(THE ~00~s OF KINGS)
Scholars believe that the Deuteronomistic hand which wrote the Book of Judges and put its stamp upon it is the same as that which gave their great theological form to the two Books of Kings. But since the two eras in Israel’s history are pictured and judged from very different theological standpoints, the theology of history of the Books of Kings needs special treatment. Again, the two eras do not pass over directly from one to the other: they are not joined to one another in this theology of history. Strangely enough there is a great, yawning gulf in which the Deuteronomist did not intrude his work, between the end of the period of the Judges and the point at which the Deuterono- mistic Books of Kings take up the story (I Kings HI. IE). Apart from this gap, which is not easy to explain, this historian’s literary technique is of the same kind as that employed in the Book of Judges : he presents the old material in the form in which it had come down, he carefully and meaningfully connects the individual units, and he clamps the resulting literary picture of a king’s reign at beginning and end with the
l M. Noth, iiberl. Studien, pp. 8s ; G. von Rad, Studies in Deuteronomy, pp. 72ff. ; A. Weiser, Glaube und Geschichte im Alten Testament, Stuttgart 1931, pp. 61fE; A. Jep- sen, Die Quellen des Kiinigsbuches, Halle 1953 ; H. J. Kraus, “Gesetz und Geschichte,”
in Eu. Th., 1951-52, p. 415; H. W. Wolff, “Das Kerygma des deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerkes,” in Z.A.W., 1961, pp. 171tf.
ISRAEL’S ANOINTED 33s
well-known framework, in which the most important aspect theo- logically is the judgment which each king reccives.2 At times the Deuteronomist also drew up shorter narratives of his own composition and wholly in his own individual style, or he expressed radical theo- logical reflexions on the history at important points, as for example in the solemn epilogue with which he concludes the account of the Northern Kingdom (II Kings xvn. 7fE). From this formal point of view, the difference from the Book of Judges consists merely in the fact that the Deuteronomist had at his disposal incomparably fuller documentary material from the monarchical period. This was not only very diversified in literary genre (narratives, annals, stories about prophets, extracts from a Temple chronicle, etc.), but it was so abun- dant that it could only be incorporated into the history in skilfully chosen selections. The scholarly fashion in which the Deuteronomist exercised the historian’s office is shown by the regular references to the source documents from which he took a large part of his material, and in which what he does not himself mention can be looked up.8
This historical work came into being during the time of the Baby- lonian Exile.4 However little we know of the author’s place and origin, one thing is certain-the spiritual situation in whose light he is to be understood was that of a late period: it was therefore completely differ- ent’from the one in which the Succession Document came into being.
The latter had come in its time as something new, into, so to speak, a still completely empty space as far as literature and theology went.
But the man who wrote and passed his judgments in the time of the exile was not only externally conficonted with very abundant remem- bered material: what weighed most heavily was the burden of certain historical experiences which had long ago solidified, and the authority of certain theological ideas or traditions upon which the Deuteronomist depended in his time or in the circle to which he belonged. The theo- logical current, of which our Deuteronomistic historical work is a B With the kings of Judah the framework runs at the beginning as follows : “In the year of such and such a king of Israel so and so became king of Judah; he was so many years old when he became king, he reigned so many years in Jerusalem ; his mother was so and so the daughter of such and such, and he did what was pleasing (evil) in the sight of Jahweh.” At the end it runs: “The rest of the history of so and so is written in the book of the history of the kings of Judah. Then so and so slept with his fathers and was buried in the city of David, and so and so else became king in his
stead.” * M. Noth, Ifbed. Studien, p. 96.
* The terminus a quo is the freeing ofJehoiachin in the year 561 (II Kings xxv. 27ff.).
336 T H E O L O G Y O F I S R A E L ’ S T R A D I T I O N S j
later exponent, became dominant, because of Deuteronomy, in the last years of the monarchical period? We remember Deuteronomy’s demand that Jahweh should be worshipped only at the one legitimate sanctuary at which he had put his name. This demand had been made binding at a time which had become conscious in all its magnitude of the difference between historically-based Jahwism and the Canaanite nature cult, and had grasped that worship ofJahweh at the high places, that is, mingled with the Baa1 cult, eliminated that which was distinc- tive in Jahwism. The recognition that one had to choose between the two worships had come, through Deuteronomy, to be a status con- fessionis at this later period. Now, the Deuteronomistic theology of history too holds this very radical standpoint, because, as is well known, it measures the kings of Israel and Judah according to whether they recognised the Temple in Jerusalem as the one legitimate place of worship, or sacrificed on the “high places.” The judgments which are passed on the kings are arrived at solely in the light of this decision.
From this standpoint the kings of Israel are condemned out of hand, for they all walked in the “sin of Jeroboam.“6 But even of the Judean kings only two-He&ah and Josiah-are given unqualified praise.
Six are approved conditionally (Asa, Jehoshaphat, Joash, Amaziah, Azaraiah, and Jotham): all the rest are reproached with “having done what was evil in the sight of Jahweh.”
Very much depends on the right understanding of these judgments.
Undoubtedly for our present-day historical way of thinking, they are greatly oversimplified, and consequently unjust. And unfortunately we do not know for certain whether this historical work presupposes a knowledge of Deuteronomy by all the kings, and whether it only reckoned with a temporary loss of it and its reappearance under Josiah.’
But even if a knowledge of Deuteronomy is not presupposed, it has to be borne in mind that the standard by which the kings are measured is not in itself a completely new thing conjured up in the late monarchical period. In reality, it is a very old standard which Deuteronomy took up again, since in the days before Israel was a state, in her constitution as an 6 This dependence, which was recognised long ago, is not however in any sense a total one. Neither did the Deuteronomist take over the whole range of the concerns of Deuteronomy, nor can all that concerns the Deuteronomist be derived from Deuteronomy. This is particularly clear in the matter of the Deuteronomist’s idea of the kingdom, see below, pp. 337f.
6 I Kings xv. 26, 34, XVI. 19,26 and frequently.
7 II Kings XIV. 6 supports this assumption.
I S R A E L ’ S A N O I N T E D 337
Amphictyony, she had in fact something like a sole place of worship, even if at that time the consequences of this commitment to the central sanctuary, where the Ark was, and to which the pilgrims came, were still not drawn anything like so radically. But with these judgments what we have to bear particularly in mind is that they do not relate as it were to the total political and religious achievement of the particular king, but only to his basic cultic decision. This historical work had no intention of dealing with the king’s political activities in general.* It certainly does offer general political documentary material; but its interest is expressly theological, to the extent that it judges even the course of political events from a theological standpoint. From the historian’s point of view the perspective thus opened up into the history of the kings is undoubtedly very one-sided and narrow. But this bias is linked up with the confessional situation mentioned above. In the writer’s time one thing had become articuhs stuntis et cadentis ecclesiue, namely, exclusive allegiance to the place where Jahweh was present for Israel and where he spoke to and had cultic dealings with her; and the Deuteronomist brought the whole of the history of the monarchy within the scope of this confessional situation. He was not objectively and historically interested in the many varying possibilities of apostasy which might have presented themselves to the kings in the course of the history, but only in the one by which, as the post-Deuteronomic period was convinced, Israel’s existence or non-existence was decided.9 Since the Deuteronomist wrote in the shadow of the catastrophes of 722 and 587, his work is to be understood as a comprehensive confes- sion of Israel’s guilt. Our task in what follows consists in examining in detail the careful theological foundation of the proposition that Israel, and she alone, was to be held responsible.
In the opinion of the Deuteronomist the decision for evil was taken in the kings’ hearts, because “their heart was not perfect with God.“10 It has rightly been pointed out that the Deuteronomist thus assigned to 8 Think of it! The account of the reign of Omri, including the framework, takes up six verses. Those who want information about the secular exploits of the kings are expressly directed to the sources; the Deuteronomist does not think it as lying within his province to evaluate them (I Kings XVI. 27, XXII. 45; II Kings x. 34, XIII. 8, 12,
XIV. IS, 28).
v In view of this exclusive rigorism which the Deuteronomist practised, his method of awarding praise or blame not as a simple either-or, but as admitting of a further third and in-between predicate, could almost be regarded as a lack of consistency.
lo ;11V PY hW I Kings VIII. 61, XI. 4, xv. 3,14.
I S R A E L ’ S A N O I N T E D 339 of their relationship to Moses and the Sinai covenant is actually some- thing very original (I Kings X I. I I ; II Kings X X I. 8). The king is now regarded as the responsible person to whom has been entrusted the law of Moses and who has the duty to see that it is recognised in his king- dom. The place where the fusion of the Mosaic and Davidic traditions can be seen most clearly is the ideal picture which the Deuteronomist drew of King Josiah : “before him there was no king like him, who turned to Jahweh with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; nor did any like him arise after him” (11 Kings xxnr. 25).
No doubt the Deuteronomist’s judgment on the kings who ruled Judah and Israel is an adverse one in the main, but this does not amount to a proof that he took an altogether low view of the monarchy. It could be the case-and this will be substantiated later-that the pre- ponderantly negative aspect is based on the fact that the Deuteronomist judged the kings by a very high standard. He does in fact ascribe to the monarchy the crucial key-position between Jahweh and Israel, since it was in the kings’ hearts that the decision whether Israel was to be saved or rejected had to be taken. This decision, however, did not depend only on the kings’ complete devotion to or apostasy from Jahweh, but upon their attitude to the revelation of Jahweh known in Israel from of old, that is, to the law of Moses. And now we have named the other order which, in the Deuteronomist’s view, Jahweh had provided for Israel’s good. For him both of these, the torah of Moses and the dynasty of David, were concrete historical powers : like the dynasty, the revelation of Jahweh’s will to Moses was also something clearly discernible; it had in fact already been handed over in trust to the kings in the form of a sacred book.la Thus the Deuteronomist sees the main problem of the history of Israel as lying in the question of the correct correlation of Moses and David. Did the kings discern and comply with the will ofJahweh promulgated by Moses? As we know, the answer is No-the decision of the kings was taken against the revealed will ofJahweh and for evil. But in Deuteronomy grave threats and curses had been set forth if Israel persisted in disobedience (Deut.
XXVIII. ~sff.). Thus in the serious catastrophes the word of Jahweh
tsel f brought Israel into judgment. It had in actual fact been no
“empty word” (Deut. xxxn. 47); this word of God had reached its
l3 References back to a written form of the torah of Moses are to be found in
~Kingsn.3;nKingsx.31,xIv.6,xvn.13,37,xxr.8,xxn.8,11,xxm.24f, 338 T H E O L O G Y O F I S R A E L ’ S T R A D I T I O N S
the kings an ofice which, according to their historical rights, they did not have in their country at all. Least of all did this universal responsibility for the whole cultic life of the people of God correspond with the con- cept in Deuteronomy, in which the royal office can only be understood as an embarrassing concession to the historical realities.ll Here we meet for the first time with an element in the Deuteronomist’s view of history which can certainly not be explained on the basis of Deuter- onomy, nor simply on the basis of the kingdom itself as it developed, namely, a quite deftite picture of the royal office with. which he
works and by means of which he judges the kings. This Deuterono- mistic critique of the kings which is so well known to the reader of the Bible-they ought to have directed both their own personal lives and their whole policy according to the law of Moses-owes its origin to the confluence of two great streams of tradition which had hitherto existed in independence. We tried above to outline the group of sacral ideas which wrapped themselves round the monarchy.” Nothing in them pointed back to Moses and the ancient Israel-Covenant traditions. On the other hand, the Amphyctyonic traditions which do go back to Moses had absolutely no place for the monarchy. This reserve concern- ing the institution of the monarchy is indeed absolutely obvious even in Deuteronomy, which is late in so far as it is a revival of the Israel-Cove- nant tradition. Deuteronomy still knows nothing of any special sacral dignity attaching to the king as the representative of a separate election tradition. It is only in the Deuteronomistic historical work that the two traditions of election-the Israel-Covenant and the David-Covenant traditions-are fmally fused; and this was the last great fusion of tradi- tions in Israel’s history. It had a long prehistory. It began with David bringing up the Ark (II Sam. VI> and so planting Israelite traditions in the soil of Jerusalem. But this was still a long way from the further Deut- eronomic idea of Moses as the recipient of the “Law.” But now the Deuteronomist is able to put an appeal to Jahweh’s covenant with David into the mouth of a king (I Kings VII. 25, IX. s), and in almost the same breath to refer to the old Amphictyonic tradition about the election of Israel, Moses, and the Exodus from Egypt (I Kings
VIII. IS~., 34, 36, 53, 56). The two traditions have now come together to form a major set of ideas. But the fact that the kings are reminded l1 M. Noth, Uberl. St&en, p. 94. Josiah’s measures in his policy for the cult outside Jerusalem were a tlouum, for which Deuteronomy alone gave him the authority.
Alt, KS., VOL. II, pp. 2566 l3 See above, pp. 4off., 3 I 8ff.
340
goal in omist’s
THEOLOGY OF
the destruction of the two states. Expressed in the Deuteron- terminology, Jahweh had not allowed it to “fail” but had
ISRAEL’S TRADITIONS
“established” it.” This correspondence between promulgated word and historical fulfilment, with whose proof we see the Deuteronomist occupied, becomes even more striking in the many prophecies which he incorporated into his work. It can actually be said that the Deutcr- onomist gave the historical course of events which he describes its inner rhythm and its theological proof precisely by means of a whole struc- ture of constantly promulgated prophetic predictions and their corre- sponding ftilments, of which exact note is generally made. It is here that we really get a correct perspective for this view of history. Every- thing that Ahijah of Shiloh, Jehu ben Hanani, Micaiah ben Imlah, Elijah, Elisha, Huldah, etc., prophesied became history. The history of Israel is a course of events which receives its own peculiar dramatic quality from the tension between constantly promulgated prophecies and their corresponding fulfilment. Sometimes the span between pre- diction and fulfilment is short (II Kings I. 6=1. 17), sometimes it forms an arch spanning many generations (e.g. I Kings XIII. 2= I I Kings XXIII.
1618), so that, if one were to try to make a diagram of this structure, the strangest criss-crossings would result. Things were simplest for the Deuteronomist in the Northern Kingdom. Its fate was indeed already sealed with the sin of its first king (I Kings XIV. 16; II Kings XVLI. 21-3)~
all the more so since all its kings walked “in the sin ofJeroboam.” Thus the Deuteronomist was only confronted with the task, admittedly none too easy a one, of explaining why this kingdom nevertheless continued to exist in history for two hundred years. He explains this postpone- ment of punishment as due to the grace of Jahweh, who did not over- look the slight amount of good there was even in rejected kings>6 The Deuteronomist also pictures the history of the kingdom of Judahas an almost unbroken series of breaches of the revealed will of God. Her too there was a fact which barred the path of his schema-how did it come about that the great catastrophe of 587 closed in over Judah almost immediately after the reign of Josiah, who was the best of all the house of David? The reason was-so the Deuteronomist said-that Jahweh had already resolved to pass sentence on Judah because of the sin of Manasseh, which had broken all bounds. Even Josiah could avert l4 Jahweh “establishes” the prophet’s word: I Kings II. 4, VI. 12, VIII. 20, XII. 15 and frequently. It “does not fail”: Josh. XXI. 45, XXIII. 14; I Kings VIII. 56; II Kings x. IO. l6 I Kings XXI. 29; II Kings x. 30 = xv. 12, YCUI. 23, M. 26.
I S R A E L ’ S A N O I N T E D 341
it no longer.16 Thus, over Judah too Jahwch’s patience had long held.
But here our historian was now in the happy position of being able to establish Jahweh’s patient waiting on a much more striking theological basis. It was because Jahweh had his special plans for history with the house of David and because he had made David the promise to “give him a lamp for all time,” that Judah and Jerusalem were preserved in history in spite of the long-due judgment. When the Deutcronomist uses the odd term “lamp,” he is of course thinking of the legitimation of the Davidic .dynasty by the prophecy of Nathan (II Sam. VII. 12ff.)-
although with him this old element of messianic tradition is fused with the Deuteronomic idea of the one chosen city.l’ This saving word of Jahweh, injected at one particular point into the history, passed down through the ages like a guardian angel and had the effect of preserving and saving when Judah’s existence in the eyes of Jahweh was already forfeit.l*
The road which Israel’s theology of history had travelled from the Succession Document up to now is a very long one. The first difference between the two views lies in the fact that the Deuteronomist had a principle of interpretation at his disposal whose legitimacy was beyond doubt-this was the “word of God” in Deuteronomy, which for him was almost already canonical. What could the writer of the Succession Document appeal to compared with this? That Jahweh had guided the history in a way favourable for David by hearing his prayer and delud- ing Absalom’s council of war was indeed the writer’s personal con- viction: and, if need be, he could claim special inspiration for his view.
But he did not feel himself empowered to go on to further judgments.
The Deuteronomist, however, with the canonical word of God in his possession, can pass judgments, and we have seen the way in which he makes use of this power. A further feature which distinguishes our work
l6 II Kings XXI. Hoff., XXIII. 26, XXIV. 2.
l7 “For the sake of David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen,” I Kings XI. 13, 32, 36.
l8 I Kings XI. 36, xv. 4; II Kings VIII. 19 (cf. I Kings XI. 13, 32). Noth has held that the word 74 should not be rendered as “lamp,” but as “breaking up” (Ges. Studien, p. 179). But there is no justification for this. LXX rendered 119 in II Kings VIII. 19 as il@os and in I Kings XI. 36 as t3Co~ C, and in I Kings xv. 4 as xatchppa. These pas- sages do not come into the account, for in any case they are not translations, not even in the meaning of a “breaking up.” What in our opinion decides the question is the mention of the lamp (here 13) in Ps. CXXXII. 17. The term is obviously a fixed formula in the courtly style. II Sam. XXI. 17 would also be included here.