Day 13 – Wednesday -- The Book of First Chronicles

Day 13 – Wednesday

The Book of First Chronicles

The next four books are written by the Chronicler, who could be Ezra. They are: First and Second Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. They were written after the Exile, perhaps around 350 BCE. The two books of Chronicles look back at the history of the Israelites before the Exile and tell the same story that 1 & 2 Kings and 1 & 2 Samuel have told, but from a slightly different point of view.

Want to have some fun? Read the first nine chapters of 1st Chronicles out loud. Names, names, names. If you ever write a short story or a novel and want unique names for your characters, here is where to find them. The Jewish and Christian faiths are not about abstract ideas or impersonal forces. They are personal faiths. God is personal. And she deals with real people. You and me. And David and Machijah and Jahath and Uzzi. That doesn’t mean that God is some Big Person in the sky. But it means that the Source of life and the Wisdom that guides us has a personal dimension that is relational and dialogical. To speak of God as a “person” is to speak of a transcendent personhood beyond our understanding.

Like many people today I have been dabbling in genealogy. I’ve found that I am a distant cousin to Davy Crockett, whose ancestors came from France. My seventh great grandfather was Antoine Desasure Peerronette de Crocketagne, born in 1643 in Montauban, France. The family were Huguenots and fled France for England, then to Ireland before coming to America. When arriving in the U.S. they shortened their name to Crockett.

The nine chapter genealogy is the longest one in the Bible, but other genealogies appear in the Hebrew Scriptures and the Gospels. Connections are important. None is us is a pure individual; we are all part of a larger and longer history of memory, DNA, and geographical movement. Our ancestry both limits us and empowers us. God calls us by name at our baptism. In the garden by the empty tomb, Mary Magdalene did not recognize the transformed Jesus until he said, “Mary.” When God speaks your name, you know who he is and who you are.

David and the temple are central to First Chronicles. Functions and roles are delineated: Levites, priests, gatekeepers, musicians, etc. Whenever you see such organization you know that the writer is from a time somewhere down the road after much development has taken place. This is a much later writing than the stories in Samuel and Kings.

David is the hero. The writer whitewashes him. There is no mention of the Bathsheba incident; no mention of David’s mercenary days with the Philistines; and no mention of his conniving to get rid of Saul.

The very first mention of “Satan” in the Bible is found in First Chronicles 21.1. It says, Satan incited David to take a census of Israel. Pop quiz: who told David to take a census in 2nd Samuel? If you said “God” you are correct. Which poses a problem for believers in Biblical inerrancy. Was it Satan or God? Don’t worry—the believers in the inerrancy of the Bible will find a way to explain the apparent discrepancy. But for the rest of us, placing the blame on Satan rather than God clearly marks a new interpretation of events. The Chronicler has a different theology than the author of 2nd Samuel. Whereas some parts of the Bible see God as the cause of everything, other parts are more squeamish about presenting such a direct cause-and-effect picture wherein the Lord micro-manages every detail of life.

The author of 1 & 2 Chronicles does what we all do. He remembers what he wants to remember, and forgets what he wants to forget. He interprets his past in light of his present interests.

Finish this: What I remember about my life that bothers me is….