Thursday, August 15, 2024

Paul K. Hooker on the Reference to the Missing Works of Nathan, Ahijah, and Iddo in 2 Chronicles

  

Worthy of note are the references to other sources given here by the Chronicler. The Chronicler credits three documents that do not now exist: the “history of the prophet Nathan,” the “prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite,” and the “visions of the seer Iddo concerning Jeroboam son of Nebat.” All three are significant. Nathan was the court prophet to David; it was through his intrigues in 1 Kings 1 that Solomon achieved the throne rather than his brother Adonijah. Ahijah the Shilonite is the prophet in 1 Kings 11:26–40 who encourages Jeroboam, then an officer in Solomon’s forced labor operations, to revolt against the king. Iddo, identified here as a “seer” but perhaps also a prophetic figure, is unknown outside of Chronicles. However, the Chronicler identifies the content of his visions as “concerning Jeroboam son of Nebat”; that is, having to do with the Jeroboam revolt that led to the separation of the northern and southern kingdoms. By mentioning these names, the Chronicler signals his awareness that his account of Solomon’s reign has not told the whole story. As in his presentation of David, the Chronicler has narrowed his focus to Solomon’s central act and its ramifications. For the Chronicler, Solomon reigns in fulfillment of God’s promise to David and so that Solomon might build the Temple in obedience to the law. As both a means of enabling that obedience and a reward of it, Solomon receives great wisdom, vast wealth, and overwhelming international prestige.

 

The story of 2 Chronicles 1–9, then, is the story of the Temple. The Chronicler understands the attention and care lavished upon it by David, then Solomon, and finally all Israel, as the appropriate expression of faith in God and gratitude for God’s goodness.

The Chronicler’s message, of course, is not antiquarian but contemporary for his own people. He wants to build in postexilic Israel the same loyalty and adoration for the reconstructed Temple that now sits on the site of the former, grander Temple of Solomon. His account of Solomon’s Temple is thus more theological than architectural: It is the expression of God’s intent as told to Moses regarding the place where God is to be worshiped. The Chronicler has adhered to the vision of the tabernacle in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, writing that vision into stone and precious metal here. Solomon’s Temple in the Chronicler’s eyes is more rooted in Israel’s theological memory than in its physical memory. (Paul K. Hooker, First and Second Chronicles [Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001], 158–159)

 

 

 

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