What are the books of 1 and 2 Chronicles all about? 

“And now, Lord, let the promise you have made concerning your servant and his house be established forever. Do as you promised, so that it will be established and that your name will be great forever. Then people will say, ‘The Lord Almighty, the God over Israel, is Israel’s God!’ And the house of your servant David will be established before you.” (1 Chronicles 17:23-24)


Like 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings, the books of 1 and 2 Chronicles hang together as a cohesive unit telling one big story. But they have a very different feel to those former books. A “chronicle” is a detailed factual record of historical events (hence many newspapers having “Chronicle” in their title). But unlike a newspaper this is divinely-inspired and therefore reliable! Let’s take a look at the facts…


What do we need to know to read 1 and 2 Chronicles?

First, we need to notice two things about the books of Chronicles:

1. In the Jewish Bible these books come at the very end. And they (albeit briefly) summarise all of the Old Testament. The first word is “Adam”, and the last paragraph is all about the people’s return from exile in Babylon. But it is also an unfinished book, which even seems to end with an incomplete sentence! This seems to be a deliberate attempt to point people forward: the aim of the book is to look forward to a future fulfilment of prophetic hope, and at the same time to look backward to see the grounds of that prophetic hope.
2. While 1 and 2 Kings split its story back and forth between the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah (albeit with more emphasis on Israel), 1 and 2 Chronicles focuses entirely on Judah – because the kings of Judah were in the line of David.

1 Chronicles

1 Chronicles falls into 2 sections. The first (chapters 1-9) is chock-full of genealogies. If you’re doing a Bible-in-a-year plan and you’ve made it through Leviticus and Numbers, then you’ll be feeling pretty confident until you grind to a halt in these chapters! Nevertheless they play a crucial role in the purpose of the book. In chapters 1-3 the chronicler traces the kingly line of David all the way from Adam, through Judah, down to David and beyond – even past the end of the exile. This lays the groundwork for an emphasis over the rest of the 2 books on the promised Messianic King (from the line of David). While chapters 4-9 largely give very brief genealogical overviews of the other tribes, and a slightly more extended genealogy of king Saul, the largest and most complete of these is the Levites – the priestly tribe – and especially the descendants of Aaron. This lays the groundwork for the other part of the prophetic hope: that the Messianic King will restore the temple and bring people back under God’s loving rule.
After this background, 1 Chronicles 10-29 detail the life of King David. The chronicler doesn’t go back over the hard times in David’s life (when he was on the run from Saul; when he committed adultery and murder, and the subsequent disintegration of his family). Instead it focuses on the positive, and especially how David made detailed preparations for the building of the temple. This is not meant to be a “whitewashed” version of Old Testament history, but simply a focus on those parts of the history that particularly strengthen our hope in a coming Messiah.

2 Chronicles

This emphasis continues on into 2 Chronicles. Here we get a series of pen portraits of various kings of Judah starting with Solomon. His story takes up chapters 1-9, although the majority of that details his building and dedicating of the temple (see that theme again?) After Solomon dies we have potted histories of Rehoboam, Abijah, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, Ahaziah, Joash, Amaziah, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amon and Josiah (chapters 10-35). These kings are generally given more detailed histories than we find in 2 Kings, including additional material on the good works of the good kings, and the evil works of the bad kings (including their come-uppance!) The final chapter covers a lot of history very quickly: very brief notes on the final four kings of Judah (Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin and Zedekiah), the exile to Babylon, and the edict of king Cyrus 70 years later allowing them to return.

So what?

As mentioned above, the book comes to us in a (probably deliberately) unfinished state, encouraging readers to look forward to future fulfilment of those promises left “hanging” at the close of the Old Testament. When Mark Dever (American pastor and author) set out to write a book with a chapter on each book of the Old Testament, he called it, The Message of the Old Testament: Promises Made. His follow-up volume was called, The Message of the New Testament: Promises Kept. That is certainly the message of 1 and 2 Chronicles! Wonderfully we do find the fulfilment of the Messianic promises when we turn over to the New Testament. The kingly genealogy left unfinished in 1 Chronicles 3 is completed in Matthew 1, all the way down to King Jesus. And as Jesus’ story unfolds we find out that He isn’t just the true King; He has come to be the true Temple as well! (See especially John 2:13-22). As the apostle Paul wrote later in 2 Corinthians 2:20, ‘…no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.’
So we read 1 and 2 Chronicles as a history of God’s faithfulness to His people, and His promises of future faithfulness. And as New Testament Christians we can read these books as the first half of a story to which we already know the wonderful happy ending – praise God!