So all Israel were reckoned by genealogies
Not now by the writer of this book in the preceding chapters; for two of the tribes are not reckoned at all, and the rest but in part; but there had been kept an exact account of them:
and, behold, they were written in the book of the kings of Israel;
not in the canonical book or books of Kings, but in the annals, journals, and diaries, which each king took care to be kept with some exactness, often referred to in the preceding books; out of which this writer, under a divine direction, had taken what was proper to be continued, and had carried the genealogy down to the captivity of the ten tribes; but the genealogy being lost with them, he could proceed no further, nor say anything more concerning them:
but Judah;
for so the word should be stopped, and read according to the Hebrew accents:
[who] were carried away to Babylon for their transgression;
their idolatry, and were now returned again; of them the writer proposes to give a further account.