Prolegomena to the History of Israel

by Julius Wellhausen

only is given, which, begun in vers. 20, 21, and continued in ver. 25, constantly repeats the same names (Tahath, Tahan, 1Samuel i. 1; Eladah, Laadan, Shuthelah, Telah), and finally reaches its end and goal in Joshua, whose father Nun alone is known to the older sources! Into the genealogy a wonderful account of the slaying of the children of Ephraim by the men of Gath (1Samuel iv.?) has found its way, and (like viii. 6, 7) according to the prevailing view must be of venerable antiquity. But in that case the statement of iv. 9 must also be very ancient, which yet obviously is connected with the rise of the schools of the scribes stated in ii. 55 to have existed in Jabez.

Everywhere it is presupposed that Israel throughout the entire period of the monarchy was organised on the basis of the twelve tribes (ii.-ix.; xii.; xxvii.), but the assumption is certainly utterly false, as can be seen for example from 1Kings iv. Further, the penchant of later Judaism for statistics is carried back to the earlier time, to which surveys and censuses were repugnant in the extreme. In spite of 2Samuel xxiv., we are told that under David enumerations both of the spiritual and of the secular tribes were made again and again; so also under his successors, as may be inferred partly from express statements and partly from the precise statistics given as to the number of men capable of bearing arms: in these cases the most astounding figures are set down,—always, however, as resting on original documents and accurate enumeration. In the statistical information of Chronicles, then, so far as it relates to pre-exilic antiquity, we have to do with artificial compositions. It is possible, and occasionally demonstrable, that in these some elements derived from tradition have been used. But it is certain that quite as many have been simply invented; and the combination of the elements—the point of chief importance— dates, as both form and matter show, from the very latest period. One might as well try to hear the grass growing as attempt to derive from such a source as this a historical knowledge of the conditions of ancient Israel.

VI.III.2. As regards Judah and Benjamin, and to a certain extent Levi also, the case of course is somewhat different from that of the ten extinct tribes. It is conceivable that here a living ethno-genealogical tradition may have kept the present connected with the past. Nevertheless, on closer examination, it comes out that most of what the Chronicler here relates has reference to the post-exilic time, and that the few fragments which go up to a higher antiquity are wrought into a connection which on the whole is of a very recent date. Most obtrusively striking is it that the list of the heads of the people dwelling in Jerusalem given in ix. 4—17 is simply identical with Nehemiah xi. 3-19. In this passage, introducing as it does the history of the kings (x. seq.), one is by no means prepared to hear statements about the community of the second temple; but our author is under the impression that in going there he is letting us know about the old Jerusalem; from David to Nehemiah is no leap for him, the times are not distinct from one another to his mind. For chap. viii. also, containing a full enumeration of the Benjamite families, with special reference to those which had their seat in the capital, Bertheau has proved the post-exilic reference; it is interesting that in the later Jerusalem there existed a widespread family which wished to deduce its origin from Saul and rested its claims to this descent on a long genealogy (viii. 33-40). /1/

— Footnote 1. Equivalent to ix. 35-44, which perhaps proves the later interpolation of ix. 1-34. — Footnote

It cannot be said that this produces a very favourable impression for the high antiquity of the other list of the Benjamites in vii. 6-11; to see how little value is to be attached to the pretensions of the latter to be derived from original documents of hoary antiquity, it is only necessary to notice the genuinely Jewish phraseology of vers. 7, 9, 11, such proper names as Elioenai, and the numbers given (22,034 + 20,200 + 17,200, making in all 59,434 fighting men).

The registers of greatest historical value are those relating to the tribe of Judah (ii. 1-iV. 23). But in this statement the genealogy of the descendants of David must be excepted (chapter iii.), the interest of which begins only with Zerubbabel, the rest being merely an exceedingly poor compilation of materials still accessible to us in the older historical books of the canon, and in Jeremiah. According to iii. 5, the first four of David's sons, born in Jerusalem, were all children of Bathsheba; the remaining seven are increased to nine by a textual error which occurs also in the LXX version of 2Samuel v. 16. Among the sons of Josiah (iii. 15 seq.), Johanan, i.e. Jehoahaz, is distinguished from Shallum (Jeremiah xxii. 11), and because he immediately succeeded his father, is represented as the first-born, though in truth Jehoiakim was older (2Kings xxiii. 3I, 36); Zedekiah, Jehoiakim's brother, is given out to be the son of Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, because he was the successor of Jeconiah, who succeeded Jehoiakim. Similar things occur also in the Book of Daniel, but are usually overlooked, with a mistaken piety. Whoever has eyes to see cannot assign any high value except to the two great Jewish genealogies in chaps. ii. and iv. Yet even here the most heterogeneous elements are tossed together, and chaff is found mingled with wheat. /1/

— Footnote 1. For further details the reader is referred to the author's dissertation De gentibus et familiis Judaeis, Gottingen, 1870. — Footnote

Apart from the introduction, vers.1-8, chap. ii. is a genealogy of the children of Hezron, a tribe which in David's time had not yet been wholly amalgamated with Judah, but which even then constituted the real strength of that tribe and afterwards became completely one with it. The following scheme discloses itself amid the accompanying matters: "The sons of Hezron are Jerahmeel and Celubai" (Caleb) (ver. 9). "and the sons of Jerahmeel, the first-born of Hezron, were…" (ver. 25). "These were the sons of Jerahmeel. And the sons of Caleb the brother of Jerahmeel were…" (ver. 42). "These were the sons of Caleb " (ver. 50 a). That which is thus formally defined and kept by itself apart (compare in this connection "Jerahmeel the first-born of Hezron," "Caleb the brother of Jerahmeel") is materially also distinguished from all else. It is the kernel of the whole, and refers to the pre-exilian time. Even the unusual et fuerunt (vers. 25, 33, 50) points to this conclusion, as well as, in the case of Caleb, the positive fact that the towns named in ver. 42-49 are all situated near Hebron and in the Negeb of Judah, where after the exile the Idumaeans were settled, and, in the case of Jerahmeel, the negative circumstance that here no towns at all are mentioned among the families, Molid, ver. 29, being perhaps a single exception, and thus the extreme south is indicated. But this kernel is amplified by a number of post-exilian additions. In the first place, in connection with Jerahmeel, an appendix (vers. 34-41) is given which is not ethnological but purely genealogical, and brings a pedigree of fifteen members manifestly down to near the age of the Chronicler, and which moreover is only in apparent connection with what precedes it (comp. ver. 34 with ver. 31), and invariably uses the hiphil form holid, a form which occurs in vers. 25-33 never, and in vers. 42-50 only sporadically in three places open to the suspicion of later redaction (comp. especially ver. 47). Much more important, however, are the additions under Caleb; of these the one is prefixed (vers. 18-24), the other, more appropriately, brought in at the close (vers. 50-55, beginning with "and the sons of Hur, the firstborn of Ephrath," Caleb's second wife, ver. 19). Here Caleb no longer presents himself in the extreme south of Judah and the vicinity of Jerahmeel (1Samuel xxv. 3, xxvii. 10, xxx. 14, 29), where he had his settlement prior to the exile, but his families, which are all of them descended from his son Hur, inhabit Bethlehem, Kirjath-jearim, Zorah, Esthaol, and other towns in the north, frequently mentioned in Ezra and Nehemiah. Thus the Calebites in consequence of the exile have forsaken their old seats and have taken up new ones on their return; this fact is expressed in ver. 18 to the effect that Caleb's first wife Azubah bath Jerioth (Deserta filia Nomadum) had died, and that he had then married a second, Ephrath, by whom he became the father of Hur: Ephrath is the name of the district in which Bethlehem and Kirjath- jearim are situated, and properly speaking is merely another form of Ephraim, as is shown by the word Ephrathite. In addition to these appendices to Jerahmeel and Caleb, we have also the genealogy of David (vers. 10-17). The Book of Samuel knows only of his father Jesse; on the other hand, Saul's genealogy is carried further back, and there was no reason for not doing so in David's case also if the materials had existed. But here, as in Ruth, the pedigree is traced backwards through Jesse, Obed, Boaz, up to Salma. Salma is the father of Bethlehem (ii. 54), and hence the father of David. But Salma is the father of Bethlehem and the neighbouring towns or fractions of towns AFTER THE EXILE; he belongs to Kaleb Abi Hur. /1/

— Footnote I In the Targum, Caleb's kindred the Kenites are designated as Salmaeans; the name also occurs in Canticles (i. 5, the tents of Kedar, the curtains of Salmah), and also as the name of a Nabataean tribe in Pliny. Among the families of the Nethinim enumerated in Nehemiah vii. 46-60 the B'ne Salmah also occur, along with several other names which enable us distinctly to recognise (Ezekiel xliv.) the non-Israelite and foreign origin of these temple slaves; see, for example, vers. 48, 52, 55, 57. — Footnote

But if anything at all is certain, it is this, that in ancient times the Calebites lived in the south and not in the north of Judah, and in particular that David by his nativity belonged not to them but rather to the older portion of Judah which gravitated towards Israel properly so called, and stood in most intimate relations with Benjamin. Of the first three members of the genealogy, Nahshon and Amminadab occur as princes of Judah in the Priestly Code, and are fitly regarded as the ancestors of those who come after them; Ram is the first-born of Hezron's first-born (ver. 25), and by the meaning of his name also (Ram = the high one), is, like Abram, qualified to stand at the head of the princely line.