The genealogies, so uninteresting to most modern readers, were really an important part of the public records of the Hebrew state. They were the basis on which not only the land was distributed and held, but the public services of the temple were arranged and conducted, the Levites and their descendants alone, as is well known, being entitled and first fruits set apart for that purpose. The sources whence the chronicler compiled his work were public records, registers, and genealogical tables belonging to the Jews. Twenty whole chapters, and twenty-four parts of chapters, are occupied with matter not found elsewhere. It has also been observed that another peculiarity of the book is that it substitutes modern and more common expressions for those that had then become unusual or obsolete.
Chronology is the arrangement of facts and events in the order of time.
The writers of the Bible themselves do not adopt any standard era according to which they date events. Hence in constructing a system of Biblecal chronology, the plan has been adopted of reckoning the years from the ages of the patriarchs before the birth of their first-born sons for the period from the Creation to Abraham. After this period other data are to be taken into account in determining the relative sequence of events. The Samaritan and the Septuagint have considerably modified the Hebrew chronology. This modification some regard as having been wilfully made, and to be rejected.