Week 19 II Chronicles
I mark my weekly reading schedule in black marker on a desk calendar.
On May 1 I wrote: Week 19 II Chron.
Then for weeks 20 & 21 I brace-bracketed: Ezra Neh Esth.
One book in one week; three books in two. A rough calculation.
Today I found out how rough. II Chronicles is 50-pages long, and Ezra-Nehemiah-Esther only 48. 50-pages in one week. 48 in two. So I made a mistake.
Anyway – now that I’ve prematurely finished II Chronicles – I look back at three last things…
First: I like Chronicles more than Kings because the chronicler focuses on Judah. Kings is a kind of unhinged hop-scotch ricocheting from North-to-South, so it’s a tougher-read.
Secondly: on May 3 I wondered about the chronicler’s positive story of David & Solomon, and made a mental note to see if all the kings of Judah got star treatment. Turns out they don’t. Asa, Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, Joash, Amaziah, Uzziah, Ahaz – all of them failed in big or small ways. So it looks to me like only David & Solomon were treated as exemplary kings.
Thirdly, even though civil war had split the tribes ten-to-two the chronicler shows that some Northerners stayed true to the original faith. On May 5 I noticed the chronicler’s interest in the faithful-north. Another example from later in the book is Hezekiah sending couriers north to invite Israel to a big Passover in Jerusalem. So political borders and tribal loyalties were very important, and faith was too.
Note: the Hezekiah story is in II Chronicles 30.