Page:The Books of Chronicles (1916).djvu/301

Rh out of Judah. Also in the third year of his reign he sent his princes, even Benhail, and Obadiah, and Zechariah, and Nethanel, and Micaiah, to teach in the cities of Judah; and with them the Levites, even Shemaiah, and Nethaniah, and Zebadiah, and Asahel, and Shemiramoth,and Jehonathan, and Adonijah, and Tobijah, and Tobadonijah, the Levites;

discontinuance of worship at these local sanctuaries) was but a partial success, an official rather than an actual reform; and one suspects also that the phrase for the Chronicler was largely conventional: a reform with which all "good" kings should presumably be credited.

the Asherim] See note on xiv. 3.

7—9 (no parallel in 1 Kin.).&emsp;

7—9. These verses state that Jehoshaphat was not content with the usual reforming measures of a pious king (ver. 6) but proceeded to confirm his people in loyalty to Jehovah by sending leading laymen, Levites, and priests, to teach the Law throughout the land. If vv. 7—9 be compared with xix. 4—11 the two passages will at once be seen to be so closely similar that they may well be variations of the same tradition. Still the description in xix. 4—11 is fuller and suggests arrangements of a permanent character; and, whilst xvii. 7—9 deals with teachers of the Law, xix. 4—11 deals with administrators of it (judges). It is argued with force that this single or dual tradition is entirely unhistorical (so Wellhausen and Torrey). Certainly the arrangements for the judiciary and for instruction in the Law correspond with conditions c. 100 (see Schürer, Geschichte$3$,  176—179), conditions which probably in the Chronicler's day were partly existent and which he may have hoped to see more fully realised. That he should wish to ascribe the institution of such a system of instruction and justice to an early date is also agreeable to his habit of thought; and for such a purpose Jehoshaphat was obviously most suitable: a good king, whose name denoted "Jehovah is judge." Mark further the similarity of the conclusion of each reform: "And the fear of the was on all the kingdoms of the lands " (xvii. 10 and xx. 29) and the remarkable prosperity which properly rewarded such pious action (xvii. 11 ff. and xx. 1—28). Yet the possibility that the Chronicler in these passages has incorporated a really old tradition associating Jehoshaphat with some reform or development of judicial affairs in Judah remains open. Some see an old trait in the conjunction of laymen (princes, xvii. 7) with the priests and Levites. Again the judicial system indicated in xix. 4—11 has no little resemblance to that set forth in Deut. xvi. 18—20, xvii. 8, "and might have been derived from that source." On this theory, xvii. 7—9 and xix. 4—11 would in all likelihood be derived by the Chronicler from some "source" or rather perhaps from two "sources" giving slightly different accounts