Five hundred years after King David got another man’s wife pregnant, a Jewish historian skipped that story when he wrote about David in the book of 1 Chronicles.
Chronicles also skips Solomon’s senior years when the king, instead of wising up, is worshiping idols.
This writer omitted other nasty, juicy stories we can read in 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 Kings.
Chronicles, a numbers guy
Instead, this anonymous writer hunted down what many people of faith would call boring details—names and numbers of Jewish leaders—and he wrote it all for us to read.
Why would anyone start a Bible book with something as sedate as 2,000 names—a forest of family trees? That’s the first nine chapters of 1 Chronicles—almost a third of the entire book.
Later we get to read the list of supplies David gathered for the Jerusalem Temple he was planning for his son Solomon to build someday. And after that, there’s a personnel roster of everyone David assigned to work at the Temple, along with their job descriptions: priests, their Levite associates, musicians, Temple security, and what amounts to Israel’s national guard (chapters 23-27).
Fun fact: David divided the army into 12 divisions. Each division served just one month a year.
This is an odd Bible book. But there’s a reason for the oddity, scholars say. Jump down to the section “Purpose.”
1-2 Chronicles was originally one book
First and Second Chronicles were written as one book. But it was too long to fit on a single scroll. So, when Jewish scholars translated it into the international language of the day, Greek, in the decades before Jesus was born, they split it into two books. They did the same with the history books of Samuel and Kings.
Writer
The writer is anonymous. But clues in the story suggest he was a priest living when Persia ruled the region and when Israel had dwarfed into Judah, as a tiny province of the Persian Empire. The list of King David’s descendants, in 1 Chronicles 3:17-24, seems to extend past the 586 BC destruction of the Jewish nation of Judah and into the 400s BC. One tradition credits a priest named Ezra. He helped rebuild the nation during the 400s BC. His story appears in the Bible book of Ezra.
Timeline
The book leads with a list of about 2,000 names that begins with Adam and continues until Israel is wiped off the map in the 500s BC. Adam’s name starts the list. After the names, stories start with the reign of Israel’s first king, Saul, in about 1000 BC. And the stories end with the exiled and homeless Jews returning to what is left of their nation in the 500s BC. Stories in 1 Chronicles, however, cover just a couple generations, ending with the death of King David.
Top stories
Jews return from exile in 500s BC, chapter 9
Israel declares David king, 11
David brings the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, 15
God tells David that Solomon will build first Temple, 17
David gives future Temple workers assignments 23-27
David collects supplies for future Temple 28
King David dies, 29.
Location
Jews have returned from exile in what is now Iraq, during the 500s BC. But the stories in 1 Chronicles flash back to about 1,000 BC. That’s when King David’s Israel covered what is now Israel, Palestinian Territory, and parts of Jordan and Syria east of the Jordan River.
Purpose
Many scholars say this history book of Chronicles is an encouraging message to heartbroken Jews who thought Israel was dead and they were no longer God’s Chosen People.
After all, they:
- broke God’s laws and were supremely punished for it—exiled for 50 years.
- lost their Temple and without it, their entire sacrificial system of worship.
- lost Jerusalem, leveled in 586 BC by Babylonians.
- lost their Promised Land.
- got exiled to what is now Iraq (then Babylon).
- returned home, but to a shrunken Judah, now just a province of Persia (Iran).
So they wondered, “Are we still God’s chosen people?”
The writer uses history, family trees, and minutia about the Temple to assure them that despite all that happened, yes, God has always had unique plans for them.
Moses, a thousand years before Chronicles, seemed to predict what happened to them.
“It doesn’t matter if you’ve been shipped off to a faraway country…The LORD your God will take you to the home of your ancestors. He’ll give it back to you. He’ll treat you well. And you’ll grow into a nation bigger than ever” (Deuteronomy 30:4-5).
Chronicles wasn’t hiding Israel’s sad history, scholars say. The people and their ancestors had lived it and knew it all too well. Instead, the writer wanted the people to remember good history, too.
