The Chronicles cover the same period as the Kings, so I'll be reading them alongside one another. Oddly, they are together in the chronological bible, so I'll be using the Wiersbe commentary: Be Responsible as my reading guide.
Since I just learned this, I decided I needed to include a brief intro to the new book, II Chronicles.
Here's a few facts from the Intro to the book in the Ryrie Study Bible:
- I and II Chronicles were one book and traced Israel from Adam to the Babylonia captivity and Cyrus' decree that they could return.
- Ezra is generally consider to be the author.
- His goal in this telling of the story was to highlight the way forward for the people as they returned from exiled and were starting again.
- This book covers Solomon (with a trace of David) to the captivity and Cryus' decree.
- II Chronicles focuses only on the Kings of Judah and not Israel.
- The theme being: disobedience to the law is what lead to the captivity.
The NIV Chronological Bible includes brief comments before beginning II Chronicles, but makes an important point that the Chronicler paints a much more flattering picture of Solomon, much like David, because the idea was to inspire the people returning from exile to be their best selves. They had a temple to reconstruct, so Solomon as temple builder was the main idea of the book. Things like his wisdom, positive things, were downplayed, and negative things removed altogether.