This is what the Lord says: “Because you have obeyed me and have not withheld even your son, your only son, I swear by my own name that I will certainly bless you. I will multiply your descendants beyond number, like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will conquer the cities of their enemies. And through your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed—all because you have obeyed me. [Genesis 22:16-18 (NLT)]
When reading the Bible in canonical order (the order the books are placed in the Bible), the two books of Chronicles seem to be a repeat of the books of Samuel and Kings. When reading the Bible in historical order, with the text arranged in the order in which the events occurred, it becomes evident that their authors didn’t relate identical events the same way. After finishing the last chapter of 2 Chronicles (in which Cyrus allowed the Judeans to go home) in my chronological Bible, I went on to portions of Ezra, Haggai, Zechariah, and Daniel. Following Daniel 6, however, I found myself at 1 Chronicles, chapters 1 through 9 consisting of nine chapters of Israelite genealogy beginning with Adam and continuing on with at least 900 more names. Wondering at its placement and the differences between Kings and Chronicles, I did a little digging.
The books of Kings and Chronicles were written at different times, for different audiences, and for different reasons. Because Kings ends with the release Judah’s King Johoiachin from prison during the reign of Babylon’s Evil-Merodach (562-560 BC), scholars think it was written during the early years of the exile and completed around 560 BC. Chronicles, however, ends more than thirty years later at the conclusion of Judah’s exile. Because several generations of Zerubbabel’s descendants are in its genealogy, scholars think it was written around 450 to 430 BC and possibly as late as 400 BC. Kings seems to have been written for Judah’s exiles in captivity while Chronicles was written for the exiles who returned to their homeland—many of whom, like Zerubbabel, were born in captivity.
Kings presents a distinctly negative view of both the northern and southern kingdoms’ kings. All nineteen of Israel’s kings and twelve of Judah’s twenty kings are portrayed as bad. Moreover, any faults of Judah’s eight good kings (such as their failure to destroy the pagan shrines and David’s adultery with Bathsheba) are mentioned. Written for the exiles, King records the failures of both kingdoms’ earthly kings, their blatant disregard for the law, their rejection of God’s prophets, and their idolatry. Its negative narrative clearly explains why the Jews ended up in captivity with their homeland in ruins. It provided an answer to the exiles’ question of, “How did we get here?”
As for those nine chapters of genealogy in the Chronicles—they answered the returning exiles’ question of, “How is this history relevant to me?” It connected the people, most of whom had never lived in Judah or worshipped at the Temple, with God’s divine plan—a plan that began with Adam and continued through His covenant promises made to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David.
Since the returning exiles’ families originally came from Judah, the Chronicler concentrated on the southern kingdom and mentioned the northern one only if relevant to Judah’s story. While he didn’t exactly rewrite history, the Chronicler accentuated the positive and eliminated some of the negative by not mentioning things like the seven years of warfare between Saul’s death and David becoming king of “all Israel” or Absalom’s rebellion. Its genealogy and more positive take on Judah’s history provided this new generation with a more optimistic and hopeful outlook as they rebuilt their nation and looked forward to the coming Messiah.
When writing about mimicry yesterday, I thought of Esther and her cousin Mordecai. The book of Esther takes place between 483 and 473 BC but the story began about 120 years earlier when Mordecai’s great-grandfather was in the second group of Jews deported from Jerusalem to Babylon. Rather than treating these deportees as captives or slaves, they were more like immigrants. Although they were given new Babylonian names, the were allowed to keep their God as long as they also worshipped the Babylonian ones. After Babylon fell to Persia in 539 BC, the first Jewish exiles returned to Jerusalem the following year. Perhaps because they’d become comfortable in their new homeland or feared the challenge of rebuilding Jerusalem, like many others, Mordecai and Esther’s family did not return.
Even though they have their own unique song, northern mockingbirds usually incorporate the songs of other birds into theirs. With their ability to sound like jays, thrashers, hawks, orioles, and robins (along with car alarms and frogs), rather than sounding like themselves, these masters of mimicry can sound like what they’ve heard.
It wasn’t Hagar’s fault; she really had no choice in the matter. It was the barren Sarah who offered her maidservant Hagar to Abraham like a brood mare to a stallion to provide him with an heir. Having been used by both mistress and master, Scripture tells us that Hagar began to treat Sarah with disdain once she became pregnant. Rather than accept her part in the tense situation, Sarah blamed her husband, grew jealous of her maid, and treated the girl harshly. Sarah wasn’t just unpleasant to her servant. The Hebrew word used was anah, meaning oppressed or afflicted; it is the same word used to describe the way Egypt’s taskmasters treated their Israelite slaves. In short, Sarah wasn’t just stern, she was vindictive and cruel. Since Abraham had washed his hands of the matter, Hagar saw no reprieve. Wanting to escape her merciless mistress and the household turmoil, Hagar did what many of us do when faced with difficult and seemingly impossible circumstances—she fled.
Back in his college days, my husband and several friends were on a lonely stretch of road in what seemed the middle of nowhere when they stopped for a red light. Although the average red light lasts from 90 to 120 seconds, that seemed like an eternity to the impatient driver. After looking around and seeing no other cars, he proceeded through the intersection. There was, however, one other vehicle nearby—and it was a police car! Although that driver’s impatience cost him time and money, other drivers’ impatience can take lives! A typical commuter train, for example, usually passes through an intersection in two to three minutes. But, when we lived in Illinois, at least one or two impatient drivers tried (and failed) to beat the local commuter train across the tracks every year.
Whenever I saw the swamped canoe at the swamp/bird sanctuary, I remembered the old aluminum canoe we had at our cottage. Because it remained down at the lakefront all year long, the canoe served as winter home to the chipmunks and mice. After decades of rodents taking refuge there, the critters eventually chewed up all the foam flotation blocks in both ends of the craft. Since a boat will float only as long as it weighs less than the maximum amount of water it displaces, those empty chambers didn’t affect the canoe if it remained upright and relatively dry. But, if the craft capsized, its empty chambers would rapidly fill with water and, with the extra weight, sink. Knowing how easily the canoe could sink made us extra cautious—it was used only when the water was calm, no one deliberately tipped it, and lifejackets were required.
Devotions of the Heart 