hensive work which could be cited indifferently as 'the Book of the kings of Judah and Israel,' or, 'of Israel and Judah,' or simply as 'the Book of the kings.'

Of the kings of Israel, except in one or two places where their acts are interwoven with, and affect the history of, the kingdom of Judah, the Chronicler makes no mention. We may safely conclude, however, from the way in which he so often speaks of the 'Book of the kings of Israel and Judah,' that he had before him their annals also, though it was foreign to his purpose to record much of them. And the whole history of both kingdoms had been put together on the same plan, and out of like materials, these materials being the writings of the prophets who flourished during the several reigns. We need not then be surprised to find large sections of 'the Book of kings' devoted to the lives of the great prophets Elijah and Elisha, and to the history of Micaiah's appearance before Ahab. The writings of the prophets were not exhausted by the history of the two kingdoms, and no theme would more commend itself to the prophetic scribe than the mighty works of those two champions, who stood forth, at a time when the house of Ahab had led Israel into heathen idolatry, to make known in Israel's darkest days, by action and speech, that Jehovah had still ‘a prophet in Israel.'

It will be seen, then, that the 'Book of Kings' must consist in great part of the writings of those who were contemporary with the events of which they wrote, and that we cannot treat the book as a work of the date when the Compiler lived. And being gathered in the main from prophetic histories, there will naturally be a similarity of motive pervading the whole. To the Compiler we may ascribe those portions which compose the framework of each particular reign, i.e. the accounts of the accession and parentage1, and of the death and character of the

1 It is precisely in these portions that the chronological difficulties present themselves. Some of the smaller inconsistences (cf. 2 Kings viii. 25 with ix. 29) may have arisen because the Compiler made use of several authorities, in which the numbers were not quite in accord, but which, from the Jewish mode of reckoning in such matters, would not

several kings, in which there is exhibited hardly any variation of form; but the date of all which is not of this character must be judged of from internal evidence. The uniform setting of the whole work is important to be noticed as it is a proof of the unity of the composition. To its present form the work has been brought all by the same hand.

ii. HEBREW TEXT AND VERSIONS.

It is much to be deplored that we possess no MSS. of the Hebrew Bible of a date earlier than the 10th century of the Christian era. Thus more than a thousand years intervene between the close of the Old Testament Canon and the writing of our oldest copy. It would be marvellous if during so long a period the fallibility of scribes had not, here and there, suffered mistakes to find their way into the text. But the conditions under which it was transmitted were undoubtedly very favourable to its correct preservation. During many centuries the consonants only were written down, the knowledge of the vowels, that were to be read with them, being preserved by tradition1. This caused correct reading to be a large part of a Jew's education, and to insure the retention of the proper vowels, it was permitted to any one in the synagogue to interrupt the reader if he introduced a change. Thus the whole people were made conservators of the sacred text.

It was only when the Jewish nation became dispersed, and the safeguards, which had been sufficient and available among a small and united people, were found to be inoperative, that the Jewish scribes, who were the guardians of the correct tradition (Massorah, as it was called), began to add vowel signs to the consonants, that the people in their dispersion might all pre

appear conflicting. More serious discrepancies (cf. 2 Kings xv. 30 with 33) must be attributed to later hands. We cannot suppose that the two verses just referred to were allowed to stand as they now do by the original Compiler of the book.

I See note on 2 Kings xviii. 10.

serve the sacred words as they had been handed down for generations. We cannot fix the date when the vowel points were added, but the work was certainly not completed before the death of Jerome, A.D. 420; and probably not for a century or two later. This form of the text is the same in all our Hebrew MSS., and as it exhibits the traditional reading, it is often spoken of as the Massoretic (i.e. traditional) text. When once such an authoritative text was put forth, none would be more anxious than the Jews themselves to destroy all copies of a different kind. Hence comes, in part at least, the absence of very early MSS.

The way in which the vowel points were introduced appears to have been somewhat of this kind. It was a gradual process. At the commencement some copy of the consonantal text was selected as the standard, perhaps because it was beautifully written. To this standard all future copies were made to conform, The vowels were probably first attached to the books of the Law, and to those portions of the Prophets, which, like the Law, were read in the public services. In process of time the system of vocalization was extended to every part of the text. But it was found that in the standard text adopted there were many places where the consonants written down were not those which tradition required to be read. That the consonants of the accepted text might not on this account be modified, the Massoretes adopted the plan of putting, in such places, the consonants of traditional reading on the margin. These marginal notes they marked by a word (Keri) signifying Read thus, and in contradistinction the standard text is termed the Kethib, i.e. written. For an instance see notes on 2 Kings xiv. 13.

The absence of any early MSS. gives their value to the ancient versions. They were made at a time anterior to the fixing of the Massoretic text, and therefore help us to judge of the correctness of the Hebrew which has been preserved to us. Three of these are deserving of special mention.

(1) The Septuagint. This is a Greek version made in Alexandria at various times during the third and second centuries before Christ. It owes its name to an ill-founded tradition that it was made by 72 (Septuaginta=70, the nearest

round number) persons sent to Alexandria from Jerusalem at the request of Ptolemy Philadelphus. A comparison of the various parts shews that it was neither made all at one time, nor all by the same translators; but some time before the birth of Christ in consequence of the wide prevalence of the Greek language this version had largely taken the place of the Hebrew text. From it by far the largest part of the quotations in the New Testament are made: it was used by such writers as Philo and Josephus, by the Greek Fathers, and from it were made the various Latin translations which existed before the Vulgate. There exists, as will be seen from the notes, two principal recensions of the Septuagint, one preserved in the Alexandrine MS., which is in the British Museum, and another at the Vatican. The former of these has been largely brought into harmony with the present Hebrew text, and from this cause its value for critical purposes is not so great. The Vatican MS. varies considerably by additions and omissions, and also in arrangement, from the Massoretic text and seems here and there to represent a somewhat different Hebrew. In the books of Kings the help which we derive from the Septuagint is not so great as in some other books (e.g. Samuel) but it will be seen from the notes that certain alterations in the Hebrew text are suggested by it, a few of which for example, in the account of the building of the Temple, are clearly necessary to be made. One long addition has been specially described in the notes (see p. 145) but it deals with a matter which does not concern the correct reading of the text. The history also of which it treats, refers much more to what happened in the days of David than of Solomon, so that all but a very few words in it seem to be out of place where it is inserted.

(2) The Targum1 (or interpretation) ascribed to Jonathan Ben-Uzziel. This is a Chaldee paraphrase reduced to writing about the fourth century after Christ. For correction of the text it is not so valuable as for the traditional interpretations

1 Targum is from the same root from which dragoman, an interpreter, is derived.

which it preserves. It was for a long period forbidden to put Targums into writing, and a story is told that when, as Herod's temple was in building, a written Targum on the book of Job was shewn, an outcry was made that it should be buried beneath the foundation-stones that it might not come into any one's possession. But Targums exist on nearly the whole of the Bible, though many are of very late date, and only one, that named of Onkelos, on the Pentateuch, is of earlier time than the Targum of Jonathan on the Prophets.

(3) The Vulgate. This name1 is now given to the Latin version of the Bible made by Jerome of which the Old Testament portion was translated not from the Septuagint but directly from the Hebrew. After preparing, at the request of Pope Damasus, a revision of the Latin version of the New Testament, Jerome took up his residence, from A.D. 387 till his death in A. D. 420, at Bethlehem. There he studied the Hebrew Scriptures, with the guidance of the best Jewish scholars then living in the Holy Land and produced at various times a new Latin translation. Of this Samuel and Kings first appeared2. Hence the version which he made is a very precious guide on points of traditional interpretation, and it is also very important as evidence that since Jerome's day the original Text has suffered no alteration worth noticing. We can see from his renderings that the vowel points now inserted were not always the same as were accepted by Jerome's teachers, but in the matter of consonants his Hebrew was substantially just the same as ours.

1 Vulgata versio, was used before Jerome's time, and by Jerome himself, for the current Latin Version in use. It is a rendering of the Greek n Kown Ekdoos which was a name given to the current text of the Septuagint. But after Jerome's Version took the place of all others in the Western Church the name Vulgate was confined to it.

2 The preface which Jerome wrote for these books is generally known as the Prologus Galeatus, and gives a full and interesting account of the Hebrew Canon, with the arrangement of the books, and the reasons for such arrangement.