Troy D. Cudworth
War in Chronicles: Temple Faithfulness and Israel’s Place in the Land
Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Series 627
London: Bloombury T&T Clark, 2016. Pp. xii + 209.Cloth.$112.ISBN 978-0-56766-650-5
Ralph W. Klein
Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago
Cudworth’s monograph is an edited version of his dissertation written under the direction of H. G. M. Williamson at Oxford. In his view the Chronicler aims to keep his doctrine of retribution consistent with regard to kings and their success in war. The Chronicler assesses each king primarily on the basis of his faithfulness to the temple cult.
After an introductory chapter Cudworth devotes ch. 2 to David, who gathered all Israel together for worship and made massive preparations for the construction of the temple, leading to his victories on the battlefield. Most of David’s military victories preceded his generous temple donations.Chapters 3 and 4 deal respectively with kings who are faithful or unfaithful to the temple and their consequent success or failure in war. Hezekiah and Ahaz are the best examples. Chapter 5 examines kings who are faithful early in their reigns, but later act contrary to their faithfulness and are defeated in battle or experience a pause in their military success. Chapter 6 treats the wicked Rehoboam and Manasseh who repent. Chapter 7 offers a summary and conclusions. The author holds that the Chronicler is consistent in the basic principles of retribution, thus challenging the proposal of Ehud Ben Zvi.
Cudworth mines the recent commentaries by Braun, Dillard, Japhet, Klein, Knoppers, and Williamson for exegetical insights and shows broad acquaintance with other secondary literature. His own contribution is in trying to adjudicate the dozens of divergent exegetical opinions in this literature, often with considerable insight. I doubt, however, that the worthless scoundrels who gathered around “him” and who defied Rehoboam refers to those who gathered around Rehoboam rather than Jeroboam (2 Chr 13:7), or that there is anything wrong with the standard translations of 2 Chr 21:14, or that Yahweh had no clear reason for his wrath against Uzzah however much we might think that judgment was excessive (1 Chr 13:9-10).Cudworth is generally successful in proving the link between temple faithfulness or unfaithfulness and kings’ success or failure in war.
The temptation in a dissertation is to use a hypothesis even in dubious cases. Josiah stands out for me as an exception to his hypothesis, and this exception should have been noted.Josiah’s dedication to temple reform is quite clear, with the Chronicler even dating these activities earlier in his reign than Kings did. But why did Josiah die in battle against Neco? The Deuteronomistic Historian passed over that problem in silence, one of the factors that led to the hypothesis of two editions in that work, a hypothesis that has itself become problematic. The Chronicler provided a unique rationale for Josiah’s death, namely, that Josiah did not listen to the words of God that came to him through the Egyptian king. First Esdras tries to improve upon this rationale by arguing that Josiah did not listen to the words of Jeremiah from the mouth of the Lord (1:28), Cudworth claims that Josiah committed a form of transgression against the temple cult and failed to seek Yahweh during the Neco incident. That is not what the text says. I found the hypothesis about temple faithfulness/unfaithfulness also lacking in the Chronicler’s brief treatment of the last four kings of Judah.
Occasionally Cudworth’s language is anachronistic or imported from other theological contexts. Some examples are his writing about the “orthodox” temple in Jerusalem (pp. 56, 185), his references to a king’s “piety” (pp. 31, 55, 86), Saul’s “neglect” of Yahweh (p. 11), “blackguards” (p. 64) David’s “faith” in the God of the fathers (p. 17), David acting “devoutly” (p. 18), or Solomon “excommunicating” Abiathar (p. 55). “Israel’s Place in the Land” is a bit misleading in the subtitle. .
The author is to be congratulated for giving a new perspective to the doctrine of retribution in Chronicles and for linking almost all kings’ faithfulness or faithlessness to the temple to their success or failure in war.