VII. Another feature in the literary condition of our books must be noticed, viz., that the compiler, in arran- ging his materials, and adopting the very words of the documents used by him, has not always been careful to avoid the appearance of contradiction. Thus the men- tion of the staves of the aiji remaining ui their place
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"unto tliis day" (I Kings viii, 8) does not accord with the account of the destruction of tlie Temple (2 Kings XXV, !')• i lie mention of Elijah as the only prophet of the Lord left (1 Ivings xviii, 22; xix, 10) has an ap- pearance of disagreement with xx, 13,28,35, etc., though xviii, 4, xix, 18 supply, it is true, a ready answer. In 1 Kings xxi, 13 only Naboth is mentioned, while in 2 Kings ix, 2(3 his sons are added. The prediction in 1 Kings xix, 15-17 has no perfect fulfilment in the fol- lowing chapters. 1 Kings xxii, 38 does not seem to be a fulfilment of xxi, ID. The declaration in 1 Kings ix, 22 does not seem in harmony with xi, 28. There are also some smgular repetitions, as 1 Kings xiv, 21 com- pared with 31 ; 2 Kings ix, 29 with viii, 25; xiv, 15, 16, with xiii, 12, 13. But it is enough just to have point- ed these out, as no real difficulty can be found in them. VIII. As regards the sources of wformation, it may truly lie said that in the books of Kings Ave have the narrative of contemporary writers throughout. It has already been observed [see Chronicles] that there was a regular series of state annals both for the kingdom of Judah and for that of Israel, which embraced the whole time comprehended in the books of Kings, or at least to the end of the reign of Jehoiakim (2 Kings xxiv, 5). These annals are constantly cited by name as " the Book of the Acts of Solomon" (1 Kings xi, 41) ; and, after Sol- omon, " the Book of the Clironicles of the kings of Ju- dah, or Israel" (e. g. 1 Kings xiv, 29 ; xv, 7 ; xvi. 5, 14, 20; 2 Kings X, 34; xxiv, 5, etc.) ; and it is manifest that the author of Kuigs had them both before him while he drew up his history, in which the reigns of the U\o king- doms are harmonized, and these annals constantly ap- pealed to. (Similar phraseology is used in Esther x, 2, vi, 1, to denote the official annals of the Persian empire. Public documents are spoken of in the same way in Neh. xii, 23). But, in addition to these national annals, there were also extant, at the time that the books of Kings Avere compiled, separate works of the several prophets M'ho had lived in Judah and Israel, and which probably bore the same relation to the annals as the historical parts of Isaiah and Jeremiah bear to those portions of the annals preserved in the books of Kings, i. e. were, in some instances at least, fuUer and more copious accounts of the current events, by the same hands which drew up the more concise narrative of the annals, though in oth- ers perhaps mere duplicates. Thus the acts of Uzziah, Anitten by Isaiah, Avere very likely identical for sub- stance with the history of his reign in the national chronicles ; and part of the history' of Hezekiah we know was identical in the chronicles and in the prophet. The chapter in Jeremiah relating to the destruction of the Temple (ch. lii) is identical with that in 2 Kings xxiv, XXV. In later times some have sujiposed that a chap- ter in the projjhecies of Daniel was used for the national chronicles, and appears as Ezra i. (Comp. also 2 Kings xvi, 5 with Isa. vii, 1 ; 2 Kings xviii, 8 with Isa. xiv, 28-32). As an instance of verbal agreement, coupled with greater fulness in the prophetic account, see 2 Kings XX compared with Isa. xxxviii, in which latter alone is Ilezekiah's u-riting given.
These other works, then, as far as the memorj' of them has been preser\-ed to us, were as follows (see Keil's Apuloff. Vers.). For the time of David, the book of Samuel the seer, the book of Nathan the prophet, and the book of Gad the seer (2 Sam. xxl-xxiv with 1 Kings i, being probably extracted from Nathan's book), which seem to have been collected — at least that portion of them relating to David — into one work called "the Acts of David the king" (1 Chron. xxix, 29). For the time of Solomon, " the Hook of the Acts of Solomon" (1 Kings xi, 41 ), consisting probably of parts of the " Book of Na- than the prophet, the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilon- itc, and the visions of Iddo the-scer" (2 Chron. ix, 29). For the time of Kehoboam, " the words of Shemaiah the projjhet, and of Iddo the seer concerning genealogies" (2 Chron. xii, 15). For the time of Abijah, " the storj' (d'^l^a) of the prophet Iddo" (2 Chron. xiii, 22). For
the time of Jehoshaphat, " the words of,Tehu,the son of Hanani" (2 Chron. xx,34). For the time of Uzziah, " the writings of Isaiah the prophet" (2 Chron. xxvi, 22). For the time of Hezekiah, " the vision of Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz" (2 Chron. xxxii, 32). For the time of JNIanasseh, a book called " the saymgs of the seers," as the A.^^., following the Sept.,Yidg., Kimchi, etc., rightly renders the passage, in accordance with ver. 18 (2 Chron. xxxiii, 19), though others, following the grammar too servilely, make Chozai a proper name, because of the absence of the article. For the time of Jeroboam II, a prophecy of "Jonah, the son of Amittai the prophet, of Gath-hepher," is cited (2 Kings xiv, 25) ; and it seems likely that there were books containing special histories of the acts of EUjah and Elisha, seeing that the times of these prophets are described with such copiousness. Of the latter Gehazi might well have been the author, to judge from 2 Kings viii, 4, 5, as Elisha himself might have been of the former. Possibly, too, the prophecies of Azariah, the son of Oded, in Asa's reign (2 Chro:(. xv, 1), and of Hanani (2 Chron. xvi, 7) (unless this latter is the same as Jehu, son of Hanani, as Oded is juit for Az- ariah in XV, 8), and Micaiah, the son of Imlah, in Ahab's reign; and Eliezer, the son of Dodavah, in Jehosha- phat's; and Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, in Jeho- ash's ; and Oded, in Pekah's ; and Zechariah, in Uzziah's reign ; of the prophetess Huldah, in Josiah's, and oth- ers, may have been preserved in writing, some or all of them. These works, or at least many of them, must have been extant at the time when the books of Kings were compiled, as they certainly were extant much later when the books of Chronicles were put together by Ezra. But whether the author vised them all, or only those duplicate portions of them which were embodied in the national chronicles, it is impossible to say, seeing he quotes none of them by name except the acts of Sol- omon and the prophecy of Jonah. On the other hand, we cannot infer from his silence that these books were unused by him, seeing that neither does he quote by name the Vision of Isaiah as the chronicler does, though he must, from its recent date, have been familiar with it, and seeing that so many parts of his narrative have every appearance of being extracted from these books of the prophets, and contain narratives which it is not likely would have found a place in the chronicles of the kmgs. See 1 Kings xiv, 4, etc. ; xvi, 1, etc., xi ; 2 Kings xvii, etc.