der zehn Stämme Israels, Zeitschr. der deutschen morgenl. Gesellsch. 1851, No. 4, p. 467 sqq.

§ 177.

Origin of the Samaritans.

In place of the ejected Israelites, colonies from central Asia were, according to 2 Kings xxii. 24, planted in the depopulated country, but not, as might appear from this passage, by Shalmaneser, but, as we are told Ezra iv. 2, by Esar-haddon some forty years after. These, impelled by the calamities they experienced, mingled the worship of Jehovah, as the God of the land, with the heathen religions they had brought with them from their respective homes (2 Kings xvii. 25 sqq.). Thus arose the so-called Samaritans or Cuthites, D, as they were named by the Jews, from Cuthah, the native country of a portion of them (1). Two views are embraced with respect to these Samaritans. According to one, they were not a purely heathen people, but a mixed race arising from the intermarriage of the new colonists with the remnant of the ten tribes which was left in the land. The other and older view, that the Samaritans proceeded from wholly heathen races, has been re-advocated especially by Hengstenberg (Beiträge zur Einleitung, ii. p. 4 sqq.) (2). It is certain that not much dependence can be placed upon the assertions of their Israelite descent by the later Samaritans (see e.g. John iv. 12), since at one time they affirmed, at another time denied it, as their interests required (see the narratives in Josephus, Ant. xi. 8. 6 and xii. 5. 6); while neither, on the other hand, can Jewish accounts be trusted, the hatred of the Jews for the Samaritans furnishing them with a motive for denying all kindred with the latter. The Old Testament passages, 2 Kings xvii. 24 sqq., Ezra iv. 2, 9 sq., favour the second view. In the first of these, it is evident from ver. 27 that at all events the Israelitish priesthood had been

entirely carried off; in the latter, it is of special importance that the Samaritans do not support their claim to a share in the new temple at Jerusalem by asserting their kinship to the Jews. On the other hand, it must certainly be admitted that, at least after the destruction of Samaria, a considerable Israelitish population must still have been found in the northern country. This is specially shown by 2 Chron. xxx. ; for the solemn Passover of Hezekiah there mentioned was in all probability held, not (as many suppose) in the beginning of his reign, but after his sixth year, and therefore after the destruction of Samaria. Of this population, however, it must also be admitted that it was carried away by Ezar-haddon, who planted the colonists in the country. Nevertheless, even under Josiah, who, according to 2 Chron. xxxiv., destroyed the altars and images still existing in the northern regions, remnants of Manasseh, Ephraim, and of the rest of Israel are (ver. 9) assumed, and the men from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria, named in Jer. xli. 5 as mourning for the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem, were undoubtedly Israelites. Besides, the total deportation of the entire population of so important a district is hardly to be supposed possible. Thus much is, however, certain, that the Israelite element among the Samaritans, even reckoning the subsequent accession of Jews to their numbers (of which we shall speak in the 5th Division, § 192), must by no means be computed as so considerable as is generally the case (3).

(1) It cannot be determined with certainty whether Cuthah was, as Josephus says, a province in Persia, or, as others say, a town in Babylonia.

(2) Against Hengstenberg see Kalkar's Die Samaritaner ein Mischvolk, in Pelt's theol. Mitarbeiten, 1840, iii. p. 24 sqq.

(3) The small remnant of Samaritans still found in Nablus exhibits, according to the assertion of travellers, absolutely no approach to the Jewish physiognomy; compare Ritter, Erdkunde, xvi. p. 647 sqq.

FOURTH DIVISION.

THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH.

§ 178.

Preliminary Remarks and Survey.

The history of the kingdom of Judah has a character essentially different from that of the kingdom of Israel. Though much smaller, especially after Idumea, the only one of the mountainous districts which at the disruption fell to the share of Judah, had gained its independence, it was still superior to the kingdom of Israel in internal strength. This resulted partly from its possession of the genuine sanctuary with its legitimate worship, its influential priesthood, and Levitical orders; and partly from its royal house, which, unlike most of the dynasties of the neighbouring kingdom, had not been raised to the throne by revolution, but possessed the sanction of legitimacy and a settled succession (1), and was especially consecrated by the memory of its illustrious ancestor David, and the Divine promises vouchsafed to his race. Moreover, among the nineteen monarchs (of course not counting Athaliah) who occupied the throne 387 years, from Rehoboam till the fall of the state, there were at least some individuals distinguished for high administrative talents, in whom the ideal of the theocratic kingship was revived, such as Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, Josiah. Thus the kingdom gained a moral strength that prevented the wild spirit of insurrection and discord, by which the other kingdom was disturbed, from attaining anything like the same proportions. The opposition, indeed, between the natural inclinations of the people and the moral strictness of Jehovism could not but lead to conflicts here also; nay, the contrast between the two was all the sharper, because a syncretistic intermingling of heathenism and Jehovism could not be so easily

effected,—a circumstance which explains the fact, that when the former did get the upper hand in Judah, it appeared in a still grosser form than in the kingdom of Israel. By reason, however, of the firm foundation which the continuance of the legitimate theocratic authorities afforded to Jehovism in this state, there was no need of bloody revolutions to reinstate the latter in its rights, but only of reformations, and these were effected not so much by the energetic interposition of prophets as by the kings themselves. Besides, the preservation of the theocratic ordinances not devolving in Judah exclusively upon the prophets, their position here was also different from that which they occupied in the kingdom of the ten tribes. At times their agency was exercised in perfect harmony with that of the two other theocratic powers; and reformations of worship being repeatedly undertaken by the kings, they were able to limit themselves to the ministry of the word. In tracing the history of the prophetic order, a distinction has been sometimes made between the prophetism of deed and word (2),—a distinction less adapted to designate two different periods than to characterize the prophetship in Judah in contradistinction to the older prophetship of the kingdom of the ten tribes. The prophets, finding in Judah the basis afforded by existing theocratic institutions, were not under the necessity of founding new kinds of support; and there is no sort of evidence that schools of the prophets, or associations such as existed in the kingdom of the ten tribes, were organized in Judah. The Rabbinists, indeed (3), make schools of the prophets exist in Judah down to the Babylonian captivity; but this arises from a confessedly erroneous interpretation of 2 Kings xxii. 14, where, by the p (i.e. the lower district of the town) in which the prophetess Huldah dwelt, they understand a place of instruction (Targ. N ) in the neighbourhood of the temple. In the historical notices of the kingdom of Judah we meet only with individual prophets, a succession of whom continues, with but inconsiderable gaps, down to the captivity; while it is

only around such eminent prophets as Isaiah (comp. viii. 16), and afterwards Jeremiah, that small circles of disciples were gathered, in whom the word of God fell upon good ground, in the midst of a rebellious nation, and was transmitted to future generations (4).

With respect to the course of events in the kingdom of Judah, a cursory glance presents a tolerably uniform alternation of apostasy from Jehovah and return to Him. Certain kings suffer idolatry to spring up; this finds support in the high places existing in different parts of the country, and such apostasy finds its punishment in the calamities which then overtake the nation. Then arises again a pious king, who exerts himself to keep the people in communion with the legitimate sanctuary, and vindicates the authority of the legal worship, till at length, after repeated reformations, the apostasy and corruption become so great, that judgment sets in without intermission. In fact, however, the conflict between the theocratic principle and the apostasy of the people passes through several characteristically different stages. In the first period, extending to Ahaz, heathenism, which was never wholly extirpated, and attained under some kings a temporary supremacy, appears in the form of the ancient Canaanitish deification of nature; the prophets, who during these two centuries are somewhat in the background, exercise their ministry during this period, so far as we know their history, in harmony with the priesthood; and the political relations of the kingdom do not extend beyond the states bordering on Palestine, among which Egypt at first appears as especially the enemy of Judah. In the second period, Judah, on the occasion of the momentous combination of Syria and Ephraim (comp. § 176), appears on the great stage of universal history, and is drawn into that conflict with the Assyrian monarchy in which, after experiencing terrible reverses and witnessing the destruction of the kindred nation, it was miraculously preserved by Divine interposition. The contest against the worship of nature, which, in consequence of the