Today’s reading: 1 Chronicles 10; Hebrews 5-6
The lack of the treatment of Saul says a lot about what the point and focus of Chronicles is.
I haven’t written about 1 Chronicles so far because there really hasn’t been much to say. The opening chapters of the book are genealogies and records which, while historically important, there’s just really not all that much to say about it. I’m sure scholars have plenty to say about those first chapters, but the point of this blog isn’t really about digging into more obscure details, but instead to connect dots and help make connections for people wanting to get more into the Word. In that regard, chapter 10 is where the “story” portion of Chronicles starts.
But to get into today’s post, a lot of people think that the books of Chronicles are just a rehashing of the books of Kings. Given that the order of the modern Christian Old Testament has 1 & 2 Chronicles immediately after 1 & 2 Kings, Christians who have read the Old Testament generally go straight from Kings to Chronicles, and the content reads so familiarly that they read right past the significant differences. The main difference I want to draw our attention to is that the books of Chronicles are really only concerned with the line of David in Jerusalem. The books of Kings, following the books of Samuel, which bear out the reigns of Solomon and David, track the history of the broader kingship in Israel, following the kings of both the Northern and Southern kingdoms after Solomon. Chronicles, however, really starts with David and then follows only the kings in Jerusalem. Plus, while Kings tracks both the good and the bad done by the various kings, Chronicles tends to brush past much of the bad, only mentioning what is absolutely necessary.
If this was just a history of the kingship in Israel, starting with Saul, the first king, would be important, but instead the author assumes we already know enough about Saul and all we are given is a brief glimpse into his death, which opened the door for David to take the throne.
Given all this, I would argue that the author’s main purpose in Chronicles is not simply to write a history of Israel’s king, but to track the promise of the coming eternal king from the line of David. With that focus in mind, it makes sense that the story picks up in earnest with David and then follows only his descendants on the throne in Jerusalem, looking for this ultimate fulfillment of promise to Israel.
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