Reading: 1 Chronicles 1-10, Psalm 65
Hey, nine chapters of genealogy! Aren’t you super excited? Well, maybe you should be. I’m not advocating for reading them in great detail, but it is worth taking a moment to think about why the author of Chronicles would assemble all these lineages are record them at the start of his book.
What is Chronicles? When I was growing up, whenever I read Chronicles it was as a sort of addendum to the books of Samuel and Kings, which told the same stories (more or less) and always seemed like a waste of space. Just recently I started paying a little more attention to the way the book is put together, read a bunch of experts, and realized that this book is extremely different from those of Samuel and Kings. In the traditional ordering of the Hebrew Scriptures it comes at the very end, and it was almost certainly one of the last books written. The Chronicler assumes a pretty complete knowledge of all the other books in the Scriptures. His audience was that remnant community we learned about yesterday in the book of Malachi, and it consciously identifies itself with the Scroll of Remembrance. Chronicles is the output of the faithful remnant of God’s people who listened to the prophets and put all their hope in a coming anointed one- the Messiah. The entire book is structured as an argument that all the declaration of dependence prayers we have read in the Story so far were right- humans have a problem, they are not who they think they are, they need a new heart, God will make all things new, and he will do it through a faithful Servant. The Chronicler sees this as the only hope for his people, and he writes this book to explain why.
As to the arrangement of the book, these genealogies are telling us who the Chronicler is going to focus his story around. He begins with Adam, all the way back to the beginning- this is what the Chronicler sees as The Story of humanity. Then we get a recitation of the history of humanity from Adam to Abraham, and down to the Exodus. Then two families become the focus: the family of David, from the tribe of Judah; and the family of Aaron, from the tribe of Levi. The Chroniclers is going to tell us the story of the Kings and the story of the Priests. He is going to look back over the entire history of the human race and use it as an argument for the need for a new kind of human, the Messiah.
The tenth chapter of Chronicles picks up the story with the death of Saul, the first “king” of Israel. The Chronicler tells us that Saul died for his breach of faith. Earlier, in chapter 9, he told us that Israel went into exile for their breach of faith. The Chronicler looks back at the history of Israel and sees a failure of faithfulness. In many ways this is the theme of the entire book. Every story in Israel’s history, and even in human history, winds up with a breach of faith with God, and results in disaster. No one is faithful. Even the greatest hopes, in the persons of David, Hezekiah, and Josiah are ultimately let downs.