ISM * ) BS49I copy I THE BIBLE- WORK THE OLD TESTAMENT. VOL. YIL 1 ^iitgs xii-xxiL, 2 fvings, 2 C^rciikUs x-xxxvi., (Bini, gc^emta^, Esther, |saialj, Jfoiir Cljaptas, Icrnitialj, drigbtccix Cljapters. KINGDOM OF ISRAEL, KINGDOM OF JUDAH, CAPTIVITY AND RETURN. HISTORY AND LITERATURE OF THE FOUR SILENT CENTURIES. THE REVISED TEXT, .ARRANGED IN SECTIONS ; WITH COMMENTS SELECTED FROM THE CHOICEST, MOST II.I,UMIN.\TING AND HELPFUL THOUGHT OF THE CHRISTIAN CENTURIBa. PREPARED BT J. GLENTWORTH 'T3UTLER, D.D. NEW YORK: THE BUTLER BIBLE-WORK COMPANY, 85 BIBLE HOUSE. 1894. CorTRioHT. 1894, By J. GLKNTWORTH BUTLEB. OOTS'TENTS OF THR VOLUME. CAsa INDEX OF THE HISTORY. 8 CHAPTERS AND VERSES OF THE BOOKS 6 POINTS TO BE NOTED RESPE(;TINQ THIS VOLUME, ... fl THE HISTORY IN 72 SECTIONS ft-634 AUTHORS CITED BS-VfiS? INDEX OF THE HISTORY. SECTION PAOS 1 Preliminary: Suggestive Thoughts Bearingupon the Character and Relations of the Old Testament History ; Witness of the Monuments to its Truthfulness. 9 3 Books of Kings and ('hronicles. 34 3 Dated Events from Jeroboam to the Exile, by Willis J. Beecher, D.D. 41 4: Eevolt of the Ten Tribes, and Division of the Kingdom. 1 Kings la : 1-20; 3 Chronicles 10 : 1-19. 56 History of thk Kingdom of Israel. 5 Eeign of Jerokoam, the First King. 1 Kings 13 : ar)-3.3 ; 13 : 1-34 ; 14 : l-i!0. 64 6 Reigns of Nadab, Baasha, Elah, and Zimri. 1 Kings 15 : 35-31 ; IG : 1-20. 79 7 Reign of Omri. 1 Ki)ujs 16 : 21-28. 83 8 Reign of Arab (Begun). 1 A7?;ys 16 : 29-34. 88 9 Elijah Announces Drought to Ahab. At the Brook Cherith and with the Widow of Zarephath. 1 Kings 17 : 1-34. 93 10 Eli.iah at Carmel : Meeting with Obadiah and Ahab ; Contest with Baal's Prophets before Assembled Israel ; Immediate Results. 1 Kings 18 : 1-40. 103 11 Elijah's Flight to Iloreb ; Jehovah's Treatment of his Dis- couraged Spirit. 1 Kings 19 : 1-21. 118 12 Arab's Double Victory over Benhadad. 1 Kings 20 : 1-43. 130 13 Ahab and Naboth. Sacrilegious Murder bv Jezebel. 1 Kings 21 : 1-39. " 135 14 Ahab Defeated by Benhadad, and Slain. 1 Kinqs 22 : 1-40 ; 3 67;roH/fte 18': 1-34. ' 143 15 Reign of Ahaziah. 1 Kings 22 : 51-53 ; 2 Kings 1 : 1-18. 149 16 Elijah's Translation, and Elisha's Succession. 2 Kings 2 : 1-18. 155 \7 Reign of Jehoram. 3 Kings 3 : 1-27. 164 18 Six Miracles of Elisha : Spring at Jericho Healed; Mockers at Bethel Punished ; Prophet's Widow Supplied with Oil ; Shunamite's Son Restored ; Poisoned Pottage Purified ; Loaves and Corn Distributed ; Lost Axe-head Recovered. 2 Kiwjs 2 : 10-35 ; 4 : 1-44 ; G : 1-7. 19 Naaman's Leprosy Removed ; Infliction upon Gehazi. 5 : 1-37. 2© ■ Elisha Delivers Jehokam from Syrian Invasions. 0 : 8-33. 21 Siege and Deliverance of Samaria. 2 Kings C 7 : 1-30. 22 Shunamite's Land Restored. Elisha and Hazael. 8 : 1-15. 23 Eeign of Jehu (Begun). He Slays Jehoram, A (of Judah), and Jezebel. 3 Kings 9 : 1-37. 169 3 Kings 185 3 Kings 199 : 34-33 ; 205 3 Kings 212 lUAZIAH 217 STNOPSJs OF rim justort. RKCTION 584 Slavs Ahab's Sons, Aiiaziaii's Rretliren, and Baal's Worship- jiers. His Dual li. 'Z Kiiujs \^) -A-m. 234 25 Ki'if,nis of JiciioAiiAZ and JiiiiuAsn. Elislia's Sickness and Deatli. The After Miracle. 2 Kings 13 : 1-^5. 233 26 Keign of Jekohoam II. 3 Kinys 1-1 : 33-39. 242 27 ileigns of Zkchahiah, Shallu.m, Menahem, and Pekaiiiah. 3 Kinys 15 : 8-3tJ. 246 28 Keigns of Pekaii and Hoshea. 2 Kings 15 : 27-31 ; 17 : 1-5. 249 29 Israel Carried to Assyria. Eeasons Assigned for their Cap- tivity. Samaria Kepeopled in Part bv Assyrian Colonists. Ten'Tribes not Lost. 3 Kings 17 : 6-41 ; 18 : 9-12. 252 KlNODOit OF JuDAH. aO Reign of Rehoboam. 2 Chronicles 11:1-23; 13:1-16; 1 Kings Vi : 21-34 ; 14 : 21-31. 205 31 Reign of Ahijah. 3 Chronicles 13 : 1-33 ; 1 Kings 15 : 1-8. 273 32 Reign of Asa. 3 Chronicles, chaps. 14, 15, 16 ; 1 Kings 15 : 9-34. 276 33 Reign of Jeho.shapjiat. 2 67r/o//»7fs, chaps. 17-20 ; 1 Kinys 32 : 41-50. 287 34 Reigns of Jehoram, Aiiaziah, and Atiialiah. 2 Chronicles, chaps. 31, 33, and 33 : 1-15 ; 3 Kings 8 : 10-39 ; 11 : 1-10. 297 35 Reign of Joash. 2 Chronicles 23 : 16-21 ; 24 : 1-27 ; 2 Kings 11 : 17-31 ; 13 : 1-31. 305 36 Reign of Amaziah. 2 Chronicles 25 : 1-38 ; 3 Kings 14 : 1-33. 313 37 Reigns of Uzziah and Jotham. 3 Chronicles 20 : 1-23 ; 27 : 1-9 : 3 Ki^igs 15 : 1-7 ; 33-38. 318 38 Reign of Ahaz. 3 Chronicles 28 : 1-27 ; 3 Kings 10 : 1-20. 334 39 Reign of Hezekiah. His Religious Reformation. 3 Chrnni- cles, chaps. 20-31 ; 3 Kings IS : 1-8. 333 40 " " " Sickness, Recovery, and Psalm of (irati- tude. Embassy from Babylon. Sin and Predicted Punishment. 3 Kings 30 : 1-19 ; 3 Chronicles 33 : 34-31 ; Isaiah, chaps. 38, 39. 343 41 " " " Sennacherib's Army Destroyed. Death of Hezekiah. 2 Kings 18 : 13-37 ; 19 : 1-37 ; 20 : 30. 31 ; Isaiah, chaps. 30, 37 ; 2 Chronicles 32 : 1-33, 33, 33. 356 42 Reigns of Manasseh and Amon. 3 Chronicles 33:1-35; 2 Kings 21 : 1-26. 372 43 Keign of Josiah. 2 Chronicles 34 : 1-33 ; 35 : 1-27 ; 3 Kings 23 : 1-30 ; 33 : 1-30. 380 44 Reigns of Jehoaiiaz and Jehoiakim. Incidents Reported by Jeremiah. 3 Kim/s 23 : 31-37 ; 24 : 1-7 ; 3 Chronicles 30 : 1-8 ; Jeremiah, cliaps. 26, 30, 45. 398 45 Story of tlie Recliabites, and its Lesson.s. Jeremiah 35 : 1-19. 411 46 Reigns of Jehoiachi>j and Zedekiah. 2 Kings 24:8-20; 25 : 1-7, 27-30 ; Jeremiah 39 : 1-7 ; 53 : 1-11, 31-34 ; 2 Chronicles 36 : 9-13. 418 47 Main Incidents of Jeremiah's Connection with Zedekiah. Jeremiah, chaps. 31, 27, 38, 32, 34, 37, 38. 427 STNOPSIS OF THE HISTORT. SECTJOR 48 Jerusalem Destroyed and Judah Taken Captive. 2 Kings 35 : 8-21 ; 2 Chronicles 36 : 14-19 ; Jeremiah 39 : 8-18 ; 52 : 12-30. 447 49 After History of the Remnant of Judah. 2 Ki7igs 25 : 22-20 ; Jeremiah, chaps. 40-44. 456 50 Period of Captivity : Condition of Exiled Jews ; Effects of Captivity. 2 Chronicles 36 : 20-23. Daniel, Isaiah, Deuteron- omy and the Levitical Code as Kelated to Post-Exilic Period. 465 SI The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah. The Law iu their Times. Historical Outline. 476 Chronological Outline of the Persian Period. 483 5!4 Book of Ezra. Introduction. 484 SS First Eeturn under Jeshua and Zerubbabel. JHzra, chaps. 1, 2 ; 2 Chronicles 36 : 22, 23. 488 54 Altar and Sacrifice Restored. Temple Foundation-Work Sus- pended. Ezra, chaps. 3, 4. 496 55 Temple Finished and Dedicated. Passover Kept. Ezra, chaps. 5, 6. 503 56 Ezra Leads a Second Colony to Jerusalem. Ezra, chaps. 7, 8. 511 57 Idolatrous Marriages Annulled. Ezra, chaps. 9, 10. 518 58 Book of Nehemiah. 524 59 Nehemiah's Petition, Commission, and Journey to Jerusalem. Nehemiah, chaps. 1, 2 : 1-11. 539 60 Conference and Decision to Build the Wall. Confronting Adversaries. Nehemiah, chaps. 2 : 12-20 ; 3 : 4. 534 61 Reform of Usury. Neiiemiah's Generosity. Nehemiah b -A-IQ. 545 62 Opposition. Wall Completed. Second Registry. Nehemiah, chaps. 6, 7. 551 618 Convocation for Worship and Covenant. Nehemiah, chaps. 8-10. 55T 64 Nehemiah's Return. Dedication of Wall. Reform of Abuses. Nehemiah, chajjs. 11-13. 569 65 Book of Esther. ■ 580 66 Estiier Displaces Vashti. Mordecai's Service to the King. Esther, chaps. 1, 2. 585 67 Hainan's Destructive Device. Mordecai's Charge to Esther. Esther, chaps. 3, 4. 591 68 Esther's First Banquet. The King's Sleepless Night. Morde- cai Honored. Esther, chaiis. 5, 6. 598 69 Esther Accuses Haman. Mordecai Elevated. Decree in Favor of the Jews. Esther, chaps. 7, 8. 603 70 Jews' Self-Defence. Feast of Purim. Mordecai's Advance- ment. Esther, chaps. 9, 10. 608 71 Between the Testaments. The History. 615 72 " " " Tlie Literature. 624 TABLI^ TO FIND ANY TERSE IN THIS VOLUME. Cbapteks and Veuses : 1 Kings XII. -XXII.; 2 Kings; 3 Chronicles X. -XXXVI. 1 KINGS. 2 KINGS. 2 KINGS. 2 CHRONICKEiS. OHAP. VERSE9. PAOE. [•HAP. VKRSES. PAGE. CHAP. VERSES. PAOE. ^HAP. VERSES. PAOE. XII. 1-20 5(: I. 1-18 149 XVI. 1-20 324 X. 1-19 56 21-24 205 II. 1-18 15.5 XVII. 1-5 249 XI. 1-28 265 25-33 CI 19-25 169 6-41 252 XII. 1-16 265 XIII. 1-34 64 III. 1-27 164 XVIII. 1-8 333 XIII. 1-22 273 XIV. 1-2U (i4 IV. 1-44 169 9-12 252 XIV. 1-15 276 21-31 2(i» V. 1-37 185 13-37 356 XV. 1-19 276 XV. 1-8 273 VI. 1-7 169 XIX. 1-37 356 XVI. 1-14 276 9-24 27« 8-23 199 XX. 1-19 343 XVII. 1-19 287 25-31 79 24-33 205 20, 21 356 XVIII. 1-34 287 XVI. 1-20 79 VII. 1-20 205 XXI. 1-26 372 XIX. 1-11 287 XVII. 1-24 93 VIII. l-lo 212 XXII. 1-30 380 XX. 1-37 287 XVIII. 1-40 103 16-29 297 XXIII. 1-30 380 XXI. 1-20 297 XIX. 1-21 118 IX. 1-37 217 31-37 398 XXII. 1-12 297 XX. 1-43 130 X. 1-3G 224 XXIV. 1-7 398 XXIII. 1-15 297 XXI. 1-29 135 XI. 1-10 297 8-20 418 10-21 305 XXII. 1-40 U3 17-21 305 XXV. 1-7 418 XXIV. 1-27 305 41-50 287 XII. 1-31 305 8-21 447 XXV. l-2« 313 5l-:)3 149 XIII. 1-35 233 22-26 456 XXVI. 1-23 318 XIV. 1-22 23-39 313 242 27-30 418 XXVII. 1-9 XXVIII. 1-2; 318 324 XV. 1-7 8-20 27-31 33-38 318 246 249 318 ■ XXIX. 1-30 XXX. 1-27 XXXI. 1-21 XXXII. 1-23 24-31 32, 33 XXXIII. 1-25 XXXIV. 1-33 XXXV. 1-27 XXXVI. 1-8 9-13 14 19 20-23, 333 333 333 356 343 356 372 880 380 398 418 447 406 TABLE TO FIND ANT VERSE IN THIS VOLUME. Chapters Ezra, Kbhgmiah, Esther. EZRA. NEHEMTAH. ESTHER. CHAPTER. PAGE. CHAPTER. PAOK. CHAPTER. ■pktm. I. 488 I. 529 I. 58a II. 488 II. 1-11 529 II. 585 m. 496 12-20 534 III. 591 IV. 496 III. 534 IV. 591 V. 503 IV. 534 V. 598 VI. 503 V. 545 VI. 59S VII. 511 VI. 551 vn. 603 VUI. 511 vn. 551 VIII. 603 IX. 518 VIII. 557 IX. 608 X. 518 IX. X. XI. XII. XIII. 557 557 569 569 569 X. 608 Chapters from Isaiah and Jeremiah. ISAIAH. JEREMIAH. JEREMIAH. CHAPTER. FAQB. CHAPTER. PAOE. CHAPTER. PAGE. XXXVI. XXXVII. XXXVIII. XXXIX. 356 356 343 343 XXI. XXVI. XXVII. XXVIII. XXXII. XXXIV. XXXV. XXXVI. XXXVII. XXXVIII. XXXIX. 1-7 436 398 4.30 430 442 433 411 398 436 436 418 XXXIX. 8-18 XL. XLI. XLII. XLIIL XLIV. XLV. LII. 1-11 12-30 31-34 447 466 456 456 456 456 398 418 447 41S POINTS TO BE NOTED RESPECTING THIS VOLUME. 1. As the closing Historical Volume of the Old Testament, its orderly place is in connection with Volume 111. Volumes IV., V. and VI. (including the Psalms and the Books of Job, I'roverbs, Ecelesiastes and the Song of Solomon) are interposed at the end of Solomon's reign because of the relation of David and Solomon to four of these Books, while the subject-matter of the fifth (the Book of Job) brings it into close affinity with the three Books (mainly) of Solomonic origin. 2. Four chapters of Isaiah and eighteen chapters of Jeremiah are embodied in this volume for the simple reason that these chapters are essentially historical. Their cojitents are necessary to the completeness of the Historical Record, since they contain details either equivalent (and so confirmatory) or additional to those of the Books of Kings and Chronicles. Jeremiah, in particular, furnishes many interesting and instructive personal incidents which disclose with gi-eater fulness the character of the later Kings of Judah, and the causes of the final destruction of the Kingdom ; while he alone records the immediate after history of the Remnant of Judali. 3. Tliis volume presents a measurably full account of the contemporary place and work of all of the Writing Prophets, whose inspired acts and disclosures con- stitute an integral portion of the History, so that a fair knowledge of these Prophets and the substance of their prophecies may be found herein. The vol- ume is thus closely linked with the Prophetic Books which follow, wliile in those Books will be found a corresponding connection at every point with the History as herein recorded. 4. The careful attention of the reader is earnestly invited to the full and mas- terly Chronological Summary, kindly prepared by Professor Willis J. Beecher, con- tained in the Third Section. The method (generally adopted) of attaching isolated dates to specific events is purposely disregarded in this volume, for the sufficient reason tliat no single date of a disconnected event can convey either intelligible or helpful knowledge to a thoughtful reader. But this accurate, thoroughly digested Table of " Dated Events." if only its clear explanations and its related events with their dates are carefully studied at the outset, and afterward continuously referred to, will give an intelligent idea of the period in which every event occurred, since it exhibits such event in its relation to other contemporary events, with which it is more or less directly associated. The special study of this admirable Summary (pages 41-55) and the mastery of its chief points of historical detail is therefore Btronsilv urged upon the reader who seeks to obtain a thorough comprehension of the Inspired History. CLOSING IlISTOPJCAL VOLUME. Section. 1. PRELIMINARY : SUGGESTIVE THOUGHT BEARING UPON THE CHARACTER OF THE OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY, AND ITS RELATIONS TO THE NEW TESTA- MENT ; WITH HELPFUL EXPLANATIONS TOUCHING MINOR POINTS OF PRACTICAL INTEREST CONNECTED WITH THE HISTORY.* TIw Bible from Ood. The existence and personality of God is the great postulate of the soul ; and that being granted, it is at once seen to be botli a possible and a probable thing that He should communi- cate in some way with man in his state of con- scious guilt and spiritual helplessness. The Bible claims to be such a communication ; and we can trace it up through th3 centuries to the dates at which its several component parts were written ; we can establish that its books were written by the men whose names they bear ; and that in their Greek and Hebrew forms they have come down to us with won- derful accuracy, so that we have more certainty that we have Paul's epistles as he wrote them than we have that the letters of Cicero to his friend Attieus are preserved in their original form. All these things are settled for the sacred books precisely as we settle the genuineness and authenticity of other ancient writings. IF. M. Taylor. Whoever will impartially consider the great length and variety of times and circumstances through which these ho'ikti have passed, the many hands through which the copies have gone and by which they have been transcribed, and then observe how few or none of the pas- sai/cs containing any difficulty or inconsistency in them are of any weight or moment that can affect the design or use of the whole — whoever considers this will be so far from being dis- turbed at the difficulties he may find in the pres- ent copies of these or any other of the Il'di/ BookA, that he must conclude it a wonderful ♦ The reader is referred to the first thirty-three pages of Volume III., of which these pages are designed as a sup- plement and completion. Though the topics are, in part, the tiame, the treatment will not be found redundant. B. blessing of Providence that hath preserved these writings so uncorrupt and entire as they are. Pyle. The Bible grew by degrees to its present size ; and as in a house stone is laid on stone and story built upon story, so book was added to book, history to history, prophecy to proph- ecy, gospel to gospel, and one epistle to an- other, till the hands of John laid on the cope- stone, and, standing on the pinnacle of tliis sacred edifice, he pronounced God's wide and withering curse on all who should impair its integrity. Oathrie. The Old Testament history, throtighout a period of some thousand years, written by dif- ferent hands, and at many different times, not only exhibits a series of events, arranged and exclusively designed to pn.'pare the way for the luivent of the Messiah, and the accomplish- ment of the plan of salvation, but has woven into its very texture all the doctrines and duties of Christianity — doctrines and duties not fully developed nor understood till the coming of Christ, but now to be clearly traced in the an- cient records. Can there be a doubt about the Author of the history? It would be as easy to counterfeit the heavens and the earth as to forge such a series of documents. The Bible, then, must be the boo'.i of God. ILiklnne. Who but God could make the Bible'? What eye but that which surveys the world at a glance, and beholds all nations, with their mul- tifarious ills and complicated wants, as they are, and reads with intuitive certainty the moral pulsation of every heart, could see far enough and wide enough and deep enough for such a work? What but the all-comprehensive mind could devi.se a religious system, humble in its grandeur and majestic in its simplicity, which 10 PRELIMINARY. shoulil bp equiilly applicable to men in every nation and eVL-iy aj;e ; which has power to re- claim the lieart and control the life ; to disarm the worlii of its enmity against God ; to restore the wanderer ; raise the disconsolate, and light up a smile on tlie ])ale cheek of death? Surely, this is no common luidcrtakiug. There is but one Heing who ever tliouglit of doing it ; and the volume tliat reveals tliis purpose hiis, writ- ten deeply and indelibly upon its sacred page, ike niyiiiitiirc nf (li'd. Jii'wan. The Scriptures of the Old Testament that have been so faithfully preserved and so fully attested contain the most satisfactory and con- vincing internal evidences of their truth. The character of God which they exhibit, nowhere delineated in the writings of any of the wisest of this world, unenlightened by revelation, is such as carries with it its own confirmation. The character they give of man is verified in the history of every nation and of each indi- vidual. The majesty, purity, and suitableness to the condition of man, of the doctrine they contain — the soundness and unrivalled excel- lence of the moral precepts they inculcate, and the glory of the succeeding dispensation which toward their close they indicate with increas- ing clearness ; and all this confirmed and veri- fied in the minutest particulars by the New Testament Scriptures — form a body of internal evidence, to which nothing but the deep cor- ruption of the human heart could render any one insensible. Ilaldane. We take these Scriptures, and observe their entire coincidence and harmony, through all their extent and amid all their varieties, in the utterance of one vast spiritual system. We go over their whole range and find them all agree- ing upon this, though written by so many and such dilTerent persons : Revelation answering to Genesis across the passage of centuries — Deep calling vuito Deep ; — and the inference seems inevitable that they come to us from God ; that One controlling and infinite Mind hiis been moving in the midst of these changing circum- stances. And then we take the system itself which they reveal to us ; we observe its unity, its viust sublimity, its absolute purity ; we no- tice how it meets all man's wants and satisfies his powers, how it interweaves itself at the edges with the a.scertained truths of philo.sophy or of .science, accepting them all and reconcil- ing their dillcrenees ; we see how it ])<>iiits to other departments and realms of truth harmoni- ous with itself, which God sees constantly, but wliich eye hath not seen nor ear heard, and of which no angelic messenger has brought to us a report — and everywhere we find in this sys- tem the signatures of Divinity. We accept it as from God. Then we look to its results, and they are all beneficent. So we knoio it to be God's. Storm. -^ Tlie Old and New Testaments, Tino Phases of Oiie Reflation. In his chanicteristic and terse way the church father Augustine defines the relation existing between the two Testaments in these words : In Veteri Testamsnto Noinim latet, in N<>m Vetua patet (in the Old Testament, the New lies hid ; in the New, the Old lies open). The full ap- preciation of the fundamental truth contained in these words is becoming more and more a feature of the evangelical biblical research of our day. That the two Testaments represent the two pha.ses of the one revelation. difTering from each other not in kind, but only in de- gree, and that the two form the one revelation and history of revelation from God to fallen man, to restore him to his lost estate, is the ac- cepted position of all but negative scholars. In principle the two Testaments are thus one ; the New is rooted in the Old, and can find its true interpretation only from this standpoint. . . . The entire New Testament consciously and ex prufexHu stands upon the basis of the Old, of which it is the continuation and completion. The words in Luke 24 : 44 are fundamental on this point. And when the New thus refers to the Old, it is solely and alone to the canonical writings of the latter, to the Palestinian collec- tion of Hebrew sacred books. It is a singular and most significant fact that neither directly nor indirectly have any other writings of that day and generation exerted a material influence upon the contents of the New Testament. There is not a single indication of a non-canoni- cal book having been quoted or having in the substance of the New Testament books influ- enced the writers or the speakers. The appeal, direct and indirect, is always to the canonical books of the Old as the sole authority and source of knowledge. The New Testament literature, which by no means is hermetically scaled to other writings, as is seen from its use of Septuagint, its citations of Greek poets, its moving and living in the atmosphere of its age, in the estalilishment of its principles and doc- trines, builds upon and appeals solely and alone to the canonical writings of the Old Testa- ment, and to these alone, because they and they alone are the inspired Revelation of God to num. For the New Testament the unity of the Old is a fixed and fundamental fact. RELATION OF OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS. 11 And tliis is in full agreement with the ohar- acter of the biblical books. They are the rec- ord of a gradual unfolding of God's plans for the redemption of man, and, in fact, this is the golden chord that connects them all and makes them one. The sacred literature of no other people can lay claim to this unique feature. While it may be diflicult at present to assign to each and every book its peculiar position and necessary role in the development, yet it must not be forgotten that some of the books are as yet imperfectly understood. But this is known, that these books, as far as clearly understood, represent the different stages in one process, the development of principles from germ to full fruit. In this process these books, one and all, have some portion or part to record ; and it would be difficult to show that even the small- est could be omitted without iu one or the other material point injuring our understanding of the unfolding of God's kingdom on earth ; and. on the other hand, there is no material stage in this process on which the canonical writings are silent. Internally they constitute a one- ness ; their unity is undeniable. Comparative religious science can claim no phenomenon of this kind for any other nation. Even when under the scalpel of modern criticism, the truth that the Scriptures practically constitute one volume, consisting of parts mutually comple- mentary and supplementary, remains. Sc/iodde. Christianity recognizes in the Old Dispensa- tion its divinely ordained preparatory stage. Tliis peculiar connection between the two Testa- ments, their different stages of revelation being fraught with one and the same spirit and con- stituting a marvellous whole, is a witness to the Divine origin of the Jeirdnh, as well as the Christian religion. When we examine into the Books of the two Testaments we find, both in their history and dof:trine, a connection extend- ing through centuries, a gradual progress which points to one comprehensive plau which could by no possibility have had its origin in the mind of short-lived man, but can only be rea- sonably explained by that Divine causation to which the Bible itself refers all things ; and if we proceed further to test this conclusion by comparing it with our knowledge of other kinds, we shall find that not only do the Di- vine revelations intimately agree together, but with the condition and needs of our human nature, with the fundamental relations of the universe, and with the being of God. Incom- parable wisdom, holiness, and love breathe on us from the Scripture pages, and perfcc:tly sat- isfy the demands of conscience and the search of the intellect after the highest truth. Hess of Zurich says: "Nothing hiis so convinced me of the truth of Christianity, its revelation, history, and doctrine, as the having found in the sacred records, on the one hand, what per- fectly satisfies the needs of humanity for time and eternity, and, on the other hand, in the Divine provision toward this end such a con- nected progress from small to great, from the particular to the universal, as would have been impossible to human invention." Aiibeiieii. The full sense of the New Testament can only be reached by a thorough study of the Old Testament upon which it was founded. The connection between them is a living or- ganic connection, as between the seed and the fruit. It was the same Being, the same Divine will, the same fundamental principles of sal- vation that were taught in the one as in the other. These facts are essential to the right understanding of Scripture, and he must sorely miss the meaning of the New Testament who lets go his hold upon the conviction of the eter- nal truth of the Old. Oardiner. Ilistorij tlie Basis of Both Testaments. Vfc cannot read the Old Testament without seeing that the whole of it rests on the basis of a history — the history contained in what we call the boolvs of Moses. Now, if you turn to the New Testament, you will find that it be- gins, in like manner, with a history : the his- tory of the four Gospels ; and what the Penta- teuch is to the Old Testament, the Gospels are to the New. Here, then, is a symmetry in the two parts of the Bible. Each begins with a history which pervades and inspires all that follows. Only, the two histories are different, while they are connected. The one is that of a divinely chosen people, selected for a special purpose. The other is that of a Divine Per- son. And a person is superior to a people merely as a people, as a corporate body, for a person has an immortality : a nation has not ; and a person can be charged with far higher lessons than a nation. The two histories are on two planes, a lower and a higher ; the lower is imperfect without the higher, and the higher assumes and completes the lower. Kcr. Christianity, including therein the dispensa- tion of the Old Testament, is in nothing more distinguished from the other religions of the world than in its objective or liistorical char- acter. The religions of Greece and Rome, of Egypt, India, Persia, and the East generally, were speculative systems, which did not even seriously postulate a historical basis. But it is 13 PnELIMINART. otlicrwisp with the rpliffion of the TJible. There, whether we look to the Old or the New Testa- ment, to the Jewish dispensation or to tlie Christian, we find a sclienic of doctrine which is bound up with facts ; whicli depends abso- lutely upon them ; which is null and void with- out thcin ; and wliich may be regarded as for all practical purposes established if they are shown to deserve acceptance. As a religion of fact, and not merely of opinion— ;us one whose chief scene is this world, and whose main doc- trines are events exhibited openly before the eyes of men — iis one, moreover, which, instciui of affecting a dogmatic form, adopts from first to last, with very rare exceptions, the histori- cal shape, the religion of the Bible comes neces- sarily within the sphere of the historical in- quirer, and challenges him to investigate it ac- cording to what he regards as the principles of his science. Moreover, iis Christianity is in point of fact connected intimately with certain records, and as those records extend over a period of several thousands of years, and " pro- fess to contain a kind of abridgment of the his- tory of the world," its points of contact with pro- fane history are (practically speaking) infinite ; and it becomes impossible for the historical in- quirer to avoid the question, in what light he is to view the documents which, if authentic, must exercise so important an influence over his studies and conclusions. G. R. Thkee Characteristics of the Hebrew Scriptures. An examination of the chief characteristics of the Hebrew Scriptures indicates ; a Vital Connection between Religion and Uistory ; a unity of thought, sentiment, and practical aim uiukrlyini/ their great variety of form, and apro- gremire derelopment of religious doctrine, not final, but iiointing forward to a fuller unfold- ing. 1. In these Old Testament Scriptures, religion in shown us tlm soul of history ; the supreme reality and central power in human affairs ; the deepest foundation of human life. The Bible account of the origin of rei,ioios is that man began his journey on this globe not as a deserted orphan, turned adrift to seek God as best he could, but in communion with the Father of spirits. God talked with him, and he could talk with God. God marked for him the path of duty, and it lay in his choice to walk in it or to wander from it. Compared with recent hypotheses of the slow and ))ainful u.scent of man from irrational, speechless, law- less, godless apehood, the Bible account has at .all events the advantage of dignity, beauty, intelligiblencss, and analogy with the known facts of human experience. In Genesis G«i is shown as the ultimate source of all being, pre- paring the earth from the beginning<>o be the home of man. Man's very existence is traced to God's purpose to realize His own likeness in human nature. 5Ian is shown ius conversant with God, its soon as he began to know himself and the world around him. The foundations of marriage, property, labor, moral duty and responsibility, are all laid in God's revealed will, and man's conscious relation to his Maker. Moral evil, or sin, is represented iis wilful dis- obedience to the known will of God. The ten- dency to evil is shown to be hereditary as well as personal, and teeming with seeds of in- crease. Human life is reganled as a whole ; and God is seen as the Ruler and .ludge of Man- kind, as well as the personal Friend and Saviour of ever}' one who fears and tnists Him. F.\ITH, as the mainspring and sheet anchor of the re- ligious life ; Prayer, as direct personal con- verse with the Unseen Father of spirits, and as actually heard and answered by Him ; and Divine Providence as regulating all human affaira from the greatest to the least, are so ex- emplified in these ancient Hebrew annals, that the story of Abraham, of .lacob, of Joseph, pos- sesses an uudecaying charm for Christian minds of the highest spiritual culture. They are typi- cal for all time. No example of after ages has been able to cast them into the shade. In the " Pentateuch" there is no break of continuity. The narrative passes briefly over the centuries, at first of peaceful prosperity, then of bitter adversity, during wliich Israel's descendants " increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty." It hsistens to tell the story of the deliverance from bondage, and of the creation of an organized nation. AVith the narrative of the Exodus, the forty years in the wilderness, and the conquest of Cansiun, is interwoven the record of the Na- tional Code and Constitution, political, relig- ious, moral, and social. The historic reality of the Divine manifestation to Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, is assumed as the necessary rtarting- point of God's dealings with their descendants. His promise to Abraham i.s treated iw a " cove- nant," to which Divine faithfulness stanletion. The univereal deluge, the con- fusion of the tongues at Babel, and the destruc- tion of the cities of the plain by fire from heav- en, were visible and immediate interpositions of God for the punishment of wicked men, dif- f;'rent from Ilis usual mode of procedure in the government of the world. On the separation of Israel, as a nation, from the rest of mankind, and onward for many centuries, a remarkable train of miracidous interpositions was inter- woven with their history and laws. Both their character and the relation in which they stand to that history, of which they form so essential 8 pait, mark the total contrariety between them and all itretended miracles, the falsity of which never disturbs the train of those histories in whicli they are narrated. But eitlier the whole of the liistory of the Israelites is false, or the accounts of the miracles which it records must be true. If that people p;isscd through the sea, ' as the liistory testilies, it must have been by mirsiele. If they remained forty years in the wilderness, they must have been miraculously fed while there. All the eveuts related in the history depend upon the truth of that public and long-continued minu'idous agency, with- out which they could not have had i)laec. These miracles were recorded at tli<^ time wlien they occurred, and are not only minutely detailed in a wa)' that stamps their authenticity, but are constantly appealed to both in the acts of pub- lic government, in the legislation, and in the execution of the laws. Unless the people of Israel had seen and known them to bo facts, they never could have been inllueneed by such appeals. The whole train uf miraculous interposition from the beginning, before there wius any writ- ten rev<'lation, materially contributed to main- tain tile knowledge and worship of God in the world. To Israel, its separated from the other nations, it was essential to the circumstances in which they were placed. Nothing Imt that miraculous Providence under which tlie^- were pl;u-ed could have retainc'd tliem in ol)edien(!C, subdued tlieir incredulity, or impressed on their minds a conviction of the Divine origin and na- ture of that dispensation under which they were placed. But such has been the force of this impression, that all their subse([uent trials and dispersions, and all their disai)i)oiiitments, occasioned by the errors they have eml)raced, have not effaced it to this day. At length, when the purposes intended l)y miraculous in- terpositions were accomplislied, they became gratlually less frequent, till tlie .spirit of i)roph- eey was withdrawn, when they seem to have ceased altogether, not to appear again in Israel till they were renewed by the JMessiah Himself, in a way better adapted to the genius of that more spiritual dispensation which He intro- duced, as well as more illustrative of the benefi- cent nature of the Divine mission of Him who came not to condemn the world, but to save it, l)ut in a way equally beyond the utmost stretch of human power. Ilnldaiic. The Bible is the Book of Jliracles. Men sometimes sadly turn away from the great Book because inspiration is upon every page, and miracle pervades the activity which (ills it from end to end. But believing souls rejoice in the great Bible because it deals with the eternal as well as with the present, with the infinite as well as with the fiuite, because it deals with man, who is the child of God. Only then shall the soul of man rest content in the great Bible, when in the new nature that has come to liim the supernatural becomes his home. P. Bniofci. TuE Law and the Historic.vl Books. The historical books of the Old Testament contain such references, direct and indirect, to the J\nt(itcnch hi-iUinj and codes in tluir united form lis tfie Torah {Law) mediated by Mists, that we are fully justified in the circumstances in inferring, what these histories wouUl plainly have us infer, that they all and severally be- long to the Mosaic period. la the Books of icings, the law of the land, precedent, what is sanctioned in distinction from what is often in vogue is everywhere represented as something that has come down from the father.,. In a surprising number of instances it Li definitely THE LAW AND THE HISTORICAL BOOKS. 23 connected by name with Moses iintl with the institutions of Moses (1 K. 3 : 3 : 8 : 9, 53, 56 ; 2 K. 14 : G ; 28 : 4, 6 ; 21 : 8 ; 23 : 25). Of Jero- boam it is said that he purposely transgressed the law respecting the feast of the seventh month, the Feast of Tabernacles (1 K. 13 : 33). And of Jehu that he took " no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel" (3 K. 10 : 31). In 3 K. 8 : 3, during the famine in Sa- maria, we find a company of lepers treated just as the Levitical statutes enjoin, in their exclu- sion from the camp (Lev. 13 : 46 ; Num. 5 : 3). Other passages represent as something known to every one the hour of morning and evening sacrifice (1 K. 18 : 29 ; 3 K. 3 : 20) ; tlie law oi the trespass-offering and sin-offering (2 K. 13 : 17), and that of the Sal)bath (3 K. 4 : 23 ; cf. 11 : 5 f.). In 2 K. 14 : 6, Amaziali is declared to have acted in a certain matter according to that which was " written in the book of the law of Moses," the code of Deuteronomy being ob- viously referred to (Deut. 24 : 16). A few chap- ters later we are informed concerning the mi.xcd peoples whom the king of Assyria transplanted to the northern kingdom, that they did not " after the law and commandment which the Lord commanded the children of Jacob, whom He named Israel ; with wliom the Lord hiul nuule a covenant and charged them, saying. Ye shall not fear other gods . . . but the Lord who bro\ight you up out of the land of Egypt. . . . And the statutes, and the ordinances, and the law, and the commandment which He wrote for you, ye shall observe to do for ever- more ; and ye shall not fear other gods" (3 K. 17 : 34r-37 ; cf. Deut. 13 : 4, 36). Whence came Elijah the Tishbite? and Oba- diah and Joel, Amos and Hosea, Isaiah and MicahV Unlike in natural gifts and training, they were yet impelled by one spirit ; uttered really but one message. Prophets of two fiercely rival kingdoms, they never waver in their loyalty to one invariable standard and to one King. It was Amos of Judah who, while tending his flocks in Tekoa, heard the call of God, and hurried to confront the liaughty king of Isra(_l an J bis false priests at Bethel. It was Elijah of Israel who won from the people of Judah such love and reverence that, to this day, in- certain ceremonies, their descendants still set for him a chair as an invisible guest. What gave to these men this unity of spirit, this fiery zeal, this mysterious power over kings and people? What was it that took away all sense of fear in the discharge of duty ? Whence that idea of solemn, imperative duty? It was the Mosaic law given amid the awful sanctions of Mount Sinai, that was at once their bond and inspiration ; that ruled them and heartened them. They severally make direct and unmis- takable allusions to it, or its essential liistoric setting. All their utterances are based on such a presupposition. They recognize a covenant made with God through Mosaic mediation. That covenant had not been kept. Their whole activity proclaims a perverse trend of thought and conduct against wliich they relentlessly fight, one and all. Founders of a religion they were not, and could not be, men like these, without a sign of collusion ; but mighty re- formers they were, who set their faces like a flint against a prevailing degeneracy and lapse of the people whom God had chosen for His own. E. G. Bissell. We have no record of any period in the his- tory of Israel subsequent to the occupation of Canaan, at which the Law was not known'; and as far as the evidence of the records that we have is available, it clearly witnesses to the authority and influence of the Law from the very first. Whether or not this evidence is ac- cepted historically, it is certain that there is no one section or era of Hebrew literat\ire, whether it be the Prophets, Psalms, or history, which is free from the traces of an influence which can only be referred to the Law recognized as an authoritative code cf Divine obligation and origin. The entire literature of the Old Testa- ment, unless it is necessary to except such books as Job and Canticles, is penetrated and per- meated with the Influence of the Law. It is the one foundation underlying the whole. We come upon traces of it wherever we search. And it is this fact which gives to the several and widely different component elements of the literatiu'c a bond of cohesion and a substan- tive and substantial unity such as we can dis- cover in no other literature whatever. It is, moreover, a unity which is entirely independent of the individual will of the various writers. It is a phenomenon which arises out of the fact that each separate writer was a member of a nation of whose existence one of the most marked features was the possession of the Law, and which was created and bound together by nothing so much as by it, and by the traditions enshrined in it. From these books of Kings there is not only evidence of the existence of the Tabernacle, which was superseded by the Temple, but there is continual implication of a positive and ex- ternal Law, which the nation and its kings were ever violating. This Law is mentioned explic- itly in 3 K. 33 ; 34, 35, and is called the Law of 24 PliELTMIKAnr. Moses. Some critips have attempted to prove that the finding of tlie book of the Law here mentioned is the earUest indication of its cxist- enee, and that this incident docs actually dis- guise its oriirin. Hut the theory is really too monstrous and visionary to be entertained. It is manifest that the writ<'r of the Kings did not himself regard the discovery of Ililkiah as the origin of tlu^ Law, because in 2 K. 18 ; 4, 6, 13, he tnices the captivity of the ten tribes to their forgetfulness of the Law of Moses, and men- tions tlie destruction by IIe7,ekiah of the brazen serpent that Moses had made. It is impossible to suppose he invented or inserted the narra- tive of this incident to give credit to the newly discovered law of Moses, or to the copy of it which was afterward found in the Temple. There was unquestionably a brazen .serpent de- stroyed by Ilezekiah. and, rightly or wrongly, this was believed to be identical with that msvde by Moses in tlie wilderness. I say rightly or wrongly, for it matters not. What is really important is the fact that toward the end of the eighth century before Christ there was in the national memory a clear recollection of the incident recorded only at Num. 21 : 6, and a supposed relic of it existing. And this there is no reason to doubt. But, of course, if the brazen serpent destroyed by Hezekiah was the one made by Moses, the historic truth of that part of the Pentateuchal liistory is established ; but even if it was not, the supposed incident is shown to have been so old in the national memory, that a vicious accretion of supersti- tious observances hml gathered aro\md it ; and yet, as far as we know, there was nothing to keep alive this memory but the record in Num- bers, and the existence of this particular brazen serpent. We have, then, in the testimony of the books of Kings, evidence to the existence, at k'Jist in part, of the Mosaic history long be- fore the age of Hezekiah. But even before this time, on the testimony of the same books, wc find Amaziah, in the ninth century before Christ, acting in acconlance witli the written precept of Deut. 24 : Ifi, in not slaying the chil- dren of those who liad slain his father. There are, moreover, several indications in the liooks of Kings of verbal ac(iuaintance on the part of the writer with the Law— c.j., 2 K. 17 : 8-15 ; cf. Lev, 5 : 15, 18 ; 7: 7 ; Num. 18 : 9 ; 1 K. 21 : 10 ; ct. Ex. 23 : 28, ami Lev. 24 : 15, 16 ; 1 K. 19 : 10 ; cf. Num. 25 : 11, 13. The conduct of Eli- jah in 1 K. 18 : 40 is in literal accordance with Deut. 13 : 5 and 18 : 20. S. Leat/us. The references in the later Scriptures make us feel sure that the writers had before them some such records as we possess in the Penta- teuch. That at least is the imitression which they are calculated to i>roduce on the mind of any plain reader. Nor must we ever forget that the Historical Books give us only a very brief outline of Israel's course, and do not re- fer to feasts, laws, etc, except where the story makes it necessary. It is indeed only too true that the people did not keep the law. Their hearts were hard, and they were constantly re- lapsing ; but they were severely punished for their disobedience. There have been dark ages in Christendom as there were dark ages in Is- rael, and we must no more infer the non-exist- euce of the Law of Jloses through the one period than we can prove the non-existence of the Gospel of Christ in the other. The tnith is that the theory of a late origin of these books creates far more difliculties than it .solves. To most minds it would be impossible to conceive that the Book of Exoilus was a late invention, when they reflect on the shameful episode con- cerning the golden calf — imbedded as it is in the heart of the Mosaic law. Nor can one un- derstand the purpose of such an elaborate de- scription of the ark of the Tabernacle, of the ritual and ceremonial connected therewith, and of the exact arrangements for moving from place to place, with full details and names of persons and localities, if these descriptions first saw daylight when the history of some of them (notably the Tabernacle) was already a story of the past. We ask ourselves whether there ever was a time, except during the wilderness period, in which the Mosaic and Leviticus legislation could possibly have been imposed on Israel ; and we ask in vain. We see no marks of a forger, and we see no reason for a forgery. On the contrary, each book bears testimony to the candor of the writer, and to his horn-sty of purpose ; and the real reason of the ritual is to be found in the New Testament. In a word, we know of no critical or linguistic arguments which can justify us in disintegrating the Pen- tateuch in the face of all the plain facts of the case as they stand before us in its vivid pages. GirdleMonr. According to the modern school of critics, the work of preparing the sacred books, of recast- ing the alleged history of Moses, and blending into the narrative the doctrines and prescrip- tions of ritualism, one central place of worship, and the distinctions of priests and Levites, was begun in the age of Josiah, and went on till tlie compilation of the historical books, some time after the Exile. According to this school, that period of renaissance or awakening must have THE LAW OF MOSES PROVEN BY THE HISTORY. 25 been a creative religioua age, an age of discov- ery and production, of literary brilliancy in re- ligion, outside of the writings of the prophets. For these writers iiscribe to that age a most complicated and skilful series of literary crea- tions, so adroitly managed and woven in with authentic facts, that they carried the whole na- tion over to the practice of the injunctions of the forgeries without questioning their genuine- ness. But we look in vain for the evidence of such a creative age. There is not a scintilla of historical proof of its existence. The only freshness that appears from the historical evi- dence coming down to us was in the prophets ; and their whole aim and influence was to call the people up to something liigher and more important than ritiudism, to revive the moral and sjiiritual ideas of worsliip and of practical righttousness, which had already been too much covered up and lost sight of by the popular ceremonial. The only creative power of the age of which there is any trace was directed against the very end for which our critics sup- pose the age was ripe. Moreover, they are involved in another diffi- culty. By discarding the accounts in the his- torical books detailing the practice of the cere- monial in the earlier times and holding that it sprang up under the influence of the prophets, they have tliis sti-ange phenomenon on their hands : the introduction among a historical people of a revolutionary ritualism, not only with no record of its introduction, and in an age showing no signs of invention or creation apart from the prophets whose influence was antagonistic, but with no recorded historical preparations for it. Historically uncaused and unannounced, it sprang into such instant daz- zling and bewildering power as to send its glamour back over the past and cause a new history of the preceding times to be written, in which it should have a seeming of the gravity and dignity of hoary age, and this is done in the name of historical criticism by those who think that sacred history is an orderly and nat- ural flow of events, and is to be explained on rational principles. J. E. Diciiicll. In Recapitulation and Conclusion. Wq recognize the fact that the Old Testa- ment, as we now have it, is to all intents and purposes the same as it was in the time of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that He stamps it as a whole with His authority, constantly appeal- ing to it and quoting it as "the Scriptures" and " the Word of God." "We trace these Scriptures back from the time of Christ to that of Nehemiah (b.c. 400), in whose age the canon of the Old Testament seems to have been closed ; and we see sufficient reason for believing that the " Library" of Jewish religious books was the same then as now, though doubtless the sacred text suffered much in the course of transcription between the age of Nehemiah and the period when it was issued in its present condition by the Jewish scribes of Tiberias, circ. 500 .K.x>. We recognize nine literary char- acteristics of the Old Testament which would equally justify a Jew of u.c. 400 or a Christian of A.D. 1900 in believing that the books which make up this Sacred Library are genuine and trustworthy. We see that the numerous casual references to external history contained in these books may be illustrated and confirmed from other sources, and this fact coupled with the plain proofs of the writers' honestj- inclines us to accept the whole of their historical records as veracious, unless very strong proofs are forthcoming to the contrary. We observe that the prophetic writings were not only predic- tive, but also historic and hortative, bearing the same relation to the history that the Epis- tles in the New Testament do to the Acts — con- firming and being confirmed — and that the his torical element in these writings gives great literary weight to the predictive element. We ' then pass to the question of the age and com- pilation of certain books. After considering the general characteristics of the Hebrew lan- guage and the unity of theological diction which exists beneath the diversity of style in the sa- cred writers, noting also the fact that we have no contemporary Hebrew literature by which to test the age of each book, we are led to the conclusion that there were not sufficient grounds for bringing any of the books down from their professed dates, or for dividing up among sev- eral authors books which were professedly is- sued or authorized by one person. This con- clusion justifies us in adhering to the Mosaic origin of the four last books of the Pentateuch — Genesis being in substance pre-Mosaic — and it encourages us to uphold the literary integ- rity of such books as Isaiah, Daniel and Zecha- riah, unless the evidence of their being compila- tions is demonstrative. What shall we say ts these things? We in- vite every reader to ponder over them, and we urge every critic to give them full and fair weight. There are many things we do not know about the compilation and dates and con- tents of the Old Testament, but there is much that we do know. Mistakes have been made by ancient copyists ; notes and interpolations 26 PRELIMINARY. may have foiind their way into the text in early times ; doulits may exist as to tlie age and aiitlioi'shii) of some books ; we may be un- certain as to tlie liistorie foreground oroeeasion of many a psalm and proplieey ; and numerous linguistic questions will be battled over till the end of time ; but, in spite of all these things, we are manifestly on safe literary ground in taking the Old Testament as it stamls, and in using it as Christ and Ilis apostles used it. These venerable Iiooks have been dragged before the court of modern criticism, but they need not be ashamed ; they can stand the full glare of linguistic and literary daylight. They share the fate of the Christian confessors of old time ; and they share their trivuiiph. They testify to Christ, and Christ testifies to them. They bear the mark of God in their histories, their hymns, their predictions. Man is the writer, using human language, human modes of tliought, and often even secular materials ; but God is the Inspirer, and these blessed writ- ings are Ilis lesson books, leading men to feel their need of salvation, keeping up in their hearts from generation to generation a spirit of expectancy, and enabling them to recognize the crucified and risen ,Tesus as the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. R. B. GirdUstonc. (Age and Trueticortluiicss of tfte Old l^estameiU Scrip- tuns.) Let any set of men combine to write such a book as the Uible. Let their plan be laid so as to extend through a period of fifteen hundred years. Let those who shall first enter upon the work obtain others to succeed them during that space of time. Let them write history, poetry, theology, and prophecies concerning the state of the world. Let them at length procure some one to come forward in whom all that they have written shall find its acconiplislunent. Let him be born in the place they had foretold, of the family they had singled out, at the ex- act period they had predicted. Let him be ex- hibited in the most critical situations, in the midst of enlightened, powerful, and determined adversaries, while they still uphold him as per- fect, and defy his enemies to prove the con- trary. Let his own death be a part of their plan, vi'hich he himself shall foretell. Let a number of persons ari.se immediately afterward to carry forward the design, charge the gov- ernment under which he suffered lUi his mur- derers, aflirm that he is alive, and has given them convincing evidence that he will reward them in a futures world. Let these men sup- port their doctrines by an appeal to miracles openly performed before enemies armed with civil ])ower ; and l.'t them adhere to their testi- mony at the expense of life, and all things dear in this world. Let tli^m promulgate a new re- ligion and code of laws, completely subversive of every existing religion on earth, and directly opposed to the indulgence of the strongest pro- pensities of the human heart. Let this religion, by the force of its own evidence, win its way through the world, overthrow every opposing system, extend its triumiihs, and finally estab- lish itself in the most civilized nations, in spite of the most learned, the most determined, and the most powerful adversaries ; and let the character of the leader, as set forward by his associates, be thus vindicated as " the light of the nations." Who does not sec the total im- practicabilitj', the absolute absurdity of such an attempt? As soon might men of under- standing be induced to undertake to climb up to the stars, as to propose to themselves such a scheme ; yet all that has been thus sup- posed has been accomplished in .Jesus Christ. Ilahlune. Witness op Anciext JIonumexts to Old Testament History. As the countries with which Israel had mainly to do were Chaldea, Egypt, Syria, Assyria, the later Chaldean Empire, and finally Persia, it becomes possible to compare the numerous though somewhat C!i.sual statements concern- ing these nations, which the Old Testament contains, with the inscriptions on rock and clay, in palace and temple, which have been brought to light in the course of this century. If these secular references are in the main proved to be accurate and historical, and not mythical, then the triLstworthiness of the writ- ers is so far established thereby ; and if they are trustworthy when dealing with things ex- ternal, there is equal ri'ason to trust them when they relate the internal historj-of their own na- tion. What, then, is the verdict of historical students on this point? It is unanimous that the references to external history in the Old Testament are trustworthy. Perhaps the most striking testimony is to be obtained from the writings of Dr. Schrader, the Professor of Oriental Languages in the Uni- versity of Berlin. Dr. Schrader is wh.at the or- dinary English student would call " free" in his ideas about the inspiration and compilation of the sacred books, but this makes his testi- mony all the more valuable. Ilis method is to follow straight through the Old Testament, noting every verse and sometimes every word WITNESS OF THE MONUMENTS which can be illustrated by a wide and careful study of the cuneiform inscriptions. The re- sult is that whether our attention is directed to the pre-Mosaic period, which includes the nar- rative of the Creation, the Deluge, Babel, the dispersion, and the invasion of the cities of the plain, or whether we are studying the later his- tories, wc find illustrations of the historical value of the sacred narratives at every turn. Oii\Uciit:inc. The coint'idences between the sacred record and the profane during the period from the re- volt to the Captivity include notices of almost every foreign monarch mentioned in the course of the (sacred) narrative — of Shishak, Zerali, Bon-hadad, Ilazacl, Mesha, Rezin, Pul, Tig- lath-pileser, Shalmanezer, So, Sargon, Senna- cheril), Tirhakah, Merodach Baladan, Esarhad- don, Necho, Nebuchadnezzar, Evil-llcrodach, and Apries — and of the .Jewish or Israelite kings, Omri, Ahab, Jehu, Ahaziah, Jlenahcm, Pekah, Ahaz, Iloshea, Hezekiah, and Manasseh. All these monarclis occur in profane history in the order and at or near the time which the sacred narrative assigns to them. The syn- chronisms which that narrative supplies are borne out wherever there is any further evi- dence on th:> subject. The general condition of the powers wliich came into contact with the Jews is rightly described ; and tlK^ fluctu- ations which they experience, their alternations of glory and depression, are correctly given. No discrepancy occurs between the sacred and the profane throughout the entire period, ex- cepting hero and there a chronological one. And these chronological discrepancies are in no case serious. G. R. For more than fifty years the historical credi- bility of the Old Testament Scriptures has been assailed on the ground that the narratives con- tained in it are not contemporaneous with the events they profess to record, because they rep resent an incredible amount of civilization as existing in the ancient Eastern world, and are inconsistent with the accounts of classical writ- ers, and because writing was little known or practised by th'e Jews at so early a period. The sam^ half century, however, which has wit- nessed these assaults on the Old Testament has also witnessed the discovery and decipherment of monuments which belong to Old Testament times. At the very moment when the assail- ants of Scripture had adopted new methods of attack which could no longer be met by the old modes of defence, God was raising up unex- pected testimonies to the truth of biblical his- tory. The ancient civilizations of Egypt, of Babylonia, and of Assyria now lie outspread be- fore us as fully and clearly as the civilization of Imperial Rome. Sennacherib and Tiglath- pileser, Nebuchatlnezzar and Cyrus, tell us in their own words the story of the deeds in which they themselves took part ; and we can trace the very forms of the letters in which Isaiah and Jeremiah recorded their prophecies. The discoveries of the Jloabite Stone and the Silnara Inscription have shown that writing was known and practised in Judah at the time to which the larger part of the Old Testament Scriptures professes to belong. The Moabite Stone was a monument erected by Mesha, the contemporary of Ahab, who is called "a sheepmaster" in 3 K. 3 : 4. (See Sec. 7.) The chief interest attaching to the inscription in our eyes lies, perhaps, in the language and characters in which it is written. The language is almost exactly the same as that of the i)\A Testament, and shows that the dialect of Jloab differed much less from Hebrew than does one English dialect from another. The very phrases recur which the Old Testament has made familiar to us, and at times we might fancy that we were listening to a chapter of the Bible. The char- acters, too, in which the text is written belong to a form of the Phcenieian alphabet which must have resembled very closely that used by the Jews. We may thus see in them the mode of writing employed by the earlier prophets, and correct by their means the corrupt reiidings which the carelessness of copyists has allowed to creep into the sacred text. Since the discovery of the Moabite Stone, an- other early inscription has been found in Jeru- salem itself, which shows us precisely how the books of the Old Testament, which were com- posed between the time of David and the Baby- lonian Captivity, must have been originally written. This is the Siloam Inscription, en- graved in the rock-cut tunnel which conveys the water of the Virgin's Spring — the only nat- ural spring in or about Jerusalem — to the pool of Siloara. Its strange position in a dark un- derground conduit, through which the water was perpetually flowing, caused it to remain unnoticed \mtil a few years ago. The exact date at which the tunnel was executed is dis- puted, since while there are several reasons which would make us assign it to the age of Solomon, there are others which have led the majority of scholars to place it in the reign of Hezekiah. In this case it will be the conduit made by Hezekiah which is mentioned in 2 K. 20 : 20 and 2 Chron. 32 : 30. Now the forms of the lettere used in the inscription make it 28 PRELIMINAIiT. quite dear llmt the oncravpr was amistomed to write on parclimcnl or iiajiyrua, and not on stone. Tlicy are rounded luid not angular like the charaeters on the Moabite Stone. It is plain, therefore, that the alphabet employed in Judah wa.s that of a people who were in the Iiabit of writing and reading hodliit. What we now know about the history of writing in the Ka.st not only makes it possible that the biblical books were written at the time to which tradition a.ssigiis them, but makes it probable that they were. It is not likely that the Israelites would have abstained from com- posing books when they were acquainted with the art of writing, and when the nations by whom they were surrounded had long been in the possession of libi'aries. And that the bibli- cal books actually belong to the time to which tradition a.ssigns them is evidenced by the con- firmation their contents have received from the deciphennent of the Egyptian and Assyrian monuments. The accuracy they display in small points is only explicable on the hypothe- sis that the histories contained in them were related by contemporaries. While, on the one side, the progress of modern discovery has tended to destroy the credit once attaclicd to the works of Alexandrine Jews or Greek com- pilers, it has, on the other side, confirmed and verified, illustrated and explained, the state- ments and allusions in the historical and pro- phetical books of Holy Writ. The one are shown to belong to a later age than that of which they profess to give an account, the other to be contemporaneous with the events which they record. We may turn to them with increased confidence and faith ; confidence in the historical picture they set before our eyes, and faith in the Divine message which they were commissioned to deliver. To sum up. The witness of ancient monu- ments to the Old Testament Scriptures is of a twofold nature. It is positive, inasmuch as it proves that they are in agreement with actual facts ; and negative, inasmuch as it shows how far this is from being the ca.se with documents which lay claim to the same amount of cridibil- ity, and deal with tlie same subject-matter, but which really behmg to a later age. The wit- ness is therefore complete. Dillieulties may still exist here and there, since as long as our knowledge is imperfect, there are things which cannot be satisfactorily explained ; but difll- culties enough have been already cleared away, confirmations sufficient of the truth of the bib- lical record have been produced, to banish such doubts as may have found place in our minds, and to inspire us with a calm confidence that with the increase of knowledge and the discov- ery of fresh monuments the difiieulties which still remain will be diminished, and the great body of verifying facts continually enlarged. The critical objections to the truth of the Old Testament once drawn from the armory of Greek anil Latin writers can never be urged again ; they have been met and overthrown once for all. The answers to them have come from papyrus and clay and stone, from the tombs of ancient Egypt, from the mounds of Babylonia, and from the ruined palaces of the Assyrian kings. These long-buried witnesses have been disinterred to cry out against the as- sailants of our faith, the long-forgotten empires of the ancient East have arisen out of the grave of centuries to testify to the truth of " the ora- ch's of God." S/tyce. Looking ba<'k for less than forty years, it re- quires no small effort to griisp the vast advance which has been made in a single generation in the confirmation and illustration of Old Testa- ment history from external sources. The sep- ulchres of Egypt have been ransacked, the mounds of Assyria and Babylonia have been excavated, the hills and rivers of Palestine have been searched, and the result is that there is scarcely a single incident, wherever the sacred narrative impinges on the history or transactions of neighboring nations, in which the minute accuracy of the biblical record is not established. . . . The historic accuracy of the Old Testa- ment from Abraham downward is now all but established in every minute detail from con- temporary records and evidence ; and it is harder than ever to untwine the woof of its miracles from the warp of its history. One theory, research — whether in Jlesopotamia, Sy- ria, Arabia or Egypt — renders more untenable every day — viz., that which would resolve the individual man and events of early sacred his- tory into myths and legends. Everywhere the stones cry out. Each fresh explanation attests or illustrates an incident the more confirnuitory, often, from its very triviality, like that of the platform before the Palace of Tahpanhes. The Divine reproach on the rcjectei-s of Christ be- comes year by year more scathing : '' If ye be- lieve not Moses' writings, how shall ye believe Jly words 1" Tiistmm. In confirmation of the scriptural account of the origin and growth of early civilization, we may refer to the daily increasing msuss of trans- lated Assyrian and Chaldean documents, in which the long list of names, once peculiar to the Scripture, recur as familiarly as household WITNESS OF THE MONUMENTS. 39 words ; or to the Moabite Stone recovered in 80 romantic a way, wliich tells so freely the story of " Mesha, king of Moab," and interprets together the Hebrew and Phoenician, as the Rosetta Stone luid done the Greek and Egyptian, and the Behistun Inscription, the Pereian. Assy- rian and Babylonian ; or to the testimony from the comparative study of language, ethnology, ethnography, etc. In this connection we note : (1) The preservation of these unique and per- ishable memorials from so great antiquity and in so improbable ways, wliile the nearer, more abundant and multiplied copies of the Greek and Latin classics have almost wholly perished ; (2) their hiding through so many centuries, entombed in rubbish or sealed up in occult lan- guages, making their authority, when revealed, indisputable ; (3) their almost simultaneous is- suance, and the strangely coincident appearance of the several undreamed-of keys for their in- terpretation ; (4) the exact response of the testi- mony so evoked to the antiquity and genuine- ness of the Scripture documents ; (5) the abun- dant points of cont;ict and consequently of test between the new data and the Scripture, be- cause of the circumstantiality of each ; (6) and the prescient minuteness of the Scripture in name, date and circumstance avowedly for this end. Surely " this also cometh forth from the Lord of Hosts, who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working," J. B. Thomas. For twenty-five years the peculiar phase of anti-supernatural criticism which in tliis coun- try is called " Higher Criticism" has busied itself with discovering in the Old Testament contradictory narratives, statements, dates and, above all and in all, a wretched, incomprehen- sible editing of the whole. Having for twenty- five j'cai's followed this criticism in all its works, I can speak for myself and say that I do not see one discrepancy where Kuenen, Well- hausen, Budde, Cornill, and their followers see a hundred contradictions, and I turn from their works to the Bible as one turns from a dark Indian temple, with its hideous forms of man- made gods, to the fair light of the Sun in God's temple of the sky. These writers declare that they have proved the historical parts of the Bible to be no history at all. But they have proved it only to those who would exclude the supernatural. They assert that the early his- tory of the Bible is fable and legend, because man is there represented as having a high ideal of God and a religious sense that belongs only to later ages. But their fellow-professors tell us that early man, ius he is shown by his monuments In Egypt and Asia, had a high ideal of God, of morals, and an elaborate scheme of religion. This criticism dogmatically states that the Israelites, before David's time, could not write, and, therefore, composed no books, kept no recorfs before that time, B.C. 1000. Egypt- ology and Assyriology give us myriad proofs that as soon as man appears on monuments, earlier than B.C. 3000, it is with the hand of a master in all written characters, and that the Semites, of whom the Hebrews were a part, from the earliest times held in their trained hands all the great roads of the world's com- merce. The Jew hits never, except in this criti- cism, been accounted the dunce of the nations. The history of this school of criticism brings before us many facts which would never be supposed unless proved by so many wit- nesses. But among all these facts there is none more astounding than that, while professing to be above all things liistorical and to utter the voice of history, it has persistently shut its eyes from seeing, its ears from hearing, and its pages from telling, the history with which it is most concerned. By the side of these Old Testament professors in their own universities, there have been for decades professors of Egyptology and Assyriology. These sciences are represented by men as learned and as nu- merous as the Protestant professors of Old Testament literature in Germany and England, who do not number sixty, all told. They have established stately reviews in French, German, and English. The literature of these sciences is greater than that of tliis Old Testament crit- icism, as the texts on which they work are far greater than all the Old Testament and the Greek and Latin classics combined. The press during most of this century has poured forth works of the highest class of scholarahip in these sciences. These works treat of extra- biblical liistory parallel with the Old Testa- ment. They treat of the history of these lan- guages, of religion, education, civilization, ethics, law, poetry, architecture, arclucology. Now we should suppose that this criticism which professes to be historical would take all this as, at least, one of the factors of its prob- lem. But its volumes will be searched in vain for the first evidence of any acquaintance with this most learned and scientific help to the un- derstanding of the Old Testament. From these volumes one woidd never imagine the existence of this vast sphere of knowledge, which has revolutionized the whole idea of ancient history, and gives us the environment of Palestine from at least a thousand years before Moses to the time of Christ. 30 PRELIMINARY. For seventy years the monuments of Egypt, and for fifty years the nionunients of Baby- lonia and Assyria, liave been stiidi -d l)y a host of scliolnrs. tile iieers of any others the world has known. M. Menant, of Franee, says that the texts already discovered would fill five hundred octavo volumes — a larger amount than all the Greek and Latin clas- sics. In Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Leydcn, Up- salii, and elsewhere, professorships of Egyp- tology and Assyriolosy have been long es- tablished. The permanent literature of these subjects, the sober, scientific works of these scholars i.ssui'd in the past fifty years, would make a library by tluinselves. Wherever sound pliilologieal and historical study is hon- ored, there the names of the great Egyptian and Assyrian. scholars will be placed high in the list of those who have benefited their fel- lows. The immease valuer of this work arises from the well-nigli numberless monuments dis- covered. These scliolars give us tlie monu- ments and their story, so that the learner can compare the story with its source. If now we can ascertain tlie points on which tlicse Egyp- tian and A.ssyrian scholars — Frencli, English, Grerman, Dutch, Italian, Swedish, Russian — arc unanimously agreed, we may be sure there is good foundation for those points ; and it is also certain that those points will represent the most scientific historical teaching of the present day concerning early man. Beyond the monu- ments all is, must be, mere speculation. The monuments form the horizon of all e.\tni-bibli- cal knowledge of early man. On the following four points there is unanimous agreement : 1. That witli the earliest monuments man appears before us with language fully formed, and elaborate written clianuiters responding to all his needs. Never afterward in Babylonia or Kgypt are the signs of language more beautifully shaixd and ehisell'. d than on the luim.'rous dionte statues of Tello, or on the granite and limestone of the tablet of Senoferu, of the pyramids of Unas, Pepi, Mirinri, of the tomb of Ti. The long and many inscriptions of Tello and of the pyrixmids show us the lan- guage capable of expressing all religious thought, rich in the t:'rms of settled, civilized, refined life, abundant in geographical names, and speaking of gold, iron, bronze, and pre- cious woods and minerals, as of common posses- sions. 3. Th<> earliest monuments show us the religions of Babylonia and Egypt already fully formed ; their main fiuulamental doctrines re- maining the same throughout the existence of their iieojiles, though with the centuries there were many changes in non-fundamental points. Up to l.SHO there w ere many attempts to trace the evolution of thrf religion of Egypt ; but by the opening of llu' inscribed pyramids in 1881 all historical ground wjis taken from these speculations — for these inscriptions display all the main doctrines of the Egyptian religion fully elaborated. So that it is now agreed on all hands bj' the masters of these sciences that one must go behind all monuments, all historic proof, if he would attempt to trace the begin- nings of Egy])tian or Babylonian religion, a. The art of Tello in Babylonia and of the pyramid times in Egypt was the highest art ever reached in these lands ; their earliest art was their best. At this earliest period the numerovis extant remains of their art show a iiuLstery of all details, an ease and .grace of handling, a simplicity and truth to nature, a refinement of conception, and a deftness in execution never attained again in the later cen- turies of these peoples. The statues of Tello, the intaglios of earl}' Chaldea, the statues and bas-reliefs of early Egypt, the pyramids, enor- mous in mass, yet with exqui.sitely finished, in- scribed, painted inner pa.ssages and chambers ; the tomb of Ti at Sakkarah, with its wealth of sharp-cut letters, and more abundant bas-reliefs of all th(! forms of most ancient home life, and many other tombs — all tell the SiUiie story, that man at this ira had reached the acme of the art of his people. 4. Language and religion fully fonued. and art at its best, prove the fourth point — that at the earliest age of man, shown by the monuments, a very high degree of civil- ization reigned in Babylonia and Egypt, and both these lands were intimately acqviainted and in commercial exchange with the Sinaitic Peninsula and the Syrian-Phenician cosist. If these results of Egyptology and Assyriol- ogy are true, as these scholars believe, then there is far greater reason for placing the com- position of the Pentateuch in the classic age than in the age of the decline and abasement of Western Asiatic and Egyptian literature. Both Driver and Cornill imagine a state of societj' and religion before the age of David that is in blank contradiction to the facts shown by the monuments. Without this purely imaginary society and religion their theory coidd have no basis. If the Pentateuch written in the most cla.ssic Hebrew, if the Psalms and Prophets, the Old Testament as we have it, was to a large ex- tent written, edited, and issued only from 650 to IGO U.C., then the miracle of its appearance is still greater than at earlier «rf .— That the Book of Chronicles was composed after the return from the Cap- tivity is evident, not only from its closing pas- sage, but from other portions of it. A compari- son of 1 Chron. 9 : 10-16 with Neh. 11 : 10-17 will show that almost the whole of 1 Chron. 9 belongs to the period after the Captivity. 1 Chron. 3 of the same jjart of the work contains a genealogy of the descendants of Zerubbabel (verses 19-34), which is continued down to, at least, the third generation. The evidence of style accords with the evidence furnished by the contents. The phraseology is similar to that of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, all books written after the Exile. It has numerous Ai-a- maean forms, and at least one word derived from the Persian. The date cannot therefore well be earlier than B.C. 538, but may be later, and is indeed thought by some to be verj- con- siderably later. If Ezra was the author, the 40 THE nOOKf^ OF CIIROyiCLES. (late could not well bo much later than is.c. 433, for E/.ra probably died about that time. There is nothing in the contents or style of the work to make the date B.C. 430-435 imi)roba- ble. B. C. Sources Used hi/ the Author. For the period from Saul to Zedekiah, which forms the chief subject of his work, the author of Chronicles seems to have possessed and used : (1) A jren- eral history, called the Book of the Kin.is of Israel and Judah (or Judah and Israel), which hail probably been comi)iled before his day from the two earlier separate works used by the author of Kings — the Book of the Chroni- cles of the Kings of Judah, and the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel ; (2) our present books of Samuel and Kings ; and (3) a numlier of works, more full and ample in their details than any of these three, treatin.g of cer- tain periods, usually of the reigns of particu- lar monarchs, the composition of a succession of prophets, and the real ultimate sources from which the general histories had been compiled by their writers. Of these, some twelve or thirteen are mentioned by the author of Chroni- cles in the course of his work (1 Chron. 27 : 24 ; 29 : 29 ; 2 Clu-on. 9 : 29 ; 12 : 15 ; 13 : 22 ; 20 : 34 ; 24 : 27 ; 26 ■ 22 ; 33 : 32) ; but it is quite possible, or rather very pnibable, that he possessed others besides those which he has named. For the period from the Creation to the death of Saul, which forms the subject of 1 Chron. 1-8, the writer of Chronicles possessed and used': (1) The historical Books of our present Scriptures, from Genesis down to Ruth ; and (2) various other documents, genealogical and historical, of which the exact nature cannot be stated, but which appear to have been in many cases exceedingly ancient and curious. There is reason to believe that the genealogies of fam- ilies, and numerous important points of family history, were c'aref ully preserved by tlu' " chiefs of the fathers" in almost all the Israelite tribes, and were even carried through the trying time of the Captivity, so that the writer of Chroni- cles could make use of them. A large portion of his introductory section (1 Chron. 1-8) con- sists of statements unsupported by the earlier Scriptures ; and these the aiithor must have drawn from such (comparatively speaking) pri- fiitc sources as have been indicated. B. C. Jit'ldtiitn of the Bonkn of Kiiiijs to those of Chroiiieles. It is manifest, and is universally atlmitted, that the former is by far the older work. While the Books of Chronicles were written especially for the Jews after their re- turn from Babylon, the Hook of Kings was written for the whole of Israel before their common national existence was hopelessly quenched. Another comparison of considera- ble interest between the two histories may be drawn in respect to the main design, that de- sign having a marked relation both to the indi- vidual station of the supposed writers and the peculiar circumstances of their country at the times of their writing. Jeremiah was himself a prophet. He lived while the prophetic ofiice was in full vigor, in his own person, in Eze- kiel and Daniel, and many othcre both true and false. In his eyes, as in truth, the main cause of the fearful calamities of his country- men was their rejection and contempt of the Word of God in his mouth and that of the other prophets ; and the one hope of deliver- ance lay in their hearkening to the proph- ets who still continued to sjieak to them in the name of the Lord. Accordingly we find in the Books of Kings great i)rominence given to the prophetic office. Ezra was only a priest. In his days the prophetic office had wholly fallen into abeyance. That evidence of the Jews being the people of God, which consisted in the presence of prophets among them, was no more. But to the men of his generation, the distinctive mark of the contin- uance of God's favor to their race was the re- Iniilding of the Temple at Jerusalem, the res- toration of the daily sacrifice and the Levitical worship, and the wonderful and providential renewal of the Mosaic institutions. The chief instrument, too, for preserving the Jewish rem- nant from absorption into the mass of heathen- ism, and for maintaining their national life till the coming of Messiah, was the maintenance of the Temple, its ministers, and its services. Hence we see at once that the chief care of a good and enlightened Jew of the age of Ezra, and all the more if he were himself a priest, would naturally be to enhance the value of the Levitical ritual and the dignity of the Leviti- cal caste. And in compiling a history of the past glories of his race, he would as naturally select such passages as especially bore ui)on the sanctity of the priestly office, and show the dee]) concern taken by their ancestors in all that related to the honor of God's lioase, and the sujiport of His ministering servants. Hence the Levitical character of the Books of Chronicles, and the pre.'^ence of several detailed narratives not found in the Books of Kings, and the more frecpicnt reference to the Mosaic institutions, may most naturally an« 227 755 228 754 229 747 236 745 238 744 239 Menahem of Samaria. But unless we reject the Bible statements by the wholesale, we must hold that both Azariiih and Jlenahera were dead some years before Tiglath pilescr came to the throne, B C. 7-15. Further, each of the two inscriptions gives an account of an expedition to Hadrach. and the Eponym list assigns to Assur-daan three expeditions to Iladraeh. and none to any other monarch ; though Hadrach is mentioned in some undoubted Tiglalh-pileser inscriptions. Further, one of the two inscriptions proceeds to tell what happened in the 9lh year of tlie king in ques- tion, tlius apparently assigning the previous events to his 8th year ; but the Eponym list says that Tiglath pilpser was in Media his 8lh year, while it ascribes to Assur daan's 8th year one of his three expeditions to Hadrach. The Bible says that the Assyrian king to whom Menahem paid tribute was Pul ; and there are strong reasons for identifying the name Pul with the name Tiglath pileser. But there may have been two men of the same name, or Tiglath-pileser III. may have l)een, at this time, 20 years before he became king, the commander of the Assyrian foices in Pule.'tinc. Either of these suppositions is more credible than that tlie whole biblical account i.s to be discarded. Tlie views thus indicated seem to me tenable. The view, however, more commoidy held by recent scliolars is that the events mentioned in this inscription, instead of being the events of a single expedition, extended over several years previous to B.C. 737. the 8th year of Tiglath- pileser, and that they were practically continuous with Tiglath-pileser's interference in the times of Pekah and Ahaz. * As this makes Ahaz b\it 11 years old at his son's birth, there is probably a numerical error somewhere. ■f In its details this deportation is different from any other mentioned in the Bible. The Assyrian king is called Pul " and" Tighilh-pile.ser. whether the distinction intended l)e lietween two persons or between two names of the same person. According to the Epjiiym list. Tiglalh- pileser was at Arpad four successive years, B.C. 743-740, and he may have ravaged this region diirinu any part of that time. Possiblv Josephus (Ant. IX. xiv. 1) gives a specific date for this deportation. He says that the deportation at the downfall of Samaria occurred 240 years and 7 months after the revolt iiiulcr Kehoboum. His numerals are certainly not correct for that final deporlalion, but they are 80 explicit as to suggest that they may be historical : ami so the question suirgesls itself whether they may refer to some earlier deportation. The events of the time of .Menahem are loo early. If we fcillow the chionology of I'ssher, the date of Josephus might coincide with the later de- portation of the time of Aha/. ; but it seems to me that the best supported conjecture is that, while Tiglath pileser was operating at Arpad, an expedition was made, in his Brd year, to the ea^t of the Jonlan. X See Ant. IX. xi. 3 He savs further that this was 115 years before the downfall of Nineveh. This would date the final o.erihrow of Xiueveh, G29-624 B.C. The date of this event must still 734 249 733 350 733 351 TO THE EXILE. 51 B.C. A.Di. 739 344 17th y. of Pekah ; 16lh y. of Jotham ; his death ; accessioo of Abaz (3 Ki. xvi. 1,3). 738 345 1st y. of Ahaz. Rezin and Pekah again operate against Jiidah (3 Chron. xxviii. 1-15, 3 Ki. xvi. 5 sq., Isa. vii. sq.) ; Philistine and Edomite invasion (3 Chron. xxviii. 17, 18) ; Ahaz seeks help from Tiglathpileser. Oded(3 Chron. xxviii. 9). Tiglatli pileser captures towns in northern Palestine, deporting many people (3 Ki. XV. 39) ; Ahaz becomes tributary.* 736 347 30th y. of Pekah ; 30th y. of .Jotham, counting from his accession ; Pekah smitten by Hoshea, who succeeds him (3 Ki. xv. 30). Tiglath-pileser in Palestine (Eponym canon). Tiglath-pileser in Damascus (Ep. can.). Tiglath-pileser in Damascus (Ep. can.). Within these years the visit of Ahaz to Damascus (3 Ki. xvi. 10 sq., 3 Chron. xxviii. 23) ; the march upon .Jerusalem (Isa. x. 28 sq.) ; the uttering of the fourth prophecy of Isaiah (vii.-xii.). though this incorporates earlier proph- ecies ; also, conquest of Philistia by Tiglath-pileser. Tiglathpileser — Porus— reigns with Khinziros in Babylonia (Ptolemy's canon).f 1st y. of Tiglath-pileser in Babylon (Bab. Chron,). 18th y. of Tiglath-pileser ; his death ; accession of Shalraaneser IV.; 12th y. of Ahaz ; accession of Hoshea (2 Ki. xvii. 1).| 1st y. of Shalmaneser ; § 1st y. of Hoshea. Close of 3rd y. of Hoshea ; 16th y. of Ahaz ; his death ; 1st y. of Hezekiah (3 Ki. xvi. 1, 2, xviii. 1, 2) : the " burden" of Isa. xiv. 28. 723 261 1st y. of Hezekiah, as difTcrently counted ; he begins to repair the temple (2 Chron xxix. 3) : 5th y. of Shalmaneser, and accession of Sargon, as commonly counted ; Sargon captures Samaria, and reimposes the tribute. Latest prophecies of Hosea (xi.-xiv. ). 731 363 1st y. of Sargon ; 1st y. of Merodach-baladan in Babylonia. 720 263 2nd y. of Sargon ; 4th y. of Hezekiah ; 7th y. of Hoshea : Samaria, Damascus, Hamath, and others in alliance with Sebek of Egypt (So) against Assyria ; Sargon's victory at Raphia ; Samaria besieged (2 Ki. xvii. 1 sq., xviii. 9sq., and records of Sargon). || be regarded as uncertain, though there is a strong trend of opinion in favor of the idea that Nineveh perished about 608 B.C. (q.v.). p\irther. Nahum iii. 8-10 is regarded as an allusion to the sack of Thebes by Assurbani-pal, 664 B.C., showing that Nahum prophesied later than that event. * This seems to be the campaign described in the two mutilated inscriptions given in Smith's Assi/riiiii Discoveriex, pages 284-86, cited from Layard, pace 66, and Rawlinson iii. 10. 2. Tiglath pileser captured Gaza and made conquests toward Egypt and in Arabia, as well as to the north. In both inscriptions lie mentions Pekah, but what he says of him has been obliter- ated. He says that he appointed Hoshea to succeed Pekah. f He liad virtually been sovereign in Babylonia from the very beginning of his reisjn in Assyria. i Possibly lie had reigned as Assyrian governor from the time of his appointment ai the death of Pekah, but now assumed the style of king, on learning of the death of 'Tiglathpileser. § Shalmaneser was also kinsr of B.abylon, under the name of Iluloeus. li One Assyrian inscription (Smitli'.s Asu/irinn Biscoverii's. chap, xv., and Schrader) counts B.C. 719 as the first year of Sargon, instead of B.C. 721. On the face of it this appears to sive the years 721 and 720 to Shalmaneser. Perhaps the same way of counting is followed in 2 Ki. xviii. 9, where Ihe siege of Samaria is said to have begun in the reign of Shiilmaneser. Against this is the statement of Ihe Babylonian chronicle that Shalmaneser died in his olh year ; but if the chronicler made a mistake here, it is a mistake easily accounted for. 731 353 728 355 727 256 726 257 723 260 709 274 705 278 704 279 701 283 52 SECTIONS. DATED EVENTS FROM JEROBOAM B.C. A.Di. 718 2«5 9lh y. of Hoshea ; Glli y. of Ilczekiah ; Samaria taken after 3 years' siege.* At various times from his 3rtent with either the biblical or the Assyrian accounts. .losephus savs (A'lt. X. ix. 7) that the carrying away of .Indah. which he dates the ISth year of Nebuchadnezzar, A.Di. 396, was 130^ j'ears after that of the ten tril'es. This contradicts his own date, A.Di. 241, for the deportation of the ten tribes, and exactly fits the date 2(i.") A.Di. f These are the dales as given by Sennacherib. They are conirailictcd in .snme details, but in the main confirmed bv other recorils of Sciuiacherib. anil by Ihe Babylonian Chionicle. .lehovah's Iana.sseh, which shared largely in the glories of its brother tribe, Ephraim (Gen. 46, 49 ; Deut. 33) ; Zebu- lun, which " sucked of the abundance of the seas;" Gad, which "dwelt as a lion ;" Dan, the " lion's whelp ;" Issachar, the " strong ass coiiching down between two burdens ;" Naph- tali. the " hind let loose ;" and Asher, the dweller in the far north, threw off the Davidic j'oke, declared themselves independent of Ju- dah, and proclaimed their intention of placing themselves under a new king. G. R. It was an act of rebellion against God, not jus- tified by the alleged i)rovocation nor l)y the harsh words of Rehoboam. The real ground was jealousy against the tribe of Judah, which God had chosen to distingui.sh in establishing the throne of David, and in selecting .lerusalem as the seat of government and worshi]) for the nation. As rebellion against Him, their seces- sion was punished bj' their whole su))sequent history and final extinction as a separate peo- ple. Yet, let it be remembered, this dismem- berment of David's kingdom was also the act of God in fufllment of his frequent solemn warning to David and Solomon, and as a conse- quence of Solomon's ])ei-sistent disregard of the Divine commandments. We may add, that in SECTION 4- DIVISION OF THE KINGDOM. 63 the subsequent history of the two kingdoms can he traced God's fulfilled purpose in pre- serving true religion in the world, and prepar- ing the way for the introduction of Christian- ity. For Israel acted as a bulwark to keep back from Judah the contagion of idolatry dif- fused by the adjacent nations. B. To the worshippers at Jerusalem the early decline and fall of Israel was a solemn and impressive spec- tacle of judgment against idolatry. This pre- pared the hearts of Judah for the revivals un- der Hezekiah and Josiah, softened them into repentance during the Captivity, and strength- ened them for their absolute renunciation of idolatry, when after seventy years they re- turned to Palestine to become the channel through which God's greatest gift was con- veyed to mankind. Bullock. Instkuctive and Hp:lpfui. Suggestions. The rending of the kingdom was the punish- ment of sin, especially Solomon's sin of idola- try, which was closely connected with the ex- travagant expenditure which occasioned the separation. So the so-called natural conse- quences of transgression constitute its temporal punishment in part, and behind all these our eyes should be clear-sighted enough to behold the operative will of God. This one piercing beam of light, cast on that scene of insolence and rebellion, lights up all liistory, and gives the principle on which it must be interpreted, if it is not to 'be misread. Again, the punish- ment of sin, whether that of a commimity or of a single person, is sin. The separation was sin, on both sides ; it led to much more. It was the con.sequence of previous departure. So ever the worst result of an}- sin is that it opens the door, like a thief who has crept in through a window, to a band of brethren. A. M. While the sin of Solomon is visited upon his son in the division of the kingdom, God's promised mercy to David is manifested in the continuance of his family ujion the throne of Judah. Very touching and instructive is the record of this mercy : " For David My ser- vant's sake will I give unto the son of Solomon one tribe, that David My servant may have a light alway before Me in Jerusalem." Herein impressively we learn the power with God that a truly consecrated man obtains, and the bless- ings he perpetuates ; and the constancy of God to His covenant pledges of mercy. In every position and relation of life, it is a kingly npirit that habitually heeds and practises the double counsel of these ancient sages : to serve and help, and to (Ual kindly in word, as in deed. And in this helpful, gracious dealing, we find the secret of securing and retaining a beneficent power over others in every sphere. Kindly utterance added to personal ministry ever impart a healthful and blessed magnetism over all the lives with which they come into contact. Together they win and hold all hearts, and make all lives the more fruitful and hap- py. B. Rehoboam's trouble was not that he did not see the right ; it was that he would not follow it. The counsel of the young men pleased him better than his father's counsellors. His own pleasure was sweeter to him than the profit of his people, and they must be trampled down that he might be lifted up. And has it not been so all through'? It is not that men do not see the right ; it is that they do not design to follow it, and so dimness of perception of truth comes over them, and men grow blind to the truth which they will not follow. It is just what the Master said : " Light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." W. Newton. Counsel is good ; any man that tliinks he does not need it is a fool or worse. " Seest thou a man that is wise in liis own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him." Counsel in order to be good must come from a reliable source, a source entitled to respect and confidence, where there is information, integ- rity, and honesty of purpose, where there is unselfish and unbiassed regard to truth and to our real good. Such counsel may not always be palatable, not such as we like or hope for, but in the end we shall either be thankful that we followed it or wish that we had. When Rehoboam preferred the advice of the young men he took a step which he could never afterward retrace, whose mischief ad- mitted of no remedy. Seventeen years he lived and reigned, but he did nothing toward re- trieving his mistake. He could not get back his lost dominions, he could not recover his alienated people. He could never be king of Israel. Another bore that title. Jeroboam dwelt in Sheehem, the beautiful home of his fathers, and from Bethel, almost in sight of his capital, the calf challenged its rival on Mount Zion, and all because of a determination formed perhaps in an instant, and of words which it took but a moment to utter. Ilallam. , Rehoboam's evil career is a comment on Sol- omon's word ; " He that walketh with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools m KINGDOM OF IsliAKL. shall be destroyed." The statement is strong. It assert.s that a.s.sopiation determines destiny. Other Seripture teaches the same. See Ps. 1 ; 1 Cor. l."( : 33. The ])oi)iilar proverb is pro- fovmdly true : " A man is known by the com- pany he keeps." Only let us be sure and em- phasize the last word, " the company hefccyw." We keep only what we like. The social in- stinct which takes shape in frieiuUhipii and iii- tinuieiis furnishes an unerring indi x of charac- ter. Unerringly it draws like to like. The man who begins by walking in the counsel of the ungo