1 Chronicles 1-9 [Infographic]
Comparative Literature: 1 Chronicles 10-26 as a Retelling of 2 Samuel
2 Chronicles 2-9: A Political Detail
2 Chronicles 10-16: Dialectical Tensions in Judah I
2 Chronicles 17-25: Dialectical Tensions in Judah II
As today's post is rather long and deals with a diverse range of topics, I have divided it into sections:
Truth in Chronicles
Bubble Kings
Kings Uzziah and Jotham
Ahaz the Wicked King
Hezekiah the Faithful King
Intermediary Kings
The Mostly Faithful King Josiah
The Final Kings of Chronicles
The Fall of Jerusalem and Aftermath
Truth in Chronicles
Truth in the Bible can be a tricky thing to define. It can be said that there are different levels or types of truth in biblical literature. Truth does not always necessarily mean fact. In the bible, it takes on a more literary form than what we know today, something like a "universal truth." Below are a few terms that are useful in describing Biblical "truth."
Historicized Fiction Functions like the genre of storytelling we know today as historical fiction. Fictional events occur and fictional characters interact against the backdrop of a historical time period. The tale of Abraham serves as one example. Besides the biblical text (and noncanonical biblical texts), there is no evidence that Abraham was a historical person; he is very likely a fictional person - an archetype of a righteous man, the patriarch of a people. The intention of the biblical author is to tell a certain story. If we run with this idea, Abraham must be a fictional character set in historical times.
Fictionalized History presents historically verifiable figures whose actions, circumstances, possessions, etc. may have been fictionalized in order to make a point. In fact, a fair amount of the information found in the Chronicler's description of the kings of Judah is attested to by nonbiblical works. It is fairly certain, however, that some of these historical events have been exaggerated or otherwise fictionalized, often in an attempt to prove God's greatness.
Throughout the Book of Kings and Chronicles, the authors emphasize God's ability to shape history, based on the actions of the kings and people of Judah. When God's people is faithful, kings literally clean up the Temple and figuratively clean up worship practices. They win their battles with God's assistance. When God's people is unfaithful, and wicked kings defile the Temple with devotion to idols, the king and people alike are punished with invasions from foreign lands.
The above example is in fact a form of fictionalized history. This is not to say that God is ficitonal. Rather, the biblical author ascribes action to a character/force beyond human comprehension, The captivity in Babylon is a historical reality. The biblical author fictionalizes the reality by attributing it to some outside influence that cannot be proven by physical means.
The biblical author would probably not understand or care for the difference between historicized fiction and fictionalized history. For him, the stories would have simply been true. They are true by virtue of the author's meaning of truth, one that differs from our modern definition of scientific, factual truth.
The truth of the bible is true in the same way as the stories in Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. What matters not is the historical reality, but the universal message behind the story.
Dialectical Tensions overlap with Fictionalized History. The constant differential between God's will and human action: These are the pressures that give shape and structure to the biblical narrative.
Bubble Kings
For anyone that follows the economy, or are really sore about it, it might help to take a look at the cycle of kings presented in the Books of Kings and Chronicles in terms of bubbles (and while you're at it, read anything and everything by Matt Taibbi). Market bubbles, dialectical tension bubbles...Whatever. The point is that there is imbalance until the bubble pops.
Strict regulation [adherence to God's word] means things go pretty well, though there isn't much room to - you know - stretch out and test the limits. As regulations are chiseled away [i.e. kings fall from God's will] by human nature manifested by greed [and apostasy], things go well for a while, or at least people think they do. In reality, a bubble is forming, a pressure differential that arises from what is promised and what in reality exists [In the case of the economic crisis, money. In the case of the bible, adherence to God's word]. Just as in nature, the bubble cannot sustain itself, and it bursts. The bank goes under. Judah is invaded.
Here's where the metaphor gets really sick and twisted. For some reason these bubbles continue. For some reason they are allowed to happen. In the Bible, God allows for a certain degree of human freedom before he himself teaches his own people a lesson. Old generations are replaced, and the cycle generally finds a good king to lead again. In case of the financial crisis, the U.S. government allows for a certain degree of freedom before the whole thing comes crashing down on its own accord. And then it bails out the people who perpetrated the crime.
Allow me to take my metaphor too far: the state of safety is adherence to God. [And you can draw your own conclusions about the parallel metaphor.]
But I progress.
Kings Uzziah and Jotham
Uzziah
As long as he sought the Lord, God made him prosper.So the Chronicler says of King Uzziah. He is supported by God and therefore victorious in war. he build cities, but like Rehoboam before him, he grows proud once he becomes strong, ultimately to his own destruction. He attempts to offer incense to the Lord without the priests, and for this he suffers leprosy. But the kingdom of Uzziah is never directly punished for the king's pride.
(2 Chronicles 26.5)
Jotham
Jotham likewise is a righteous king - more righteous even than his father. He builds cities and succeeds in war.
Ahaz the Wicked King
Ahaz is so wicked - walking in the ways of the kings of Israel (whom the Chronicler believes to be unified against the Lord), casting idols, having his sons pass through fire - that the apostasy bubble bursts and Judah collapses beneath him under attacks by Aram, then Israel, then the Edomites. These attacks are all divinely sanctioned - and deadly. The attack by Israel results in the death of 120,000 valiant warriors of Judah.
Hezekiah the Faithful King
Hezekiah brings goodness, back to Judah, and so the dialectical tensions pull Judah back to God. Hezekiah delivers Judah from its evil ways and initiates sweeping reforms to clean up Judah literally and figuratively. Such action is only possible by a good leader; wicked leaders are not associated with building and cleaning projects. Under him the Temple is cleansed, pagan shrines are destroyed, worship of God is restored, and the roles of priests and Levites are reestablished.
All this is celebrated with a great passover that lasts seven days and includes the sacrifice of over 2,000 bulls and 17,000 sheep. Writes the Chronicler:
There was great joy in Jerusalem, for since the time of Solomon son of King David of Israel there had been nothing like this in Jerusalem.And, furthermore, we find a statement affirming the reward/punishment cycle of dialectical tensions:
(2 Chronicles 30.26)
And every work that he undertook in the service of the house of God, and in accordance with the law and the commandments, to seek his God, he did with all his heart; and he prospered.The true test of piety comes when King Sennacherib of Assyria invades Judah. Previously this is where kings (e.g. King Rehoboam) have turned their backs on God and put their faith in human works instead. But Hezekiah remains pious. The Lord in turns protects Judah from the invasion.
(2 Chronicles 31.21)
The king’s pride results in only one instance of wrath. In a strange scene, Hezekiah becomes sick to the point of death, prays to the Lord, and refuses to accept the Lord’s sign. In the bible’s laconic style, little information about the sign or the illness is given. All we know is that Hezekiah refuses the Lord’s sign out of pride. However, he humbles himself, and all of Jerusalem with him, and the wrath of the Lord does not fall upon Judah.
Intermediary Kings
Manasseh is a wicked king of Judah, though he repents in his latter days. After he misleads Judah and pays no heed to the Lord, he is taken away by the King of Assyria in manacles and fetters. But, as per the flexible dialectical tensions, he is restored to his kingship at Jerusalem when he prays and repents:
Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was indeed God.Unfortunately, the people of Judah still sacrifice at the high places to the Lord. Worship is conducted in an improper place...
(2 Chronicles 33.13)
The Mostly Faithful King Josiah
King Josiah finds the correct outlet for worship of the Lord. His reign begins at the tender age of eight, and despite this he is one of the greatest kings. Josiah demolishes all signifiers of apostasy and centers worship again in Jerusalem. He even purges the house of the Lord, during which time the book of the law of Moses is discovered.
The message is dire, as delivered by the prophet Huldah. However, Josiah experiences a quasi-Davidic moment as he discovers that he personally will not be punished for the sins of Israel:
Thus says the Lord: I will indeed bring disaster upon this place and upon its inhabitants, all the curses that are written in the book that was read before the king of Judah. Because they have forsaken me and have made offerings to other gods, so that they have provoked me to anger with all the works of their hands, my wrath will be poured out on this place and will not be quenched. But as to the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, thus shall you say to him: Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Regarding the words that you have heard, because your heart was penitent and you humbled yourself before God when you heard his words against this place and its inhabitants, and you have humbled yourself before me, and have torn your clothes and wept before me, I also have heard you, says the Lord. I will gather you to your ancestors and you shall be gathered to your grave in peace; your eyes shall not see all the disaster that I will bring on this place and its inhabitants.Afterward, adherence to the covenant of the Lord is resumed under King Josiah:
(2 Chronicles 34.2-28)
All his days they did not turn away from following the Lord the god of their ancestorsJosiah, in fact, celebrates a passover even greater than that of King Hezekiah:
(2 Chronicles 34.33)
No passover like it had been kept in Israel since the days of the prophet Samuel; none of the kings of Israel had kept such a passover as was kept by Josiah, by the priests and the Levites, by all Judah and Israel who were present, and by the inhabitants of Jerusalem.But even the righteous Josiah is undone with a test to his devotion to the Lord. King Josiah enters battle with Pharaoh Neco of Egypt, who warns him, through the words of the Lord:
(2 Chronicles 35.18)
“What have I to do with you, king of Judah? I am not coming against you today, but against the house with which I am at war; and God has commanded me to hurry. Cease opposing God, who is with me, so that he will not destroy you.”Josiah is ultimately killed by the Egyptian army. But even in his prideful death, he is mourned by his followers.
(2 Chronicles 35.21)
The Final Kings of Chronicles
2 Chronicles ends with a string of kings:
- Jehoahaz - About whom we learn nothing of greatness or evil. He is deposed by the Egyptian king, and his brother Eliakim is made king; his name is changed to Jehoiakim.
- Jehoiakim - Who is evil, and who is carried off to Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar.
- Jehoiachin - Who is evil. He is deposed by Nebuchadnezzar and taken to Babylon.
- Zedekiah - Who is evil. He, the people, and the priests are all unfaithful, and pollute the house of the Lord. He is the last King of Judah.
Ultimately, God decides to cleanse the land of ungrateful people. The Lord raises the king of the Chaldeans against God's people, and there is no mercy in the slaughter of men and women of Judah and destruction of Jerusalem. Survivors are deported to Babylon. The land gets a rest from God's people for a while:
All the days that it lay desolate it kept sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.Chronicles ends with a glimmer of hope, however, as King Cyrus of Persia allows the exiles to return to Judah and rebuild the temple. In fact, this is the edict of God, according to Cyrus (according to the Chronicler!):
(2 Chronicles 36.21)
The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may the Lord his God be with him! Let him go up.So ends Chronicles. And so begins a new chapter in the history of God's chosen people.
(2 Chronicles 36.23)
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