Introduction to the First Book of Chronicles

We have worked our way through Job, a complex and possibly disturbing book. It is a philosophical and theological treatise on the role of God among His created humans, on justice, pain and evil. Now we will return to the history of Israel, looking at 1 Chonicles. 

Purpose

1 Chronicles repeats, in its own way, much of the material in 1 and 2 Samuel. But it has a different agenda. At times, to the modern reader, the author of the scroll of Chronicles (now 1 and 2 Chronicles) is obsessed with genealogies and temple rules. The author is writing to Jews returning from Babylon, preparing them for the Second Temple period, for a rebirth of the temple worship and the sacrificial system. As John Walton argues, Old Testament material like this is "written for us but not written to us."

(I note in passing thst John Walton, Old Testament scholar, was a professor at Moody Bible Institute for 20 years. I attended Moody for one year, when I was eighteen.  Walton is only two years older than me so obviously my student year was before his time teaching there.) 

As the culture of the ancient Near East is very important for an understanding of the Old Testament, I have taken to abbreviating "ancient Near East" as ANE.

The author of the scroll of Chronicles is not given to us but tradition has it that it is the same person as the author of the scroll of Ezra-Nehemiah. Indeed, one commentator identifies the author as Ezra. Certainly the style and philosophy of Chronicles is very similar to that of Ezra-Nehemiah. I will merely call the author of 1 and 2 Chronicles "the Chronicler."

Outline

The first nine chapters are genealogies that take us from Adam through David on to the return from Babylon. It is important, in reading those genealogies, that the Chronicler, the author of 1 and 2 Chronicles, does skip generations, as he lists the most important people in the lines. (It is worth repeating that the Hebrew phrases "son of" or "father of" allow generations to be skipped and so may be interpreted as "descendant of" or "ancestor of." Also, many of the ancient Hebrew texts differ slightly on the spelling of some of the lesser known people.)

By the end of chapter 9, the Chronicler has gotten us to Saul, the first king of Israel. Chapter 10 covers the death of Saul and the remaining 19 chapters of the book cover the reign of David. Throughout the reign of David, the Chronicler only covers David's successes, with one exception. The goal of that material is not to paint over David's failures but to set up the character of a true king.  The Chronicler refers to other historical documents, some now lost, but surely these included the scrolls of Samuel and Kings, where David's humanity and failure are on full display. Only one failure of David is mentioned, and that is his ill-planned census of Israel. That failure of David's is described because it explains the eventual location of the temple and recalls YHWH's instructions to build the temple in Jerusalem. Explaining the history of the temple and recalling the laws for worship is a significant agenda for the author. This emphasis distinguishes this book from the other scrolls of Jewish history. A comparison of 1 Chronicles with 1 and 2 Samuel makes it clear that any episode related to temple worship will appear in 1 Chronicles; it may or may not appear in the scroll of Samuel. (This difference continues into 2 Chronicles where the history of the northern kingdom is ignored, as it has little to do with worship in Jerusalem.)

The best overview of the books of 1 and 2 Chronicles is this short video by The Bible Project. Their videos are always excellent.

Resources and References

My practice is to read through the text from the New International Version (NIV), copied into the blog and italicized in blue.  The text is the focus of our study and so it is highlighted, broken into paragraphs. At the head of each blue paragraph of text I place a short title; after the text I place my thoughts or comments in black.  I begin this process with my own reactions and thoughts and then supplement these comments with gleanings from a commentary or two.

The real goal of this blog is to force myself and others to read every verse thoughtfully. I do hope that you, too, read the passages thoughtfully! Feel free to disagree -- or to react in other ways! (I place hyperlinks in pink, created so that one can click on a link and see the linked site open in another window... and go down a rabbit hole if you wish!)

For the study of 1 Chronicles, I have relied mainly on one commentary, the commentary by J. Barton Payne in volume 4 of The Expositor's Bible Commentary, published by Zondervan.

There are other resources online. 

1. There are online commentaries provided by EasyEnglishBible, a charity based in the United Kingdom. They have one online commentary on I Chronicles: God Rules History, by Ian Mackervoy
2. The Gospel Coalition has an online commentary here.

We begin the scroll of Chronicles tomorrow. It will be followed by the scroll of Ezra-Nehemiah.