It must be allowed that Chronicles owes its origin, not to the arbitrary caprice of an individual, but to a general tendency of its period.  It is the inevitable product of the conviction that the Mosaic law is the starting-point of Israel’s history, and that in it these is operative a play of sacred forces such as finds no other analogy; this conviction could not but lead to a complete transformation of the ancient tradition.  Starting from a similar assumption, such an author as C. F. Keil could even at the present day write a book of Chronicles, if this were not already in existence.  Now, in this aspect, for the purpose of appraising Chronicles as the type of that conception of history which the scribes cherished, the inquiry into its “sources” is really important and interesting.  References to other writings, from which further particulars can be learned, are appended as a rule, to the account of each sovereign’s reign, the exceptions being in the cases of Joram, Ahaziah, Athaliah, Amon, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Zedekiah.  The titles referred to in this way may be classed under two groups:  (1.) The Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah, or of Judah and Israel (in the cases of Asa, Amaziah, Jotham; Ahaz, Josiah, and Jehoiakim), with which the Book of the Kings of Israel (in the cases of Jehoshaphat and Manasseh; comp. 1Chronicles ix. 1) is identical, for the kingdom of the ten tribes is not reckoned by the Chronicler. (2.) The Words of Samuel the Seer, Nathan the Prophet, and Gad the Seer (for David; 1Chronicles xxix. 29; comp. xxvii. 24; Ecclus. xlvi. 13, xlvii. 1); the Words of Nathan the Prophet, the Prophecy of Ahijah of Shiloh and the Vision of Iddo the Seer concerning Jeroboam ben Nebat (for Solomon; 2Chronicles ix. 29); the Words of Shemaiah the Prophet and Iddo the Seer (for Rehoboam; xii. 15); the words of Jehu ben Hanani, which are taken over into the Book of the Kings of Israel (Jehoshaphat; xx. 34); a writing of Isaiah the prophet (Uzziah; xxvi. 22), more precisely cited as the Vision of Isaiah the Prophet, the son of Amoz, in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel (Hezekiah; xxxii. 32); the Words of the Seer in the Book of the Kings of Israel (Manasseh; xxxiii. 18; comp. also ver. 19).  Following in the footsteps of Movers, Bertheau and others have shown that under these different citations it is always one and the same book that is intended, whether by its collective title, or by the conventional sub-titles of its separate sections. 1 Bertheau calls

******************************************* 1.  In Ezra and Nehemiah also the Chronicler has not used so many sources as are usually supposed.  There is no reason for refusing to identify the “lamentations” of 2Chronicles xxxv. 25, with our Lamentations of Jeremiah:  at least the reference to the death of Josiah (Jos., Ant. x. 5, 1), erroneously attributed to them, ought not in candour to be regarded as such. *******************************************