The religious standpoint of the writer of Kings is that of the Book of Deuteronomy. He is deeply imbued with the spirit of this book, and his lan- guage is strongly coloured by its phraseology (see below).
Tims his aim is to apply to the past history of his race, from the time of Solomon and onward to his own day, the Deuteronomic standard, and to exemiilify tiie view that prosperity is to be traced to a faithful regard for tiiis standard, failure and cata.strophe to its deliberate repudiation. The lending principles of Deut. uinjn which the writer of Kings desires to lay stress may he said, in the main, to be two : (i.) wholehearted devotion to J" as Israel's only Goit, an obligation based upon the fact that J" has made choice of Israel from among the nations as His special possession, (ii.) Sacri- ficial worship of J" to be conducted only at one centre, viz. at the temple at Jerusalem, the place which J" has cho.sen to set His name there. Con- formity to these two principles is made the test to wliich the deeds of individual kings are brought, and in accordance with which a verdict is pro- nounced upon their characters.
The writer's ideal of kingship is David, the faithful worshipper and servant of J'. The piety of Dand is repeatedly the norm to which the action of his descendants is referred, and, when the times are darkest and apostasy most rampant, it is for David's sake that J' still keeps a ' lamp' alight for him at Jerusalem.
Accordinglj-, the marked prosperity of the earlier part of Solomon's reign is due to the fact that he ' laved J", walking in the statutes of David his father' (I 3'). It is true that a qualification has to be abided, — ' only he sacrificed and burnt inccn.se in the high places,' a mode of action alien to the enactment ol Deut. with regard to the central sanctuary (Dt IV- nl.). This, however, can be lightly pas»e<l over, in view of the fact that the tempfe at Jenisalein was not yet built— a ]ioint in excuse wliich is expressly cit«d (v.'), api'iiniitly by some later reviser of the text (see below on eh. 3). The building of the t«mple by Sohimon,
as the sanctuary of J''8 choice, receives Hpeiially detailed treatment (5-7); its de<lication allorifs «co|>e for the utmost empha-sis which can Ih.- laid upon its imi>ortance as the centre of J "s manifesta-
tion to His people (ch. 8), and is the occasion of a renewal of the iiromises made to Solomon upon the condition of his faithful adlicrence to the spirit of the Deuteronomic code (ch. 'J'"-).
The decay of Solomon's power is traced (ch. 11) to his marriage alliances with foreign women in deliberate infringement of J'"b command (Dt 7''*, Ex :«'"- '• J ; cf. Jos 23' D\ and the conseiiuent introduction of their idolatrous cults. This leads directly to the division of the kingdom, arid the irrevocable loss of ten tribes to the house ot David.
Jeroboam, the first monarch of the new kingdom of Israel, though J'"s appointed agent in bringing about the disruption (ch. U'-*"-), yet no soonec succeeds to power than he sows the seeds of the ruin of the Northern Kingdom. The introduction of the calf-worship (ch. VZ^'-) is regarded by the writer as the great blot upon Israel's history ; and that not only as the worship of J" under an outward sj'mbol in contravention of the second command- ment, but also as being, so far as the kingdom of the ten tribes was concerned, a fatal blow aimed against the centralization of worship at the temple in Jerusalem. It is on account of tlie maintenanie of this cult of the calves up to the fall of the N. Kingdom that a uniformly unfavourable verdict is passed by the writer upon every king of Israel, even upon Jehu, who was most zealous as an eradicator of the foreign cult of Ba'al-Mel^art (II 10="-"). n iT'-is-a-a presents us with the writer's reUeclions upon the causes which brought about the destruction of the kin^'dom of Israel, and, among other forms of idolatry cited as instances of unfaithfulness to J', the ' great sin ' of Jeroboam occupies the crowning position (vv.'*-").
The kingdom of Jiidali, as the heritage of the house of David and the seat of J"'s sanctuary at Jerusalem, is regardeil by the writer with more favourable eyes. Certain of its kings — Asa, Jehoshai)hat, Jehoash, Amaziah, Azariali, and Jotham — have a more or less favourable estimate taken of their characters, though in every ciuse it is mentioned to their disadvantage that ' the high places were not removed,' i.e. that the sacrificial worship of J" was conducted elsewhere than at the central sanctuary only. In the cases of Hezekiah and Josiali the writers verdict is one of unqualified approval. This is because Hezekiah appears as the initiator of a religious reformation which aims at the removal of the high places (II 18'")— a policy which, after the idolatrous reaction under Maiia.s.sen and his son Amon, is full}- carried out by Josiah upon the lines of the Deuteronomic code, which was discovered in the temple during the 18th year of his reign (II 22"- ; see DEUTERONOMY).
It is this Deuteronomic reformation which, according to Kings as it stands in its present form, avails to delay the doom pronounced upon the kingdom of Judah on account of the ai>osta.«v of Mana.s.seh (II 2l'»-'» 2-J'»-»). Perhaps, in the view of the first editor of the book, it might have availed to save the kingdom and to re.store it to its pristine glory. This is a question which de|>end8 mainly upon consideration of the dat« which is to lie a.s.slgned for the editing of Kings, and the char- acter and extent of the additions which the U>ok has received in later times.