1 and 2 Chronicles

Johnstone's two-volume commentary (Sheffield, 1997) offers genuine strengths — his identification of ma'al as a structuring theme, his attention to Masoretic paragraph markers, and his intertextual work linking Chronicles to Leviticus 5–6 and 25–26 are all valuable. However, the commentary is marred by serious problems. Methodologically, his programmatic dismissal of historicity as "at best a distraction," his labelling of Manasseh's repentance and Jehoiakim's exile as the Chronicler's "inventions," and his treatment of narrative data as "moveable counters" go further than even critical scholars like Japhet (OTL) or Knoppers (AYB), and stand sharply at odds with Thompson (NAC), who marshals Assyrian inscriptions supporting the very historicity Johnstone denies; Dillard (WBC) likewise argues that the deviations from orthodox practice in Hezekiah's Passover would be highly unlikely in a fabricated account, and most commentators allow that the differing accounts of Josiah's death may simply reflect different aspects of the same event — mortally wounded at Megiddo, dying upon arrival in Jerusalem — rather than irreconcilable theological constructions. To construct a theology of atonement and holiness from narratives one has already admitted are "inventions" and "moveable counters" is to build on sand by one's own reckoning, and the same self-undermining logic applies to his claim that the Chronicler's prophetic source citations refer to works that "probably never existed" — if an author fabricates his sources, how secure is the theology built upon them? His method compounds the problem: he treats every minute textual variation between Chronicles and Samuel–Kings as theologically significant and deliberate, while acknowledging that some may be accidents of transmission, resolving the tension by fiat ("any changes that exist are deliberate, no matter how small") — creating an unfalsifiable system in which every variation confirms the thesis. Theologically, his opening claim that Chronicles teaches "no easy blotting out of the guilty past" foregrounds legalistic reparation while backgrounding the Chronicler's own repeated celebrations of divine mercy, not least the centrepiece of the Chronicler's forgiveness theology in 2 Chronicles 7:14 — "If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land" — a remarkably gracious and direct promise that sits poorly with Johnstone's framing; the effect is to present a harder, more legalistic picture of God than the text warrants. Several of his distinctive constructs — a jubilee chronology making the exilic generation the "fiftieth from Adam," a "duality in the one Deity," and the elevation of Pharaoh Neco to a "righteous gentile" alongside Cyrus — find no support in any other major commentary. His listing of "consulting the physicians" (2 Chr 16:12) as an abstract theological category of sin alongside idolatry and foreign alliances miscategorises what is specifically a criticism of Asa's failure to seek God — not a blanket condemnation of medical practice — potentially misleading readers about the Bible's stance on medicine, as Selman (TOTC) carefully notes. In short: stimulating to argue with and frequently illuminating on details, but too thesis-driven and too dismissive of the text's historical claims to serve as a reliable guide to what the Chronicler is actually saying.

This commentary ties Chronicles particularly to the Priestly as opposed to the Deuteronomic literature, which I appreciate and think is appropriate. It doesn’t engage much with secondary literature, but focuses on theological and intertextual insights. [Full Review]

A literary and rhetorical study of Chronicles as a text of hope for restoration in future generations. [Full Review]