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Hey, Bible nerds. This is Dr. Manny Arango and I'm your host for the Bible department podcast powered by Arma. This podcast follows a Bible reading plan we created to help you read the entire Bible in a year. You can head to the show notes or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan and join the Journey. Family. Welcome to day 346. We are in a brand new book of the Bible. We're in the book of Chronicles. Let's go. And of course, I'm super, super excited because this is our last book of the Bible. We are 20 days, 19 days away. 20 days away. Something like that. Whatever. My major's not in math. It was in Bible. We are like 20 days away from the end of the year. We did it. We did it, Joe. We did it. We're almost done. Like, literally, like, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. And originally in the Hebrew Tanakh, in the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh, first and Second Chronicles was just one book. So just like Samuel was originally one book, just like Kings first, Second Kings was originally one book, just like Ezra and Nehemiah was one book, first and Second Chronicles was one book. So when I say we are at the last book of the Bible, I mean that, ladies and gentlemen, because although this one book has two names and has been split in half, is one book first and second Chronicles, AKA Chronicles. So I'm super excited. Now, you probably opened up your Bible today to First Chronicles, chapter one and Saul. A genealogy. I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry. Now, my job is to help orient you to the book of Chronicles, but to also make this genealogy make a little bit of sense. So like I say, every single day, if you skip this genealogy, okay, if you skipped reading this list of names, you gotta stop the video, pause the audio and just go read this genealogy. All right, Just chapters one, two and three. It'll be good for your self discipline to read a genealogy. And of course, we're going to talk about why a, what is the point of the Book of Chronicles. And second, what's going on with this genealogy? And if you've done the reading for the day, let's jump into our context clues. Then we'll. I'll try to give you as many nerdy nuggets as I can, and we'll leave the episode with the timeless truth. So with no further ado, let's jump in. All right, context clues. Now, in most of our Bibles, we are going to get a history section now the Tanakh, which is the Torah, the Nevi' Im and the Ketuvim, does not have a history section. Okay? So the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the original Hebrew Scriptures, is what split the books into all these weird orderings that we have in our English translation. So what we have here in your Bibles, in most of your English translations, first 2 Samuel 1, 2 Kings, first, second Chronicles. And when people typically get to Chronicles, they realize, wait a second, oh gosh, there's this freaking massive genealogy. Like I actually think that the genealogy goes for the first nine chapters. So the actual narrative doesn't start till chapter 10, which that could just be rough. Like it's just, ah, it's just rough. Okay? And then once you get to chapter 10, people start reading about Saul and David and they go, oh, this stuff sounds familiar. Like I know this. I just read about this in like 2 Samuel. Because the events of 1st Chronicles is going to follow the events of 2 Samuel and 2nd Chronicles is going to cover the same period of both first and second Kings. So most people, once they realize that there's genealogies, like nine chapters of genealogies, and once they realize that there's tons of repetition, Chronicles just becomes a book that people skip. But not here, not in the Bible department. We are not skipping Chronicles, we're not skipping Chronicles because Chronicles is actually not just a copy and paste of what happened in Samuel and Kings. Chronicles is actually doing something completely different. And we're gonna talk about that in two ways. Number one, Chronicles is actually going to add stories that are not found in Samuel and Kings, and it's gonna omit stories that are found in Samuel and Kings. Okay? So Chronicles is not just repeating a bunch of the same content. It's actually taking source material and manipulating that source material to kind of tell a different message. So I'll give you a good example. There is no story of David and Bathsheb in Chronicles. Okay? Obviously we're going to get an outline of the life of David because David is going to be the central figure. But whereas first and Second Samuel is going to give you a very human portrayal of David, that this person killed Uriah, that he stole Bathsheba as Uriah's wife, that he probably sexually assaulted Bathsheba. Like 2nd, 1st and 2nd Samuel is going to give a very, very, very realistic perspective on David. Chronicles is almost just going to give a very heroic one sided view of who David is. And so we don't even get any narratives of Saul hunting David down like, we don't get any content that humanizes David. David is going to get lifted to this, like, larger than life figure and the book of Chronicles. Because the author of Chronicles and the author of Samuel and Kings are doing two completely different things. They have different agendas. And part of the reason that we understand what an author is up to and which audience they're even talking to is by understanding the agendas of said authors. So let's talk about the agenda of drum roll, please. Ezra. That's right. The author of Chronicles is our guy, Ezra. So in the Tanakh, that's why Chronicles is going to fall right after Ezra and Nehemiah, okay? Not because it fits chronologically, but because it fits there thematically. Obviously, as we go from books like Ezra, Nehemiah, all the way to Chronicles, you're going back way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way back in the past, right? We're talking about David and his son, Solomon and Saul. These are events that have happened centuries ago. Literally like 600 years, five to 600 years prior. Which means the stories no longer moving in a linear progression, but the story is being told from a different perspective. And I'll kind of explain to you what I mean. Ezra is writing his story, but he doesn't just tell the story of his and Nehemiah's return from exile. No, to give the story context, he begins the story with Zerubbabel's return in the rebuilding of the temple. Obviously, we just spent like days, weeks looking at that as we studied the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. The. Then Ezra tells his story, then he tells Nehemiah's story, and then he tells their joint story, which ends with him teaching the people the Torah and their history. We talked about that two days ago. Okay? You can see this in Nehemiah, chapter 8 and 9 and 10. It is in that context the renewing of the festivals. Remember, they find the Torah and the Torah tells them about this thing called the Feast of Booths. And they hadn't celebrated it since Joshua's time, okay? The restoring of the temple, the organizing of the Levites, the choirs, the priests, the refocus on the Torah, the great reset that will lead the people into the Second Temple period. Zerubbabel's temple, the temple that's standing when Jesus is born, that's the second Temple. Remember, the first Temple has been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. This is the Second Temple period, okay? The organizing of the Levites, the choirs, the priests, the refocus on the Torah, the great Reset that will lead the people into the Second Temple period. It is then that he tells the people the story of the first Temple. So, of course, Ezra is talking to a group of Israelites that have returned from exile who are dwelling in the land, and he tells them the story of Zerubbabel and himself and Nehemiah, but ultimately wants them to know the story of the first Temple so that they can now steward this second Temple. And so whereas Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings are telling the story from its own historical context and just kind of moving forward. So the store you're in, the narrative, the author is writing from the position of the present, and they are moving the story forward until they get to exile. Chronicles, actually the opposite. It's people 600 years in the present who are looking back over 600 years of history and now telling the story of their history to a generation who's going to need to not lose this second Temple. So let's tell some stories about how we lost the first Temple. It's actually genius. And so when you think about it, even though the books of Samuel Kings have something in common with the Chronicles, they don't communicate from the same perspective because they're not communicating to the same audience. They're communicating to a radically different audience. An audience of people who really needs to be taught what it even is like to be God's chosen people. And that is fascinating. Family. The wait is over. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos, is out now and available everywhere. Books are sold. Literally. Today I walked into a Barnes and Noble and I signed a bunch of copies at a physical location. So you can grab this book at a physical Barnes and Noble or you can go to a Books A Million or Amazon or anywhere books are sold and grab a copy. If you enjoy reading the Bible from an ancient perspective, if you understand that the beauty of Scripture is actually knowing it in context, then you'll love this book. And if there's any chaos in your personal life, I think that reading the Bible from an ancient perspective can actually help to crush the chaos in your life. I think this book is going to be a New York Times bestseller. I really do. I think we wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy today. All right, back to the episode. So Chronicles is going to add content, omit content that we've already seen in books like Samuel and Kings. But more than that, Ezra is the one who's writing Chronicles. And Ezra's writing, looking back on these events and wanting to connect his modern audience or contemporary audience to the events of 600 years ago. He sees that they have just built a new temple, and he wants to prevent this new temple from being destroyed. So he's going to tell the story of how important the first temple was so that the people can understand how important this second temple is. Samuel and Kings is not written from that perspective, but Chronicles is. And so these books are trying to accomplish something completely different. Okay? And that's our context. That is the context that we need in order to even crack open Chronicles and even have a shot of understanding what in the world Chronicles has to say to us. All right, let's dive into some nerdy nuggets. As you've realized, the first nine chapters is all about genealogies. Well, genealogies are insanely important. And the genealogies that we have here, the first nine chapters of Chronicles are going to focus on two things. You could probably guess them. The first is the line of the promised Messianic king. The second is the descendants of Aaron, the priesthood. Okay, so what is Chronicles concerned about? They're concerned about the Messianic king and the purity of the priesthood. And so these genealogies are really going to serve the purpose of making sure that we have the promised Messianic king and that we have a priesthood that is pure. Okay, next. Next little nerdy nugget about the genealogies. Okay, I want to give you a roadmap for the genealogies. The Chronicles chapter one is going to outline the genealogy from Adam to Abraham. Adam to Abraham. Second, The Chronicles Chapter 2 is going to outline the entire genealogy of the tribe of Judah. And then Chronicles chapter three is going to outline the genealogy from the line of David to Zerubbabel. So what in the world is Ezra doing with these genealogies? Chronicles chapters one through nine. Okay, These nine chapters of genealogies begin with Adam and end with a list of those who returned with Zerubbabel. The intention, then, is pretty clear. The point is to connect Ezra's audience in Jerusalem to Genesis. They are part of this huge story. They have to find their place in this wider narrative because stories create identity. It's the reason that Thanksgiving, we tell the story of those original pilgrims in Massachusetts that didn't starve. Why? Because there were native indigenous people here in the United States of America that taught them how to not starve. That taught them how to farm the land, and they celebrated the harvest of that first Thanksgiving. Right? The stories of Christopher Columbus. These stories unite us. The stories of the Boston Tea Party, the stories of the. The Declaration of Independence. These stories are what creates a nation. And so Ezra understands that if the nation of Israel is going to be strong, it that every generation has to get connected to the bigger story. So that's what he's doing. Okay. They are part of this story. They can trace their family right back to the moment of humanity's birth. And that's special. I'm going to get into my timeless truth. I'll just tease it here. It's in my notes. Says this genealogies are also about rights. This is their story. Yes. Their narrative. Yes. Their identity. Absolutely. But this list proves that they are and that the land, this city, this temple, this priesthood, this covenant is theirs too. Through these lists, the people in Jerusalem can trace their right to be there at that moment, to receive the Torah, renew the covenant and worship at the temple. These lists, these genealogies that you and I find very, very boring. These lists are the proof of who they are and their portion in the land and in Yahweh himself. So just to make sure we're clear, Chronicles chapter one, the genealogy is all about connecting or tracing Adam. Okay. The, the life or the, the birth or the creation of Adam all the way to Abraham. Next, Chronicles Chapter 2 is all about the tribe of Judah. That's important because David is going to come from the tribe of Judah. And then Chronicles chapter three is all about the line of Judah to Zerubbabel. Again, Ezra is creating a clear link from the returnees who are living in Jerusalem at the moment to every hero that's gone before. And that is for identity sake, but that's also for rights. You have a right to this land. You have a right to live here. Okay. All right, next final nerdy nugget for you that has nothing to do with genealogies, the God. All right, so Jesus would have known Second Chronicles or Chronicles for Jesus. First Second Chronicles as one book. Jesus would have known Chronicles as the last book of the Hebrew Bible. How do I know that? Well, Luke 11, chapter 51, and Matthew 23, verse 35. Jesus is going to talk. And what Jesus says makes it really, really obvious that he understands the order of the Bible to be a little different than the order of the Bible that a lot of us have. Okay, so let's go to Luke 11:51. I'll start reading in verse 50. Okay. Jesus says this. Therefore this generation will be held responsible for the blood of all the prophets. Okay? All keyword. All. All the prophets that has been for the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the beginning of the world. Okay, from the blood of Abel, which obviously Abel is Cain's brother. Okay, so that's Genesis, chapter four. Okay, so from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes. I tell you, this generation will be held responsible for it all. So if Abel is the first, then Zechariah must be the last. And where can we find the story of Zechariah? You guessed it. Second Chronicles, chapter 24, verses 20 to 22. And so the death of Zechariah is at the end of the original Old Testament, which is the Hebrew Bible, which is the Tanakh. Okay, so when Jesus, the whatever version of the Bible Jesus is holding, Chronicles is at the end. So probably helpful that we know that so that we can put Jesus into context. All right, last thing. Let's get into our timeless truth. Now, I know most people may assume genealogies are just a waste of time, right? Why do I need to know this list of names? However, I would actually argue that genealogies are quite powerful. Number one, if genealogies weren't, like, powerful, no one would do ancestry.com or 23andMe. You would not spit in a vial and send it off to a company who could tell you who your grandfather was. And great grandfather. And great, great grandfather. And the reason that our generation or people in our age bracket are consumed with Ancestry.com or 23andMe is because we're longing for identity. And we used to get identity from our family of origin. That used to be a natural idea. Now in the modern age of the postmodern age, the assumption that we just get identity from our parents, our grandparents, and great grandparents, it's almost like the more individualistic society becomes, the more we don't buy into that idea. But the reality is this, that we were wired to get identity from the people who have come before us. Not necessarily generational curses. So not in the negative, but definitely in the positive that when I look at a genealogy, I don't just see a random list of names. I see a group of people who have made me who I am. And one of the things that made me realize that, man, this is so powerful, is actually looking at a group of people who don't have that. And that group of people will be black Americans. Like in the United States of America, because of the legacy of slavery in the United States, most black people don't know, like, who their great, great great grandfather was. And so because of that, because of that lack of identity, it's like black Americans have been susceptible to. To what I call black identity cults. So these identity cults find themselves in the form of black Hebrew Israelites. It's an identity cult. It's not just a religious cult. It's an identity cult. We are the real Jews. Well, why are we trying to be anyone or anything? Well, it's because we don't know who we are because we don't have a genealogy. So because you don't have a genealogy, we're just grasping at straws to be anyone, to be anything, because we've gotta have an identity. Everyone has to have an identity. That identity didn't just come from you as an individual. It comes from the group that you're a part of. What's another black identity cult? The Nation of Islam. It's like, it's not really a religious cult, it's an identity cult. Because it's saying, we're Muslim. We don't know who we are, but we know we're Muslim, same as black Hebrew Israelites. We don't know who we are. Cause we don't have genealogies, but we're Jews. We are the real Jews. And anytime a group of people doesn't have a genealogy, whether that be spiritual or ethnic or otherwise, we will always try to fill in the space where there's gaps. And so I would say that you want to be someone who tracks a strong spiritual heritage. That when it comes to your spiritual genealogy, I would go ahead and start to trace that. Because the family that you're part of biologically isn't what always gives identity. But the family that you are a part of spiritually definitely gives identity. And it's why people are falling prey to black Hebrew Israelites into the Nation of Islam. People aren't falling prey to these because their theology is smart or brilliant. Theology's crazy. People are falling prey to it because they're answering questions of identity for people. Who are we? Who are my ancestors? Oh, you know you're Muslim, or you know you're Jew. A Jew, you're Jewish. And these, the people that we now know as Jews, have stolen your identity. Why is that a popular idea? That's only a popular idea amongst people who don't know who they are, whose histories have been omitted. And so what Ezra's doing in the Book of Chronicles is helping his people to not have an omitted history. Because he understands that what happens when people's histories get omitted and they don't have a genealogy is they'll grasp at straws for identities in America right now. We're not at a genealogy crisis. We are at an identity crisis that is based on a genealogy crisis. And Ezra's not the only one who needs genealogies. The Old Testament is not the only place where genealogies are relevant. You need a genealogy. You're going to have to find out where your spiritual heritage comes from, and I believe that'll create stability and it'll create identity. Tomorrow we're going to continue our trek through this genealogy known as First Chronicles chapters four, five and six. Tomorrow's day 3:47 here on the podcast. I can't wait to dive in. I have so many things to say to you about the Book of Chronicles. It's going to be fantastic. I love you. I'm proud of you. Till tomorrow. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. You can find us online and learn more about the show@thebibledepartment.com and on Instagram at the Bible department. If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into the Bible, you can get free access to our library of courses@thebibledepartment.com we'll see you back here tomorrow.