they put their trust in Him." But afterwards they fell away from the God of their fathers, and as a punishment were carried off by Pul and Tiglath-Pileser to Armenia by the Chaboras and the river of Gozan. Apart from the language, which in its edifying tone is that of late Judaism, and leaving out of account the enumeration "the sons of Reuben and the Gadites and half of the tribe of Manasseh," the astonishing and highly doubtful combinations are eloquent: Pul and Tiglath-Pileser, the Chaboras and the river of Gozan, are hardly distinguished from each other; Jotham and Jeroboam, on the other hand, make so impossible a synchronism that the partisans of Chronicles will have it that none is intended,—forgetful, to be sure, of Hosea i. 2, and omitting to say what in that case Jotham of Judah has to do here at all in this connection. The Hagarenes and Ituraeans too, instead of (say) the Moabites and Ammonites, furnish food for reflection, as also do the geographical statements that Gad had his seat in Bashan and Manasseh in and near Lebanon. As for the proper names of families and their heads, they are certainly beyond our means of judging; the phrases however of the scheme they fill (anshe shemoth rashe l'beth abotham, migrash, jahes) are peculiar to the Priestly Code and Chronicles, and alongside of elements which are old and attested from other quarters, occur others that look very recent, as for example (v. 24) Eliel, Azriel, Jeremiah, Hodaviah, Jahdiel.
In the introduction the Galilaean tribes have no prominent place, but in the rest of the book they make a favourable appearance (see especially 1Chronicles xii. 32-34, 40, and 2Chronicles xxx. 10, 11, 18); it readily occurs to one, especially in the last-cited passage, to think of the later Judaising process in Galilee. In Issachar there are stated to have been 87,000 fighting men in David's time (misparam l'toledotham l'beth abotham, vii. 1-5); out of Zebulun and Naphtali, again, exactly 87,000 men came to David at Hebron, to anoint him and be feasted three days,—it is carefully mentioned, however (xii. 40), that they took their provisions up with them. The proper kernel of Israel, Ephraim and Manasseh, is, in comparison with Simeon, Reuben, Gad, Issachar, treated with very scant kindness (vii. 14-29),—a suspicious sign. The list of the families of Manasseh is an artificial rechauffe of elements gleaned anywhere; Maachah passes for the wife as well as the sister of Machir, but being a Gileaditess (Beth-Maachah), ought not to have been mentioned at all in this place where the cis-Jordanic Manasseh is being spoken of; to fill up blanks every contribution is thankfully received. /1/ In the case of Ephraim a long and meagre genealogy
— Footnote
1 Kuenen, Th. Tijdschr., 1877, pp. 484, 488; Godsdienst v.
Isr., i. 165.
— Footnote