Lecture

I. Introduction

A. First and Second Chronicles as a Unit

The first word in 1 and 2 Chronicles is the word “Adam.” Here is a book that is made up of two parts, first and second. It takes us right back to the beginning and shows us God’s plan from the first human to the end of the time that Israel was an independent nation and indeed to the end of the exile, when its restoration by the grace of God, was just beginning. Chronicles gets its name from the fact that the first nine chapters contain a huge number of genealogies. All kinds of people are included in these genealogies; there is the lineage from Adam onward to Saul and David. There is the lineage of Saul’s family, there are lists of the various Israelite tribes with a special emphasis upon Judah, and in particular there are lists of people who return from exile. That is the difference between Chronicles from Samuel or Kings.

The books of 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 Kings are telling the story of Israel’s tragic history as a nation down to the exile, but they do not tell you what happens after the exile. You end 2 Kings reading about things that were occurring in the early days of the exile. The chronicle is written after the exile is over, and it is written from the perspective of the restoration from that exile. God had fulfilled His promises to punish His people severely if they disobeyed His covenant. He had been very patient for centuries and centuries, but the time did come when He delivered His people into the hands of their enemies. In the case of the Judeans, it was the Babylonians. But Jeremiah the prophet had promised that the exile would last only seventy years, and so there came a time when it was possible for the people to return from exile.

B. Author

Whoever the chronicler was, whomever this inspired anonymous individual was who wrote the book, he was covering the material that we call 1 and 2 Chronicles from the angle of the fact that the exile was ending. Probably the chronicler wrote about 520 B.C. and the exile was not entirely over in one important sense: the temple was not yet rebuilt. The temple had been started already in 538 B.C., but only the foundation had been completed before interruption of the work. The chronicler writes at a time when that temple needs to be rebuilt. It had been destroyed in 586 B.C., and the chronicler and many other righteous Israelites were becoming apprehensive that, perhaps, it was not going to be completed in time within the seventy years that Jeremiah had predicted would be the case. Of course, God knew what would happen and God used the chronicler as one of many influences to motivate the people toward the completion of the temple.

II. Themes Found in Chronicles

A. Temple of the Lord

One of the themes we are going to see in the book of Chronicles is the story of the completion of the temple. It will look at the idea of the need for the completion of that temple from a historical retrospective. In other words, it will describe for us in detail how Solomon built the temple. It will take a lot of the material out of 1 Kings to allow us to see that. It will frequently mention the temple even in connection with kings like David who had only a minor role to play in planning it. The chronicler will emphasize that aspect highly. Moreover, the chronicler will describe the temple in stories that the books of Samuel and Kings do not even choose to mention.

God is inspiring the chronicler to encourage people who need to restore themselves as a people of God. That is the reason for going back to Adam; that is the reason for starting with nine chapters of genealogy. The mentality of the chronicler is restoration. Let us get back to what was good. Sure, there was a lot that was bad and the chronicler lays that out before you. Of course, people sinned. Of course, God judged the nation for its long history of repeated violations of His covenant and for turning to idolatry. But, says the chronicler, wherever we can see even the smallest trace in the past of what should have been done actually being done, let us look at it. Let us remember it; let us codify it; let us put it into print, so we will be able to benefit from it.

The chronicler takes a look at this vast sweep of history, from the Creation all the way to the beginnings of the restoration of the Israelites and the freedom to return to Judah at the end of the Exile, and says what is good in that story. What can we use to encourage us, to inspire us, even to model our efforts, as we seek to become the people of God (that our forefathers were only sometimes and then only partially)?

B. Judah: A Southern Perspective

In addition to the theme of the temple, we need to appreciate that the chronicler is also looking at things from a southern perspective. The north, the original ten tribes, unfortunately highly corrupted religiously in the chronicler’s day. The Assyrians had not only deported thousands and thousands of northerners to other parts of the Assyrian Empire, but had imported thousands and thousands of people that they had captured in other places they had conquered and put them in the north with their idolatrous and polytheistic and syncretistic practices. The north really was not very orthodox; it would be hard to find many people in northern Israel, north of Jerusalem and Benjamin, who were faithfully holding to the Mosaic Covenant.

As a result, the chronicler focuses of necessity on Judah, because there in Judah there really was a Scripture-driven concern to get back to faithfulness to God. In Judah, there were people by the thousands who wanted to obey the Scriptures. There was a large-scale interest and movement in learning from the mistakes of the past and following God’s covenant law and following it faithfully. So, the chronicler is not going to pay much attention to the north; those stories that we find in 1 and 2 Kings, for example, about Elijah and Elisha, are not going to be mentioned by the chronicler. Most of the northern kings are mentioned only by way of chronological linkage to the southern kings. You will see the name of a northern king mentioned and how it is that a southern king connects chronologically and comparatively to the dates that that northern king reigned, but virtually nothing else about him. You will see just a tiny bit about the genealogy of Saul, but no substantial stories about him; and after the genealogies, the chronicler really picks up his story in chapter 10 with a description of David’s reign.

That, again, is a reflection of the fact that God had made His covenant with David as we have it in 2 Samuel 7. The covenant indicated that the lineage, the real eternal lineage, the important lineage of the kings, the significant dynasty, was the dynasty of David. The northern kings were heterodox and actually illegal from the point of God’s covenant, but David’s lineage was the one to pay attention to. Thus, that is what the chronicler emphasizes. So, the chronicler’s story is the story of Israel, now from the point of view of Judah. What was good about Judah? What did good kings do when they did good? How was faithfulness to the law and proper worship of the temple carried out?

Thus in the story of the past, the chronicler encourages people to think in the future. The monarchy, therefore, is made exemplary as much as possible. This is not a distortion of the story; this is simply a selective focusing on those good things that the monarchy represented. The chronicler would be among those who would applaud the frequent statements, toward the end of the book of Judges, that there was no king in Israel and everybody did right in his own eyes. In other words, a king was needed. The chronicler applauds the idea that one can see in good kings, or even in the good thing that bad kings occasionally did, a program to follow in the direction of faithfulness to God.

C. Theocracy: God the True Ruler

Additionally, the chronicler emphasizes yet another aspect of the history, and that is the theocratic aspect. Theocratic simply means “referring to God’s rule.” And you can see again and again in the chronicler an emphasis upon the way that a king was successful, or the nation under a king successful, if and only if that king and the nation as a whole were faithful to God. God is the ultimate king; God is the ultimate leader. God is the real source of wisdom, righteousness, judgment, and proper activity at all levels in the days of Israel prior to the exile and restoration. The chronicler wants to highlight that, on the one hand, he is a monarchist—very, very interested in what things good kings did. But on the other hand, he is a theocrat—interested in showing us how God was behind every good thing that every good king or nation did.

D. Priesthood

The chronicler also is interested in the priesthood. You know, if the clergy are faithful in any society, if they are really preaching the Word of God, if they are really teaching the truth, if they are really living the example of righteous lives, people catch on. So, the chronicler pays attention to anything related to the priesthood that is positive in the past. In highlighting the priesthood, the chronicler is an encourager of the priests of his day. They needed encouragement; they needed to begin again to lead the people in proper worship of the Lord.

E. Worship

That leads us to the topic of worship in general. Anything the chronicler can tell us in 1 and 2 Chronicles about worship in Judah in the past, he will be sure to bring up. The first responsibility of any believer or any group of believers is to worship the God in whom they believe. And the chronicler wants the Jews of 520 B.C. crammed into a space only about twenty-five miles by twenty miles or so (Judah was not a big territory even with part of Benjamin included in the way it was construed at that time), to be faithful worshipers of God. If they can get that right, if they can steadily and properly and honestly and earnestly worship God, then they are going in the right direction. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Because a linkage to the past is a powerful motivator for many people, including most people in the ancient world, the chronicler will tell you about anybody’s lineage that he can possibly mention.

III. Royal Lineage of David (1Ch 1:1-9:44)

The chronicler is concerned to show everything about Judah: the lineage of the people, the lineage of the priests, and certainly the lineage of the kings. As well, he wants the people to be sure that they organize their restoration around the temple, so the temple is the center of activity in many of the chronicler’s stories, not again as a fabrication but simply as a refocusing. Samuel and Kings are telling the story from the point of view of the sinfulness of the people and the fact that they increasingly do not keep God’s covenant. The chronicler is telling the story from the point of view of those exceptions that can be used as a model for getting the community back into faithfulness to God. And finally, the chronicler has a faith and a hope that manifests throughout these books that we call 1 and 2 Chronicles—a faith in God that God is faithful, that He is good, that He rewards His people, that He keeps His part of the covenant even when Israel was not and a hope that things can come to a happy fruition.

The time in which the chronicler wrote was not an easy time for the people of Judah. Jerusalem lay in ruins, absolutely in ruins. Almost no one lived there except a few priests and Levites right around the temple area. The temple itself had been totally destroyed—absolutely, totally, right down to bedrock. Not even the foundation stones were there anymore. And the Israelites were just starting to build on the foundation they had laid in 538 B.C., a couple of decades before the chronicler started writing. He wanted those people to finish that project, to finish it by the deadline 516 B.C., and to get on with their lives under God. He had a hope that it could take place, that they could really become a people of God.

The Judah who had disgraced itself and had disobeyed the Lord, who had been sent into a horrible captivity, could by faithfulness and by modeling itself on the good kings of the past and by looking to the Lord with hope turn out to be God’s people once again—His own special family, His own covenant people doing His will upon the earth.

IV. Reign of David (1Ch 10:1-29:30)

A. Coming to Power

With David, the emphasis upon his coming to power emphasizes, in chapters 10-12, how much God is with him and behind that story. So in 1 Chronicles 10 and on to chapter 12, we see God at work. God is the hero of the story—God leading David and choosing him to become king. We have there are many of the same materials that we can find in Samuel and Kings, but condensed in the direction of emphasizing faithfulness on the part of David to God.

B. Ark—Temple—Covenant

With chapters 13-17, the chronicler has especially emphasized two things: the return of the ark, getting that ark back to Jerusalem where the presence of God can be symbolized, and then also plans for the temple. We know that David very much wanted to build the temple, but we also know that he did not get it done in his own lifetime. The chronicler, however, highlights the fact that it was David’s design. He was concerned to do it; he saw the need for it; he understood that a temple was a place where worship of the proper sort could be organized.

C. Military Victories

The chronicler does not leave out David’s military victories, and you know the chronicler wrote in a time when there were risks and dangers from Israel’s enemies. Israel had been, under David, a powerful nation; and even some of David’s successor kings had been quite successful in subduing neighboring states. Both neighboring states have not forgotten that, and they were inclined, if possible, to try to attack and suppress the Judeans. Indeed, one of the reasons that the temple had not been built further upon the foundation laid in 538 B.C. was the kind of opposition that the chronicler is well aware of, that his audience is well aware of, and that they need to get beyond. The chronicler selects certain stories about David that indicate how God allowed him, even against great odds, to be victorious, to comfort the people who faced great odds themselves in building the temple and rebuilding the city of Jerusalem.

D. Arrangements for Building Temple

The arrangements for the temple really do dominate the heart of 1 Chronicles. Chapters 21-29 consist mainly of those preparations and people involved: priests, singers who perform the temple musical functions under David and other musicians, even divisions of gatekeepers and treasurers for the temple, and other officials. The chronicler knows of these from official sources that presumably were saved, brought to Babylon, and then brought back from Babylon with the returning exiles. With chapter 29 in which a description is given of gifts that people brought under David’s influence and by his example for the building of the temple, David’s death is then described as following those gifts. In other words, in a way what the chronicler tells you is that the last most significant thing David did was to lay all at the ready for the building of the temple.

V. Reign of Solomon (2Ch 1:1-9:31)

With 2 Chronicles, the story of Solomon comes in, and many of the things that are in the story are the same kinds of things we would find in 1 Kings chapters 1-11, including Solomon’s great wisdom, and so on. But soon enough, much earlier than you see it in 1 Kings, there is a special emphasis upon the temple again: Solomon’s preparation for that temple, Solomon’s building the temple, the temple furnishings, the bringing of the ark into the temple, Solomon’s prayer of dedication, the actual dedication ceremony itself. These are told with a greater relish and a certain degree of greater detail than one finds so extensively in the early chapters of 1 Kings. Solomon’s other achievements are also mentioned, but there is much less on the negative side.

Solomon was an interesting study in contrasts; he had plenty of faults and plenty of things that were improper, along with all his good accomplishments. Everybody knows that in the chronicler’s audience. They know that Solomon had his very, very serious negative attributes, but the chronicler does not need to dwell on those. The chronicler needs to bring his story about Solomon to a conclusion in 2 Chronicles 9 with positive things, the good things Solomon did, the things that can be seen as paradigms, as samples of the way that the restoration community in 520 B.C., or there abouts, can learn from.

VI. Judean Monarchs from Division to Exile (2Ch 10:1-36:23)

After this, we read about a whole story of Judah, from the time of the death of Solomon to the exile into Babylonian captivity. With chapter 10, we have many of the same kinds of stories, stories that one reads about in 1 Kings 11-12 and following. But you are reading mainly about the Judean kings. Even though plenty about them is negative that is described, we are also reading about their positive aspects as well. A great example of this is 2 Chronicles 13.

A. Abijah

In Kings, the Judean king, Abijah, is a rather minor figure. He gets a number of verses of description, but nothing like the story about him in 2 Chronicles 13. The whole chapter is about how he is at war with a northern king, Jeroboam, and how, in a conflict that is simply glossed over in 1 Kings, he is amazingly successful in a battle at Mount Zemaraim. Success comes because Abijah, for all his faults, really leads the troops in the name of the Lord. He really emphasizes obedience to the Lord and tells the northern troops in a speech he makes to them before the battle how they do not have a chance, because they are following all kinds of heterodox practices and worship; whereas, he and the Judeans are keeping the covenant and worshiping at the temple where God intended Israel to worship. That is just an example of the way the chronicler looks back at the record and selects out those things that would inspire the restoration community.

B. Positive Interpretation

He also describes, with great gusto, the good things that kings like Hezekiah and Josiah did, even can reach into history and mention something that again is glossed over in 2 Kings, and that is the career of King Manasseh, who reigned fifty-five years as Judah’s longest reigning king. What the chronicler brings to our attention is that even that rascal, that guy who gave his name to the phrase “the sins of Manasseh,” did have a time when he repented and turned to God for help, when he tried to serve the Lord more faithfully than he had in the past, and how God blessed him for that and watched over him and rewarded him. That does not mean that Manasseh did everything properly and left a wonderful legacy. It only means that there was, even in that king, something to be found by way of example.

C. Bad News/Good News

When we come to chapter 36, we are, again, at the point where the Israelites have been attacked by the Babylonians. After a two-year siege, they have finally fallen and gone into exile. But there is hope because the book ends with a little statement that summarizes something called the decree of Cyrus. Cyrus was a Persian king. The Persians were an empire that had beaten the Babylonians in war and taken over from them, just as the Babylonians, a century earlier, had beaten the Assyrians and taken over from them. The Persians had a new policy: let captured people go home, let exiles return to their homelands. And probably under the influence of Daniel, Cyrus the king of Persia said, “The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and He has appointed me to build a temple for Him at Jerusalem in Judah. Anyone of His people among you—may the Lord his God be with him, and let him go up.” They are going to go home; and that is how 2 Chronicles ends.