the books of first and second chronicles
while there are two separate books and
our Bibles that division is not original
do to scroll links the book was divided
in two but it was written as one book
with one coherent storyline now in our
English Bibles chronicles comes after
the books of Samuel and kings and most
of chronicles has actually repeat
content from those books and so most
modern readers when they come to
Chronicles they think wait a minute I
just read all of this and so they skip
it and that's a shame because this book
is really unique and important in the
Bible in the traditional Jewish ordering
of the Bible chronicles is actually the
last book because it summarizes all of
the Jewish Scriptures the first word in
the book is Adam the first character at
the beginning of the story and then the
last paragraph announces the return of
Israel from exile now we don't know who
wrote this book but we can tell from
details within it it was produced by
somebody who lived a couple hundred
years after the Israelites returned from
the Babylonian exile now for this author
Jerusalem in the temple were rebuilt
some time ago and as we learned for Ezra
Nehemiah things were not going well the
great prophetic hope was that the city
and the temple would be rebuilt that God
would come to live among his people the
Messianic King would come and all the
nations would come live under his
peaceful rule and none of that has
happened and so the author of Chronicles
has reshaped these stories of David and
Solomon and the kings of the past in
order to provide a message of hope for
the future and we'll see that he's
designed this book to emphasize to clear
themes first the hope of the coming
messianic King and second the hope for a
new temple let's just dive in and you'll
see these themes all over the book first
chronicles begins with nine chapters of
genealogies long lists of names and
you'll read these and think that this is
kind of boring and that may be true for
you but actually they're very very
important the author is summarizing here
the whole storyline of the Old Testament
by naming all of the key characters in
the stories and as he does so he shapes
the genealogies to emphasize two key
lineages first is a line of the promised
messianic King so lots of space is
dedicated to tracing the line of Judah
that led all the way to King David to
whom the Messianic promise
given and then from David the author
traces that line up into his own day the
other family line that receives lots of
attention here is that of the priesthood
the descendants of Aaron who of course
served in the temple and so right from
the start you can see the two main
themes the authors hope of the Messiah
coming to build a new temple and it's
rooted in these ancient genealogies now
after that the author moves into the
stories about David and most of these
are going to be familiar to you from the
book of Samuel but again there's some
really important differences so first of
all the author leaves out all of the
negative stories about David where he's
portrayed as weak or immoral so Saul
chasing David around the desert and
persecuting him the story of David's
adultery with Bathsheba and then
murdering her husband all of that is
gone and what's left are the stories
that portray David as a good guy and not
only that there's also new additional
material that you won't find in the book
of Samuel that shows David in a very
positive light so there's a large block
of chapters where David makes
preparations for the temple he arranges
resources and builders and Levites and
choirs and not only that the author also
portrays David as a Moses like figure
God gives David plans for building the
temple just as he gave plans to Moses
for building the tabernacle so why all
this new material about David the
authors not trying to hide David's flaws
he knows that anybody can go read about
them in the book of Samuel rather he's
trying to portray David as the ideal
king in order to make him an image or a
type of the future Messiah from the line
of David it's very similar to how
Jeremiah or Ezekiel spoke of the coming
Messiah as a new David this is most
clear in how the author retells the
story of God's covenant promised to
David in first chronicles 17 when you
compare the story with its parallel in
2nd Samuel 7 you'll see that the author
of chronicles is highlighting that
neither David nor Solomon nor any of the
Kings from his line were the Messianic
King and that when the Messiah does come
he will be a king like David and so for
this author these stories about David
from the past are what sustain his hope
for the future
after David dies we move into 2nd
chronicles which focuses on the kings
that lived in Jerusalem
and again there's lots of overlap with
first and second Kings but there are
many key differences so the author has
left out all of the stories about the
kings of northern Israel so he can just
focus on the line of David and there's
lots of new material about these kings
from David's line he highlights the
Kings that were obedient to God and he
adds new stories about how their
obedience led to success in God's
blessing but he also adds new stories
about Kings who were unfaithful to God
they didn't follow the Torah they led
Israel to worship idols and these Kings
face horrible consequences all leading
up to Israel's exile a mess of their own
making and so this whole section becomes
a series of character studies where the
author wants later generations of
Israelites to learn from their family
history and so become faithful to their
God and the Torah now the books
conclusion is really unique too at the
very end of the book the king of the
Persians is named Cyrus and he tells the
Israelites that they can go back home
return from exile rebuild the city in
the temple and he says last line of the
book who ever there is among you of all
his people may the Lord his God be with
him and let him go up and that's how the
book ends with an incomplete sentence
now of course the author knows about the
first return from exile and the stories
of Ezra and Nehemiah but clearly in his
view the prophetic hopes of Israel were
not fulfilled in those events and so
this incomplete ending shows that the
author's hope is set on yet another
return from exile when the Messiah will
finally come to rebuild the temple and
restore God's people and so the book of
Chronicles it's the final book of the
Jewish Scriptures it ends by pointing
forward
it calls God's people to look back in
order to look ahead because the past has
become the source of hope for the future
so Chronicles concludes the Old
Testament as a story in search of an
ending and that's what this book is all
about