Expansion and exile in the Chronicler’s narrative of the two and a half tribes (1 Chr. 5.1-26)

Abstract

Discussion of Exile in the book of Chronicles is generally limited to questions regarding its duration, scope, and comparisons of its portrayal in Chronicles with that in parallel books (Kings and Jeremiah). The prevalent approach to these questions in scholarship is that the Chronicler does not perceive this exile as a permanent state and usually downplays its duration or the number of people exiled. This is not the case, however, in regard to the two and a half tribes in 1 Chr. 5. Their exile is mentioned no fewer than three times in the genealogical lists of these tribes. I will attempt to explore why the exile of these tribes is relatively prominent in the text and how this contributes to the Chronicler’s perception of ‘all of Israel’.