Adam, Seth,
Enosh, Kenan, Mehalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah (1 Chronicles 1:1-3).
How’s that for
launching right into the genealogical history of the world? No introduction, no
beating around the bush. Sort of like a Billy Graham stadium event where his
first words are: “Won’t you come?”
According to Walter
Brueggemann, the first three chapters of 1 Chronicles make a “wondrous sweep” of the past, delivering us to
post-exilic times [5]. Chronicles was likely written late in Israel’s Persian
period, sometime after mid-sixth century BC.
At times over the
next three weeks as we read the story of Israel (after the northern kingdom
Israel fell in 722 BC, the name Israel defaulted to the southern kingdom
Judah), it will seem like, Didn’t I just read this? At other times, we’ll read a chapter and think,
“That doesn’t quite agree with what I read in Kings.”
Again to reference
Brueggemann, this is a “revised version
of Israel’s memory” [6]. Consider it
like this. Joshua to 2 Kings is the Deuteronomic History. It tells exiled
Israel’s story looking back through time. How did we end up here? Chronicles covers the same time period (even
more – it goes all the way back to Adam), but rather than looking backward,
Chronicles sees those same events in the light of looking ahead. Can
what we’ve been through teach us something as we begin a new chapter in our
lives? Same events.
Different perspective.
TODAY’S MEDITATION
How might your life look
different if you observed its events through different lenses?
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