And the one verbal quotation made from the book of the Torah is from Deuteronomy (2Kings xiv. 6; Deuteronomy xxiv. 16).  On the other hand, there are clear signs that the author of the revision was not acquainted with the Priestly Code.  Nowhere is any distinction drawn between priests and Levites; the sons of Aaron are never mentioned.  The idea of a central sanctuary before Solomon is contradicted by 1Kings iii. 2.  In one section only, a section which has been greatly exposed to corrections and interpolations of all kinds, namely, the description of the temple and its consecration, 1Kings vi.-viii., do we meet with signs of the influence of the Priestly Code, especially in the Massoretic text; in the Septuagint this is not so much the case.  The most important example of this has already been investigated, p. 43, 44.

If, accordingly, we are fully justified in calling the revision Deuteronomistic, this means no more than that it came into existence under the influence of Deuteronomy, which pervaded the whole century of the exile.  The difference between Deuteronomistic and Deuteronomic is one not of time only but of matter as well:  1 Deuteronomy itself has not yet come to regard

****************************************** 1.  Post-deuteronomic, but still from the time of the kings, are 1Samuel ii. 27 seq.; 2Samuel vii, 1 seq.; 2Kings xviii. 13, 17 seq., xix. 1 seq.; chaps. xi. xii. xxi. xxiii. *******************************************

the cultus in this way as the chief end of Israel, and is much closer to the realism of the actual life of the people.  A difference in detail which allows of easy demonstration is connected with the mode of dating.  The last reviser distinguishes the months not by their old Hebrew names, Zif, Bul, Ethanim, but by numbers, commencing with spring as the beginning of the year.  In this he differs not only from his older sources (1Kings vi. 37, 38, viii. 2), but also from Deuteronomy.

VII.III.2.  This revision is, as we expect to find, alien to the materials it found to work on, so that it does violence to them.  They have been altered in particular by a very one-sided selection, which is determined by certain religious views.  In these views an interest in the prophets mingles with the interest in worship.  It is not meant that the selection is due entirely to the last reviser, though it is thoroughly according to his taste; others had probably worked before him in this direction.  But for us it is neither possible nor important to distinguish the different steps in the process of sifting through which the traditions of the time of the kings had to pass.

The culminating point of the whole book is the building of the temple; almost all that is told about Solomon has reference to it.  This at once indicates to us the point of view; it is one which dominates all Judaistic history:  the history is that of the temple rather than of the kingdom.  The fortunes of the sanctuary and its treasures, the institution and arrangements of the kings with reference to worship—­we are kept au courant about these, but about hardly anything else.  The few detailed narratives given (2Kings xi seq. xvi. xxii. seq.) have the temple for their scene, and turn on the temple.  Only in 2Kings? xviii. seq. does the prophetical interest predominate.