K I N K I N 83
coverts are dull black, and some of them tipped with white, forming a somewhat conspicuous bar. The cock has a pleasant but weak song. The nest is a beautiful object, thickly felted of the softest moss, wool, and spiders' webs, lined with feathers, and usually built under and near the end of the branch of a yew, fir, or cedar, supported by the interweaving of two or three laterally diverging and pendent twigs, and sheltered by the rest. The eggs are from six to ten in number, of a dull white sometimes finely freckled with reddish-brown. The species is particularly social, living for the most of the year in family-parties, and often joining bands of any species of Titmouse in a common search for food. Though to be met with in Britain at all seasons, the bird in autumn visits the east coast in enormous flocks, apparently emigrants from Scandinavia, while hundreds perish in crossing the North Sea, where they are well known to the fishermen as "Woodcock's Pilots." A second and more local European species is the Fire-crested Wren, R. ignicapilhis, easily recognizable by the black streak on each side of the head, before and behind the eye, as well as by the deeper colour of its crown. A third species, R. maderensis, inhabits the Madeiras, to which it is peculiar; and examples from the Himalayas and Japan have been differentiated as R. himalayensis and R. japonicus. North America has two well-known species, R, satrapa, very like the European R. ignicapilltis, and the Ruby-crowned Wren, R. calendula, which is remarkable for a loud song that has been compared to that of a Canary-bird or a Sky-lark, and for having the characteristic nasal feather in a rudimentary or aborted condition. Under the name of R. modestus, or "Dalmatian Regulus" of many English authors, two very distinct species are now known to have been confounded, both belonging really to the group of Willow-Wrens, and having nothing to do with Regulus. One, which has occurred in Britain, is the Motacilla superciliosa of old or Phylloscopus superciliosus of modern authors, and is a native of northern Asia, visiting Europe nearly every year, and the other, also of Asiatic origin, is the Motacilla or Phylloscopus proregulus. (A. N.)
KINGS, The First and Second Books of, which form the last part of the series of Old Testament histories known as the Earlier Prophets, were originally reckoned as a single book (Josephus; Orig. ap. Eus., H. E., vi. 25; Peshito; Talmud), though modern Hebrew Bibles follow the bipartition which we have derived from the Septuagint. In that version they are called the third and fourth books of kingdoms ((
Greek characters)), the first and second being our books of Samuel. The division into two books is not felicitous, and even the old Hebrew separation between Kings and Samuel must not be taken to mean that the history from the birth of Samuel to the exile was treated by two distinct authors in independent volumes. We cannot speak of the author of Kings or Samuel, but only of an editor or successive editors whose main work was to arrange in a continuous form extracts or abstracts from earlier books. The introduction of a chronological scheme and of a series of editorial comments and additions, chiefly designed to enforce the religious meaning of the history, gives a kind of unity to the book of Kings as we now read it; but beneath this we can still distinguish a variety of documents, which, though sometimes mutilated in the process of piecing them together, retain sufficient individuality of style and colour to prove their original independence. Of these documents one of the best defined is the vivid and exact picture of David's court at Jerusalem (2 Sam. ix.-xx), of which the first two chapters of 1 Kings are manifestly an integral part.[1] As it would be unreasonable to suppose that the editor of the history of David closed his work abruptly before the death of the king, breaking off in the middle of a valuable memoir which lay before him, this observation leads us to conclude that the books of Samuel and Kings are not independent histories. They have at least one source in common, and a single editorial hand was at work on both. But the division which makes the commencement of Solomon's reign the beginning of a new book is certainly ancient; it must be older than the insertion of the appendix 2 Sam. xxi.-xxiv., which now breaks the continuity of the original history of David's court. From an historical point of view the division is very convenient. The subject of the book of Samuel is the creation of a united Israel by Samuel, Saul, and David. Under Solomon the creative impulse has already died away; the kingship is divorced from the sympathies of the nation; and the way is prepared for the formation of the two kingdoms of Ephraim and Judah, the fortunes of which up to their extinction by the great empires of the East form the main subject of the book of Kings. It is probable, however, that the editor who made the division had another reason for disconnecting Solomon from David and treating his reign as a new departure. The most notable feature in the extant redaction of the book is the strong interest shown in the Deuteronomic "Law of Moses," and especially in the centralization of worship in the temple on Zion as prescribed in Deuteronomy and enforced by Josiah. This interest did not exist in ancient Israel, and is quite foreign to the older memoirs incorporated in the book; amidst the great variety in style and manner which marks the several parts of the history it is always expressed in the same stereotyped phrases and unvarying style; in brief, it belongs to the editorial comments, not to the original sources of the history. To the Deuteronomistic editor, then, the foundation of the temple, which is treated as the central event of Solomon's reign, is a religious epoch of prime importance (see especially his remarks in 1 Kings iii. 2 sq.), and on this ground alone he would naturally make Solomon's reign commence a new book – the history of Israel under the one true sanctuary.[2]
When we say in general that the book of Kings was thrown into its present form by a Deuteronomistic redactor we do not affirm that he was the first who digested the sources of the history into a continuous work. Indeed the selection of materials, especially in the earlier parts of the narrative, has been thought to point to an opposite conclusion. Nor, on the other hand, must we ascribe absolute finality to his work. He gave the book a definite shape and character, but the recognized methods of Hebrew literature left it open to additions and modifications by later hands. Even the redaction in the spirit of Deuteronomy seems itself to have had more than one stage, as Ewald and other critics recognize. The book was not closed till far on in the exile, after the death of Nebuchadnezzar and Jehoiachin (2 Kings xxv. 27 seq.); and the fall of the kingdom of Judah is presupposed in such passages as 2 Kings xvii. 19, 20, xxiii. 26, 27. But these passages are mere interjected remarks, which seem to be added to adapt the context to the situation of the Jews in captivity. The main redaction, though subsequent to the reformation of Josiah, which forms the standard with which all previous kings are compared ("the high places were not removed"), does not point to the time of the captivity. Thus, for example, the words "unto this day," 2 Kings viii. 22, xiv. 7, xvi. 6, are part of the "epitome" composed by the main redactor (see below), and imply that he wrote before the destruction of the Judæan state.
- ↑ See this proved in detail, Wellhausen-Bleek, Einl. § 114. The verses 1 Kings ii. 1-12 have no connexion with the rest of the chapter, and are due to a later hand.
- ↑ With this it agrees that the later appendix 2 Sam. xxi.-xxiv. does not seem to have passed under the hand of the Deuteronomic redaction. See Wellhausen-Bleek, § 134.
