Frederic Farrar - The Expositor's Bible - The First Book of Kings

2. Although no direct quotations are referred to other documents, it seems certain from the style, and from various minor touches, that the compiler also utilised detailed accounts of great prophets like Elijah, Elisha, and Micaiah son of Imlah, which had been drawn up by literary students in the Schools of the Prophets. The stories of prophets and men of God who are left unnamed were derived from oral traditions so old that the names had been forgotten before they had been committed to writing. 8 8 Difference of sources is marked by the different designations of the months, which are called sometimes by their numbers, as in the Priestly Codex (1 Kings xii. 32, 33), sometimes by the old Hebrew names Zif (" blossom ," April, May, 1 Kings vi. 1), Ethanim (" fruit ," Sept., Oct., 1 Kings viii. 2), and Bul (" rain ," 1 Kings vi. 38).

3. The work of the compiler himself is easily traceable. It is seen in the constantly recurring formulæ, which come almost like the refrain of an epic poem, at the accession and close of every reign.

They run normally as follows. For the Kings of Judah: —

"And in the … year of … King of Israel reigned … over Judah." "And … years he reigned in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was … the daughter of… And … did that which was {right/evil} in the sight of the Lord."

"And … slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the City of David his father. And … his son reigned in his stead." In the formulæ for the Kings of Israel " slept with his fathers " is omitted when the king was murdered; and " was buried with his fathers " is omitted because there was no unbroken dynasty and no royal burial-place. The prominent and frequent mention of the queen-mother is due to the fact that as Gebira she held a far higher rank than the favourite wife.

4. To the compiler is also due the moral aspect given to the annals and other documents which he utilised. Something of this religious colouring he doubtless found in the prophetic histories which he consulted; and the unity of aim visible throughout the book is due to the fact that his standpoint is identical with theirs. Thus, in spite of its compilation from different sources, the book bears the impress of one hand and of one mind. Sometimes a passing touch in an earlier narrative shows the work of an editor after the Exile, as when in the story of Solomon (1 Kings iv. 20-26) we read, "And he had dominion over all the region on the other side of the river ," i. e. , west of the Euphrates, exactly as in Ezra iv. 10. Here the rendering of the A.V., "on this side the river," is certainly inaccurate, and is surprisingly retained in the R.V. also. 9 9 מִז־הַנָּהָר (compare עֲבַר־נַהֲרָה). Lit. , " Beyond the river," i. e. , from the Persian standpoint. It becomes a fixed geographical phrase. Traces of the editor's hand occur in 1 Kings xiii. 32 ("the cities of Samaria"); 2 Kings xiii. 23 ("as yet").

5. To this high moral purpose everything else is subordinated. Like all his Jewish contemporaries, the writer attaches small importance to accurate chronological data. He pays little attention to discrepancies, and does not care in every instance to harmonise his own authorities. 10 10 Comp. 2 Kings viii. 25 with ix. 29. Some contradictions may be due to additions made in a later recension, 11 11 See 2 Kings xv. 30 and 33, viii. 25 and ix. 29. and some may have arisen from the introduction of marginal glosses, 12 12 As, perhaps, the clause "In the thirty and first year of Asa king of Judah" in 1 Kings xvi. 23; and the much more serious "in the 480th year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt," which are omitted by Origen ( comm. in Johannem , ii. 20), and create many difficulties. The only narratives which critics have suggested as possible interpolations, from the occurrence of unusual grammatical forms, are 2 Kings viii. 1-6 and iv. 1-37 (in the story of Elisha); but these forms are perhaps northern provincialisms. or from corruptions of the text which (apart from a miraculous supervision such as was not exercised) might easily, and indeed would inevitably, occur in the constant transcription of numerical letters closely resembling each other. "The numbers as they have come down to us in the Book of Kings," says Canon Rawlinson, "are untrustworthy, being in part self-contradictory, in part opposed to other Scriptural notices, in part improbable, if not impossible." 13 13 Speaker's Commentary , ii. 475. Instances will be found in 1 Kings xiv. 21, xvi. 23, 29; 2 Kings iii. 1, xiii. 10, xv. 1, 30, 33, xiv. 23, xvi. 2, xvii. 1, xviii. 2.

6. The date of the book as it stands was after b. c. 542, for the last event mentioned in it is the mercy extended by Evil-merodach, King of Babylon, to his unfortunate prisoner Jehoiachin (2 Kings xxv. 27) in the thirty-seventh year of his captivity. The language – later than that of Isaiah, and earlier than that of Ezra – confirms this conclusion. That the book appeared before b. c. 536 is clear from the fact that the compiler makes no allusion to Zerubbabel, Jeshua, or the first exiles who returned to Jerusalem after the decree of Cyrus. But it is generally agreed that the book was substantially complete before the Exile (about b. c. 600), though some exilic additions may have been made by a later editor. 14 14 Stade, p. 79; Kalisch, Exodus , p. 495. "The writer was already removed by at least six hundred years from the days of Samuel, a space of time as long as that which separates us from the first Parliament of Edward I."

This date of the book – which cannot but have some bearing on its historic value – is admitted by all, since the peculiarities of the language from the beginning to the end are marked by the usages of later Hebrew. 15 15 See Keil, pp. 9, 10. The chronicler lived some two centuries later "in about the same chronological relation to David as Professor Freeman stands to William Rufus." 16 16 R. F. Horton, Inspiration , p. 843.

7. Criticism cannot furnish us with the name of this great compiler. 17 17 He was not the author of the Book of Samuel, for the standpoint and style are quite different. In the First and Second Books of Samuel the high places are never condemned, as they are incessantly in Kings (1 Kings iii. 2, xiii. 32, xiv. 23, xv. 14, xxii. 43, etc.). Jewish tradition, as preserved in the Talmud, 18 18 Baba Bathra, 15 a. assigned the Books of Kings to the prophet Jeremiah, and in the Jewish canon they are reckoned among "the earlier prophets." This would account for the strange silence about Jeremiah in the Second Book of Kings, whereas he is prominently mentioned in the Book of Chronicles, in the Apocrypha, and in Josephus. But unless we accept the late and worthless Jewish assertion that, after being carried to Egypt by Johanan, son of Kareah (Jer. xlii. 6, 7), Jeremiah escaped to Babylon, 19 19 Seder Olam Rabba , 20. he could not have been the author of the last section of the book (2 Kings xxv. 27-30). 20 20 Even then he would have been ninety years old. Yet it is precisely in the closing chapters of the second book (in and after chap. xvii.) that the resemblances to the style of Jeremiah are most marked. 21 21 There are, however, some differences between 2 Kings xxv. and Jer. lii. (see Keil, p. 12), though the manner is the same, Carpzov, Introd. , i. 262-64 (Hävernick, Einleit. , ii. 171). Jer. li. (verse 64) ends with "Thus far are the words of Jeremiah," excluding him from the authorship of chap. lii. (Driver, Introd. , p. 109). The last chapter of Jeremiah was perhaps added to his volume by a later editor. That the writer was a contemporary of that prophet, was closely akin to him in his religious attitude, and was filled with the same melancholy feelings, is plain; but this, as recent critics have pointed out, is due to the fact that both writers reflect the opinions and the phraseology which we find in the Book of Deuteronomy.