ebrew title would be _Book of Events of the
Times_, and this again appears to have been a designation commonly
applied to special histories in the more definite shape--_Events of the
Times of King David_, or the like (1 Chron. xxvii. 24; Esth. x. 2, &c.).
The Greek translators divided the long book into two, and adopted the
title [Greek: Paraleipomena], _Things omitted_ [scil. in the other
historical books].

The book of Chronicles begins with Adam and ends abruptly in the middle
of Cyrus's decree of restoration, which reappears complete at the
beginning of Ezra. A closer examination of those parts of _Ezra_ and
_Nehemiah_ which are not extracted from earlier documents or original
memoirs leads to the conclusion that _Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah_ was
originally one work, displaying throughout the peculiarities of language
and thought of a single editor, who, however, cannot be Ezra himself as
tradition would have it. Thus the fragmentary close of 2 Chronicles
marks the disruption of a previously-existing continuity,--due,
presumably, to the fact that in the gradual compilation of the Canon the
necessity for incorporating in the Holy Writings an account of the
establishment of the post-Exile theocracy was felt, before it was
thought desirable to supplement _Samuel_ and _Kings_ by adding a second
history of the period before the Exile. Hence _Chronicles_ is the last
book of the Hebrew Bible, following the book of _Ezra-Nehemiah_, which
properly is nothing else than the sequel of _Chronicles_.

Of the authorship of _Chronicles_ we know only what can be determined by
internal evidence. The style of the language, and also the position of
the book in the Jewish Canon, stamp the book as one of the latest in the
Old Testament, but lead to no exact determination of the date.[1] In 1
Chron. xxix. 7, which refers to the time of David, a sum of money is
reckoned by _darics_, which certainly implies that the author wrote
after this Persian coin had been long current in Judaea. In 1 Chron.
iii. 19 sqq. the descendants of Zerubbabel seem to be reckoned to six
generations (the Septuagint reads it so as to give as many as eleven
generations), and this agrees with the suggestion that Hattush (verse
22), who belongs to the fourth generation from Zerubbabel, was a
contemporary of Ezra (Ezra viii. 2). Thus the compiler lived at least
two generations after Ezra. With this it accords that in Nehemiah five
generations of high priests are enumera