The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version

by Michael D. Coogan

The title given to the book by the early rabbis, “the book of the events of the days” (Heb seper dibre hayyamim), suggests that the book is a historical writing, addressing past events in chronological order; the same phrase is used often in Kings (e.g., 1 Kings 14.19) for a different work, one of the sources of the books of Kings. The name of Chronicles in the ancient Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures, the Septuagint, is “Paraleipomena,” meaning “the things left out”; this name suggests that Chronicles records the events left out of earlier biblical history. These understandings of Chronicles are contested by modern scholars. It was the church father Jerome’s description of the book as a “chronicle,” a summary of (divine) history, that has left the book with its current title.