of late Judaism, and leaving out of account the enumeration “the sons of Reuben and the Gadites and half of the tribe of Manasseh,” the astonishing and highly doubtful combinations are eloquent:  Pul and Tiglath-Pileser, the Chaboras and the river of Gozan, are hardly distinguished from each other; Jotham and Jeroboam, on the other hand, make so impossible a synchronism that the partisans of Chronicles will have it that none is intended,—­forgetful, to be sure, of Hosea i. 2, and omitting to say what in that case Jotham of Judah has to do here at all in this connection.  The Hagarenes and Ituraeans too, instead of (say) the Moabites and Ammonites, furnish food for reflection, as also do the geographical statements that Gad had his seat in Bashan and Manasseh in and near Lebanon.  As for the proper names of families and their heads, they are certainly beyond our means of judging; the phrases however of the scheme they fill (anshe shemoth rashe l’beth abotham, migrash, jahes) are peculiar to the Priestly Code and Chronicles, and alongside of elements which are old and attested from other quarters, occur others that look very recent, as for example (v. 24) Eliel, Azriel, Jeremiah, Hodaviah, Jahdiel.

In the introduction the Galilaean tribes have no prominent place, but in the rest of the book they make a favourable appearance (see especially 1Chronicles xii. 32-34, 40, and 2Chronicles xxx. 10, 11, 18); it readily occurs to one, especially in the last-cited passage, to think of the later Judaising process in Galilee.  In Issachar there are stated to have been 87,000 fighting men in David’s time (misparam l’toledotham l’beth abotham, vii. 1-5); out of Zebulun and Naphtali, again, exactly 87,000 men came to David at Hebron, to anoint him and be feasted three days,—­it is carefully mentioned, however (xii. 40), that they took their provisions up with them.  The proper kernel of Israel, Ephraim and Manasseh, is, in comparison with Simeon, Reuben, Gad, Issachar, treated with very scant kindness (vii. 14-29),—­a suspicious sign.  The list of the families of Manasseh is an artificial rechauffe of elements gleaned anywhere; Maachah passes for the wife as well as the sister of Machir, but being a Gileaditess (Beth-Maachah), ought not to have been mentioned at all in this place where the cis-Jordanic Manasseh is being spoken of; to fill up blanks every contribution is thankfully received. 1 In the case of Ephraim a long and meagre genealogy

***************************************** 1 Kuenen, Th.  Tijdschr., 1877, pp. 484, 488; Godsdienst v.  Isr., i. 165. ****************************************

only is given, which, begun in vers. 20, 21, and continued in ver. 25, constantly repeats the same names (Tahath, Tahan, 1Samuel i. 1; Eladah, Laadan, Shuthelah, Telah), and finally reaches its end and goal in Joshua, whose father Nun alone is known to the older sources!  Into the genealogy a wonderful account of the slaying of the children of Ephraim by the men of Gath (1Samuel iv.?) has found its way, and (like viii. 6, 7) according to the prevailing view must be of venerable antiquity.  But in that case the statement of iv. 9 must also be very ancient, which yet obviously is connected with the rise of the schools of the scribes stated in ii. 55 to have existed in Jabez.