reigned but two years, and came to the throne B.C. 561. Hence this portion must have been written after B.C. 560, which date is twenty-eight years after the Captivity, B.C. 588, and twentyfour years before the decree of Cyrus for the return of the Jews, B.C. 536.

It is very possible, therefore, and, from the full details given in 2K.xxv, not at all improbable, that this part of the story, and, perhaps, the account of the last two or three reigns, may have been written by an actual eye-witness, who had himself taken part in the proceedings, and shared in the sorrows, of the time.

192

CHAPTER IV.

THE LATER HISTORICAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

231. THE books of Chronicles, however, which, after giving a series of genealogical tables, go over much the same ground as the books of Samuel and Kings, and often in the very same words, were unquestionably written at a much later date. In fact, they are believed by many to contain, 1Ch.ix, a list of those, who returned to Jerusalem from Babylon after the Captivity.

The list is here nearly the same with those found in Ezra and Nehemiah, and contains those who returned to Jerusalem with Zerubbabel. But the list of Nehemiah is more ample, probably because it contains those who came afterwards, the object of the Sacred Writer here being to give the names of those who came first. BAGSTER'S Comprehensive Bible.

And so KUENEN concludes, p.293–295, where, however, he remarks as follows:

:

The meaning of this document, 1Ch.ix.1-34, and its relation to Neh.xi.1, &c. belong to the most contested points of O.T. criticism. I hold with BERTHEAU that 1Ch.ix.4-17 contains another copy of the same document as that given in Neh.xi. 3-19,- that it refers, (according to the Chronicler's view, expressed in 1Ch.ix.1,3), to the time after the Captivity, and expressly to the days of Nehemiah, — that in 1Ch.ix.18, &c., the Chronicler himself speaks and treats of his own lifetime,lastly, that v.33,34, are the 'subscript' of the whole document, which, however, is not given in its entirety by the writer, as we gather from Neh.xi.

KUENEN then gives the reasons for his decision, which, however, do not appear to me altogether satisfactory.

232. It would rather seem that, in both passages, the writer - probably, one and the same, as KUENEN also believes — is attempting to give an account of the state of things in David's

time, and that the expression hitherto,' y, in 1Ch.ix.18, is used in the sense of up to this time, so long as it was possible for the Levites to minister,' — in other words, 'all along, down to the time of the Captivity.'

In support of the above conclusion, the following reasons may be adduced. But the point is of no consequence to our argument, and this discussion, though interesting to the critic, may be omitted by the general reader.

(i) What can be the meaning of the words in Neh.xi.24-and Pethahiah... was at the king's hand in all matters concerning the people'-if they are supposed to refer to a time after the Captivity?

(ii) Again, we read in v.18,19, 'All the Levites in the Holy City were 284; moreover, the porters, Akkub, Talmon, and their brethren, that kept the gates, were 172;' whereas, just before, the Levites, who came back with Zerubbabel, are reckoned as 74 only, Neh.vii.43, (so Ezr.ii.40), or 222, with the singers, v.44, (202, Ezr.ii.41), while the porters were 138, v.45, (139, Ezr.ii.42.)

(iii) The 'porters' are called 'the children of Akkub,' 'the children of Talmon,' &c. Neh.vii.45, Ezr.ii.42; and it would seem that there existed porters named Akkub and Talmon in the days of Zerubbabel, Neh.xii.25; though it is not clear at what gates they could have been 'keeping ward' in those days, when there was no Temple. But since, in the passage last referred to, we read of 'Mattaniah, Bakbukiah, Obadiah, Meshullam, Talmon, and Akkub, porters, keeping the ward at the thresholds of the gates,' and no mention is here made of the other heads of the families of 'porters,' who are named in Neh.vii.45, Ezr.ii.42, where we read of 'the porters, the children of Shallum, the children of Ater, the children of Talmon, the children of Akkub, the children of Hatita, the children of Shobai,' it would rather seem that the 'Talmon' and 'Akkub' in the former passage, who lived in the days of Zerubbabel, and, perhaps, 'Meshullam' 'Shallum, were descendants of those mentioned in the later passages, yet bearing the same name as their ancestors.

In short, it appears to me that the whole passage, 1Ch.ix.22-34, refers to the time of David, or, by a slight anachronism, perhaps, to that of Solomon, when the Tabernacle or Temple was standing, and the Levites were, or were believed by the Chronicler to be, in full activity. These were reckoned by their genealogy in villages, whom David and Samuel the Seer did ordain in their set office. So they and their children had the oversight of the gates of the House of Jehovah, the House of the Tabernacle, by wards. . . For these Levites, the four chief porters, [Shallum, Akkub, Talmon, Ahiman, where Ahiman, may be another name for one of the three, Ater, Hatita, Shobai, in Neh.vii.45,] were in their set office, and were over the chambers and treasuries of the House of God. And they lodged round about the House of God [could they have done this in Zerubbabel's time?] —

because the charge was upon them, and the opening thereof every morning pertained to them, &c. &c.' 1Ch.ix.22, &c.

Further, in 1Ch.ix.34 we read, 'These dwelt at Jerusalem;' and then immediately follows, v.35, And in Gibeon dwelt the father of Gibeon, Jehiel,' who is then described as an ancestor of Saul. Thus it would seem that the Chronicler is speaking of very ancient times, when Jerusalem and Gibeon were first peopled, not of the second peopling after the Captivity.

It is true, we read in v.3 that 'in Jerusalem dwelt of the children of Ephraim and Manasseh, &c.' But there may have been some of these tribes in David's time, when he was king over 'all Israel,'-since, according to the Chronicler, 1Ch.xii.30,31, 38,800 of them came to David to Hebron, to make him king,— who afterwards, (in the Chronicler's view, at all events,) went to settle with the king at Jerusalem, when he made it his seat of government.

The expression, 'children of Solomon's servants,' Neh.xi.3, may have been used, by an anachronism, to denote the menial servants of all kinds, whom the Chronicler regarded as attached to the Tabernacle in the time of David, such as those, the Nethinims or Gibeonites, whom Solomon gave to be bondservants, 'hewers of wood and drawers of water,' to the Temple, 1K.ix.20,21, 2Ch.viii.7,8.

And the statement quoted above from 1Ch.ix.22, 'These were reckoned by their genealogy in villages, whom David and Samuel the Seer did ordain in their set office,' seems to imply that the writer is referring to the time of David. Of the twenty-four names of the chief men of the Levites in David's time, recorded in 1Ch.xxiv.7-18, we seem to have Jehoiarib and Jedaiah, v.7, and Jachin, v.17, repeated in 1Ch.ix. 10, and Maaziah, v.18 in 1Ch.ix.12 (Maasiai).

233. The above, however, as has been said, is only a secondary question. But we may arrive at some certain conclusions, as to the time at which the books of Chronicles were written, from the following considerations.

(i) In 1Ch.iii.17-21 we have the following genealogy, Jeconiah, Assir, Pedaiah, Zerubbabel, Hananiah, Pelatiah; so that this book was written after the birth of Zerubbabel's grandson, and Zerubbabel was the leader of the expedition, which returned to Jerusalem after the decree of Cyrus, B.C. 536.

(ii) Again in 1Ch.xxix.7 we find the Persian coin, Daric, referred to familiarly, as if it had been long in use among the Jews. They gave for the service of the House of God five thousand talents and ten thousand drams,' (darics, Db). This coin, however, could not have been freely employed among

the Jews till some time after its first introduction, which is supposed to have been in the reign of Darius Hystaspes, B.C. 521-486. It appears, therefore, that the Jews must have been for some time under Persian government, before these books could have been written.

234. Hence there are many who ascribe the composition of the Chronicles to Ezra, who arrived at Jerusalem B.C. 456. Thus TOMLINE writes:

The books of Chronicles are generally, and with much probability, attributed to Ezra, whose book, which bears his name, is written with a similar style of expression, and appears to be a continuation of them.

Rather, as we have said before, the books of Chronicles are probably due to the same hand, which wrote the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. And the writer, from the special interest which he shows on all matters which concern the Levites, and from the great length at which he gives the genealogies of the Priestly and Levitical families, and, especially, of the Levitical singers of the time of David, was, in all probability, himself a Priest or Levite, - it would rather seem, a Levite chorister,*— who lived after the time of Nehemiah, B.C. 409, or even, it may be, so late (237) as about B.C. 332. We will suppose him to have lived about B.C. 400, that is, nearly 200 years after the Captivity, and more than 650 years after the beginning of David's reign; and he wrote certainly, as we shall hereafter have occasion to remark, very decidedly from a Levitical point of view.

235. It is possible, indeed, that he may have lived in a still later age. For in 1Ch.iii.21-24, after the mention of the grandsons of Zerubbabel, we read the

* The Chronicler treats of the Levitical choristers and doorkeepers, in the following passages, 1Ch.vi.16, &c. ix.14-29, xv.16-24,27,28, xvi.4-42, xxiii.5, xxv, xxvi. 1,12-19, 2Ch.v.12, &c. vii.6, viii.14, xx.19,21, xxiii.4,13,18, &c. xxix.25-28,30, xxx.21, &c. xxxi.2,11-18, xxxiv.12,13, xxxv.15. This array of passages indicates his partiality for these bodies, and (as an examination of them will show) especially for the former.