Old Testament · History
Temple-eyed history, the kings of Judah weighed by worship, ending with a call to go home.
Solomon's temple, and then the kings of Judah measured by one question: what did they do about worship. The northern kingdom is largely ignored, and the reforming kings, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, Josiah, get far more room than they do in Kings. Hezekiah's Passover here is a set piece that Kings passes over in a sentence. The book ends mid-sentence, in effect, with Cyrus of Persia telling the exiles to go home and rebuild, which is a deliberate choice: the last word of the Hebrew Bible in its traditional order is go up. Readers often find Chronicles flat next to Samuel and Kings, and then notice that its prayers are among the most moving in Scripture, particularly Jehoshaphat's admission that we do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.
If you remember one thing
It ends not with the fire and the exile but with Cyrus saying go up. The last word of the Hebrew Bible in its traditional order is an invitation home.
“If my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven.”
2 Chronicles 7:14
2 Chronicles 7:14
If my people humble themselves. Among the most quoted verses in modern political preaching, and addressed in the first instance to Israel under the covenant, which is worth saying before it is applied elsewhere.
Named here rather than skipped. Where Christians read a passage differently, we say so instead of choosing for you.
Everyone here has a write-up, drawn from the same records that explain the names while you read the text.
Solomon's son and heir, who threw the kingdom away in a sentence. Asked to ease his father's heavy taxes, he spurned the elders and told Israel he would scourge them with scorpions where Solomon used whips, so ten tribes tore away under Jeroboam. In his fifth year Shishak of Egypt stripped the temple of Solomon's gold.
A reformer whose heart was fully the LORD's all his days. Asa smashed the foreign altars and sacred pillars, and would not spare even his grandmother Maacah: he deposed her as queen mother and burned her obscene idol. His one late failure was buying Aram's help instead of trusting God, and jailing the seer who rebuked him.
A God-seeking king who sent Levites through the towns to teach the Law. Facing a vast coalition, he set singers ahead of his army to praise the LORD, and the enemies turned on each other before a sword was drawn. His weakness was alliance: he bound Judah to wicked Ahab by marriage and nearly died in Ahab's war.
A daughter of Ahab and Jezebel married into Judah, and the one queen ever to rule it. When her son the king died, she massacred the royal heirs and took the throne for six years, never knowing that the infant Joash had been hidden in the temple by his aunt. When he was revealed and crowned, she was dragged out and killed.
Also called Azariah, fifty-two years of building, farming, and a formidable army, as long as he sought God. But strength bred pride: he forced his way into the temple to burn incense, a priest's task alone, and leprosy broke out on his forehead at the altar. He lived apart until he died, the year Isaiah saw the LORD high and lifted up.
As faithless as any king of Judah. Ahaz burned his own son as an offering, sacrificed on every high hill, and when he saw a pagan altar in Damascus he had one built to match and pushed the LORD's altar aside. Told by Isaiah to ask God for a sign, he refused, and was given the sign of Immanuel anyway. At last he shut the temple doors.
One of Judah's finest, none trusted the LORD like him. He reopened and cleansed the temple, kept a great Passover, and smashed even the bronze serpent of Moses when it became an idol. When Assyria's Sennacherib besieged Jerusalem, Hezekiah spread the enemy's letter before God, and the angel of the LORD struck down the Assyrian camp. Granted fifteen more years, he unwisely paraded his treasure before Babylon's envoys.
The longest reign in Judah and the darkest. Hezekiah's son rebuilt every high place his father had torn down, set altars to Baal and the stars inside the temple, passed his sons through the fire, practiced sorcery, and filled Jerusalem with innocent blood. Hauled to Babylon in hooks, he humbled himself and God restored him, but the guilt of his reign is what finally sealed Judah's exile.
Crowned at eight, and the great reformer. When the lost Book of the Law was found during temple repairs, the young king tore his robes and set about tearing down idols across Judah and even Bethel in the north, fulfilling a prophecy three centuries old. He kept the largest Passover since the judges. No king turned to the LORD so wholly, yet he fell at Megiddo, fighting Pharaoh Neco.
Anointed by Elisha's man to end the house of Ahab, and he did it with terrible speed, cutting down King Joram, hurling Jezebel from her window to the dogs, killing Ahab's seventy sons, and luring the Baal worshipers to slaughter. For that zeal God promised him four generations on the throne. Yet he never left Jeroboam's golden calves, so Scripture's verdict on him is split.
Rehoboam's son, who reigned only three years. He committed the same sins as his father, yet when he faced Jeroboam's larger army he called on the LORD and won a great victory for Judah.
Jehoshaphat's son, who married Athaliah of Ahab's house and walked in the ways of Israel. He killed all his brothers to secure the throne; Elijah sent him a letter of doom, and he died in agony of an incurable disease, unmourned.
A son of Jehoram and Athaliah who reigned a single year, taking his counsel from Ahab's house. Visiting the wounded king of Israel, he was caught in Jehu's purge and killed.
Hidden from Athaliah's massacre as a baby and crowned at seven by the priest Jehoiada, Joash did right and restored the temple, as long as Jehoiada lived. After the old priest died he fell to idols and even had Jehoiada's son stoned, and was assassinated by his own officials.
He did right, but not wholeheartedly. After defeating Edom he bafflingly carried home its idols to worship, then picked a fight with Israel and was captured as Jerusalem's wall was broken down. He too died by conspiracy.
Uzziah's son, who did what was right and grew strong because he ordered his ways before God. He built the upper gate of the temple and fortified Judah, though the people continued corruptly.
Manasseh's son, who revived his father's idolatry without his father's late repentance. After two years his own officials assassinated him in the palace, and the people made his young son Josiah king.
The prophet who brought David both the covenant promise of an everlasting throne and, later, the parable of the poor man's lamb that trapped the king into condemning himself.
The prophet Ahab hated because he never said anything good. Summoned alongside four hundred court prophets all promising victory, he mocked their message, then told the truth and was jailed on bread and water until the king should return in peace. The king did not return.
When the lost book of the law was found in the temple, the high priest and the king's officials went to her for a ruling on it. She confirmed the judgment and promised Josiah he would be spared seeing it. Jeremiah and Zephaniah were both active at the time, and the delegation went to her.
He and his wife hid the infant Joash in the temple for six years while Athaliah ruled, then produced him at seven, crowned him, and had the queen dragged out. He guided the boy king for as long as he lived, and the reforms did not survive his funeral.
The sons and grandsons of Levi's three houses, named in the genealogies that open Exodus 6 and Numbers 3 and fill the Chronicler's registers. Libni and Shimei from Gershon; Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel from Kohath; Mahli and Mushi from Merari.
A name borne by both men and women across the Old Testament. The best known is the queen mother, Abijah's wife and Asa's grandmother, whom Asa removed from her position because she had made an obscene image for Asherah. Another Maacah was the mother of Absalom, a foreign princess.
Names that recur constantly through Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, often carried by several different men, and usually attached to the priestly and Levitical families. They are among the most common Hebrew names of the period, which is why the text so often has to add a father's name to tell them apart.
David's son, who asked God for wisdom and received riches and fame besides. He built the great temple in Jerusalem and his reign was Israel's golden age of peace. But his seven hundred wives turned his heart to their gods, and for that idolatry God foretold the kingdom would be torn in two after him.
Games built on this book’s people and story.
