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2 Chronicles 36:22-23

22 In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also to put it in writing:

23 “This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: “‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Any of his people among you may go up, and may the Lord their God be with them.’”

From Ezra 1:1-4:

In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also to put it in writing:

2 “This is what Cyrus king of Persia says:

“‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. 3 Any of his people among you may go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem, and may their God be with them. 4 And in any locality where survivors may now be living, the people are to provide them with silver and gold, with goods and livestock, and with freewill offerings for the temple of God in Jerusalem.’”

As you can see, the end of 2 Chronicles is almost word-for-word identical to the beginning of Ezra. Why is that? What's the purpose of the repetition (rather than just "picking up wherethe other book left off")? Does this suggest that they were written (or completed) by the same author(s) (or merely that the author of Ezra had access to 2 Chronicles)?

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    Fyi the bible is full of such repetition. See for example Isaiah 36-40 which is also word-for-word paraphrase of 2 Kings 18:13-21:20. Similarly, Jeremiah 52 is word for word paraphrase of 2 Kings 24:18-end.
    – bach
    Commented Mar 8, 2018 at 19:16
  • @Bach True - there's also the notorious repetition in the Gospels.
    – EJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine
    Commented Mar 8, 2018 at 19:18
  • Im not really sure what ur asking. Apparently different authors have drawn from the same source. The authors of Jeremiah and Isaiah both drew from the same source "the book of Kings". Similarly, Chronicles drew from Ezra or vice versa. It looks repetitious because we posses all these books and have the possibility to compare them, but in ancient times when not everyone had access to all the above sources such redaction and paraphrase was normal and even useful!
    – bach
    Commented Mar 8, 2018 at 20:56
  • The Septuagintal version of Ezra repeats the entire last two chapters of Chronicles. :-)
    – Lucian
    Commented Mar 8, 2018 at 21:03

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The Jewish priest and scribe Ezra, is recognized as the writer of Chronicles 1 and 2 and this is supported by the similarities in the verses you have mentioned. You have noted that the degree of Cyrus at the end of Chronicles is given in full at the beginning of his book" Ezra " . The execution of the degree is given in full in the book of Ezra

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