VI.III.

It is in the Book of Kings that the last revision works most unrestrictedly.  Here also chronological and religious elements combine to the building up of the framework, and we begin with examining the chronological system.

From the exodus from Egypt to the beginning of the building of the temple was a period of 430 years; and from the latter to the destruction of Jerusalem, a period, according to the numbers of the kings of Judah, of 430 years, or reckoning the exile, of 480 years, as before.  In Chronicles, the succession from Azariah ben Ahimaaz, who was, according to the correct reading, the first to officiate in the temple of Solomon, to Jozadak, who was carried away in the captivity, consists of eleven high priests; thus, reckoning the exile, we have again twelve generations of 40 years each.  The detailed figures which compose the total are here more complicated, which is no doubt partly due to the fact that some of them are dates which the reviser found given.  Yet in this instance also the number 40 is the basis of calculation, as we see in the reigns of the kings of Judah.  From the division of the kingdom to the destruction of Samaria in the 6th year of Hezekiah, the numbers are as follows:  Rehoboam and Abijam, 20; Asa, 41; Jehoshaphat, Joram, Ahaziah, Athaliah, 40; Joash, 40; Amaziah and Uzziah, 81; Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, 38.  From the destruction of Samaria to the last date in Kings (2Kings xxv. 27), Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amon, have 80; Josiah, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, 79 1/4.  Let him believe who can that it is a mere chance that the figures 41 + 81 + 38 make up exactly 40 + 80 + 40.

The series of the kings of Israel is in point of chronology dependent on the series of Judah.  According to the numbers of the latter, 393 years elapsed from the division of the kingdom to the Babylonian captivity; and if we assume with Ezekiel (iv. 4) that Samaria fell 150 years earlier than Judah, 243 years remain for the duration of the northern kingdom.  The figures given amount in fact to 242 years.  These 150 Israelite years, from the destruction of Samaria to the destruction of Jerusalem, exceed, it is true, by 17 the sum of the parallel years of Judah; and the Israelite years from 1 Jeroboam to 9 Hosea fall short of the years in Judah from 1 Rehoboam to 6 Hezekiah by about the same number.  This shows that no effort was made at first to synchronise the individual reigns in the two series.  The 242 years of the northern kingdom are divided, by the epoch of 1 Jehu, into 98 and 144.  If we take them at 240, the half of 480, the 98 must be changed into 96, which then agree with the contemporary 96 Jewish years.  The deduction must be made at the reign of Baasha.  Then we get the following play of figures:  Jeroboam 22, Nadab 2, Baasha 22, Elah 2, Omri 12, Ahab 22, Ahaziah 2, Joram 12.  That is to say, the eight kings have together 96 years, the first four and the last four 48 each.  Two have the average number 12; the other 6 consists of three pairs of father and son; and the twice 12 years belonging to each pair are divided so that the father gets 12 + 10, and the son 12 — 10, obviously because the father was considered much more important than the son. 1