Special Issue IOSOT 2013 - Books and Journals

58 S. Japhet / Vetus Testamentum IOSOT (2013) 36-76
connected with David: “. . . the Nethinim, who David and his officials had set
apart ‏(נתן)‏ to attend the Levites” (Ezr. viii 20).
The tradition regarding their origin and place among the cult personnel
is generally accepted as reliable.109 Accordingly, reference is made to 1 Ki. ix
20-21: “All the people who were left of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizites
. . . who were not of the people of Israel . . . these Solomon made a forced
levy of slaves and so they are to this day”. The information casually given here,
surely accounts for the presence of שלמה ‏.עבדי And although similar information
regarding the Nethinim is not given in Sam.-Ki., the tradition of Ezr. viii 20,
in its main point, is however, accepted as historical. Now, the inclination to
rely on Ezr. viii 20 as historical proof derives, among other things, from the
parallel phenomenon of the sons of Solomon’s servants and from the widespread
tradition that the beginnings and basis of the cult-organisations were
laid by David. It is therefore only natural to look for an explicit mention of the
Nethinim, their origin and functions, in Chr., where most of the cult institutions
are legitimatized through their attribution to David. It is rather a surprise
to find that there are no Nethinim in Chr.110 In all the many and diversified
descriptions of cultic orders scattered throughout the book they are not even
hinted at.111
Some further remarks of clarification are required:
a) The sons of Solomon’s servants are totally absent from Chr., but the
Nethinim are mentioned once in 1 Chr. ix 2-3: “Now the first to dwell again
in their possessions in their cities were Israel, the priests, the Levites, and the
Nethinim, and some of the people of Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim and Manasseh
dwelt in Jerusalem”. These verses serve as a heading to a list, found in two
editions, here and in Neh. xi 3ff.112 The same heading in Neh. runs as follows:
“These are the chiefs of the province who lived in Jerusalem, but in the towns
of Judah everyone lived on his property in their towns, Israel, the priests, the
109) Cf. R. Kittel, Geschichte des Volkes Israel, III 2, 1929 § 507, pp. 417-419; M. Haran: “The
Gibeonites, their place in the war of conquest and in the history of Israel” (Hebrew), Studies in
Joshua, 1960, pp. 106-110.
110) The fact was already noted by M. H. Segal, Tarbiz XIV, 1943, p. 88.
111) For example, 1 Chr. vi 16ff.; ix 22ff.; xxiii 2-6 and others.
112) The presence of one list in two different recensions in two books which are, according to the
general supposition, one continuous book, caused not a little embarrassment. Some solutions are
proposed by Curtis (op. cit., p. 168) and Rudolph, Chronikbücher, p. 83ff. The general solution is
that the list in 1 Chr. ix is post-chronistic, but the changes presented in the list, and mainly in its
heading, show clear traces of the Chr.’s adaptation.