Chronicles,
on the other hand, not only takes the Law--the Penta
chal Law
as a whole, but more particularly the Priestly Code therein
preponderating--as its rule of judgment on the past; but also
idealises the facts in accordance with that norm, and figures to
itself the old Hebrew people as in exact conformity with the
pattern of the later Jewish community,--as a monarchically graded
hierocracy with a strictly centralised cultus of rigidly
prescribed form at the holy place of Jerusalem. When,
accordingly, the ten tribes fail to exhibit all the marks of the
kingdom of God, this is taken to mean their falling away from the
true Israel; they have made goats and calves their gods, driven
away the priests and Levites, and in a word broken quite away
from the institutions which shaped themselves in Judah during the
period subsequent to Josiah and received their finishing-touches
from Ezra. /1/
***************************************
1. The Chronicler indeed is unable, even in the case of these
schismatics, to divest himself of his legal notions, as appears
almost comically in the circumstance that the priests of Jeroboam
set about their heretical practices quite in accordance with the
prescriptions of the Priestly Code, and procure their
consecration by means of a great sacrifice (2 Chron xiii.
Pages:
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433