Chronicles, I
Chronicles, I
CHRONICLES, I. AND II.
1. Position in Canon.It is quite clear from linguistic and other considerations that Chron.-Ezr.-Neh. originally formed one book. As the first part of this large work dealt with a period which was already covered by Samuel and Kings, it was omitted, to begin with, in the formation of the Canon; while the latter part of the book, dealing with the ecclesiastical life of Jerusalem after the Exile, was granted a place. Only as the liturgical and ritual interest became more and more strong was it seen that Chron. contained matter of special importance from that point of view. Hence the book was included in the Canon after Ezr. and Neh., which had originally formed its second and concluding portion. In the English Bible, which follows the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] , the original order has been restored, but Chron. is the last book in the Hebrew canon. Its Hebrew name is Dibhre Hayymim, i.e. the Annals. The LXX [Note: Septuagint.] entitled it the Paraleipomena, or things left out, a reference to the fact that Chron. contains much not found in the earlier narratives of Samuel and Kings. Our word Chronicles is the Anglicized form of Chronicon, the name given to the book by Jerome in translating Dibhre Hayymim.
2. Aim.The key to the understanding and estimation of Chron. lies in a clear grasp of its aim. It is not history, as we understand the term, but history rewritten from a late standpoint, with the intention of carrying back into a remote past the origin of customs which the writer considered to be vital for true faith. He is concerned with the history of Judah, and that history interests him only in so far as it has special reference to the worship and institutions of the second Temple. This determines his choice of matter, and the treatment of such facts as he selects. The Northern Kingdom, politically so much more important than the kingdom of Judah, hardly comes within his range of view, and is referred to only when the narrative absolutely necessitates it.
3. Contents.With this clue the contents of the book are easily grouped.
(i) 1Ch 1:1-54; 1Ch 2:1-55; 1Ch 3:1-24; 1Ch 4:1-43; 1Ch 5:1-26; 1Ch 6:1-81; 1Ch 7:1-40; 1Ch 8:1-40; 1Ch 9:1-44, Adam to the death of Saul. These chapters are filled mainly with genealogical tables, but even in these the ecclesiastical interest is supreme. Judah and Levi have the greatest space given to them (1Ch 2:3 to 1Ch 4:23; 1Ch 4:6).
(ii) 1Ch 10:1-14; 1Ch 11:1-47; 1Ch 12:1-40; 1Ch 13:1-14; 1Ch 14:1-17; 1Ch 15:1-29; 1Ch 16:1-43; 1Ch 17:1-27; 1Ch 18:1-17; 1Ch 19:1-19; 1Ch 20:1-8; 1Ch 21:1-30; 1Ch 22:1-19; 1Ch 23:1-32; 1Ch 24:1-31; 1Ch 25:1-31; 1Ch 26:1-32; 1Ch 27:1-34; 1Ch 28:1-21; 1Ch 29:1-30, from the death of Saul to the accession of Solomon.
(iii) 2Ch 1:1-17; 2Ch 2:1-18; 2Ch 3:1-17; 2Ch 4:1-22; 2Ch 5:1-14; 2Ch 6:1-42; 2Ch 7:1-22; 2Ch 8:1-18; 2Ch 9:1-31, the reign of Solomon.
(iv) 2Ch 10:1-19; 2Ch 11:1-23; 2Ch 12:1-16; 2Ch 13:1-22; 2Ch 14:1-15; 2Ch 15:1-19; 2Ch 16:1-14; 2Ch 17:1-19; 2Ch 18:1-34; 2Ch 19:1-11; 2Ch 20:1-37; 2Ch 21:1-20; 2Ch 22:1-12; 2Ch 23:1-21; 2Ch 24:1-27; 2Ch 25:1-28; 2Ch 26:1-23; 2Ch 27:1-9; 2Ch 28:1-27; 2Ch 29:1-36; 2Ch 30:1-27; 2Ch 31:1-21; 2Ch 32:1-33; 2Ch 33:1-25; 2Ch 34:1-33; 2Ch 35:1-27; 2Ch 36:1-23, from the division of the kingdom down to the fall of Jerusalem, and the restoration edict of Cyrus.
The material is most carefully chosen, with the object of bringing out the importance of Judah, the greatness of the line of David, the religious value of Jerusalem, and the position of the Levites. A comparison of the narrative in Chron. with the earlier narratives of Samuel and Kings will do more than anything else to convince the reader of the pragmatism of the Chronicler.
(a) Omissions in Chronicles.The whole career of Samuel; the reign of Saul, except its close; the struggle David had to establish himself on the throne; the story of Uriah and Bathsheba; the story of Amnon and Tamar; Absaloms rebellion and Davids flight; the characteristically Oriental intrigues attending Solomons accession; his alliances with foreign women and his idolatries in later life; his struggle against disaffection and rebellion; practically the entire history of the Northern Kingdom;all these sections are omitted, with the view of suppressing what might be held to be discreditable to the religious heroes.
(b) The additions to the narrative show how the Chroniclers thoughts ran. He gives, as we should have expected, full statistical lists (1Ch 12:1-40); he describes at length matters that have to do with the gradual elevation of the sanctuary at Jerusalem (1Ch 13:1-14; 1Ch 15:1-29; 1Ch 16:1-43); he details the ordering of the Temple ministry and the genealogies of its members (1Ch 22:1-19; 1Ch 23:1-32; 1Ch 24:1-31; 1Ch 25:1-31; 1Ch 26:1-32; 1Ch 27:1-34; 1Ch 28:1-21; 1Ch 29:1-30). There is a large class of additions connected with ritual, and especially with musical matters, a fact which has led to the suggestion that the writer was perhaps one of the musicians (2Ch 5:12-13; 2Ch 7:1; 2Ch 7:3; 2Ch 7:6; 2Ch 13:8-12; 2Ch 17:8-9; 2Ch 20:19; 2Ch 20:21). He so handles historical events as to make them bear out his particular theory of the working of Providence. To love God is to be blessed; to sin against God is immediately to feel the pressure of His hand; the religious meaning of particular events is pointed out to the wrong-doers by prophets of the Lord (1Ch 10:13-14, 2Ch 12:2; 2Ch 13:3-21; 2Ch 15:1-15; 2Ch 16:7-12; 2Ch 20:37; 2Ch 21:10; 2Ch 21:16-19). In 2Ch 8:11 the removal of the daughter of Pharaoh, whom Solomon had married, from the city of David to the house that he had built for her, is said to have been occasioned by the house of David having become too holy because of the coming of the ark. The compiler of Kings assigns no such reason for the removal to the new house (1Ki 3:1; 1Ki 7:8; 1Ki 9:24). It was a stumbling-block to the later writer that so bad a king as Manasseh should have enjoyed so long a reign, and so he is described as latterly a penitent, although Kings has no thought of any such change (cf. 2Ch 33:11-19 with 2Ki 21:1-26 and Jer 15:4).
(c) Alterations have been made in the narrative with the view of removing what seemed offensive to the later age. Kings distinctly says that Asa and Jehoshaphat did not abolish the high places, although they did what was right in the sight of the Lord (1Ki 15:14; 1Ki 22:43). Such a conjunction of well-doing with idolatry is incredible to the Chronicler, so he says that the high places were abolished by these kings (2Ch 14:5; 2Ch 17:5). He finds it necessary to change several narratives in the interests of the Levites, who were not assigned so important a place in matters of ritual under the monarchy as in the days when he was writing (cf. 1Ch 13:1-14; 1Ch 15:1-29 with 2Sa 6:1-23; 2Ch 5:4 with 1Ki 8:3). According to the original account (2Ki 11:1-21), Jehoiada was assisted in his rebellion against Athaliah by the foreign bodyguard. In 2Ch 23:1-21 the bodyguard is replaced by the Levites. The rule of the second Temple did not allow aliens to approach so near to the sacred things.
Occasionally there is a misunderstanding of the older narrative. 1Ki 22:48 tells how Jehoshaphat built Tarshish-ships, i.e. large sea-going vessels such as were used by the Phnicians for their trade on the Mediterranean, for the South Arabian gold trade. The Chronicler thinks that Tarshish-ships means ships to go to Tarshish (2Ch 20:37).
4. Historicity.It is thus evident that Chron. is not to be considered as history, in the sense in which we now use the word. The events of the time with which the writer deals have been treated in a particular religious interest. Some facts have been stated not simply as they were in themselves, but as they appeared to one whose vision was influenced by his theological viewpoint. Other facts have been suppressed when they interfered with the conveying of the impression that David and Solomon were almost immaculate kings. To a past age were attributed the customs and ceremonial of the days in which the writer lived. The Priests Code was supposed to have been recognized and observed by David even before the Temple was built. Again and again an anachronism has been committed that the Levites might have the place of honour in the record. Some special features of this method of writing history are:
(a) Exaggerated numbers.Every one has felt difficulty with regard to these numbers. Palestine to-day is by no means thinly populated, but the total number of its inhabitants is only about 600,000. At its greatest prosperity the number may have reached 21/2 millions. But we read (2Ch 13:3; 2Ch 13:17) that Abijah with 400,000 men fought against Jeroboam with 800,000, and killed 500,000 of them. Asa (2Ch 14:8) takes the field against Zerah the Ethiopian, who has 1,000,000 men, with 300,000 men of Judah, and 280,000 of Benjamin, the smallest of the tribes, which had previously been practically wiped out by the slaying of 25,000 men (Jdg 20:46). When the numbers can be checked by the parallel passages in the older narrative, the tendency of the Chronicler to exaggerate is manifest. 1Ch 18:4; 1Ch 19:18 make David capture 7000 horsemen and slay 7000 chariotmen, while 2Sa 8:4; 2Sa 10:18 give 700 of each. According to 1Ch 21:25, David pays 600 shekels of gold for Orrans threshing-floor, while according to 2Sa 24:24 he gives only 50 shekels of silver. David gathers together for the building of the Temple, according to 1Ch 22:14, 100,000 talents of gold and 1,000,000 talents of silver; but, according to 1Ki 10:14, the whole revenue in gold of the kingdom, in the much richer days of Solomon, was only 666 talents of gold.
(b) Anachronisms creep in to show that the writer was carrying back to that earlier day the customs and names of his own time. 1Ch 26:18 states that one of the gates of the Templethe first Templewas called Parbar. There is here the double mistake of supposing that the Temple existed in Davids time, and that one of the gates of the first Temple had a Persian name. 1Ch 29:7 speaks of the coin daric or dram as being current in the time of David. This coin was Persian, and was current in Palestine only after the Captivity.
(c) The speeches put into the mouths of the personages have not been taken from any ancient document, but bear on every line the characteristics of the very peculiar Hebrew style of the Chronicler.
5. Date.1Ch 3:17-24 appears to give six generations of the descendants of Zerubbabel, and would thus bring the book down to about b.c. 350. The precise rendering of the passage is, however, a little uncertain. Evidence as to date is clearer from Neh., which, as we have seen, was originally part of Chronicles. Neh 12:11 speaks of Jaddua, who was, as we know from Josephus, a contemporary of Alexander the Great (b.c. 333). Neh 12:22 mentions the reign of Darius the Persian, i.e. Darius III., who reigned b.c. 336332. Chron. must therefore be dated about b.c. 300.
6. Sources.Chron. contains several additions to the narrative of Samuel and Kingsadditions that have not been inserted because of any special ecclesiastical interest (2Ch 11:8-12; 2Ch 11:17; 2Ch 11:23; 2Ch 14:9-15; 2Ch 25:8-10; 2Ch 25:13; 2Ch 26:8-15; 2Ch 28:5-15). Does the Chronicler then preserve any fresh and original tradition, or does he merely work up older material? Apart from Samuel and Kings, his main authority was a work cited under a variety of different titles, the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah (2Ch 27:7; 2Ch 35:27; 2Ch 36:8), the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel (2Ch 16:11; 2Ch 25:26; 2Ch 28:26). This book must have contained genealogical tables (1Ch 9:1), as well as other particulars not mentioned in any book that has come down to us (2Ch 27:7; 2Ch 33:18). Another source is the Midrash of the Book of Kings (2Ch 24:27). A midrash was an exposition of the religious lessons that could be drawn from a historical work; Chron. itself is an excellent instance of a midrash, and this earlier midrash may have been the writers model. He frequently refers to writings quoted under the name of prophets: 1Ch 29:29 (Samuel, Nathan, and Gad), 2Ch 9:29 (Nathan, Ahijah, and Iddo), 2Ch 12:15 (Shemaiah and Iddo), 2Ch 13:22 (Iddo), 2Ch 26:22 (Isaiah). As he never cites at the same time the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah, it is probable that these passages, connected with the various prophets, were only excerpts from that book. From the extracts that Chron. preserves of this book it is probable that it was post-exilic, unless indeed the Chronicler in using it has thoroughly transformed its style and diction into his own.
Chron., then, so far from being a fresh source for the period of which it treats, is a midrash of Jewish order. The history is treated in a particular religious interest, the customs and ritual of the later age are carried back into the earlier. The book is evidence not of the condition of things under the monarchy, but of the religious belief and ceremonial observances of a time when national life had ceased, and when the peoples interest was confined to the worship of the Temple.
R. Bruce Taylor.