Second Book of Chronicles 11-36, Book of Ezra 1-10

Second Chronicles features plenty of references to what are apparently lost books Hebrews at the time included in their tradition.  Rehoboam's story is supposed to continue in the chronicles of Shemaiah and Iddo (who appears to be a fairly significant lost figure, considering this is his second mention in the Chronicles; it's just as if only the Kings references to Jonah and Jeremiah, for instance, were all we knew of them, besides their separate books and Jeremiah's expanded role in Chronicles).  Abijah's career is also expanded by the lost Iddo as well as the first mention of the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel, which I needed to confirm was not a reference back to First and Second Kings, much as Kings themselves kept referencing Chronicles.

Arabs are referenced as such.

Micaiah appears, a prophet of the apocalyptic persuasion.

The longer Second Chronicles continues, the clearer its portrait of simply uninspired kings becomes.  These people are simply not relevant to the Jewish tradition, which may be a way of saying that not every generation or significant figure can actually be significant, considering the previous books in the Bible have all featured almost exclusively names that actively contributed to the tradition.

Jehoshaphat's further exploits can be found in the chronicles of Jehu, which is referenced in tandem with the Book of the Kings of Israel, which is probably the same as the above lost book of similar title.

Elijah appears, in a far less significant role, though he sends a letter, which is a form of communication far more prevalent in the New Testament (most of which is composed of such addresses).

Chronicles seems to feature more work done on the temple than in Kings.  There's a restoration effort before Josiah's, for instance.  Perhaps I'm misremembering, but the intended earlier effort in Kings was aborted after the money was collected and everyone decided to just hold onto the funds for a while, like a biblical banking operation.

There's apparently another account of this period in the Commentary on the Book of Kings, which again may be another way of phrasing something referenced above.  Amaziah's story continues in the Book of Kings of Judah and Israel, at any rate.

I thought it was amusing to see the term "muster" used so frequently in Second Chronicles.  To give you another Tolkien reference, the "muster of Rohan" certainly seems like something that could easily have featured in this book of the Bible.

Isaiah wrote the further adventures of Uzziah.  I guess I'll find out if it's in Book of Isaiah, or if we're talking about another lost book.

There's one bad king who seems like he was definitely written that way at the end of his reign just to justify another bad turn on the part of Hebrew history.  It's incredibly tempting to interpret this whole period that way.  It might also explain the disconnect between the reign of Solomon as described in Kings and Chronicles.

Jotham comes off well.  He can be found in the lost Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel.  So can Ahaz.

Another indication of how faith can sometimes form is the phrase, "for the commandment was from the Lord through his prophets."  One of the thorny issues of the Bible and faith in general is the belief that if someone says you have to believe someone because God inspired them, you have to assume that's exactly what happened.  This appears to be a far harder thing to verify in the modern world than in biblical times.  Again, I'm not say faith is invalidated if you question things like this, but it's also maybe a good thing if you question whether or not all the specific details that clearly helped build a culture as much as a religious should still be considered unquestionably valid today.

Hezekiah also gets a good write-up.  I realize I may be duplicating observations between Kings and Chronicles on some of these individuals, but there are subtle variations.  Sometimes even someone who was spoken of favorably got one of those famous bad ends, to the effect of "he still wasn't absolutely perfect and so God was displeased with him."  That happens less frequently in Chronicles than in Kings.  The other thing about Hezekiah is that he gets to deliver a speech before some troops that would not at all be out of place in a Hollywood action movie.  Mel Gibson was at one point thinking of making a movie out of the adventures of the Maccabees.  He could easily do that with any number of earlier books.  It would look exactly like Braveheart.

Somehow even though a number of kings have been cycled through (and some eight paragraphs later here), Elijah makes another appearance.  There is apparently a vision of Elijah in the lost Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel.  Manasseh, who was a bad king, can be found in the lost Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.

We finally reach Josiah again!  As before, he sets about rebuilding the temple.  The book of the law, and Moses, and the ark are all referenced, links not specifically established in Kings.  There is a Huldah the prophetess who appears.  She's the latest obscure female prophet in the Old Testament, but they do in fact exist!  Josiah's arc (as opposed to Moses's ark) is much better in Chronicles.  His dedication to rededicating the Hebrews to the practice of the law distinguishes him from other religious revivals, which makes sense because most of what we know about him is that he's the guy who thought to actually read the old rules found in the ark again.  Of course, this also makes him to blame for any number of things, if you're interested in looking at it that way.  Josiah's subsequent observation of the passover meal is said to be the greatest since the days of Samuel.  Jeremiah offers a lament upon the death of Josiah, whose career can also be found in the lost Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel.  Jehoiakim can be found there, too.  Zedekiah "did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet."

Second Chronicles ends confusingly if you expect it to be exact parallel with the end of Second Kings, because when we reach Nebuchadnezzar and the exile, we're soon treated to the Persian Empire.  This is of course the fulfillment of a prophecy from Jeremiah, whose importance is roughly proportionate to Isaiah's in Kings, and vice versa.  Cyrus, meanwhile, king of Persia, is responsible for the end of the exile.  You may be confused about the exile ending so abruptly because it plays such a famous role in Jewish history.  This is because there are a number of separate books that return to this era, even though by the time we reach them it has already, in terms of biblical narrative, ended.  I would probably tend to argue, then, that the time of the bad kings, or perhaps even the time of the judges, should be greater stressed in the history than this exile, which isn't apparently nearly as dramatic, or traumatic, as the similar period of bondage in Egypt .

The Book of Ezra picks up the story right from the end of Second Chronicles.  It explains how Cyrus decides to end the exile so that he can be the latest person to rebuild the temple, although he himself won't be doing it, but rather the previously exiled Hebrews, part of an overall initiative on his part to honor a number of different gods (but it sounds better to just say he did it for the Hebrews, just as it's convenient to say Judaism is a monotheistic religion even though God himself acknowledged the existence of other gods, rather that it is intended as a worship of only him).

Nehemiah, Zechariah (son of Iddo, by the way!), Haggai, and Daniel are all referenced.  Each has their own book in the Bible.  All that and books from Jeremiah and Isaiah!  No wonder the exile period is so famous!

Besides Cyrus, Darius is referenced among the Persians.  This is a different Darius than the one Alexander defeated about a century later.  To put this period in context as far as culture goes, Alexander was very familiar with Greek myth.  He was obsessed with The Iliad.  It's no wonder that so much biblical material is comparable.  Artaxerxes, meanwhile, is the Persian king who temporarily makes it difficult for Cyrus to get his wish, because he remembers the Hebrews as bent on warfare, or as it's termed here rebellion and sedition (interesting way to describe it).  He's the son of the Xerxes who famously battled King Leonidas and the Spartans in the Battle of Thermopylae.  Context sure is fun!

Ezra himself appears very late in the Book of Ezra, funny enough.  He's a descendant of Aaron, by the way, which makes sense for him to be of priestly flavor.  His role in his own book is to revive the study of the law that Josiah has previously rediscovered.  This also makes sense.

First Book of Chronicles 11-29, Second Book of Chronicles 1-10

The thing that's striking right away about First Chronicles' approach to David is that it's lacking the heroic journey.  He jumps right into being the holy warrior king.  Samuel is referenced but apparently nowhere near as important, or perhaps his significance is merely implied, the way a slew of famous prophets are name-checked at the end of Second Kings.  It's funny, too, but David is described very specifically as actively working against Saul, going so far as to collaborate with the Philistines.  Shocking, to say the least!  It's also David who uses the ark as a totem of war.  This is literally a different version of the same story, although parallel in most ways, much like the gospels of the New Testament.  In fact, it becomes more and more clear that the Old and New Testaments are far more structurally similar than you might sometimes think.  This may have been far more obvious in times past, but now, when most Christians don't know the majority of the Old Testament, things like this can be so illuminating.  The Old Testament itself is full of echoes, so it's not surprising that the early Christians wanted the New Testament to be nearly exactly like it, even in the ways where it seems to outright contradict its predecessor.

David delivers a psalm which reads like a mission statement of faith, including the phrase, "let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice," which was later adapted into a modern hymn.  The name "Satan" is invoked, though not explicitly explained.  This is hardly the first time that sort of thing happens.  The Bible is heavy with implied knowledge, and it's always dangerous for later generations to just assume it can all be lifted directly and literally to their own time.

God actually rejects the doctrine of war as the basis for promulgating the future of Israel, even though so much of the Old Testament to this point has been filled with it.  It's the reason given here for why Solomon and not David will build the temple (although there's also God's argument that he was perfectly content not to have a permanent home, almost as if he were relenting to David's logic).  It's almost as if war was perceived as crucial to the story originally for the simple reason that a certain amount of chaos was considered necessary to establishing order, like our modern notion of revolution.

This account of David's era is far more sober, less crafted, more like a foundation or yes, a chronicle.  If you really want to read the Bible without religious preference, this would be a good place to start.  David is downright Arthurian here.

The succession of Solomon is depicted as plain and obvious in this account, which is another major deviation from what has been established previously.

David describes Solomon's role after him in much the way Jesus later conferred on his apostles the future of the Church.  Another parallel.

First Chronicles ends by referencing some works that are clearly not in the Bible: the Chronicles of Samuel (which I would assume are different from First and Second Samuel), the Chronicles of Nathan, and the Chronicles of Gad.  No Chronicles of Narnia, alas.

Second Chronicles begins with the rise of Solomon, and features its own marked deviations, too, starting with how Solomon is given the gift of wisdom from God.  Previously he was given a choice of three gifts, and because he chose wisely (literally), he got all three.  Here he outright asks for wisdom, and God still gives him everything anyway.

The temple is built in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah.  It's a name that evokes Tolkien' Middle Earth, which would not be surprising.  Like C.S. Lewis, Tolkien built his fantasy on the back of his Christian faith, though less blatantly.  George Lucas likely did the same, though still less obviously, using other sources of what would be considered more obvious inspiration, but the elements are all there anyway.

Here the ark's contents are known, unlike what appears in Second Kings to be a secret Josiah stumbles across in the ruins of the temple.  It's very possible that separate traditions, perhaps from among the separate tribes, were gradually brought together.  They would have been aware of each other (hence the constant references to Chronicles in Kings), drawing from the same stories, but originally and quite obviously not cohesive.  It takes very brave faith for contradictions like this to exist in your holiest text.  It also takes very brave faith to completely ignore this and assume you can believe all of it at face value.  Both approaches are not necessarily wrong nor are they necessarily right.  For the objective believer, these are records that speak to essential truths that must be carefully sifted from the bones of history.  It becomes far easier when there are competing traditions right in the Bible itself, actually.  Despite ignorance in the face of free knowledge, it means no one was really trying to hide this fact.  This is good.

Solomon actually makes a call for universal inclusion in the Jewish faith, another presaging of the later Christian tradition.  So much of the Old Testament is geared toward the purity of the Jewish line, which is why there are all those genealogies, but right there and with one of the most famous figures of the Bible, there's one of the greatest contradictions!

You can further tell how God was perceived at the time by the way he was depicted, as a divine being who demanded perfect fealty, and when it wasn't given was ready to administer punishments and bad times at the drop of a hat, interpretations on past events that would have been natural to a people justifying their own history and continued devotion to an apparently capricious subject of faith.  That he also claims steadfast love is another contradiction, though Solomon does have God promise to relent if people make apologies.

Like David, Solomon's further adventures are supposed to be able to be found in other books, of course not found in the Bible: in Nathan, perhaps the same earlier-referenced Chronicles of; the prophecy of Ahijah; and the visions of Iddo, and both of these also concern Solomon's successors.

It's funny, but not a hint of Solomon's own wrong-doing is referenced in Second Chronicles.  He appears to be fairly perfect.  It's those who follow him who are the fallible wretches who ruin the future of Israel, so that the phrase, "so Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day" may be uttered again, and explain how two great men are not enough to have finally settled the fate of the Jewish people even though they were for all intents and purposes the culmination of all previous Old Testament material, a fact that only seems to be emphasized in First and Second Chronicles.