1 Chronicles

Lore & Background

Traditional Jewish and Christian scholarship attributed it to Ezra. However, Chronicles was likely written by a highly educated Jerusalem-based priestly author between roughly 400–250 BC, drawing heavily on earlier biblical traditions to reinterpret Israel’s history for the Jewish elite of the Persian/Hellenistic era. The book was translated into Greek and divided into two books in the Septuagint in the 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, but is also referred to by its Greek name as the Books of Paralipomenon. In Christian Bibles, they usually follow the two Books of Kings and precede Ezra–Nehemiah, the last history-oriented book of the Protestant Old Testament.

Reader's Guide

The Chronicles narrative begins with Adam, Seth and Enosh, and the story is then carried forward, almost entirely through genealogical lists, down to the founding of the United Kingdom of Israel in the introductory chapters, 1 Chronicles 1–9. The bulk of the remainder of 1 Chronicles, after a brief account of Saul in chapter 10, is concerned with the reign of David. The next long section concerns David's son Solomon, and the final part is concerned with the Kingdom of Judah, with occasional references to the northern 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.

Did You Know?

• Chronicles is the final book of the Hebrew Bible, concluding the Ketuvim.
• The book was divided into two in the Septuagint, a Greek translation produced in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC.
• The Talmud considered Chronicles one book.
• The closing sentence of Chronicles is repeated as the opening of Ezra–Nehemiah.