This commanded Passover had not been celebrated since the days that the judges judged Israel—none of the kings of Israel and Judah had celebrated it. But in the eighteenth year of the rule of King Josiah this very Passover was celebrated to GOD in Jerusalem.
Josiah scrubbed the place clean and trashed spirit-mediums, sorcerers, domestic gods, and carved figures—all the vast accumulation of foul and obscene relics and images on display everywhere you looked in Judah and Jerusalem. Josiah did this in obedience to the words of GOD’s Revelation written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in The Temple of GOD.
There was no king to compare with Josiah—neither before nor after—a king who turned in total and repentant obedience to GOD, heart and mind and strength, following the instructions revealed to and written by Moses. The world would never again see a king like Josiah.
But despite Josiah, GOD’s hot anger did not cool; the raging anger ignited by Manasseh burned unchecked. And GOD, not swerving in his judgment, gave sentence: “I’ll remove Judah from my presence in the same way I removed Israel. I’ll turn my back on this city, Jerusalem, that I chose, and even from this Temple of which I said, ‘My Name lives here.’ ”
The rest of the life and times of Josiah is written in
The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah
. Josiah’s death came about when Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt marched out to join forces with the king of Assyria at the Euphrates River. When King Josiah intercepted him at the Plain of Megiddo, Neco killed him. Josiah’s servants took his body in a chariot, returned him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own tomb. By popular choice Jehoahaz son of Josiah was anointed and succeeded his father as king.
Jehoahaz of Judah
Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to rule. He was king in Jerusalem for a mere three months. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah. She came from Libnah.
In GOD’s opinion, he was an evil king, reverting to the evil ways of his ancestors.
Pharaoh Neco captured Jehoahaz at Riblah in the country of Hamath and put him in chains, preventing him from ruling in Jerusalem. He demanded that Judah pay tribute of nearly four tons of silver and seventy-five pounds of gold. Then Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim son of Josiah the successor to Josiah, but changed his name to Jehoiakim. Jehoahaz was carted off to Egypt and eventually died there.
Meanwhile Jehoiakim, like a good puppet, dutifully paid out the silver and gold demanded by Pharaoh. He scraped up the money by gouging the people, making everyone pay an assessed tax.
Jehoiakim of Judah
Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he began to rule; he was king for eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zebidah daughter of Pedaiah. She had come from Rumah. In GOD’s opinion he was an evil king, picking up on the evil ways of his ancestors.
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It was during his reign that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon invaded the country. Jehoiakim became his puppet. But after three years he had had enough and revolted.
GOD dispatched a succession of raiding bands against him: Babylonian, Aramean, Moabite, and Ammonite. The strategy was to destroy Judah. Through the preaching of his servants and prophets, GOD had said he would do this, and now he was doing it. None of this was by chance—it was GOD’s judgment as he turned his back on Judah because of the enormity of the sins of Manasseh—Manasseh, the killer-king, who made the Jerusalem streets flow with the innocent blood of his victims. GOD wasn’t about to overlook such crimes.
The rest of the life and times of Jehoiakim is written in
The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah
. Jehoiakim died and was buried with his ancestors. His son Jehoiachin became the next king.
The threat from Egypt was now over—no more invasions by the king of Egypt—for by this time the king of Babylon had captured all the land between the Brook of Egypt and the Euphrates River, land formerly controlled by the king of Egypt.
Jehoiachin of Judah
Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king. His rule in Jerusalem lasted only three months. His mother’s name was Nehushta daughter of Elnathan; she was from Jerusalem. In GOD’s opinion he also was an evil king, no different from his father.
The next thing to happen was that the officers of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon attacked Jerusalem and put it under siege. While his officers were laying siege to the city, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon paid a personal visit. And Jehoiachin king of Judah, along with his mother, officers, advisors, and government leaders, surrendered.
In the eighth year of his reign Jehoiachin was taken prisoner by the king of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar emptied the treasuries of both The Temple of GOD and the royal palace and confiscated all the gold furnishings that Solomon king of Israel had made for The Temple of GOD. This should have been no surprise—GOD had said it would happen. And then he emptied Jerusalem of people—all its leaders and soldiers, all its craftsmen and artisans. He took them into exile, something like ten thousand of them! The only ones he left were the very poor.
He took Jehoiachin into exile to Babylon. With him he took the king’s mother, his wives, his chief officers, the community leaders, anyone who was anybody—in round numbers, seven thousand soldiers plus another thousand or so craftsmen and artisans, all herded off into exile in Babylon.
Then the king of Babylon made Jehoiachin’s uncle, Mattaniah, his puppet king, but changed his name to Zedekiah.
Zedekiah of Judah
Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he started out as king. He was king in Jerusalem for eleven years. His mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah. Her hometown was Libnah.
As far as GOD was concerned Zedekiah was just one more evil king, a carbon copy of Jehoiakim.
The source of all this doom to Jerusalem and Judah was GOD’s anger—GOD turned his back on them as an act of judgment. And then Zedekiah revolted against the king of Babylon.
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The revolt dates from the ninth year and tenth month of Zedekiah’s reign. Nebuchadnezzar set out for Jerusalem immediately with a full army He set up camp and sealed off the city by building siege mounds around it. The city was under siege for nineteen months (until the eleventh year of Zedekiah). By the fourth month of Zedekiah’s eleventh year, on the ninth day of the month, the famine was so bad that there wasn’t so much as a crumb of bread for anyone. Then there was a breakthrough. At night, under cover of darkness, the entire army escaped through an opening in the wall (it was the gate between the two walls above the King’s Garden). They slipped through the lines of the Babylonians who surrounded the city and headed for the Jordan on the Arabah Valley road. But the Babylonians were in pursuit of the king and they caught up with him in the Plains of Jericho. By then Zedekiah’s army had deserted and was scattered. The Babylonians took Zedekiah prisoner and marched him off to the king of Babylon at Riblah, then tried and sentenced him on the spot. Zedekiah’s sons were executed right before his eyes; the summary murder of his sons was the last thing he saw, for they then blinded him. Securely handcuffed, he was hauled off to Babylon.
In the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, on the seventh day of the fifth month, Nebuzaradan, the king of Babylon’s chief deputy, arrived in Jerusalem. He burned The Temple of GOD to the ground, went on to the royal palace, and then finished off the city—burned the whole place down. He put the Babylonian troops he had with him to work knocking down the city walls. Finally, he rounded up everyone left in the city, including those who had earlier deserted to the king of Babylon, and took them off into exile. He left a few poor dirt farmers behind to tend the vineyards and what was left of the fields.
The Babylonians broke up the bronze pillars, the bronze washstands, and the huge bronze basin (the Sea) that were in The Temple of GOD and hauled the bronze off to Babylon. They also took the various bronze-crafted liturgical accessories used in the services of Temple worship, as well as the gold and silver censers and sprinkling bowls. The king’s deputy didn’t miss a thing—he took every scrap of precious metal he could find.
The amount of bronze they got from the two pillars, the Sea, and all the washstands that Solomon had made for The Temple of GOD was enormous—they couldn’t weigh it all! Each pillar stood twenty-seven feet high, plus another four and a half feet for an ornate capital of bronze filigree and decorative fruit.
The king’s deputy took a number of special prisoners: Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the associate priest, three wardens, the chief remaining army officer, five of the king’s counselors, the accountant, the chief recruiting officer for the army, and sixty men of standing from among the people. Nebuzaradan the king’s deputy marched them all off to the king of Babylon at Riblah. And there at Riblah, in the land of Hamath, the king of Babylon killed the lot of them in cold blood.
Judah went into exile, orphaned from her land.
Regarding the common people who were left behind in Judah, this: Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, as their governor. When veteran army officers among the people heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah, they came to Gedaliah at Mizpah. Among them were Ishmael son of Nethaniah, Johanan son of Kareah, Seraiah son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, Jaazaniah the son of the Maacathite, and some of their followers.
Gedaliah assured the officers and their men, giving them his word, “Don’t be afraid of the Babylonian officials. Go back to your farms and families and respect the king of Babylon. Trust me, everything is going to be all right.”
Some time later—it was in the seventh month—Ishmael son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama (he had royal blood in him), came back with ten men and killed Gedaliah, the traitor Jews, and the Babylonian officials who were stationed at Mizpah—a bloody massacre.
But then, afraid of what the Babylonians would do, they all took off for Egypt, leaders and people, small and great.
When Jehoiachin king of Judah had been in exile for thirty-seven years, Evil-Merodach became king in Babylon and let Jehoiachin out of prison. This release took place on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month. The king treated him most courteously and gave him preferential treatment beyond anything experienced by the other political prisoners held in Babylon. Jehoiachin took off his prison garb and for the rest of his life ate his meals in company with the king. The king provided everything he needed to live comfortably.
INTRODUCTION 01//02CHRONICLES
There is always more than one way to tell a story. The story of Israel’s kings is first narrated in the books of Samuel and Kings. Here is another telling of the same story, a hundred or so years later, by another voice and from another perspective: Chronicles.
Some of the earlier narrative is omitted and there are substantial additions but it is recognizably the same story. But Israel’s fortunes have changed considerably since the earlier authoritative writing (Genesis through Kings); God’s people are in danger of losing touch with what made them God’s people in the first place.
In retrospect, from the low point in their history in which they now find themselves, it looks very much like a succession of world powers; Assyria and Egypt, Babylon and Persia, have been calling all the shots. The People of Israel are swamped by alien influences; they are also, it seems, mired in internal religious pettiness; will they be obliterated?
A new writer (it may have been Ezra) took it in hand to tell the old and by now familiar story but with a new slant. His task was to recover and restore Israel’s confidence and obedience as God’s people. Remarkably—and improbably, considering the political and cultural conditions of the time—this writer insisted, with very little “hometown” support, on the core identity of Israel as a worshiping people in the Davidic tradition. And he did it all by writing the book you are about to read. Israel did not finally disappear into the ancient Near East melting pot of violence and sex and religion.
Names launch this story, hundreds and hundreds of names, lists of names, page after page of names,
personal
names. There is no true storytelling without names, and this immersion in names calls attention to the individual, the unique, the personal, which is inherent in all spirituality. Name lists (genealogies) occur in other places in Scripture (Genesis, Numbers, Matthew, Luke) but none as extravagantly copious as here. Holy history is not constructed from impersonal forces or abstract ideas; it is woven from names—persons, each one unique. Chronicles erects a solid defense against depersonalized religion.
And Chronicles provides a witness to the essential and primary place of accurate worship in human life. The narrative backbone of Chronicles is worship—the place of worship (the Jerusalem Temple), the ministers of worship (the priests and Levites), the musical components of worship (both vocal and instrumental), and the authoritative role of King David, the master of worship, who maintains faithfulness and integrity in worship.
In the way this story of Israel’s past is told, nothing takes precedence over worship in nurturing and protecting our identity as a people of God—not politics, not economics, not family life, not art. And nothing in the preparation for and conduct of worship is too small to be left to whim or chance—nothing in architecture, personnel, music, or theology.
Earlier threats to Israel’s identity and survival as a people of God frequently came in the form of hostile outsiders—Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines, Amalekites, and others; but in this assessment of what matters, right and faithful worship turns out to be what counts most of all. The people of God are not primarily a political entity or a military force or an economic power; they are a holy congregation diligent in worship. To lose touch with the Davidic (and Moses-based) life of worship is to disintegrate as a holy people. To be seduced by the popular pagan worship of the surrounding culture is to be obliterated as a holy people.
Not many readers of this text will find their names in the lists of names in this book. Few worshiping congregations will recognize architectural continuities between The Temple and their local church sanctuaries. Not many communities have access to a pool of Levites from which to recruit choirs and appoint leaders of worship. So, what’s left?
Well, worship is left—and names. Accurate worship, defined and fed by the God who reveals himself in Jesus Christ. And personal names that add up to a people of God, a holy congregation. Christians have characteristically read and prayed themselves into Chronicles in order to stay alert to the irreducibly personal in all matters of faith and practice, and to maintain a critical awareness that the worship of God is the indispensable foundation for living whole and redeemed lives.
From:
His passion for the minutia of worship suggests that the author was a priest (perhaps Ezra). He made the harrowing journey from Babylon back to the rubble of Jerusalem with the dream of rebuilding its temple and worshiping God in the ancient ways.
To:
The Persians who now ruled the Middle East let a few thousand Jews return to their burned-out land to rebuild whatever they could. They could barely feed their families, and the Persians were still in charge, so if their identity depended on economic or political power, they were nothing. They could, however, build a modest temple and center their lives on worship of God and kinship with one another. The culture around them said heritage meant nothing—all that mattered was making a living now—but they clung to the conviction that they were part of a story that reached back into the past, lived in the present, and promised a future.
Re:
About 1000-586 B.C. Of the sixteen prophets who wrote books of the Bible, 1-2 Chronicles mentions Isaiah and Jeremiah.
In far away China, worship mirrored that society’s human relationships. The rulers of the Zhou Dynasty set up a feudal system in which families owed loyalty to nobles and nobles owed loyalty to the rulers. They banned human sacrifice and emphasized the worship of the sun and stars. Some of the popular gods from the previous dynasty remained as lesser gods, serving as the heaven-god’s feudal nobles.