Chr. xxxiii. 19, of which the Prayer of Manasseh in our Greek Apocrypha may probably be considered an extant fragment. In this case the book must have had a great resemblance to the Book of Daniel. The character of these special prophetical passages must then be determined by special investigation of the case of each king upon whom they are cited as authorities. The next weighty question is, what was the form of that large comprehensive work to which some at least of these references point? And here, as already shown, it would be a very great error to imagine that the writer meant those State Annals which were epitomised in the canonical Book of Kings, and that he, having read them again in the original form, now used them in his peculiar way. Many of the detailed narratives given in those State Annals may have passed immediately into the large work which our author used-indeed there are many reasons for regarding this as almost certain; but the old State Annals themselves cannot, for the reasons already given, have been used by our author. But we must suppose the work to have been a very detailed and comprehensive one. On the other hand it contained the fullest accounts of the words and deeds of the great Prophets, so that its principal divisions could be even directly named from them, and separated as special works indeed we may unhesitatingly assume that it was published in many volumes, and that, as in the case of other lengthy works of the ancients, its sections were gradually more and more separated and regarded as distinct works. On the other hand it did not refuse admission even to a multitude of genealogical and topographical notices.2 Even the peculiar phrase repeated in all the references, that the other deeds, both earlier and later, of this king,' may be found in this book, sufficiently shows with what fulness and accurate attention to dates the life of each king was treated there. In the life of David, which the author treats most in detail, he several times refers to subdivisions of the biography which he had used as his authority. Where, on the other hand, that authority may have yielded little more than he himself gave, as in the case of the two years' reign of Amon (2 Chr. xxxiii. 21-25), he does not refer to it at all. When we reflect, finally, that the 3 1 See pp. 136 sq., 182 sq. As we must conclude partly from the express reference in 2 Chr. xxiv. 27, partly from the many genealogical notices derived even from the houses of individual kings, unknown to the canonical Book of Kings, as 2 Chr. xi. 18-23. The words in the later events of David's reign' (1 Chr. xxiii. 27), or, as if in explanation of this, 'in the 40th year of David's reign' (xxvi. 31), only contain a reference to the latter portion of the authority used for the history of David. References are also wanting in the real full name, ' Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah,' indicates a blending of the history of the two kingdoms, which was probably first completely carried through by the last compiler but one of the canonical Book of Kings, and further that stories. of the prophets clearly occupied the chief place in the work, more especially in the age of the earlier kings (and our author refers far oftener in the case of the earlier than in that of the later kings to those seemingly separate prophetical works), we might fancy that it was the very work from which, according to pp. 164 sqq. the canonical Book of Kings was extracted. But, although the author undoubtedly made use of that work, as follows from pp. 164 sq., and although the supposition that he used it only indirectly, as quoted in a later large work, is refuted by the discovery that (according to p. 184) he sometimes quotes it by its proper title as his direct authority, the life of David shows that besides this he must also have used a far more extensive work. We must therefore conclude that the largest book which he had was a work in which, on the plan of the canonical Book of Kings (pp. 146 sqq.), the history of both kingdoms was treated from the prophetic point of view, and in which liberties were taken in reviving the prophetic traditions, similar to those in the canonical Book of Kings, the origin of which we have already traced (p. 167); a work, however, differing in design from the latter in that it was not an historical epitome, but presented the history in its fullest extent, taking in all the ancient records. Thus the author must have used three works: the canonical Book of Kings, an earlier compilation from the State Annals and other sources, and a larger but later work; borrowing from them only the history of the kings of Judah, and reproducing it in his own way, and referring for other matters which he did not care to give, not to the canonical book (which so far as the kings of Judah were concerned he had almost bodily inserted), but to the later work which was not admitted into the canon. But then we can hardly stop short of the conjecture that (according to p. 183) we possess the exact name of this great work, Midrash sepher hamm'lachim. The extensive genealogical notices must have been drawn chiefly from the work which he once calls Sefer dibre hajjamim, i. e. Book of Daily Events, or Chronicle; a name which (according to p. 182, note 4) originally designated the official calendar, but which an author 1 three successive short reigns of Jehoram, Ahaziah, and Athaliah, 2 Chr. xxi.-xxiii.: elsewhere only in the reigns of Jehoahaz, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah, for the reasons might easily appropriate to his own or any other work founded upon it. The writing of Elijah the Prophet, mentioned 2 Chr. xxi. 12, cannot belong here, being only mentioned in narrative, and evidently quoted from the authorities already described. The 'Book of Lamentations,' mentioned 2 Chr. xxxv. 25, though now lost, may be confidently affirmed not to have been a history.1 2) Thus much may be said of the authorities directly or indirectly named by the author. But the author may very possibly have also used other authorities without such reference, the employment of which may be distinctly traced by certain indications. The authorities expressly named by him were too voluminous to be taken at all completely into his work; and it may be on this account that he refers to them. But other records may haye been bodily incorporated, or so completely worked into the substance of his new work as not to require any reference. And this is distinctly the case especially with some valuable authorities used in the last part of the work now known under the name of the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah. For it cannot escape the notice of any tolerably attentive reader, that this part of the work, separated though it has been for thousands of years from the remainder, really belongs to it, and received its present form from the same author. Some grounds for this conclusion have been already given above; but the very complexion of the language affords sufficient proof of it. Although, from the author's practice of literal citation from his authorities, the language of the book is in general rather patchy and varied than uniform and sustained, and often, especially in the first and third parts, and in the life of David, (for the remainder of the second part is written more uniformly, like a short abstract) contains isolated anomalous expressions which can only have been retained from the older books; yet no sooner do we fully apprehend the real nature of the work than we discover passages the substance and style of which both prove them to be distinctively the author's own; and in these a peculiar phraseology is observed, found nowhere but in this work, though pervading every part of it.2 See more on this point in the new edition of my Dichter des Alten Bundes, vol. i. 2 To present here a few examples: peculiar to this writer is the use of in the sense of voluntary offerings to the temple (1 Chr. xxix. 6 sqq.; 2 Chr. xvii. 16; Ezra i. 6, ii. 68, iii. 5, vii. 13, 15, But certain as it is from all these indications that this last part was written by the hand of the same author, yet it also exhibits conspicuous fragments of earlier works, which he must have employed without making any express reference to them. The difficult task of correctly picking out these fragments is aggravated by the fact that the author does not use them like official documents, and cite them entire and apart, but-sometimes even after he has begun to quote them literally-intermixes words or thoughts of his own, and passages of other writers, and thus presents a nearly insoluble medley. We can, however, clearly recognise the three following different kinds of authorities. a.) Concerning the first years of the New Jerusalem up to the completion of the Temple, the author found two written documents-first, the full and accurate catalogue in Ezra ii. of those who returned from the Captivity (this, however, for various reasons,' must have been inserted into an earlier history, from which it is here repeated); and secondly, the official documents 2 Chr. xxix. 16, 22; Ezra viii. 30), found אֲרָצוֹת and the plural יַהְיֶה עִמּוֹ the phrase (not in general use till after Ezekiel), employed in every possible connection, as in the phrase nini (compare 1 Chr. xiii. 2, xiv. 17, xxii. 5, xxix. 30; Ezra iii. 3, ix. 1, 2, 7, 11; Neh. ix. 30, x. 29 [28] with Ezra x. 11; Neh. x. 31, 32 [30, 31], where the singular interchanges with it. The construction exhibits, on the one hand, a laboured condensation never before used in prose, e. g. in the use of the infinitive with (as 1 Chr. xv. 2 and elsewhere), and especially in the relative clause (as 1 Chr. xv. 12, compare v. 3); and, on the other, great laxity, as in the very loose employment of the article before the status constructus. The writer also affects a certain elegance of speech and fastidious choice of words, which leads him, for instance, to avoid the repetition of the same epithet by saying 'Samuel the seer, Nathan the prophet, and Gad the viewer;' for these words are not intended to convey different ideas, as is clear from the 2 Chr. xii. 15, xiii. 22. He also affects an antique style by the use of obsolete expressions, as, for instance, in sedulously avoiding (with very few exceptions) abbreviated form of, though undoubtedly the prevalent form in his age. In other points, however, as for instance, the continual use of D for 1, he cannot disown the character of his age. Occasionally he manifestly imitates Ezra's style. In Ezra ii. 63-iii. 1 and Neh. vii. 65-73 an historical narrative was appended to this list before it was use by Nehemiah and our author. Both of these found the same narrative so appended; but our author abridged it more, and put in more example of the way in which such docuof his own (л, Ezra ii. 68): a striking ments were treated in that age. The LXX. present the same variations as the Masoretic text. The original independence of this passage is also proved by the very word Ezra ii. 1; Neh. vii. 6, which is as foreign to our author as it is current with other later writers, since in Neh. i. 3, xi. 3, it belongs to Nehemiah's own work; and by the word ji (only found here), which in this fuller form corresponds exactly with Spaxuh,, and for which shorter form 11778 1 Chr. xxix. 7, and Ezra viii. 27, have the (See Göttinger Gelehrte Anzeigen, 1855, p. 1392 sqq., 1856, p. 798.) 1 5 4 3 on the interruption and resumption of the building of the Temple, in Ezra iv. 8-vi. That these, together with the royal decrees here given, had come down to the author, admits of no doubt; but it is equally evident that he found them in an earlier historical work;2 and this, consequently, may be regarded as the ultimate foundation of the remaining accounts of that period, and may have been the same in which the catalogue in Ezra ii. was preserved from destruction. It is very difficult 3 to identify this earlier work in detail, partly from the freedom with which the author adds from his own stores, and partly from the great curtailments to which the histories have here evidently been subjected. That it was written in Aramaic from the first, may be inferred from the way in which that language is introduced by the latest author in Ezra iv. 8. It is, indeed, true that the latest author wrote as easily, nay more so, in Aramaic than in the ancient Hebrew, which was then dying out; for even after the decrees of the Persian kings and the representations made to them are ended, he continues to use this language in mere narrative, Ezra vi. 13, and reverts to Hebrew in Ezra vi. 20, only when compelled to it by the consideration that the work had been commenced in Hebrew; and we discover moreover here and there in this Aramaic passage unmistakable traces of his peculiar thoughts and expressions. But the way in which the Aramaic enters at first in Ezra iv. 8 proves 'The exactness of the names given by the last compiler in Ezra iv. 7 shows that the document used by him must have told everything more fully and thoroughly than we are now able to do even conjecturally by the help of the detached notices which he has left us. 2 One proof of this is found in the fact that the Aramaic letter which the last compiler announces in Ezra iv. 7 does not immediately follow in v. 8, but not till 77 in v. 11, and the intermediate verses must have formed an introduction to the letter in the history from which he quotes, v. 8 being only a title to the following (perhaps written with larger or different characters in the original), and the narrative commencing with v. 9. The want of any clear transition between v. 7 and v. 8 proves this; and there is a similar case in v. 6-7; see also vii. 12. Moreover our author himself never prefixes any such titles. In Ezra v. 4 the writer uses we as if he had witnessed it all. The use of the first person plural in Neh. x. 1, 31-40 [ix. 38, x. 30-39] does not disprove this; for that passage also is based upon a con temporary document which the last compiler quotes with greater freedom only towards the close. Not only in the Latin Chronicles of the middle ages, but also in the Oriental histories, a similar we or I is found retained very curiously from the book quoted; see Land on the Syrian Chronicle of John of Ephesus, p. 38. We must not here appeal to the we in 2 Macc. i. 20, 3 Macc. v. 43. The reading IVAN, however, cannot originally have stood in this connection, but must have been transposed here from vv. 9, 10; and we must with the LXX. read in its place. (See Göttinger Gelehrte Anzeigen, 1851, p. 874-75.) Observe, Ezra ii. 68 (which reappears in his Aramaic, Ezra vii. 13, 15, 16), the Di Di in Aramaic vi. 6; the entire description of the sacrificial offerings, vi. 9, 17, 18, which in any passage of this whole history would direct us to this author; again, iv. 7, 24, as compared with verses 8, 11. E.g. the extreme brevity of Ezra iv. 6 and 7. 6 See the last note but one. |