(3.) He omits, on the other hand, the history of the kingdom of Israel, giving only a notice of its establishment, and of certain parts of its history which were connected with that of the kingdom of Judah.  The apparent ground of this is, that the kingdom of the ten tribes furnished no example which could be available to the people in the work of reestablishing the commonwealth.  It is to be noticed, moreover, that he passes over in silence the adultery of David with its calamitous consequences, and the idolatry of Solomon.  This is, perhaps, due to the brevity of the history before the division of the kingdom; for he does not spare the sins of the pious monarchs that followed.  See 2 Chron. 16:7-12; 19:2; 32:25, 31; 35:21, 22.

21.  In the Hebrew canon the books of Chronicles stand last in order.  It is generally agreed that they were written, after the return of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity, by Ezra, who had all the qualifications for such a work.  Whatever use he may have made of the earlier books of Samuel and Kings, it is plain that these were not his chief sources, for he records many things not found in them.  He and the author of the books of Kings had access to the same public records, and each of them made such selections from them as suited his purposes.  Hence the matter contained in the two works agrees in part, and is partly different.  See above, Chap. 15, Nos. 7, 8.

22.  That there are some discrepancies between the books of Samuel and Kings and the books of Chronicles, arising from errors in transcribing, is generally admitted.  These relate, however, mainly to dates, and do not affect the general integrity of the works.  But most of the disagreements between the earlier and later histories are only apparent, arising from their brevity, and from the fact that their authors frequently select from the same reign different events, the one passing by in silence what the other records; or that, where they record the same events, various accompanying circumstances are omitted.

An example of apparent error in transcription is 2 Sam. 24:13 compared with 1 Chron. 21:12; the former passage specifying seven years of famine, the latter three years.  For other examples see 2 Sam. 8:4 compared with 1 Chron. 18:4; 2 Sam. 23:8 with 1 Chron. 11:11; 1 Kings 4:26 with 2 Chron. 9:25.  We are not to infer, however, that all cases of apparent disagreement involve error in one or the other of the records.  When the events of a whole campaign, for example, are crowded into single sentences, it is not surprising that the different narratives should contain seeming discrepancies which a full knowledge of the details would enable us to reconcile.  The separate discussion of the difficulties presented by the books of Chronicles, as compared with the earlier histories, belongs to the commentator.  It is sufficient to remark here, that independent parallel histories always