The authorship as well as the age of this history may admit of several suppositions. Whatever were the original sources, the books are evidently the composition of one writer. The style is gene rally uniform throughout. The same forms of ex pression are used to denote the same thing, e.g., the male sex (1 Kings xiv. to, etc.) ; the death and burial of a king (t Kings xi. 43, etc.) ; modes of allusion to the law (1 Kings xi. 1 ; fidelity to Jehovah (1 Kings viii. 63, etc.) ; God's selection of Jerusalem 0 F:ings viii. 16) ; and the references to the high places (1 Kings iii. 2) ; (De Wette, Ein kit., sec. 184, a ; Havernick, midi. sec. 170. Similar idioms are ever recurring, so as to produce a uniformity of style (AIonotonie der Darstellung, Havernick, d. c.) Expressions which seem prover bial are repeated in the same terms, as the phrase, shut up and left' (1 Kings xiv. to ; 2 Kings ix. 8). There is not, however, perfect sameness of style in all places. There are also apparent discrepancies, but the solution must have been evident to the compiler. Thus Kings xxi. 19, containing the doom of Ahab, in the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine,' is often said to be opposed to Kings xxii. 33, where the prophecy is said to have been ful filled when the armour of the deceased Ahab was washed at Samaria. But the fulfilment was yet waiting its culmination in the fate of Joram his son, whose corpse was cast into that plat of ground' by Jehu, who said at the time to his comrade, retnember how that when I and thou rode to gether after Ahab his father, the Lord laid this burden on him' (2 Kings x. 25, 26). The retribu tion, as to its degradation, was fulfilled in the father, and as to its locality in the son. The phrase, unto this day,' is often used proverbially, and not with strict leference to subsequent reality. It seems to be repeated as it occurred in the ori ginal archives out of which the books have been compiled. The repetitions, as Kings ix. 27, 2S, and x. 22, are inserted from a different point of view ; or, as in Kings xiii. 12, 13, compared with xiv. 15, 16, the passages may have been inserted from erroneous transcription. We have not the perfect and colourless redaction of a modern abridg ment, in which all anomalies are smoothed down, all chasms neatly bridged over, and seeming con tradictions displaced or explained ; but we have the varied style, loose connection, abrupt transitions, and occasional repetitions and dislocations, of an honest and artless compiler, whose work is not to interpret but to narrate.
The sources whence the historic information has been derived have been variously given. That annals contemporary with the events which they describe were written in the early period of the Jewish state, may be at once admitted. Eichhorn supposes that the sources of Kings were private historical works (Einleit., sec. 482). De Wette, from the legends related in them, cannot believe them to be official documents. Bertholdt, Haver nick, and Movers, hold that the books are extracts from the public annals (comp. Iiiivernick, sec. 169). The inspired historiographer refers his readers to these sources of evidence in such frequent phrases as 4-1:1 -inn, and the rest of the acts.' Such a refe rence is made especially to the sources, when other royal acts than those narrated in the books of Kings are glanced at. These sources are styled the book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah, or Israel Similar phraseology is used in Esther x. 2 ; Vi. I.
to denote the official annals of the Persian empire. Public documents are spoken of in the same way (Neh. xii. 23). There is little reason to suppose that the book referred to in this last passage is that styled Chronicles in our copy of the Scriptures (Mo vers, Chronik, sec. 234). Therefore we infer that the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings,' so often alluded to, was an authentic document—public and official state papers.
That the prophets themselves were employed in recording contemporaneous events, is evident floin Chron. xxix. 29 ; 2 ChrOn. xx. 34, etc. In the course of the narrative we meet with many instances of description, having the freshness and form of nature, and which are apparently dircct quotations from some journal, written by one who testified what he had seen (1 Kings xx. to ; 2 Kings xii. 15 ; xiv. 8). Thus we have in those books, for the period of David, the book of Samuel the seer, the book of Nathan the prophet, and the book of Gad the seer ;' and thcse may have been the source and authority of the Acts of David the king,' re ferred to in Chron. xxix. 29. The Book of the Acts of Solomon' seems to have been a separate independent document, and may have had its origin in the works referred to in 2 Chron. ix. 29, as in the book of Nathan the prophet, and in the pro phecy of Altijah the Shilonite, and in the visions of Iddo the seer.' There are several Hebrew words peculiar to the account of the reign of Solomon, and found nowhere else in Kings. It is therefore wrong, as Bleek says, on the part of Stahelin and De Wette, to assign Solomon's consecration-prayer to the period of the captivity. In the same books of Chronicles, the prophetic annalists are named in connection with many of the kings—Shemaiah and Iddo with Rehoboam, Jehu the son of Hanani with Jehoshaphat, Isaiah with and Hezekiah, Azariah the son of Oded with Asa, Micaiah the son of Inalah with Ahab, and Jeremiah with Josiah. No less than thirteen of such works—or contemporary annals—are mentioned in the books of Chronicles, besides the ordinary and oft-recur ring authority, The Book of the Chronicles of the kings of Israel and Judah."—Rawlinson's Bampton Lecture, Lect. iii. The stories of Elijah and Elisha appear to have been distinct and sepa rate compositions incorporated into the narrative.
Besides being virtually, and in source, the work of contemporary writers or prophets, these books receive confirmatory evidence of their historical verity from external or profane sourccs. On the one hand, Shishak and his conquest of Judah, So or Sevek, Tirhakah of Cush, and Pharaoh-Necho, are distinctly deciphered on the Egyptian monu ments. On the other hand, the names of Jehu, Menahem, Hezeltiah, and Manasseh, are found on the . Assyrian tablets, along with the names of Tiglath-pileser, Shalmaneser, Sargon, and Senna cherib, who records at length his victory over many towns of Israel, and the immense tribute paid to him by Hezekiah. Among the tributaries of Esar haddon appears Manasseh king of Judah. The Tyrian annals, as preserved by Menander, and the fragmentary notices of Syria found in ancient authors, are in general harmony with the Scripture annals. It is not to be forgotten also, that the historical incidents of these books receive confirma tory illustration from the prophets of the 0.T. A portion of Isaiah and Jeremiah is historical, and light is cast on the same subjects by many allu sions to manners and social condition in Amos and Hosea. Though there appears to be occasional exaggeration in numbers, arising from the blunders of transcribers, yet the credibility of the history rests upon a sure and unbroken foundation. What neologists style their mythical character or colour ing, furnishes to every believer in the reality of the theocratic government established by Moses, continued evidence that the Jews were God's pecu liar people, and that Jehovah \vas their sovereign (Havernick, sec. 170 ; Hengstenberg, Beitr., 169). The miraculous element is so imbedded in the histoiy, that the history depends upon it, and cannot be well understood without it. The super natural is all the more credible, if it be adapted to the age and people, and its manifestations be ever in harmony with the spirit of the theocracy, or in vindication of its claims.