SUMMARY
Following the fallThe fall refers specifically to the disobedience of Adam and Eve when they listened to Satan rather than adhering to God's command not to eat the fruit from the tree. When people act contrary to God's will, they are said to fall from from grace... More of the northern kingdomThe Northern Kingdom consisted of ten of the twelve tribes of Israel and lasted for 200 years until it was destroyed by Assyria in 721 B.C.E. In the northern kingdom the kings were evil. Prophets like Elijah and Amos railed against them and their evildoing. More of Israel to Assyria in 722 B.C.E., the divided monarchy came to a close. Hezekiah, as a new David and Solomon, unites the people once again around the Jerusalem templeThe Jerusalem temple, unlike the tabernacle, was a permanent structure, although (like the tabernacle) it was a place of worship and religious activity. On one occasion Jesus felt such activity was unacceptable and, as reported in all four Gospels, drove from the temple those engaged... More.
ANALYSIS
The final period of the Chronicler’s presentation begins with the crucial reign of Hezekiah and ends with the Babylonian exile or, possibly, Cyrus’s proclamation of return. The first two periods, the genealogical introduction (1 Chronicles 1-9) and the united monarchy of David and Solomon (1 Chronicles 10–2 Chronicles 9), had stressed “all Israel” as a people fully united under a Davidic king and worshiping in the Jerusalem temple. The third period (2 Chronicles 10-28) had stressed the division of “all Israel,” following the secession of the northern tribes, into a divided monarchy: Judah with its capital, Jerusalem, in the south, and Israel with its capital, Samaria, in the north. Two events, however–the Assyrian defeat of Israel in the north (30:6) and Ahaz’s utter apostasy in the south (28:6, 24-25)–had now reversed the situation that was obtained at the start of the divided monarchy: there was no longer a “northern kingdom,” and Judah was apostate. This sets the scene for a “reunited” monarchy in which Hezekiah as a new David and Solomon restores the ideal situation that had been shattered in 2 Chronicles 10.
