But the mention of these names reminds us that the chronicler's limitation of his subject to the history of Judah excludes much of the material that might have been drawn from the earlier history for a picture of the wicked king. If it had been part of the chronicler's plan to tell the story of Ahab, he might have been led to develop his material and moralise upon the king's career till the narrative assumed proportions that would have rivalled the history of David. Over against the great scene that closed David's life might have been set another summing up in one dramatic moment the guilt and ruin of Ahab. But these schismatic kings were "alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world."(251) The disobedient sons of the house of David were still children within the home, who might be rebuked and punished; but the Samaritan kings, as the chronicler might style them, were outcasts, left to the tender mercies of the dogs, and sorcerers, and murderers that were without the Holy City, Cains without any protecting mark upon their forehead.
Hence the wicked kings in Chronicles are of the house of David. Therefore the chronicler has a certain tenderness for them, partly for the sake of their great ancestor, partly because they are kings of Judah, partly because of the sanctity and religious significance of the Messianic dynasty. These kings are not Esaus, for whom there is no place of repentance. The chronicler is happy in being able to discover and record the conversion, as we should term it, of some kings whose reigns began in rebellion and apostacy. By a curious compensation, the kings who begin well end badly, and those who begin badly end well; they all tend to about the same average. We read of Rehoboam(252) that "when he humbled himself the wrath of the Lord turned from him, that he would not destroy him altogether; and, moreover, in Judah there were good things found"; the wickedness of Abijah, which is plainly set forth in the book of Kings,(253) is ignored in Chronicles; Manasseh "humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers," and turned altogether from the error of his ways(254); the unfavourable judgment on Jehoahaz recorded in the book of Kings, "And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done,"(255) is omitted in Chronicles.