Isaiah and the Oldest 'Biblical'

Isaiah and the Oldest ‘Biblical’ Prophetic Narrative

Graeme Auld

1 Introduction

Many interesting features relate to the so-called ‘synoptic’ material within Samuel-Kings: the portions of these books which are shared with Chronicles. It has been argued that they are a major source of the familiar books, and even the root-system out of which these books have developed.1 However that may be, this paper starts from a plain fact. In a number of apparently significant respects, these shared portions of text are remarkably untypical of Samuel- Kings as a whole. Detaching these texts from their familiar contexts offers a fresh perspective for examining their contents, including their narrative por- trayal of divine/human intermediation. R.F. Person rightly insists that what is distinctive in the Chronicler’s attitude to prophecy and intermediation should be plotted over against the synoptic material rather than the developed books of Samuel and Kings.2 A recent paper3 identifies four ideologically neutral indicators of the dis- there is/are’, though it is‘ ,יׁש (tinctiveness of the synoptic texts as a whole. (1 found in Chronicles (4×) and is used much more frequently in Samuel-Kings is not common in הנה (is wholly absent from the texts they share. (2 ,(×24) synoptic texts (only some 10×); and again it is used more densely in the rest of Samuel-Kings than in non-synoptic Chronicles. (3) The chronological frame- work of the shared monarchic narrative exhibits only quite minimal varia- tion in terminology between Samuel-Kings and Chronicles. And here too the range of temporal markers used is less in the synoptic texts than in Chronicles, and less in Chronicles than in Samuel-Kings. Most notably, quite the com- (היום הזה and היום) monest temporal expressions in Samuel-Kings as a whole

1 A.G. Auld, Kings without Privilege: David and Moses in the Story of the Bible’s Kings, Edinburgh 1994; A.G. Auld, Samuel at the Threshold: Selected Works of Graeme Auld (SOTSS), Aldershot 2004; A.G. Auld, I & II Samuel: A Commentary (OTL), Louisville KY 2011; R.F. Person, The Deuteronomic History and the Book of Chronicles: Scribal Works in an Oral World (AIL 6), Atlanta GA 2010. 2 R.F. Person, ‘Prophets in the Deuteronomic History and the Book of Chronicles: A Reassessment’, M.R. Jacobs and R.F. Person (eds), Israelite Prophecy and the Deuteronomistic History: Portrait, Reality, and the Formation of a History (AIL 14), Atlanta GA 2013, 187–88. 3 A.G. Auld, ‘The Shaping of Israelite History in Samuel and Kings’, RB 121 (2014), 195–216, including full references.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��5 | doi ��.��63/9789004291133_005 46 Auld are wholly absent from the shared texts. (4) The prevalence of the infinitive absolute (in its various uses) is similar in both synoptic and non-synoptic portions of Chronicles. But this grammatical feature is used very much more in non-synoptic Samuel-Kings. It is also used rather more in synoptic portions of Samuel-Kings than in the parallel portions of Chronicles (probably under influence from the density of usage in non-synoptic portions). To underscore this four-fold distinctiveness of the shared texts, it should be added that a temporal marker (3) is never found near an infinitive absolute (4), while such link- age is a common feature of the book of Samuel (some 10×). Further examples of such neutral indicators will be reported later in this discussion. This paper is in two main parts: the first reviews all but one of the synoptic passages relating to prophecy and intermediation; the second, the wholly exceptional situation concerning Hezekiah and Isaiah.

2 Synoptic Overview

The following shared texts report divine/human communication, with or without a mediator:

2 Sam. 5:19, 23 David asks for divine guidance before attacking Philistines 2 Sam. 7 Nathan on building a house, and David’s prayer 2 Sam. 24 Gad and David’s choice between 3 punishments 1 Kgs 3:4–15 Solomon’s vision at Gibeon 1 Kgs 8:22–50a Solomon prays at the dedication of the Jerusalem temple 1 Kgs 9:1–9 Solomon’s vision in Jerusalem 1 Kgs 12:15 confirmation of a word spoken by Ahijah the Shilonite 1 Kgs 12:22–24 oracle spoken by Shemaiah 1 Kgs 22 Micaiah and the prophets with Jehoshaphat and the king of Israel 2 Kgs 18–20 Isaiah and Hezekiah 2 Kgs 21:9–10 Manasseh 2 Kgs 22:14–22 Huldah the prophetess and Josiah4

4 The parallels in Chronicles to these passages are 1 Chron. 14:10, 14; 17; 21; 2 Chron. 1:3–13; 6:12– 39; 7:12–22; 10:15; 11:2–4; 18; 32; 33:9–10; 34:20–28.