Chronicles and Writings

David Noel Freedman suggests in his book on the unity of the Hebrew Bible a reason for the repetition of the decree of Cyrus at the end of 2 Chron and the beginning of Ezra. He points to certain manuscripts in which Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah enclose the Writings: Chronicles at the beginning and Ezra-Nehemiah at the end. On this arrangement, the repetition of the decree of Cyrus in Ezra 1 is resumptive, and shows that the writings as a whole are to be understood in the context provided by the Chronicler’s history and the history of the restoration. This arrangement of the Writings makes the most sense, Freedman argues, because the repetition of the decree would make little sense if the two books were sequential.