The chronicler makes frequent reference to earlier histories which he cites by a great variety of names. That the names "Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah," "Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel," "Book of the Kings of Israel," and "Affairs of the Kings of Israel" (2 Chron. xxxiii. 18), refer to a single work is not disputed. Under one or other title this book is cited some ten times. Whether it is identical with the Midrash[2] of the book of Kings (2 Chron. xxiv. 27) is not certain. That the work so often cited is not the Biblical book of the same name is manifest from what is said of its contents. It must have been quite an extensive work, for among other things it contained genealogical statistics (1 Chron. ix. 1), and it incorporated certain older prophetic writings--in particular, the _deb[=a]r[=i]m_ ("words" or "history") of Jehu the son of Hanani (2 Chron. xx. 34) and possibly the vision of Isaiah (2 Chron. xxxii. 32). Where the chronicler does not cite this comprehensive work at the close of a king's reign he generally refers to some special authority which bears the name of a prophet or seer (2 Chron. ix. 29; xii. 15, &c.). But the book of the Kings and a special prophetic writing are not cited for the same reign. It is therefore probable that in other cases than those of Isaiah and Jehu the writings of, or rather, about the prophets which are cited in _Chronicles_ were known only as parts of the great "book of the Kings." Even the genealogical lists may have been derived from that work (1 Chron. ix. 1), though for these other materials may have been accessible.
The two chief sources of the canonical book of Kings were entitled _Annals_ ("events of the times") _of the Kings of Israel_ and _Judah_ respectively (see KINGS). That the lost source of the _Chronicles_ was not independent of these works appears probable both from the nature of the case and from the close and often verbal parallelism between many sections of the two Biblical narratives. But while the canonical book of Kings refers to separate sources for the northern and southern kingdoms, the source of _Chronicles_ was a history of the two kingdoms combined, and so, no doubt, was a more recent work which in great measure was doubtless based upon older annals. Yet it contained also matter not derived from these works, for it is pretty clear from 2 Kings xxi. 17 that the _Annals of the Kings of Judah_ gave no account of Manasseh's repentance, which, according to 2 Chron. xxxiii. 18, 19, was narrated in the great book of the Kings of Israel. It was the opinion of Bertheau, Keil and others, that the parallelisms of _Chronicles_ with _Samuel_ and _Kings_ are sufficiently explained by the ultimate common source from which both narratives drew. But most critics hold that the chronicler also drew directly from the canonical books of Samuel and Kings as he apparently did from the Pentateuch. This opinion is not improbable, as the earlier books of the Old Testament cannot have been unknown in his age; and the critical analysis of the canonical book of Kings is advanced enough to enable us to say that in some of the parallel passages the chronicler uses words which were not written in the annals but by one of the compilers of _Kings_ himself. In particular, _Chronicles_ agrees with _Kings_ in those short notes of the moral character of individual monarchs which can hardly be ascribed to an earlier hand than that of the redactor of the latter book.[3]