The Kingdom of God as Liturgical Empire

A Theological Commentary on 1-2 Chronicles

Hahn, Scott W.

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781441236302
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

Bestselling author and theologian Scott Hahn views the author of Chronicles as the first biblical theologian. Chronicles offers the first attempt to understand and interpret the entire sweep of Old Testament history from the creation of the world to the Israelites' return from exile. This commentary presents 1-2 Chronicles as a liturgical and theological interpretation of Israel's history. Hahn emphasizes the liturgical structure and content of Chronicles and provides fresh insight on salvation history: past, present, and future. He also shows how Chronicles provides important insights into key New Testament concepts. The book gives professors, students, and pastors a better understanding of Chronicles, salvation history, and theological interpretation of the Old Testament.

1 Chronicles

1

Chronicle of All Divine History

A Genealogy of Grace in a Time of Exile and Restoration (1 Chr. 1–9)

Major Divisions of the Text

1. Line of descent from Adam to Israel (1:1–2:2)

2. Tribes of Israel: Royal line of Judah (2:3–4:23)

Royal family of David (3:1–24)

3. Tribes of Israel: Simeon (4:24–43)

4. Tribes of Israel: Transjordanian tribes (5:1–26)

Reuben (5:1–10)

Gad (5:11–22)

Half-tribe of Manasseh (5:23–26)

5. Tribes of Israel: Priestly line of Levi (6:1–81)

High-priestly line of Aaron (6:1–15)

Genealogy of the Levites (6:16–30)

Genealogy of the Levitical musicians (6:31–48)

Duties of the Aaronic high priests (6:49–53)

Settlements of the Levites (6:54–81)

6. Tribes of Israel: West Jordan tribes (7:1–40)

Issachar (7:1–5)

Benjamin (7:6–12a)

Dan (7:12b)

Naphtali (7:13)

Half-tribe of Manasseh (7:14–19)

Ephraim (7:20–29)

Asher (7:30–40)

7. Tribes of Israel: Benjamin (8:1–40)

Sons of Benjamin (8:1–28)

Genealogy of Saul, first king of Israel (8:29–40)

8. First community restored at Jerusalem after the exile (9:1–34)

Towns resettled (9:2)

Lay population (9:3–9)

Priestly population (9:10–13)

Levitical population (9:14–16)

Gatekeepers in Jerusalem (9:17–32)

Musicians in Jerusalem (9:33–34)

9. Genealogy of Saul, Israel’s first king, repeated (9:35–44)

Synopsis of the Text

The Chronicler begins his work with a long list of the ancestry of Israel, which he traces back to Adam, considered by Israel’s scriptural tradition to be the primordial human. The listing is deceptively simple and initially may not make for compelling reading. Closer scrutiny, however, reveals that this genealogical prologue contains a wealth of insights into the Chronicler’s motives and concerns. In these initial lists we see the Chronicler’s covenantal understanding of history as he traces Israel’s heritage through individuals who spoke with God and entered into covenant with him—Adam, Noah, Abraham, and finally David. As a work of historical memory, the genealogies focus attention on the royal tribe of Judah and the priestly tribe of Levi, while establishing Jerusalem and the temple as the geographical and cultic locus of concern. Israel’s national history is outlined from the creation of the world, focusing on the divine oath sworn to Abraham and its progressive fulfillment: first in Israel’s establishment as a nation in the exodus and later as an imperial kingdom under David and his son Solomon. These initial genealogies extend into the present for the Chronicler’s first audience, tracing the lines of descent through the division and eventual collapse of the kingdom, the people’s exile, and the beginnings of their restoration in Jerusalem.

Theological Exegesis and Commentary

The Genesis of Election and Mission

In the Aramaic paraphrase, the Targum on Chronicles, the work is titled “the book of the genealogies, the Chronicles from earliest times.” In the Babylonian Talmud it is also called “the book of the genealogies” (Pesaḥim 62b). The genealogies that begin Chronicles distinguish the work both within the Bible and among historical writings in the wider Mediterranean world. By some scholarly estimates, genealogies and other lists make up roughly one-quarter of the Chronicler’s work (Knoppers 2004: 1.251–52).

These genealogies are integral to the Chronicler’s intentions, functioning as a kind of overture to the work, sounding the author’s worldview and intentions and establishing narrative patterns that will continue throughout—law, liturgy, covenant, kingdom, temple, sin, and redemption—all set in the context of an understanding of Israel as the firstborn among the nations, with a divinely given royal and priestly mission to the other nations of the world.

The genealogies culminate in the experience of exile and return, a seventy-year period expressed with the Chronicler’s characteristically compact understatement: “And Judah was taken into exile in Babylon because of their unfaithfulness. Now the first to dwell again in their possessions in their cities were Israel, the priests, the Levites, and the temple servants” (1 Chr. 9:1–2).

As the exile and return mark the culmination of the Chronicler’s genealogies, they also mark the culmination of his entire work. In the poignant expression “to dwell again” is expressed all of the Chronicler’s hope. This hope is both historical and eschatological. For the Chronicler and for his readers, “to dwell again” evokes the hope of rebuilding the temple, reestablishing the liturgy of Jerusalem, and restoring the everlasting dynasty of David as promised by God.

It is impossible to date with specificity when Chronicles was written, and I am not sure that hypothetical reconstructions help us much in interpreting the text. The canonical text, read in a way that respects what Frei calls the “history-like” quality of the biblical narrative (1974: 14), gives us perhaps our best insights. Reading the text on its own terms, we have a history of Israel from the beginning of the world to the decree of King Cyrus of Persia. It seems reasonable to presume that the author writes in the early postexilic period, perhaps within a generation of Cyrus’s decree and the beginnings of the restoration from exile. Interpreting the author on his own terms, we can presume that he writes with the purpose of persuading the people both in Jerusalem and in the Diaspora that the return from exile is the work of God and that this is how the promised kingdom of David will be restored.

The Chronicler draws on “the book of the generations” (Hebrew sēper tôlĕdōt, Greek hē biblos geneseōs) found in Gen. 5 and the listing of “the generations of the sons of Noah” in Gen. 10. These sources are themselves intriguing and unique among the genealogical literature of the ancient world. While other peoples were intensely interested in the lines of descent of their kings, heroes, and even gods, no other people in antiquity can be found attempting to compile a genealogical record of the entire human race. This is a key to understanding Israel’s national and ethnic self-consciousness as well as the intentions of the Chronicler.

The genealogies reflect a familial vision of the human race. The Chronicler’s genealogies, like those of Genesis, reveal Israel’s solidarity with the entire human family. They also reflect Israel’s deep sense of its own “election” (bāḥar), of its being a people set apart, specially chosen by God to be his “firstborn” (bĕkôr) among the peoples of the world (Exod. 4:22). Israel’s identity is totally shaped by this awareness of its primogeniture among the nations, a kinship with God established by God’s own “covenant” (bĕrît). This covenant was the source of life, law, and liturgy for Israel (Hahn 2009b: 1–31). The anchor was Israel’s establishment as God’s firstborn. This divine sonship was the seed from which Israel’s twofold royal and priestly vocation to the world grew, reaching full flower in the kingdom of David, which is established by a “covenant of salt”—a new and everlasting covenant (2 Chr. 13:5; 21:7).

The Chronicler’s genealogical consciousness is a part of this covenantal worldview, in which Israel experiences itself as the one people out of all the peoples of the earth to have been chosen by God to be his own possession, a holy people (Deut. 7:6–7; 10:15; 14:2; cf. Exod. 19:6). His genealogy reflects what others have detected: covenant provides the narrative framework for the story of Israel told in the Bible. Beginning with Adam and the covenant of creation, his genealogy follows the path of God’s covenant through Noah, Abraham, Israel, and David. The purposes of God’s covenant—the blessing of the world—are gradually unfolded in the biblical narrative and are centered in the history of his firstborn.

Israel’s sense of chosenness, though badly shaken by the national traumas of the divided kingdom and later the sack of Jerusalem and the exile to Babylon, nonetheless persisted. It was the backbone of the faith of the Chronicler’s audience, the people who have returned to the land and begun to rebuild the temple. The prophets of the exile leaned heavily on the promise of God’s covenant, and they taught the people to hope for the same. Isaiah taught them to look for the day when God will “again choose Israel, and will set them in their own land, and aliens will join them and will cleave to the house of Jacob” (Isa. 14:1). This promise of an internationalized Israel will prove to be important to the Chronicler. The importance of Israel’s awareness of its special relationship with God is well expressed by the prophet Jeremiah: “Thus says the Lord: If I have not established my covenant with day and night and the ordinances of heaven and earth, then I will reject the descendants of Jacob and David my servant and will not choose one of his descendants to rule over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For I will restore their fortunes, and will have mercy upon them” (Jer. 33:25–26; cf. 31:35–36).

In Chronicles the notion of election is subtle but unmistakable. The Chronicler nowhere speaks of Israel as “chosen” or “elected,” but he does depict the fulfillment of Israel’s election in David’s kingdom and the cult of the temple. God “chooses” (bḥr) David to be king (1 Chr. 28:4), Jerusalem to be the center of his kingdom (2 Chr. 12:13) and the site of his temple (7:12, 16; 33:7), and the Levites to be his priests (1 Chr. 15:2). A consciousness of election pervades the text. Throughout, God calls Israel “my people,” frequently in contexts where he is recalling his faithfulness to his covenant (1 Chr. 11:2; 17:6–7, 9–10; 2 Chr. 6:5–6; 7:13–14). At the climactic moment of the Davidic covenant, King David responds with a prayer of gratitude and wonder: “What other nation on earth is like thy people Israel? . . . Thou didst make thy people Israel to be thy people for ever; and thou, O Lord, didst become their God” (1 Chr. 17:21–22).

By his initial genealogy, the Chronicler establishes that Israel’s election “was implicit already in Adam,” according to Williamson (1982: 41). Von Rad observes that the Chronicler “portrays history from Adam onwards as taking place all for [Israel’s] own sake” (1962–65: 1.347). Here we touch on a related strain of thought that is critical for appreciating the Chronicler’s biblical worldview—Israel’s belief that the world was created for Israel, to provide a sacred space for its special covenant relationship with God.

This is already implied in the quotation from Jeremiah. God’s covenant with Israel is associated with his primordial covenant in the creation of heaven and earth (Jer. 31:35–36; 33:25–26; cf. 2 Chr. 6:14). This sensibility becomes more explicit in later Judaism. “He created the world on behalf of his people,” according to the first-century AD Testament of Moses 1.12–13 (cf. 12.4). Closer to the Chronicler’s concern is the exilic lament registered in 4 Ezra 6.55–59, written in the late first century:

It was for us that you created this world. As for the other nations which have descended from Adam, you have said that they are nothing. . . . And now, O Lord, behold, these nations . . . domineer over us and devour us. But we your people, whom you have called your firstborn, only begotten, zealous for you, and most dear, have been given into their hands. If the world has indeed been created for us, why do we not possess our world as an inheritance? How long will this be so?

These anguished questions lie behind the words of Chronicles, as the Chronicler seeks to address the quite similar concerns of his initial audience, those who have returned from exile to a shattered land and a temple in ruins. What can election mean when the elected people remain scattered throughout the world, living under foreign domination? What can it mean when there is no son of David on the throne of Israel? These are the anxious concerns of the Chronicler’s audience in a period of grave uncertainty, at a time when Israel has returned from its exile among the domineering and devouring nations to reclaim a now rather dubious looking inheritance. Yet the Chronicler responds with a calm, quiet confidence that some commentators have mistaken for quietism or indifference.

The Chronicler starts with a different set of questions: Why was Israel elected? To ask that question is to beg a series of bigger, prior questions: What did God have in mind? What was his purpose? What was his plan? Where does Israel fit into it? He begins by directing his readers’ attention to the foundation of the world, to the first man, Adam. In this, he is reminding Israel that its national destiny cannot be separated from the destiny of the world. To put it another way, God’s purposes for the world depend on Israel. This point is worth underlining here at the start of our study.

Chronicles is a fiercely nationalist document. It tells the tale of a proud nation. But we cannot forget that it is also a work that reflects a broadly internationalist, even cosmic outlook. From the initial genealogies, Israel’s gaze is being directed outward, ad gentes (to the nations). Israel is asked to understand itself in light of the world’s beginnings and in light of the history of the world’s peoples.

The few lines of commentary interspersed among the otherwise unembellished listing of names in these early chapters reinforce this universalist, internationalistic perspective. The first of these comments regards Nimrod, who “began to be a mighty one [gibbôr] on the earth” (1 Chr. 1:10). The second refers to Peleg, whose name symbolizes that “in his days the earth was divided” (1:19). The next people the Chronicler describes are “the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before any king reigned over the Israelites” (1:43).

In these narrative asides, the Chronicler signals three notes that will recur in his book: monarchy in Israel and its place among the wider community of nations; division, which characterizes the effects of covenant unfaithfulness in Chronicles and leads to the kingdom’s demise; and foreign domination (gibbôr can mean “tyrant” or “despot”), which will be the fate of the people under the divided kingdom. There may even be, as Johnstone suggests, a subtle allusion to the Babylonian captivity in the reference to Nimrod. In Gen. 10:10 he is “identified with Babylon . . . and thus with the power that is ultimately to be responsible for the downfall of Israel” (1997: 1.30–31). This interpretation would be in line with the Targum on 1 Chr. 1:10, which associates Nimrod with Babylon and calls him “a mighty man in sin, shedding innocent blood and a rebel before the Lord” (McIvor 1994: 38n3).

We might also pause for a moment longer over the Chronicler’s introduction of a long list of foreign kings in his genealogy (1:43–51). For the most part, he has simply i...