especially such a division as would make it necessary to repeat the edict of Cyrus.[1]
The introduction of this edict with the words, “And it came to pass in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished,” connects it so closely with the end of the account of the destruction of Jerusalem, and the carrying away into Babylon, contained in the words, “And they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfil the word of the Lord spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah, ... to fulfil the seventy years” (2Ch 36:20.), that it cannot be separated from what precedes. Rather it is clear, that the author who wrote 2Ch 36:20, 2Ch 36:21, representing the seventy years' exile as the fulfilment of the prophecy of Jeremiah, must be the same who mentions the edict of Cyrus, and sets it forth in its connection with the utterances of the same prophet. This connecting of the edict with the prophecy gives us an irrefragable proof that the verses which contain the edict form an integral part of the Chronicle. But, at the same time, the way in which the edict is broken off in the Chronicle with ורעל, makes it likely that the author of the Chronicle did not give the contents of the edict in their entirety, only because he intended to treat further of the edict, and the fulfilment of it by the return of the Jews from Babylon, in a second work. A later editor would certainly have given the entire edict in both writings (the Chronicle and the book
- ↑ What Bertheau (p. xxi.) says in this connection (following Ewald, Gesch. des V. Isr. i. 8. S. 264, der 2 Aufl.), viz., that “perhaps at first only that part of the great historical work which contains the history of the new community itself, to the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, and the history of these its two heroes, was added to the books of the Old Testament, because it seemed unnecessary to add our present Chronicle, on account of its agreement in great part with the contents of the books of Samuel and Kings,” is a supposition which merely evades giving a reason for the division of the work into two, by holding the division to have been made before the book came into the canon. But unless the division had been made before, no one would ever have thought of considering the first half of this book, i.e., our present Chronicle, unworthy of a place in the canon, since it contains, in great part, new information not found in the books of Samuel and Kings, and supplements in a variety of ways even the narratives which are contained in these books. And even supposing that the Chronicle was received into the canon as a supplement, after the books of Ezra and Nehemiah had already received a definite place in it, the verses 2Ch 36:22. could scarcely have been added to the Chronicle from the book of Ezra, to call attention to the fact that the Chronicle had received an unsuitable place in the canon, as it ought to have stood before the book of Ezra.
