ABSTRACT
Out of the ashes and rubble of a Jerusalem razed by Nebuchadnezzar’s army, there arose a new settlement in the centuries that followed.2 Within this period of Jerusalem’s slow rebirth, the story of Judah’s past was rewritten for a community who, much like Jerusalem itself, had been transformed by the experiences of war and foreign empire. This new story, dependent on, but quite distinct from, the tales conveyed in Samuel-Kings, finds particular significance for this study of David’s Jerusalem because it provides a second, disparate perspective of David’s capital from antiquity. Consequently, in holding up the Chronicler’s depiction of David’s Jerusalem alongside that portrait rendered in Samuel-Kings, the historian is afforded the uncommon opportunity to observe how literary memories of David’s capital were negotiated and reframed within a second, later text from the ancient world.
