Week 50, December 7–13: 2 Chronicles 16–36

• Sun      Dec 7               2 Chron. 16–18
• Mon     Dec 8               2 Chron. 19–21
• Tue      Dec 9               2 Chron. 22–24
• Wed     Dec 10             2 Chron. 25–27
• Thu      Dec 11             2 Chron. 28–30
• Fri        Dec 12             2 Chron. 31–33
• Sat       Dec 13             2 Chron. 34–36

Circumstances in Judah continue to decline as we reach the end of 2 Chronicles. Remember, this account parallels the account in 1–2 Kings but with a few significant differences, and these differences contribute significantly to the distinct message of 1–2 Chronicles. The focus of Chronicles has been on the southern kingdom of Judah, which includes the tribe of Benjamin. The northern kingdom of Israel was made up of the other ten tribes and often referred to throughout the OT as Ephraim, because Ephraim is the most prominent tribe in the northern kingdom. Israel/Ephraim is really only mentioned in Chronicles when the Judahite king or kingdom has interactions with Israel and its kings, either in alliance or in conflict with one another.

The theme that runs through the whole book, and indeed the whole OT, is the decline of God’s people and their departure from faithfulness to the Lord. Along with this negative theme, however, we can also trace a thread of hope through these books, and this hope rests on the expectation of a king from Judah and, more specifically, from the line of David. God has made an irrevocable covenant promise to David that one of his descendants will reign on an eternal throne (2 Sam. 7:1–17; 1 Chr. 17:1–15). Members of the royal line of David remember this promise, and we are meant to have it in our minds too as we read along.

As kings come and go in Judah, each king’s reign is marked by their actions and their devotion to the Lord or their sin against him. Early in our reading for this week, Jehoshaphat is an example of one of the kings who, generally speaking, followed the Lord and his ways. It says of Jehoshaphat that the Lord was with him, “because he walked in the earlier ways of his father David. He did not seek the Baals, but sought the God of his father and walked in his commandments, and not according to the practices of Israel. Therefore the Lord established the kingdom in his hand.” (2 Chr. 17:3–5a)

Later, after being reprimanded by Jehu for allying with Ahab, the wicked king of Israel, Jehoshaphat takes further steps to lead Judah in repentance and in following after the Lord (19–1–11). As he is making these reforms, several enemy nations mount an attack on Judah (20:1–2). Jehoshaphat’s prayer in response to this dire situation is exemplary and worth looking to as a model for our own prayers. With Judah assembled before him, he stands in the assembly and prays this prayer.

“O LORD, God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. In your hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand you. Did you not, our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel, and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend? And they have lived in it and have built for you in it a sanctuary for your name, saying, ‘If disaster comes upon us, the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we will stand before this house and before you—for your name is in this house—and cry out to you in our affliction, and you will hear and save.’ And now behold, the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir, whom you would not let Israel invade when they came from the land of Egypt, and whom they avoided and did not destroy— behold, they reward us by coming to drive us out of your possession, which you have given us to inherit. O our God, will you not execute judgment on them? For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.” (2 Chron. 20:6–12) 

He begins by simply praising God and extolling him for who he is. When we pray like this, when we worship God with our words and with our hearts, we are not telling him something about himself that he does not already know. Instead, we are declaring the true reality of his worthiness of praise and we are giving him the credit he deserves. In our praises we proclaim the Lord’s praiseworthy character to our own hearts and minds and to all those within the hearing of our words.

After extolling God’s virtues and greatness, king Jehoshaphat recounts the Lord’s goodness to his people, the descendants of Abraham. He moves from more general statements of God’s praiseworthy attributes to specific statements of God’s kind and powerful acts on behalf of his people. Then, only after these several lines of praise does he cry out and petition the Lord to help them against the enemy hoard they are facing. The last line is a wonderful and true confession, and we would do well to repeat it often in our own prayers.

“We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.” (2 Chron. 20:12)

Unfortunately, there is a negative turn at the end of Jehoshaphat’s life. As is often the case with these kings, he is enticed to join those who are wicked—in this case it is the Israelite king Ahaziah (20:35–37). This pattern repeats itself throughout these final chapters of 2 Chronicles, such that the clear takeaway for us as readers is that, when Judah’s kings rely on the Lord and follow him, he blesses their faithfulness and gives them success against their enemies; but when they do not trust the Lord and they join with wicked kings or nations, and align with their false gods, the Lord’s righteous judgement comes against Judah and they suffer defeat and disease.

By then end of 2 Chronicles, the state of affairs in Judah has finally declined to the point where the ultimate consequence ensues. Like their estranged sister nation Israel, Judah is wiped out and brought into exile. The Babylonian army comes against Judah and brings their king and the Davidic heir, Jehoiakim, to Babylon as a prisoner of war (36:5–7). Then the Babylonians destroy the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem (v. 19).

This would be the tragic end to the story were it not for God’s promises and the final paragraph of 2 Chronicles. This is perhaps the most important passage in the whole book. The author concludes the account of Judah’s history as a nation and its eventual demise by jumping ahead to the time after the Babylonian empire, when it was supplanted by the great Persian empire. The Persian king Cyrus issues a decree in which he recognizes the Lord as the God in heaven and acknowledges the Lord’s charge to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. Cyrus issues an edict to any among his kingdom of the exiled Judahites to return to Jerusalem (36:22–23).

“Whoever is among you of all his people, may the Lord his God be with him. Let him go up.” (2 Chron. 36:23)

This is a bit of a cliff-hanger ending to the book, and abrupt ending that wants resolution. Who is going to go up and rebuild the Lord’s house? Who will reign on the Davidic throne God promised would be an eternal throne over an everlasting kingdom? In our English Bible order, Ezra follows right after this with an apparent attempt to resolve the tension. Ezra begins with a repetition of Cyrus’s edict and adds more to smooth over the unresolved ending of the edict in Chronicles. Then Ezra-Nehemiah tells the story of the first attempt to “go up” and rebuild. But, as we have seen, those efforts under Ezra and Nehemiah’s leadership were not ultimately successful.

Chronicles is the last book in the Hebrew Bible canonical order, and Cyrus’s edict is the last thing we read. This abrupt ending might be intentional. The point is to leave readers looking forward to the resolution that had not come. It leaves us wanting to turn the page. And for us now, this means turning the page to Matthew and the rest of the NT, where we read of the Davidic heir who did go up to Jerusalem, who built a different kind of temple, and who reigns on the eternal throne of God’s everlasting kingdom.