has been confirmed by Sir E. Tennent, who says, "It is very remarkable that the terms by which these articles [ivory, apes, and peacocks] are designated in the Hebrew Scriptures are identical with the Tamil names by which some of them are called in Ceylon to the present day; tukeyim may be recognised in tokei, the modern name of these birds" (Ceylon, ii., p. 102; and i., p. 20, 3rd edition). On this subject Professor Max Müller writes: "The Hebrew names for apes and ivory are clearly traceable to the Sanskrit; but though togei does not appear in Sanskrit, it has been derived from the Sanskrit word s'ikhin, meaning 'furnished with a crest"" (Science of Language, p. 190). Refer to our articles on "Apes" and "Elephant.” The common peacock (Pavo cristatus; compare the Sanskrit s'ikhin) is spread over the north of India and the Malaysian islands in its wild and natural state; it is abundant in the forests of the Ghauts. Large flocks are to be seen domesticated around the Hindoo temples in the Deccan and elsewhere. Buffon and Cuvier say that the peacock was first introduced into Greece by Alexander the Great; but this bird was certainly well known to the Greeks many years even before Alexander was born. The Greek word raws occurs in The Birds (102, 269) of Aristophanes, and in The Acharnians of the same poet. The date of Alexander's birth is B.C. 356, while the play of The Birds was brought out B.C. 419, and The Acharnians earlier still-viz., B.C. 425. Aristotle also speaks of the peacock as a well-known bird when he says, "Some animals are vain and jealous like the peacock" (Hist. Anim. 1, i., § 15). The Greeks, no doubt, introduced the peacock from Persia, but when we cannot say; and the Persians doubtless brought these birds from India. From Greece peacocks gradually extended into Rome and other parts of Europe. Besides the Pavo cristatus there is another species which has a much longer crest, the feathers of which are regularly barbed from the base upwards; this species is the P. Japonensis, of Aldrovandus-the P. muticus of Linnæus, who (as the specific name implies) described the bird, probably on the authority of Aldrovandus, as being devoid of spurs, erroneously however, as the bird has spurs; it is found in Java and the Malay countries. The P. nigripennis, a black-shouldered kind which is occasionally produced in this country, has been by some ornithologists supposed to be a new species; but as at present no wild species has hitherto been found, and as this breed has sometimes suddenly appeared in stock of common pied and white peacocks, there is every reason to agree with Mr. Darwin that the "whole evidence seems to preponderate strongly in favour of the blackshouldered breed being a variation, induced either by the climate of England or by some unknown cause, such as reversion to a primordial and extinct condition of the species" (Anim. and Plants under Domest., i., p. 291). Our word "peacock," at least the former part of it, is to be traced to the Latin pavus-that from taŵs, which is onomatopoetic, admirably describing the catlike voice of the bird. This idea appears, according to Professor Monier Williams, in Sanskrit, under the name of marjāraka, “a peacock," so called from its cat-like cry (Sanskrit Dict., p. 774). BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. BY THE REV. CANON RAWLINSON, M.A., CAMDEN PROFESSOR OF ANCIENT HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. FIRST AND SECOND BOOKS OF CHRONICLES. HE two Books of Chronicles, like those of Samuel and Kings, were originally but one, and probably even formed a portion of a still larger work, a work which commenced with 1 Chron. i., and terminated with Ezra x. The continuity of Ezra with 2 Chron. is indicated by the identity of the passage which now terminates Chronicles (2 Chron. xxxvi. 22, 23) with that wherewith Ezra commences (Ezra i. 1-3). It has been supposed that this passage properly belongs only to Ezra, and that its occurrence in Chronicles is owing to the mistake of a scribe, who, not perceiving that he had finished the book which he was transcribing (Chronicles), went on, and copied two verses and a half of Ezra.2 But it is a fatal objection to this theory, that Ezra does not follow Chronicles in the Hebrew copies, in which Chronicles is the last book of all, while Ezra comes after Daniel. There would also be an unfitness in 1 Hieronym., Ad Domnion et Rogatian. (Op., tom. iii., fol. 7c.) Kennicott, Comment on Chronicles xxxvi. 22; Horne, Introduction, vol. iv., p. 58, note (5th edition). | Chronicles terminating two verses sooner than it now does, since then it would contain no distinct mention of the return from the Captivity, which the whole scope and purpose of the history require to be noticed, and which indeed no patriotic Jew, writing after it had taken place, could fail to put on record. It seems, therefore, almost certain that the passage, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 22, 23, is an integral portion of the original work; and if so, the conclusion that Ezra was written as the concluding section of Chronicles can scarcely be resisted; for Chronicles cannot have terminated in the middle of a sentence, as it now does; and if it ran on, it would naturally run on with exactly such a narrative as we find in Ezra. Moreover, there is, as almost all critics admit, the closest possible resemblance of style 4 8 3 The present termination of Chronicles is abrupt and incomplete: "Who is there among you of all his people? The Lord his God be with him, and let him go up-——” Ezra gives the natural continuation: "His God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah," &c. 4 De Wette, Einleitung, § 196 b; Movers, Kritische Untersuchungen, §14 e; Ewald, Geschichte des Volkes Israel, vol. i., pp. 252, 253, &c. and tone between the two books, so that even if they contained no identical passage, it would be evident that they were by the same author. Is it possible, then, to say who was this author? Many modern critics assert that it is not. They view "Ezra" as a compilation by an anonymous writer, living about the time of Alexander the Great, or even later, who (they say) embodied in his work a monograph written by Ezra. The same writer, they allow, compiled the Books of Chronicles, to which they assign the date of B.C. 336-323, or (for critics of this school seldom agree together) that of about B.C. 260. But the criticism which pronounces these judgments bases itself, according to its own admissions, wholly upon the internal evidence. Internal evidence, where there is an abundant literature, where a language can be traced from stage to stage, and where each stage has been thoroughly mastered by the critic, is, no doubt, a very sufficient guide; but where the literature is scanty, where all its stages are not known, where the critic is but half master of the language in any stage, nothing is more doubtful and untrustworthy. The conclusions of German criticism, both upon the positive and upon the relative age of the various portions of the Hebrew Bible, are, up to the present time, so dissonant, so diametrically opposite, that the only inference we can safely draw is that no dependence at all can be placed upon them. In cases where such extreme diversity prevails among those who make internal evidence their guide, it seems to be justifiable to fall back, tentatively at any rate, upon the external evidence, and inquire what historical tradition says on the subject, and what reasons on the whole there seem to be for accepting or rejecting it. Now the consentient voice of the Jewish commentators on the Hebrew Scriptures declares both "Chronicles" and "Ezra " to have been written by Ezra.2 It does not appear that the writers who have delivered this judgment saw any close resemblance of style between the "books" in question, or had ever troubled themselves with any such laborious process as a critical analysis of the "books," or of their constituent parts; they appear simply to have declared the fact as one traditionally kuown to them, known to them much in the same way in which we know that Shakespeare wrote the Venus and Adonis, and Milton the Areopagitica. Now of course it must be allowed that ascriptions of authorship, even when consentient, are not always trustworthy, and that works which have long passed by the name of an ancient writer have occasionally been proved to be spurious, and to belong even to quite a different age. But these cases are, comparatively speaking, rare; and 1 Ewald (Geschichte des Volkes Israel, vol. i., pp. 231, 232) assigns the work to the time of Alexander; Zunz (Gotterdienstl. Vortr. der Jaden, § 31) suggests the date of B.c.260. 2 Bala Bathra, fol. 15, c. 1. Hnet says emphatically and truly, "Esram libros Paralipomenon lucubrasse Ebræorum omnium est fama consentiens" (De ronstrat. Evangelica, iv. 14, p. 341). 3 As the Periplus, ascribed to Scylax of Cadyanda, who lived in the sixth century B.C., which has been proved to have been composed in the fourth. 6 the consentient testimony of a nation to a work in its language having proceeded from the pen of a certain individual is always to be regarded as an evidence of great weight, and one that can only be overpowered if met and rebutted by counter-evidence still weightier. Now in the present case the counter-evidence adduced is of the flimsiest kind. The Book of Ezra, it is said,+ must be as a whole a compilation by some writer who is not Ezra, since, when Ezra is spoken of in the book, there is an alternate use of the first and the third person. But a similar alternation occurs in Daniel, in Thucydides, and in numerous ancient inscriptions,7 where no one doubts but that the whole proceeds from a single writer, who speaks of himself sometimes in the one person, and sometimes in the other. Again, it is said that the Book of Chronicles cannot have been written by Ezra, since the genealogy of the descendants of David is carried down to the sixth generation after Zerubbabel (1 Chron. iii. 19-24), or to about the time of Alexander the Great, which is nearly a century later than the time of Ezra. But, in the first place, the necessary date of the passage in question is not the time of Alexander the Great, but about seventy-five years earlier, so that Ezra, if he lived to a good old age, may have written it; 10 and, secondly, it is quite possible that he may have been the real author of Chronicles, although he did not write this particular passage. Nothing is more certain than that there have been authorised additions to books of Scripture, subsequently to their original composition, by persons other than their authors. The last chapter of Deuteronomy is such an authorised addition; and of a similar character are some of the lists in Nehemiah." The fact, then, that one genealogy in Chronicles descends to a date later than that ordinarily assigned to Ezra, is no proof that the remainder of the work did not proceed from his pen. The last two verses of 1 Chron. iii. may have been added by Nehemiah or Malachi to the original work of Ezra, in order to carry down the descent of the "sons of David" to the point which it had reached in their day. When Ezra and Chronicles are critically examined 4 De Wette, Einleitung in d. Alt. Testament, § 196 a, p. 261; Stuart, Old Testament Canon, § 6, p. 148. 5 Daniel uses from chap. i. to chap. vii. 1 the third person; from chap. vii. 2 to the end of chap. ix., the first; in chap. x. 1, the third; and the first in the remainder of the work. 6 Thucydides begins his history in the third person (i. 1), but changes to the first after a few chapters (i. 20-22). In book iv. he resumes the third (chaps. 104-106); while in book v., chap. 26, he begins in the third, but runs on into the first, which he again uses in book viii., chap. 97. 7 As that of Tiglath-pileser I., which has the first person in §2; the third in § 3; the first from $4 to $8; the third in § 9; the first from § 10 to § 19; the third in § 20; the first again from $21 to $25; the third in § 26, &c. 8 De Wette, Einleitung, § 189, p. 242. Compare Ewald, Geschichte des Volkes Israel, vol. i., pp. 231, 232. 9 See the note on the passage in the Speaker's Commentary (vol. iii., pp. 186, 187), where it is shown that, at the not improbable rate of twenty years to a generation, the genealogy in 1 Chron. iii. 19-24 comes down to about B. c. 410. 10 We have no reason to suppose that Ezra was more than thirty when he received his commission from Artaxerxes, which was in B.C. 458. Supposing this to have been his age, he would have been seventy-eight in B.C. 410. 11 Especially those in chap. xii. 10, 11, and 22. and analysed, the Hebrew tradition as to their author- The fact of Ezra's authorship of Chronicles, which seems to us almost certain, throws much light on the scope and intention of the work, and on the question of how it came to be written. There is this peculiarity in Chronicles, markedly distinguishing it from all the other historical books of the Old Testament, that it is not a continuation of the previous history, but a repetition. The writer does not occupy new ground, but traverses ground which he knows well to have been previously trodden by others. He re-writes the events of Jewish history from the death of Saul to the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, notwithstanding that they have been already put upon record by the authors of Samuel and Kings. So far as the Old Testament is concerned, this is a unique phenomenon; and the intelligent student naturally asks for an explanation of it. Why in this single case has the ordinary economy of Holy Scripture been departed from-what induced a writer to go over ground already occupied, and re-write history which an inspired penman had already written? Some critics have thought that they sufficiently answered this question by saying that the writer of Chronicles, having found in the archives of his nation many facts of interest which the authors of Samuel and Kings had omitted to put on record, determined to re-write the history in order to introduce them, his work being thus intended, mainly or wholly, as a "supplement" to Kings and Samuel. This seems to have been the view of the Alexandrian Jews who translated Chronicles into Greek for the version known as the Septuagint, and entitled their work Paraleipomena, or “Things Omitted." But a comparison of the contents of Chronicles with those of Samuel and Kings is conclusive against this theory, since to a very large extent Chronicles is a repetition of those earlier books, sometimes a repetition of whole chapters, with only a few verbal differences, constantly a repetition of the general narrative with a certain number of fresh touches. The true character of a supplemental history 1 See De Wette, Einleitung, § 196 a. 2 Compare the Speaker's Commentary, "Introduction to Ezra," vol. iii., p. 387, note 7. 3 De Wette, 1. s. c.; Bertheau, Commentar über Chronik; &c. 4 Compare 1 Chron. x. 1-12 with 1 Sam. xxxi.; 1 Chron. xvii. with 2 Sam. vii.; 1 Chron, xviii, with 2 Sam. viii.; xix. with 2 Sam. x.; xxi. with 2 Sam. xxiv.; 2 Chron. v. 2-vii. 10 with 1 Kings viii,; and 2 Chron. xxii, 10-xxiv, 1 with 2 Kings xi, may be seen by comparing St. John's with the other Gospels; this character clearly does not attach to Chronicles, which, while no doubt it supplies a certain number of facts not previously put on record, is in the main a re-publication of the old facts, or rather of certain portions of them. We must then look for some other motive as that which animated the writer of Chronicles, and induced him to commence and carry through an elaborate work, which at first sight has the appearance of being almost supererogatory. This motive is to be found in the circumstances of the Jewish nation at the time when Chronicles was written. The people in their long and toilsome captivity, scattered among their conquerors, and ground down by taskwork, had forgotten their past, had become ignorant of their sacred books, and had even lost the capacity of grasping and retaining the long and complicated account of their former history which had been familiar to their ancestors. On their return to Palestine they were a band of emancipated slaves, ignorant, illiterate, incapable of much thought, childish, and requiring, like children, very simple elementary teaching. Again, they were a multitude rather than a people; in their long-continued oppression and isolation they had lost the sentiment of nationality, the very idea of patriotism; they had forgotten their tribal distinctions and relationships; and though they had not fallen away from the worship of Jehovah, they had come to have a very dim and faint notion of what that worship in reality was, as established by the greatest of their monarchs, David and Solomon. To restore the national life, to re-unite the present with the past, to re-awaken the slumbering spirit of patriotism, to recall the glories of old times, and set them before the nation as the standard which they should aim at reaching in the future, was the hard but grand task which the leaders of the Jewish people set themselves at this time, and which none did more to accomplish than the writer of Chronicles. Instead of throwing the people back upon their old histories, written on too large a scale for their present needs, and in language of a more or less archaic type, he composed for their use a condensed narrative, written in the idiom of the day, with frequent allusions to recent events, and brought down to his own times, which was far more calculated to affect them strongly and deeply than the ancient larger compositions. At the same time, having to deal with persons in a childish and undeveloped state, he adopted a tone not elsewhere found in the historical Scriptures-a didactic tone of extreme directness and simplicity—a plan of pointing the moral history to the Divine agency, and referring in the in every case, of openly ascribing all the events of the plainest language every great calamity or deliverance to the good or evil deeds of the monarch or the nation, to whom they were sent as rewards or judgments." 5 Polyhistor tells us (Fr. 24) that Nebuchadnezzar employed the bulk of the captive Jews in this way. 6 See 1 Chron. iv. 10; v. 18-20, 25, 26; ix. 1; x. 13, 14; xi. 9; The "Book of Chronicles" is divisible into four main portions. The first comprises nine chapters, from 1 Chron. i. to ix. inclusive. The second extends from 1 Chron. x. to xxix.; the third from 2 Chron. i. to ix.; and the fourth from 2 Chron. x. to xxxvi. The first, or introductory, section is of a very peculiar character. It consists almost wholly of genealogical lists, which are either detached or connected together by the slenderest possible thread of narrative. The genealogies are in part taken from the earlier Scriptures, but are derived also to a large extent from other sources, either national registers (1 Chron. iv. 31, 41; v. 17; vii. 2), or perhaps in some cases family archives (1 Chron. ii. 6-9, &c.). They extend to all the tribes of Israel, excepting Zebulon and Dan. Judah is treated of at far greater length than any of the others, the account of his descendants occupying two and a half chapters (ch. ii. 3 to ch. iv. 23). Benjamin and Levi fill a considerable space, the former occupying one entire chapter and portions of two others (ch. vii. 6-12; ch. viii.; and ch. ix. 35—44), the latter one entire chapter (ch. vi.). The account of the other tribes is very brief. The chief interest of this portion of the work to the modern reader consists in certain brief parenthetic narratives, which are additional to the earlier Scriptures -e.g., the story of Jabez (ch. iv. 9, 10); the account of the conquests of the Simeonites (ch. iv. 39-43); the war of Reuben with the Hagarites (ch. v. 10, 18-22); the killing of Ephraim's sons by the men of Gath (ch. vii. 21); and the defeat of the Gittites by the men of Aijalon (ch. viii. 13). The genealogies themselves, very important, no doubt, at the time, are to the modern reader curious rather than interesting. One, however, that of the descendants of David (ch. iii.), is exceptionally valuable. It adds some curious particulars to the accounts elsewhere given of David's line; and it carries the line down to (at least) the twenty-sixth generation, or six generations beyond the point to which it is carried in any other part of the Old Testament.2 The genealogical portion of Chronicles is completed by a list of the principal families who returned to the Holy Land after the Captivity, and settled at Jerusalem. These are declared to have belonged to at least five tribes-Levi, Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, and Manasseh (ch. ix. 2, 3). No complete account is given of their number; but a comparison with Neh. xi. leads to the conclusion that about 20,000 of the returned Israelites took up their abode at Jerusalem; while the remainder, who amounted, perhaps, to about 30,000, xxi. 7; 2 Chron. x. 15; xii. 2; xiii. 18; xiv. 11, 12; xvi. 7; xvii. 3-5; xviii. 31; xx. 30; xxi. 10; xxii. 7; xxiv. 18, 24; xxv. 20; xxvi. 5, 7, 20; xxvii. 6; xxviii. 4-6, 19; xxxi. 20, 21; xxxii. 25; xxxiii. 10-13, 23, 24; xxxvi. 16, &c. 1 As the assignment to Josiah of a fourth son, Johanan, and to Jechoniah of a second son, Zedekiah; the mention of Pedaiah as the actual father of Zerubbabel, &c. 2 These six generations must reach down to at least B.C. 410. It is possible that they may have been placed on record by Ezra, but it is perhaps more probable that Ezra's genealogy was extended by some later reviser. spread themselves over the country districts of Judæa from Beer-sheba to Bethel.3 Having completed his lists, and in this way reminded his people of the place which they occupied among the nations of the earth, and at the same time recalled to their recollection their own chief tribal divisions, and the peculiar position of the Levites among the twelve tribes (ch. vi. 54-81), the author proceeds (in ch. x.) to that condensed history of his nation's past to which he desires especially to draw their attention, with the object of encouraging them to hope that by perseverance in well-doing they may bring God's blessing upon them, and recover their ancient prosperity. Omitting the remoter ages, when they were either subject to Egypt or engaged in a struggle for life with their neighbours in Palestine, he places before them the glorious reign of David, introducing it by an account of the death of Saul (ch. x.), and extending his history of the reign through nineteen chapters, seven of which set forth the temporal power and military successes of the great monarch, while twelve exhibit his zeal for Jehovah and his efforts in favour of religion. A double object may be traced throughout-first, the desire to connect David's prosperity with his religiousness, indicated in such passages as the following: "So David waxed greater and greater, for the Lord of hosts was with him" (ch. xi. 9); Peace be to thee, and peace be to thy helpers, for thy God helpeth thee" (ch. xii. 18); 'David perceived that the Lord had confirmed him king over Israel, for his kingdom was lifted up on high” (ch. xiv. 2); "The fame of David went out into all lands, and the Lord brought the fear of him upon all nations "--and, secondly, the design to exhibit as fully as possible all that David did for the establishment of the national worship in the divinely-appointed place, and for the institution and maintenance of a grand, imposing, and elaborate ceremonial. David's share in arranging the vast and complicated system of the Temple worship has to be gathered almost entirely from Chronicles, from which we learn both that the entire plan of the Temple and its furniture was communicated by David to Solomon (ch. xxviii. 11—19), and also that from David proceeded the whole arrangement of the courses, both of the priests and Levites (ch. xxiii. and xxiv.), the ordering of the choral services (ch. xxv.), and even the disposition of the porters (ch. xxvi. 1-19). It is, moreover, from Chronicles alone that we learn the extent of the material preparations for the Temple and its furniture that David made (ch. xxix. 2-9)—preparations which left but little for Solomon to supply, except the giving shape and form to the rich and abundant materials that his father had accumulated. With the close of David's reign our "First Book of Chronicles" terminates; and the Second introduces us to the reign of Solomon, which forms the third section of the work, and occupies the first nine chapters of the second 66 'Book." Solomon's reign is set forth in its most glorious aspect. The note of triumph is struck 3 See Neh. xi. 30, 31. |