Page:02.BCOT.KD.HistoricalBooks.A.vol.2.EarlyProphets.djvu/1427

 in the devotion of a portion of their revenues to the repairing of the temple. But that the king took the matter in hand himself, not so much because of the dilatoriness or negligence of the priests as because his first measure, regarded as an expedient, did not answer the purpose, is evident from the fact that, according to the Chronicles, he did not content himself with placing the chest at the entrance, but had a proclamation made at the same time in Judah and Jerusalem, to offer the tax of Moses for the repair of the temple (2Ki 12:9) - evidently with no other intention than to procure more liberal contributions. For, according to 2Ki 12:10, all the chief men and all the people rejoiced thereat, and cast their gifts into the chest, i.e., they offered their gifts with joy for the purpose that had been proclaimed. - The other points of difference between the Chronicles and our text are unimportant. For instance, that they placed the chest “at the gate of the house of Jehovah on the outside.” The הוּצה merely defines the expression in our text, יי בּית בּבוא־אישׁ בּימין, “to the right at the entrance into the temple,” more minutely, by showing that the ark was not placed on the inner side of the entrance into the court of the priests, but against the outer wall of it. This is not at variance with המּזבּח אצל in 2Ki 12:10; for even apart from the account in the Chronicles, and according to our own text, this cannot be understood as signifying that the ark had been placed in the middle of the court, as Thenius explains in opposition to וגו בּבוא־אישׁ, but can only mean at the entrance which was on the right side of the altar, i.e., at the southern entrance into the inner court. Again, the further variation, that according to the Chronicles (2Ki 12:11), when the chest was full, an officer of the high priest came with the scribe (not the high priest himself), furnishes simply a more exact definition of our account, in which the high priest is named; just as, according to 2Ki 12:10, the high priest took the chest and bored a hole in the lid, which no intelligent commentator would understand as signifying that the high priest did it with his own hand. But there is a real difference between 2Ki 12:14 and 2Ki 12:15 of our text and 2Ki 12:14 of the Chronicles, though the solution of this suggests itself at once on a closer inspection of the words. According to our account, there were no golden or silver vessels, basons, knives, bowls, etc., made with the money that was brought in, but it was given for the repairing of the house. In the Chronicles, on the contrary, it is