Ms and CHARACTER, ORIGIN AND SOUS I THK
EBB I the Kings, which were but one book
.finally like the books of Samuel, and which, like the Latter, were divided into two books by the Alrxamlrian translators (see the [ntroductioD to I book Samuel), contain, in aoooidanoe with their name (0070), the history of the I>raelitish theocracy under the kings, from the 1 Solomon to the extinction of the monarchy on the overthrow of the kingdom of Jndah, when Jernaalem was. by the Chaldeans and the people were carried away into exile in Babylon. They embrace a period of 455 years, from 101( I v..c, that is to say, to the reign of the
1 j Ionian king Kvil-inerodach. And as every kingdom culminates in its king and the government of the kings determines the fate of the kingdom, the contents of the books before us, which arc named after the kings of Israel, consist for the most part of a history of those kings; inasmuch as, whilst on the one hand the reigns of the several kings form the historical and chronological framework for the description of the historical development of the people and kingdom, on the other hand the leading phases which the monarchy assumed furnish the basis of the three periods, into which the history of this epoch and the contents of our books are divided.
The first period (1015-975 B.C.) embraces the forty years of
Jm Mid son nvh i lie awwi*f part
I rael and Ahaxin I tidali;
[ ml ah from U action ol Jcru alem of the imprisonment of king Jehoiai bin in exile the I the kin the account oi
I the duration and ch as, and do not chronicle of the of ii • at the time the nun propheti in the I wo kingdi
•lth the i the Iaraelitish and J< from Solomon to the Babylon dleM Kern). But b r unm able the prophetico-dida* tic i I winch the book
Km •. d with the whole of the h al writings urpose in tli.- mode m which the ven which pei I the [sraelitiBh monarchy from inning to the end, and.-: imped upon: velopment
' ie in\ 1 1 of tie aant nation, had tl tliar instruments of Sis Spirit in the prophets
■ maintain* I Hi Law and right the kings, standing by wherever LI iry, proving their utt •• worths of G and wonders which they did before the people.
Thus the Lord directed the prophet Samuel to anoint Saul and David princes over Hie people, and the prophet Nathan to communicate to David the promise of the everlasting endurance ol* hia throne (2 Sam. vii.). But when at a later period David sinned (2 Sam. xi. and xxiv.), it was the prophets Nathan and Gad who tl ned him with punishment from God, and on his confession of sin and repentance announced the forgiveness and
OqIj: kin^r. but installed in mitted from S I in the i I whereas ui and
■ are compelled to bow before them and
• aooompani n all its cours. Solomon cam at »n shortly after he ascended q and eternal continuance 'ul observance of the
* reig I in all the more threa' away fr hovah I: was no doubt a | en parts LI aq.h who to a ne, and to t exalted the
;>bets continued to denounce l apostasy and prod ie sin: a dest;
asties. A:ien at a ^ t ill later period Ahab of Baal an<: i jah tL-. et as fire, whose i is burned \1\ lit I. came forward i itfa
Against the prophets and of Baal, warding off the utter a] of the nation by uniting the propheti into societ in which the worship of God maintained, and the godly in i I ipplied with bitute for thi hip in the temple which was enjoyed by the godly in Judah. And in the kingdom of Judah also there w re never wanting prop] announce the judgments of tl I to idolatrous kings, and to afford a vigorous support to tin- pious ami God-fearing ruins in their endeavours to promote tin- religious life of the nation, and caltthepubli hip of God in the temple But since the inp and an influential bod} of i rod Levites; and since,
Lished by divine promii ing upon that house, and among the kings who sat upon the throne, from Rehoboaxn onwards, there many '.. mien who Listinguished for their lofty virtu; the labours of tin- prophets did not assume the same prominent import u f did in the ku dom of the ten tribes, where they had to fight against idolatry from the beginning to the end.
This explains that the ministry of the prophets
• prominent a position in the books of the \\r whereas the history of the kings appears sometimes to fall into the background in comparison. Nevertheless the historical
Lopment of the monarchy, or, to express it more correctly, of the kingdom of God under the kings, forms the true subjectmatter of our book b was not a prophetico-didactic puTpose, but the prophetico-historical point of view, which prevailed throughout the whole work, and determined the reception as well as the treatment of the historical materials. The progres- Bive development of the kingdom was predicted and described by the Lord Himself in the promise communicated to David by the prophet Nathan: " And when thy days shall be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name; and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be his Father, and he shall be my son, that if he go astray, I may chasten him with man's rod, and with stripes of the children of tion of the kingdom was to I to tl^ Bon of Solomon, with the ch< of Jerusalem, and his servant (Jeroboam, cfc btain dominion oi er ten ti Lb The fa bionoi this prophe< bown in the history of the divided kingdoo I. • bronistic account of these kingdon tording to the principle already adopted in the book I is, of i
>i the rchs before proceeding be kin l rael are d< I befon ■ of the contem-
: Judah, and to some extent in a more ela- nner. The rea ion of 1 1 that the of the kingdom oi Israel, in which one dynasty overthrew another, whilst all the rulers walked in the sin of Jeroboam, and Ahab even added the worship of Baal to that sin, supplied the author with more materials for ti plan than ti. the kingdom of Judah, which bad a much quii development under the rule of the house of David, and of which, therefore, th< Apart from this, all the of the kingdom of Judah which arc of any importai m relation to the pro* i kingdom elaborately described a d with the kingdom of i Lei; and the author d [ualju bo both kingdoms, showing how til- L rd manifested Himself equally to both, and I with them with divine iong-suflering and But the proof of this qi umed dii rms, according to the different attitudes which they Lined towards the Lord. Jeroii. the founder of the kingdom of Israel, when told that he would be king over the ten tribes, had ved the promise that Jehovah would be with him, and build him a lasting house as II'- built for David, an iel to him, on condition that lie would walk in the ways "1" God 1 Kings xi. 37, 38). This implied that his descendants would rule over Israel (of the ten tribes) so long as this kingdom should stand; for it was not to last for ever, but the separation would come to an end, and therefore he is not promised the everlasting continuance of his kingdom (see at 1 Rings xi. 38). But Jeroboam did not fulfil this condition, nor did any of the rulers of Israel who succeeded him. Nevertheless the Lord had patience with the kings and tribes who were unfaithful to His law, and not only warned tribea were carried away • • M
4royed all the royal see< Cant so:. to be saved and raided I rone had iod as the place where His name waa revealed.
at the haxula of the pow« i lace on act Manasseh, ai cause tl « to be executed
'.ed away ca; to Bat and u temple. 5 I the Lord did not suffer the Light to be altogether lishfil to Hi hi h.ivnl; i»u( when.lehoiaohin had pined m captivity at Babylon for thirl piating
Ins own an«l his fathei he wu Liberated from hie captivity
Nebuchadnezzar*! ton, and raised to honour onoe more
B a?. 27 30 The account of thie joyful change in the oondition of Jehoiachin, with which the hooka of the Ki itial a pari of their author's plan, thai without this information the true conclusion to his work would be altogether wantin - For I hi ievi ul bed upon the dark night of the oaptivity the fix of • better future, which was to dawn upon tin1 seed of David, and with it upon the whole nation in its eventual redemption from Babylon, and was also a pledge of rtain fulfilment of the promise that the Lord would not r withdraw Hie favour from the seed of David.1 Thus the h«x»ks of the Kings bring down the history of tipold I' tament kingdom of God, according to the divine plan of the kingdom indicated in 2 Sam. vii, from th< e of
David's reign to the captivity; and the fact that in 1 Kings i. l they are formally attached to the books of Samuel is an indication that they are a continuation of those books. Nevertheless there is no doubt that they formed from the very I a separate work, the independence and internal unity of which are apparent from the uniformity of the treatment of the hist ry as well as from the unity of the language. Prom beginning to end the author quotes from his original sources, for the
1 Stahelin makes the following remark in his Einleitung (p. 122): " The books of the Kings form an antithesis to the history of David. As the latter shows how obedience to God and to the utterances of His prophets is rewarded, and how, even when Jehovah is obliged to punish, He makes known His grace again in answer to repentance; so do the books of the Kings, which relate the overthrow of both the Hebrew states, teach, through the history of these two kingdoms, how glorious promises are thrown back and dynasties fall in consequence of the conduct of individual men (compare 1 Kings xi. 38 with xiv. 10, and still more with 2 Kings xxi. 10 sqq. and xxiii. 27). The sins of one man like Manasseh are sufficient to neutralize all the promises that have been given to the house of David." There is no need to refute this erroneous statement, since it only rests upon a misinterpretation of 2 Kings xxi. 10 sqq., and completely misses the idea which runs through both books of the Kings; and, moreover, there is no contradiction between the manifestation of divine mercy towards penitent sinners and the punishment of men according to their deeds.
utterl} fallacious on a closer inspection of the p ami could only have been obtained fchroi interpretations occasioned by erroneous assumptions. (S on the other hand, my Lehrbuch der EinleUung in das A. T. 1> lsi sqq.)
All thai can be determined with certainty in relation to the of the books of K it that they were composed in the Becond half of t! ylonian captivity, and before its ol< since they bring the history down to that time, and yet contain no allusion to the deliverance of the people out of Babylon. rrin> author was a prophet living in the Babylonian exile, though not the prophet Jeremiah, as the earlier theologians down to II rernick have a turned from the notice in the Talmud {Baba baihra, t L5, 1): Jertm wn, mum et librum Begum
For even apart from the foot that Jeremiah ended his days in Egypt, he could hardly have survived the Last event i rded in our books, namely, the Liberation of Jehoiachin tVom prison, and bis exaltation to royal honours by Evil-merodach. For inasmuch as this event occurred sixty-six years after his call to be a prophet, in the thirteenth year of Josiah, he would havi rears old in the thirty-seventh year after
Jehoiachin had been carried away into exile, even it' he had commenced his prophetic career when only a young man of aty years of age. Now, even if he had reached this great age, he would surely not have composed our books at a later period still. Moreover, all that ha i adduced in support of this is seen to be inconclusive on closer inspection. The similaritv in the linguistic character of our books and that of the writings of Jeremiah, the sombre view of history which is common to the two, the preference apparent in both for phrases taken from the Pentateuch, and the allusions to earlier prophecies,— all these peculiarities may be explained, so far as they really exist, partly from the fact that they wTere written in the same age, since all the writers of the time of the captivity and afterwards cling very closely to the Pentateuch and frequently refer to the law of Moses, and partly also from the circumstance that, whilst Jeremiah was well acquainted with the original sources of our books, viz. the annals of the kingdom of Judah, the author of our books was also well acquainted with the prophecies of Jeremiah. But the relation between 2 Kings xxiv. 18 sqq. and Jer. lii. is not of such a nature, that these last- named works were tl annals * of t acts of the kings, s> pose; but annals compose*!;hets, and ooi vcs. and partly fmm oollec ' h reached tie another, and so car in.ted Micccsaion from the rise of the t igdoma he de.t igt mentioned, bat they had been a " Book of Ou history of tki fim/j A'tnas"
■, that had bet.ten both cone the several kings by annalists and oth< oraneous rid also concerning temporaries. s finished form they lay f our wot rati dsl annals of the
_vkms uf Judah and Israel follows unqucetiooably from the ement which i between our bunks of tie- Kur-s ami
, and which oan only be explained from tin- fad that they drawn from One ami tl. But m the
Chronicles there are different writings of individual prop] quoted, beside the day-books of the kings of Judah and [srael; and it is expressly stated in relation to some of them that they ved into the annals of the kings (compare ~ Chron,
Chi M i, then- are no I al traces oi public annali und in the kingdom ft" the ten tribes, and their i-\ no means probable, on account of the 'ant change of dynasti Th bat the frequently be time of the capth r apt in tie:
enclosed in brackets, hut al. the time of the ting king f Judah, and that it cannot th- i onanated from the anther of our 1" t the King8, but (an only have d taken from t: mployed, is a proof that t!
annals of the kingdom W I close of tin; king f Judah; and this is pla< pond all doubt, by the that this formula IS alflO found in many pa of the xxi. 10). — In a similar manner to this must we explain the in of the RbStV narc ~^r three prophetic writings are quoted in 1 Chron..xxix. 29 in connection with Solomon's •i, and their accounl in all essential points with the account in the books of the Kings..v heless this " history i E Solomon" never formed a component part of the annals of the two kingdoms, and was certainly written much earlier. — The assumption that there were other sources still, is not only sustained by no historical evidence, but has no certain support in the character or contents of the writings before us. If the annals quoted were works composed by prophets, the elaborate accounts of the working of the prophets Elijah and Elisha might also have been included in them. — Again, in the constant allusion to these annals we have a sure pledge of the historical fidelity of the accounts that have been taken from them. If in his work in the case of the great* all.. tieing at
• as his courageous resistant'
EX I'd srr nix. FIRST BOOK OF Til E KINGS.
A \" 1 1) had not only established the monarchy upon a fan, but had also waited the old Testament
Idngd ii h a height of power, that all tin; Iringdoi and about were obliged to bow it. This kingdoms osmitted by divine appointment to his b. in wl □ Judah and Israel wen numerous as: aid by the and dwelt in security, v man under his vine and under his fig-tree (ch. ivr. 20,
The history of this reign comm with the account of the manner in which Solomon had i»- eived the kingdom from and 1 kblished his own rule by the fulfilment of
: will and by strict righteousness (ch. i. and ii.). Then follows in ch. iii.-x. the description of the glory of his kingdom, how the Lord, in answer to his prayer at Gibeon, not only gave him an understanding heart to judge his people, hut also wisdom, riches, and honour, so that his equal was not to be found among the kings of the earth; and through his wise rule, more especially through the erection of the house of Jehovah and of a splendid royal palace, he developed the glory of the kingdom of God to such an extent that his fame penetrated to remote nations. The conclusion, in ch. xi, consists of the account of Solomon's sin in his old age, viz. his falling into idolatry, whereby he brought about the decay of the kingdom, which manifested itself during the closing years of his reign in the rising up of opponents, and at his death in the falling awray of ten tribes from his son Eehoboam. But notwithstanding this speedy decay, the
1 6 the mn book of kin of the typical I h it } d in r< the clothe* Dnp d068 not mean clot lies to W6M hero, but large cloths, which were used as bed-clothes, as in 1 S.nu. xix. 13