Transformations in Meaning: Solomon’s Accession in Chronicles*

Christine Mitchell

St. Andrew’s College,

Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

 1. Introduction

1.1.       The accession of Solomon in Chronicles seems to be very different from his accession in Kings.  On a purely literary level, it is an interesting exercise to try to discover how the Chronicler constructed his version of the beginning of Solomon’s reign.  On a larger scale, we can see this episode as emblematic for how Chronicles was constructed and for how many parts of the Hebrew Bible were created.  John Van Seters’ recent attempt to untangle the literary background of certain biblical episodes provides the starting point for this paper.[1]  He suggests that Chronicles’ use of Samuel-Kings is imitation of the most crass kind, plagiarism.  What I would like to argue is that Chronicles is a profoundly transformative text.  The Chronicler took what he needed from his predecessors (sometimes word-for-word, it is true), but used the material in completely different ways.  He did so in order to respond to his predecessors, perhaps to overwhelm them, perhaps simply to debate them.  In this essay, I will first discuss the phenomenon of inner-biblical interpretation, and then examine one example of the Chronicler’s technique as it was applied to the accession of Solomon. 

2. Inner-biblical interpretation and intertextuality

2.1.       There have been several models proposed for the inter-relationship of biblical texts.[2]  Perhaps the best known of the more recent theories may be found in Michael Fishbane’s Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel,[3] in which he argues that inner-biblical interpretation is a form of exegesis, a form that was the starting point for the Jewish midrashic tradition.  We can certainly look back from our vantage point and see a line of development from inner-biblical exegesis to midrash (over a period of a thousand years), but it is very likely that the rabbinic tradition developed a technique seen already in the sacred texts of the tradition.  Knowing the development of the rabbinic tradition does not tell us why inner-biblical exegesis developed in the mid-first millennium BCE (beyond being a scribal impulse).  In order to discover the methods of the late biblical writers, we have to look elsewhere.

2.2.       John Van Seters has approached the topic from a different perspective.  His article is valuable precisely because it explores the origins of inner-biblical interpretation, using our knowledge of a contemporary adjacent literary tradition, rather than a later tradition.  He describes a process of “creative imitation,” whereby an ancient author used the work of an earlier author as a model, while at the same time leaving clues for the informed reader about his creative borrowing.[4]  He suggests, “Creative imitation often means that the item or feature imitated finds a place in an entirely new context and form.”[5]  He develops this model of creative imitation in order to defy those who would use the “rubric of ‘intertextuality’” to place all sorts of texts next to each other and read them without concern for the diachronic development of the biblical canon.[6]  He suggests that the way the classicists understand “intertextuality” (as “one author’s use of another”) is the way biblicists should understand it as well.[7]  If I am reading him correctly, Van Seters agrees with the common supposition that the Chronicler had ideological reasons for making his changes to Samuel-Kings (changes he terms as “fictions”, thus implying that Samuel-Kings is “true”); and he suggests that the Chronicler’s use of source citations, what he terms “fictitious source citation,” was meant to draw attention away from the Chronicler’s (mis-)use of Samuel-Kings – the fact that it was simple plagiarism.[8]  Chronicles, therefore, does not make use of creative imitation, but simply makes small, ideologically-based, changes to a plagiarized source.

2.3.       There is a wonderfully Bloomian cast to Van Seters’ argument.  Harold Bloom is only concerned with “strong” authors, who struggle with their “strong” predecessors; “Weaker talents idealize, figures of capable imagination appropriate for themselves.”[9]  Van Seters’ Chronicler would be an idealizer.  Jonathan Culler points out that what Bloom is doing is a search for origins in a single precursor author.[10]  This is a criticism that could be leveled at Van Seters’ approach as well.  His dislike for the term “intertextuality” is evident, because he does not see intertextuality anywhere; rather he sees allusion, creative imitation, or plagiarism.  What I would suggest is that we develop a model of intertextuality that is both synchronic (accounts for how we experience the texts), and diachronic (accounts for how the ancients experienced the texts).  This model would go beyond a search for allusions or plagiarism.

2.4.       Classical models

2.4.1        Van Seters has based his concept of “creative imitation” upon his discussion of classical rhetoric, beginning with a brief discussion of mimesis/imitatio.[11]  Because I believe the Chronicler was working in a literate tradition, a discussion of intertextuality as it might be understood in the ancient authorities’ work on literary criticism (rather than rhetoric) might be helpful.  I will begin with Aristotle in the Poetics (a near contemporary of the Chronicler), and move to “Demetrius” and “Longinus” (pseudonymous Hellenistic authors).  Although we can see how Aristotle developed his notion of mimesis from Plato,[12] I would like to bypass the purely philosophical arguments in order to focus on literary criticism.[13]

2.4.2        There are two concepts in the Poetics that may lend themselves to a discussion of intertextuality, although neither is given that sense exactly: mimesis and plot (mu~qoj).  Mimesis, imitation, has two senses in the Poetics, the sense of image-making (as in a work of art) and enactment – this is the sense that Aristotle emphasized;[14] it is one of the core concepts in the Poetics.[15]  For Aristotle, literature, especially tragedy and epic, was mimetic.[16]  Whether we can expand this definition of mimesis from the imitation of forms to include the imitation of earlier works of literature is possible, but improbable in Aristotle’s context, since there is no explicit reference to such reuse other than in the matter of plot.  There is no reference to reuse of figures, themes, motifs, language etc., which we might consider hallmarks of intertextuality.

2.4.3    Plot, on the other hand, is something that Aristotle dealt with more concretely.  While dealing with plot, Aristotle made mention of plots which are created from the author’s imagination, and plots which come from stories that are already known.  With both types, Aristotle argued that the author should use an outline, which he then fills in with episodes that advance the plot (55a34-55b2).  Aristotle saw no difference in effect between new and re-used plots, and in fact stated that the author need not stick with the traditional plots but can feel free to invent his own (51b19-25).  Then, he stated that “even [kai\] the familiar subjects are familiar only to a minority, yet nonetheless please everyone” (51b25-27), which suggests (along with the rest of this section of argument) that while the expected thing to do in his time was to re-use plots, not everyone would be familiar with the old plots, and would receive them as if they were new. 

2.4.4    Although Aristotle’s arguments on plot were originally meant to apply to tragedy and epic (he specifically separated out history from poetry as a genre in 51a36-51b8), it seems to me that they might be applied to other ancient literary forms.  It is clear, at any rate, that the use and re-use of previous works (specifically the plots of previous works) was a known and accepted phenomenon in Aristotle’s day, even though exact relationships perhaps had not been thought out. 

2.4.5    Demetrius’ On Style dealt with: 1) sentence structure; and 2) the Four Styles of writing/oratory.  Under the grand style, Demetrius introduced the concept of bringing poetic words into prose texts.  He suggested that “[p]oetic vocabulary in prose adds grandeur […]” but “some writers imitate the poets quite crudely, or rather, they do not imitate them but plagiarise (metaqe/sei) them […]” (§112).  He contrasted Herodotus (as a plagiarist) with Thucydides (as a writer of the grand style), suggesting that Thucydides did not plagiarize, but rather used the borrowed vocabulary in his own way and “makes it his own property” (§113).  This, then, suggests that reuse of words in a new context was acceptable in Demetrius’ time, as longs as the words fit the new context and expressed the author’s message appropriately. 

2.4.6    Longinus’ On the Sublime was concerned with the explication of the sublime (u(/yoj) in literature, where the sublime is seen as true greatness that elevates (7.1-4).  According to Longinus, there are many paths to the sublime, one of which is the “[z]ealous imitation of the great prose writers and poets of the past,” since the writers of the past might provide inspiration for the contemporary author (13.2).  He provided examples of “Homeric” authors, including Herodotus and especially Plato (13.3).  This imitation of past writers he considered especially appropriate in matters of style, and “no theft; it is rather like the reproduction of good character by sculptures or other works of art” (13.4).  An author or orator, then, should ask himself how previous great authors and orators would have expressed something; an author should ask himself how that previous great author would respond to his new work; and most importantly, an author should ask himself how posterity might receive his work (14.1-3).  Therefore, while Aristotle was concerned with the reuse of plots, and Demetrius with the reuse of vocabulary, here we have a concern with the reuse of style; again, it was considered highly appropriate to do so.

2.5      Intertextuality

2.5.1    I define intertextuality as: the interrelationship of texts, including, but not limited to, the absorption, rewriting, reuse and dialogue of text with text.  The text is the work that absorbs, rewrites or reuses; the intertext is the work that is absorbed, rewritten or reused – in Yuri Lotman’s terms, the text within the text.[17]  Michael Riffaterre defines the intertext as “a text or series of texts selected as referents by the text we are reading.”  Although it is hidden, we can identify it from elements in the text, and in fact, we are invited to do so.[18]  He calls the intertext the “unconscious of fiction.”[19]  He suggests that literariness can only be found where texts combine or refer to other texts on the level of intertextuality.  However, he also points out that we must distinguish between knowledge of the intertext’s form and content and an awareness that an intertext exists, although simply being aware may be enough to experience the literariness of the text.  He suggests that there are “signposts,” i.e., words or phrases that indicate an obscurity or difficulty in the text, and where the solution might be found: these signposts link the text and intertext.[20]

2.5.2    Julia Kristeva’s notion that the text absorbs and destroys the intertext is extremely important;[21] certainly we can see that possibility for the Chronicles-Samuel-Kings relationship.  Roland Barthes famously opined that there is nothing outside the text; for him literature was a single text, what he called a text with a thousand entrances.[22]  His idea of looking at the self-contained text allows us to put aside the text’s context for a moment in order to focus on the text itself.  One of Barthes’ more interesting points is that the critic should read the text not only as a first reading but also as a rereading.[23]  This is important, I think, because it brings forward the idea that the reader of the text is formed by a plurality of texts, even when the texts are formed by codes whose origins are lost.[24]  It is important to keep Barthes’ and Kristeva’s work in mind when discussing intertextuality, because of the idea of the free-flowing web of interdependence.  Otherwise, we are simply engaged in a search for allusion, literary influence and origins, and intertextuality simply becomes a neologism.[25]  The mutual dependence of the texts, the showing how the “newer” text influences our reading of the “older” text, is an important aspect of intertextuality.  It is also important when reading a Bible that has been canonical for two thousand years, and a similar kind of reading/re-reading has been done since antiquity in the form of midrash.  However, rather than seeing intertextuality as a free-flowing web (like Kristeva and Barthes), I see intertextuality as a structured network connecting texts and intertexts which are already associated (like Riffaterre).

2.5.3    The work of Yuri Lotman is also important for developing a model of intertextuality that is both synchronic and diachronic, because of his emphasis on the temporality of the text.  He suggests that besides the functions of the text in transmission and generation of messages, it also has the function of memory: the text has the ability to condense cultural memory and to be interpreted - the text acquires new meanings through the history of interpretation.[26]  The original message is supplemented or has a new meaning imposed upon it, or the meaning of the message is transformed.[27]  The audience of the text receives the transmission and generates new meanings so that text and readers mutually shape each other, just as utterances or texts mutually shape each other.  When we add this to the ideas from Kristeva, Riffaterre and Barthes, we have developed a concept of intertextuality that takes into consideration the movement of texts and figures through space, time, and discourse. 

3. Solomon’s Accession

3.1    Since H.G.M. Williamson’s discussion, it has been taken for granted that Solomon’s succession to David in Chronicles is based on the transfer of leadership from Moses to Joshua in Deuteronomy-Joshua.  The five main points of similarity in Williamson’s discussion are: 1) David’s disqualification as Temple builder linked to Solomon’s succession parallels Moses’ disqualification from entering the land of Israel linked to Joshua’s succession; 2) the installation of Solomon parallels that of Joshua by including encouragement, the description of the task, and the assurance of divine aid; 3) both charges are first given in private and then in public; 4) the obedience of the people is emphasized in both accounts; and 5) Joshua is magnified with respect to Moses, so too Solomon is magnified.[28]  This kind of imitation is not creative, as in Van Seters’ discussion of the story of Naboth’s vineyard in 1 Kgs 21 with the story of David and Bathsheba in 2 Sam 11-12,[29] in that the elements have not been transposed to a new situation.  However, it is in much the same tradition as the classical historians (namely Herodotus), who used to pattern parts of their narratives on other parts, as Van Seters points out.[30]  A truly intertextual reading of this tradition would also look at how our reading of Chronicles influences our reading of Deuteronomy-Joshua.  My discussion below does not preclude an understanding of Solomon’s accession being patterned on the succession of Joshua; rather, while the basic pattern of the Moses-Joshua transition is used in Chronicles, I will argue that the Chronicler worked creatively and intertextually within this pattern.

3.2    Now we can turn to reading Solomon’s accession in Chronicles.  We are first told in 1 Chr 23:1 that David made Solomon king over Israel.  This would seem to be a private event.  Then in 1 Chr 29:22, the people in the assembly “made David’s son Solomon king a second time.”[31]  This is clearly a public event.[32]  Nowhere else in Chronicles is someone made a king twice.  What is also interesting is that in Chronicles usually the people make someone king.  The verb Klm in the hiphil (“to make king”) is used twenty times in Chronicles: Israel, or a group of warriors, or one tribe or one city makes someone king (1 Chr 11:10; 12:32, 39 (x2); 29:22; 2 Chr 10:1; 21:8; 22:1; 23:11; 26:1; 33:25; 36:1); Yhwh makes someone king (1 Chr 28:4; 2 Chr 1:8, 9, 11); and a foreign king appoints a puppet king (2 Chr 36:4, 10).  Here in 1 Chr 23:1, David makes Solomon king – he takes upon himself the powers of the people and/or Yhwh.[33]  It would seem that in order for Solomon’s kingship to be fully sanctioned, he has to be made king by the people, not merely by his father.

3.3    In 1 Chr 28:5-6 David quotes Yhwh as having chosen Solomon as the king and Temple builder, and in 28:10 and 29:1 David reiterates how God has chosen Solomon.  The use of the verb rxb (“to choose”) is interesting, as only Solomon after David is described as having been chosen by Yhwh to be king.[34]  What is equally interesting is that it is only in David’s words here that Solomon is described as “chosen;” the speech of Yhwh in 1 Chr 17 which David quotes here does not use the word “chosen.”  David himself is emphasizing the “chosen-ness” of Solomon, and the fact that God, not he, has chosen Solomon.[35]  I will return to the use of rxb below.

3.4    The third point I would like to draw out is what Solomon is anointed as.  In 1 Chr 29:22, we are told,  “[t]hey made David’s son Solomon king a second time; they anointed him as the LORD’s prince, and Zadok as priest.”[36]  Here I will examine the implications of the second half of the verse, starting with the use of the verb x#$m (“to anoint”).  This verb is used only five times in Chronicles, and the occurrences are critical: twice referring to David (1 Chr 11:3; 14:8), once to Solomon (1 Chr 29:22), once to Jehu as the destroyer of the house of Ahab (2 Chr 22:7), and once to Joash (2 Chr 23:11).  With the exception of 1 Chr 14:8 (which merely reports what the Philistines had heard), this verb is strongly associated with Yhwh: David and Solomon are anointed before Yhwh, Yhwh himself anoints Jehu, and Joash is anointed inside the Temple of Yhwh.  The verb Klm in the hiphil seems to be the more usual word in Chronicles to describe the process of making someone king.  Anointing is something much more special: it happens only to David, Solomon, and Joash.

3.5    What is Solomon anointed as?  We have in this verse (1 Chr 29:22) the unique combination of both Klm in the hiphil and x#$m: Solomon is both “made king” and “anointed.”  He is anointed as dygn, a very interesting term.  It has often been pointed out that this term in late texts, such as Chronicles, reflects a usage beyond the “prince” or “ruler” attested in earlier texts.  The earlier usage is also attested in Chronicles; both synoptic occurrences have this meaning (1 Chr 11:2=2 Sam 5:2; 17:7=2 Sam 7:8); but this meaning is also found in non-synoptic passages (1 Chr 5:2; 28:4; 2 Chr 6:5; 11:22; 19:11; 28:7).  In Chronicles, the term often also is used to refer to the “overseer” or “leader” of a group of officials or military officers (1 Chr 9:11, 20; 12:28; 13:1; 26:24; 27:4; 27:16; 2 Chr 31:12, 13; 32:21).  However, both usages are found in Chronicles.  So what is Solomon anointed as?  The key is found in the other appointment made at the same time: Zadok as (high) priest.  In 2 Chr 19:11, as Jehoshaphat is appointing judges, he says, “Amariah the chief priest is over you in all matters of the LORD; and Zebadiah son of Ishmael, the governor [dygn] of the house of Judah, in all the king’s matters […].”  This is the only other place in Chronicles where priest and dygn are juxtaposed, and it is clear that they are subordinate to the authority of the king.[37]   Solomon is made a sort of “crown prince:” a formal title for the successor to the king.[38]  Once David is dead, Solomon can become the king.

3.6    As I pointed out above, Solomon is made king twice.  Although this is unparalleled elsewhere in Chronicles, and does not occur in the episode of Solomon’s accession in 1 Kings, there is a relationship between the accession of Solomon and the accession of Saul in 1 Sam 10-11.  In 1 Sam 10:1, Samuel anoints (x#$m) Saul as “prince” (dygn) in private; then in 1 Sam 10:20-26 Saul is chosen as king by lot and acclaimed by the people in public.  After Saul proves himself in battle against the Ammonites, he is made king (wklmyw) in public (and “before the LORD”) in 1 Sam 11:14-15.  When we put this accession together with the evaluation of Saul in 1 Chr 10 and the evaluation of Solomon in 1 Chr 29:25, we can see that the Chronicler’s Solomon and the Deuteronomist’s Saul are set in opposition.  Saul is made king twice in 1 Samuel, suffers a horrible fate and is evaluated negatively; Solomon is made king twice in 1 Chronicles and is exalted and is given “such royal majesty as had not been on any king before him in Israel” (1 Chr 29:25); the comparison with Saul is thus made explicit without even mentioning Saul’s name (this is similar to 1 Chr 17:13).  Thus, we have here an example of role replacement and reversal: the traditions of Saul’s selection and anointing as king are kept, but Solomon is substituted for Saul, and the meaning of the selection and anointing in the story is reversed.  The contrast between Solomon and Saul is thus made subtly but effectively.[39]

3.7    The use of the verb rxb to describe Solomon’s selection as king has many interesting possibilities.  First, David’s emphasis on God’s having chosen Solomon brings up a contrast with Solomon’s selection as king in 1 Kgs 1-2.  Nowhere in Samuel-Kings does it say that Solomon is chosen by anyone (let alone Yhwh) to be king over Israel, and Solomon’s succession to David is no sure and easy thing in 1 Kgs 1-2.  Chronicles’ response to the position of 1 Kings, then, is that Solomon’s succession is no result of political intrigue, but rather that he has been chosen all along: putting the words in David’s mouth absolves David of any part in the political intrigue of 1 Kgs 1.  Second, although Solomon is not chosen in Samuel-Kings (and neither is David), there is one king who is chosen by Yhwh in 1 Samuel, namely Saul: Saul is selected through the casting of lots, and when the process is finished, Samuel says to the people, “Do you see the one whom the LORD has chosen [rxb]?” (1 Sam 10:24).  Sara Japhet has pointed out that even the system that David narrates in 1 Chr 28:4-5 resembles the casting of lots,[40] but she does not link this casting of lots with the other king who is chosen by lots, namely Saul.  The process is almost identical for both Saul and Solomon: first the tribe (Benjamin, Judah), then the family (Matri, Jesse), then the father (Kish, David), and then the son (Saul, Solomon) (1 Sam 10:20-21, 1 Chr 28:4-5).  The similarities between Saul and Solomon are so close that it seems that Solomon’s selection and investiture are inextricably linked with Saul’s selection.  David’s emphasis that both he and Solomon are chosen by God to be king answers the position of 1 Samuel, that Saul is the one chosen by God, not David or Solomon.[41]  This furthers the aspect of role reversal with respect to Solomon and Saul, and does so with great irony; the continued emphasis on the chosen-ness of Solomon makes us think that perhaps he was not so chosen after all – after all, was not Saul chosen and rejected?

3.8    Solomon is made king and anointed “prince” (dygn) in 1 Chr 29:22.  While no one else in Chronicles is anointed (x#$m) as dygn,[42] there is one king in Samuel-Kings who is anointed as dygn, namely Saul; in 1 Sam 9:16 Yhwh tells Samuel to anoint Saul as dygn, and in 10:1, he does it.  No other ruler in Samuel-Kings is anointed as dygn.  Again, we have a relationship between Solomon in 1 Chr 29 and Saul in Samuel.  To the claim of Samuel-Kings that Saul is anointed as the ruler over Israel, Chronicles replies that it is not Saul but Solomon who is so anointed.  Solomon has a position as anointed ruler that not even David in Chronicles can claim, and his anointing forcefully establishes him as the rightful king in this text.  Saul, earlier set up in Chronicles as the antithesis of the ideal king, contrasts with Solomon the paragon.  It is interesting that in Samuel-Kings, David was preceded by a dygn, while in Chronicles he is succeeded by one; this may emphasize David as the pinnacle of kingship, while Solomon merely continues in his glory.

3.9    What is also interesting in the depiction of Solomon in 1 Chr 29 is that Solomon has a true coronation, as it were, while David in 1 Chr 11-12 does not.  This brings forward the relationship between David’s accession in 1 Chronicles and his selection as king in 1 Samuel: in 1 Sam 16:13, Samuel anoints David as king, while 1 Chronicles does not mention any such act by Samuel; in 1 Chr 11:3 David is anointed as king by the people.  When we tie together all of the anointings in Samuel-Kings and Chronicles of Saul, David and Solomon, we find that they have a complex interrelationship, each anointing bringing to mind all of the others.  The hinge is the anointing of Solomon in 1 Chr 29:22: it recalls Samuel’s anointing of Saul as dygn, Samuel’s anointing of David as king, David’s position as dygn of the people in Samuel (1 Sam 25:30; 2 Sam 5:2; 6:21; 7:8), and David’s anointing in 1 Chr 11.  The combination of all of the elements found in these various scenes is found only in Solomon’s accession here: Solomon’s accession is more important and prestigious than any other before him, and is not repeated in such glory for any king after him.

4. Conclusion

4.1    Wolfgang G. Müller, in his discussion of the re-use of a literary figure from one author’s work into another’s, points out that when an author takes over another’s figure, the figure is adapted into the structure of the new text, and is put to new uses.[43]  One use is parody, where the figure in the new text is a parody of the original, which undermines the original.  He argues that it is important to realize that the new figure is not a “mere duplicate” of the original, and that there is a tension created between the original and the new figure.[44]  Although he is discussing the same figure being reused, we can extend this to our case here.  Here we have Solomon as the new Saul, parodying the original Saul, thus undermining the original Saul.  Or is Saul the new Solomon, parodying the original Solomon, thus undermining Solomon?  The intertextual web leads both ways, transforming our readings of Solomon, Saul, and David.  The literate Chronicler, working in a literate tradition, left us guessing.  Here the Chronicler did not plagiarize, but transformed the earlier text, performing creative imitation of the highest order.