Chronicles Overview (Part 2)

Bible Book Overviews — Steve Gregg

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Chronicles Overview (Part 2)

Bible Book OverviewsSteve Gregg

In this overview, Steve Gregg details the differences between Chronicles and Samuel Kings, emphasizing the additional material in Chronicles, such as genealogies and David's song of praise. The book of Chronicles mainly focuses on the building of the Temple by Solomon and the reigns of various kings in Judah, their good and bad deeds, and how they worshiped God. While some kings made reforms, others like Manasseh were responsible for the fall of Jerusalem, but despite his wickedness, Chronicles tells us that he repented while in captivity and was faithful until his death.

Transcript

Now what we're going to do in a very short space of time, considering how much there is to do, it's a very short space of time, we're going to go through the book of Chronicles. Now what I want to do is not duplicate any commentary on Samuel and Kings. Now in this series of surveys and introductions, of course we've not gone verse by verse through Samuel and Kings, but at our website you can certainly find my verse by verse teachings through Samuel and Kings and go through everything in detail.

You cannot find at my website at this point, verse by verse through Chronicles, because I've never done verse by verse through Chronicles at our schools where those recordings were made. The reason is I tried to, when going through Samuel and Kings, I tried to just kind of point out things that Chronicles added or subtracted along with it, so that by the time we got through Samuel and Kings we kind of got through Chronicles too. And with students who were going through the whole Bible in nine months right through, my students would go through Samuel and Kings over a period of a few weeks and then to go directly into Chronicles and cover the same material again would have been particularly taxing on their patience.

So I just kind of merged Chronicles with the other books and that's what you find at our website. And really Chronicles gets very short shrift in those lectures because it took up enough of the time just to cover Samuel and Kings. I didn't go into real detail about Chronicles.

So I never, I really never have gone verse by verse teaching through Chronicles. But at the same time I don't want to burden our treatment here brief as it must be with too much verse by verse. Now fortunately we've already talked about the first nine chapters of first Chronicles, which is the genealogies which we went into in some detail.

Let's turn the pages over to chapter 10 and that's where we'll pick up the story. And you have some pages in your notes which goes through all the chapters and what you'll see in the notes is this. There's bold type which either has a plus or a minus next to it.

If there's a plus next to it it means that this is added by Chronicles. Added to what you will, you won't find this in Samuel and Kings. It's additional material that Chronicles gives.

If there's a minus it means this is what Chronicles has left out that is found in Samuel and Kings and you don't find it in Chronicles. So that's largely what I've noted in making these notes. Now whatever is not in boldface is simply what's in both histories.

So for example chapter 10 says the death of Saul. I mentioned 1st Samuel 31. That's where it's found in Samuel.

It's found in chapter 10 here. And so the not boldface type is simply what's in both histories. And I try to give you the location of it in the other history.

But the main things of interest are going to be what's in the boldface type. What Chronicles, especially what Chronicles adds, not as much what they leave out. So you've got in chapter 10 the death of Saul.

He dies in battle against the Philistines on Mount Gilboa. He's wounded by arrows. He asked his armor bearer to kill him so that he doesn't get captured by the Philistines who would certainly torture him.

The armor bearer won't comply, doesn't want to kill the king, so the king falls on his sword, kills himself. The armor bearer, seeing that the king is dead, falls on his own sword. He's dead too.

Now one thing that is left out of Chronicles is material that's found in 2nd Samuel in the opening chapter where David hears about the death of Saul and mourns for Saul and Jonathan. This is not found in Chronicles. It's found in the other history.

Also, Chronicles does not mention the Amalekite man who comes and claims to have killed Saul in order to get a reward from David, and the reward he got was execution for having touched the Lord's anointed. That's also in Samuel, but it's not found here. We simply have the death of Saul and then the accession to the throne by David.

Now in chapter 11, we see David made king by Israel at Hebron. Now this is found in 2nd Samuel chapter 5 verses 1 through 5. What's interesting is that this happened seven years after the death of Saul, and in those seven years the tribe of Judah had already made David king, which Samuel records. When Saul died, his own tribe Judah came to him and said, be our king, but Saul had left an heir named Ish-bosheth, and the ten tribes to the north, although they were not yet a separate nation as they later would become in the time of Rehoboam, they wanted to be loyal to Saul.

So you had the northern tribes had a king named Ish-bosheth, and the southern tribe Judah made David their king. That's what we're told in Samuel. Now Ish-bosheth gets himself murdered by some of his ministers, and then the northern tribes make David king also.

Now this happens in 2nd Samuel chapter 5. None of that is in Chronicles. Chronicles picks it up seven years after David's been reigning in Judah and simply mentions him becoming the king over all the tribes of Israel. So it kind of skips over.

Ish-bosheth skips over that seven years of David's reign in Judah, and then of course when he was made king over Israel, he made his kingdom to have its capital in Jerusalem. It had to be captured first, and so we see the capture of Jerusalem also in chapter 11. Joab conquers Jerusalem, which was a Jebusite city until that time, and David makes it his capital.

That's in 2nd Samuel 5, 6 through 10. And then we have in this chapter also the list of David's mighty men in chapter 11 of 1st Chronicles. This list of mighty men is also found in Samuel, but in a much different place.

2nd Samuel 23 verses 8 through 39 has that same list. What's left out then, as I mentioned, is the seven-year reign of David at Hebron and the parallel career of Ish-bosheth in Israel. That's 2nd Samuel chapters 2 through 4 are pretty much skipped over in Chronicles.

Now chapter 12 talks about the increase of David's armies pretty much. Part of this is before he's king. In verses 1 through 22, it talks about the people who joined him when he was at Ziklag.

Now Ziklag is where David was hiding out from Saul until Saul died. Ziklag is where the Amalekites came and plundered his encampment, took away his wives and the wives and the children and the goods from the encampment, and David sent his men after him and recovered them. This is all before Saul actually died.

So this is going back to that. It's basically saying that when David became king, he already had a lot of loyal troops who had joined him at Ziklag, and they came from various tribes and various places. And so the increase of David's armies at Ziklag is in chapter 12 of Chronicles verses 1 through 22.

But then of course when he was made king at Hebron, his armies increased even more there. And that's the armies increasing in Hebron, which is where he reigned over Judah for seven years and where the other tribes came to him to make him their king. Then he went to Jerusalem.

That's in verses 23 through 40. You come to chapter 13, and that's the bringing of the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, part one. There were two attempts.

The first one was kind of a tragedy because they were trying to move the cart on an...the Ark on an ox cart. And that's not the way you're supposed to move the Ark. According to the law, you're supposed to have the priests carry the Ark on their shoulders with poles on each side, sort of like an Eastern...what do you call it when they...in Asia where, you know, someone's carried by footmen and they have them on their shoulders.

That's how the Ark was to be carried. And they didn't do that. They put it on a cart, an ox cart, and it...you know, an ox stumbled.

The, you know, Ark seems to have been jostled, and a man reached out his hand to stabilize it, named Uzzah, and he dropped dead. This made David very angry. He didn't bring the Ark to Jerusalem at that time.

He put it aside in the home of a guy named Obed-Edom, and it stayed there for a while. However, Obed-Edom was very much blessed by God for having the Ark in his house, and when David heard about this, he made a second attempt, and this time he brought it in the right way, had the priests carry it on their shoulders. This second attempt is also here in chapter 15.

So in chapter 13, we have the story of the first attempt to bring in the Ark. That parallels 2 Samuel 6, 1 through 11. Chapter 15, we have the actual bringing of the Ark, part 2, and the success one, which is also in 2 Samuel 6, 12 and following.

Now, between those two parts, 1 Chronicles 14 has a story about the Philistines responding to hearing that David was crowned in Jerusalem. They had pretty much ignored his reign over Judah in Hebron those seven years, because he only had one tribe following him, and he wasn't a threat to them, apparently. But when all the tribes of Israel made David king, this made him much more powerful than the Philistines wanted him to be, so they attacked, and they lost.

And David fought a number of wars with the Philistines and defeated them, as no one before him had been able to do. In the 40-year reign of Saul, Saul had not been able to defeat the Philistines, finally. Even before Saul's time, Samson and others had fought against the Philistines and not managed to get rid of them, but David finally did.

He delivered Israel finally and permanently from the Philistines. That deliverance is in chapter 14 of Chronicles. It's also found in 2 Samuel 5, verses 17 through 25.

Moving to chapter 16, we have the ark installed in Jerusalem and certain rituals described. One thing that is added here in chapter 16 that is not found in the Samuel history is a song of praise that David wrote for the occasion. This psalm of praise is found also in the Psalter.

It's actually two different psalms in the Psalter, Psalm 105, verses 1 through 15, and Psalm 96, verses 1 through 13 combined. They make up this song that David wrote on the occasion of installing the ark in Jerusalem. That's Chronicles 16.

Chapter 17 is God's covenant with David. As I mentioned, a very important story, also found in 2 Samuel 7. Not much different between the two histories in their account of that story. Chapter 18, we have some of David's further conquests against other hostile neighbors.

These parallel stories in 2 Samuel 8, 1 through 18. One thing that is left out at this point that Samuel includes in 2 Samuel 9, but Chronicles does not include, is that David, after he was established, wanted to see if there is anything he could do in honor of his friend Jonathan. Jonathan had been Saul's son, and although Saul hated David and tried to kill him, Jonathan was loyal and friendly to David, and even willing to give his kingdom to David.

But Saul and Jonathan died together in battle against the Philistines, and it was a great grief to David to lose his friend Jonathan. And so, after David had come to unchallenged power, the Philistines gone, and so forth, he wondered if there's anyone left of Jonathan's family that he could show some kindness to. It turns out that Jonathan had a crippled son named Mephibosheth.

Actually, Mephibael. Mephibael, later Jewish writers changed most of these names. They had the name Baal in them.

The name Baal was the name of a pagan god. And so, Ishbael, Mephibael, are both names in Saul's family that had the name Baal in them. And later, historians of the Jews didn't like the name Baal, and so they substituted with the word Bosheth, which means shameful.

So, instead of having the name Baal, they had the word shameful in the name. Mephibosheth means...I forget what the first part means, but Bosheth means shameful. Ishbosheth means man...Ishbael means man of Baal.

Ishbosheth means man of a shameful thing. But the point here is there were two descendants of Saul, one a son and one a grandson, who both had the name Baal in them. And the Bible record, especially in Samuel, records them as having the name Bosheth rather than Baal in them.

In any case, Mephibosheth was grandson of Saul, son of Jonathan, and crippled. And he was probably wondering when the death sentence would be made against him. Because in almost all history, when there's been a regime change, there's usually a purge.

That is, if somebody comes to power who's not related to the previous king, then anybody who was related to the previous king is pretty well doomed. Because you didn't want people who might be sentimental and sympathetic toward the former king to say, well, this is his son, we can make him king instead. And so, usually, when one dynasty supplanted another, they just killed everyone from the previous dynasty.

Mephibosheth had somehow remained under the radar, partly because he was a cripple, I suppose, and lived somewhere out of the mainstream. But David did some inquiries. Is there anyone else around here who's related to Jonathan? And said, yeah, he's got a son named Mephibosheth.

And so he sent a messenger, Mephibosheth, called him to come present himself before him. Of course, Mephibosheth probably thought, well, I knew it couldn't last forever. You know, I guess this is the day I'm going to die.

Instead, David wants to show favor to Mephibosheth, and he basically invites Mephibosheth to live in the palace with him, and to eat at his table with him, and to enjoy all the luxuries, at least, of royalty. Though not, of course, the status of royalty. And so that story is found in 2 Samuel 9. It's left out.

There's no mention of Mephibosheth and that story in Chronicles. Chapter 19, 1 Chronicles 19, David's defeat of the Ammonites and the Syrians. This is also found in 2 Samuel 10.

Not much different in the two accounts. Now, 20 is very different because in chapter 20, we have the war of David against Rabbah. Now, it begins with the thing in the spring of the year when the kings go to war.

David stayed home. Now, you might remember that's also how the story begins in 2 Samuel 11. But David sent Joab with his armies against Rabbah, and David stayed home and met the neighbor girl, met his neighbor's wife, and had an affair.

She got pregnant, and he called her husband back from the battlefield and tried to get him to sleep with his wife so it would seem like he had made his own wife pregnant instead of David. The guy wouldn't sleep with her because he said, my companions are out sleeping in the mud. How can I go to my bed and sleep with my wife? You know, I mean, I can't do that.

It'd be a betrayal of my solidarity with my companions in the army. And so David sent him to war carrying his own death warrant. He didn't know it, but he says, give this to Joab, your general, and said, get this guy killed.

So Bathsheba's husband, Uriah the Hittite, got killed in battle, and David married Bathsheba. Now, Chronicles notices that David is married to Bathsheba and has a son named Solomon, but it leaves out that whole story about how Bathsheba came to be David's wife. And we do have the battle.

Both Samuel and Chronicles both start by saying, in the spring of the year when kings go to war, he went out and David stayed home but sent Joab to go out with the armies to Reba. But Chronicles doesn't mention the trouble David got into when he stayed home. It just talks about the conquest of Reba and leaves other stuff out.

Now, because it leaves out the sin of David with Bathsheba, it also leaves out the entire narrative of his son's rebelling, which was largely a result of it, especially Absalom's rebellion. And Absalom's rebellion is very prominent in the book of 2 Samuel. It dominates quite a few chapters.

Actually, 2 Samuel 13 through 20 is largely about Absalom's rebellion, at least through 19. And then chapter 20 is another rebellion by Gideon Sheba, who also rebelled against David. These rebellions are not mentioned in Chronicles.

David's sin and the rebellion of Absalom and the rebellion of Sheba are absent from Chronicles, but they're found in Samuel. Okay, chapter 21 of Chronicles, 1 Chronicles, is the census. Now, the census is also recorded in 2 Samuel 24.

And the comparison of these two chapters, these two histories of the census, are very perplexing. For one thing, even if we only had one account, it'd be perplexing. When you have two, it's more perplexing because of all the differences between them.

In fact, we could even say contradictions between them. Some of the differences probably are not contradictions and can be harmonized. And some of the things that really do look like contradictions probably are textual scribal errors.

First of all, it says in Chronicles that Satan moved David to take a census of the people. In Samuel, it says God moved him to do that. Now, that's not a problem in itself because we know that it says in Samuel that God was angry at Israel and he moved David to take a census, which brought about a punishment on the nation, a plague on the nation.

But it starts with God was angry at Israel already for something else, for their misbehavior. He was angry. He intended to bring a plague upon them and the occasion he used was to get David to take the census and that was the punishment.

Still seems a little strange, but it can work out. When you come to Chronicles and it says it was Satan that moved David, that's not really a problem to people who understand Satan's role in the world. Satan can't do anything to God's people without God's permission.

And we do see, for example, in 2 Kings 22 that God sends a lion spirit to the mouth of Ahab's prophets. And in this, in the vision that is given to Prophet Micaiah about that, he says, you know, this spirit came up and said, I want to go and be a lion spirit in his prophecy. And God said, okay, I'll let you.

Satan came to God and said, I want to flick Job. And God said, okay, I'll let you. Now what the Bible makes very clear is the devil is the enemy of God's people.

God is not the enemy of his own people, but he is prepared to let his people be tested. Satan cannot do anything to test us unless he goes to God first. If God says yes, then it'll happen.

If God says no, then Satan's just going to be disappointed. When it says that Satan moved David to take a census, and it also says that God did, there's no reason that this can't be seen in the same light as the opening chapters of Job. Satan wanted to get David to do something wrong.

In this case, God said, I'm angry at Israel. They deserve to be judged. I'm going to go ahead and let you do that.

I'm going to let the result be that a plague comes on the nation. Now, many people don't find that easy, but that's simply the way the Bible looks at it. Jesus said, Peter, he says, Satan has requested that he might sift you as wheat, but I prayed for you.

Satan has gone to God asking God permission to sift the apostles, like wheat, to get the chaff out from among them, of which there was one chaff member there, Judas. But the point here is that Satan cannot do anything to God's people unless God permits it, and therefore when Satan did move David, this is not without God having permitted it and wanting it to go ahead forward, or else God would have said no. But then there's other issues.

It's not clear at all why taking a census was a bad thing. God told Moses to take a census of the people of Israel twice, once at the beginning of the wilderness wandering, once at the end, 40 years later. It's not a sin to take a census, apparently, but it was on this occasion.

And even Joab knew it. When David said to Joab, go out and take a census, Job said, may God make Israel a hundred times more than it is, but why do you want to do this thing and sin against God? And David said, just do it. Now David and Joab both knew it was a sin, but we don't know why, but they must have known why.

There's more to the story than we are told. There's some motivation behind it. There's something that's, that they're going against God in some way, but the Bible doesn't tell us all the details, so we just have to recognize David knew he was doing the wrong thing.

Even Joab, who is far less godly than David, knew it was the wrong thing and even objected, but Joab carried it out half-heartedly. The Bible says he had no joy in doing it, and he didn't even, he didn't even take a census of the Levites and the Benjamites because he, the thing was abhorrent to him. But anyway, a plague came on Israel because of it, and, and the plague stopped at a particular threshing floor of a man named Ornan, or Orana as he's called in Samuel, and David purchased that threshing floor, offered sacrifices to God there to celebrate the end of the plague and to bring about the end of the plague, I suppose, and then, of course, that spot became the place where the temple would later be built by Solomon.

But that's that story about the census. Now, in chapter 22, we have a chapter that's got nothing parallel to, in the other history. In fact, chapters 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, and 27, and 28.

Better go on further. 29 too. You know, all the rest of the chapters, 22 through 29, don't really have parallels in the books of Samuel or Kings.

And what these chapters are, chapter 22, and these are some of the chapters that are pretty thick reading. Some of them are just lists of names and other things about equally interesting. And in chapter 22, David prepares to build the temple, and as he collects materials and so forth and starts making the preparations.

Then in chapter 23, we just have a list of the divisions of the Levites. This reads really wonderfully, just like the first nine chapters. And then chapter 24, division of the priests into 24 groups.

This is a little bit interesting in the sense that there were so many priests. Now, anyone descended from Aaron was a priest. Now, Aaron had lived many generations earlier, and therefore there were hundreds of men, priests.

But only a few guys could work in the temple at any given time. So David divided them up into 24 courses of priests. This is where it's found in the 24th chapter of 1 Chronicles.

And each of these guys, each course, each group of priests under a certain head, were given charge of the temple worship service two weeks out of the year. And it'd be a different man each week. Now, this is interesting because we know Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, was the guy burning incense in the temple that week that the angel met him in the temple and announced that John the Baptist was coming.

Now, it actually says he was of the course of Abiah, which is one of these 24 courses. The way it was worked out was that on the calendar, each week of the year, one of these 24 courses would supply a man to burn the incense in the temple that week. And each course would get two weeks out of the year.

If it was your group's time, you'd cast lots to see who gets the privilege of being the guy. I mean, a course of priests might have hundreds of priests in it. And so one guy would be chosen by the casting of lots to be the guy.

And there'd be two of them in the year because there'd be two different weeks in the year for this. And it says in Luke chapter 1 that Zacharias was chosen by lot that week to burn the incense, which is what he was doing when the angel appeared to him in the temple. But we know that after a man had been chosen for that privilege, he could never be chosen again.

So even when his course came up again, his group of priests, he was excluded from the casting of lots because he'd had his turn. He had to give turns to other people. So there's only...most priests would probably never be selected in their lifetime.

And if a man was, it was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. And that was the background for what we read in Luke's description of Zacharias being of the course of a buy-in. It was his turn.

He was selected by lot to burn incense and so forth. That's the background for that's in Chronicles, 1 Chronicles 24. David divides the priests into 24 groups.

Then chapter 25, a list of the musicians. Now David is the one who brought music into Jewish worship. The law of Moses, as you know, in Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy, had extensive rules for worship at the tabernacle.

Extensive rituals, but not a single word about music. David is the one who loved music. He was a musician and a songwriter.

And he wanted people to sing his psalms that he wrote. And they were songs of worship. So he introduced music as a form of worship in Israel.

Now he wasn't the first person to think of using music to worship God. When the Israelites had escaped from Egypt, they broke into spontaneous song, the Song of Moses, to celebrate their deliverance. But in terms of having regular songs and musicians at the temple on a regular basis or at the tabernacle doing music 24-7 really around the clock, around the Ark of the Covenant, that was David's innovation.

He even apparently created instruments of music. I don't think he did it with his own hands. He probably commissioned people to do it.

But new musical instruments were created by David. And obviously new songs. We've got the Book of Psalms as a testimony of that.

And it was Levites and priests who did the singing and the musicians who were playing. And the musicians are named in chapter 25. Then chapter 26 is broken into two parts.

The first 19 verses gives a list of the gatekeepers of the temple. And then verses 20 through 32 is the treasurers. Chapter 27, again, no parallels in the other history.

We've got military divisions of Israel in chapters 1 through 15. The tribal leaders in verses 16 through 24. And other government officials in verses 25 through 34.

Chapter 28, we have David giving a special charge to Solomon about the need for him to build the temple. This would not be done until after David's death. But David wanted to make sure that Solomon heard from his own lips.

He mentions that God had not allowed David to build the temple. We read that, of course, in 2 Samuel, that David himself wanted to build the temple. But Nathan the prophet was told by God, tell him you can.

Your son will do it. That's all part of the Davidic covenant in 2 Samuel chapter 7. In Samuel, though, it doesn't tell us why David wasn't allowed to do it. In Chronicles twice, David mentions in this chapter that God said to him, you can't build the temple because you're a man of war and you've shed much blood.

Your son will be a man of peace and he'll build the house for him. Interesting, Solomon is a form of the word shalom, peace. It means a man of peace.

David was a man of war. And even though the wars were of God, David didn't sin by making war. It was just not the kind of career that God wished a man to have who's going to build his house.

So he gave Solomon a 40-year reign of peace. David reigned for 40 years. Solomon reigned for 40 years also.

Now, we haven't gotten to that yet, though. Now, we have David's charge to Solomon in chapter 28 concerning the building of the temple. Then in chapter 29, David collects materials for the temple.

More detail about that in verses 1 through 20. He even mentions how much of his own money he's giving, which is a huge amount of gold and silver of his own that he donated. And the people donated hugely.

This temple was really the Ritz. I mean, it was tons of gold was used in making, at least plating the furniture and things like that, and even the walls. The walls were coated with pure gold and so forth.

It was a very expensive building. David gave his own reserves of gold, and he encouraged other people to do it. And we read of that collection in verses 1 through 20.

In the same chapter, the anointing of Solomon as king is in chapter, is in verse 21 through 25. And then verse 26 through 30 talk about the close of David's reign and his death. Now, what's missing from this is Adonijah, David's son, challenging Solomon's reign.

This is before David died. Before David died, Adonijah, one of David's sons, tried to make himself king. But David was still alive and able to endorse Solomon instead.

So Adonijah, of course, was now politically in a lot of trouble. And Solomon told him, if you behave yourself, you won't die. Well, after David died, Adonijah came and requested from Solomon if he could have Abishag, the Shunammite, who had been David's bed warmer, to be Adonijah's wife.

Now, this, I won't go into detail now, but this would be seen as a treacherous act of seeking to subvert the throne of Solomon. We don't have time to go into that right now. But Solomon recognized that as Adonijah not behaving himself and he had him put to death.

David, before he died, charged Solomon to settle some scores. These are not necessarily all found, they're not found here in Chronicles, but they are found in 1 Kings chapter 2, 1 through 9. So we're now parallel 1 Kings. 1 Kings 1 is the story of Adonijah and his rebellion.

The first nine verses of 1 Kings chapter 2 tell of David charging Solomon to make sure he takes care of, especially Joab, who had done some very evil things, and also Ganib Shimei, who had cursed David when he fled from Absalom. Interestingly, David didn't execute these guys. Joab was David's nephew.

Joab was a son of Zeruiah, who was David's sister. Maybe that's why he didn't want to kill him, or maybe it's just because he was afraid of Joab, because Joab was a pretty mighty man and David was an old, weak guy at this point. But in any case, Joab had done some things that were capital crimes and murdered some people, in addition to war.

You know, he had treacherously killed some innocent people. And so David told Solomon, make sure you take care of Joab. And then also Shimei, who had cursed David, and David had granted him some leniency when he came back to power.

He told Solomon, take care of him too. So when you come to 2 Chronicles, we see Solomon now is in power. It does not tell us about him settling those scores that his father told him to settle, which are in 1 Kings 2, 13 through 46.

It also doesn't tell us about that famous judgment he made between two prostitutes about whose baby it was. You know the famous story about, well, take a sword, we'll cut the baby in two, and you can each have half a baby. And that's how he revealed the heart of the true mother.

She said, no, let her have the baby. I'll be okay. Just let the baby live.

And the other woman said, no, cut it in half. You know, obviously giving away that she was not the mother. So I mean, that was a famous ruling of Solomon, which is found in 1 Kings 3, 16 through 28.

And it made Solomon famous for his wisdom, that kind of thing. Also, 1 Kings 4, verses 1 through 19, talks about Solomon's cabinet or his government officials under him. And then 1 Kings 4, 20 through 34, talks about his prosperity and his wisdom in detail, how he wrote 3,000 proverbs and 105 songs and all the stuff he did and had.

All that's in Kings. It's not in Chronicles. Chronicles really is concerned mainly with Solomon building the temple, not so much with his fame and fortune.

Now, the first chapter of 2 Chronicles is about Solomon's request for wisdom, which is also found, of course, in 1 Kings 3, 1 through 15. And it does talk about some of his military and economic prowess. But the request for wisdom, of course, is when Solomon, to be installed as king, God appeared to him in a dream and said, what do you want? You ask anything you want, I'll give it to you.

And Solomon said, well, give me wisdom to rule these people. I'm young. I don't know what I'm doing.

And God says, I'm glad you asked that, because you could have asked for money. You could have asked for a long life. You could have asked for the head of your enemies.

But you didn't. So I'm going to give you more wisdom than anyone's ever had before or will have after you. And I'm going to make you rich and have all the other things you didn't ask for, too, fame and all that.

So because he asked modestly, I suppose, God was pleased and gave him what he asked for. Now, of course, Solomon also defected from God, according to 1 Kings chapter 11. But that's not something that Chronicles mentions, just like it doesn't mention David's sin with Bathsheba, doesn't mention Solomon's backsliding.

So when you get to chapter two of 2 Chronicles and through chapter seven, this is all about the temple, the building of the temple. Chapter two, he communicates with Hiram, the king of Tyre to the north, about supplying some workmen, some skilled workmen and some lumber for the project. This is also found in 1 Kings 5. And here in chapters three and four, we have the temple being built and its furnishings being built.

This is covered also in 1 Kings 6 through 7. Here in chapter five, the ark is brought to the temple, which is also found in 1 Kings 8, the first 13 verses. And then we have the speech and the prayer of dedication on the occasion when the temple was completed. Solomon spent seven years building the temple.

Interestingly, he spent 13 years building his palace after that, but he did do the temple first. But building the temple and his palace together took 20 years. But at least his priorities were right.

He made the temple first. And at the end of seven years, there was a dedication, and he gave a speech recorded here in chapter six, verses two through 11, which we also find essentially in 1 Kings 8. And then there's a long prayer that Solomon gave. This is a very long chapter.

Chapter six, verses 12 through 42, has the prayer of dedication. At this time, Solomon spoke about his own unworthiness to build a house for God. Even the heavens can't contain you.

How can I build a house for you? And all this. But then his prayer went on to say, this house is where we want to honor you. And if anything bad happens to Israel, or even to an individual, if they turn toward this house and pray to you, hear them and answer and deliver.

And he goes through several scenarios. If someone violates an oath, if the nation goes into sin and goes into exile, if a famine or locust plague comes on the nation, all these disasters that could come upon them if they sin, he says, if that happens, and then they turn to you and they appeal to you, then hear from heaven and do this. All right.

And so that prayer is also found in 1 Kings 8. And then in chapter seven, we see that after he has prayed, fire comes down from heaven and consumes the sacrifice, just like it did when the tabernacle was instituted in the time of Moses. Fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed the fire. Also, the same thing happened on Mount Carmel with Elijah, the prophet, but that's not found in Chronicles.

And then the glory of the Lord fills the temple in verses one through three, which is a cloud, a shekinah glory. This also happened in Exodus chapter 40 when the tabernacle was erected. God's glory filled the temple.

In both places, the priest could not stand to minister. I mean, they couldn't enter the tabernacle on the day of its institution or the temple on this occasion, which was hundreds of years later, but because the glory filled them and apparently so thick that no one could really go in there and stand. Some people believe this means that if people did go in there, they'd fall over.

They couldn't stand to minister, but we don't know exactly if that means that, but the point is they didn't go in because God was there visibly. In Kings, 1 Kings 8, 55 through 61, we find Solomon on this occasion blessing the people. That is left out of Chronicles.

But we do find in both histories the dedication ceremony, which is here found in chapter eight verses four through 10, also found in 1 Kings 8, 62 through 66. And then God appears to Solomon again. Now God appeared to him in chapter one when he asked for wisdom, but now after he's dedicated to the temple, God appears to him again.

And here, of course, God affirms that he's going to answer those prayers. And so that's that second visit of God to Solomon. That's found also in 1 Kings 9, verses one through nine.

Then the rest of this chapter eight has some additional achievements of Solomon. Not everything is the same as Kings, but not too much of significance difference. Now, both histories record the visit of the Queen of Sheba.

This is in Chronicles, 1 Chronicles, we're now in 2 Chronicles, right? Chapter nine. And it's also found in 1 Kings 10. Queen of Sheba comes to visit.

She's heard about Solomon. She's impressed. She's left breathless.

Says it was much greater than I had even heard. Twice as great. The half was not told me, she says.

Then we have a description of his great wealth, which is found in both histories and of Solomon's death, which is found here in chapter nine, verses 29 through 31, and paralleled in 1 Kings 11, 41 through 43. The difference being that 1 Kings 11 has told us that before he died, he departed from the Lord. His wives turned his heart from the Lord.

He married many wives from different nations and other religions, and he built in Jerusalem shrines to their gods just to please his wives. He apparently compromised, probably participated in some of those temples too. And it says they turned his heart from the Lord.

Now, Kings does not tell us if Solomon ever repented. However, I take the book of Ecclesiastes to tell us that he did. I believe the book of Ecclesiastes was written at the end of Solomon's life as a memoir of his backslidden stage.

He describes his searching for meaning under the sun, away from the Lord, as it were, and finding nothing. Everything was emptiness. Everything was striving after the wind.

But finally, at the end, he says, well, let's hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man, for he'll bring every thought into judgment, whether it be good or evil. So basically, at the end of Ecclesiastes, we find Solomon more or less seemingly loyal to God and encouraging young men to be loyal to God after telling a story of his backslidden.

So I think that Ecclesiastes sort of puts another chapter into 1 Kings chapter 11, where Solomon, I think, did come back to the Lord, though Kings does not mention it. And Chronicles doesn't even mention him departing from the Lord. Now, 2 Chronicles chapter 10.

There's the revolt under Rehoboam. This could not be left out. It was so significant because 10 of the tribes revolted against the house of David.

Rehoboam was Solomon's son and king in Jerusalem. But when he first became king, leaders of the other tribes into the north came and said, listen, your dad was pretty heavy handed with us. He oppressed us with heavy, you know, tribute money, taxes, even hard labor, building his building projects for him and all that.

So we'll serve you if you'll lighten that load. Otherwise, we won't. And Rehoboam said, go away for three days.

Let me come back in three days and I'll let you know. And he consulted the older men who were the counselors of Solomon when Solomon was alive. And they said, oh, do what these people say and they'll serve you forever.

But he wasn't happy with that. Rehoboam went to the young men that were his age and they said, no, you got to show the people who's boss. You cave in here, you'll be, you know, wrapped around their little finger the rest of your life.

You need to take a hard line. And so he went back to the people three days later and said, my little finger is thicker than my father's loins. If my father chastened you with whips, I'll chase you with scorpions.

And the people said, we're done with you then. And they broke away from him. And this was the revolt that caused the nation of Israel to become two nations, the southern kingdom of Judah and the northern kingdom of Israel.

Now that revolt is mentioned in Chronicles because how could you not mention that? However, the details of how Jeroboam became the king in the north or Rehoboam was in the south and Jeroboam made golden calves in Bethel and Dan to be the objects of worship for the people of the northern kingdom. These things are alluded to in Chronicles at certain points. But the actual story of doing this is found in second Kings chapter 12 and second Kings 13 tells a story that's left out of Chronicles altogether about a prophet from Judah that went up and confronted Jeroboam about this, even withered the man's hand supernaturally, but healed it too.

And then said, this altar is going to be destroyed. And a man named Josiah someday will come and defile the bones of these prophets here and tear down this altar, which actually did happen in the reforms of Josiah hundreds of years later. But the point here is that whole business about Jeroboam set up the calves, although it's alluded to in Chronicles at points where it's mentionable, it just doesn't concern itself with that.

It doesn't tell about it happening at this point like Kings does. And so from chapter 10 onward in second Chronicles, you don't really have quite the same degree of parallel with Kings because Kings from this point on tells the history of two kingdoms and Chronicles only is interested in the history of the Southern kingdom. So it differs from Kings at this point on now, also Kings first Kings has a big focus.

And the latter half of the book on this prophet named Elijah, the Tishbite and second Kings has a big focus in the first 13 chapters on his successor, Elisha, but these prophets were both in the Northern kingdom. There's plenty of prophets in the Southern kingdom that get attention in Chronicles, but there's no, no stories about Elijah or Elisha in Chronicles because it's not paying attention to the Northern kingdom. And that's where they were.

As I mentioned in our earlier lecture in chapter 21, actually Elijah, the prophet is mentioned as writing a letter of rebuke to the King of Judah, but the story of Elijah is not there. The reader is supposed to know who Elijah is. Apparently the reader is supposed to have already read the books of Kings.

So this is supplementary. So now we have the various Kings that followed Solomon. Rehoboam's reign is covered in chapters 11 and 12.

And there is something added in Chronicles. And that is that although Rehoboam was a really rotten guy and a rotten King, Kings doesn't tell us, but Chronicles does that he was rebuked by a prophet named Shemiah and Rehoboam repented and humbled himself. And therefore God was more merciful to him, even though he was a bad guy, a bad King in general.

This is found in Chronicles 12, five through eight. Then chapter 13 is the reign of his son, Abijah, as he's called here. Kings calls him Abijam.

Same spelling, only with a different letter at the end. In Chronicles, second Chronicles 13, he's called King Abijah. In first Kings 15, he's called Abijam.

And he's a bad King, just like Rehoboam is. Although we do read that he was attacked by his enemies and he gave a speech, Chronicles gives it, Kings does not. In verses 20 through 20, excuse me, two through 20, second Chronicles 13, two through 20, has this speech of Abijah, makes it sound like he's very godly.

He basically tells, he's being attacked by the Northern Kingdom and he rebukes him and says, you guys have departed from the Lord. We've got priests offering sacrifices here every day for us in the temple of God. We're worshiping Yahweh, you're worshiping these golden calves.

How dare you come against us? And as it turns out, Jeroboam, the King of the North, had sent part of the troops behind Abijah and some in the front. And Abijah was surrounded and in danger, but they cried out to the Lord and the Lord gave him deliverance. So even though he's a rotten King, just like his dad, he did have his moments of looking to the Lord for safety and receiving deliverance.

Then we have a longer treatment of a King because he's a good King. The next King was Azaz. And chapters 14 through 16 are the story of Azaz's reign.

That's also found in First Kings 15, 9 through 24. Now notice, First Kings only gives what, 15, 16 verses to the reign of Azaz, but we've got three whole chapters on Azaz in Chronicles because he was a good King. And so we have added to the history from Kings, Chronicles mentions in chapter 14, verses 9 through 15, Azaz's defeat of a host, a large host of invaders from Ethiopia that came against him.

He, of course, God delivered him from that. We have his reforms, just like Hezekiah made reforms and Josiah made reforms, so did Azaz. Those reforms are found here in chapter 15, verses 1 through 15.

But like all the Kings, even the good ones, he has something a blot on his record. He was rebuked because he had trusted the Lord at one time, then didn't trust the Lord in another battle. He was rebuked by a prophet named Hanani.

And he puts the guy in prison. He puts the prophet in prison for rebuking him. That's in chapter 16, verses 7 through 10.

And then at the end, Azaz, in the latter years, had disease in his feet. We don't know what the disease was. Kings tells us about this, but only Chronicles mentions that when he was diseased in his feet, according to chapter 16, verse 12, he sought the physicians instead of seeking the Lord about it.

Now, here's a man who'd been a godly king through his entire reign, for the most part, and here at the end, he offends God by seeking physicians rather than God. Now, you might say, well, is God against us using physicians? Well, I'm not going to say that, but I will say this. A physician in those days was different than a physician is today.

We're talking about before modern science. We're talking about superstition here. We have physicians who are superstitious, no doubt to this day, but for the most part, medical science is a scientific endeavor that has some validity behind it.

It's neither godly or ungodly in itself. It's just reality about how the body works and what we know about it. But back then, most of what they'd call medical treatment was superstitious stuff.

I mean, even in relatively modern times, they used leeches to cure certain kind of diseases. I mean, think of what they were doing 2,500 years ago. And so these physicians were probably superstitious, maybe even pagan, maybe using magic.

I don't know, but the problem is God didn't like the fact that he was going to the magicians instead of to him, and that's just one final negative about him. The good kings all had some negatives about them, but if they were good at all, that usually means they didn't worship idols and God gave them a commendation. The next king after he was also a good king, King Jehoshaphat, and he gets like four chapters about him, chapter 17 through 20 about King Jehoshaphat.

He's also mentioned in 1 Kings 22, 1 through 50, but again, Chronicles has much more about him than Kings does. One is his reforms. In chapter 17 and chapter 19, it talks about the reforms, and reforms means getting rid of the idols, getting rid of the high places, getting rid of the, you know, the Asherah poles and all the pagan stuff that apparently between these good kings, there are all these bad kings who brought in all this pagan idolatry, and that's what these good kings had to sweep away.

They had to clear things up, repair the temple, usually it's falling into disrepair and so forth. We do find Jehoshaphat being rebuked by a prophet in chapter 19, verses 1 through 3, but still, one of the great stories about Jehoshaphat that's in Chronicles that's not in Kings is in chapter 20, when there's an enormous army of mixed nations coming against him that was overwhelming and terrifying, and Jehoshaphat just prayed. He just prayed and asked God to deliver him.

There's a powerful, inspiring prayer in chapter 20 where he called out to God in facing overwhelming opposition, and a prophet spoke up and said, God heard you, you're going to win this battle, but you won't have to fight in it. He said, the battle is not yours, it's the Lord's. So the next day, Jehoshaphat had the people go out where the enemy were, and they had the musicians and the singers go first, and as they praised the Lord and music, God threw the enemies into confusion, so the enemy killed each other off until not one man was standing of the enemy.

It appears that the Israelites didn't have to even draw a sword or shoot an arrow. It's just by the worship of God and trusting in him because God had honored them because of Jehoshaphat's prayer. It's a great, inspiring story.

Even just reading Jehoshaphat's prayer, very inspiring. Okay, then chapter 21, we have the reign of Jehoram, who is not a good king. He is also mentioned in 2 Kings chapter 8, verses 16 through 24.

It was during his reign that this letter came from Elijah the Tishbite, who is again mentioned only here in Chronicles, but very prominent in Kings. We don't know exactly when Elijah was taken up, but we do know from what it says in Kings that Jehoram became the king in Judah before Elijah was taken up, and even Elijah was still around two years into the reign of Jehoram. So Jehoram only reigned for eight years.

He was a wicked king. He came under judgment and died, but he was at least two years into his eight-year reign. Elijah was on the earth, and it may have been more years than that.

We don't know exactly when Elijah was taken up, but he wrote a letter rebuking Jehoram because Jehoram didn't follow the Lord as his father Jehoshaphat and his grandfather Ezekiel had done. It might be interesting just to read that letter because Elijah is not what we call a writing prophet. There are writing prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and then there's non-writing prophets.

Elijah and Elisha are generally regarded as the non-writing prophets among them, and yet he did write a letter. It doesn't take long to read it. In 2nd Chronicles 21 verses 12 through 15, a letter came to him, that is Jehoram, from Elijah the prophet saying, thus says Yahweh, God of your father David, because you have not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat, your father, or in the ways of Eiza, king of Judah, but have walked in the way of the kings of Israel and have made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to play the harlot like the harlotry of the house of Ahab, and also have killed your brothers, those of your father's household who are better than yourself.

Behold, the Lord will strike your people with a serious affliction, your children, your wives, and all your possessions, and you will become very sick with the disease of your intestines until your intestines come out by reason of the sickness day by day. And that's the whole letter, and you might want to read verse 19, then it happened in the course of time after the end of two years that his intestines came out because of his sickness. So he died in severe pain, and his people made no burnings for him, as they didn't honor him like they would other kings, like the burnings for his fathers.

He was 32 years old when he became king. He reigned in Jerusalem for eight years, and to no one's sorrow departed. However, they buried him in the city of David, but not in the tombs of the kings.

This guy was so bad. I mean, they didn't even want to bury him with his ancestors, the kings. So that's Jehoram in chapter 21.

Chapter 22, we have the reign of Ahaziah, his son, who was no better and didn't reign long, I think a year or less, and that's found also in 2 Kings 8 through 9. But of interest in this chapter is that when Ahaziah died at the hands of Jehu, his mother, Athaliah, who was the daughter of Jezebel, the queen of the northern kingdom, there was a marriage that Jehoshaphat entered into very poorly. He married his son to Jezebel's daughter. Jezebel was the queen in the north, the wife of Ahab.

Jehoshaphat was contemporary in the south, and Jehoshaphat married his son Jehoram to Athaliah, the daughter of Jezebel. Now, when Jehoram died, his widow, Athaliah, then heard that her son died within months after that, and then she killed all her grandsons and took the throne herself. She murdered all her grandsons except for one who escaped her notice, who was a little baby, and that was Joash, or Jehoash, as he's called in the narratives.

And he was hidden in the temple by the priest, Jehoiada, for a long period of time, well, seven years. And Athaliah, the wicked king, queen, excuse me, like Jezebel, she reigned without much information about her reign, but then the priest brought the young Joash, the true king, the scion of the throne, out and revealed him when he was seven years old after getting all the armed Levites around him to protect him. And when Athaliah found out that she had a living grandson who really had claimed the throne, she said, treason, but no one was on her side.

She was taken out and killed. And so Joash, at age seven or eight, became the king. I think he was seven.

And that's in 2 Kings 12. It's also, his reign is in Chronicles chapters 23 and 24. Now, Kings only tells about Joash being a good king, at least as long as Jehoiada, the priest who had hidden him, was alive.

But after Jehoiada died, Joash kind of drifted. And sadly, the priest who had kept him alive and hidden him, Jehoiada, had a son named Zechariah, who was also a priest. And Zechariah, after his dad Jehoiada died, he rebuked Joash, the king, for the apostasy, and Joash had him killed.

So here, Joash kills the son of the man who had kept him alive. And that son was a priest who was also a prophet, Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada. Jesus makes mention of this.

In the 11th chapter of Luke, he says that Jerusalem was going to suffer the penalty for all the righteous blood that was shed from Abel to Zechariah, who was killed between the temple and the altar. This is a reference to Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada. Now, the parallel in Matthew 23 calls him Zechariah, the son of Aberakiah, which is a mistake.

Zechariah, the son of Aberakiah, is the guy who wrote the book of Zechariah, and his death did not occur in that way. And there seems to be a scribal error in Matthew 23. Some scribe, apparently, Jesus just said, from the blood of Abel to Zechariah.

We know that because we have it that way in Luke. But some scribe who's scribing Matthew, apparently thought it'd be helpful, he said, Zechariah, the son of Aberakiah, which was a mistake. So we have actually a mistake that a scribe has entered into the text of Matthew 23, but it was actually this Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, that was referred to by Jesus in Matthew 23 and also in Luke 11.

Okay, then we have, and that apostasy and death of Zechariah is not found in Chronicles, is found in Chronicles, but not in Kings. Then chapter 25 is the reign of Amaziah, also found in 2 Kings 14. Chapter 26 is the reign of Uzziah, who's called Uzziah here, but he's called Azariah in 2 Kings 15, where his story is found.

And Azariah, Uzziah, these are the same guy. Remember in the year that Uzziah died, what happened? What happened in the year that King Uzziah died? That's how the words of Isaiah 6 begin. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord.

High and lifted up in his train filled the temple, said Isaiah. That's the year that Isaiah was commissioned to be a prophet and called to be a prophet, the year that Uzziah died. And Uzziah died, Uzziah was a good king, and he reigned for a long time.

In fact, I think he reigned longer than anyone else. I used to think Manasseh had reigned longer, but Manasseh reigned 50 years. I think Uzziah reigned for 52, if I recall correctly.

And he was a good king, but once again, there's a bad thing about him at the end. These guys, once they become powerful, they get proud sometimes. They start out good and humble and fearing God, but then they get full of themselves.

This guy, near the end of his life, he went into the temple and burned incense there as an act of worship to God. Well, that sounds like a good thing, except the king's not allowed to do that. Only the priests are allowed to do that.

The priests rebuked him for doing that, and he got angry at them, and then leprosy broke out on his forehead, and eventually, of course, probably spread to the rest of his body. But he died a leper after that, and that's, and the year he died was when Isaiah was called to be a prophet. That reign of Uzziah slash Azariah is in Chronicles 26.

Moving right along, Chapter 27, the reign of King Jotham. That's also found in 2 Kings 15, verses 32 through 38. Not a very good king, and not a very important one.

There is an additional story in Chronicles about how he defeated the Ammonites and extracted tribute and became mighty, but he was not a good king. Chapter 28, the reign of Ahaz, who's the king that Isaiah confronted in Isaiah Chapter 7 and told him, you know, the Lord himself will give you a sign. The virgin shall conceive and bring forth a son.

And so for the famous virgin birth prophecy was given to King Ahaz. He was a bad king, a very bad king. He even burned his own children to Molech.

We're told that in Chronicles Chapter 28, verses 2 and 3. And there's a story in this chapter that during his time, the Syrians and the northern kingdom of Israel came and invaded and took a lot of Judeans captive. This is in 28, verses 5 through 15. And yet a prophet rebuked the the peak of the Israeli king and he gave the captives back again, sent them home.

Then chapters 29 through 32, and we're getting very near the end now, the reign of Hezekiah, again a very important and good king. He's one of the two very best kings apparently they had. He and Josiah would be in competition for being the best kings of Judah.

Hezekiah, his reign is covered in 2 Kings, chapters 18 through 20. So Kings even gives him a lot of chapters. One of the reasons that he's given a lot of chapters in both books is because something important happened in his time.

In 701, I think it was BC, the Rav Sheikah, the general of the Assyrian troops under Sennacherib, came and besieged Jerusalem. Now the Assyrians had already destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 BC, but had not conquered or even invaded significantly Judah, but came back about 701, I believe it is, if I'm not mistaken, BC, and he attacked Judah and conquered like 40-something Jewish cities and besieged Jerusalem. And Jerusalem would have fallen because there were there were hundreds of thousands of Assyrians surrounding the city.

Hezekiah happened to be the good king in the city and there were people telling him to send for assistance from the Egyptians. And there were some saying you should maybe pay off the Assyrians to go away. But Isaiah the prophet was there in the city.

No, just trust God. Don't look to the Egyptians. Don't look to the Assyrians.

Just trust God. And so Hezekiah prayed just like Jehoshaphat had done back in chapter 20. And an angel of the Lord was sent out who slew 185,000 Assyrians outside the gate.

So they won. They would have been destroyed like the northern kingdom was by the Assyrians, but because they had a good king, Hezekiah, who trusted the Lord, God sent an angel and delivered them. So that's one reason that these chapters are longer.

This story is found not only in Kings and Chronicles, but also in the book of Isaiah. There's a block of maybe three chapters. They're almost verbatim in 2 Kings, in 2 Chronicles, and also in Isaiah.

The story is found in Isaiah chapters 36 and 37. And I think 38 also. But the story is found three times in the Old Testament.

A very important story. A very important king, Hezekiah. Chronicles adds a little bit.

Chapter 29 mentions that he restored the temple and its worship. Chapter 31, I should say chapter 30, describes Hezekiah reinstituting the Passover, which had been neglected before that. And then chapter 31 tells of more of his reforms in detail.

Those are mostly additions in Chronicles. Only a few chapters left. Chapter 33 is the reign of Hezekiah.

This is a tragic story because Manasseh reigned for 50 years. He was the worst king Jew ever had. Very wicked.

Instituted all kinds of idolatry. Burned his own sons in the fire to Molech, the pagan god. And the sad thing, the tragic thing is he should never have been born.

He was the son of Hezekiah. And Hezekiah was without an heir at a time late in his life when he was sick. And Isaiah the prophet came and visited Hezekiah when he was sick and said, get your house in order because you're going to die, not live.

That's such the Lord. Isaiah left the room. Hezekiah turned his face to the wall, started crying out to God saying, God have mercy on me.

Remember I'm a good king. I'm not a bad king. You know, extend my life.

And God told Isaiah, go back and tell him I'm going to give you 15 more years. So Hezekiah was given 15 more years. Tragically, three years after he was healed, he had a son named Manasseh.

And when Hezekiah died, Manasseh was 12 years old. And about the worst conceivable king you could ever hope for. We don't know who would have become king if Hezekiah had died when he was supposed to die.

And maybe it's better to let God decide rather than begging God to change his mind about things. But the truth is, Manasseh was not a good king at all. Very bad king.

And second kings and second chronicles both tell us how terrible the reign of Manasseh was. And later on, when Jerusalem fell, although there had been many kings after Manasseh, it was still the sins of Manasseh that are said to have been the reason that God caused Judah to fall to the Babylonians. He was a bad, bad guy.

However, second chronicles 33 tells us something kings does not, and that Manasseh repented. He actually, and kings doesn't mention this at all, but chronicles tells us that he was taken into captivity, I believe in Syria. And while he was in captivity, he repented.

He humbled himself before God and truly repented. He got released from captivity, went back to Jerusalem, he tore down the idols, he got rid of all, he did the same kinds of reforms his father Hezekiah had done. He tried to restore things that Hezekiah had done and to undo the damage he had done.

The sad thing is, although he seems to have died a faithful man and having made reforms, his son went back to the same old sinful things that he was raised doing under his dad Manasseh. And so we have the reign of Ammon, Manasseh's son is also found here. It's also found in 2 Kings 21.

But he was a bad king like his dad Manasseh. You can take your kids into sin, you can't always bring them out with you again. So better not take them in there in the first place.

Then Ammon, who was a bad king, had a son named Josiah, who also became a king as a boy at age 8. And in chapters 34 and 35, we have the reign of Josiah. Not much we have to say about this, except that he was a good king. It's just that everything that Chronicles tells about him is already found in Kings.

So there's not really unique information about Josiah in the book of Chronicles to speak of, not much. And the main thing is that during Josiah's reign, the law of God had been almost totally forgotten. And Josiah had some repairs being done to the temple, and some of the workmen actually found, a priest found, Hilkiah the priest found a scroll of Deuteronomy.

Now apparently a generation or so, a priest had never seen the law. They didn't even know the law existed. He found it, he read it, he said, whoa, because Deuteronomy talked about all the curses that would come on Israel if they depart from the law.

And here they hadn't even known what the law was for years, and had been violating in a big way, especially in Manasseh's reign, in Ammon's. And Josiah had it read to him, and he tore his clothes in repentance. He said, we need to reform, we're under the curse of God.

So he zealously set about to get rid of all idolatry that his father had sponsored, and to get rid of all the sin, and all the rebellion in the nation. Unfortunately his people didn't follow him. He was a godly king, and externally he reformed things, but the people didn't care.

And when he died, they went back to idolatry, and never returned to the Lord, to the end of their history. Josiah also did something wrong in the end. He lived at a time where Babylon was conquering the Assyrian empire.

And there was a battle of Carchemish, which was a decisive battle, where Nebuchadnezzar defeated the Assyrian troops, and pretty much signaled the rise of Babylon in a serious place. During that battle, Pharaoh Necho, who is obviously of Egypt, went up to fight against Nebuchadnezzar on the side of Assyria. And Josiah didn't want him to for some reason.

And so Josiah took troops out to meet Pharaoh Necho, and stop him. Now before he did, a prophet told Josiah, don't do it, this is not of the Lord, don't do it, you'll die. Josiah went anyway, against the prophet's orders, and died.

So he died in rebellion, not in rebellion against God per se, but in disobedience, certainly to a prophetic word. So every good king has his foibles. Now the last chapter of the book is chapter 36.

And it is the reigns of several kings short-lived. Several of them were sons of Josiah. There was Jehoahaz, who got carried off into Egypt.

He got taken into captivity. There's Jehoiakim, who reigned pretty long, and he's the one who gave a lot of troubles to Jeremiah the prophet. He put Jeremiah the prophet in a pit, and in prison, in a dungeon.

Although he'd come and listen to him once while he never changed his heart. He was the evil king. There's Jehoiakim, which was I think the uncle of Jehoiakim, if I'm not mistaken.

And then after him was Zedekiah. And Zedekiah was the last king. And he reigned for about 11 years, but he started out his reign with a treaty with Babylon.

But he broke the treaty. Babylon came, and they destroyed Jerusalem. Zedekiah himself was captured, along with his sons.

He tried to escape, but they caught him. And the last thing he saw was his sons murdered before his eyes by the Babylonians. Then they poked his eyes out.

So, and he went away blind into captivity into Babylon, having only one thing in his memory of what he'd seen last was the death of his sons. Very tragic. And we have the fall of Jerusalem then described.

So chapter 36 has the reigns of all these evil kings after Josiah's reign. It's very rapidly covered. Not much good, and not much reason to prolong.

Chronicles does not mention the details of Zedekiah's capture or his sons being killed or his eyes being put out. That's in Kings. Also, Chronicles gives sort of a theological interpretation of why Jerusalem fell, basically attributing it to their sins and their rejection of the prophets.

And then at the end, as I mentioned, it just kind of skips over the whole exile to give us Cyrus's decree. And that's the same information that the book of Ezra opens with, which is the next book we'll go through next time we get together. So that's a real brief run through of Chronicles, mainly trying to focus on the things that Chronicles adds.

But I mean, you got to read the book to get the benefit because we didn't read those sections that it adds. And it's really good. I went through Chronicles again just this week, both books, and really enjoyed it, frankly.

I've never... actually, I've studied a little more this week than I'd ever studied before, paid more attention to some things. So it's definitely worth the read and study. All right, so we'll consider that done.

We've gone pretty late, and we will do Ezra next time.