2. Although no direct quotations are referred to other documents, it seems certain from the style, and from various minor touches, that the compiler also utilised detailed accounts of great prophets like Elijah, Elisha, and Micaiah son of Imlah, which had been drawn up by literary students in the Schools of the Prophets. The stories of prophets and men of God who are left unnamed were derived from oral traditions so old that the names had been forgotten before they had been committed to writing.[8]
3. The work of the compiler himself is easily traceable. It is seen in the constantly recurring formulæ, which come almost like the refrain of an epic poem, at the accession and close of every reign.
They run normally as follows. For the Kings of Judah:--
"And in the ... year of ... King of Israel reigned ... over Judah." "And ... years he reigned in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was ... the daughter of.... And ... did that which was {right/evil} in the sight of the Lord."
"And ... slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the City of David his father. And ... his son reigned in his stead." In the formulæ for the Kings of Israel "_slept with his fathers_" is omitted when the king was murdered; and "_was buried with his fathers_" is omitted because there was no unbroken dynasty and no royal burial-place. The prominent and frequent mention of the queen-mother is due to the fact that as _Gebira_ she held a far higher rank than the favourite wife.
4. To the compiler is also due the moral aspect given to the annals and other documents which he utilised. Something of this religious colouring he doubtless found in the prophetic histories which he consulted; and the unity of aim visible throughout the book is due to the fact that his standpoint is identical with theirs. Thus, in spite of its compilation from different sources, the book bears the impress of one hand and of one mind. Sometimes a passing touch in an earlier narrative shows the work of an editor after the Exile, as when in the story of Solomon (1 Kings iv. 20-26) we read, "And he had dominion over all the region _on the other side of the river_," _i.e._, west of the Euphrates, exactly as in Ezra iv. 10. Here the rendering of the A.V., "on this side the river," is certainly inaccurate, and is surprisingly retained in the R.V. also.[9]
5. To this high moral purpose everything else is subordinated. Like all his Jewish contemporaries, the writer attaches small importance to accurate chronological data. He pays little attention to discrepancies, and does not care in every instance to harmonise his own authorities.[10] Some contradictions may be due to additions made in a later recension,[11] and some may have arisen from the introduction of marginal glosses,[12] or from corruptions of the text which (apart from a miraculous supervision such as was not exercised) might easily, and indeed would inevitably, occur in the constant transcription of numerical letters closely resembling each other. "The numbers as they have come down to us in the Book of Kings," says Canon Rawlinson, "are untrustworthy, being in part self-contradictory, in part opposed to other Scriptural notices, in part improbable, if not impossible."[13]
6. The date of the book as it stands was _after_ B.C. 542, for the last event mentioned in it is the mercy extended by Evil-merodach, King of Babylon, to his unfortunate prisoner Jehoiachin (2 Kings xxv. 27) in the thirty-seventh year of his captivity. The language--later than that of Isaiah, and earlier than that of Ezra--confirms this conclusion. That the book appeared before B.C. 536 is clear from the fact that the compiler makes no allusion to Zerubbabel, Jeshua, or the first exiles who returned to Jerusalem after the decree of Cyrus. But it is generally agreed that the book was _substantially_ complete before the Exile (about B.C. 600), though some exilic additions may have been made by a later editor.[14] "The writer was already removed by at least six hundred years from the days of Samuel, a space of time as long as that which separates us from the first Parliament of Edward I."