002_cudworth_co_498_523 13/02/15 11:26 Pagina 502 502 TROY D. CUDWORTH of a theme he has developed consistently throughout the united monarchy and even began as early as the genealogies 16. In addition to the general hyperbolic sense the phrase carries in other parts of the Hebrew Bible (e.g. Josh 3,7.17; 4,14; etc.), the Chronicler has attributed to it three particular nuances that impact its meaning in 2 Chr 10,1 – 11,4. First of all, the Chronicler presents the gathering of all Israel to the worship of YHWH as the ultimate goal for the nation. In the opening genealogies the Chronicler shows how Israel’s God elected them from among all the peoples of the earth (1 Chronicles 1) and blessed the individual tribes with numerous descendants and a place in the land (1 Chronicles 2–8). But then, immediately following, he concludes the genealogies with a section that expresses the hope that this “all Israel” would once again repopulate the land even after the exile (1 Chronicles 9, cf. v. 1) 17. After he sets this as the target for the contemporary community in post-exilic Yehud, he then also projects it back to Israel’s kings. Accordingly, the Chronicler por- trays David as the pioneer in this endeavor who held it as his main objective throughout 1 Chronicles 11–16. The first two of these chapters offer a flashback to show how he won the support of Is- raelites from his early days of hiding in the stronghold (cf. 12,17- 19) 18. This group, which eventually grew to become all Israel (12,38), would then crown him king (11,1-3) and help him conquer Jerusalem as his new capital (11,4-9). 16 Quite surprisingly, I have found no scholar who has closely investigated this theme as it pertains to 2 Chr 10,1 – 11,4, and only Japhet has given much attention to the phrase theologically in the books of Chronicles as a whole; cf. JAPHET, Ideology, 267-277 (though of course, for the different uses of Is- rael in Chronicles, see WILLIAMSON, Israel in Chronicles, 87-140). 17 Certainly the clause “So all Israel was recorded in genealogies […]” in 9,1 summarizes and even idealizes all the data before it (1 Chronicles 1–8), yet it also evokes the sense that this hope, encapsulated by the Chronicler’s favorite moniker for the united people used for the first time here, will come to fruition once again. 18 On the use of a flashback here, cf. JAPHET, I & II Chronicles, 233. For David’s growing support before his reign in 1 Chronicles 11–12, cf. G.N. KNOPPERS, “Israel’s First King and ‘The Kingdom of YHWH in the Hands of the Sons of David’: The Place of the Saulide Monarchy in the Chronicler’s Historiography”, Saul in Story and Tradition (eds. C.S. EHRLICH – M. WHITE) (FAT 47; Tübingen 2006) 187-213, here 193-200.