temporary with him. One of the greatest difficulties connected with the cap tivity and the return must have been the maintenance of that genealogical distribution of the lands which yet was a vital point of the Jewish economy. Another difficulty, intimately connected with the former, was the maintenance of the Temple-services at Jerusalem. This could only be effected by the residence of the priests and Levites in Jerusalem in the order of their courses; and this residence was only practicable in case of the payment of the appointed tithes, first-fruits, and other offerings. But then again the registers of the Levitical genealogies were necessary, in order that it might be known who were entitled to such and such allowances, as porters, as singers, as priests, and so on, because all these offices went by families; and again the payment of the tithes, first-fruits, etc., was dependent upon the different families of Israel being established each in his inheritance. Obviously, therefore, one of the most pressing wants of the Jewish community after their return from Babylon would be trusty genealogical records. But further, not only had Zerubbabel, and after him Ezra and Nehemiah, labored most earnestly to restore the Temple and the public worship of God there to the condition it had been in under the kings of Judah, but it appears clearly from their policy, and from the language of the contemporary prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, that they had it much at heart to re-infuse something of national life and spirit into the heart of the people, and to make them feel that they were still the inheritors of God's covenanted mercies, and that the captivity had only temporarily interrupted, not dried up, the stream of God's favor to their nation. Now nothing could more effectually aid these pious and patriotic designs than setting before the people a compendious history of the kingdom of David, which should embrace a full account of its prosperity, should trace the sins which led to its overthrow, but should carry the thread through the period of the captivity, and continue it, as it were, unbroken on the other side; and those passages in their former history would be especially important which exhibited their greatest and best kings as engaged in building or restoring the Temple, in reforming all corruptions in religion, and zealously regulating the services of the house of God. As regards the kingdom of Israel or Samaria, seeing it had utterly and hopelessly passed away, and that the existing inhabitants were among the bitterest "adversaries of Judah and Benjamin,' ," it would naturally engage very little of the compiler's attention. These considerations explain exactly the plan and scope of that historical work, which consists of the two Books of Chronicles and the Book of Ezra. For after having in the first eight chapters given the genealogical divisions and settlements of the various tribes, the compiler marks distinctly his own age and his own purpose by informing us, in ch. ix. 1, of the disturbance of those settlements by the Babylonish captivity, and, in the following verses, of the partial restoration of them at the return from Babylon (2-34); and that this list refers to the families who had returned from Babylon is clear, not only from the context, but from its re-insertion (Neh. xi. 3-22), 35 with additional matter evidently extracted from the public archives, and relating to times subsequent to the return from Babylon, extending to Neh. xii. 27, where Nehemiah's narrative is again resumed in continuance with Neh. xi. 2. Hav. Ing thus shown the re-establishment of the returned families, each in their ow 35 Compare also 1 Chron. ix. 19, with Ezra li. 42; Neh. vii. 45. inheritance according to the houses of their fathers, the compiler proceeds to the other part of his plan, which is to give a continuous history of the kingdom of Judah from David to his own times, introduced by the closing scene of Saul's life (ch. x.), which introduction is itself prefaced by a genealogy of the house of Saul (ix. 35-44). As regards the materials used by Ezra, they are not difficult to discover 'The genealogies are obviously transcribed from some register, in which were preserved the genealogies of the tribes and families drawn up at different times; while the history is mainly drawn from the same documents as those used in the Books of Kings. As regards the language of these books, as of Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and the later prophets, it has a marked Chaldee coloring, and Gesenius says of them, that as literary works, they are decidedly inferior to those of older date." 66 § 17. Relation of the Books of Kings to those of Chronicles.—It is manifest, and is universally admitted, that the former is by far the older work. The language, which is quite free from the Persicisms of the Chronicles and their late orthography, and is not at all more Aramaic than the language of Jeremiah, clearly points out its relative superiority in regard to age. Its subject also, embracing the kingdom of Israel as well as Judah, is another indication of its composition before the kingdom of Israel was forgotten, and before the Jewish enmity to Samaria (which is apparent in such passages as 2 Chr. xx. 37, xxv., and in those chapters of Ezra [i.-vi.] which belong to Chronicles) was brought to maturity. While the Books of Chronicles therefore were written especially for the Jews after their return from Babylon, the Book of Kings was written for the whole of Israel before their common national existence was hopelessly quenched. Another comparison of considerable interest between the two histories may be drawn in respect to the main design, that design having a marked relation both to the individual station of the supposed writers, and the peculiar circumstances of their country at the times of their writing. Jeremiah was himself a prophet. He lived while the prophetic office was in full vigor, in his own person, in Ezekiel and Daniel, and many others both true and false. In his eyes, as in truth, the main cause of the fearful calamities of his countrymen was their rejection and contempt of the Word of God in his mouth and that of the other prophets; and the one hope of deliverance lay in their hearkening to the prophets who still continued to speak to them in the name of the Lord. Accordingly we find in the Books of Kings great prominence given to the prophetic office. more. Ezra, on the contrary, was only a priest. In his days the prophetic office had wholly fallen into abeyance. That evidence of the Jews being the people of God, which consisted in the presence of prophets among them, was no But to the men of his generation, the distinctive mark of the continuance of God's favor to their race was the rebuilding of the Temple at Jerusalem, the restoration of the daily sacrifice and the Levitical worship, and the wonderful and providential renewal of the Mosaic institutions. The chief instrument, too, for preserving the Jewish remnant from absorption into the mass of heathenism, and for maintaining their national life till the coming of Messiah, was the maintenance of the Temple, its ministers, and its services. Hence we see at once that the chief care of a good and enlightened Jew of the age of Ezra, and all the more if he were himself a priest, would naturally be to enhance the value of the Levitical ritual, and the dignity of the Levitical caste. And in compiling a history of the past glories of his race, he would as naturally select such passages as especially bore upon the sanctity of the priestly office, and show the deep concern taken by their ancestors in all that related to the honor of God's house, and the support of His ministering servants. Hence the Levitical character of the Books of Chronicies, and the presence of several detailed narratives not found in the Books of Kings, and the more frequent reference to the Mosaic institutions, may Most naturally and simply be accounted for, without resorting to the absurd hypothesis that the ceremonial law was an invention subsequent to the Captivity. Moreover, upon the principle that the sacred writers were influca.ed by natural feelings in their selection of their materials, it seems most appropriate that while the prophetical writer in Kings deals very fully with the kingdom of Israel, in which the prophets were much more illustrious than in Judah, the Levitical writer, on the contrary, should concentrate all his thoughts round Jerusalem, where alone the Levitical caste had all its power and functions, and should dwell upon all the instances preserved in existing muniments of the deeds and even the minutest ministrations of the priests and Levites, as well as of their faithfulness and sufferings in the cause of truth. 36 From the comparison of parallel narratives in the two books, it appears that the results are precisely what would naturally arise from the circumstan ces of the case. The writer of Chronicles, having the Books of Kings before him, and to a great extent making those books the basis of his own, but also having his own personal views, predilections, and motives in writing, composing for a different age, and for people under very different circumstances, and, moreover, having before him the original authorities from which the Books of Kings were compiled, as well as some others, naturally rearranged the older narrative as suited his purpose and his tastes, gave in full passages which the other had abridged, inserted what had been wholly omitted, omitted some things which the other had inserted, including nearly every thing relating to the kingdom of Israel, and showed the color of his own mind, not only in the nature of the passages which he selected from the ancient documents, but in the reflections which he frequently adds upon the events which he relates, and possibly also in the turn given to some of the speeches which he records. § 18. The BooK OF EZRA is, as already remarked, manifestly a continua. tion of the Books of Chronicles. Like these books, it consists of the contemporary historical journals kept from time to time, which were afterward strung together, and either abridged or added to, as the case required, by a later hand. That later hand in the Book of Ezra was doubtless Ezra's own, as appears by the four last chapters, as well as by other matter inserted in the previous chapters. The chief portion of the last chapter of 2 Chron. and Ezra i. was probably written by Daniel As regards Ezra ii., and as far as 36 2 Chron. xxix., xxx., xxxi., compared | 37 The evidences of this as to Ezra i. may with 2 K. xviii., is perhaps as good a speciimen as can be selected of the distinctive spirit of the Chronicles. See also 2 Chron. xxiv. 16-21: comp. with 2 K. xv. 5; 2 Chron. xi. 13-17, xiii. 9-20, xv. 1-15, xxiii. 2-8; comp. with 2 K. xi. 5-9, and vers. 18, 19; comp. with "er. 18, and many other passages be briefly statel. Daniel passes over in ut ter silence the first year of Cyrus, to which pointed allusion is made in Dan i. 21, and proceeds in chap. x. to the third year of Cy rus. But Ezra i., if placed between Dan. ix. and x., exactly fills up the gap, and records the event of the first year of Cyrus, in which Daniel was so deeply interested. And not iii. 1, it is found (with the exception of clerical errors) in the seventh chapter of Nehemiah, where it belongs, beyond a shadow of doubt. The next portion extends from iii. 2 to the end of ch. vi. With the exception of one large explanatory addition by Ezra, extending from iv. 6 to 23, this portion is the work of a writer contemporary with Zerubbabel and Jeshua, and an eye-witness of the rebuilding of the Temple in the beginning of the reign of Darius Hystaspis. That it was the prophet Haggai, becomes tolerably sure when we observe further the remarkable coincidence in style. Ezra iv. 6-23 is a parenthetic addition by a much later hand, and, as the passage most clearly shows, made in the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus. The compiler who inserted ch. ii., a document drawn up in the reign of Artaxerxes to illustrate the return of the captives under Zerubbabel, here inserts a notice of two historical facts-of which one occurred in the reign of Xerxes, and the other in the reign of Artaxerxes—to illustrate the opposition offered by the heathen to the rebuilding of the Temple in the reign of Cyrus and Cambyses. The last four chapters, beginning with ch. vii., are Ezra's own, and continue the history after a gap of fifty-eight years—from the sixth of Darius to the seventh of Artaxerxes. The book is written partly in Hebrew and partly in Chaldee. The Chaldee begins at iv. 8, and continues to the end of vi. 18. The letter or decree of Artaxerxes vii. 12-26 is also given in the original Chaldee. § 19. The BOOK OF NEHEMIAH, like the preceding one of Ezra, is clearly and certainly not all by the same hand. By far the principal portion, indeed, is the work of Nehemiah; but other portions are either extracts from various chronicles and registers, or supplementary narratives and reflections, some apparently by Ezra, others, perhaps, the work of the same person who inserted the latest genealogical extracts from the public chronicles. The main history contained in the book covers about 12 years, viz., from the 20th to the 32d year of Artaxerxes Longimanus, i. e., from B.C. 445 to 433. The whole narrative gives us a graphic and interesting account of the state of Jerusalem and the returned captives in the writer's times, and, incidentally, of the nature of the Persian government and the condition of its remote provinces. The documents appended to it also give some further information as to the times of Zerubbabel on the one hand, and as to the continuation of the genealogical registers and the succession of the high-priesthood to the close of the Persian Empire on the other. The view given of the rise of two factions among the Jews-the one the strict religious party, the other the gentilizing party, sets before us the germ of much that we meet with in a more developed state in later Jewish history. Again, in this history as well as in the Book of Ezra, we see the bitter enmity between the Jews and Samaritans acquiring strength and definitive form on both religious and political grounds. The book also throws much light upon the domestic institutions of the Jews. § 20. The BOOK OF ESTHER is one of the latest of the canonical books of the Old Testament, having been probably written late in the reign of Xerxes, with whom Ahasuerus may be identified. The author is not known, only so, but the manner of the record is exactly Daniel's. The giving the text of the decree, vers. 2-4 (cf. Dan. iv.), the mention of the name of "Mithredath the treasurer," ver. 8 (cf. Dan. i. 3, 11), the allusion to the sacred vessels placed by Nebuchadnezzar in the house of his god, ver. 7 (cf. Dan. i. 2), the giving the Chaldee name of Zerubbabel, but may very probably have been Mordecai himself. Those who ascribe it to Ezra, or the men of the Great Synagogue, may have merely meant that Ezra edited and added it to the canon of Scripture, which he probably did. The Book of Esther appears in a different form in the LXX., and the translations therefrom, from that, in which it is found in the Hebrew Bible. In speaking of it, we shall first speak of the canonical book found in Hebrew, to which also the above observations refer, and next of the Greek book, with its apocryphal additions. The canonical ESTHER, then, is placed among the hagiographa by the Jews, and in that first portion of them which they call "the five rolls." It is sometimes emphatically called Megillah (“roll"), without other distinction, and is read through by the Jews in their synagogues at the Feast of Purim. It has often been remarked, as a peculiarity of this book, that the name of God does not once occur in it. The Hebrew is very like that of Ezra and parts of the Chronicles; generally pure, but mixed with some words of Persian origin, and some of Chaldee affinity. In short, it is just what one would expect to find in a work of the age to which the Book of Esther professes to belong. As regards the LXX. version of the book, it consists of the canonical Esther with various interpolations prefixed, interspersed, and added at the close. Though, however, the interpolations of the Greek copy are thus manifest, they make a consistent and intelligible story. But the Apocryphal additions, as they are inserted in some editions of the Latin Vulgate, and in the English Bible, are incomprehensible, the history of which is this:-When Jerome translated the Book of Esther, he first gave the version of the Hebrew alone, as being alone authentic. He then added at the end a version in Latin of those several passages which he found in the LXX., and which were not in the Hebrew, stating where each passage came in, and marking them all with an obelus. Having annexed this conclusion, he then gives the Proœmium, which he says forms the beginning of the Greek Vulgate, beginning with what is now verse 2 of chapter xi., and so proceeds with the other passages. But in subsequent editions, all Jerome's explanatory matter has been swept away, and the disjointed portions have beer printed as chapters xi., xii., xiii., xiv., xv., xvi., as if they formed a narrative in continuance of the canonical book. III. THE PROPHETS. § 21. The Old Testament contains the writings of sixteen Prophets, of which four are usually called the Great Prophets, namely, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, and twelve the Minor Prophets, namely, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. An account of the prophetic order and the schools of the Prophets has been already given (pp. 425, 426); but to belong to the prophetic order and to possess the prophetic gift are not convertible terms. There might be mem bers of the prophetic order to whom the gift of prophecy was not vouchsafed. There might be inspired prophets who did not belong to the prophetic order. Generally, the inspired prophet came from the College of the Prophets, and belonged to the prophetic order, but this was not always the case. In the instance of the Prophet Amos, the rule and the exception are both manifested. When Amaziah, the idolatrous Israelitish priest, threatens the proph |