Books of the Kingdoms

The Books of the Kingdoms, Books of Kingdoms, or Books of Reigns (Koinē Greek: Βíβλοι Βασιλειῶν) are the names that four books of the Hebrew Bible are given in the Septuagint. 1 and 2 Kingdoms are equivalent to 1 and 2 Samuel, and 3 and 4 Kingdoms are equivalent to 1 and 2 Kings in most modern English versions.^[1]

These books are known in the Vulgate version as the four Books of the Kingdoms (Libri Regnum or Regnorum),^[1] or the Book of Kings (Liber Regum) as Jerome disagreed with the expression Books of the Kingdoms (Libri Regnorum) of the LXX.^[2][3] Jerome says:

Third comes Samuel, which we call the first and second Kings. Fourth Malachim, that is contained in the third and fourth books of Kings. It is much better to say Malachim, of kings, than Malachoth, of kingdoms. For it does not describe the kingdoms of many peoples but of one Israelite people which included twelve tribes.^[3]

Those books are known as the Books of Reigns in the New English Translation of the Septuagint.^[4]

References

1. Lange, John Peter (1877). "Introduction.; §2. Division.". In Schaff, Philip (ed.). Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal and Homilectical. Vol. 5: The books of Samuel. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 1–2. Our Hebrew editions of the Bible follow the Seventy in dividing the Hebrew book of Samuel into two parts; they (the LXX.) did not, however, name these two books after Samuel, but included them with the two books of Kings, מְלָכִים, under the common name "Books of the Kingdoms," Βíβλοι Βασιλειῶν. After the example of the Septuagint we find in the Greek Church-fathers and also in the Vulgate and the Latin Church-fathers, this division of the books of Samuel and Kings as one historical work into four books cited as the four Βíβλοι Βασιλειῶν, libri regnum or regnorum. This way of combining, dividing, and naming, in which our "Books of Samuel" are numbered as Βασιλειῶν πρώτη, δευτɛ́ρα "First, Second Kings" (comp. Origen in Euseb. H.E. 6. 25, and Jerome, Prol. Gal.) corresponds certainly to the general contents of these four, or more precisely two, books, so far as it consists chiefly of the history of the kingdom in the Old Testament covenant-people, and appears as a connected whole in the continuous narrative from Samuel's birth to the time of the Babylonian Exile.
2. Canellis, Aline (2017). "Préfaces : Préface de saint Jérôme sur le livre des Rois". Jérôme : Préfaces aux livres de la Bible. Sources Chrétiennes (in French). Abbeville: Éditions du Cerf. p. 126, 322, 328-329. ISBN 978-2-204-12618-2.
3. "A letter from Jerome (390-404) | Epistolae". epistolae.ctl.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2020-10-16.
4. "The Old Greek Text of Reigns" (PDF). New English Translation of the Septuagint. Translated by Taylor, Bernard A. p. 244.

External links

• Full text of the Books of the Kingdoms in modern Greek