Thursday (12/12/19)

Read 2 Chronicles 28 and 2 Kings 16

  • What do you learn about Ahaz from these chapters, what kind of man/king was he?
  • What do you learn about God from these chapters?
  • What does it say about God’s character that despite Ahaz’s response, He proclaims, “I will give you my own sign”?

It’s always been interesting to me that the books of Kings & Chronicles are so similar! Why have two different books? (Originally 1 and 2 Kings was one large book – the same with Chronicles and Samuel). Here are some reasons that I have found:

  • Samuel and Kings was written during the Babylonian Exile (a great thing to web search if you’ve never read about it).
  • Chronicles was written after the exile was over, about 100 years later.
  • Samuel and Kings addresses primarily the hard hearted state of the Israelites, explaining that their exile was a result of their own sinful abandonment of God.
  • Chronicles works to inspire hope to the Israelites following this devastating experience, and turn them back to worship of God.
  • Chronicles focuses heavily on David and Solomon and often has a more positive view of even the most wicked kings.
  • Chronicles also focuses mostly on the kings of Judah, the house of David, rather than the kings of Israel. (More interesting reading is on how the Kingdom divided after the reign of Solomon!)