The Chronicles

The books of I and II Chronicles are entirely absent from the Revised Common Lectionary. Only a few disconnected bits appear in the Daily Office Lectionary, interspersed into the narrative of I and II Kings that we have recently completed. I submit that this is a grievous error, akin to using only one Gospel account for public worship (perhaps St. Luke, as it is the most elegantly written), entirely ignoring St. Matthew and Mark, and taking only a few stray bits from St. John. We have four accounts of the Messiah’s ministry for very good reasons, not least to emphasize the centrality of these events. It is for similar reasons that Genesis contains two creation stories, and other passages where it appears that two or more parallel oral histories have been stitched together. Exodus contains but the one account of the deliverance from Egypt and the giving of the Torah, but it is revisited several times in the Psalter (especially Psalms 105 and 106, but also Psalm 78 and others), and is never far from the heart of the prophets.

It has been my custom for decades to read the Chronicles at this point in the two-year Daily cycle, after the completion of II Kings, alongside the bits from Jeremiah and Lamentations that have occupied us for the last week or so and the reading of Ezra and Nehemiah that begins tomorrow. I commend this practice to you, especially the reading of the Chronicles as a connected narrative in one swoop.

I will admit that I do not read the genealogies closely, and skim lightly over some of the other passages. But they are not to be entirely skipped. Some observations:

Adam, Sheth, Enosh
Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jered (I Chron. 1:1-2)

Thus begins the nine chapter genealogy. It profits from being read aloud, for it then becomes clear that the names are grouped for ease of memorization. It boggles my mind to consider such a task, but it is equally clear that some people did exactly that – they memorized these lists of names so that they could retain them as a part of their history, long before such things were committed to writing. It is also striking how little bits of family lore slip into the lists, just as they would when an old person is recounting her memories to the youngsters. There are many such examples in I Chronicles; here is one.

Now Sheshan had no sons, but daughters. And Sheshan had a servant, an Egyptian, whose name was Jarha. And Sheshan gave his daughter to Jarha his servant to wife; and she bare him Attai. And Attai begat Nathan, and Nathan begat Zabad… (I Chron. 2:34-36)

As a child, I sat for hours in utter boredom in my grandfather’s sitting room, the flies buzzing in the windows, as he and his sisters spoke of relatives and ancestors long dead, slipping in stories in exactly this manner. I wish that I had listened.

It is worthy of note also that there are no dates. Just the names, in their order, with an occasional reference to the wider events of the kingdom, such as “in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah” (4:41).

And these are they whom David set over the service of song

And these are they whom David set over the service of song in the house of the LORD, after that the ark had rest. And they ministered before the dwelling place of the tabernacle of the congregation with singing, until Solomon had built the house of the LORD in Jerusalem: and then they waited on their office according to their order… (6:31-32)

It is a delight to read these names, “they that waited, with their children” (v. 33). As the commentaries observe, these musicians, these Levites (and the porters, the equivalent of modern-day church sextons and ushers) are elsewhere nameless. It is only the priests who are considered worthy of mention by name.

This parallels current practice. In the church hallway upstairs, one may find photographs of the Bishops of Iowa and the Rectors and other clergy of this parish. No musicians. No Christian educators. And especially, no sextons or vergers, no ladies and gentlemen of the Altar Guild.

It is well to know by evidence of Holy Scripture that these persons are not unknown to God.

So they brought the ark of God, and set it in the midst of the tent that David had pitched for it, and they offered burnt sacrifices and praise offerings before God… And he appointed certain of the Levites to minister before the ark of the LORD, and to record, and to thank and praise the LORD God of Israel: Asaph the chief, and next to him Zechariah, Jeiel, and Shemiramoth… (16:1, 4-5a)

Then on that day David delivered this psalm to thank the LORD into the hand of Asaph and his brethren. Give thanks unto the LORD, call upon his name, make know his deeds among the people. Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him, talk ye of all his wondrous works (v. 7-9)

The following passage (v. 8-36) is an anthology drawn from several of the Psalms, which the commentary assures us are all “post-exilic.” I would not be so sure, not in the face of a direct statement in Scripture that they came from the hand of David at the very time that the ark came to Jerusalem.

After the psalms, the passage continues:

So he left there before the ark of the covenant of the LORD Asaph and his brethren to minister before the ark continually, as every day’s work required (16:37)

To any church musician, that last part has resonance. Three thousand years later, the ministry continues “as every day’s work requires.”

Yet more names

Chapters 23 through 27 are an account of those who ministered at the time when David, “old and full of days, made Solomon his son king over Israel” (23:1). It is a treasure to know these names, even to the point of the ordering of the musicians into twenty-four bands (25:8-31), after “they cast lots, ward against ward, as well the small as the great, the teacher as the scholar (v. 8). We see in this passage that then as now the music involves not just the adults and the most accomplished, but the small as well as the great, the teacher and the scholar. The musicians learned their work from childhood by doing it alongside their parents, their uncles and grandparents, the others of the musical community. This is a model for modern church music, a model which is too often ignored by musicians and parishes who do not have the patience to include the children in anything meaningful or important.

Moreover David and the captains of the host separated to the service of the sons of Asaph, and of Heman, and of Jeduthun, who should prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals… (25:1)

The close relation of prophecy and music is a subject too large to address here; it is enough to note that one does not simply “play” at music; it must be a prophetic work, guided (as with all prophecy) by the Spirit of God. In this context, one may well consider St. Paul’s teachings in I Corinthians 12 through 14:

Follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy… he that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort (14:1,3)

And of course, this:

What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also (14:15)

The conclusion of the matter: Holy Men and Holy Women

Time fails to delve further into these things, but I cannot pass II Chronicles without the mention of two passages, both of them with the essential details presented here and not in II Kings:

Also the Levites which were the singers, all of them of Asaph, of Heman, of Jeduthun, with their sons and their brethren, being arrayed in white line, having cymbals and psalteries and harps, stood at the east end of the altar, and with them an hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets: It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the LORD… that the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the LORD; So that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of the LORD had filled the house of God (II Chronicles 5:11-14)

Those who have been involved in the church’s music for very long have experienced such moments, when the musicians (including the congregation as they sing) are “as one,” and the Shekinah, the “cloud” that is the outward sign of the glory of the LORD, fills the house to the point that we are overcome and (at least for the moment) cannot continue.

This is not something of human manufacture. There is always the temptation to use music to manipulate, to achieve a desired effect or to implant an agenda. These are unworthy goals which stand in the way of music’s proper function, which is to help the people attain their unity in Christ (“as one”) and together to come into the divine Presence.
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Hezekiah began to reign when he was five and twenty years old, and he reigned nine and twenty years in Jerusalem… and he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that David his father had done. He in the first year of his reign, in the first month, opened the doors of the house of the LORD, and repaired them… (II Chron. 29:1-3)

The reign of Hezekiah is one of the central passages of the Old Testament. Fittingly, it is recorded not once or twice, but three times (II Kings, here in II Chronicles, and Isaiah). It is only here that the account is given in detail of the cleansing of the House and the restoration of worship according to its ancient and proper pattern, including the musical work (29:25-28), and the great Passover, such as had not been since the time of Solomon (chapter 30).

The Sages say that there are four holy men who found God on their own, out of the darkness without human assistance (though not without Divine help and revelation): Abraham, Job, the Messiah – and Hezekiah. He had grown up in the wicked court of his father Ahaz, and somehow he found it in his heart to do as he did.

But he was not the last king worthy of his fathers, for as we read in the Chronicles, there was one more revival under Josiah (chapters 34 and 35). He too restored the passover, with the musical service (35:15), so that it was written

And there was no passover like to that kept in Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet (35:18).

When he died in battle at the age of thirty-nine,

… all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah. And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah: and all the singing men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations to this day… (35:24-25).

The end was now at hand. But it is not a small thing for one’s death to be lamented by Jeremiah the prophet – perhaps in musical form, as might be implied by the context. One might also note the “singing women” in this verse; until now, we have heard nothing of female musicians, and it is good to know that they were there. Unlike the men, we do not even have their names, nor anything about what they did (beyond “lamentations”). But like the men, they are known to God and their music is not forgotten; like all music that is true, it ever remains in the heart of God.

We live in time and can see and hear but the present moment, with memories of the past – our own memories, and those preserved in the genealogies and stories and writings passed from our ancestors. Music preeminently is the art of the Present – it exists in its only true form, its live sound in performance, only in the moment. But God stands above the circle of time and perceives it all, in its entirety, all at once and forever.