Chronicles: A Promise

Part of me feels a little bad saying that I have a least favorite book of the Bible, but I would have to say that for most of my life, 1 and 2 Chronicles was nowhere on my list of favorite books to read. It’s a bunch of genealogies and lists and repeats from Samuel and Kings. Let’s just say that I was not exactly thrilled when my last Old Testament class before Christmas was on Chronicles. When I saw the assigned reading, I commented to my classmate that nothing gets me in the Christmas spirit like reading Chronicles!

That week, I realized that I have approached Chronicles the wrong way for pretty much my entire Christian life. I didn’t see its purpose or its value, except maybe to be able to compare with Kings and see that the two mostly match, except that David’s sin with Bathsheba is not included in Chronicles, and Manasseh repenting from prison is not included in Kings.

The book of Chronicles (it was broken into first and second when it was translated into Greek and didn’t fit on one scroll anymore) is the last book of the Hebrew canon. Chronologically, this seems a little odd. Ezra and Nehemiah come directly before Chronicles, even though they record the events that would have happened directly after. So why is it at the end? And why the differences between Chronicles and Kings? And why do we need the same history twice?

I think we start to find the answers to these questions when we look at the audience of Chronicles and its time of writing. Chronicles was written to post-exilic Israel by someone returning from the exile. (given what we know of Ezra, it would make a lot of sense if he was the writer.) It was written for people who had experienced seventy years in Babylon/Medo-Persia, and then returned to their home. These were people who had access to the Torah, the Prophets, and the writings (including Samuel and Kings), so they would have been familiar with the stories recorded in Chronicles. This would suggest that the book of Chronicles is intended to serve a different purpose than that of Samuel and Kings.

I always find it interesting to try and get into the heads of the people reading, writing, and experiencing the events they record for us. So maybe we should try getting a feel for where those returning from the exile were coming from.

After 70 years in exile, the prophesy of Jeremiah had come to pass, and Cyrus the Great had told the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. It was a project that was met with opposition from those around them, but finally, the Temple was complete. They had a High Priest from the line of Aaron, his name was Joshua, meaning “Jehovah Saves!” They had a political leader, Zerubbabel, from the line of David. They had Ezra, teaching and leading their nation, instructing them in the ways of their God. They had Nehemiah, who was in a place of favor with the King and was given permission to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem. They had prophets, exhorting them and calling them to serve God whole-heartedly.

In many ways, the story sounds very similar to the story we’re told in Chronicles, when Solomon builds and dedicates the Temple of the Lord. People gathered to worship, the King prayed, and the glory of God filled the temple!

In Ezra, the people return, they rebuild the temple, there is sacrifice and prayer, a priest and a political leader together call the people to return to Yahweh…. And the glory of God doesn’t fill the temple. It’s a detail that is glaringly absent from the narrative. And as the young people rejoice that they have a temple, the elders wept.

No, more accurately, they wailed. Their cry was so loud that people miles away could hear. No cloud, no fire, no glory. In fact, the temple itself was a dismal disappointment. Zerubbabel’s temple was not even half the size of Solomon’s, and couldn’t hold a candle to the splendor of the original. In fact, it looked more like a military fortress. And those who could remember the original temple were overwhelmed with sorrow!

The prophets spoke of a greater temple, one filled with splendor and glory, and a city called GOD IS THERE.

Did this mean that God didn’t make good on His promise? Had He been faithless to Israel?

These would have been the questions in the minds of the readers as they approached the book of Chronicles. And I think Chronicles is subtly pointing that out through little hints that are really easy to miss, that Israel was still anticipating further fulfillment of these prophesies. And as the book builds this anticipation, it points toward the New Testament.

They had a temple, but they didn’t have the true dwelling place of God. They didn’t have Immanuel, God with man. They had an empty temple…. And it almost seems like Chronicles is rubbing salt in the wound, because the big story, the climax of the book, is the Shekinah Glory – God’s presence filling Solomon’s temple. David’s reign builds up to this, and every King after Solomon is weighed by the standard of how they treat the Temple. I think the emphasis on the temple was to point to God’s past faithfulness and present grace, and a reminder to anticipate something greater in the future. There were still prophesies to be fulfilled! They were in the stage of  already, and not yet.

And those tedious genealogies? I think Chronicles is pointing toward the fulfillment of something greater than just the return from Babylonian exile. If Chronicles were just about the Kings of Judah, there wouldn’t be much point in tracing the geneaologies much further than David, and thus bring the focus of the book to God’s faithfulness to the Davidic Covenant. But it doesn’t stop with David. It would make sense, in telling the story of the entire nation of Israel, not just the southern kingdom who returned from exile, to trace the geneaologies back to Judah, thus focusing on God’s covenant with Jacob, the building of a nation in the promise land, and the promise that the scepter would not depart from Judah. But it goes further than that, and it doesn’t just focus on Judah, but on Levi as well, reminding the reader of the Mosaic Covenant. It would make sense to go back through Abraham and focus on the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant, but again, it goes further than that. The writer of Chronicles starts with Adam, leaving the reader to anticipate the fulfillment of God’s covenant with Adam and His covenant faithfulness to mankind. It’s like when an author begins their book by giving some obscure family history, or the origin of some sort of tension (like Sir Walter Scott beginning Ivanhoe with a discussion of the English language and the tensions between the Franks and Saxons, leaving the reader anticipating an ending that brings about some sort of resolution or fulfillment of that conflict.)

After building the anticipation of the fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant, the Abrahamic Covenant, and finally, God’s promise to Adam and Eve that the Serpent’s head would be crushed, the author of Chronicles leaves us with a cliff-hanger. We’re told that Cyrus allows the exiles to return. Wait, what? That doesn’t fulfill any of the covenants! And then the gospel of Matthew starts out with… a geneaology tracing all the way back to Adam, and then we are told of a Messiah, from the line of David, whose name means Jehovah Saves, and who is our High Priest. The last book in the Jewish Bible builds the anticipation of fulfillment yet to come, and a reminder to see God’s promise and God’s presence, through the history of the Temple. And then we have the New Testament, when God’s presence dwells inside of His followers.

And at the end of the New Testament, we’re reminded once again that there are prophecies yet to be fulfilled.

And for the first time in my life, Chronicles got me in the Christmas spirit. The reminder of God’s promise and God’s presence felt like a cliff-hanger, leaving me excited for the next chapter.