Why was a paragraph of the Bible divided, ending up in two separate books?

 Originally

ONE Unified Paragraph

[ I Kings 22: 52-54  & II Kings 1:1 ]

Translation of the sentences that now stand

divided but previously were unified :

Ahaziah son of Ahab became

king over Israel in Samaria

in the seventeenth year of

Jehoshaphat king of Judah;

he reigned two years over

Israel.  He did what was

displeasing to YHWH.  He

followed the way of his father

and the way of his mother

and the way of Jeroboam

son of Nebat, who caused

Israel to sin.  He worshipped

Baal and bowed down to him,

so that he angered YHWH,

God of Israel, just as his

father had done.  Moab rebelled 

against Israel after the death

of Ahab.

Anchor Bible Volume 11 pp. 21-22

The literary unit describing the

reign of Ahaziah begins in the

last four verses of I Kings 22.  

The division of the unit as it is 

presently found in our Bibles is 

secondary; it was originally 

introduced into the codices of 

the Septuagint, which

divided the lengthy manuscript 

of the Book of Kings into two 

smaller "books."  In order to 

indicate the connection between 

the two as a "catch-line," 

a common scribal convention 

in works of multiple parts/

tablets in cuneiform literature.

In the BOMBERG RABBINIC 

BIBLE

(Venice, 1516) the first 

division into two Books of 

Kings first appears in the

Massoretic tradition with 

the following

marginal note:

Here the foreign speakers (_i.e._ non-

Jews) begin the Fourth Book of Kings.

__________________________

King Ahaziah reigned only one 

year 852-851 and died 

unexpectedly; 

apparently the northern annalists 

had little to report of historical 

significance about his reign.  

But because of Ahaziah's

fatal accident, the handling 

of the rebellion was left 

to his brother Jehoram

who succeeded him 

(II Kings, chapter 3).