I-II Chronicles has a lot of information about the kings of Judah (especially the righteous ones) that is not in Kings, and I wonder if the author included it to support what I saw as the primary storyline in all five of these books, which is that God used godly leaders to preserve a faithful remnant of His people. These leaders took active steps to disseminate God’s word, call the people to repentance, organize God-honoring worship, provide for the needs of those called into full-time ministry, and literally protect the lives of God’s people. Most of all, they modeled what they encouraged in the people: repentance, obedience and trust in God. A personal application for me is that when God gives me leadership or influence (even if it’s unexpected, as it surely was for Esther), I must actively promote and model faith and obedience. A second thing I noticed in all the books except Esther was the abundance of genealogies, with a couple of them repeated. Even though I find them boring, I can see how they would be incredibly important to the Jewish remnant as a means of establishing their identity as the people of God.
(This was a seminary class assignment originally dated October 12, 2006. For an introduction and table of contents for this series, see New Series: Old Testament Reading Journal)
