Let us briefly examine the part played by the prophets in the history of Judah as given by Chronicles. We have first, as in the book of Kings, the references to Nathan and Gad: they make known to David the will of Jehovah as regards the building of the Temple and the punishment of David’s pride in taking the census of Israel. David unhesitatingly accepts their messages as the word of Jehovah. It is important to notice that when Nathan is consulted about building the Temple he first answers, apparently giving a mere private opinion, “Do all that is in thine heart, for God is with thee”; but when “the word of God comes” to him, he retracts his former judgment and forbids David to build the Temple. Here again the plan of the chronicler’s work leads to an important omission: his silence as to the murder of Uriah prevents him from giving the beautiful and instructive account of the way in which Nathan rebuked the guilty king. Later narratives exhibit other prophets in the act of rebuking most of the kings of Judah, but none of these incidents are equally striking and pathetic. At the end of the histories of David and of most of the later kings we find notes which apparently indicate that, in the chronicler’s time, the prophets were credited with having written the annals of the kings with whom they were contemporary. In connection with Hezekiah’s reformation we are incidentally told that Nathan and Gad were associated with David in making arrangements for the music of the Temple: “He set the Levites in the house of Jehovah, with cymbals, with psalteries, and with harps, according to the commandment of David and of Gad the king’s seer and Nathan the prophet, for the commandment was of Jehovah by His prophets.”(291) In the account of Solomon’s reign, the chronicler omits the interview of Ahijah the Shilonite with Jeroboam, but refers to it in the history of Rehoboam. From this point, in accordance with his general plan, he omits almost all missions of prophets to the northern kings. In Rehoboam’s reign, we have recorded, as in the book of Kings, a message from Jehovah by Shemaiah forbidding the king and his two tribes of Judah and Benjamin to attempt to compel the northern tribes to return to their allegiance to the house of David. Later on, when Shishak invaded Judah, Shemaiah was commissioned to deliver to the king and princes the message, “Thus saith Jehovah: Ye have forsaken Me; therefore have I also left you in the hand of Shishak.”(292) But when they repented and humbled themselves before Jehovah, Shemaiah announced to them the mitigation of their punishment. Asa’s reformation was due to the inspired exhortations of a prophet called both Oded and Azariah the son of Oded. Later on Hanani the seer rebuked the king for his alliance with Benhadad, king of Syria. “Then Asa was wroth with the seer, and put him in the prison-house; for he was in a rage with him because of this thing.”(293)