This is getting ridiculous. It's taking me longer to get through first and second Chronicles than the entire rest of the bible combined so far. I thought it was going to get more interesting once I got through the laws of Moses, but those were actually pretty interesting. These kings are so boring that God had to write them all down in two different places in the Bible just so we wouldn't miss them if we fall asleep in 1 and 2 Kings. It's like there are only two kings in Judah and they just alternate for 600 years. Once king is wicked and defiles the temple and puts shrines to other Gods up everywhere. He dies of something gross and isn't buried with his people. The other king is pretty good like David was. He is allowed up to one major sin or personality flaw and still finds favor with the Lord. I think on my next pass through the Bible I'm going to have to come up with some kind of short hand for writing about these guys.
Anyway, Ahaz is king for around 16 years, but he's one of the first type of king. After he dies his son Hezekiah becomes king and he's one of the second type. He opts out of his one freebie sin and seems to live completely virtuously, so he's really favored by God. Not being as ambitious as some of the other kings though, he mostly seems to use his favor to help out the people in their dealings with God, so he sounds like a pretty good guy. He intervenes on behalf of a lot of people who try to enter the temple without cleansing themselves first and God is okay with it. That's the kind of thing that God has shown no reservation about killing people with fire over so you can tell Hezekiah must have had some serious pull.
What's really interesting about the story of Hezekiah, in its own way, is how boring it is. The history of Israel and Judah seems so full of political conflict and rebelion against God and all this nasty stuff, but reading this story, and thinking about how much I wished it wasn't included in the final draft of the Bible as I went through, made me realize that there are probably a ton of stories far more boring than Hezekiah's that actually did get cut. After all, we already know that we're getting an incomplete account because every story ends with a reference to a book of kings that we don't have anymore. So, there could have been whole families that were left out of Kings and Chronicles because they were deemed uninteresting and their account is only available in the official Book of the Kings of Judah. King Steve ruled for 6 years and did all the same things his predecessor did, but not quite as much. He neither pleased nor angered God and then he died. That would certainly explain why all these kings seem to fit into one of two archetypes, they're all the extreme cases.
I guess trying to go through the history of this many kings this quickly will always seem incomplete though. We just don't hear about anybody long enough for me to start caring about what happens to them. This book has poor character development. The next couple are named after specific people though so I've got high hopes for them.
Anyway, Ahaz is king for around 16 years, but he's one of the first type of king. After he dies his son Hezekiah becomes king and he's one of the second type. He opts out of his one freebie sin and seems to live completely virtuously, so he's really favored by God. Not being as ambitious as some of the other kings though, he mostly seems to use his favor to help out the people in their dealings with God, so he sounds like a pretty good guy. He intervenes on behalf of a lot of people who try to enter the temple without cleansing themselves first and God is okay with it. That's the kind of thing that God has shown no reservation about killing people with fire over so you can tell Hezekiah must have had some serious pull.
What's really interesting about the story of Hezekiah, in its own way, is how boring it is. The history of Israel and Judah seems so full of political conflict and rebelion against God and all this nasty stuff, but reading this story, and thinking about how much I wished it wasn't included in the final draft of the Bible as I went through, made me realize that there are probably a ton of stories far more boring than Hezekiah's that actually did get cut. After all, we already know that we're getting an incomplete account because every story ends with a reference to a book of kings that we don't have anymore. So, there could have been whole families that were left out of Kings and Chronicles because they were deemed uninteresting and their account is only available in the official Book of the Kings of Judah. King Steve ruled for 6 years and did all the same things his predecessor did, but not quite as much. He neither pleased nor angered God and then he died. That would certainly explain why all these kings seem to fit into one of two archetypes, they're all the extreme cases.
I guess trying to go through the history of this many kings this quickly will always seem incomplete though. We just don't hear about anybody long enough for me to start caring about what happens to them. This book has poor character development. The next couple are named after specific people though so I've got high hopes for them.
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