Textual turbulence in the story of David's succession (1 Kgs 1-2)

1 Textual turbulence in the story of David’s succession (1 Kgs 1–2) Jan Joosten Prolegomena Textual criticism as applied to the Hebrew Bible has been going through some interesting changes in recent times. Textual criticism started out as the discipline that would restore to its earlier state a text deteriorated due to repeated copying in antiquity. Mistakes of the ear, the eye, or the hand resulted in all kinds of errors in the received text.1 The calling of the textual critic was understood to be that of identifying and correcting them. Through contextual exegesis and the judicious use of all ancient textual witnesses, the earlier reading could often be retrieved and subsequently substituted for the erroneous reading in the Masoretic Text (henceforth MT). This restorative aspect continues to be an important component of textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible, but other aspects increasingly demand attention as well. A crucial insight is that not all later variants are mistakes.2 Copyists occasionally erred while transcribing early texts, but they also updated their source text, corrected perceived imperfections, harmonized in view of the near context and adjusted the text toward far-off parallels within the scriptural corpus. Such interpretive variants can be—and have been—viewed simply as one more category of inferior readings. But interpretive changes differ essentially from scribal errors such as the confusion of letters or the jumping from one word to an identical one later in the same passage. While errors often lead to a text that is hard to understand, interpretive changes will in principle lead to a smooth text—smoother sometimes than the earlier text from which it is derived. In recent scholarship, there is a growing appreciation for this type of secondary readings. Interpretive readings reveal how scriptural texts were read and received in antiquity. A further insight is that interpretive changes are not always limited to one word or a short passage. At times the data indicate that the scribes who transmitted the scriptural text reshaped it in a more comprehensive way, rewriting entire passages, sections or books.3 The 1 See e.g. Friedrich Delitzsch, Lese- und Schreibfehler im Alten Testament (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1920). 2 See Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, Third Edition Revised and Expanded (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012), 240–261 3 Tov, Textual Criticism, 283–325. 2 well-known quantitative differences between the Old Greek and the MT of Jeremiah are most naturally explained in this way: the Hebrew source-text of the Greek translator represents a short version of the book, which was expanded into a “second edition” as reflected in the MT. Large-scale differences between the textual witnesses also exist for other books such as Exodus, Joshua, 1-2 Kings, Ezekiel or Daniel.4 Each book is to be analysed separately. It is sometimes very difficult to decide which text-form is the older, and which is the “second edition.” But it is fair to say that among the motivations for rewriting, hermeneutical interests loom large. New editions are not created arbitrarily, nor accidentally, but from the desire to make old texts speak as clearly as possible to later generations. 1 Kings is a fascinating test case for text-critical inquiry attuned to these various levels of analysis. The present study will focus on two textual phenomena in 1 Kgs 2 (3 Reigns 2): the omission of David’s testament at the beginning of the chapter (1 Kgs 2:2-9), and the addition of the Miscellanies at the end (2 Reigns 2:35a-o, 46 a-k). It will be argued that these phenomena reflect interventions by the same hand. 1 Kings 1–2 as the end of the David Story Begun in the Book of Samuel As many exegetes have observed, the narrative coherence of the David story, from his anointing in 1 Sam 16 to his death in 2 Kgs 2, is very strong.5 In particular the account of David’s succession, starting arguably in 2 Sam 11, is a tight fabric of multiple thematic threads woven together into a dazzling display of literary art.6 The anonymous author appears to use sources of different origins but he welds them together into a ripping tale of human ambition and divine oversight. Any tensions or contradictions are fully incorporated into a story organized around the question who will succeed to David as king of Judah and Israel. What is told in 1 Kgs 1–2 belongs organically to the story begun in Samuel. Solomon’s accession to the throne brings resolution to narrative threads begun in 2 Sam 11 (Bathsheba and her son), 13 (Amnon), 15 (Absalom) and 20 (Sheba son of Bichri). An 4 See e.g. Eugene Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Developmental Composition of the Bible (VTSup 169; Leiden: Brill, 2015). 5 A classic work is Leonhard Rost, Die Uberlieferung von der Thronnachfolge Davids (BWANT 3/6; Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1926). 6 See Jan Fokkelman, Narrative art and poetry in the books of Samuel: Vol. I King David (2 Sam. 9-20 & 1 Kings 1-2) (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1981) 3 important obstacle to perceiving this narrative continuity is the block of materials located in 2 Sam 21–24. But on any account these materials are to be regarded as an appendix or an excursus standing outside the main line of discourse: two stories told out of their natural order, two poems of David, and a list of David’s heroes reflecting as it seems the time before David became king. 1 Kgs 1 picks up where 2 Sam 20 left off, with David too old and too precious to lead his army into battle, and with Joab firmly in charge again of the regular troops. That 1 Kgs 1–2 belongs to the same literary composition as 2 Sam 11–20 is confirmed by details of language and style. It is impossible to set out all the literary connections between 1 Kgs 1–2 and the books of Samuel.7 But two interesting cases involving textcritical operations may illustrate the strength of the evidence. • A literary strategy underlying 1 Kgs 1 is to represent Adonijah, who proclaims himself king without David’s agreement, in the image of earlier pretenders to the throne, who failed. In 1 Kgs 1:5 it is said of Adonijah that he made “made himself a chariot and horses, and fifty men to run before him,” which echoes what is told of Absalom in 2 Sam 15:1, that he “made himself a chariot and horses, and fifty men to run before him.” In 1 Kgs 1:6 we hear that in spite of Adonijah’s acting up, David never reprimanded (‫עצב‬, qal) his son. The verb ‫ עצב‬is rare in general and unique in the meaning “to reprimand,” at least according to the MT. In 2 Sam 13:21, the same verb can reliably be restored on the basis of the Septuagint and 4QSama: David “did not reprimand Amnon’s spirit, because he loved him.”8 In this case, rare vocabulary and literary motifs work hand in hand to establish the intertextual connection. The narrator gently adumbrates that Adonijah too, like Absalom and Amnon who acted similarly, will fail in his design. • An even more striking lexical link can be reconstructed in 1 Kgs 1:49. When Adonijah’s guests hear that David has named Solomon as his successor, they “panic and get up (‫)ויקמו‬, and go their own ways.” There is nothing wrong with MT’s ‫ויקמו‬ “they got up,” but on the basis of the Antiochene text’s ἀνεπήδησαν “they lept up,” textual critics have submitted that an early variant here read ‫ויפחזו‬. Hebrew ‫ פחז‬is in 7 See on this particularly Fokkelman, Narrative art. 8 See Eugene Ulrich, The Biblical Qumran Scrolls. Transcriptions and Textual Variants (VTSup 134; Leiden: Brill, 2010), 304. 4 the MT attested only with the meaning “to be wanton, reckless,” but in 4QSamb on 1 Sam 20:34 and 4QSama on 25:9 it occurs in variant readings with the meaning “to jump up”; in both passages, the Greek renders with ἀναπηδάω. These two passages precede the succession history, but they are part of the David narrative begun in 1 Sam 16. The data suggest that the original David story used special vocabulary that in later times was either no longer understood, or was not considered to represent correct style, and was therefore replaced with less colorful terms. Again, the conclusion must be that the first two chapters of 1 Kings are of one cloth with the main narrative of the book of Samuel. These linguistic features confirm the essential unity of 1 Kgs 1–2 with the David story in the books of Samuel up to 2 Sam 20. In this perspective only is it possible to make sense of the two textual problems that will be discussed presently. The omission of “David’s Testament” (1 Kgs 2:2-9) After Solomon has been anointed as his legitimate successor, David speaks his last words and dies. The sequence of events is smooth but, as Cesar Trebolle Barrera has observed, there are good reasons to think that David’s testament did not figure in all ancient editions of the text.9 Having discussed the case at length in an earlier publication I will presently limit the argument to a bare minimum.10 1 Kgs 2:2-9 are present in all known manuscripts of this part of the book of Kings or Reigns. The tell-tale indication that it was once missing in the Old Greek, or in one strand of the Old Greek, is a striking Wiederaufnahme in the Lucianic Septuagint: 9 Julio César Trebolle Barrera, “Testamento y muerte de David: Estudio de historia de la recensión y redacción de I Rey., II,” RevB 87 (1980), 87–103. 10 Jan Joosten, “Empirical Evidence and its Limits. The Use of the Septuagint in Retracing the Redaction History of the Hebrew Bible,” in Insights into Editing in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East. What Does Documented Evidence Tell Us about the Transmission of Authoritative Texts? (edited by Reinhard Müller and Juha Pakkala; CBET 84; Leuven: Peeters, 2017), 247–265. 5 1 Kgs 2:1-10/3 Rgs 26:1-10 MT 1 The days of David drew nigh that he should die;11 and he charged Solomon his son, saying… • • • • • LXXL And it happened after this that David died and slept with his fathers; and he charged Solomon his son, before his death, saying… be strong [v. 2] follow the Torah [v. 3-4] exterminate Joab [v. 5-6] give hospitality to the descendants of Barzillai v. [7] take vengeance on Simei [v. 8-9] 10 And David slept with his fathers And was buried in the city of David And David slept with his fathers And was buried in the city of David The repetition of the phrase: “And David slept with his fathers” suggests that all that comes between its two occurrences was added: the repetition was created when a redactor inserted the intervening passage and wanted to make sure the text would run smoothly. Before the insertion, the text reflected in LXXL went straight from verse 1 to verse 10 without mentioning David’s address. Several other oddities in the Lucianic text confirm that the words of David were inserted secondarily: 1 Kgs 2:1 MT t…wómDl d™Iw∂d_y`Em◊y …wñb√rVqˆ¥yÅw ráOmaEl wäønVb hñOmølVv_tRa w¢Ax◊yÅw Reconstructed Vorlage of LXXL wytwba Mo bkCyw dwd tmyw Nk yrja yhyw rmal wtwm ynpl hmlC wnb ta wxyw MT And the days of David drew near for him to die, and he charged Salomon his son, saying… LXXL καὶ ἐγένετο µετὰ ταῦτα καὶ ἀπέθανε Δαυιδ καὶ ἐκοιµήθη µετὰ τῶν πατέρων αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐνετείλατο τῷ υἱῷ αὐτοῦ Σολοµῶντι ἔµπροσθεν τοῦ θανάτου αὐτοῦ λέγων And it happened after these things that David died and slept with his fathers. And he commanded his son Solomon before his death, saying…12 11 12 Translations of the MT follow the NRSV. This contrasts with LXXB, here representing the kaige revision: Καὶ ἤγγισαν αἱ ἡµέραι Δαυιδ ἀποθανεῖν αὐτόν, καὶ ἐνετείλατο τῷ Σαλωµων υἱῷ αὐτοῦ λέγων (= MT). 6 The strange way, in LXXL, of introducing David’s words after his death has already been narrated indicates that the direct discourse was added to a text that simply stated David died and was buried. Trebolle Barrera’s went on to conclude that the short version reflected in the Greek witnesses, without David’s testament, is the oldest attainable text of this passage. This is not a necessary conclusion, however, nor is it the most likely one. The Greek text of LXXL in v. 1 can easily be retroverted and probably goes back to a Hebrew source. But for reasons of diachronic linguistics this source can hardly belong to the earliest layer of 1 Kgs 1–2. In Classical BH, the expression “to lie with one’s fathers” means as much as “to die.” The expression, which is rather frequent, never once combines with Hebrew ‫“ מות‬to die,” as it does in the text retroverted from LXXL. Only in Chronicles do we encounter this combination (2 Chron 16:13), no doubt because “to lie with one’s fathers” was no longer felt to express the notion of dying. This is a strong indication that the rewriting happened on the side of the text reflected in the Greek tradition. The content of the passage confirms this. Most of what David has to say on his deathbed fits the final chapter of the story begun in Samuel perfectly: the appeals to get back at Joab (vv. 5-6) and Simei (vv. 8-9) tie up loose ends in the earlier chapters; similarly, the recommendation of Barzillai’s descendants (v. 7) aims to settle an outstanding debt. The vindictive and egocentric tone of the passage agrees entirely with the image of David in his old age projected in the preceding chapter. Only vv. 3-4 sit oddly in the passage: before going on to the settling of old scores, David reminds his son to observe the law and practice all the Lord’s commandments. These verses are a Deuteronomistic addition as has been recognised by many scholars.13 It seems, therefore, that David’s testament was present in the text before it was omitted in one strand of the textual tradition. Instead of going from a shorter text to an expanded one, as Trebolle Barrera proposed, it is better to postulate a three-stage development, with David’s words being taken out at some point, and then later put back in: 1) 1 Kgs 2:1-10, possibly without vv. 3-4 (= ± MT) 2) 1 Kgs 2:1a (rewritten) + 10, without David’s Testament (not attested) 13 See e.g. Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972), 11. 7 3) 1 Kgs 2:1 (rewritten)-10a, vv. 2-9, Wiederaufnahme of v. 10a + 10b (LXXL) The reason for taking out David’s last words in stage 2 must be that they depicted David as a sulking old man consumed by long-held grudges: the image was too negative for the taste of later generations who viewed David as a paragon of piety. In a different strand, the negative image was toned down with the introduction of the Deuteronomistic verses and the passage eventually found its way back into all textual traditions. The insertion of the Miscellanies in 1 Kgs 2:35, 46 After David’s death, Solomon acts with deadly decisiveness: he eliminates his brother Adonijah who had attempted to grab power (1 Kgs 2:13-25), he expels Abiathar, the priest who was Adonijah’s ally, from Jerusalem (1 Kgs 2:26-27), he has Joab, the army commander and another ally of Adonijah’s, executed (1 Kgs 2:28-35), and he kills Simei, David’s enemy (1 Kgs 2:36-46). All of this is told in charming, and ironic, prose vignettes whose style and tenor is quite in keeping with the preceding story. Before (v. 35a-o) and after (v. 46a-k) the section on Simei, the Septuagint has two large additions, the famous “miscellanies”: LXX MT Miscellany I (3 Kgds 2:35a-o) — Elimination of Shimei (v. 36-45) id. Miscellany II (3 Kgds 2:a-k) — The Miscellanies relate to the wisdom, power and public works of King Solomon. Miscellany I focuses on Solomon’s activities in his own realm, while Miscellany II deals more with his international standing and power. Their general structure is very similar. Notably, each Miscellany is introduced with an evocation of Solomon’s wisdom: v. 35a And the Lord gave Salomon discernment and very great wisdom and breadth of mind like the sand which is by the sea, 35b and the discernment of Salomon was greatly multiplied above the discernment of all ancient sons and above all prudent ones of Egypt. v. 46a And King Salomon was very prudent and wise 8 The introduction is followed in each case by a hodgepodge of notices on Solomon’s activities, somewhat artificially ordered in a palindromic scheme.14 In an earlier article, I have argued that the miscellanies are to be regarded as appendixes attached to the final chapter of a “book of Samuel” that ended with what has come down to us as 1 Kgs 1–2.15 The redactor found some materials relating to Solomon and decided to attach them to a writing that ended with Solomon’s accession to the throne. The redactor’s motivation was not purely that of an archivist, there was an ideological point as well. By recounting Solomon’s wisdom and building projects, the redactor sought to counterbalance the rather caustic presentation of Solomon in 1 Kgs 2. There is no explicit criticism of Solomon in 1 Kgs 2, but the impression readers might get away with is that Solomon is mostly a highly efficient butcher. In this light it is worthwhile to have a closer look at one aspect the redactor’s handiwork. As was seen above, Misc. I and Misc. II are lodged around a section of the old story, the elimination of Simei in 1 Kgs 2:36-45. This constellation is almost certainly a deliberate one. The end of Misc. I leads on to vv. 36-45:16 [35l] When David was yet alive, he charged Salomon saying: Behold, there is with you Shimei the son of Gera, the Benjamite, of Bahurim, [35m] who cursed me with a grievous curse in the day when I went to Mahanaim; [35n] and he came down to meet me at the Jordan, and I swore to him by Yahweh, saying, I will not put you to death with the sword. [35o] Now therefore don’t hold him guiltless, for you are a wise man; and you will know what you ought to do to him, and you shall bring his gray head down to Sheol with blood.17 Misc. I, the Simei passage, and Misc. II make up a triptych illustrating Solomon’s wisdom: he was wise in the way he developed his own kingdom, he was wise in eliminating a renegade according to the advice given by his father, and he was wise in his dealings with neighboring countries. In the original story, the killing of Simei is one of a series of brutal executions designed to establish Solomon’s power. One is reminded of Stalin, although of course 14 For the structure of the Miscellanies, see particularly Guy Darshan, “The Long Additions in LXX 1Kings 2 (35a–k; 46a–l) and their Importance for the Question of the Literary History of 1Kings 1–11,” Tarbiz 75 (2006), 5–50 (Hebrew). 15 Jan Joosten, “Textual Plurality at the Margins of Biblical Texts: The Miscellanies in 3 Reigns 2:35, 46,” Revue de Qumran 30:2/112 (2018), 293–307. 16 Note that 35l-o corresponds word for word to 1 Kgs 2:8-9, see below. 17 Translations of the Septuagint follow NETS. 9 the Iron Man was operating on a larger scale. In the reworked version reflected in the Greek tradition, the killing of Simei is reinterpreted as an act of statesmanship. Paraphrasing Sara Milstein I would like to propose the term: “revision through sandwiching” for the literary technique the redactor applied in this case.18 Although Adrian Schenker has argued that the Miscellanies form part of the oldest attainable layer of the text of Kings, their style and content abundantly attest their secondary origin.19 Their relatively late date can be confirmed by linguistic considerations. The miscellanies almost certainly go back to a Hebrew source, but when they are retroverted several post-classical features are in evidence. A telling example occurs in the final verses of Misc. I quoted above, which lead on to the Simei section: 2:35l Καὶ ἐν τῷ ἔτι Δαυιδ ζῆν ἐνετείλατο τῷ Σαλωµων λέγων And while Dauid was still alive, he commanded Salomon, saying ‫*ובעוד דוד חי צוה את שלמה לאמר‬ In classical Hebrew, the resetting of the reference time in a story normally requires the use of ‫“ ויהי‬and it happened” to introduce the temporal phrase.20 In the older story, we would have expected ‫( ויהי בעוד דוד חי‬see e.g. 1 Kgs 2:39). The syntax reflected in the Greek version is typical of Chronicles. Book ends are an obvious place to insert supplementary materials, whether redactional passages or old fragments that hadn’t found a space in the original composition. The insertion of the Miscellanies shows much similarity to the addition in Judges 17-21. The last five chapters of Judges are thematically and stylistically distinct from the preceding chapters, they are out of sequence historically, and they show signs of relative lateness.21 They appear to have been added to an existing book of Judges. However, they were not 18 Sara J. Milstein, Tracking the Master Scribe. Revision through Introduction in Biblical and Mesopotamian Literature (Oxford: OUP, 2016). 19 See Adrian Schenker, Septante et texte massorétique dans l’histoire la plus ancienne du texte de 1 Rois 2–14 (CRB 48; Paris: Gabalda, 2000), 22–27, 45–59. 20 This rule operates even when the resetting is to an earlier period as here, see 1 Kgs 11:15 and Jan Joosten, The Verbal System of Biblical Hebrew. A New Synthesis Elaborated on the Basis of Classical Prose (Jerusalem Biblical Studies 10; Jerusalem: Simor, 2012), 172–173. 21 See e.g. Cynthia Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole Composition and Purpose of Judges 19–21 (Ancient Israel and its Literature 24; Atlanta: SBL, 2016), particularly 115–160. 10 artlessly tagged on but exhibit a nice literary structure. They also make an important ideological point: without kings, societies will sink into chaos. Much of this, mutatis mutandis, is true for the Miscellanies as well. The omission of David’s Testament and the addition of the Miscellanies The argument I would like to make at this point is that the redactional interventions traced on the basis of the textual data in 1 Kgs 2:1-10 and 2:35, 46 go back to the same hand. At first blush this may seem to be a bold claim, perhaps even a gratuitous one. If our brief explorations in the preceding sections are cogent, the two phenomena would appear to be the product of opposite operations: the first intervention is an omission of an important textual unit, the second an addition of sizeable chunks of extraneous materials. Beyond this fundamental difference, however, we can also recognize certain similarities. The motivation of both interventions would seem to be analogous, namely to tone down the covert criticism of the monarch contained in the early story, and thus to enhance the glory of Israel’s first kings. The language used in rewriting, too, is similar in both cases. As was argued, the editorial interventions probably happened in Hebrew. If this is correct, both the retroversion of 1 Kgs 2:1 (3 Rgs 26:1) according to LXXL and the retroversion of 1 Kgs 2:35l show proximity to the late Biblical Hebrew of Chronicles. In addition, the artistic quality of the redacted text is comparable. Although the first case is an omission with only minimal rewriting, the effect is still to create a rather “flat” text without a hint of irony or narrative ambiguity. The second case stands on the same level: the idealized king is unidimensional, irony and ambiguity are completely excluded. Thought should also be given to the fact that both interventions are attested exclusively in the Greek tradition. It is true that the first phenomenon occurs in a so-called kaige section, where most Greek witnesses are tainted by a Greek revision seeking to align the version with a proto-Masoretic text type, while the second one occurs in a “non-kaige” section, in which the impact of later revisions is much less evident. Nevertheless, a case can certainly be made that both phenomena go back to the Old Greek, the earliest strand of the Greek version. It is well known that the Lucianic text, the key witness for the omission in 1 Kgs 2:1-10, often gives access to the Old Greek in kaige sections. In the second case, all Greek witnesses have the addition of the Miscellanies. In Kings, attestation in the same 11 textual witness does not guarantee affiliation with the same textual strand.22 But it remains an interesting indication. All these considerations suggest a single design behind the two interventions, but they do not constitute proof. A more compelling argument in favour of our thesis can be found in what one might call the redactional “mechanics.” The two interventions are not entirely distinct. Part of what seems to have been omitted in the first intervention resurfaces among the materials added in the second one. Indeed, 1 Kgs 2:35l-o, to which attention was drawn above, largely overlaps with 1 Kgs 2:8-9: [35l] When David was yet alive, he charged Salomon saying: Behold, there is with you Shimei the son of Gera, the Benjamite, of Bahurim, [35m] who cursed me with a grievous curse in the day when I went to Mahanaim; [35n] and he came down to meet me at the Jordan, and I swore to him by the Lord, saying, I will not put you to death with the sword. [35o] Now therefore don’t hold him guiltless, for you are a wise man; and you will know what you ought to do to him, and you shall bring his gray head down to Sheol with blood. [8] There is also with you Shimei son of Gera, the Benjaminite from Bahurim, who cursed me with a terrible curse on the day when I went to Mahanaim; but when he came down to meet me at the Jordan, I swore to him by the LORD, 'I will not put you to death with the sword.' [9] Therefore do not hold him guiltless, for you are a wise man; you will know what you ought to do to him, and you must bring his gray head down with blood to Sheol." Only the introductory clause in 35l—in which we detected the presence of post-classical Hebrew—was added by the redactor. All the rest is identical to the original text of the testament. Now, it may well be that the redactor who produced the “triptych” in verses 35-46 in so doing created a doublet with verses 8-9. I will argue, however, that it is more likely that he relocated verses 8-9. A glance at the whole of 1 Kgs 2, according to the MT, will prove instructive. A superficial reading of the chapter may give the impression that Solomon piously executed his father’s last wishes. A closer look reveals that this is far from being the case: 22 See Joosten, “Empirical Evidence.” 12 COMMAND AND EXECUTION Testament Story Joab vv. 5-6 vv. 28-35 Barzillai v. 7 — Shimei vv. 8-9 vv. 36-46 act 4 Adonijah — vv. 13-25 act 1 Abiathar — vv. 26-27 act 2 act 3 Solomon executes some of David’s recommendations, but he does so according to his own agenda. Adonijah, the first one to be eliminated, wasn’t on David’s list at all, nor was Abiathar, the next one down. The sequence of Solomon’s actions clearly suggest that Joab, the third victim, gets killed not because David commanded it but because Joab too held with Adonijah. David’s request to look after Barzillai’s descendants is completely ignored by Solomon, or at least the narrator has not a word to say about what happened to them. All in all, the link between David’s recommendations and Solomon’s actions seems tenuous. There is, however, one action of Solomon’s that can only be understood in the light of David’s last words. There is no apparent reason why Solomon should execute Shimei, except for David’s express request to “bring his gray head down with blood to Sheol.” A redactor wishing to suppress David’s last words would therefore, if he kept an eye on the context, be confronted with a dilemma. If he omitted the entire speech, the execution of Simei in verses 36-45 would be left dangling without explanation. But he could hardly reduce David’s valedictory to the sole wish to execute Simei. The solution was to relocate verses 8-9 close to verses 36-45, and to introduce them as a flashback. The result lacks elegance, but it was good enough for our redactor who had other priorities than style and literary finesse. This is of course a hypothesis. But it is one which accounts well for the textual developments that can be reconstructed from the data. If the hypothesis is close to the mark, then at least part of the rewriting at the end of the chapter was done by the same person who rewrote the beginning of the chapter.23 From here it is a small step to suppose that all of the rewriting is the work of the same hand. The motivation is the same for the omission of the testament and for the addition of the Miscellanies. The “triptych” around the notion of 23 Some critics, like Trebolle and Darshan, don’t think 35l-o is of one cloth with Misc. I. They may be right but in light of the triptych it seems more likely that the same person who produced the Miscellanies also integrated 35l-o into the structure. 13 wisdom was spun out from the relocated verses (2:9 = 2:35o). All this makes it likely that the entire process of rewriting, in verses 1-10 and in verses 35-46, was done more or less in one go. Conclusions It remains for us to draw some conclusions from these text-historical explorations. The main factor of textual change in the transmission of the books of Kings is ideology. The oldest layer of stories about Israelite kings often expresses criticism with surprising candor. Narrative irony, by which dubious deeds are recounted without much comment, figures frequently. David became senile in old age, Solomon loved his many wives more than his God, Roboam lost a kingdom through sheer stupidity, and Hezekiah liked to show off to foreign nations. Later readers, at least some of them, appear to have been ill at ease with such admissions of imperfection in their past monarchs. In many passages covert criticism of kings is toned down or omitted altogether in one or other textual tradition. Some scribal interventions have a decidedly “Chronistic” feel about them: “good” kings are idealized, bad ones expressly condemned. The more nuanced approach characterizing the earliest layer is obscured through different types of textual intervention. The omission of David’s testament, which Trebolle brilliantly postulated on the basis of the Lucianic Septuagint, illustrates this general textual dynamic well. The vindictive and self-centered David depicted in 1 Kgs 2:2-9 did not fit the image later generations had of him, which led to the excision of the entire speech. The addition of the Miscellanies at least partly reflects a similar attitude. In the older story, Solomon’s accession to the throne is described as a brutal grab of power involving much bloodshed. To counterbalance this depiction, a scribe decided to add mixed materials showing a more positive side of Solomon: admittedly the beginnings of his reign were rough, but look what he did with it! Ideology alone does not suffice to make sense of the textual history of kings. Another important factor is textual conflation. Variant editions of the book contaminated one another. The main type of conflation showing up in the available witnesses is the influence of a protoMasoretic text on all other text-types. This is illustrated admirably in the first of our case studies. Although the Lucianic Septuagint bears clear marks of a textual state in which 1 Kgs 2:2-9 was missing, all Lucianic witnesses represent a textual state in which this section was restored. Non-Lucianic witnesses of the Septuagint, representing the so-called kaige 14 recension, follow the Masoretic text much more closely. Textual contamination did not work only in one direction, however. The Masoretic text as it has come down to us contains several passages borrowed from other textual traditions.24 All ancient witnesses to the text of Kings are textual amalgams. A central claim in the present paper is that the analysis of our case studies takes us back to an edition far predating the extant book of Kings. In all our available witnesses, Solomon’s accession to the throne is more or less seamlessly connected to the account of his reign (1 Kgs 3–11 in the MT). But the insertion of the Miscellanies is most probably to be understood as a phenomenon affecting the end of a book—presumably a book not unlike our book of Samuel, probably still without its “appendix” (2 Sam 21—24). The addition of the Miscellanies goes hand in hand with the omission of David’s last words. If any of this stands up, it seems worthwhile to reflect briefly on how the picture of editorial practices arising out of the textual material differs from standard redaction-critical analyses in continental Old Testament scholarship. As Benjamin Ziemer has recently documented, redactional criticism generally supposed that scriptural texts grew by incremental Fortschreibung, much like a snowball puts on new layers when it is rolled through the snow.25 Scribes never omitted anything and only seldom rearranged the text they were transmitting, but instead recalibrated it by adding a word here or a longer section there. This picture is completely at odds with the results of our analysis. The textual phenomena show that in the transmission of what to us is 1 Kgs 1–2, the following operations must be postulated: • A large section was omitted (1 Kgs 2:2, 5-7; the Deuteronomistic addition in v. 3-4 had probably not yet been made in this stage). • A shorter section was moved to a different part of the chapter (1 Kgs 2:8-9 relocated before 1 Kgs 2:36, with some rewriting). • The addition of Miscellanies I and II was done in one go, with the partial aim of throwing a new light on the Simei pericope in 1 Kgs 2:36-45. 24 A famous example is the synchronistic notice in 2 Kgs 1:17b which follows the chronology of the Septuagint and contradicts the chronology of the MT (see 2 Kgs 3:1). 25 Benjamin Ziemer, Kritik des Wachstumsmodells: Die Grenzen alttestamentlicher Redaktionsgeschichte im Lichte empirischer Evidenz (VTSup 182; Leiden: Brill, 2019). 15 None of these operations follow the presuppositions of modern-day redaction-criticism. In other words, if the vicissitudes of transmission had given us access only to the text type that underlies the Greek tradition—without David’s Testament, and with the Miscellanies—it is extremely doubtful redactional critics could have worked their way back to anything like the MT, which we have reconstructed as the older text type. They most certainly could not have done so by following the usual postulates of the Fortschreibung paradigm.