William Robertson Smith and Stanley Arthur Cook

“ These influences naturally operated most strongly on those who were officially attached to the sanctuary. To a Levite, even more than to other Jews, the history of Israel meant above all things the history of Jerusalem, of the Temple, and of the Temple ordinances. Now the writer of Chronicles betrays on every page his essentially Levitical habit of mind. ”

“ Jerusalem and the Temple have not that central place in the book of Kings which they occupied in the minds of the Jewish community after the Exile. Large sections of the old history are devoted to the religion and politics of the ten tribes, which are altogether unintelligible and uninteresting when measured by a strictly Levitical standard ”

“ A particular tendency to arrange history according to a mechanical rule appears in the constant endeavour to show that recompense and retribution followed immediately on good or bad conduct, and especially on obedience or disobedience to prophetic advice. ”

“ For the criticism of the book it is important to institute a careful comparison of Chronicles with the parallel narratives in Samuel-Kings. [4] It is found that in the cases where Chronicles directly contradicts the earlier books there are few in which an impartial historical judgment will decide in Treatment of history. ”

“ But when allowance is made for all the above tendencies of the late post-exilic age, there remains a certain amount of additional matter in Chronicles which may have been derived from relatively old sources. ”

“ That the compiler is always unwilling to speak of the misfortunes of good rulers is not necessarily to be ascribed to a deliberate suppression of truth, but shows that the book was throughout composed not in purely historical interests, but with a view to inculcating a single practical lesson. ”

“ That the compiler wrote after the fall of the Persian monarchy has been argued by Ewald and others from the use of the title king of Persia (2 Chron. xxxvi. 23) , and from the reference made in Neh. xii. 22 to Darius III. (336–332 B.C.) . A date some time after 332 B.C. is now accepted by most modern critics. See further Ezra and Nehemiah.
What seems to be certain and important for a right estimate of the book is that the writer lived a considerable time after Ezra, and stood entirely under the influence of the religious institutions of the new theocracy. ”

“ The limitations of the compiler’s interest in past times appear in the omission, among other particulars, of David’s reign in Hebron, of the disorders in his family and the revolt of Absalom, of the circumstances of Solomon’s accession, and of many details as to the wisdom and splendour of that sovereign, as well as of his fall into idolatry. ”

“ At an age when the high places were regarded as idolatrous it was considered only natural that the good kings should not have tolerated them. So 2 Chron. xiv. 5, xvii. 6 (from unknown sources) contradict 1 Kings xv. 14, xxii. 43 (that Asa and Jehoshaphat did not demolish the high places) , whereas xv. 16-18, xx. 31-34, are quoted from the book of Kings and give the older view. The example is an illustration of the simple methods of early compilers. ”

“ The historical value of these lists is very unequal; a careful study of the names often proves the lateness of the source, although an appreciation of the principles of genealogies sometimes reveals important historical information; see Caleb, Genealogy, Judah. But the Levitical system as it appears in its most complete form in Chronicles is the result of the development of earlier schemes, of which some traces are still preserved in Chronicles itself and in Ezra-Nehemiah. (See further Levites.)
The tendency of numbers to grow is one which must always be kept in view—cf. ”

“ Many parts of the book offer a very hard task to the expositor, especially the genealogies, where to other troubles are added the extreme corruption and many variations of the proper names in the versions ”