Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

Hi,

I don't know if it's significant, but all of the five cases that you cited
were kings of northern Israel, not of Judah. Furthermore, the first is
Jeroboam, the first king of the northern kingdom. The second is Zechariah,
son of Jeroboam II - not the same as the first, but the same name. The other
three are all in the same chapter as the second (2 Kings 15) and refer to
the last kings of the northern kingdom (except the very last, who has no
regnal formula). So maybe it has something to do with the sources that the
composer of Kings was using.

Yigal

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Heard, Christopher" <Christopher.Heard AT pepperdine.edu>
To: "b-hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2005 10:25 PM
Subject: [b-hebrew] Regnal resume variation in Kings


> Hello all.
>
> I've been working verse by verse through 2 Kings recently and noticed
> something peculiar about the regnal resumes that I've never noticed
> before. At the end of each king's reign, as you know, there is a
> reference to "the book of the annals of the kings of Israel" or "the
> book of the annals of the kings of Judah." (I am not sure whether
> "annals" is the best translation for דברי הימים, but I think
> that it fits.)
>
> In any event, I noticed that in most cases, the wording is in the
> form of a rhetorical question beginning with הלא כתובים, "are
> they not written ...?" (1 Kings 11:41; 14:29; 15:7, 23, 31; 16:5, 14,
> 20; 22:39, 46; 2 Kings 1:18; 8:23; 10:34; 12:20; 13:8, 12; 14:15, 18,
> 28; 15:6, 21, 36; 16:19; 20:20; 21:17, 25; 23:28; 24:5). Yet in a
> very few cases, the phrasing is as a declarative beginning with
> הנם כתובים, "behold them written!" (1 Kings 14:19; 2 Kings
> 15:11, 15, 26, 31).
>
> I suppose this is more of an exegetical, form-critical, or text-
> critical question than a linguistic one, but does anyone on the list
> know of any particular reason why these five cases should depart from
> the "standard" (meaning "more frequently attested") formula?
> --
> R. Christopher Heard
> Assistant Professor of Religion
> Pepperdine University
> Malibu, California 90263-4352
> http://faculty.pepperdine.edu/cheard
> http://www.iTanakh.org
> http://www.semioticsandexegesis.info
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