As for the kingdom of Israel, the statements about the cultus of that state are very scanty and for the most part rather vague.  Here the prophetical narratives come to the front, generally such as are told from the prophetic point of view, or at least tell of the public appearances and acts of the prophets.  Here and there we are told of occasions on which the Northern kingdom came in contact with Judah; here the Jewish feeling appears which dictated the selection.  What is merely historical, purely secular, is communicated only in the scantiest measure:  often there is nothing but the names and succession of the kings.  We learn hardly anything about King Omri, the founder of the town of Samaria and re-founder of the kingdom, who seems to have reduced Judah also to the position of a dependent ally, nor do we learn more about Jeroboam II., the last great ruler of Israel; while the conflict with the Assyrians and the fall of Samaria are despatched in a couple of verses which tell us scarcely anything at all.  Sometimes a brilliant breaks in on the surrounding night (2Kings ix. x.), but after it we grope in the dark again.  Only so much of the old tradition has been preserved as those of a later age held to be of religious value:  it has lost its original centre of gravity, and assumed an attitude which it certainly had not at first.  It may have been the case in Judah that the temple was of more importance than the kingdom, but there can be no doubt that the history of Israel was not entirely, not even principally, the history of prophecy.  The losses we have to deplore must have affected the Israelitish tradition most seriously.

The damage done by the revision by its positive meddling with the materials as found in the sources, is not so irreparable; yet it is considerable enough.  The change of colour which was effected may be best seen and characterised in the far-reaching observations which introduce the Israelite series of kings; “Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David; if this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of Jehovah at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again to their rightful lord, and they will kill me, and become subject again to Rehoboam king of Judah.  Whereupon the king took counsel and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, Cease to go up to Jerusalem; behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.  And he set the one in Bethel and the other in Dan.  And this thing became a sin; for the people went as one man, even unto Dan.  And he made temples of high places, and took priests from the midst of the people which were not of the house of Levi; whomsoever he would he installed as priest of the high places " (1Kings xii. 26-30, xiii. 33).  The perversion is scarcely so great as in Chronicles, but the anachronism is sufficiently glaring in the mode of view discernible in these reflections of Jeroboam,