Thebibleproject.com has great short (7-8 minute) summaries of all the OT books in drawings and sketches that really keep your attention. The one on 1,2 Chronicles has some interesting points. They do a great job of giving the main themes and not just telling facts. They said the theme of the 2 books was to give hope for a Messianic King in the future who would be the anti-type of King David. I think they are correct.
The genealogies at the start of 1 Chronicles focus on the tribe of Judah from whom the Messiah and the kings will come. Genesis 49:10
“The scepter shall not depart from Judah,
Nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,
[k]Until Shiloh comes,
And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.
The life of King David is emphasized, but the negative stories about his adultery and murder are omitted. Purposely? Maybe. Maybe the Spirit wants to leave a totally positive image of David because he is a type of the perfect Messiah? The book does mention his sin of numbering the people, however. The video mentions an important truth. When several of the OT prophets predict the coming of the Messiah and the Messianic Age, they predict that “David” will be king, shepherd, and prince during that Messianic Age. Ezekiel 37 24 “My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd; and they will walk in My ordinances and keep My statutes and observe them. 25 They will live on the land that I gave to Jacob My servant, in which your fathers lived; and they will live on it, they, and their sons and their sons’ sons, forever; and David My servant will be their prince forever. Ezekiel 34 23 “Then I will set over them one shepherd, My servant David, and he will feed them; he will feed them himself and be their shepherd. 24 And I, the Lord, will be their God, and My servant David will be prince among them; I the Lord have spoken.Jeremiah 30 9 But they shall serve the Lord their God and David their king, whom I will raise up for them. Most scholars believe that this prediction is fulfilled in Jesus as a type of King David from the lineage of David. Thus it is figurative language and does not mean David himself will be king in the Messianic Age. Some scholars actually expect David to be raised and co-reign with Jesus on the “millenial throne”. This is similar to the prediction that Elijah would come before the coming of the Messiah and judgement of the Jews. Malachi 4 5 “Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. Of course, Jesus told us this was fulfilled in John the Baptist, and not in Elijah himself coming. Matthew 17 11 And He answered and said, “Elijah is coming and will restore all things; 12 but I say to you that Elijah already came, and they did not recognize him, but did [d]to him whatever they wished. So also the Son of Man is going to suffer [e]at their hands.” 13 Then the disciples understood that He had spoken to them about John the Baptist.
I always amazed when scholars tell us that the OT Messianic kingdom predictions must be interpreted “literally” when it is obvious that is just not the case as seen from these 2 examples (David and Elijah). They will interpret Messianic predictions about Israel being restored to their land as literal, and look for that to be fulfilled. Usually, they say it was fulfilled in 1948 when Israel was given statehood as a nation and given a large portion of the Holy Land that they occupy today. Two big mistakes. One, the promises of returning to the land was made to the remnant of Jews who believed in the Messiah, and not to the nation as a whole. Paul makes this point in Romans 9 6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel. He quotes Isaiah on the remnant: 27 Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, “Though the number of the sons of Israel be like the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that will be saved. God never promised to save the whole nation in the Messianic Age. AS a matter of fact, he sent the Romans to destroy the unbelieving Jews in 70 AD. He took the kingdom from the Jews and gave it to His spiritual nation, the church, made up of Jew and Gentile believers only. Matthew 21 43 Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a [m]people, producing the fruit of it. Paul argues that all of God’s Messianic predictions and promises for Israel were fulfilled in the spiritual blessings received by the remnant of believing Jews in his time. Two, the promises to the remnant were not fulfilled literally, as in actually getting the land they once possessed as a nation. Jesus had said that his kingdom was not of this world. It is a spiritual kingdom, the church, and not a physical kingdom as in the days of David. The Jews expected the Messiah to “restore all things” to them as a nation, giving them the power over all other nations as they had in the days of David, but God never intended that. Sure, the prophets said that Israel would be “restored to their land and never lose that land again”, but that was fulfilled spiritually and had nothing to do with physical land anywhere. I know that sounds strange to many, but so would the prophecies about David and Elijah! So how was the remnant restored to their land? The kingdom of God is spiritual, and its land is the whole reign of God, a spiritual reign over the whole earth. We reign with Jesus over this spiritual realm as sons of God.
Other OT Messianic Age predictions illustrate this point. Jeremiah 33 14 ‘Behold, days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will fulfill the good word which I have spoken concerning the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 15 In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch of David to spring forth; and He shall execute justice and righteousness on the earth. 16 In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell in safety; and this is the name by which she will be called: the Lord is our righteousness.’ 17 For thus says the Lord, ‘[g]David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel; 18 [h]and the Levitical priests shall never lack a man before Me to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings and to prepare sacrifices [i]continually.’” God had promised David that one of his descendants would sit on his throne forever. That was fulfilled in Jesus, and thus “David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne”. But also the Levitcal priests shall never lack a man offer burnt offerings and sacrifices. That is a prediction for the new covenant, and yet we know that animal sacrifices were taken away under the new covenant. We know that the Levitical priests were supplanted by Jesus our high priest after the order of Melchizadek, not Levi (Hebrews 7) and that all Christians are priests, not Levites. So this obviously is a figurative predictiion fulfilled figuratively, not literally. Yet some demand literal interpretation of some of the OT Messianic predictions, and surely they would not think that in the Messianic Age that we will go back to animal sacrifices and Levitical priests, would they?
I hope this summary of 1,2 Chronicles has been helpful. I hope this discussion of the fulfillment of figurative OT Messianic predictions helps also.
Nicky's Notes 