written in the second century then it must present these two kings merely as prototypes of this later and bitter enemy of the Jews. Critics must do something like that if they want to salvage the unity of the book. But this supposition is erroneous on a number of counts as we shall also show in part when we come to the chapters in which these kings are dealt with. Some of the critics have come to see this point. They admit that it is “erroneous … to argue that the portraiture of these two kings was