The Stories of Samuel, Chronicles and Kings: Conflicts, Contradictions, and Inconsistency.

Kenneth M. Montville DD

For anyone who is familiar with the Bible they know that the Old Testament is much longer
than the New Testament. The Old Testament is made up of 39 books containing the longest books of the
Bible—Psalms and Proverbs—whole the 27 books of the New Testament contain some of the shortest—3
John and Philemon. When thinking about this for a moment it makes sense. The New Testament only
covers the infancy of Jesus, his ministry and the events of a few decades afterward while the Old
Testament covers about 4,000 years of mythological Jewish history from the beginning of creation—
naturally the Old Testament is going to be longer. Just like the New Testament, the Old Testament has
divisions within it. The New Testament is divided into the four gospels, Acts, the thirteen Pauline
epistles, the eight general (Catholic) epistles, and Revelation, this division is not debated among the
faithful much aside from the placement of the Epistle to the Hebrews within either the Pauline or
Catholic epistles. However, the divisions of the Old Testament are debated more between Christians
and Jews. The Christian breakdown is this:

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,

Pentateuch
Twelve Historical Books
Five Poetical Books
Five Major Prophets
Twelve Minor Prophets
Numbers, Deuteronomy
Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel,
2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1
Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ezra,
Nehemiah, Esther
Job, Psalms, Proverbs,
Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon
Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Lamentations, Ezekiel, and
Daniel
Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah,
Jonah, Micah, Nahum,
Habakkuk, Zapheniah, Haggai,
Zechariah, and Malachi

This is fairly contrary to the traditional breakdown of the Jewish version of the Old Testament known
as the Tanakh. Tanakh is a sort of acronym for the three sections of the Hebrew Bible the Torah, the
Nevi’im and the Ketuvim (Instruction, Prophets and Writings respectively). The Prophets and Writings
are then broken down further into categories like major and minor prophets and the poetical books,

Copyright © 2011 Kenneth M. Montville

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five scrolls and the historical books. It should be noted that the Writings are considered by Jews to be
divinely inspired but are neither prophetic nor authoritative. Really, the only similarity with the
Christian canon is that the Torah contains the same five books as the Pentateuch. However, it isn’t just
what certain books are called that change, placement of books and book divisions are also different.
Where Christians divide Samuel, Kings and Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah into two books the Jews
maintain that they are one and while the Christian canon lists Daniel as a prophetical book the Jews
allot Daniel among the “other historical books” giving it no prophetical or authoritative credence. For
the Jews their canon looks something more similar to this:

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,

Torah Torah
Numbers, Deuteronomy
Joshua, Judges, Samuel (I & II),
Nevi'im Prophets Kings (I & II), Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Ezekiel
Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah,
Micah, Nahum, Habakuk,
Minor Prophets
Zaphaniah, Haggai, Zechariah,
Malachi
Ketuvim Three Poetic Books Psalms, Proverbs, Job
Song of Solomon, Ruth,
Five Scrolls
Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther
Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah,
Other Historical Books
Chronicles (I & II)

One could write for years on the differences between the Jewish and Christian understanding of the
Hebrew Scriptures and many people have, this is not what this essay is about. This essay will try to
examine one particular aspect of the Old Testament, that of the curious relation between six of the
Christian books—three in the Tanakh—those of I & II Samuel, I & II Kings and I & II Chronicles. Note
how within the Christian canon all six of these books fall into the same category, while in the Tanakh
Chronicles is delegates as an historical book and not a prophetic one.
For background the books are supposed historical accounts beginning with the birth of Samuel
and genealogy of the House of Saul thus setting the stage for David and Solomon and ending with the
release from Babylonian captivity by Cyrus the Great. The books of I & II Samuel and I & II Kings move
in procession from one to the next while I & II Chronicles covers the entirety of their stories starting
with the line to David. However, simply because these books claim to tell the same story their internal
consistency is left wanting.
The first contradiction is found near the end of 2 Samuel 24 where David needs to count the
fighting men of Israel. In this account God demands that David count the fighting men, David finds
Copyright © 2011 Kenneth M. Montville
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retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior
permission of the author.
“and there were in Israel eight hundred thousand valiant men that drew the sword; and the men of
Judah were five hundred thousand men.”1 Upon counting the men David exclaims that he has sinned
greatly and the prophet Gad comes to rebuke him and offer an ultimatum commanding David to choose
his punishment, “"Shall seven years of famine come unto thee in thy land? or wilt thou flee three
months before thine enemies, while they pursue thee? or that there be three days' pestilence in thy
land?”2 David chooses pestilence rather than having to fall to his enemies and thus seventy thousand
people die.3 However, in the version of this story which appears in 1 Chronicles 21 the details are very
different. It is actually Satan who entices David to count the fighting men of Israel.4 Upon the counting
David found that in “Israel there were one million one hundred thousand men who drew the sword,
and in Judah four hundred and seventy thousand who drew the sword.”5 Again, as in 2 Samuel, the
prophet Gad comes to rebuke David and offer him the choice of his punishment, “Either three years'
famine; or three months to be destroyed before thy foes, while that the sword of thine enemies
overtaketh thee; or else three days the sword of the LORD, even the pestilence, in the land, and the
angel of the LORD destroying throughout all the coasts of Israel.”6 In this version David also chooses the
pestilence and seventy thousand people die.7
People fail to notice the differences unless they are laid out side by side so let us do just that.

2 Samuel 24 1 Chronicles 21
Who commands David to count
God Satan
the people?
How many fighting men are Eight hundred One million one
found in Israel? thousand hundred thousand
How many fighting men are Five hundred Four hundred
found in Judah? thousand seventy thousand
How many years famine is
Seven Three
David threatened with?

This is not the only point of variance however. The list of differences between the story in the
books of Samuel and Kings and that presented in the books of Chronicles can be listed in the same way
ad nauseum. For the sake of brevity I shall list them in the same manner as above rather than summarize
the whole of all the stories. Here we will see how the internal consistency of the Bible is left wanting
even in what should be a consistent self referencing history.

1
2 Samuel 24:9
2
2 Samuel 24:13
3
2 Samuel 24:15
4
1 Chronicles 21:1
5
1 Chronicles 21:5
6
1 Chronicles 21:12
7
1 Chronicles 21:14
Copyright © 2011 Kenneth M. Montville
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retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior
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 Samuel Kings Chronicles
How old was Ahaziah when he
- Twenty-two Forty-two
began his rule? 8
How old was Jehoiachin when he
- Eighteen Eight
began his rule? 9
How long did Jehoiachin rule Three months and
Three months
Jerusalem? 10 ten days

The Chief of the mighty men of

David killed how many people at Eight hundred - Three hundred
once with his spear? 11

When did David bring the Ark of Before defeating After defeating the
-
the Covenant to Jerusalem 12 the Philistines Philistines

When David defeated the King of

One thousand
Zobah, how many horsemen did - Seven thousand
seven hundred
he take? 13
How many stalls for horses did
- Fourty thousand Four thousand
Solomon have? 14
In what year of King Asa's reign Twenty-sixth After his thirty-
-
did Baasha, King of Israel die? 15 year sixth year
How many overseers fif Solomon
Three thousand Three thousand six
appoint to work on building the -
three hundred hundred
temple? 16
Solomon built a facility Over three
- Two thousand
containing how many baths? 17 thousand

This is but one isolated case of a series of internal inconsistencies within the Bible. Whether it is within
the same book such as the conflicting creation stories of Genesis 1 and 2 or between books such as the
different genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke, the authors of the books of the Bible seemed to
have had little care for making sure their numbers, names and order of events matched.

8
2 Kings 8:26 vs. 1 Chronicles 22:2
9
2 Kings 24:8 vs. 2 Chronicles 36:98
10
2 Kings 24:8 vs. 2 Chronicles 36:98
11
2 Samuel 23:8 vs. 1 Chronicles 11:11
12
2 Samuel 5-6 vs. 1 Chronicles 13-14
13
2 Samuel 8:4 vs. 1 Chronicles 18 :4
14
1 Kings 4:26 vs. 2 Chronicles 9 :25
15
1 Kings 15:33-16:8 vs. 2 Chronicles 16:1
16
1 Kings 5:16 vs. 2 Chronicles 2:2
17
1 Kings 7:26 vs. 2 Chronicles 4:5
Copyright © 2011 Kenneth M. Montville
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication can be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior
permission of the author.