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in Judah, and gathered the Levites out of all the cities of Judah, and the heads of fathers' houses of Israel, and they came to Jerusalem. And all the assembly made a covenant with the king in the house of God. And he said unto them, Behold, the king's son shall reign, as Jehovah hath spoken concerning the sons of David. This is the thing that ye shall do: a third part of you, that come in on the sabbath, of the priests and of the Levites, shall be porters of the thresholds; and a third part shall be at the king's house; and a third part at the gate of the foundation: and all the people shall be in the courts of the house of Jehovah. But let none come into the house of Jehovah, save the priests, and they that minister of the Levites; they shall come in, for they are holy: but all the people shall keep the charge of Jehovah. And the Levites shall compass the king round about, every man with his weapons in his hand; and whosoever cometh into the house, let him be slain: and be ye with the king when he cometh in, and when he goeth out.

So the Levites and all Judah did according to all that Jehoiada the priest commanded: and they took every man his men, those that were to come in on the sabbath, with those that were to go out on the sabbath; for Jehoiada the priest dismissed not the courses. And Jehoiada the priest delivered to the captains of hundreds the spears,

them, saying, This is the thing that ye shall do: a third part of you, that come in on the sabbath, shall be keepers of the watch of the king's house; and a third part shall be at the gate Sur; and a third part at the gate behind the guard: so shall ye keep the watch of the house, and be a barrier. And the two companies of you, even all that go forth on the sabbath, shall keep the watch of the house of Jehovah about the king. And ye shall compass the king round about, every man with his weapons in his hand; and he that cometh within the ranks, let him be slain: and be ye with the king when he goeth out, and when he cometh in.

And the captains over hundreds did according to all that Jehoiada the priest commanded; and they took every man his men, those that were to come in on the sabbath, with those that were to go out on the sabbath, and came to Jehoiada the priest. And the priest delivered to the captains over hundreds the spears and shields that had been king David's, which were in the house of Jehovah. And the guard stood, every man with his weapons in his hand, from the right side of the house to the left side of the house, along by the altar and the house, by the king round about. Then he brought out the king's son, and put the crown upon him, and gave him the testimony; and they made him king, and anointed him; and they clapped

and bucklers, and shields, that had been king David's, which were in the house of God. And he set all the people, every man with his weapon in his hand, from the right side of the house to the left side of the house along by the altar and the house, by the king round about. Then they brought out the king's son, and put the crown upon him, and gave him the testimony, and made him king: and Jehoiada and his sons anointed him; and they said, Long live the king.1

their hands, and said, Long live the king.2

In such ways the late priestly writer reveals the spirit and ideas of the age which followed the Nehemiah-Ezra reforms.

It was probably the same writer who composed the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Here he had as sources Nehemiah's own memoir, an Aramaic document from which he embodied brief extracts without translating into Hebrew, and a Hebrew narrative concerning Ezra. This material he arranged to tell the story, as he understood it, of the return from Babylon to Jerusalem, the rebuilding of the temple, and the work of Ezra and Nehemiah. In the composition his peculiar point of view is evident again and again; he cannot conceive that the despised people who remained in Judea rebuilt the city and temple. He pictures this as the work of a great company returning from Babylon immediately after Cyrus's conquest. He cannot conceive, either, that the layman Nehemiah instituted the reforms which resulted in the hierocratic Judaism of his day; he therefore has the scribe Ezra precede Nehemiah to Jerusalem and there carry out reforms that make impossible the work of Nehemiah as it is recorded so simply and naturally in his own diary. He has thus left knotty problems for the historian of Judaism; he has, however, preserved the priceless narrative from the memoir of Nehemiah and also material of some historical and literary value from the other documents named above.

12 Chronicles 23 1-11.

22 Kings 11 4-12.

Ezra 47-23, 58–6 15.

Had any one soon after 300 B.C. ventured to compile Samuel and Kings with the Chronicler's work, he would have produced a history of the monarchy representing the same three stages that are found in the Hexateuch. Since this was never done, we have preserved separately a history of the monarchy from its rise to its downfall in Samuel-Kings and a partly parallel history of Judea from David to Ezra in Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah.

Looking back from 300 to the tenth century B.C., the historical writing of ancient Israel is seen divided quite distinctly into three great eras. The first extends from the beginning of connected prose writing, under the early monarchy, to a time shortly before the publication of Deuteronomy, approximately from 950 to 650 B.C. So far as extant materials show, it began in Southern Israel with the early Saul and David stories and later gathered into a connected narrative all available materials concerning earlier generations until Southern Israel had its great story of humanity from Adam to the monarchy. In Northern Israel, the first era began about one hundred years later, with nearly contemporaneous history, and extended the story back to Abraham. In its final stage, this great era compiled a history from the northern and southern documents. From this age come nearly all the charming stories of deep human interest which give supreme literary value to such books as Genesis, Exodus, Judges, and Samuel. Their moral ideals are crude, their theology is primitive, but they are instinct with a childlike consciousness of God and a wholesome moral sense.

The second great era of historical writing was the outgrowth of the Deuteronomic reform and the exile. It resulted in slight editorial additions to some portions of the earlier histories and in drastic reëditing of other parts, always from the point of view of a definite philosophy of history. This era produced, also, two new historical works, our books of Judges and Kings. Where the editors of this school touched heavily, either in interpretation of old narratives or in editing new compilations, literary charm languished. Since, however, these men wrote with deepest religious purpose, interpreting history out of experience, there is a certain solemn earnestness even in their monotonous repetition of phrase that gives dignity and almost eloquence, contributing its characteristic elements to the Old Testament narrative style.

The third great era of historical writing is still further removed from the æsthetic charm of the early narratives that pictured human life in its simple, universal elements and interests. The Deuteronomists saw the national life whole, as a great drama working itself out under the fixed and formulated will of God, almost as inexorable as the Fate of the Greek tragedians; the late priestly historians saw the same national history schematized as the mechanical development of a system of ordinances and institutions. In the working out of the latter scheme, not only has all human motive and agency disappeared and the consciousness of the immediate presence of God in the daily life of the individual vanished, but the tremendous moral convictions of the Deuteronomic editors have also gone. History has become little more than the orderly development of the ceremonial practices and institutions of Israel. Repetition of formulas, characteristic of the writing of the preceding age, has now gone to absolute extreme; yet, as has been said, this very repetition has at times an almost poetic effect, or at least gives a liturgical rhythm, that adds its distinctive element to the composite feeling of the Biblical style.

In each one of the narrative writings of Israel, there is harmony between form and thought, the result, in the final analysis, of sincerity. Each type of writing is the true expression of the life of the age from which it emanates, for there is in the Old Testament narrative no "fine writing" in which the form obtrudes itself. The writers were not seeking to produce literature; but to express life as it was in them, demanding to be heard and so, even schematized, institutional history rose at times into the realm of literature.

CHAPTER XXII

STORY, ORACLE, AND SONG FROM THE CLOSING CENTURY OF PERSIAN RULE

(432 to 332 B.C.)

IN tracing the development of priestly ideals in law and history through the composition of Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah, we were brought down to a time after the close of Persian rule. We kept our eyes fixed, however, upon one rather narrow path, and shall err if we think of the time of priestly reform and the generations immediately following as wholly occupied with the matters of interest to the lawyers and priestly historians. It was an age of story and song, as well as one of ritual law and history.

The book of Ruth, in its present form, was issued as a protest against the cruel enforcement of separation, demanded by Nehemiah and Ezra. When Nehemiah chased from him the grandson of the high priest who had married the daughter of Sanballat, the young priest may have found it no great hardship to remain loyal to his foreign wife and assume charge of the rival temple which his wealthy and powerful father-in-law was able to construct for him on Mt. Gerizim; but, in many cases, there must have been cruel separation or bitter expatriation.

Ruth is the story of a day when the relations of Israel with her neighbors were normal and free. At that ancient time, a man of Bethlehem-judah might find refuge, with all his family, across the Jordan, among the broad fields of Moab, when famine visited. the scanty soil of Judah's rocky hills. There the man's sons might marry women of Moab, and the wives prove loving daughters to the widowed mother, one of them so faithful in her devoted love that she gladly faced separation from her own people, with poverty and widowhood, rather than leave her Judean mother-in-law. In the end the Moabitess found a true husband in Judea, and her son's grandson became Israel's greatest king.

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