396 CHROyiCLES, I. AND II.
U^xhs buUdings and wara, Hezekiah's water- works Manassel"s captivity, et^., may be in part or alto.'et!"er, stated accurately, and to some of them afertain degree of P™^-WUty attaches (cf^ Kitten, but on the unsupported evidence of Ch we Cannot be sure af them. It is not cer am wliether h^°"ource derived them from other documents or rom tri^ition and we cannot tell with positive- nesTho'Xr thiy are trustworthy. This un.ertam y nasses over into Ch itself. Its mam value lies m Another direction. (On the Restoration-edict of Cvrul! see Kosters, Het Herstel van Israel, 1894, onri «rt Ezra asd Nehemiah.)
PhIrACTEK of the CHRONICLER.-It would be most tnScIll the Chronicler a falsifier. He Tows lumseU, on the contrary, as a man o^ |reat ainceritv and moral earnestness. Even it la-'s'iKa ?ion had in his time, when his conception of the Ho.^ was .-idely accepted, had any sufficient motive he would have been mcapable of it. His "^w of the pst is that of a son of t« own age ,^ whom the bistorical imagination had not been Tarsey developed. The Pent, had long been com- plet« and its atest code had a firm grasp on the Kvea'and the minds of the people, anS on li^ o«^ He did not conceive of a time, since the kmgdom be"an when it was otherwise. He >yas almost
nnwpr God was near His people m it. t,oa mm LT enforced it Membership in God's people was to h^ a great nrivUege. and genealogies that ^sWit &at importance. *hese habits and convections tS result of inheritance and of train- wTetermined his mode of writing history. David Sid lo omon he idealised., presenting .Btro^fy ^^f^ without much qualification those sides of their Thtacter which\ppealed to him, and depic^^^^^ the religion of their time accordmg to what seemea to hm the necessary conditions of Jig^iteousne s^ The Northern Kingdom, as apostate, was ot little interest for him. The history of the Southern K^om was his concern mafnly because it was
3Erv^i?^i^-Vt^e^:|;2
^e heathen • and polluted the house of J , and
when ttey were refiuked 'mocked the messengers
If God and despised his words and misused his
1 ;= • (9 Ph ^R»-'»l The whole conception of
?reSrj w a^ not that of a mere individual, but
that of a^Igt from which the individual could
nrL'uToF'Sk.C.ES.-It foUowB from the
forecoS" paragraphs that the value of Chronicles
Unot mliinly that of an accurate record of past
Lvent^. Nevertheless, ite value is real and ^eat
U is, however, the value more of a sermon than of
''V.'wTmust, indeed, remember that there is a certain negative historical value m the fact hat Ch aerees with S and K to so large an extent. It is not S independent witness, but at 'ea^t it appears hat as to the main course of the pre-exil.c h'^lory there was, when Ch was written, no variant tradition which the author thought worth noticing.
2 We must remember, further, that there may be good historical material in matter I-ecul ar to Ch ^a in the genealogical lists and soii.e scattered m.idents?s;eKuenen,^Kittel, Gray),, a though he
determination of its limits and the mterpretation of it will reiiuire critical acumen. "3 VU knowledge the author f^ves ns of h s 0^ time also is historically important. The fatt that he clothes' old history ^^^th \iis own contemporary
CHRONICLES, I. AND II.
habits makes his o«-n time more intelligible to us We understand better how religious .Jews thought J f^ll in the -ird cent B.C. This enlivens and ^°tal Les l"e J^riod for us. and prepares us bette, to apprecVaL'the conditions of t^le work of Jesu.
■^1 fee'Sors selection of matter emphasizes the fundamental and permanent elements m the history He gives only a one-sided view of David, and yTt he thereby throws stress on. David s real thoJ'h as we know, not unwavering desire for rthtiiousness He thinks chiefly of the Southern Kl^'dom but that kingdom is the one of. historical imoSrtance in the development of religion. And '^^^:ilLr details. In Lis, as in the particula^rs following, he served his own age, and the service
"°f 'HifbeUerS God was intense, as one actively governing the world, punishing the evd and fewaX^ the good, demanding obedience and w^r^hi'-but lonVsuirering and gracious to H people in spite of their sin. There is at times something mechanical m his conception, but it is
^^T"&: muluSor us the value and the limita^ tions of the law in spiritual education. Obedience toTs smallest requirements -as an avenue to Ood^ Formalism, the subordmation of the moral to t e ceremonial, is the accompanying ganger and the Chronicler did not wholly escape it. But the law reaUy wis a means of spiritual growth, and this the Chronicler exemplifies. Devotion to it did not exclude some breadth of spiritual sympathy, as ?he beauUful passage 2 Ch 30>- distincUy shows
7. He bears witness, also, to the value ot t e lit ir^rical element in religion. ^\ orehip s to him
thought, too, has its dangers. Ihe essence 01 worship is always in the soul of the worshipper. Sut th^ ideal of Worship includes both the genuine spirit and the fitting expression of it, and the dhronicler teaches here a permanent lesson.
Thus Ch illustrates for us God's use of a pro- fessedly historical ^mting to enforce His truth l^th in^spite of, and bv means of, the very qualities which impair its excellence as pure histoiy.