Day 109 – RECAP: Beginning to 2 Kings + PREVIEW: Chronicles, Psalm 109

In the beginning, God created the world and everything in it. It was beautiful and good, but humanity chose disobedience, and that broke the perfect relationship they had with God. Still, He didn’t give up on us.

From Noah to Abraham to Isaac to Jacob to Joseph and Judah, we see God plans come to life. Joseph eventually brings his family (descendants of Abraham) to Egypt, where they were enslaved for generations. But God raised up Moses, who led them out of Egypt with miracles, plagues, and the parting of the Red Sea.

At Mount Sinai, God gave them laws to shape them into a holy people. Even though they often complained and rebelled, God stayed faithful throughout their wilderness journey.

After Moses, Joshua led the people into the Promised Land. They settled there, but without strong leadership, the nation fell into a pattern of forgetting God, facing trouble, crying out for help, and being rescued again and again. This was the time of the Judges. Eventually, the people asked for a king, and God gave them Saul, then David, and later Solomon. David was a man after God’s heart, and Solomon was wise, but the kingdom began to fall apart.

After Solomon’s reign, the nation split in two: Israel in the north and Judah in the south. Sadly, most of the kings that followed led the people away from God. Prophets warned them, but they refused to listen. Eventually, Israel was conquered by Assyria, and later, Judah was taken into exile by Babylon. The Temple was destroyed, and the people were scattered.

This is where we find ourselves at the end of second Kings. After journeying through the dramatic highs and lows of Samuel and Kings, both nations, Isreal and Judah, are lost in exile.

We now enter the book of Chronicles, a retelling of Israel’s history from a fresh perspective. While it follows the same general timeline, Chronicles narrows its focus to the southern kingdom of Judah, the only tribe that returned from Babylon after the exile. By this time, the northern kingdom (Israel), made up of the other ten tribes, had long been conquered by Assyria and scattered.

These books shine a spotlight on the line of David and place special emphasis on the Temple. Likely written just after the return from exile, 1 & 2 Chronicles serve as a powerful pep talk to a group of exhausted people, renewing their hope.

In Psalm 109 David asks God not to remain silent. He is surrounded by lies and cruelty, and the worst part is that most of the attacks come from people he tried to love. David navigates a mix of emotions. His cry for justice feels extreme. We see a switch when David humbles himself before God and asks for help. God can handle our deepest pain and fiercest emotions. Going to God at any point, for any reason, under any circumstances, will always improve the outcome.