1.02.01.02 The Historical Books
II. THE HISTORICAL BOOKS. When we come to the history of Israel after the settlement in Canaan we are approaching times the history of which is chronicled by nearly contemporary writers. It is true the books as we now possess them represent a later date than the events they record, but they evidently rely upon earlier information. We have to recollect that we are dealing with narratives that have been subjected to editing and revision. Still, in some cases we have direct appeals to the original authorities, and as we approach the later history of the kingdoms we find ourselves emerging into full daylight.
1. Judges.— This book contains the most obscure section of the history of Israel after that of the Hexateuch, as it is also the most ancient. It is not easy to say how long a time it covers. The book abounds in chronological statements, and if we add its periods together we get a total of 410 years. But this is too long to be brought into agreement with the 480 years stated in 1Ki 6:1 to be the time from the Exodus to the fourth year of Solomon. Possibly some of the judges were contemporary, ruling over different tribes at the same time. The narratives would seem to be derived in part from tribal traditions and old ballads. For example, the Song of Deborah (chap, v.) is one of these ballads; from it we get a very ancient account of the defeat of Sisera, parallel to, but slightly divergent from, the prose account, which we may probably attribute to tribal tradition (chap. iv.). The compilation and editing of the whole book is attributed to the later days of the kings; and not only the substance, but much of the original form, is preserved even in the prose parts of the work. The reader cannot but be struck with the old-world flavor of these strange stories. This very antiquity of the elements of the Book of Judges suggests the point of view from which its moral problems should be regarded. Some of the darkest deeds of some of the darkest days in the history of Israel are here recorded. Nobody would dream of condoning all these awful crimes simply on the ground that they are reported in the Bible, nor because in most cases they were committed by Israelites. Many of them are condemned in the book itself. Subsequently the prophets were unsparing in lashing the vices of the “chosen people/’ never dreaming of sparing them on account of their privileged condition. A crime is a crime, whether committed by a Jew or a Gentile. The case is more complicated where what we cannot but hold to be morally reprehensible appears to be treated with approval. There is a gloating over the blood of the enemies of Israel in this book, as in some other parts of the Old Testament, which cannot be regarded as exemplarly Deborah exults in Jael’s treachery. Most assuredly the passions indulged in by the Israelites in the excitement of a life-and-death struggle are not to be transferred to the experience of Christians. In justice both to Jael and to Deborah, who celebrates her feat so gleefully, it must be remembered that neither had the light of Christian truth, that both, indeed, belonged to a very rough, primitive time, a time of semibarbarism, and therefore should be judged by the standard of their age. This, however, will not entirely settle the matter. Even judged by the standard of that rude age, it cannot be supposed that a gross outrage on the sacred duties of hospitality— always so jealously guarded in the East— should have been condoned, nay, gloried in. We cannot rightly weigh either the conduct of the treacherous murderess or the words of the fierce prophetess until, by an effort of the historical imagination, we have placed ourselves in their situation of a magnificent triumph following hard on a wild terror. No book in the Bible will be more grievously abused if it is read as an absolute revelation for all time than the Book of Judges; no book more strongly demands the historical method for the interpretation of it.
2. Samuel and Kings.— The narratives of the early days of David, containing as they do two apparently irreconcilable accounts of his introduction to Saul,— the earlier, in which he is an acknowledged warrior when he is sought as a musician for the king (1Sa 16:14-23), the second, in which the king first makes his acquaintance as the stripling who fights Goliath (1Sa 17:12-14, 1Sa 17:55-58),— show that we are still in an historical region of some perplexity. But the mists are rapidly clearing, and before long we are able to follow the narratives of the kings of Judah and Israel with little difficulty. The books of Kings were written near the time of the Exile; but the author refers to some of his authorities by name, mentioning the Book of the Acts of Solomon (1Ki 11:41), the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah for the southern kingdom, naming the latter no less than fifteen times, and the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel for the history of the northern kingdom, citing this as many as seventeen times. These books would probably have been contemporary annals. The frequent reference to them may lead us to two conclusions: (1) that the historian was careful to obtain authentic information, and (2) that his inspiration did not authorize him to dispense with the humble task of collecting materials to which the secular historian has resort, and therefore, it is reasonable to suppose, did not lift him in all respects above the limitations of his fellow-laborers in the difficult field of historical research. The line of thought that runs through the two books of Kings is in sympathy with that of the Book of Deuteronomy. It is in the vein of the prophets. As we consider its character in this respect we may be prepared to recognize the true inspiration of the books and its wonderful effects. These works are not bare annals.
They are not like such simple narratives as we meet with in “the father of history,” Herodotus; nor are they like the philosophic history in which political principles are traced out, as in Thucydides. The great feature of the Hebrew history is the unique inspiration of insight into the moral and spiritual truths that emerge throughout the course of events. The writers help us to see God in history, because they themselves have discovered Him there. When it is asked, “ Why should we study the story of these two little kingdoms of a remote past? and would it not be more profitable to save the time spent upon them for the much larger nations of Europe, nearer to our own times?” the answer will not be easy if it is confined to the merits of what may be called the “secular” study of history. The value of what is rightly named “sacred” history does not lie so much in the religious nature of the events with which it is concerned as in the religious treatment of those events, many of which are of a very ordinary character— that is to say, in the fact that it is history written by prophets, by men inspired with spiritual insight. This fact should guide us in the study of the books.
Everything has been done that could be done to destroy the sacred character of this history by treating it in the dreary way in which the history of other nations than Israel is too commonly treated. Lists of kings, battles, dates, etc, belonging to a not very numerous people, who lived more than 2000 years ago at the extreme east of the Levant, cannot well excite great interest in the minds of busy Englishmen to-day. It may be of some significance for the researches of the antiquarian to discover that the chronology of Israel can now be tested by an Assyrian list of dates that has come down from contemporary ages, and that the result is a general agreement with the Old Testament dates, though with divergences that show those dates to have been inaccurate in some instances. But the religious value of the books does not lie in this direction.
If we would study them as parts of the Bible, that is to say, if we would study them with a view to any of the exalted ends for which we resort to the Bible, we must make it our business to seek for the spirit in which they were written, in order that we may perceive the moral and spiritual lessons they were designed to teach, and thus learn to come to understand the divine principles that apply to public and national affairs as much in Europe to-day as they applied in Palestine of old.
3. Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah.—These books originally formed one work. They are almost the latest books of the Old Testament, dating from the time of the Macedonian empire, after the conquests of Alexander the Great. Chronicles is founded on the books of Kings. It is written in the priestly spirit. Where the two narratives diverge we must certainly prefer the older one for an exact report of the history. The interest of Chronicles, therefore, is not historical. The book is valuable on account of its very differences from Kings, because in the comparison between the two we are able to perceive very clearly what the priestly standpoint is and how it differs from the prophetic. Ezra and Nehemiah break up new ground, and they take their place among the most authentic histories, relying on contemporary records, and to a large extent simply reproducing them in the very words in which they were written.