the _details_ of Jehu’s revolution in Kings) which teach no special lesson but are recorded for their intrinsic interest; and also much annalistic record of fact. But this material has been welded together by a writer or writers who were supremely interested in the religious condition of their people, who believed that the character and purpose of God were manifest in the vicissitudes of their national history, and who desired to make the ethical and spiritual import of that history clear to their fellow-men. Hence in their present form their works are not scientific records but rather what may be termed “history with a motive.” For instance, the space given to the tales about Elisha the prophet compared with the brief allusion to Omri King of Israel is entirely disproportionate to their respective values in the _political_ sphere. The books of Samuel and Kings are practical and powerful appeals to history in the interests of religious faith. The same is true of Chronicles, and to an even greater degree, because Chronicles belongs to a later period than Samuel‒Kings (see § 3), when the religious convictions of Israel were felt with extraordinary intensity, and could be expressed in accordance with certain precise theological beliefs. ¹ That _both_ Samuel‒Kings and Chronicles can be classed as didactic does not imply that they do not differ greatly in character: the former books are “prophetic” and national, relating God’s dealings with the nation as a whole, whilst Chronicles gives an essentially priestly and ecclesiastical view of the history. (2) _Method: the treatment of “sources.”_ It is of no less importance to realise something of the difference of method between ancient and modern historians, particularly as regards their treatment of “sources.”