2 Chronicles 27 · a question people ask

2 Kings and 2 Chronicles tell Jotham's reign differently. Do they disagree?

In the text

They tell it side by side, each with things the other leaves out. Both give his age and years, "twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem" (2 Kings 15:33; 27:1), and his mother, whom 2 Kings calls "Jerusha the daughter of Zadok" (2 Kings 15:33) and 2 Chronicles "Jerushah the daughter of Zadok" (27:1). Both say he did right as his father had, and both go on with however. 2 Kings: "However the high places were not taken away. The people still sacrificed and burned incense in the high places. He built the upper gate of the LORD’s house" (2 Kings 15:35). 2 Chronicles: "However he didn’t enter into the LORD’s temple. The people still acted corruptly" (27:2), and "He built the upper gate of the LORD’s house" (27:3). Only 2 Kings tells that "In those days, the LORD began to send Rezin the king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah against Judah" (2 Kings 15:37). Only 2 Chronicles tells of the wall of Ophel, the cities, fortresses and towers, the war with Ammon, and why "Jotham became mighty" (27:3-6). For the rest of his acts, 2 Kings points to "the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah" (2 Kings 15:36), and 2 Chronicles to "the book of the kings of Israel and Judah" (27:7). Neither book explains the other, and these notes set them side by side without choosing.

From Favor's study of 2 Chronicles 27

2 Chronicles 27: He ordered his ways

The one thing Jotham didn't copy from his father is told with the same Hebrew verb and the same word for temple as his father's trespass: Uzziah "went into the LORD’s temple" (26:16); Jotham "didn’t enter into the LORD’s temple" (27:2). And 2 Chronicles gives the reason he became mighty: "he ordered his ways before the LORD his God" (27:6).

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