Even the prophets of the eighth century connect the future destiny of Israel with David and his house. The child, of whom Isaiah prophesied, was to sit “upon the throne of David” and be “over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with judgment and with righteousness from henceforth even for ever.”(139) And, again, the king who is to “sit ... in truth, ... judging, and seeking judgment, and swift to do righteousness,” is to have “his throne ... established in mercy in the tent of David.”(140) When Sennacherib attacked Jerusalem, the city was defended(141) for Jehovah’s own sake and for His servant David’s sake. In the word of the Lord that came to Isaiah for Hezekiah, David supersedes, as it were, the sacred fathers of the Hebrew race; Jehovah is not spoken of as “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” but “the God of David.”(142) As founder of the dynasty, he takes rank with the founders of the race and religion of Israel: he is “the patriarch David.”(143) The northern prophet Hosea looks forward to the time when “the children of Israel shall return, and seek the Lord their God and David their king”(144); when Amos wishes to set forth the future prosperity of Israel, he says that the Lord “will raise up the tabernacle of David”(145); in Micah “the ruler in Israel” is to come forth from Bethlehem Ephrathah, the birthplace of David(146); in Jeremiah such references to David are frequent, the most characteristic being those relating to the “righteous branch, whom the Lord will raise up unto David,” who “shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute judgment and justice in the land, in whose days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely”(147); in Ezekiel “My servant David” is to be the shepherd and prince of Jehovah’s restored and reunited people(148); Zechariah, writing at what we may consider the beginning of the chronicler’s own period, follows the language of his predecessors: he applies Jeremiah’s prophecy of “the righteous branch” to Zerubbabel, the prince of the house of David(149): similarly in Haggai Zerubbabel is the chosen of Jehovah(150); in the appendix to Zechariah it is said that when “the Lord defends the inhabitants of Jerusalem” “the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of the Lord before them.”(151) In the later literature, Biblical and apocryphal, the Davidic origin of the Messiah is not conspicuous till it reappears in the Psalms of Solomon(152) and the New Testament, but the idea had not necessarily been dormant meanwhile. The chronicler and his school studied and meditated on the sacred writings, and must have been familiar with this doctrine of the prophets. The interest in such a subject would not be confined to scholars. Doubtless the downtrodden people cherished with ever-growing ardour the glorious picture of the Davidic king. In the synagogues it was not only Moses, but the Prophets, that were read; and they could never allow the