Books of Chronicles
The Book of Chronicles (Hebrew: דִּבְרֵי־הַיָּמִים Divrê Hayyāmîm) is a book in the Hebrew Bible. Chronicles is the final book of the Hebrew Bible, concluding the third section of the Jewish Tanakh, the Ketuvim ("Writings"). It contains a genealogy starting with Adam and a history of ancient Judah and Israel up to the Edict of Cyrus in 539 BCE.
Chronicles is two books in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. It was divided into two books in the Septuagint and translated mid 3rd century BC. In Christian contexts Chronicles is referred to in the plural as the Books of Chronicles, after the Latin name chronicon given to the text by Jerome. In Christian Bibles, these books are denoted as 1 Chronicles and 2 Chronicles or First Chronicles and Second Chronicles. They usually follow the two Books of Kings and precede Ezra–Nehemiah, the last history-oriented book of the Old Testament.[1]
The Chronicles narrative begins with Adam, Seth and Enosh,[2] and the story is then carried forward, almost entirely through genealogical lists, down to the founding of the first Kingdom of Israel.[3][4] The bulk of the remainder of 1 Chronicles, after a brief account of Saul in chapter 10, is concerned with the reign of David.[5] The next long section concerns David's son Solomon,[6] and the final part is concerned with the Kingdom of Judah, with occasional references to the second kingdom of Israel (2 Chronicles 10–36). The final chapter covers briefly the reigns of the last four kings, until Judah is destroyed and the people taken into exile in Babylon. In the two final verses, identical to the opening verses of the Book of Ezra, the Persian king Cyrus the Great conquers the Neo-Babylonian Empire, and authorises the restoration of the Temple in Jerusalem and the return of the exiles.[7]
Originally a single work, Chronicles was divided into two in the Septuagint, a Greek translation produced in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC.[8] It has three broad divisions:
Within this broad structure there are signs that the author has used various other devices to structure his work, notably through drawing parallels between David and Solomon (the first becomes king, establishes the worship of Israel's God in Jerusalem, and fights the wars that will enable the Temple to be built, then Solomon becomes king, builds and dedicates the Temple, and reaps the benefits of prosperity and peace).[9]
Biblical commentator C. J. Ball suggests that the division into two books introduced by the translators of the Septuagint "occurs in the most suitable place",[10] namely with the conclusion of David's reign as king and the initiation of Solomon's reign.
