Lessons from Chronicles

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 20, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 24.

Lessons from Chronicles

Sunday	June 25	1 Chronicles	1-3
Monday	" 26	"	4-6
Tuesday	" 27	"	7-9
Wednesday	" 28	"	10-12
Thursday	" 29	"	13-16
Friday	" 30	"	17-20
Sabbath	July 1	"	21-23

Not of particular interest will be the first three days' reading of this week. Long lists of names are not inviting, especially if hard to pronounce. But let us fasten upon these two helpful things: (1) God is particular. If He instructed His people to keep record of genealogies, if He moved upon His scribes to record them, we may know that a faithful record of each soul is kept in the books of heaven. The only genealogies that were kept unbroken till our Lord's first advent were those of Judah and Levi; for Jesus was of the tribe of Judah, of the family of David, according to the prophecy, and the Aaronic priesthood must continue till the Jews ceased from being a nation and the priesthood was superseded by that of Christ. (2) There are little gems and solemn facts, and items of interest, gathered throughout the dry genealogies. See 1 Chron. 1:19; 2:3, 7, 35; 3:4, 9; 4:9, 10, 22, 23, 27, 38-43; 5:1, 2, 17-22, 25, 26; 6:15, 31, 32; 7:5, and others. Note the description, in chapter 12, of the contingents from each tribe that gathered to David, "mighty men," "faces as lions," "swift as roes," of great skill and wisdom, of "perfect heart." What an army of loyal men they were!

Chronicles are in one book in the Jewish canon, named, "Words of Days," Records of Events. Kings deals more fully with the northern, or ten-tribe, kingdom, Chronicles with the kingdom of Judah. The first part of Chronicles is parallel to the last part of Samuel. Our lesson closes in the prosperous years of David's reign.