The Chronicler has provided for us a lot of detailed information about people and events over a span of about eight hundred years. That would be about like having a list in your hand today that you could use to recite your personal genealogy back to the 13^th century, and not only for yourself but for everyone in the neighborhood while you’re at it.

We can see that the Chronicler cannot have simply known these things and written them down, but would have to engage in a process of serious research, listening to stories handed down by oral tradition and reading written records. We can see hints of these written sources from time to time; for example, amidst notes about linen workers and potters we find the Chronicler noting that “the records are ancient” (I Chronicles 4:22).

We can also see indications of the Chronicler’s theological perspective. This shows up, for example, in his note that although the Reubenites, Gadites, and Manassites were well-trained warriors with sword and shield and also with the bow (5:18), “they cried to God in the battle, and he granted their entreaty because they trusted in him” (5:20).

Yet there is also the awareness that this faithfulness did not last down the generations. It would come to pass that the descendants of Manasseh “transgressed against the God of their ancestors, and prostituted themselves to the gods of the peoples of the land” (5:25). And so God moved the Assyrians to come and conquer the northern tribes: and although the Chronicler wrote after the people of Judah had begun to return to Jerusalem, the northern tribes were lost and did not return “to this day” (5:26).

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O God! Our heritage is even deeper, nearly forty centuries: yet we live in the arrogance of present-day culture, as if most everything important has been figured out in the last few years. Save us, Lord, and teach us to recognize the wisdom of earlier generations, that we too may become wise.

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