In Robert Haldane’s The
Books of the Old and New Testaments Proven to be Canonical (1830), he
discusses the threefold division of the Hebrew Bible, noting that it
traditionally ended with the Chronicles.
On this he cites the observation of John Cosin (1594-1672) in A Scholastical History of the Canon
(1672):
Which last Book of the Chronicles, containing the sum of all their former
histories, and reaching from the creation of the world to their return from Babylon, is a perfect epitome of all the Old Testament, and
therefore not unfitly so placed by them, as it concluded and closed up their
whole BIBLE.
It is indeed noteworthy that 1 Chronicles begins with reference
to the line of Adam (1
Chronicles 1:1) and ends with the edict of Cyrus, resulting in the restoration
(2 Chronicles 36:22-23). It is an epitome of the entire OT.
Why then, in the Christian ordering of the OT does Malachi
appear last and not 1-2 Chronicles? Perhaps this stems from a tradition that
held Malachi to be last of the prophets. Certainly the ending of Malachi (4:5-6)
with its reference to the sending of Elijah “before the coming of the great and
dreadful day of the LORD” made sense as the perfect segue to Matthew’s account
of Christ and John as his Elijah-like forerunner (see Matthew chapters 1-3 and especially
Matt 11:14; contrast, however, John 1:21). So Chronicles was the fitting ending
for the Hebrew Bible but Malachi for the Christian OT.
JTR
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