ance, without any help from the Jews except that they fasted and prayed, agrees little with the picture just given of the enormous military resources of Jehoshaphat; and the writer, moreover, seems to have had no clear idea of the nature of the catastrophe, xx.22. Yet it must rest on some historical fact or other-[why, any more than the account of the Levites going about with the 'Book of the Law'?]-a proof of which lies in the accurate names of places-[why, any more than in the accurate list of names of persons (Levites), xvii.7,8?]. But we can no more conjecture the real historical foundation on which it rests, than we can the possible connexion of this narrative with what we find in 2K.iii, comp. xx.23 with 2K.iii.23. [May not C have derived the notion of making Jehoshaphat's enemies destroy each other from the legend in 2K.iii.4,&c., which belonged to the affairs of the northern kingdom, of which he does not speak?]

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CHAPTER XIX.

THE SECOND BOOK OF CHRONICLES (JORAM, AHAZIAH, ATHALIAH, JOASH, AMAZIAH, UZZIAH).

JORAM, 2Ch.XXI.

374. In xxi.11 C makes Joram compel his people to idolatry, comp. v.13, whereas from 1K.xxii.43b, which he has not copied, it is plain that they were of their own accord idolaters.

In v.12-15 he makes Elijah (who never visited Jerusalem and who had been translated to heaven according to the story some years previously) write a letter to Joram, telling him that for his sins his family and his people should be smitten and his own bowels fall out.

In v.16-17 he represents Jahveh as stirring up the Philistines and Arabians to attack Joram (in contrast with their behaviour towards the faithful Jehoshaphat, xvii.11), and carry off all his property and his wives and children, except Jehoahaz his youngest son, plundering the King's house and sacking the city, though the book of Kings knows nothing of such a noteworthy public calamity.48

In v.18,19, he says that Joram died a miserable death by an 'incurable disease,' so that his bowels fell out by reason of his

* That Joram (of Judah) did not come to the throne till some years after Elijah's translation appears from 2K.iii.11,&c., where Elisha prophesies immediately after Ahab's death, v.5,6, and Joram King of Judah began to reign (with his father Jehoshaphat) in the fifth year of Joram son of Ahab, viii. 16. Hence the E.V. has in the margin on 2Ch.xxi.12 which was writ before his death, 2K.ii.1.' 47

sickness,' of which we hear nothing in Kings, and was buried dishonourably, not in the sepulchres of the kings,' v.20, whereas 2K.viii.24 says that he 'slept with his fathers and was buried with his fathers.' 49

AHAZIAH, 2Ch.XXII.1-9.

375. In xxii.1 C says that the people made Azariah, the youngest son of Joram, King after his father's death, as the Arabians had killed the princes, his elder brothers, whom they had captured: whereas in 2K.viii.24 he appears to have succeeded in the usual way.50

In v.9 he modifies materially the story in Kings, making Jehu's people catch Ahaziah, for he was hid in Samaria,' and bring him to Jehu,—it is not said where—and makes them also, i.e. Jehu's people, slay and bury him, because, said they,' using C's phraseology

'he is the son of Jehoshaphat, who sought Jahveh with all his heart.'

But 2K.ix.27,28, says that they smote him in his chariot, and that he fled on to Megiddo and died there, and his own servants carried him to Jerusalem and buried him in his sepulchre with his fathers in the city of David.' 51

ATHALIAH, 2Ch.XXII.10-XXIII.21.

376. We have here a highly instructive specimen of C's way of proceeding. GRAF, p. 149, writes as follows upon the connexion between this section and 2K.xi.

BERTHEAU says justly, 'A description like that in 2K.xi lies at the basis of that in the Chronicles, and the last only becomes intelligible, when it is explained as an intentional alteration of the former.' Only we must not say 'a description like that in 2K.xi,' but the description of 2K.xi'; for C had before him the identical text of 2K.xi and no other, as appears most plainly on comparing the two passages. From the fact that he has retained much of the old text, which no longer suited his own modifications of the story, there arises much obscurity and much incongruity in the narrative, to the removal of which, with that want

of accuracy so generally observable in him elsewhere, he has not paid sufficient attention.

That in the narrative of 2K.xi nothing whatever is said about the Levites having been concerned in the affair-that the Chief Priest, in order to dethrone the idolatrous Athaliah, had recourse to the soldiery-that these entered the Temple, and there took their stand for the protection of the King-all this must have caused great offence to C and his contemporaries, who assumed as existing in the first Temple, and referred back to David himself, the institutions of the second, with its numerous troop of Priests and Levites, and its sanctity which excluded all laymen. Our historian, therefore, had to bring the narrative into conformity with the views of his own time.52

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377. In xxii.11 C makes 'Jehosheba daughter of King Joram, sister of Ahaziah,' 2K.xi.2, to be wife of Jehoiada the Priest,' and in v.12 he says he was with them hid in the House of God' for 'with her.' Probably, this notion, of Jehosheba being the wife of Jehoiada, is meant merely to account for the statement in 2K.xi.3, that the child Joash was hid with her for six years in the Temple. It is not likely, however, that Jehoiada lived with his wife in the Temple, comp. Neh.iii.20,21, though an unmarried princess with the child might have found concealment there.

378. In xxiii.1, whereas 2K.xi.4 mentions Jehoiada's conspiring with the captains of hundreds of the bodyguard,' lit. 'executioners and runners,' C makes him take into covenant five 'captains of hundreds,'-the number probably made to correspond with the five divisions of the guard in 2K.xi.5-7-who are all mentioned by their names, which C has no difficulty in inventing when his occasion requires (371, note).53

In v.2 he describes these captains, evidently meant to be Levites themselves, as going about in Judah, and gathering to Jerusalem all the Levites out of all the cities of Judah and the chief of the fathers, who were brought up to Jerusalem, perhaps under colour of a festival, and kept there, organized into bands, until the plot was ripe for execution' (R.p.332).

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In v.3 he makes all the congregation' enter into a covenant with the young prince in the Temple, contrary to the plain

meaning of 2K.xi, where the young prince is only shown to the conspirators, v.4.54

In v.4-20 the alterations made by C are best exhibited by comparing the following literal translations, that of 2K.xi including two slight emendations by THENIUS in v.5.