2 Chronicles 8:7-10 - Exposition

These verses, corresponding very nearly exactly with the parallel ( 1 Kings 9:20-23 ), betray how it was a thing never to be forgotten, if only as a fact, that the extermination of the old possessors of the land had not been entire; so that allusion to it is not omitted even by a post-Captivity compiler. The parallel charitably "whom the children of Israel were not able to destroy utterly," where our text shows with exacter fidelity, whom the children of Israel consumed not . The parallel also uses the words, "levy a tribute of bond - service ," for our more ambiguous make to pay tribute ( 3:1-7 ). In the words, until this day , the copyist, shall we say, too slavish, is again detected ( 2 Chronicles 8:9 ). The "levy "in verse 21 of the parallel probably explains the suddenly mentioned similar language of its fifteenth verse, and again betrays the collected and copied nature of the historic material, the carefulness of sequence not being as observable in selection as might be desired. The distinction between the remnant of aliens and the people of Israel was manifestly that the menial and the laborious service was put on the former. Useful but familiar references to this whole subject are found in 1:21-36 ; 3:1-5 ; 1 Chronicles 22:2 ; 1 Kings 5:13-18 . For our two hundred and fifty (which gives the number of overseers over Israelites only) the parallel reads, "five hundred and fifty." It will be remembered that an analogous difference occurs between our 2 Chronicles 2:18 and 1 Kings 5:16 . Whether it were the determining reason or not in these two places, it is very imaginable that it would be of less importance in the ages of the post-Captivity annalist to dwell on the minutiae of the different treatment of the aliens.