Last time, we went further into Chronicles. Now to finish it off.
CHAPTER 29
Now we meet The Hero: Hezekiah. We spend more time on him than any other king in centuries, but
it’s actually pretty boring. Hezekiah
is great because he does what the priests want. And, judging by this chapter, the priests are primarily
interested in their ceremonies and rituals rather than anything else, including
the Children of Israel. Whenever the
focus shifts like this, it leaves me cold.
It’s like the people themselves are a nuisance who just get in the way
of the priestly duties.
This chapter, for instance, is all about the Temple. It’s cleaned up, and brought up to
code. OK, that’s nice – but we get an
entire fucking page-and-a-half long chapter on it. The people? Eh, as long
as they do what the priests say, who cares about them?
CHAPTER 30
The last chapter was on the temple and now this one is on
Passover. Apparently, Hezekiah
celebrates the first great Passover in memory.
It’s interesting, because Hezekiah has couriers go across the land
telling people what should be done and how Passover is to be celebrated – and
many people just deride and scoff at what they’re being told. From the point of view of Hezekiah, he is
recapturing the religion of old. From
the point of view of the people, Hezekiah is invented ritual – and helping to
invent (or at least evolve) a religion.
As a non-believer, I find the second option more likely. That Hezekiah is taken all sorts of ideas
that the priests have floated around for a while, a little bit of old tradition
about unleavened bread, and various other items, and doing something new.
That’s probably overstating things notable. After all, the best evidence is that the J
and E sources have already been written, so the main points are already in
place. But how much had actually been
done? Clearly, some it’s new to some
people. Though, to be fair, it’s
possible that this stuff was done during the days of David and then gradually
evolved away from. I’m actually talking
myself out of my original, more cynical approach, aren’t I?
Well, to be fair, even at the outset of this commentary on
Chapter 30 I noted that Hezekiah believed he was recovering a religion. I’m just repeating myself at this
point. Let’s move on.
CHAPTER 31
This one is titled, “Liturgical reforms” and its really
boring rules and regulations. Yawn.
CHAPTER 32
OK, after three chapters discussing priest-centric religious
reforms, now we get the action – Assyria attacks and Jerusalem prevails. We find out a bit that I don’t recall from
Kings. Apparently, they had all the
wells around Jerusalem shut down, to deprive the Assyrian army of water. Somewhere earlier in the Bible it’s noted
how Jerusalem itself has a nice water delivery system, so that’s the
non-miraculous reason for why the town survives the siege. In Kings II we were told 180,000 Assyrians
died in one night at the hands of an angel and here we’re told the entire
Assyrian army is killed, leaving the general to come back home by himself.
Well that isn’t true.
(I discussed that we have the Assyrian account of this battle back in
Kings II). Clearly, however, this
survival left a big mark on Judea. It’s
the moment they barely survived. (Yet
it wasn’t too big a mark – soon after Hezekiah dies they fall back on bad
habits).
Later on, Hezekiah gets proud and God wants to kill him, but
then Hezekiah learns humility. You
don’t get his wonderful prayer and the heartwarming response here, though, like
you got in Kings.
Still, he dies eventually and things go to hell again.
CHAPTER 33
Hezekiah’s son Manasseh is a lousy king who does evil, even
immolating children. He isn’t the total
monster he was in Kings, though. This
time he converts midway through and removes foreign gods. Interesting – in Kings II his idolatry was
why God decided to destroy Judea once and for all, and here he actually reforms
as he goes along.
But his son Amon rules for a bit and is terrible, leading in
that strange story of him being killed by his staff, and then all Israel rising
up to kill the staff. (But if he was
evil, then why be so upset at his death?)
CHAPTER 34
Hero: Part II: The Josiah Years. Chronicles doesn’t make quite as big a deal over Josiah as Kings
did. It would be hard to be that
extreme, though. After all, Kings had
his reign prophesized by name centuries in advance.
But he’s a reformer.
When Assyria backs off, Josiah begins reforms and then the temple fixing
comes a decade later. (The footnotes
say that this is unlike Kings, which actually has the reforms begin with the
Temple reforms. The footnotes thinks
this is more likely – that the reforms were underway before finding the new
book, whereas Kings has the reforms catch on only after getting the new book.
But they do find the new law once again, and it’s time to
implement the pious fraud of Deuteronomy.
CHAPTER 35
Passover time. This chapter says there has been no Passover
like it since the time of Samuel. Kings
II said it was the first of its kind since the days of the Judges, so same
thing.
Then he dies, fighting what looks like an avoidable war
against the Egyptians.
CHAPTER 36
The last chapters of the two forgettable books of Chronicles
covers a lot of ground. You get the
last four kings, who all suck, and then the Babylonian conquest. Oh, at the very end we’re told that Cyrus
later frees them Hebrew, but this is a stuck-on thing clearly written after
much of the rest. (After all,
repeatedly Chronicles uses the phrase “to the present” which put it as
pre-Babylon.
Also, this chapter is notable for mentioning the prophet
Jeremiah, twice in fact. The last king
of Judah is denounced because, among other things, “he did not humble himself
before Jeremiah the prophet.” We’re
also told that the conquest of Judea fulfilled the word of Jeremiah the
prophet.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
Well, I’ll say this for Chronicles II: it’s better than
Chronicles I. That’s the ultimate in
minor accomplishments, but it’s true.
However wrote this was clearly a priest, as he seemed more interested in
priestly duties than the children of Israel.
He also has zero interest in the northern kingdom, bringing it up only
when he absolutely has to.
But you do get some stuff about some kings. You get more on Hezekiah. You get the first Jeremiah reference. And you get tons of love for
Jehoshaphat.
But in general, the Chronicles are books people only read because they’re trying to plow through the entire Bible.
Click here for the next book: Ezra
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