And in the
Babylonian exile it was that the canonical Book of Kings actually
came into existence, and the "Chronicles" of Israel and those of
Judah were for the first time worked together by its author; at
least he refers only to the separate works and knows of no
previous combination of them. It would seem, therefore, very
natural to identify the work alluded to in Chronicles with our
present canonical book, which is similar in title and has
corresponding contents. But this we cannot do, for in the former
there were matters of which there are in the latter no trace; for
example, according to 1Chronicles ix. 1, it contained family and
numerical statistics for the whole of Israel after the manner of
1Chronicles i.-ix. (chapters for the most part borrowed from it)
and according to 1Chronicles xxxiii 19, the Prayer of Manasseh.
From these two data, as well as from the character of the items
of information which may have been conjectured to have been derived
from this source, the conclusion is forced upon us that the Book
of Kings cited by the Chronicler is a late compilation far removed
from actual tradition, and in relation to the canonical Book of
Kings it can only be explained as an apocryphal amplification after
the manner in which the scribes treated the sacred history.
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