Books of Chronicles

The two Books of Chronicles (Hebrew: דברי הימים‎ Diḇrê Hayyāmîm, "The Matters of the Days"; Greek: Παραλειπομένων, Paraleipoménōn) are the final books of the Hebrew Bible in the order followed by modern Judaism; in that generally followed in Christianity, they follow the two Books of Kings and precede Ezra–Nehemiah, thus concluding the history-oriented books of the Old Testament. In the Christian Bible, the books are commonly referred to as 1 Chronicles and 2 Chronicles, or First Chronicles and Second Chronicles.

Title

The English title comes from the 5th century scholar Jerome, who referred to the book as a chronikon; in Hebrew it is called Divrei Hayyamim "The Matters [of] the Days", and in Greek, Paralipoménōn (Παραλειπομένων), "things left on one side".

Summary

Chronicles begins at the beginning of the history of humanity, with Adam, and the story is then carried forward, almost entirely by genealogical lists, down to the founding of the Israelite monarchy (1 Chronicles 1–9). The bulk of the remainder of 1 Chronicles, after a brief account of Saul, is concerned with the reign of David (1 Chronicles 11–29). The next long section concerns David's son Solomon (2 Chronicles 1–9), and the final part is concerned with the kingdom of Judah with occasional references to the kingdom of Israel (2 Chronicles 10–36). In the last chapter Judah is destroyed and the people taken into exile in Babylon, and in the final verses the Persian king Cyrus conquers Babylon, and authorises the restoration of the Temple in Jerusalem, and the return of the exiles.