The books of Chronicles cover much of the same historical
material we find in the books of Samuel and Kings, sometimes in near-identical
wording. This provokes legitimate questions: Do we need both? Our Bibles are
bulky enough already without including a whole lot of duplicated material. What
do the books of Chronicles offer us that Samuel and Kings do not?
There are several possible responses to those questions, but
the short answers are “Yes” and “Quite a bit.” I am working on a
comparative study of the two sets of narratives and hope to get into that
subject more extensively later this year in this space if time permits. Though
more or less the same time periods are covered, there are numerous variations
in content and wording that make each account useful to readers in different
ways.