The Chronological Framework of the Deuteronomistic History The Deuteronomistic History [=DH] was composed in the mid-sixth century BCE. The distinct resemblances in content and form between the Deuteronomistic editing in Joshua–Kings, on the one hand, and in Jeremiah, on the other, may have been the work of a single person, who prepared an extensive composition describing the history of Israel from Moses to Jeremiah. Deuteronomy serves as an introduction to the DH, whereas the Book of Jeremiah concludes it. In Deuteronomy the path was delineated and norms were determined. The main body of Joshua–Kings records the ups and downs in Israel’s relationship with God. The epilogue, the Book of Jeremiah, focuses on the destruction of the Temple and the Exile in an attempt to explain the events and inform the exiles of the message of redemption. The Deuteronomist [=Dtr] presents the history of the relationship between Israel and God as intricate and complex, involving sin, repentance, and forgiveness. The message of the DH is one of hope and consolation: the merciful God, who has made an everlasting bond between himself and His elected people, forgave them in the past and he will forgive them in the future. The Exile did not mean the end of relations between God and His people. On the contrary, the Lord will rescue them and return them to their land, at the end of the epoch of the “70 years” (Jer 25,11-12; 29,10) (1). The Dtr included in the DH a total of approximately 160 numerical chronological data, most of them in the Book of Kings (ca.120). He compiles dozens of chronological data from his sources, to which he obviously attributed great importance. His composition contains information on the reigns of all the kings of Israel and Judah, without exception, including those who ruled only a few days or weeks. He also took pains to mention the synchronisms of all the kings of the Northern and Southern Kingdoms from the schism to the fall of Samaria, and even arranged the Book of Kings in chronological-synchronistic order. In my previous two books, I studied the historical reliability of the Biblical and external chronological data for the monarchic period, and concluded that approximately 90% of the Biblical and external data could be reconciled by means of a relatively simple set of principles (2). In this article, I would like to reexamine the chronological framework of the DH, and to discuss the correlation between the chronological data in Deuteronomy– (1) For emphasis on the positive and optimistic message in the DH see G. VON RAD, “Das deuteronomistische Geschichtstheologie in den Königsbücher”, Deuteronomium Studies, B (Göttingen 1947) 52-64; H.W. WOLFF, “Das Kerygma des deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerk”, ZAW 73 (1961) 171-186; G. GALIL, “The Message of the Book of Kings in relation to Deuteronomy and Jeremiah”, Bibliotheca Sacra 158 (2001) 406-414, with additional literature. (2) G. GALIL, The Chronology of the Kings of Israel and Judah (SHCANE 9; Leiden 1996); ID., Israel and Assyria (Haifa – Tel Aviv 2001) (Hebrew).