Everywhere it is presupposed that Israel throughout the entire period of the monarchy was organised on the basis of the twelve tribes (ii.-ix.; xii.; xxvii.), but the assumption is certainly utterly false, as can be seen for example from 1Kings iv.  Further, the penchant of later Judaism for statistics is carried back to the earlier time, to which surveys and censuses were repugnant in the extreme.  In spite of 2Samuel xxiv., we are told that under David enumerations both of the spiritual and of the secular tribes were made again and again; so also under his successors, as may be inferred partly from express statements and partly from the precise statistics given as to the number of men capable of bearing arms:  in these cases the most astounding figures are set down,—­always, however, as resting on original documents and accurate enumeration.  In the statistical information of Chronicles, then, so far as it relates to pre-exilic antiquity, we have to do with artificial compositions.  It is possible, and occasionally demonstrable, that in these some elements derived from tradition have been used.  But it is certain that quite as many have been simply invented; and the combination of the elements—­the point of chief importance—­ dates, as both form and matter show, from the very latest period.  One might as well try to hear the grass growing as attempt to derive from such a source as this a historical knowledge of the conditions of ancient Israel.

VI.III.2.  As regards Judah and Benjamin, and to a certain extent Levi also, the case of course is somewhat different from that of the ten extinct tribes.  It is conceivable that here a living ethno-genealogical tradition may have kept the present connected with the past.  Nevertheless, on closer examination, it comes out that most of what the Chronicler here relates has reference to the post-exilic time, and that the few fragments which go up to a higher antiquity are wrought into a connection which on the whole is of a very recent date.  Most obtrusively striking is it that the list of the heads of the people dwelling in Jerusalem given in ix. 4—­17 is simply identical with Nehemiah xi. 3-19.  In this passage, introducing as it does the history of the kings (x. seq.), one is by no means prepared to hear statements about the community of the second temple; but our author is under the impression that in going there he is letting us know about the old Jerusalem; from David to Nehemiah is no leap for him, the times are not distinct from one another to his mind.  For chap. viii. also, containing a full enumeration of the Benjamite families, with special reference to those which had their seat in the capital, Bertheau has proved the post-exilic reference; it is interesting that in the later Jerusalem there existed a widespread family which wished to deduce its origin from Saul and rested its claims to this descent on a long genealogy (viii. 33-40). 1

***************************************** 1.  Equivalent to ix. 35-44, which perhaps proves the later interpolation of ix. 1-34. ***************************************