In the "Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges "—General Editor
for the Old Testament, A. F. Kirkpatrick (Cambridge University Press)—we have The Two Books of the Kings, Edited by W. Emery Barnes, D.D. (3s. 6d. net). "It is improbable," says Professor Barnes, "that the book was compiled any long time before 561 B.C." One reason is the "definite relation in which the compiler stands to the book of Deuteronomy," and Deuteronomy, we are told, was "published in the eighteenth year of Josiah ( = 621 B.C.) " We cannot follow Professor Barnes in his commentary, but we may say that wo have been struck with its admirable quality. No word is wasted, no difficulty left un- touched; but where there is a discrepancy it is frankly acknow- ledged and accounted for, if such a course is possible. No attempt is made to create an artificial harmony. Of the two conflicting narratives of the death of Aha.ziah, King of Judah—(1) mortally wounded at the ascent of Gur and dying at Megiddo, (2) found in hiding in Samaria and killed there—he simply says that the "account in Kings is more precise and probably more correct." This is an excellent book.
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