🤔 Is it just me, or does this chapter feel like déjà vu?

It’s a parallel account to the one we just read in 1st Kings 8.

🤔 So why is the same story in the Bible twice? Isn’t once enough?

Scholars generally agree that the book of Kings was written first. And it was originally one book. The Greek translators split it up. The traditional view theorized that the Prophet Jeremiah wrote Kings, but it’s more likely that it was written by a scribe-historian in Babylon during the 70-year Babylonian captivity.

We tend to imagine that a scribe was writing it all down as it happened. And it was obviously based on official records. But one guy did not follow the kings of Judah and Israel around making notes for 400 years then sit down to type it into a book. When it was written, everyone in the book was long dead. It would be like a person today writing a carefully researched book on the history on America from Columbus to the presidency of Grover Cleveland.

The purpose of the book of Kings seems to be a way of explaining to a new generation of Israelites why they ended up in Babylon. The book tells how Israel and her kings practiced idolatry and broke their covenant with Yahweh.

The book of the Chronicles (also originally a single volume) was written at the end of the exile when Israel returned to the land and rebuilt the temple. Tradition holds the author to be the scribe Ezra, but there is no hard evidence for this.

🤔 So why did Ezra or whoever think they needed another book of history?

Chronicles has all that genealogy which was very important for the returning exiles to prove their ancestry so they can inherit property and enter the temple. (See 1 Chron. 9 especially) The combined books cover the reigns of David and Solomon (and beyond) with a special emphasis on God’s covenant with David to always have a descendant of David on the throne.

Imagine you are a young Jewish exile. You were born and raised in Babylon. You speak Chaldean. You only know a few basic words in your grandfather’s native tongue – Hebrew. Your parents were teens when Jerusalem fell. You have heard the scribes tell how wicked your people had become; how they broke faith with the Almighty Yahweh and how He allowed the Babylonians to conquer. Has Yahweh cast your people off forever?

Some of the Jews have returned and have begun rebuilding the temple. So you hear. Your parents want you to return with the next caravan. Why? What’s the point?

That’s where the book of Chronicles comes in. In it you find your family’s genealogy going all the way back to Abraham. You know the stories from Genesis well – how Yahweh gave the land to Abraham and his descendants. And it reminds you of God’s promise to David and how He dwelt in the Temple in Jerusalem. And in it you find King Solomon praying at the dedication of the Temple. He asks Yahweh to do something particular if Israel should ever being taken captive to a foreign land due to their sins:

“but if they repent in the land where they were taken captive and repent and beg you for mercy in the land of their captivity, saying, ‘We have sinned and acted perversely and done wickedly, and we return to you,’ with their whole heart and with all their inmost being in the land of their captivity where they took them captive, and if they pray toward their land that you have given to their ancestors and the city that you have chosen and to the house that I have built for your name, then may you hear their prayer and their pleas from the heavens, from your dwelling place, and uphold their case and forgive your people who sinned against you.”
‭‭2 Chronicles‬ ‭6‬:‭37‬-‭39‬ ‭LEB‬‬

I don’t know about you, but if I were an Israelite in Babylon and I heard that text, I’d want to pack my belongings and go to Jerusalem.

In the next chapter, we get Yahweh’s answer to this prayer request. It’s quite exciting.