Writings
דִּבְרֵי הַיָּמִים
Chronicles
The history told again, with different emphases. Comparing it to Samuel and Kings is a study in itself.
One book in the Hebrew reckoning, printed as 1 and 2 Chronicles in most English Bibles.
Read it
Open chapter 1What is in it
It opens with nine chapters of genealogy, which is a real barrier and also a statement: before the story, a list of who counts. Then it retells the monarchy, concentrating on the south and on the temple.
What it leaves out is as informative as what it adds. Setting a chapter beside its parallel in Samuel or Kings shows two communities telling the same past for different reasons.
If you read one chapter
2 Chronicles 20
A king facing an army who responds by admitting he has no idea what to do.
Passages worth knowing
- 1 Chronicles 1 to 9The genealogies, and the question of why they come first.
- 1 Chronicles 21The census, told differently from 2 Samuel 24.
- 2 Chronicles 20:12We know not what to do, but our eyes are upon thee.
- 2 Chronicles 36The ending, which stops on a note of return.
Questions to sit with
- 01
Compare 1 Chronicles 21 with 2 Samuel 24. What changed, and why might it have?
- 02
Why does a history book begin with nine chapters of names?