Books of Chronicles facts for kids

The First and Second Chronicles are history books in the Old Testament. They tell the history of Israel differently from the Books of Kings. Using Biblical books (like Samuel and Kings) and other sources, the "Chronicler" encourages the Jews who returned from exile in Babylon. It goes back over Israel's history to explain why they have had all their troubles and how they can live right to become better in the future. One major difference to the similar, earlier narrative is that unlike in 2 Samuel, David is presented as being good in Chronicles.

Originally, the First and Second Chronicles were one book. They were later split apart into two different books.

Title

The Hebrew title (dibre hayyamim) means "what happened in the days (or years)". The Septuagint translators (who translated the Old Testament into Greek) called the book "the things left out". This showed that they thought of it as an addition to Samuel and Kings. Jerome (A.D. 347–420), who translated the Latin Vulgate, said that a better title would be "chronicle of the whole sacred history". Luther used this idea in his German version, and others have followed him. Chronicles was first divided into two books by the Septuagint translators.

Author

Old Jewish tradition says that Ezra wrote Chronicles. However, scholars do not accept this as fact. It is thought that Chronicles was written roughly in the year 400 BC.

Images for kids

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  Rehoboam and Jeroboam I, 1860 woodcut by Julius Schnorr von Karolsfeld

See also

In Spanish: Libros de Crónicas para niños