Table of Contents
2 Chronicles
2 Chronicles picks up where 1 Chronicles left off — Solomon anointed, David dead — and spends its first nine chapters on the one thing 1 Chronicles spent its last six preparing for: the temple built, filled with the glory of the LORD, and dedicated with a prayer asking God to hear from heaven whenever anyone, Israelite or foreigner, prays toward this place. Then the kingdom splits, and for twenty-seven chapters the book follows Judah’s kings alone — not Israel’s, which 1 and 2 Kings already covered in full — measuring each one by a single question the temple keeps asking: does this house stay open, or does someone shut its doors?
Tissot painted the moment this whole question turns on: Solomon before the altar, hands lifted, the ark just carried in, the glory of the LORD filling the house so completely the priests cannot stand to minister. Reformer kings reopen these doors — Asa, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, Josiah. Others shut them — Ahaz nails them closed outright; Manasseh fills the courts with altars to every host of heaven. Chronicles was compiled after the exile, for a generation asking whether the temple still mattered. This series follows the book’s own answer, king by king, all the way to a Persian decree that ends it on an open door home.
List Of Articles
Give Me Now Wisdom And Knowledge
a thousand burnt offerings at Gibeon, a dream in the night with a blank check attached, and a king who asks for wisdom and knowledge instead of riches, wealth, or long life
2 Chronicles 1I Build A House To The Name Of The LORD My God
letters to Huram of Tyre for cedar and a master craftsman, forced labor numbered and set to quarrying, and the temple’s dimensions, cherubim, veil, and bronze pillars raised exactly to the pattern
2 Chronicles 2-4The Glory Of The LORD Had Filled The House Of God
the ark carried in at last, priests unable to stand and minister for the cloud that fills the house, and Solomon’s prayer of dedication asking God to hear from heaven whenever this place is prayed toward
2 Chronicles 5-6If My People, Which Are Called By My Name
fire falling from heaven to consume the sacrifice, the glory of the LORD filling the temple a second time, and God’s answer by night — humble yourselves, pray, turn, and I will hear, forgive, and heal
2 Chronicles 7Solomon Made Silver To Be As Stones
cities built, the queen of Sheba’s own account of Solomon’s wisdom and table, six hundred sixty-six talents of gold a year, and a reign so wealthy that silver was counted worth nothing in Jerusalem
2 Chronicles 8-9They Humbled Themselves; Therefore The Wrath Of The LORD Turned From Him
Rehoboam’s harsh answer splits the kingdom in two, Jeroboam’s priests and Levites flee south to Judah, and Shishak of Egypt strips the temple treasures a prophet says the king brought on himself
2 Chronicles 10-12God Is With Us For Our Captain
Abijah’s sermon to Jeroboam’s army before the battle, priests blowing trumpets while Judah cries out and the LORD smites Israel, and Asa’s reforms and prayer before a Cushite host a million strong
2 Chronicles 13-14The Eyes Of The LORD Run To And Fro Throughout The Whole Earth
Azariah’s word and a covenant renewed with all Israel, then years later a treaty bought with temple silver, a seer put in prison for saying so, and a king diseased in his feet who would not seek the LORD
2 Chronicles 15-16Shouldest Thou Help The Ungodly, And Love Them That Hate The LORD?
Jehoshaphat’s Levites teaching the law through every city of Judah, an alliance with Ahab that nearly costs him his life at Ramoth-gilead, and a seer’s rebuke waiting the moment he gets home
2 Chronicles 17-19Ye Shall Not Need To Fight In This Battle
Moab, Ammon, and Mount Seir marching on Judah, Jehoshaphat’s fast and public prayer, a word through Jahaziel promising deliverance without a sword drawn, and singers sent out ahead of the army
2 Chronicles 20He Departed Without Being Desired
Jehoram murdering his own brothers to secure the throne, a letter from Elijah warning of the disease to come, and a king who dies unlamented, buried without the burning made for his fathers
2 Chronicles 21We Have Made A Covenant, That He Shall Be King
Ahaziah’s one-year reign cut short at Jehu’s hand, Athaliah destroying the royal seed and seizing the throne, and the infant Joash hidden six years before Jehoiada crowns him in the temple
2 Chronicles 22-23As Long As Jehoiada The Priest Lived
a chest set by the temple gate to collect repairs, the house of the LORD restored under a young king’s good years, and Zechariah stoned in the temple court by the same king he had rebuked
2 Chronicles 24Why Hast Thou Sought After The Gods Of The People?
Amaziah paying off Israelite mercenaries at a prophet’s word, ten thousand Edomites thrown from a rock, and a king who brings Seir’s gods home to worship after they failed to save their own people
2 Chronicles 25His Heart Was Lifted Up To His Destruction
Uzziah’s fifty-two years of towers, wells, and a trained army while he sought the LORD, and the censer he had no right to hold, still smoking in his hand when the leprosy rose in his forehead
2 Chronicles 26This Is That King Ahaz
Jotham’s brief, quiet faithfulness, then Ahaz burning his own sons in the fire, shutting the doors of the LORD’s house, and altars built in every corner of Jerusalem while Syria and Israel strip his kingdom bare
2 Chronicles 27-28Now It Is In Mine Heart To Make A Covenant With The LORD God Of Israel
the temple doors reopened in the first month of a new reign, Levites sanctifying a house their fathers had shut, a Passover kept a month late because so few priests were clean, and tithes piled in heaps
2 Chronicles 29-31There Be More With Us Than With Him
Sennacherib’s letters and Rabshakeh’s taunts outside the walls, Hezekiah’s prayer and the angel who empties the Assyrian camp overnight, and a king whose heart is lifted up in pride the moment the danger passes
2 Chronicles 32When He Was In Affliction, He Besought The LORD His God
Manasseh building altars to every host of heaven inside the LORD’s own house, taken captive to Babylon with hooks and fetters, humbled, and restored — the one story of repentance 2 Kings never tells
2 Chronicles 33There Was No Passover Like To That Kept In Israel From The Days Of Samuel The Prophet
Josiah tearing down idols as a teenager, the book of the law found and read aloud until the king rends his clothes, and a Passover kept with more lambs, more Levites, and more care than any since Samuel
2 Chronicles 34-35The LORD Stirred Up The Spirit Of Cyrus
four kings in twenty-two years, Jerusalem’s wall broken down and the temple burned, seventy years counted out in a land finally allowed its rest, and a Persian king’s proclamation ending the book on an open door home
2 Chronicles 36