THE CITATION AND INTERPRETATION OF THE LAW IN CHRONICLES: THE CHRONICLER’S DISTRIBUTION OF EXEGETICAL DEVICES IN THE NARRATIVES OF SOLOMON AND HEZEKIAH

Kevin L. Spawn

In the last ca. 25 years, the Chr’s handling of the Law has received renewed scholarly attention.1 One aspect of his use of the pentateuchal traditions is the introduction of exegetical tools to cite the Law (e.g., “as it is written Chr 31:3). These citation 2 ,ככתוב בתורת יהוה ”in the Law of the Lord formulae are distributed in three discrete parts of Chronicles widely rec- ognized for their importance to the Chr’s message of restoration for his community. The greatest concentrations of these exegetical devices2 occur in the narratives of Solomon (2 Chr 4:7, 20; 8:13), Hezekiah (30:5, 16, 18; 31:3) and Josiah (34:21, 24; 35:12, 13, 26).3 In Chronicles, the distribution of these hermeneutical tools was not only part of the Chr’s answer to the division of “all Israel,” but it also promoted the interpretation and observance of the Law in his community. After examining the use of citation formulae in the narratives of the first two of these monarchs, the aforementioned literary effects of the Chr’s distribution of exegetical devices will be summarized. Accordingly, this essay also serves as a basis for the future examination of the hermeneutical tools employed in the Josianic account.

I. The Law in Recent Research in Chronicles

In his essay “History,” H. G. M. Williamson responded to selected exami- nations of the interpretation of the Law in the postexilic ­historiography in

1 In the 1980s, a debate about the reading of selected postexilic citation formulae sur- faced in biblical studies between Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), and H. G. M. Williamson, “History,” in It Is Written: Scrip- ture Citing Scripture: Essays in Honour of Barnabas Lindars, SSF (ed. Don A. Carson and H. G. M. Williamson; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 25–38. 2 The citation formulae addressed in this study as exegetical devices will be defined immediately below. 3 For Hezekiah as a Second Solomon, see H. G. M. Williamson, Israel in the Book of Chronicles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 119–25. For the view that Heze- kiah and Josiah parallel features of both David and Solomon in Chronicles (e.g., “Hezekiah: New David and New Solomon”), see Mark A. Throntveit, When Kings Speak: Royal Speech and Royal Prayer in Chronicles (SBLDS 93; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1987), 121–25. 318 kevin l. spawn contemporary scholarship.4 Based on his extensive research of the books of Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah, Williamson suggested that selected (v. 26 ככתוב ;35:13 כמשפט ,.exegetical devices in this literature (e.g should be read more narrowly than Michael Fishbane proposed in his Bib- lical Interpretation in Ancient Israel. Since these hermeneutical tools had been read in a number of conflicting ways for more than a century,5 this persistent lack of a scholarly consensus was an impetus for my syntacti- cal examination of citation formulae in the Old Testament.6 Two results of this research relate to the exegetical devices addressed in this essay. First, while Fishbane’s monograph obviously deserves continued study, a syntactical examination of the adverbial and relative constructions in this debate has, in my estimation, confirmed the more circumscribed, less unwieldy readings of the exegetical devices in the non-synoptic portions of the postexilic historiography advocated by Williamson and other schol- ars dating back more than a century.7 Second, even though biblical historiographers attribute various top- ics (e.g., cultic regulations, legal stipulations, the deeds of kings, laments, genealogies, poetic fragments) to a range of sources (e.g., Torah, the Book of the Upright, the Annals of the Kings of Judah and Israel), selected postexilic exegetical devices used to interpret the Law are distinguish- able from all other citation formulae in the Old Testament. The forms and functions characteristic of these developed exegetical devices in the non-synoptic postexilic historiography concern the following features: the

4 Williamson, “History,” 25–38. His essay responded primarily to the analysis of selected exegetical devices in Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah in Michael Fishbane, Biblical Inter- pretation. For Fishbane’s subsequent scholarship on biblical interpretation, see idem, The Garments of Torah: Essays in Biblical Hermeneutics (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1989); idem., “Inner-Biblical Exegesis,” in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, the History of its Interpretation. Vol. I: From the Beginnings to the Middle Ages (Until 1300). Part 1: Antiquity (ed. Magne Sæbø; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996), 33–48. 5 For an example of the debated reading of the postexilic exegetical devices in biblical scholarship of the 19th century, see Kevin L. Spawn, “As It Is Written” and Other Citation Formulae in the Old Testament: Their Use, Development, Syntax and Significance (BZAW 311; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2002), 10. 6 For the conclusions of this study as it relates to exegetical devices, see Spawn, Citation Formulae, 241–58. For a brief overview of this investigation, see idem, “Sources, References to,” in Dictionary of Old Testament—Historical Books (ed. Bill T. Arnold and H. G. M. Wil- liamson; Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2005), 935–41. in Neh. 10:35 ככתוב בתורה E.g., for the six different readings of the citation formula 7 (34 ET) by scholars since Carl F. Keil, Chronik, Esra, Nehemia und Esther (Leipzig: Dörffling und Franke, 1870), 569, see Spawn, Citation Formulae, 2–12.