It cannot be said that this produces a very favourable impression for the high antiquity of the other list of the Benjamites in vii. 6-11; to see how little value is to be attached to the pretensions of the latter to be derived from original documents of hoary antiquity, it is only necessary to notice the genuinely Jewish phraseology of vers. 7, 9, 11, such proper names as Elioenai, and the numbers given (22,034 + 20,200 + 17,200, making in all 59,434 fighting men).

The registers of greatest historical value are those relating to the tribe of Judah (ii. 1-iV. 23).  But in this statement the genealogy of the descendants of David must be excepted (chapter iii.), the interest of which begins only with Zerubbabel, the rest being merely an exceedingly poor compilation of materials still accessible to us in the older historical books of the canon, and in Jeremiah.  According to iii. 5, the first four of David’s sons, born in Jerusalem, were all children of Bathsheba; the remaining seven are increased to nine by a textual error which occurs also in the LXX version of 2Samuel v. 16.  Among the sons of Josiah (iii. 15 seq.), Johanan, i.e.  Jehoahaz, is distinguished from Shallum (Jeremiah xxii. 11), and because he immediately succeeded his father, is represented as the first-born, though in truth Jehoiakim was older (2Kings xxiii. 3I, 36); Zedekiah, Jehoiakim’s brother, is given out to be the son of Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, because he was the successor of Jeconiah, who succeeded Jehoiakim.  Similar things occur also in the Book of Daniel, but are usually overlooked, with a mistaken piety.  Whoever has eyes to see cannot assign any high value except to the two great Jewish genealogies in chaps. ii. and iv.  Yet even here the most heterogeneous elements are tossed together, and chaff is found mingled with wheat. 1

************************************** 1.  For further details the reader is referred to the author’s dissertation De gentibus et familiis Judaeis, Gottingen, 1870. **************************************

Apart from the introduction, vers.1-8, chap. ii. is a genealogy of the children of Hezron, a tribe which in David’s time had not yet been wholly amalgamated with Judah, but which even then constituted the real strength of that tribe and afterwards became completely one with it.  The following scheme discloses itself amid the accompanying matters:  “The sons of Hezron are Jerahmeel and Celubai” (Caleb) (ver. 9). “and the sons of Jerahmeel, the first-born of Hezron, were...” (ver. 25).  “These were the sons of Jerahmeel.  And the sons of Caleb the brother of Jerahmeel were...” (ver. 42).  “These were the sons of Caleb " (ver. 50 a).  That which is thus formally defined and kept by itself apart (compare in this connection “Jerahmeel the first-born of Hezron,” “Caleb the brother of Jerahmeel”) is materially also distinguished from all else.  It is the kernel of the whole, and refers to the pre-exilian time.  Even the