Chapter XLVIII: Conclusion

It will have been seen that there are two main heroes of the First Book of Kings--Solomon and Elijah. How vast is the gulf which separates those two ideals! In Solomon we see man in all the adventitious splendour which he can derive from magnificent surroundings and from exaltation to a dizzy height above his fellows. Everything that the earth can give him he possesses from earliest youth, yet all turns to dust and ashes under his touch. Wealth, rank, power, splendour cannot ever, or under any circumstances, satisfy the soul. The soul can only be sustained by heavenly food, by the manna which God sends it from heaven in the wilderness. Its divineness can only be maintained by feeding on the Divine. If we think of Solomon, even in his most dazzling hour, we see no element of happiness or of reality in his lonely splendour or loveless home. It is nothing but a miserable pageant. The Book of Ecclesiastes, though written centuries after he had passed away, yet shows sufficiently, as the Eastern legends also show, that mankind was not misled by the glamour which surrounded him into the supposition that he was to be envied. It was felt, whether he uttered it or not, that "Vanity of vanities, vanity of vanities, all is vanity," is the real echo of his weariness. In the famous fiction the Khaliph sees him with the other giant shades on his golden throne at the banquet; but each and all have on their faces an expression of solemn agony, and under the folds of their purple a little flame is ever burning at their hearts.

How different is the rough Prophet of Gilead, the ascetic, in his sheepskin mantle and leathern girdle, who can live for months on a little water and meal baked with oil![790] In him we see the grandeur of manhood reduced to its simplest elements; we see the dignity of man as simply man towering over all the adventitious circumstance of royalty. One who, like Elijah, has no earthly desires, has no real fears. If he flies from Jezebel to save his life, it is only because he is not justified in flinging it away; otherwise he is as dauntless before the _vultus instantis tyranni_ as before the _civium ardor prava jubentium_. Hence, Elijah in his absolute poverty, in his despised isolation--Elijah, hunted and persecuted, and living in dens and caves of the earth--is immeasurably greater than Solomon, because he is the messenger of the living God before whom he stands. And his work is immeasurably more permanent and more valuable for humanity than that of all the kings and great men among whom he moved. He believed in God, he fought for righteousness, and therefore he left behind him an unperishable memorial, showing that he who would live for eternity rather than for time is he who best achieves the high ends of his destiny. He may err as Elijah erred, but with the blessing of the Lord he shall not miscarry. Though he go forth weeping, he shall come again with joy, bringing his sheaves with him. Solomon, after his death, almost vanished from the history of Israel into the legends of Arabia. In the New Testament he is but barely mentioned. But Elijah still lives in, and haunts, the memory of his nation. A chair is placed for his invisible presence at every circumcision. A cup is set aside for him at sacred banquets, and all dubious questions are postponed for solution "until the day when Elijah comes." He shone with Moses on the Mount of Transfiguration; and St. James, the Lord's brother, appeals to him as the most striking example of the power of that prayer which

"Moves the arm of Him who moves the world."

FOOTNOTE:

[790] It is supposed that Mohammed alludes to Elijah in the Qur'an, _Sura_ xxi. 85: "And Ishmael, and Idris, and _Dhu'l Kifl_ ("he of the portion")--all these were of the patient; and we made them enter into our mercy; verily they were among the righteous" (Palmer's Qur'an, ii. 53).

NOTE ON THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE
FIRST BOOK OF KINGS.

I have not thought it worth while to trouble the reader with conjectures or corrections of the text, intended to remove the numerous and obvious discrepancies which the redactor of the Book of Kings leaves uncorrected in his references to the synchronism of the reigns.[791] Many of them are removed or modified when we bear in mind that, _e.g._, Nadab and Elah and Ahaziah are described as reigning "two years" each (xv. 25, xvi. 8, xxii. 51), whereas the reign of each may not have exceeded a year, or even a few months, if these months came at the end of one year and the beginning of another. Periods of anarchic interregnum, or of association of a son with his father on the throne, may account for other confusions and contradictions; but they are purely conjectural, and in some cases far from probable. Jerome, as is well known, gave up all attempts to harmonise the chronologic data as a hopeless problem. "Relege," he says, "omnes et veteris et novi Testamenti libros, et tantam annorum reperies dissonantiam _ut hujuscemodi hærere quæstionibus non tam studiosi quam otiosi hominis esse videatur_."

The Assyrians were, for the most part (though, as Schrader shows, not _always_), as scrupulously exact in their chronological details as the Jews were careless in theirs. The cuneiform inscriptions give us the following data, which may be regarded as _points de repère_, and which are not reconcilable with the received dates:--

B.C.

Battle of Karkar, in which Ahab and Benhadad
were defeated 854
Jehu pays tribute to Shalmanezer II. 842
Menahem tributary to Assyria 738
Fall of Samaria 722
Sennacherib's Invasion 701

These dates do not accord with those which we should derive from the Book of Kings in the ordinary system of chronology, which seem to fix the Fall of Samaria in 737.

The dates of the later Kings of Assyria seem to be as follows:--

B.C.

Rimmon-Nirari III. 810
Shalmanezer III. 781
Assur-dân IV. 771
Tiglath-Pileser III. (Pul, a usurper) 745
Shalmanezer IV. 727
Sargon 722
Sennacherib 705
Esar-haddon I. 681
Assur-bani-pal 668

* * * * *

Destruction of Nineveh 606

Adding up the separate data of this book for the kings of Israel we have from Jeroboam to the death of Joram ninety-eight years seven days; and for the same period of the kings of Judah from Rehoboam to Ahaziah we have ninety-five years. Supposing that some such errors as we have indicated have crept into the computation, the dates of the reigns may be, as reckoned by Kittel:--

B.C.

Saul 1037-1017
David 1017-977
Solomon 977-937
Jeroboam I. 937-915
Nadab 915-914
Baasha 914-890
Elah 890-889
Zimri 889
Omri 889-877
Ahab 877-855
Ahaziah 855-854
Jehoram 854-842

* * * * *

Rehoboam 937-920
Abijah 920-917
Asa 917-876
Jehoshaphat 876-851
Joram 851-843
Ahaziah 843-842

From Phœnician inscriptions (recorded in the _Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum_) little of _historical_ importance has hitherto been reaped.

In the Egyptian monuments there is nothing which illustrates the period of the Kings except the inscription of Sheshonk recording his invasion in the days of Rehoboam, of which I have given some account (p. 315).

The Assyrian inscriptions, to which allusion is made in their place, are of extreme importance and interest, and from the lists of kings we have good details of chronology. The best book on their bearing upon Hebrew history is that of Schrader, _Die Keilinschriften und d. Alte Testament_, 1883.

On the datum of four hundred and eighty years from the Exodus to the building of the Temple, I have already touched. It does not agree with Acts xiii. 20, nor with the Book of Judges. The LXX. reads "four hundred and forty." It is almost certainly a late and erroneous chronological gloss derived in very simple fashion, thus:--The wanderings forty years, Joshua forty years, Othniel forty years, Ehud eighty years, Jabin twenty years, Barak forty years, Gideon forty years, the Philistines forty years, Samson twenty years, Samuel forty years, Saul forty years, David forty years = four hundred and eighty, or twelve generations of forty years.

But the same result was arrived at with equal empiricism by omitting the episodes of heathen dominations (Jabin and the Philistines), and only adding up the years assigned to the Judges, and the four years of Solomon's reign before he began to build the Temple, thus:--Othniel forty years, Ehud eighty years, Barak forty years, Gideon forty years, Tola twenty-three years, Jair twenty-two years, Jephthah six years, Ibzan seven years, Elom ten years, Abdon eight years, Samson twenty years = two hundred and ninety-six.

Eli forty years, Samuel twenty years (1 Sam. vii. 15), David forty years, Solomon four = one hundred and four. Add to the four hundred the two generations of the wanderings and Joshua, and we again have four hundred and eighty; but quite as arbitrarily, for the period of Saul is omitted.[792]

The problems of early Hebrew chronology cannot yet be regarded as even approximately solved.

FOOTNOTES:

[791] See W. Robertson Smith, _Journ. of Philology_, x. 20.

[792] See Reuss, _Hist. d'Israel_, i. 101-103.

Transcriber's Notes:

Obvious punctuation and spelling errors have been fixed throughout.

Inconsistent hyphenation left as in the original text.

Page 27: The reign of Josiah was listed as A.D. 621, this was actually B.C. 621, corrected.

Page 27: The sentence beginning "Thus from the Exodus..." originally said "Thus from the Exile...". The sentence was changed to be historically accurate.

Footnote 13: There was a missing verse reference for 2 Kings xvi. Corrected to be 2 Kings xvi. 2.

Footnote 29: There was no anchor for this footnote. Left as in the original text.