the obedient servants of the successors of David, and regarded the unconditional authority claimed by these kings over their sanctuary as a matter of course (2Kings xvi.  TO seq., xii. 18).  These notices, however, as we have them, are not drawn from the documents themselves, but from a secondary compilation, perhaps from the two sets of chronicles cited at the end of each reign of the kings of Israel and those of Judah, from which at all events the succession of the rulers appears to the drawn.  These chronicles are not to be identified, it is clear, with the original annals.  The book of the annals must be distinguished from the Dibre-hajamim themselves.  Whether the chronicle of Israel_-hardly anything out of which is communicated to us—­was composed much earlier than the chronicle of Judah (which seems to close with Jehoiachim), and whether it and the chronicle of Solomon (1Kings xi. 41) are a quite independent work, I am inclined to consider doubtful.

The excerpts from the annals are interrupted by more extensive episodes which are interwoven with them, and are also embraced in the Deuteronomistic scheme.  Of these the Jewish ones are the minority, the greater part are Samaritan, but they all belong to a very limited period of time.  I select the miraculous history of Elijah as an example of these, to show the sentiment and the change of sentiment in this instance also.

The prophet Elijah, from Tishbeh in Gilead, appears before King Ahab of Samaria, and says, “By the life of Jehovah the God of Israel, whom I serve, there shall not be dew nor rain these years but according to my word.”  The story begins abruptly; we require to know that Ahab, stirred up by Jezebel, has been propagating in Israel the worship of the Tyrian Baal, and has killed the prophets of Jehovah by hundreds:  this is the reason of the punishment which comes on him and his land (xviii. 13, 22).  Elijah vanishes as suddenly as he appeared.  We find him again at the brook Cherith, which flows into the Jordan; then in the land of Baal with a widow at Zarepta; while following his fortunes we are made to feel in a simple and beautiful way the severity of the famine.  Ahab in the meantime had sent out messengers to take him, and had required of every state to which the vain search had extended, an oath that he was not to be found there.  Now, however, necessity obliged him to think of other things; he had to go out himself with his minister Obadiah to seek fodder for the still remaining war-horses (Amos vii. 1).  In this humiliating situation he all at once met the banished man.  He did not believe his eyes.  “Is it thou, O troubler of Israel?” “I have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father’s house!” After this greeting Elijah challenged the king to institute a contest between the 450 prophets of Baal, and him, the only prophet of Jehovah left remaining.  A trial by sacrifice took place on Mount Carmel before the whole people.  Each party was to prepare a bullock and lay it on