Page:The Books of Chronicles (1916).djvu/365

Rh Hezekiah began to reign when he was five and twenty years old; and he reigned nine and twenty years in Jerusalem: and his mother's name was Abijah the daughter of Zechariah. And he did that which was right in the eyes of the, according to all that David his father had done. He in the first year of his reign, in the first month, opened the doors of the house of the, and repaired them. And he brought in the priests and the Levites, and gathered

and images, followed by a reorganisation of the arrangements for the support of the priests and Levites—all ecclesiastical topics dear to the heart of the Chronicler. These chapters throughout are in the spirit of the Chronicler, the incidents are generally conceived after the fashion of the ideas of his period, the language bears frequent marks of his characteristic style; and altogether there is no adequate reason to suppose that these incidents are historically true, or even are derived by the Chronicler from old tradition. They are probably his own free composition. Minor considerations point to the same conclusion (see note on xxix. 3 below); and the favourable verdict which in Kings is passed upon Hezekiah may be reckoned a satisfactory motive and a sufficient source for the Chronicler's narrative. According to Kings (2 Kin. xviii. 3—6) Hezekiah "removed the high places and cut down the Asherah, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made He trusted in the, the God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among them that were before him"; a eulogy sufficiently glowing to warrant the assumption that Hezekiah must also have done all those other things which seemed to the Chronicler natural for so pious a monarch to do, and which accordingly are here related.

1. Hezekiah] Heb. "Yehizkiah" (so usually in the Heb. text of Chron.). "Hezekiah" (Heb. "Hizkiah"), the form of the name in Kings, is conveniently used in the English versions of Chron. in place of the less familiar "Yehizkiah."

Abijah] In 2 Kin. "Abi" which is probably only a shortened form of the name.

3—11 (not in 2 Kin.).&emsp;

3. in the first month] i.e. in Nisan; cp. xxx. 2, 3.

opened the doors] The reopening was a necessary sequel to the Chronicler's assertion (xxviii. 24) that Ahaz closed the Temple. If therefore the supposed closing was unhistorical (see note, xxviii. 24) the reopening must be equally so. The notion, however, served the Chronicler admirably, enabling him to enhance the piety of Hezekiah by a full description of the restoration of the Temple services.