OUTLINE OF THE ESSAY. 1. The Obvious Design of the Books of Chronicles. 2. Their Testimony Touching the Mosaic Legislation and the Levitical Institutions in Direct Conflict with the Recent Critical Theories of the Pentateuch. 3. Their Testimony Rejected and Pronounced Untrustworthy by Critics. 4. Questions of Language, Numbers, Genealogies, and Religious Opinions. 5. Reproduction of Addresses and Hymns. 6. Alleged Self-contradiction. 7. Alleged Discrepancies. (a) 2 Chron. i. 3–6. (b) 2 Chron. ii. 2–15. (c) Wellhausen's Treatment of 1 Chron. x. and xi. 8. Alleged Improper Omissions of Facts. 9. Additions Alleged to be Unhistorical. (a) Accounts of Miraculous Events. (b) List of Warriors in 1 Chron. xii. (c) Additions Concerning Rehoboam, Shishak, and (d) Manasseh's Captivity and Repentance. 10. Untrustworthy Character of Chronicles Not Proven. CHRONICLES AND THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. BY PROF. MILTON S. TERRY, D.D., GARRETT BIBLICAL INSTITUTE, EVANSTON, ILL. I. THE Books of Chronicles were obviously designed to furnish the Jewish people a record of their national history from its beginning to the time of their return from the Babylonian exile. They are prefaced by a collection of genealogies, but the more detailed narrative begins with the reign of David, under whom Jerusalem became the chosen seat of the national government and worship. The author refers to seventeen documentary sources, consisting of historical annals, prophetical monographs and commentaries on the same, and dwells at length on those acts of David and Solomon which tended to centralize the worship of Israel. He lived some time after the Babylonian exile, was probably a priest, and aimed to enhance in the minds of his readers the theocratic calling of the Jewish people and the sacred character of their institutions. A work of this kind would have been naturally prompted by the circumstances of the Jews after the rebuilding of the temple and the organization of the returned exiles at Jerusalem. Indeed it could hardly have been otherwise among a people of any literary activity than that a number and variety of such historical narratives should have been produced, and those which obtained greatest currency and commanded most respect would survive, while the less important and useful would fall into neglect and at length be lost. So, too, the sources from which such historical narratives are compiled may be so far superseded by a comprehensive, convenient, and well-arranged work as to be of no further practical value and perish from sheer neglect. What care ninety-nine out of a hundred readers of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" for the sources whence he drew? 2. In the recent criticism of the Pentateuch it has been seen that the Books of Chronicles are irreconcilably adverse to the theory which denies the Mosaic origin of the Levitical legislation, and finds it in the time of the Babylonian exile and later. There is no possible way for critics who adopt this theory to escape the opposing testimony of the writer of Chronicles except by destroying his credibility. For his testimony to the antiquity of the Aaronic priesthood and the existence of the Levitical laws during the period of monarchy is not limited to a few incidental allusions, or to exceptional passages which may be rejected as interpolations of a later hand. It is interwoven with his entire narrative, and cannot be separated without destroying the whole. He has manifestly taken much pains to compile an accurate genealogy of the great families of the tribe of Levi (1 Chron. vi.). He everywhere recognizes the sons of Aaron as consecrated for the services of the altar and the holy places, and speaks of this arrangement.as an ordinance of Moses (vi. 49; xxiii. 13; xxiv. 19; 2 Chron. xxvi. 18; XXXV. 14). The priests and Levites had their dwellings among the other tribes (1 Chron. vi.), and after the secession of the northern provinces they flocked in large numbers to Jerusalem as to an asylum (2 Chron. xi. 13, 14; xiii. 9-12). The Levites figure prominently in carrying the ark, and are regarded as the only proper persons for that work (1 Chron. xv). Uzziah was smitten with leprosy for presumptuously attempting to offer incense, which only the anointed priests might do (2 Chron. xxvi. 16-19). In 1 Chron. xxiii.-xxvi. we have a detailed account of the thorough organization and classification of the priests and Levites under the direction of David. Solomon is represented as carrying out these Levitical customs according to the ordinances of his father David and according to the commandment of Moses (2 Chron. viii. 12–16). Under Jehoshaphat the Levites and the priests were appointed to decide matters of controversy among the people, and the high priest was over them in all matters pertaining to the service of Jehovah (2 Chron. xxi. 8-11). It was the high priest Jehoiada who, with the captains and Levites, restored Joash to the throne (2 Chron. xxiii.), and during his reign observed certain laws "that Moses the servant of God laid upon Israel in the wilderness" (2 Chron. xxiv. 9). The great reforms effected under Hezekiah and |