2 Chronicles

Tyndale Old Testament Commentary #11

by Martin J. Selman

The Chronicler wrote as a pastoral theologian. The congregation he addressed was an Israel separated from its former days of blessing by a season of judgment. The books of 1 and 2 Chronicles bring a divine word of healing and reaffirm the hope of restoration to a nation that needed to regain its footing in God's promises and to reshape its life before God.The Chronicler expounds the Bible as he knows it, skillfully weaving his commentary into the linear text of Israel's history. His theme is straightforward--the promises of God revealed in the Davidic covenant are as trustworthy and as effective as the God who first uttered them.In two volumes Martin Selman provides an excellent interpretation of these sorely neglected yet profound books of the Old Testament. This volume on 2 Chronicles continues to build on the groundwork laid by its companion in 1 Chronicles.The original, unrevised text of this volume has been completely retypeset and printed in a larger, more attractive format with the new cover design for the series.

Genres: Reference, Biblical Studies, Nonfiction, Old Testament, Christian, Theology

551 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1994

Reviews

[Joe Stevens · Rating 3 out of 5]

I suspect that this was intended to be a one volume commentary, as the Samuel and Kings commentaries are each one volume, but it got a bit longer than intended. Because of this there seem to be volumes with and without the introduction which covers both books. Since the best part of these volumes are the excellent introductions, it is hard to know exactly how to rate these books.

The premise that the Tyndale series is an introduction is somewhat betrayed by the roughly 200,000 word length of the two volumes on Chronicles. By comparison the Tyndale works on Samuel and Kings, which are of roughly equal length to Chronicles in the Bible, as hundreds of pages shorter and the NAC commentary which is often considered the step up in complexity from the Tyndale series is 150 pages shorter and an easier read.

This greater depth also creates a readability problem in that Dr. Selman's immense research created something like ten times more cross references in his text than in other similar works. These often resulted in sentences broken into three to five word segments with more references than words in a sentence. The most egregious example saw over 100 references in a single page and the feeling that the English was interspersed by chapter and verse numbers rather than the other way around.

The other issue seems to have been a poor understanding of what needed in depth commentary. If the text were to say that the sky were blue or the sky were lime green or give a deep scientific on the color spectrum, the commentary would have been the same length for each idea. This resulted in thoughts ranging from excellent insights, to simplistic repetition of the text to glossing over controversial topics.

For the purposes of this second volume, it is the first quarter or so that covers Solomon that saw the least useful commentary. The extreme cross referencing made the text virtually unreadable and the commentary was often well below the level of usefulness that I would use in my Sunday school. As the book progressed, the commentary improved significantly. To some extent I think this was because new Kings popped on and off the throne regularly giving plenty of solid subjects to exegete and the author generally restricted the references to appropriate texts in 2 Chronicles and Isaiah / Jeremiah as appropriate.

Overall this is an uneven work, but if you stick with it you will find that you learn about the purposes and times of the Chronicler and walk away with a decent understanding of Chronicles.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 2 Chronicles commentary in the Tyndale Commentary Series was written by the same guy who wrote 1 Chronicles and I've already reviewed that commentary so I won't belabor the point here. Suffice to say that Chronicles must be one of the more difficult books of the Bible to write a commentary on, and Mr. Selman carries it off quite well.

[Sae-chan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The most intriguing line in 1-2 Chronicles for me was the one toward the end "...and the land enjoyed its sabbath". Are we giving sabbath to our land?

Thanks Mr. Selman, I really learned a lot from your commentary.

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent. Very thoughtful and deep. Trustworthy and orthodox.

[Johnmohrbacher]

3 pages