2 Chron 34-36

I Know....I know...I know.....I've been sick or gone.  I'm hopefully better today.  One more good nap and I'll be set!  :) I"ve at least showered today!  An improvement from yesterday.    I feel like I"m waining in my committment.   But I'm here now....don't have long though.  

I think we've finished up 2 Chronicles...maybe that alone will help my motivation to blog again! :) I'm not sure where I left you last but we'll just have to have a summary of ending 2 Chronicles. We'll start Ezra tonight.  Then Esther!  That will be fun to blog!

Chapter 34 Josiah was a good king....a reforming king that desecrated and demolished the places and objects of pagan worship.  He even repairs the temple and during his reign the book of law, perhaps the book of Deuteronomy,  is found!! In its discovery, true repentance is followed by the finding.  There are some differences between the accounts in King and Chronicles, mainly the order of events, but neither book is concerned with chronology.  The significance is in what they teach!

Chapter 35 The Passover had been neglected, but was revived by Hezekiah in chapter 30. Now the celebration forms the greatness of Josiah's reforms.  The nation remembered their deliverance from slavery in Egypt--within a few short years of a second slavery......that is, in Babylon.

Chapter 36  Zedekiah had been given many warnings by God through Jeremiah and the other prophets, but they were all ignored.  The destruction of the city and Temple are seen as God's punishment-- a jedgment that spelt death or exile for the whole nation.  The exile lasted about 70 years, until  the Persians took over the Babylonian Empire.  When the book of Ezra was detached from Chronicles, the verses of 36:22,23 were retained at the end of Chronicles and repeated at the beginning of Ezra.  Chronicles could not end at verse 21.  God had not utterly