it came to pass when the trumpeters and singers were as one to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord, and when the music began with trumpets, and cymbals, and instruments, and the song of praise, Praise ye Jehovah, for He is good; for His mercy endureth for ever, then the house was filled with a cloud” (v. 11-13).  Proceeding, the narrative of 1Kings viii. 22 that Solomon came in front of the altar and there prayed is indeed in the first instance copied (vi. 12), but forthwith authoritatively interpreted in the sense that the king did not really and actually stand before the altar (which was lawful for the priests alone), but upon an improvised pulpit in the inner court upon a propped-up caldron of brass (vi. 13), an excellent idea, which has met with the due commendation of expositors.  The close of Solomon’s prayer (1Kings viii. 49-53) is abridged (vi. 39, 40)—­perhaps in order to get rid of viii. 50—­and there is substituted for it an original epilogue (vi. 41, 42) recalling post-exilian psalms.  Then comes a larger omission, that of 1Kings viii. 54-61, explained by the difficulty involved in the king’s here kneeling, not upon the caldron, but before the altar, then standing up and blessing like a priest; in place of this it is told (vii. 1-3) how the altar was consecrated by fire from heaven, which indeed had already descended upon it (1Chronicles xxi.26), but as it appears had unaccountably gone out.  In vii. 4 the author again returns to his original at 1Kings viii. 62 seq., but tricks it out, wherever it appears to him too bare, with trumpeting priests and singing Levites (vii. 6), and finally dismisses the people, not on the eighth day of the feast of tabernacles (1Kings viii. 66), but on the ninth (vii. to), in accordance with the enactment in Numbers xxix. 35.

The rest of Solomon’s history (vii. 11-ix. 28) is taken over from 1Kings ix., x.  In doing so what is said in 1Kings ix. 10-IO, to the effect that Solomon handed over to Hiram twenty Galilaean cities, is changed into the opposite—­that Hiram ceded the cities to Solomon, who settled them with Israelites (viii. 1, 2); and similarly the already observed statement of 1Kings ix. 24 about the removal of Solomon’s Egyptian wife out of the city of David into his new palace 1 is altered and put in quite a

**************************************** 1.  Even in the text of Kings this statement has been obscured; Comp. 1Kings iii. 1.  In ix. 24 we must at least say betho asher bana lo, but this perhaps is not enough. ****************************************

false light:  “Solomon brought up the daughter of Pharaoh out of the city of David unto the house that he had built for her; for he said, No woman shall dwell in the house of David, for the place is holy whereunto the ark of Jehovah hath come” (viii. 11).  There is no further need to speak of viii. 12-16 (1Kings ix. 25); more indifferent in their character are the addition in vii. 12-15, a mere compilation of reminiscences, the embellishment in viii. 3-6, derived from 1Kings ix. 17-19, and the variations in viii. 17 seq., ix. 2I, misunderstood from 1Kings ix. 26 seq., x. 22.  The concluding chapter on Solomon’s reign (1Kings xi.), in which the king does not appear in his most glorious aspect, is passed over in silence, for the same motives as those which dictated the omission of the two chapters at the beginning.