We introduce the divergence and the gradient for functions defined on a measure chain, and this includes as special cases both continuous derivatives and discrete forward differences. It is shown that in one dimension, subject to Dirichlet boundary conditions, the divergence and the gradient are negative adjoints of each other and that the divergence of the gradient is negative semidefinite. These are well-known results in the continuous their, and hence, mimic those properties also for the case of a general measure chain.