1 Kings

3 Kingdoms in Greek

Name

The books of Kings, which describe the period from the death of King David through the aftermath of the destruction of the First Temple in 586 bce, were originally a single book. It was divided into two in the Greek Bible because it was too long to fit easily on one scroll. This division artificially splits up the stories of the Israelite king Ahaziah and those of the prophet Elijah. What is now 2 Kings 1.1 was considered a suitable book opening since its wording, “after the death of Ahab,” parallels the opening of the books of Joshua (“after the death of Moses”), Judges (“after the death of Joshua”), and 2 Samuel (“after the death of Saul”). In the Greek Bible (the Septuagint, abbreviated LXX), 1 and 2 Kings are called 3 and 4 Basileiōn (“reigns” or “dynasties”); the Greek translators linked Samuel and Kings (the books of Samuel are called 1 and 2 Basileiōn) because they narrate the story of the Israelite and Judean monarchy from its beginning until its end; indeed, 1 Kings opens with the death of David, the main character of the book of Samuel.

Canonical Status and Location

In the Christian canon, 1 and 2 Kings belong to the “Historical Books” and are followed by the books of Chronicles, which offer an alternative account of the period of the monarchy. In the Jewish Bible, the book of Kings closes the first part of the Prophets, the “Former Prophets” comprised of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. Although prophetic figures play a major role in these books, they are quite different from the “Latter Prophets” that comprise the prophetic books. The Former Prophets, however, provide the necessary background for understanding the oracles in the “Latter Prophets.”

Authorship

Jewish tradition (b. B. Bat. 14b–15a) regards the prophet Jeremiah, a contemporary of the last kings of Judah, as the author of the book of Kings, perhaps because of stylistic similarities between the books of Kings and Jeremiah. Modern scholars have called this style “Deuteronomistic” because it is based on the key vocabulary and theological concepts of Deuteronomy. This style is also found in Joshua, Judges, and Samuel, and thus most scholars call the books of Deuteronomy through Kings the “Deuteronomistic History.” The book of Kings reflects the reworking of annals and oral traditions, and the composition of new material, by these Deuteronomists, who even embedded references to the Babylonian exile in the book of Deuteronomy itself (see esp. Deut 6.15; 28.47–68).

Dates of Composition and Literary History

The first Deuteronomistic edition of the book of Kings as well as of the book of Deuteronomy were probably written in approximately 620 bce, during the reign of the Judean king Josiah. According to 2 Kings 22–23, this king undertook a religious and a political reform aimed at making Jerusalem the only legitimate sanctuary for the worship of the Lord. This reform follows the main theological ideas expressed in Deuteronomy, namely the centralization of worship at the Jerusalem Temple and the exclusive veneration of the Lord, the God who had chosen Israel as his special property.

The scribes who edited the books of Kings under the patronage of King Josiah wanted to show that he was in fact the best of all Judean kings, who fulfilled God’s will through his religious and political actions. This edition’s conclusion was probably 2 Kings 23.25: “Before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might,” which corresponds exactly to the exhortation of the book of Deuteronomy: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deut 6.5). This optimistic work was revised after the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 bce; it was updated to incorporate the final kings of Judah, and to explain the reasons for that calamity. These updates in the mid‐to late sixth century bce, during the Babylonian exile or the first decades of the Persian period, offered a “theodicy,” an explanation of how the Lord, the God of Israel, could cause such evil to his own people. These late Deuteronomistic editors explain that the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple are not due to the Lord’s inability to defend his nation against its enemies; on the contrary, the Lord himself had called the Babylonians to invade Judah in order to punish it because it did not conform to divine law as expressed in the book of Deuteronomy.

The Deuteronomistic authors and editors who edited the books of Kings integrated several older sources or independent documents into their work, including the “Book of the Acts of Solomon” (1 Kings 11.41), and “the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Israel” (e.g., 1 Kings 14.19) and “the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah” (e.g., 1 Kings 14.29), from the courts of Samaria and Jerusalem. The final event related in 2 Kings is the improvement of the status of King Jehoiachin, who was imprisoned in Babylon; this occurred under the Babylonian king Evil‐merodach (Amel‐Marduk), who reigned briefly in 562–561 bce. Scholars debate whether this notice is a theological justification of the end of monarchy and the exile, or expresses hope for the renewal of the Davidic dynasty.

Although many scholars think that the account of Jehoiachin’s release indicates that the book was written shortly after this date, it likely underwent further revision during the Persian period. For example, in the last revision of Solomon’s dedication of the Temple (1 Kings 8), the Temple becomes a kind of “qibla,” indicating the direction in which everyone should pray, reflecting the needs of the Diaspora communities in Babylon, Egypt, and elsewhere. During this period, Kings was also revised in order to fit into the “prophetic canon.” This happened after the book of Deuteronomy was seen not as the introduction to the Deuteronomistic History, but as conclusion of the Pentateuch. The prophetic stories about Elijah and Elisha, which existed before as independent scrolls, were now integrated into the books of Kings in order to make it more prophetic; in its current form, approximately half of Kings contains prophetic narratives.

Structure and Contents

The book of Kings tells the story of the Judean and Israelite monarchies from the united monarchy under Solomon (1 Kings 1–11) and its division after his death into the Northern Kingdom of I srael and the Southern Kingdom of Judah (1 Kings 12), until the end of Israel (2 Kings 17) and of Judah (2 Kings 24–25). First Kings covers the time from Solomon until King Jehoshaphat of Judah and King Ahaziah of Israel. The account of the divided monarchy, after the death of Solomon, is narrated (until 2 Kings 17) in a synchronistic fashion, which correlated the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. The reign of each king is framed by introductory and final formulas. The information about Judean kings is more extensive, indicating that the Judean scribes likely had more information about their own kings. The formulas have the following pattern:

Judean kings	Israelite kings
Introductory synchronism	Introductory synchronism
The king’s age at his enthronement	–
Length of reign	Length of reign
Name of his mother
Theological judgment	Theological judgment
Final reference to the annals of the kings of Judah	Final reference to the annals of the kings of Israel
Death of the king	Death of the king
Burial	–
Name of the successor	Name of the successor

Interpretation

The book of Kings is historiography in the sense that it presents a chronologically arranged story from King Solomon until the end of the monarchy, covering roughly from 970 to 560 bce; beginning with the reign of Rehoboam, king of Judah in the late tenth century bce, many of the events and individuals in 1–2 Kings are also mentioned in nonbiblical sources. But Kings is not historiography in the ancient Greek or modern meaning of the term. Kings is an anonymous work; in contrast to the ancient Greek historians Herodotus and Thucydides, no author speaks in the first person, presenting sources and evaluating information. There is little interest about “how things really happened.” For the authors of Kings, the God of Israel is the major actor in the history of the Judean and Israelite kings. The kings whose reigns are positively evaluated are monarchs who follow God’s will, whereas the unfaithful kings provoke God’s punishment and, in some cases, are ultimately responsible for the fall of Samaria and Jerusalem. Kings shows no interest in an objective, comprehensive, and complete recounting of the past. Kings such as Hezekiah, whose hazardous geopolitical policies may appear strange to modern readers, are presented very positively, whereas kings with a long, apparently peaceful reign, such as Manasseh, are judged very negatively. The main interest of the authors of Kings is not the political, economic, and military achievements of kings, but their religious attitude, especially as expressed through exclusive worship of the Lord in the Jerusalem Temple. Jeroboam, the first king of the Northern Kingdom after its separation from Judah, is described as the founder of two sanctuaries in Dan and Bethel, which are presented as illegitimate competitors with the Jerusalem Temple (1 Kings 12); consequently, all subsequent northern kings are systematically blamed for “Jeroboam’s sin.” The southern kings are compared to their “father” David (1 Kings 15.3,11; 2 Kings 14.3; 16.2; 18.3; 22.2) and are evaluated based on their loyalty to the Jerusalem Temple and their condemnation of the other places of worship (especially the “high places”).

An early form of the books of Samuel and Kings triggered an interpretative rewriting, namely the books of Chronicles, which offers an alternative account of the Judean monarchy. It omits almost everything of the story of the Northern Kingdom, and ends with the decree of the Persian king Cyrus in 538, allowing the Judeans to return from exile and to rebuild the Jerusalem Temple.

Thomas Römer

¹ King David was old and advanced in years; and although they covered him with clothes, he could not get warm. ²So his servants said to him, “Let a young virgin be sought for my lord the king, and let her wait on the king, and be his attendant; let her lie in your bosom, so that my lord the king may be warm.” ³So they searched for a beautiful girl throughout all the territory of Israel, and found Abishag the Shunammite, and brought her to the king. ⁴The girl was very beautiful. She became the king’s attendant and served him, but the king did not know her sexually.

⁵Now Adonijah son of Haggith exalted himself, saying, “I will be king”; he prepared for himself chariots and horsemen, and fifty men to run before him. ⁶His father had never at any time displeased him by asking, “Why have you done thus and so?” He was also a very handsome man, and he was born next after Absalom. ⁷He conferred with Joab son of Zeruiah and with the priest Abiathar, and they supported Adonijah. ⁸But the priest Zadok, and Benaiah son of Jehoiada, and the prophet Nathan, and Shimei, and Rei, and David’s own warriors did not side with Adonijah.

⁹Adonijah sacrificed sheep, oxen, and fatted cattle by the stone Zoheleth, which is beside En‐rogel, and he invited all his brothers, the king’s sons, and all the royal officials of Judah, ¹⁰but he did not invite the prophet Nathan or Benaiah or the warriors or his brother Solomon.

¹¹Then Nathan said to Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother, “Have you not heard that Adonijah son of Haggith has become king and our lord David does not know it? ¹²Now therefore come, let me give you advice, so that you may save your own life and the life of your son Solomon. ¹³Go in at once to King David, and say to him, ‘Did you not, my lord the king, swear to your servant, saying: Your son Solomon shall succeed me as king, and he shall sit on my throne? Why then is Adonijah king?’ ¹⁴Then while you are still there speaking with the king, I will come in after you and confirm your words.”

¹⁵So Bathsheba went to the king in his room. The king was very old; Abishag the Shunammite was attending the king. ¹⁶Bathsheba bowed and did obeisance to the king, and the king said, “What do you wish?” ¹⁷She said to him, “My lord, you swore to your servant by the Lord your God, saying: Your son Solomon shall succeed me as king, and he shall sit on my throne. ¹⁸But now suddenly Adonijah has become king, though you, my lord the king, do not know it. ¹⁹He has sacrificed oxen, fatted cattle, and sheep in abundance, and has invited all the children of the king, the priest Abiathar, and Joab the commander of the army; but your servant Solomon he has not invited. ²⁰But you, my lord the king—the eyes of all Israel are on you to tell them who shall sit on the throne of my lord the king after him. ²¹Otherwise it will come to pass, when my lord the king sleeps with his ancestors, that my son Solomon and I will be counted offenders.”

²²While she was still speaking with the king, the prophet Nathan came in. ²³The king was told, “Here is the prophet Nathan.” When he came in before the king, he did obeisance to the king, with his face to the ground. ²⁴Nathan said, “My lord the king, have you said, ‘Adonijah shall succeed me as king, and he shall sit on my throne’? ²⁵For today he has gone down and has sacrificed oxen, fatted cattle, and sheep in abundance, and has invited all the king’s children, Joab the commander ^a of the army, and the priest Abiathar, who are now eating and drinking before him, and saying, ‘Long live King Adonijah!’ ²⁶But he did not invite me, your servant, and the priest Zadok, and Benaiah son of Jehoiada, and your servant Solomon. ²⁷Has this thing been brought about by my lord the king and you have not let your servants know who should sit on the throne of my lord the king after him?”

²⁸King David answered, “Summon Bathsheba to me.” So she came into the king’s presence, and stood before the king. ²⁹The king swore, saying, “As the Lord lives, who has saved my life from every adversity, ³⁰as I swore to you by the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Your son Solomon shall succeed me as king, and he shall sit on my throne in my place,’ so will I do this day.” ³¹Then Bathsheba bowed with her face to the ground, and did obeisance to the king, and said, “May my lord King David live forever!”

³²King David said, “Summon to me the priest Zadok, the prophet Nathan, and Benaiah son of Jehoiada.” When they came before the king, ³³the king said to them, “Take with you the servants of your lord, and have my son Solomon ride on my own mule, and bring him down to Gihon. ³⁴There let the priest Zadok and the prophet Nathan anoint him king over Israel; then blow the trumpet, and say, ‘Long live King Solomon!’ ³⁵You shall go up following him. Let him enter and sit on my throne; he shall be king in my place; for I have appointed him to be ruler over Israel and over Judah.” ³⁶Benaiah son of Jehoiada answered the king, “Amen! May the Lord, the God of my lord the king, so ordain. ³⁷As the Lord has been with my lord the king, so may he be with Solomon, and make his throne greater than the throne of my lord King David.”

³⁸So the priest Zadok, the prophet Nathan, and Benaiah son of Jehoiada, and the Cherethites and the Pelethites, went down and had Solomon ride on King David’s mule, and led him to Gihon. ³⁹There the priest Zadok took the horn of oil from the tent and anointed Solomon. Then they blew the trumpet, and all the people said, “Long live King Solomon!” ⁴⁰And all the people went up following him, playing on pipes and rejoicing with great joy, so that the earth quaked at their noise.

⁴¹Adonijah and all the guests who were with him heard it as they finished feasting. When Joab heard the sound of the trumpet, he said, “Why is the city in an uproar?” ⁴²While he was still speaking, Jonathan son of the priest Abiathar arrived. Adonijah said, “Come in, for you are a worthy man and surely you bring good news.” ⁴³Jonathan answered Adonijah, “No, for our lord King David has made Solomon king; ⁴⁴the king has sent with him the priest Zadok, the prophet Nathan, and Benaiah son of Jehoiada, and the Cherethites and the Pelethites; and they had him ride on the king’s mule; ⁴⁵the priest Zadok and the prophet Nathan have anointed him king at Gihon; and they have gone up from there rejoicing, so that the city is in an uproar. This is the noise that you heard. ⁴⁶Solomon now sits on the royal throne. ⁴⁷Moreover the king’s servants came to congratulate our lord King David, saying, ‘May God make the name of Solomon more famous than yours, and make his throne greater than your throne.’ The king bowed in worship on the bed ⁴⁸and went on to pray thus, ‘Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who today has granted one of my offspring^a to sit on my throne and permitted me to witness it.’”

⁴⁹Then all the guests of Adonijah got up trembling and went their own ways. ⁵⁰Adonijah, fearing Solomon, got up and went to grasp the horns of the altar. ⁵¹Solomon was informed, “Adonijah is afraid of King Solomon; see, he has laid hold of the horns of the altar, saying, ‘Let King Solomon swear to me first that he will not kill his servant with the sword.’” ⁵²So Solomon responded, “If he proves to be a worthy man, not one of his hairs shall fall to the ground; but if wickedness is found in him, he shall die.” ⁵³Then King Solomon sent to have him brought down from the altar. He came to do obeisance to King Solomon; and Solomon said to him, “Go home.”

² When David’s time to die drew near, he charged his son Solomon, saying: ²“I am about to go the way of all the earth. Be strong, be courageous, ³and keep the charge of the Lord your God, walking in his ways and keeping his statutes, his commandments, his ordinances, and his testimonies, as it is written in the law of Moses, so that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn. ⁴Then the Lord will establish his word that he spoke concerning me: ‘If your heirs take heed to their way, to walk before me in faithfulness with all their heart and with all their soul, there shall not fail you a successor on the throne of Israel.’

⁵“Moreover you know also what Joab son of Zeruiah did to me, how he dealt with the two commanders of the armies of Israel, Abner son of Ner, and Amasa son of Jether, whom he murdered, retaliating in time of peace for blood that had been shed in war, and putting the blood of war on the belt around his waist, and on the sandals on his feet. ⁶Act therefore according to your wisdom, but do not let his gray head go down to Sheol in peace. ⁷Deal loyally, however, with the sons of Barzillai the Gileadite, and let them be among those who eat at your table; for with such loyalty they met me when I fled from your brother Absalom. ⁸There is also with you Shimei son of Gera, the Benjaminite from Bahurim, who cursed me with a terrible curse on the day when I went to Mahanaim; but when he came down to meet me at the Jordan, I swore to him by the Lord, ‘I will not put you to death with the sword.’ ⁹Therefore do not hold him guiltless, for you are a wise man; you will know what you ought to do to him, and you must bring his gray head down with blood to Sheol.”

¹⁰Then David slept with his ancestors, and was buried in the city of David. ¹¹The time that David reigned over Israel was forty years; he reigned seven years in Hebron, and thirty‐three years in Jerusalem. ¹²So Solomon sat on the throne of his father David; and his kingdom was firmly established.

¹³Then Adonijah son of Haggith came to Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother. She asked, “Do you come peaceably?” He said, “Peaceably.” ¹⁴Then he said, “May I have a word with you?” She said, “Go on.” ¹⁵He said, “You know that the kingdom was mine, and that all Israel expected me to reign; however, the kingdom has turned about and become my brother’s, for it was his from the Lord. ¹⁶And now I have one request to make of you; do not refuse me.” She said to him, “Go on.” ¹⁷He said, “Please ask King Solomon—he will not refuse you—to give me Abishag the Shunammite as my wife.” ¹⁸Bathsheba said, “Very well; I will speak to the king on your behalf.”

¹⁹So Bathsheba went to King Solomon, to speak to him on behalf of Adonijah. The king rose to meet her, and bowed down to her; then he sat on his throne, and had a throne brought for the king’s mother, and she sat on his right. ²⁰Then she said, “I have one small request to make of you; do not refuse me.” And the king said to her, “Make your request, my mother; for I will not refuse you.” ²¹She said, “Let Abishag the Shunammite be given to your brother Adonijah as his wife.”

²²King Solomon answered his mother, “And why do you ask Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? Ask for him the kingdom as well! For he is my elder brother; ask not only for him but also for the priest Abiathar and for Joab son of Zeruiah!” ²³Then King Solomon swore by the Lord, “So may God do to me, and more also, for Adonijah has devised this scheme at the risk of his life! ²⁴Now therefore as the Lord lives, who has established me and placed me on the throne of my father David, and who has made me a house as he promised, today Adonijah shall be put to death.” ²⁵So King Solomon sent Benaiah son of Jehoiada; he struck him down, and he died.

²⁶The king said to the priest Abiathar, “Go to Anathoth, to your estate; for you deserve death. But I will not at this time put you to death, because you carried the ark of the Lord God before my father David, and because you shared in all the hardships my father endured.” ²⁷So Solomon banished Abiathar from being priest to the Lord, thus fulfilling the word of the Lord that he had spoken concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh.

²⁸When the news came to Joab—for Joab had supported Adonijah though he had not supported Absalom—Joab fled to the tent of the Lord and grasped the horns of the altar. ²⁹When it was told King Solomon, “Joab has fled to the tent of the Lord and now is beside the altar,” Solomon sent Benaiah son of Jehoiada, saying, “Go, strike him down.” ³⁰So Benaiah came to the tent of the Lord and said to him, “The king commands, ‘Come out.’” But he said, “No, I will die here.” Then Benaiah brought the king word again, saying, “Thus said Joab, and thus he answered me.” ³¹The king replied to him, “Do as he has said, strike him down and bury him; and thus take away from me and from my father’s house the guilt for the blood that Joab shed without cause. ³²The Lord will bring back his bloody deeds on his own head, because, without the knowledge of my father David, he attacked and killed with the sword two men more righteous and better than himself, Abner son of Ner, commander of the army of Israel, and Amasa son of Jether, commander of the army of Judah. ³³So shall their blood come back on the head of Joab and on the head of his descendants forever; but to David, and to his descendants, and to his house, and to his throne, there shall be peace from the Lord forevermore.” ³⁴Then Benaiah son of Jehoiada went up and struck him down and killed him; and he was buried at his own house near the wilderness. ³⁵The king put Benaiah son of Jehoiada over the army in his place, and the king put the priest Zadok in the place of Abiathar.

³⁶Then the king sent and summoned Shimei, and said to him, “Build yourself a house in Jerusalem, and live there, and do not go out from there to any place whatever. ³⁷For on the day you go out, and cross the Wadi Kidron, know for certain that you shall die; your blood shall be on your own head.” ³⁸And Shimei said to the king, “The sentence is fair; as my lord the king has said, so will your servant do.” So Shimei lived in Jerusalem many days.

³⁹But it happened at the end of three years that two of Shimei’s slaves ran away to King Achish son of Maacah of Gath. When it was told Shimei, “Your slaves are in Gath,” ⁴⁰Shimei arose and saddled a donkey, and went to Achish in Gath, to search for his slaves; Shimei went and brought his slaves from Gath. ⁴¹When Solomon was told that Shimei had gone from Jerusalem to Gath and returned, ⁴²the king sent and summoned Shimei, and said to him, “Did I not make you swear by the Lord, and solemnly adjure you, saying, ‘Know for certain that on the day you go out and go to any place whatever, you shall die’? And you said to me, ‘The sentence is fair; I accept.’ ⁴³Why then have you not kept your oath to the Lord and the commandment with which I charged you?” ⁴⁴The king also said to Shimei, “You know in your own heart all the evil that you did to my father David; so the Lord will bring back your evil on your own head. ⁴⁵But King Solomon shall be blessed, and the throne of David shall be established before the Lord forever.” ⁴⁶Then the king commanded Benaiah son of Jehoiada; and he went out and struck him down, and he died.

So the kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon.

³ Solomon made a marriage alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt; he took Pharaoh’s daughter and brought her into the city of David, until he had finished building his own house and the house of the Lord and the wall around Jerusalem. ²The people were sacrificing at the high places, however, because no house had yet been built for the name of the Lord.

³Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of his father David; only, he sacrificed and offered incense at the high places. ⁴The king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was the principal high place; Solomon used to offer a thousand burnt offerings on that altar. ⁵At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, “Ask what I should give you.” ⁶And Solomon said, “You have shown great and steadfast love to your servant my father David, because he walked before you in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart toward you; and you have kept for him this great and steadfast love, and have given him a son to sit on his throne today. ⁷And now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David, although I am only a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. ⁸And your servant is in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a great people, so numerous they cannot be numbered or counted. ⁹Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this your great people?”

¹⁰It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. ¹¹God said to him, “Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches, or for the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, ¹²I now do according to your word. Indeed I give you a wise and discerning mind; no one like you has been before you and no one like you shall arise after you. ¹³I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honor all your life; no other king shall compare with you. ¹⁴If you will walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your life.”

¹⁵Then Solomon awoke; it had been a dream. He came to Jerusalem where he stood before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. He offered up burnt offerings and offerings of well‐being, and provided a feast for all his servants.

¹⁶Later, two women who were prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. ¹⁷The one woman said, “Please, my lord, this woman and I live in the same house; and I gave birth while she was in the house. ¹⁸Then on the third day after I gave birth, this woman also gave birth. We were together; there was no one else with us in the house, only the two of us were in the house. ¹⁹Then this woman’s son died in the night, because she lay on him. ²⁰She got up in the middle of the night and took my son from beside me while your servant slept. She laid him at her breast, and laid her dead son at my breast. ²¹When I rose in the morning to nurse my son, I saw that he was dead; but when I looked at him closely in the morning, clearly it was not the son I had borne.” ²²But the other woman said, “No, the living son is mine, and the dead son is yours.” The first said, “No, the dead son is yours, and the living son is mine.” So they argued before the king.

²³Then the king said, “The one says, ‘This is my son that is alive, and your son is dead’; while the other says, ‘Not so! Your son is dead, and my son is the living one.’” ²⁴So the king said, “Bring me a sword,” and they brought a sword before the king. ²⁵The king said, “Divide the living boy in two; then give half to the one, and half to the other.” ²⁶But the woman whose son was alive said to the king—because compassion for her son burned within her—“Please, my lord, give her the living boy; certainly do not kill him!” The other said, “It shall be neither mine nor yours; divide it.” ²⁷Then the king responded: “Give the first woman the living boy; do not kill him. She is his mother.” ²⁸All Israel heard of the judgment that the king had rendered; and they stood in awe of the king, because they perceived that the wisdom of God was in him, to execute justice.

⁴ King Solomon was king over all Israel, ²and these were his high officials: Azariah son of Zadok was the priest; ³Elihoreph and Ahijah sons of Shisha were secretaries; Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was recorder; ⁴Benaiah son of Jehoiada was in command of the army; Zadok and Abiathar were priests; ⁵Azariah son of Nathan was over the officials; Zabud son of Nathan was priest and king’s friend; ⁶Ahishar was in charge of the palace; and Adoniram son of Abda was in charge of the forced labor.

⁷Solomon had twelve officials over all Israel, who provided food for the king and his household; each one had to make provision for one month in the year. ⁸These were their names: Ben‐hur, in the hill country of Ephraim; ⁹Ben‐deker, in Makaz, Shaalbim, Beth‐shemesh, and Elon‐bethhanan; ¹⁰Ben‐hesed, in Arubboth (to him belonged Socoh and all the land of Hepher); ¹¹Ben‐abinadab, in all Naphath‐dor (he had Taphath, Solomon’s daughter, as his wife); ¹²Baana son of Ahilud, in Taanach, Megiddo, and all Beth‐shean, which is beside Zarethan below Jezreel, and from Beth‐shean to Abel‐meholah, as far as the other side of Jokmeam; ¹³Ben‐geber, in Ramoth‐gilead (he had the villages of Jair son of Manasseh, which are in Gilead, and he had the region of Argob, which is in Bashan, sixty great cities with walls and bronze bars); ¹⁴Ahinadab son of Iddo, in Mahanaim; ¹⁵Ahimaaz, in Naphtali (he had taken Basemath, Solomon’s daughter, as his wife); ¹⁶Baana son of Hushai, in Asher and Bealoth; ¹⁷Jehoshaphat son of Paruah, in Issachar; ¹⁸Shimei son of Ela, in Benjamin; ¹⁹Geber son of Uri, in the land of Gilead, the country of King Sihon of the Amorites and of King Og of Bashan. And there was one official in the land of Judah.

²⁰Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand by the sea; they ate and drank and were happy. ^21aSolomon was sovereign over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines, even to the border of Egypt; they brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.

4:7–19: Solomon’s twelve administrative districts

²²Solomon’s provision for one day was thirty cors of choice flour, and sixty cors of meal, ²³ten fat oxen, and twenty pasturefed cattle, one hundred sheep, besides deer, gazelles, roebucks, and fatted fowl. ²⁴For he had dominion over all the region west of the Euphrates from Tiphsah to Gaza, over all the kings west of the Euphrates; and he had peace on all sides. ²⁵During Solomon’s lifetime Judah and Israel lived in safety, from Dan even to Beer‐sheba, all of them under their vines and fig trees. ²⁶Solomon also had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen. ²⁷Those officials supplied provisions for King Solomon and for all who came to King Solomon’s table, each one in his month; they let nothing be lacking. ²⁸They also brought to the required place barley and straw for the horses and swift steeds, each according to his charge.

²⁹God gave Solomon very great wisdom, discernment, and breadth of understanding as vast as the sand on the seashore, ³⁰so that Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east, and all the wisdom of Egypt. ³¹He was wiser than anyone else, wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, Calcol, and Darda, children of Mahol; his fame spread throughout all the surrounding nations. ³²He composed three thousand proverbs, and his songs numbered a thousand and five. ³³He would speak of trees, from the cedar that is in the Lebanon to the hyssop that grows in the wall; he would speak of animals, and birds, and reptiles, and fish. ³⁴People came from all the nations to hear the wisdom of Solomon; they came from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom.

^5a Now King Hiram of Tyre sent his servants to Solomon, when he heard that they had anointed him king in place of his father; for Hiram had always been a friend to David. ²Solomon sent word to Hiram, saying, ³“You know that my father David could not build a house for the name of the Lord his God because of the warfare with which his enemies surrounded him, until the Lord put them under the soles of his feet.^{b 4}But now the Lord my God has given me rest on every side; there is neither adversary nor misfortune. ⁵So I intend to build a house for the name of the Lord my God, as the Lord said to my father David, ‘Your son, whom I will set on your throne in your place, shall build the house for my name.’ ⁶Therefore command that cedars from the Lebanon be cut for me. My servants will join your servants, and I will give you whatever wages you set for your servants; for you know that there is no one among us who knows how to cut timber like the Sidonians.”

⁷When Hiram heard the words of Solomon, he rejoiced greatly, and said, “Blessed be the Lord today, who has given to David a wise son to be over this great people.” ⁸Hiram sent word to Solomon, “I have heard the message that you have sent to me; I will fulfill all your needs in the matter of cedar and cypress timber. ⁹My servants shall bring it down to the sea from the Lebanon; I will make it into rafts to go by sea to the place you indicate. I will have them broken up there for you to take away. And you shall meet my needs by providing food for my household.” ¹⁰So Hiram supplied Solomon’s every need for timber of cedar and cypress. ¹¹Solomon in turn gave Hiram twenty thousand cors of wheat as food for his household, and twenty cors of fine oil. Solomon gave this to Hiram year by year. ¹²So the Lord gave Solomon wisdom, as he promised him. There was peace between Hiram and Solomon; and the two of them made a treaty.

¹³King Solomon conscripted forced labor out of all Israel; the levy numbered thirty thousand men. ¹⁴He sent them to the Lebanon, ten thousand a month in shifts; they would be a month in the Lebanon and two months at home; Adoniram was in charge of the forced labor. ¹⁵Solomon also had seventy thousand laborers and eighty thousand stonecutters in the hill country, ¹⁶besides Solomon’s three thousand three hundred supervisors who were over the work, having charge of the people who did the work. ¹⁷At the king’s command, they quarried out great, costly stones in order to lay the foundation of the house with dressed stones. ¹⁸So Solomon’s builders and Hiram’s builders and the Gebalites did the stonecutting and prepared the timber and the stone to build the house.

⁶ In the four hundred eightieth year after the Israelites came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, which is the second month, he began to build the house of the Lord. ²The house that King Solomon built for the Lord was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high. ³The vestibule in front of the nave of the house was twenty cubits wide, across the width of the house. Its depth was ten cubits in front of the house. ⁴For the house he made windows with recessed frames.^{a 5}He also built a structure against the wall of the house, running around the walls of the house, both the nave and the inner sanctuary; and he made side chambers all around. ⁶The lowest story^a was five cubits wide, the middle one was six cubits wide, and the third was seven cubits wide; for around the outside of the house he made offsets on the wall in order that the supporting beams should not be inserted into the walls of the house.

The Temple and palace of Solomon according to First Kings

⁷The house was built with stone finished at the quarry, so that neither hammer nor ax nor any tool of iron was heard in the temple while it was being built.

⁸The entrance for the middle story was on the south side of the house: one went up by winding stairs to the middle story, and from the middle story to the third. ⁹So he built the house, and finished it; he roofed the house with beams and planks of cedar. ¹⁰He built the structure against the whole house, each story^b five cubits high, and it was joined to the house with timbers of cedar.

¹¹Now the word of the Lord came to Solomon, ¹²“Concerning this house that you are building, if you will walk in my statutes, obey my ordinances, and keep all my commandments by walking in them, then I will establish my promise with you, which I made to your father David. ¹³I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not forsake my people Israel.”

¹⁴So Solomon built the house, and finished it. ¹⁵He lined the walls of the house on the inside with boards of cedar; from the floor of the house to the rafters of the ceiling, he covered them on the inside with wood; and he covered the floor of the house with boards of cypress. ¹⁶He built twenty cubits of the rear of the house with boards of cedar from the floor to the rafters, and he built this within as an inner sanctuary, as the most holy place. ¹⁷The house, that is, the nave in front of the inner sanctuary, was forty cubits long. ¹⁸The cedar within the house had carvings of gourds and open flowers; all was cedar, no stone was seen. ¹⁹The inner sanctuary he prepared in the innermost part of the house, to set there the ark of the covenant of the Lord. ²⁰The interior of the inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and twenty cubits high; he overlaid it with pure gold. He also overlaid the altar with cedar.^{a 21}Solomon overlaid the inside of the house with pure gold, then he drew chains of gold across, in front of the inner sanctuary, and overlaid it with gold. ²²Next he overlaid the whole house with gold, in order that the whole house might be perfect; even the whole altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary he overlaid with gold.

²³In the inner sanctuary he made two cherubim of olivewood, each ten cubits high. ²⁴Five cubits was the length of one wing of the cherub, and five cubits the length of the other wing of the cherub; it was ten cubits from the tip of one wing to the tip of the other. ²⁵The other cherub also measured ten cubits; both cherubim had the same measure and the same form. ²⁶The height of one cherub was ten cubits, and so was that of the other cherub. ²⁷He put the cherubim in the innermost part of the house; the wings of the cherubim were spread out so that a wing of one was touching the one wall, and a wing of the other cherub was touching the other wall; their other wings toward the center of the house were touching wing to wing. ²⁸He also overlaid the cherubim with gold.

²⁹He carved the walls of the house all around about with carved engravings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, in the inner and outer rooms. ³⁰The floor of the house he overlaid with gold, in the inner and outer rooms.

³¹For the entrance to the inner sanctuary he made doors of olivewood; the lintel and the doorposts were five‐sided.^a32He covered the two doors of olivewood with carvings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers; he overlaid them with gold, and spread gold on the cherubim and on the palm trees.

³³So also he made for the entrance to the nave doorposts of olivewood, four‐sided each, ³⁴and two doors of cypress wood; the two leaves of the one door were folding, and the two leaves of the other door were folding. ³⁵He carved cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, overlaying them with gold evenly applied upon the carved work. ³⁶He built the inner court with three courses of dressed stone to one course of cedar beams.

³⁷In the fourth year the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid, in the month of Ziv. ³⁸In the eleventh year, in the month of Bul, which is the eighth month, the house was finished in all its parts, and according to all its specifications. He was seven years in building it.

⁷ Solomon was building his own house thirteen years, and he finished his entire house.

²He built the House of the Forest of the Lebanon one hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high, built on four rows of cedar pillars, with cedar beams on the pillars. ³It was roofed with cedar on the fortyfive rafters, fifteen in each row, which were on the pillars. ⁴There were window frames in the three rows, facing each other in the three rows. ⁵All the doorways and doorposts had four‐sided frames, opposite, facing each other in the three rows.

⁶He made the Hall of Pillars fifty cubits long and thirty cubits wide. There was a porch in front with pillars, and a canopy in front of them.

⁷He made the Hall of the Throne where he was to pronounce judgment, the Hall of Justice, covered with cedar from floor to floor.

⁸His own house where he would reside, in the other court back of the hall, was of the same construction. Solomon also made a house like this hall for Pharaoh’s daughter, whom he had taken in marriage.

⁹All these were made of costly stones, cut according to measure, sawed with saws, back and front, from the foundation to the coping, and from outside to the great court. ¹⁰The foundation was of costly stones, huge stones, stones of eight and ten cubits. ¹¹There were costly stones above, cut to measure, and cedarwood. ¹²The great court had three courses of dressed stone to one layer of cedar beams all around; so had the inner court of the house of the Lord, and the vestibule of the house.

¹³Now King Solomon invited and received Hiram from Tyre. ¹⁴He was the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali, whose father, a man of Tyre, had been an artisan in bronze; he was full of skill, intelligence, and knowledge in working bronze. He came to King Solomon, and did all his work.

¹⁵He cast two pillars of bronze. Eighteen cubits was the height of the one, and a cord of twelve cubits would encircle it; the second pillar was the same.^{a 16}He also made two capitals of molten bronze, to set on the tops of the pillars; the height of the one capital was five cubits, and the height of the other capital was five cubits. ¹⁷There were nets of checker work with wreaths of chain work for the capitals on the tops of the pillars; seven^b for the one capital, and seven^b for the other capital. ¹⁸He made the columns with two rows around each latticework to cover the capitals that were above the pomegranates; he did the same with the other capital. ¹⁹Now the capitals that were on the tops of the pillars in the vestibule were of lily‐work, four cubits high. ²⁰The capitals were on the two pillars and also above the rounded projection that was beside the latticework; there were two hundred pomegranates in rows all around; and so with the other capital. ²¹He set up the pillars at the vestibule of the temple; he set up the pillar on the south and called it Jachin; and he set up the pillar on the north and called it Boaz. ²²On the tops of the pillars was lily‐work. Thus the work of the pillars was finished.

²³Then he made the molten sea; it was round, ten cubits from brim to brim, and five cubits high. A line of thirty cubits would encircle it completely. ²⁴Under its brim were panels all around it, each of ten cubits, surrounding the sea; there were two rows of panels, cast when it was cast. ²⁵It stood on twelve oxen, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south, and three facing east; the sea was set on them. The hindquarters of each were toward the inside. ²⁶Its thickness was a handbreadth; its brim was made like the brim of a cup, like the flower of a lily; it held two thousand baths.^a

²⁷He also made the ten stands of bronze; each stand was four cubits long, four cubits wide, and three cubits high. ²⁸This was the construction of the stands: they had borders; the borders were within the frames; ²⁹on the borders that were set in the frames were lions, oxen, and cherubim. On the frames, both above and below the lions and oxen, there were wreaths of beveled work. ³⁰Each stand had four bronze wheels and axles of bronze; at the four corners were supports for a basin. The supports were cast with wreaths at the side of each. ³¹Its opening was within the crown whose height was one cubit; its opening was round, as a pedestal is made; it was a cubit and a half wide. At its opening there were carvings; its borders were four‐sided, not round. ³²The four wheels were underneath the borders; the axles of the wheels were in the stands; and the height of a wheel was a cubit and a half. ³³The wheels were made like a chariot wheel; their axles, their rims, their spokes, and their hubs were all cast. ³⁴There were four supports at the four corners of each stand; the supports were of one piece with the stands. ³⁵On the top of the stand there was a round band half a cubit high; on the top of the stand, its stays and its borders were of one piece with it. ³⁶On the surfaces of its stays and on its borders he carved cherubim, lions, and palm trees, where each had space, with wreaths all around. ³⁷In this way he made the ten stands; all of them were cast alike, with the same size and the same form.

³⁸He made ten basins of bronze; each basin held forty baths,^a each basin measured four cubits; there was a basin for each of the ten stands. ³⁹He set five of the stands on the south side of the house, and five on the north side of the house; he set the sea on the southeast corner of the house.

⁴⁰Hiram also made the pots, the shovels, and the basins. So Hiram finished all the work that he did for King Solomon on the house of the Lord: ⁴¹the two pillars, the two bowls of the capitals that were on the tops of the pillars, the two latticeworks to cover the two bowls of the capitals that were on the tops of the pillars; ⁴²the four hundred pomegranates for the two latticeworks, two rows of pomegranates for each latticework, to cover the two bowls of the capitals that were on the pillars; ⁴³the ten stands, the ten basins on the stands; ⁴⁴the one sea, and the twelve oxen underneath the sea.

⁴⁵The pots, the shovels, and the basins, all these vessels that Hiram made for King Solomon for the house of the Lord were of burnished bronze. ⁴⁶In the plain of the Jordan the king cast them, in the clay ground between Succoth and Zarethan. ⁴⁷Solomon left all the vessels unweighed, because there were so many of them; the weight of the bronze was not determined.

⁴⁸So Solomon made all the vessels that were in the house of the Lord: the golden altar, the golden table for the bread of the Presence, ⁴⁹the lampstands of pure gold, five on the south side and five on the north, in front of the inner sanctuary; the flowers, the lamps, and the tongs, of gold; ⁵⁰the cups, snuffers, basins, dishes for incense, and firepans, of pure gold; the sockets for the doors of the innermost part of the house, the most holy place, and for the doors of the nave of the temple, of gold.

⁵¹Thus all the work that King Solomon did on the house of the Lord was finished. Solomon brought in the things that his father David had dedicated, the silver, the gold, and the vessels, and stored them in the treasuries of the house of the Lord.

⁸ Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the leaders of the ancestral houses of the Israelites, before King Solomon in Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of the city of David, which is Zion. ²All the people of Israel assembled to King Solomon at the festival in the month Ethanim, which is the seventh month. ³And all the elders of Israel came, and the priests carried the ark. ⁴So they brought up the ark of the Lord, the tent of meeting, and all the holy vessels that were in the tent; the priests and the Levites brought them up. ⁵King Solomon and all the congregation of Israel, who had assembled before him, were with him before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and oxen that they could not be counted or numbered. ⁶Then the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its place, in the inner sanctuary of the house, in the most holy place, underneath the wings of the cherubim. ⁷For the cherubim spread out their wings over the place of the ark, so that the cherubim made a covering above the ark and its poles. ⁸The poles were so long that the ends of the poles were seen from the holy place in front of the inner sanctuary; but they could not be seen from outside; they are there to this day. ⁹There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets of stone that Moses had placed there at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites, when they came out of the land of Egypt. ¹⁰And when the priests came out of the holy place, a cloud filled the house of the Lord, ¹¹so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord.

¹²Then Solomon said,

“The Lord has said that he would dwell in thick darkness.

¹³I have built you an exalted house,

a place for you to dwell in forever.”

¹⁴Then the king turned around and blessed all the assembly of Israel, while all the assembly of Israel stood. ¹⁵He said, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who with his hand has fulfilled what he promised with his mouth to my father David, saying, ¹⁶‘Since the day that I brought my people Israel out of Egypt, I have not chosen a city from any of the tribes of Israel in which to build a house, that my name might be there; but I chose David to be over my people Israel.’ ¹⁷My father David had it in mind to build a house for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel. ¹⁸But the Lord said to my father David, ‘You did well to consider building a house for my name; ¹⁹nevertheless you shall not build the house, but your son who shall be born to you shall build the house for my name.’ ²⁰Now the Lord has upheld the promise that he made; for I have risen in the place of my father David; I sit on the throne of Israel, as the Lord promised, and have built the house for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel. ²¹There I have provided a place for the ark, in which is the covenant of the Lord that he made with our ancestors when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.”

²²Then Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, and spread out his hands to heaven. ²³He said, “O Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth beneath, keeping covenant and steadfast love for your servants who walk before you with all their heart, ²⁴the covenant that you kept for your servant my father David as you declared to him; you promised with your mouth and have this day fulfilled with your hand. ²⁵Therefore, O Lord, God of Israel, keep for your servant my father David that which you promised him, saying, ‘There shall never fail you a successor before me to sit on the throne of Israel, if only your children look to their way, to walk before me as you have walked before me.’ ²⁶Therefore, O God of Israel, let your word be confirmed, which you promised to your servant my father David.

²⁷“But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built! ²⁸Regard your servant’s prayer and his plea, O Lord my God, heeding the cry and the prayer that your servant prays to you today; ²⁹that your eyes may be open night and day toward this house, the place of which you said, ‘My name shall be there,’ that you may heed the prayer that your servant prays toward this place. ³⁰Hear the plea of your servant and of your people Israel when they pray toward this place; O hear in heaven your dwelling place; heed and forgive.

³¹“If someone sins against a neighbor and is given an oath to swear, and comes and swears before your altar in this house, ³²then hear in heaven, and act, and judge your servants, condemning the guilty by bringing their conduct on their own head, and vindicating the righteous by rewarding them according to their righteousness.

³³“When your people Israel, having sinned against you, are defeated before an enemy but turn again to you, confess your name, pray and plead with you in this house, ³⁴then hear in heaven, forgive the sin of your people Israel, and bring them again to the land that you gave to their ancestors.

³⁵“When heaven is shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against you, and then they pray toward this place, confess your name, and turn from their sin, because you punish^a them, ³⁶then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel, when you teach them the good way in which they should walk; and grant rain on your land, which you have given to your people as an inheritance.

³⁷“If there is famine in the land, if there is plague, blight, mildew, locust, or caterpillar; if their enemy besieges them in any^b of their cities; whatever plague, whatever sickness there is; ³⁸whatever prayer, whatever plea there is from any individual or from all your people Israel, all knowing the afflictions of their own hearts so that they stretch out their hands toward this house; ³⁹then hear in heaven your dwelling place, forgive, act, and render to all whose hearts you know—according to all their ways, for only you know what is in every human heart— ⁴⁰so that they may fear you all the days that they live in the land that you gave to our ancestors.

⁴¹“Likewise when a foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, comes from a distant land because of your name ⁴²—for they shall hear of your great name, your mighty hand, and your outstretched arm—when a foreigner comes and prays toward this house, ⁴³then hear in heaven your dwelling place, and do according to all that the foreigner calls to you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel, and so that they may know that your name has been invoked on this house that I have built.

⁴⁴“If your people go out to battle against their enemy, by whatever way you shall send them, and they pray to the Lord toward the city that you have chosen and the house that I have built for your name, ⁴⁵then hear in heaven their prayer and their plea, and maintain their cause.

⁴⁶“If they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin—and you are angry with them and give them to an enemy, so that they are carried away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near; ⁴⁷yet if they come to their senses in the land to which they have been taken captive, and repent, and plead with you in the land of their captors, saying, ‘We have sinned, and have done wrong; we have acted wickedly’; ⁴⁸if they repent with all their heart and soul in the land of their enemies, who took them captive, and pray to you toward their land, which you gave to their ancestors, the city that you have chosen, and the house that I have built for your name; ⁴⁹then hear in heaven your dwelling place their prayer and their plea, maintain their cause ⁵⁰and forgive your people who have sinned against you, and all their transgressions that they have committed against you; and grant them compassion in the sight of their captors, so that they may have compassion on them ⁵¹(for they are your people and heritage, which you brought out of Egypt, from the midst of the iron‐smelter). ⁵²Let your eyes be open to the plea of your servant, and to the plea of your people Israel, listening to them whenever they call to you. ⁵³For you have separated them from among all the peoples of the earth, to be your heritage, just as you promised through Moses, your servant, when you brought our ancestors out of Egypt, O Lord God.”

⁵⁴Now when Solomon finished offering all this prayer and this plea to the Lord, he arose from facing the altar of the Lord, where he had knelt with hands outstretched toward heaven; ⁵⁵he stood and blessed all the assembly of Israel with a loud voice:

⁵⁶“Blessed be the Lord, who has given rest to his people Israel according to all that he promised; not one word has failed of all his good promise, which he spoke through his servant Moses. ⁵⁷The Lord our God be with us, as he was with our ancestors; may he not leave us or abandon us, ⁵⁸but incline our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances, which he commanded our ancestors. ⁵⁹Let these words of mine, with which I pleaded before the Lord, be near to the Lord our God day and night, and may he maintain the cause of his servant and the cause of his people Israel, as each day requires; ⁶⁰so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God; there is no other. ⁶¹Therefore devote yourselves completely to the Lord our God, walking in his statutes and keeping his commandments, as at this day.”

⁶²Then the king, and all Israel with him, offered sacrifice before the Lord. ⁶³Solomon offered as sacrifices of well‐being to the Lord twenty‐two thousand oxen and one hundred twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the people of Israel dedicated the house of the Lord. ⁶⁴The same day the king consecrated the middle of the court that was in front of the house of the Lord; for there he offered the burnt offerings and the grain offerings and the fat pieces of the sacrifices of well‐being, because the bronze altar that was before the Lord was too small to receive the burnt offerings and the grain offerings and the fat pieces of the sacrifices of well‐being.

⁶⁵So Solomon held the festival at that time, and all Israel with him—a great assembly, people from Lebo‐hamath to the Wadi of Egypt—before the Lord our God, seven days.^{a 66}On the eighth day he sent the people away; and they blessed the king, and went to their tents, joyful and in good spirits because of all the goodness that the Lord had shown to his servant David and to his people Israel.

⁹ When Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord and the king’s house and all that Solomon desired to build, ²the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon. ³The Lord said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your plea, which you made before me; I have consecrated this house that you have built, and put my name there forever; my eyes and my heart will be there for all time. ⁴As for you, if you will walk before me, as David your father walked, with integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I have commanded you, and keeping my statutes and my ordinances, ⁵then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised your father David, saying, ‘There shall not fail you a successor on the throne of Israel.’

⁶“If you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, ⁷then I will cut Israel off from the land that I have given them; and the house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight; and Israel will become a proverb and a taunt among all peoples. ⁸This house will become a heap of ruins;^a everyone passing by it will be astonished, and will hiss; and they will say, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land and to this house?’ ⁹Then they will say, ‘Because they have forsaken the Lord their God, who brought their ancestors out of the land of Egypt, and embraced other gods, worshiping them and serving them; therefore the Lord has brought this disaster upon them.’”

¹⁰At the end of twenty years, in which Solomon had built the two houses, the house of the Lord and the king’s house, ¹¹King Hiram of Tyre having supplied Solomon with cedar and cypress timber and gold, as much as he desired, King Solomon gave to Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee. ¹²But when Hiram came from Tyre to see the cities that Solomon had given him, they did not please him. ¹³Therefore he said, “What kind of cities are these that you have given me, my brother?” So they are called the land of Cabul^b to this day. ¹⁴But Hiram had sent to the king one hundred twenty talents of gold.

¹⁵This is the account of the forced labor that King Solomon conscripted to build the house of the Lord and his own house, the Millo and the wall of Jerusalem, Hazor, Megiddo, Gezer ¹⁶(Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up and captured Gezer and burned it down, had killed the Canaanites who lived in the city, and had given it as dowry to his daughter, Solomon’s wife; ¹⁷so Solomon rebuilt Gezer), Lower Beth‐horon, ¹⁸Baalath, Tamar in the wilderness, within the land, ¹⁹as well as all of Solomon’s storage cities, the cities for his chariots, the cities for his cavalry, and whatever Solomon desired to build, in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion. ²⁰All the people who were left of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of the people of Israel— ²¹their descendants who were still left in the land, whom the Israelites were unable to destroy completely—these Solomon conscripted for slave labor, and so they are to this day. ²²But of the Israelites Solomon made no slaves; they were the soldiers, they were his officials, his commanders, his captains, and the commanders of his chariotry and cavalry.

²³These were the chief officers who were over Solomon’s work: five hundred fifty, who had charge of the people who carried on the work.

²⁴But Pharaoh’s daughter went up from the city of David to her own house that Solomon had built for her; then he built the Millo.

²⁵Three times a year Solomon used to offer up burnt offerings and sacrifices of well‐being on the altar that he built for the Lord, offering incense^c before the Lord. So he completed the house.

²⁶King Solomon built a fleet of ships at Ezion‐geber, which is near Eloth on the shore of the Red Sea,^a in the land of Edom. ²⁷Hiram sent his servants with the fleet, sailors who were familiar with the sea, together with the servants of Solomon. ²⁸They went to Ophir, and imported from there four hundred twenty talents of gold, which they delivered to King Solomon.

¹⁰ When the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon (fame due to^b the name of the Lord), she came to test him with hard questions. ²She came to Jerusalem with a very great retinue, with camels bearing spices, and very much gold, and precious stones; and when she came to Solomon, she told him all that was on her mind. ³Solomon answered all her questions; there was nothing hidden from the king that he could not explain to her. ⁴When the queen of Sheba had observed all the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had built, ⁵the food of his table, the seating of his officials, and the attendance of his servants, their clothing, his valets, and his burnt offerings that he offered at the house of the Lord, there was no more spirit in her.

⁶So she said to the king, “The report was true that I heard in my own land of your accomplishments and of your wisdom, ⁷but I did not believe the reports until I came and my own eyes had seen it. Not even half had been told me; your wisdom and prosperity far surpass the report that I had heard. ⁸Happy are your wives!^c Happy are these your servants, who continually attend you and hear your wisdom! ⁹Blessed be the Lord your God, who has delighted in you and set you on the throne of Israel! Because the Lord loved Israel forever, he has made you king to execute justice and righteousness.” ¹⁰Then she gave the king one hundred twenty talents of gold, a great quantity of spices, and precious stones; never again did spices come in such quantity as that which the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.

¹¹Moreover, the fleet of Hiram, which carried gold from Ophir, brought from Ophir a great quantity of almug wood and precious stones. ¹²From the almug wood the king made supports for the house of the Lord, and for the king’s house, lyres also and harps for the singers; no such almug wood has come or been seen to this day.

¹³Meanwhile King Solomon gave to the queen of Sheba every desire that she expressed, as well as what he gave her out of Solomon’s royal bounty. Then she returned to her own land, with her servants.

¹⁴The weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred sixty‐six talents of gold, ¹⁵besides that which came from the traders and from the business of the merchants, and from all the kings of Arabia and the governors of the land. ¹⁶King Solomon made two hundred large shields of beaten gold; six hundred shekels of gold went into each large shield. ¹⁷He made three hundred shields of beaten gold; three minas of gold went into each shield; and the king put them in the House of the Forest of Lebanon. ¹⁸The king also made a great ivory throne, and overlaid it with the finest gold. ¹⁹The throne had six steps. The top of the throne was rounded in the back, and on each side of the seat were arm rests and two lions standing beside the arm rests, ²⁰while twelve lions were standing, one on each end of a step on the six steps. Nothing like it was ever made in any kingdom. ²¹All King Solomon’s drinking vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the House of the Forest of Lebanon were of pure gold; none were of silver—it was not considered as anything in the days of Solomon. ²²For the king had a fleet of ships of Tarshish at sea with the fleet of Hiram. Once every three years the fleet of ships of Tarshish used to come bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks.^a

²³Thus King Solomon excelled all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom. ²⁴The whole earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put into his mind. ²⁵Every one of them brought a present, objects of silver and gold, garments, weaponry, spices, horses, and mules, so much year by year.

²⁶Solomon gathered together chariots and horses; he had fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand horses, which he stationed in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem. ²⁷The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and he made cedars as numerous as the sycamores of the Shephelah. ²⁸Solomon’s import of horses was from Egypt and Kue, and the king’s traders received them from Kue at a price. ²⁹A chariot could be imported from Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse for one hundred fifty; so through the king’s traders they were exported to all the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Aram.

¹¹ King Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, ²from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the Israelites, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you; for they will surely incline your heart to follow their gods”; Solomon clung to these in love. ³Among his wives were seven hundred princesses and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart. ⁴For when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods; and his heart was not true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David. ⁵For Solomon followed Astarte the goddess of the Sidonians, and Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. ⁶So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not completely follow the Lord, as his father David had done. ⁷Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem. ⁸He did the same for all his foreign wives, who offered incense and sacrificed to their gods.

⁹Then the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, ¹⁰and had commanded him concerning this matter, that he should not follow other gods; but he did not observe what the Lord commanded. ¹¹Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, “Since this has been your mind and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and give it to your servant. ¹²Yet for the sake of your father David I will not do it in your lifetime; I will tear it out of the hand of your son. ¹³I will not, however, tear away the entire kingdom; I will give one tribe to your son, for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen.”

¹⁴Then the Lord raised up an adversary against Solomon, Hadad the Edomite; he was of the royal house in Edom. ¹⁵For when David was in Edom, and Joab the commander of the army went up to bury the dead, he killed every male in Edom ¹⁶(for Joab and all Israel remained there six months, until he had eliminated every male in Edom); ¹⁷but Hadad fled to Egypt with some Edomites who were servants of his father. He was a young boy at that time. ¹⁸They set out from Midian and came to Paran; they took people with them from Paran and came to Egypt, to Pharaoh king of Egypt, who gave him a house, assigned him an allowance of food, and gave him land. ¹⁹Hadad found great favor in the sight of Pharaoh, so that he gave him his sister‐in‐law for a wife, the sister of Queen Tahpenes. ²⁰The sister of Tahpenes gave birth by him to his son Genubath, whom Tahpenes weaned in Pharaoh’s house; Genubath was in Pharaoh’s house among the children of Pharaoh. ²¹When Hadad heard in Egypt that David slept with his ancestors and that Joab the commander of the army was dead, Hadad said to Pharaoh, “Let me depart, that I may go to my own country.” ²²But Pharaoh said to him, “What do you lack with me that you now seek to go to your own country?” And he said, “No, do let me go.”

²³God raised up another adversary against Solomon,^a Rezon son of Eliada, who had fled from his master, King Hadadezer of Zobah. ²⁴He gathered followers around him and became leader of a marauding band, after the slaughter by David; they went to Damascus, settled there, and made him king in Damascus. ²⁵He was an adversary of Israel all the days of Solomon, making trouble as Hadad did; he despised Israel and reigned over Aram.

²⁶Jeroboam son of Nebat, an Ephraimite of Zeredah, a servant of Solomon, whose mother’s name was Zeruah, a widow, rebelled against the king. ²⁷The following was the reason he rebelled against the king. Solomon built the Millo, and closed up the gap in the wall^b of the city of his father David. ²⁸The man Jeroboam was very able, and when Solomon saw that the young man was industrious he gave him charge over all the forced labor of the house of Joseph. ²⁹About that time, when Jeroboam was leaving Jerusalem, the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite found him on the road. Ahijah had clothed himself with a new garment. The two of them were alone in the open country ³⁰when Ahijah laid hold of the new garment he was wearing and tore it into twelve pieces. ³¹He then said to Jeroboam: Take for yourself ten pieces; for thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, “See, I am about to tear the kingdom from the hand of Solomon, and will give you ten tribes. ³²One tribe will remain his, for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, the city that I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel. ³³This is because he has^a forsaken me, worshiped Astarte the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh the god of Moab, and Milcom the god of the Ammonites, and has^a not walked in my ways, doing what is right in my sight and keeping my statutes and my ordinances, as his father David did. ³⁴Nevertheless I will not take the whole kingdom away from him but will make him ruler all the days of his life, for the sake of my servant David whom I chose and who did keep my commandments and my statutes; ³⁵but I will take the kingdom away from his son and give it to you—that is, the ten tribes. ³⁶Yet to his son I will give one tribe, so that my servant David may always have a lamp before me in Jerusalem, the city where I have chosen to put my name. ³⁷I will take you, and you shall reign over all that your soul desires; you shall be king over Israel. ³⁸If you will listen to all that I command you, walk in my ways, and do what is right in my sight by keeping my statutes and my commandments, as David my servant did, I will be with you, and will build you an enduring house, as I built for David, and I will give Israel to you. ³⁹For this reason I will punish the descendants of David, but not forever.” ⁴⁰Solomon sought therefore to kill Jeroboam; but Jeroboam promptly fled to Egypt, to King Shishak of Egypt, and remained in Egypt until the death of Solomon.

⁴¹Now the rest of the acts of Solomon, all that he did as well as his wisdom, are they not written in the Book of the Acts of Solomon? ⁴²The time that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years. ⁴³Solomon slept with his ancestors and was buried in the city of his father David; and his son Rehoboam succeeded him.

¹² Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had come to Shechem to make him king. ²When Jeroboam son of Nebat heard of it (for he was still in Egypt, where he had fled from King Solomon), then Jeroboam returned from^b Egypt. ³And they sent and called him; and Jeroboam and all the assembly of Israel came and said to Rehoboam, ⁴“Your father made our yoke heavy. Now therefore lighten the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke that he placed on us, and we will serve you.” ⁵He said to them, “Go away for three days, then come again to me.” So the people went away.

The divided monarchy, the geography of chs 12–16. The dashed line shows the approximate boundaries between Israel, Judah, and Philistia.

⁶Then King Rehoboam took counsel with the older men who had attended his father Solomon while he was still alive, saying, “How do you advise me to answer this people?” ⁷They answered him, “If you will be a servant to this people today and serve them, and speak good words to them when you answer them, then they will be your servants forever.” ⁸But he disregarded the advice that the older men gave him, and consulted with the young men who had grown up with him and now attended him. ⁹He said to them, “What do you advise that we answer this people who have said to me, ‘Lighten the yoke that your father put on us’?” ¹⁰The young men who had grown up with him said to him, “Thus you should say to this people who spoke to you, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, but you must lighten it for us’; thus you should say to them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins. ¹¹Now, whereas my father laid on you a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.’”

¹²So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third day, as the king had said, “Come to me again the third day.” ¹³The king answered the people harshly. He disregarded the advice that the older men had given him ¹⁴and spoke to them according to the advice of the young men, “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke; my father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.” ¹⁵So the king did not listen to the people, because it was a turn of affairs brought about by the Lord that he might fulfill his word, which the Lord had spoken by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam son of Nebat.

¹⁶When all Israel saw that the king would not listen to them, the people answered the king,

“What share do we have in David?

 We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse.

To your tents, O Israel!

 Look now to your own house, O David.”

So Israel went away to their tents. ¹⁷But Rehoboam reigned over the Israelites who were living in the towns of Judah. ¹⁸When King Rehoboam sent Adoram, who was taskmaster over the forced labor, all Israel stoned him to death. King Rehoboam then hurriedly mounted his chariot to flee to Jerusalem. ¹⁹So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day.

²⁰When all Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, they sent and called him to the assembly and made him king over all Israel. There was no one who followed the house of David, except the tribe of Judah alone.

²¹When Rehoboam came to Jerusalem, he assembled all the house of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin, one hundred eighty thousand chosen troops to fight against the house of Israel, to restore the kingdom to Rehoboam son of Solomon. ²²But the word of God came to Shemaiah the man of God: ²³Say to King Rehoboam of Judah, son of Solomon, and to all the house of Judah and Benjamin, and to the rest of the people, ²⁴“Thus says the Lord, You shall not go up or fight against your kindred the people of Israel. Let everyone go home, for this thing is from me.” So they heeded the word of the Lord and went home again, according to the word of the Lord.

²⁵Then Jeroboam built Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and resided there; he went out from there and built Penuel. ²⁶Then Jeroboam said to himself, “Now the kingdom may well revert to the house of David. ²⁷If this people continues to go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, the heart of this people will turn again to their master, King Rehoboam of Judah; they will kill me and return to King Rehoboam of Judah.” ²⁸So the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold. He said to the people,^a “You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” ²⁹He set one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan. ³⁰And this thing became a sin, for the people went to worship before the one at Bethel and before the other as far as Dan.^{b 31}He also made houses^a on high places, and appointed priests from among all the people, who were not Levites. ³²Jeroboam appointed a festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth month like the festival that was in Judah, and he offered sacrifices on the altar; so he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves that he had made. And he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places that he had made. ³³He went up to the altar that he had made in Bethel on the fifteenth day in the eighth month, in the month that he alone had devised; he appointed a festival for the people of Israel, and he went up to the altar to offer incense.

¹³ While Jeroboam was standing by the altar to offer incense, a man of God came out of Judah by the word of the Lord to Bethel ²and proclaimed against the altar by the word of the Lord, and said, “O altar, altar, thus says the Lord: ‘A son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name; and he shall sacrifice on you the priests of the high places who offer incense on you, and human bones shall be burned on you.’” ³He gave a sign the same day, saying, “This is the sign that the Lord has spoken: ‘The altar shall be torn down, and the ashes that are on it shall be poured out.’” ⁴When the king heard what the man of God cried out against the altar at Bethel, Jeroboam stretched out his hand from the altar, saying, “Seize him!” But the hand that he stretched out against him withered so that he could not draw it back to himself. ⁵The altar also was torn down, and the ashes poured out from the altar, according to the sign that the man of God had given by the word of the Lord. ⁶The king said to the man of God, “Entreat now the favor of the Lord your God, and pray for me, so that my hand may be restored to me.” So the man of God entreated the Lord; and the king’s hand was restored to him, and became as it was before. ⁷Then the king said to the man of God, “Come home with me and dine, and I will give you a gift.” ⁸But the man of God said to the king, “If you give me half your kingdom, I will not go in with you; nor will I eat food or drink water in this place. ⁹For thus I was commanded by the word of the Lord: You shall not eat food, or drink water, or return by the way that you came.” ¹⁰So he went another way, and did not return by the way that he had come to Bethel.

¹¹Now there lived an old prophet in Bethel. One of his sons came and told him all that the man of God had done that day in Bethel; the words also that he had spoken to the king, they told to their father. ¹²Their father said to them, “Which way did he go?” And his sons showed him the way that the man of God who came from Judah had gone. ¹³Then he said to his sons, “Saddle a donkey for me.” So they saddled a donkey for him, and he mounted it. ¹⁴He went after the man of God, and found him sitting under an oak tree. He said to him, “Are you the man of God who came from Judah?” He answered, “I am.” ¹⁵Then he said to him, “Come home with me and eat some food.” ¹⁶But he said, “I cannot return with you, or go in with you; nor will I eat food or drink water with you in this place; ¹⁷for it was said to me by the word of the Lord: You shall not eat food or drink water there, or return by the way that you came.” ¹⁸Then the other^a said to him, “I also am a prophet as you are, and an angel spoke to me by the word of the Lord: Bring him back with you into your house so that he may eat food and drink water.” But he was deceiving him. ¹⁹Then the man of God^a went back with him, and ate food and drank water in his house.

²⁰As they were sitting at the table, the word of the Lord came to the prophet who had brought him back; ²¹and he proclaimed to the man of God who came from Judah, “Thus says the Lord: Because you have disobeyed the word of the Lord, and have not kept the commandment that the Lord your God commanded you, ²²but have come back and have eaten food and drunk water in the place of which he said to you, ‘Eat no food, and drink no water,’ your body shall not come to your ancestral tomb.” ²³After the man of God^a had eaten food and had drunk, they saddled for him a donkey belonging to the prophet who had brought him back. ²⁴Then as he went away, a lion met him on the road and killed him. His body was thrown in the road, and the donkey stood beside it; the lion also stood beside the body. ²⁵People passed by and saw the body thrown in the road, with the lion standing by the body. And they came and told it in the town where the old prophet lived.

²⁶When the prophet who had brought him back from the way heard of it, he said, “It is the man of God who disobeyed the word of the Lord; therefore the Lord has given him to the lion, which has torn him and killed him according to the word that the Lord spoke to him.” ²⁷Then he said to his sons, “Saddle a donkey for me.” So they saddled one, ²⁸and he went and found the body thrown in the road, with the donkey and the lion standing beside the body. The lion had not eaten the body or attacked the donkey. ²⁹The prophet took up the body of the man of God, laid it on the donkey, and brought it back to the city,^b to mourn and to bury him. ³⁰He laid the body in his own grave; and they mourned over him, saying, “Alas, my brother!” ³¹After he had buried him, he said to his sons, “When I die, bury me in the grave in which the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones. ³²For the saying that he proclaimed by the word of the Lord against the altar in Bethel, and against all the houses of the high places that are in the cities of Samaria, shall surely come to pass.”

³³Even after this event Jeroboam did not turn from his evil way, but made priests for the high places again from among all the people; any who wanted to be priests he consecrated for the high places. ³⁴This matter became sin to the house of Jeroboam, so as to cut it off and to destroy it from the face of the earth.

¹⁴ At that time Abijah son of Jeroboam fell sick. ²Jeroboam said to his wife, “Go, disguise yourself, so that it will not be known that you are the wife of Jeroboam, and go to Shiloh; for the prophet Ahijah is there, who said of me that I should be king over this people. ³Take with you ten loaves, some cakes, and a jar of honey, and go to him; he will tell you what shall happen to the child.”

⁴Jeroboam’s wife did so; she set out and went to Shiloh, and came to the house of Ahijah. Now Ahijah could not see, for his eyes were dim because of his age. ⁵But the Lord said to Ahijah, “The wife of Jeroboam is coming to inquire of you concerning her son; for he is sick. Thus and thus you shall say to her.”

When she came, she pretended to be another woman. ⁶But when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet, as she came in at the door, he said, “Come in, wife of Jeroboam; why do you pretend to be another? For I am charged with heavy tidings for you. ⁷Go, tell Jeroboam, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Because I exalted you from among the people, made you leader over my people Israel, ⁸and tore the kingdom away from the house of David to give it to you; yet you have not been like my servant David, who kept my commandments and followed me with all his heart, doing only that which was right in my sight, ⁹but you have done evil above all those who were before you and have gone and made for yourself other gods, and cast images, provoking me to anger, and have thrust me behind your back; ¹⁰therefore, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam. I will cut off from Jeroboam every male, both bond and free in Israel, and will consume the house of Jeroboam, just as one burns up dung until it is all gone. ¹¹Anyone belonging to Jeroboam who dies in the city, the dogs shall eat; and anyone who dies in the open country, the birds of the air shall eat; for the Lord has spoken.’ ¹²Therefore set out, go to your house. When your feet enter the city, the child shall die. ¹³All Israel shall mourn for him and bury him; for he alone of Jeroboam’s family shall come to the grave, because in him there is found something pleasing to the Lord, the God of Israel, in the house of Jeroboam. ¹⁴Moreover the Lord will raise up for himself a king over Israel, who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam today, even right now!^a

¹⁵“The Lord will strike Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water; he will root up Israel out of this good land that he gave to their ancestors, and scatter them beyond the Euphrates, because they have made their sacred poles,^b provoking the Lord to anger. ¹⁶He will give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, which he sinned and which he caused Israel to commit.”

¹⁷Then Jeroboam’s wife got up and went away, and she came to Tirzah. As she came to the threshold of the house, the child died. ¹⁸All Israel buried him and mourned for him, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke by his servant the prophet Ahijah.

¹⁹Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, how he warred and how he reigned, are written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Israel. ²⁰The time that Jeroboam reigned was twenty‐two years; then he slept with his ancestors, and his son Nadab succeeded him.

²¹Now Rehoboam son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty‐one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city that the Lord had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there. His mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonite. ²²Judah did what was evil in the sight of the Lord; they provoked him to jealousy with their sins that they committed, more than all that their ancestors had done. ²³For they also built for themselves high places, pillars, and sacred poles^a on every high hill and under every green tree; ²⁴there were also male temple prostitutes in the land. They committed all the abominations of the nations that the Lord drove out before the people of Israel.

²⁵In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, King Shishak of Egypt came up against Jerusalem; ²⁶he took away the treasures of the house of the Lord and the treasures of the king’s house; he took everything. He also took away all the shields of gold that Solomon had made; ²⁷so King Rehoboam made shields of bronze instead, and committed them to the hands of the officers of the guard, who kept the door of the king’s house. ²⁸As often as the king went into the house of the Lord, the guard carried them and brought them back to the guardroom.

²⁹Now the rest of the acts of Rehoboam, and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah? ³⁰There was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continually. ³¹Rehoboam slept with his ancestors and was buried with his ancestors in the city of David. His mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonite. His son Abijam succeeded him.

¹⁵ Now in the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam son of Nebat, Abijam began to reign over Judah. ²He reigned for three years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Maacah daughter of Abishalom. ³He committed all the sins that his father did before him; his heart was not true to the Lord his God, like the heart of his father David. ⁴Nevertheless for David’s sake the Lord his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem, setting up his son after him, and establishing Jerusalem; ⁵because David did what was right in the sight of the Lord, and did not turn aside from anything that he commanded him all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite. ⁶The war begun between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continued all the days of his life. ⁷The rest of the acts of Abijam, and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah? There was war between Abijam and Jeroboam. ⁸Abijam slept with his ancestors, and they buried him in the city of David. Then his son Asa succeeded him.

⁹In the twentieth year of King Jeroboam of Israel, Asa began to reign over Judah; ¹⁰he reigned forty‐one years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Maacah daughter of Abishalom. ¹¹Asa did what was right in the sight of the Lord, as his father David had done. ¹²He put away the male temple prostitutes out of the land, and removed all the idols that his ancestors had made. ¹³He also removed his mother Maacah from being queen mother, because she had made an abominable image for Asherah; Asa cut down her image and burned it at the Wadi Kidron. ¹⁴But the high places were not taken away. Nevertheless the heart of Asa was true to the Lord all his days. ¹⁵He brought into the house of the Lord the votive gifts of his father and his own votive gifts—silver, gold, and utensils.

¹⁶There was war between Asa and King Baasha of Israel all their days. ¹⁷King Baasha of Israel went up against Judah, and built Ramah, to prevent anyone from going out or coming in to King Asa of Judah. ¹⁸Then Asa took all the silver and the gold that were left in the treasures of the house of the Lord and the treasures of the king’s house, and gave them into the hands of his servants. King Asa sent them to King Ben‐hadad son of Tabrimmon son of Hezion of Aram, who resided in Damascus, saying, ¹⁹“Let there be an alliance between me and you, like that between my father and your father: I am sending you a present of silver and gold; go, break your alliance with King Baasha of Israel, so that he may withdraw from me.” ²⁰Ben‐hadad listened to King Asa, and sent the commanders of his armies against the cities of Israel. He conquered Ijon, Dan, Abel‐beth‐maacah, and all Chinneroth, with all the land of Naphtali. ²¹When Baasha heard of it, he stopped building Ramah and lived in Tirzah. ²²Then King Asa made a proclamation to all Judah, none was exempt: they carried away the stones of Ramah and its timber, with which Baasha had been building; with them King Asa built Geba of Benjamin and Mizpah. ²³Now the rest of all the acts of Asa, all his power, all that he did, and the cities that he built, are they not written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah? But in his old age he was diseased in his feet. ²⁴Then Asa slept with his ancestors, and was buried with his ancestors in the city of his father David; his son Jehoshaphat succeeded him.

²⁵Nadab son of Jeroboam began to reign over Israel in the second year of King Asa of Judah; he reigned over Israel two years. ²⁶He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, walking in the way of his ancestor and in the sin that he caused Israel to commit.

²⁷Baasha son of Ahijah, of the house of Issachar, conspired against him; and Baasha struck him down at Gibbethon, which belonged to the Philistines; for Nadab and all Israel were laying siege to Gibbethon. ²⁸So Baasha killed Nadab^a in the third year of King Asa of Judah, and succeeded him. ²⁹As soon as he was king, he killed all the house of Jeroboam; he left to the house of Jeroboam not one that breathed, until he had destroyed it, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by his servant Ahijah the Shilonite— ³⁰because of the sins of Jeroboam that he committed and that he caused Israel to commit, and because of the anger to which he provoked the Lord, the God of Israel.

³¹Now the rest of the acts of Nadab, and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Israel? ³²There was war between Asa and King Baasha of Israel all their days.

³³In the third year of King Asa of Judah, Baasha son of Ahijah began to reign over all Israel at Tirzah; he reigned twenty‐four years. ³⁴He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, walking in the way of Jeroboam and in the sin that he caused Israel to commit.

¹⁶ The word of the Lord came to Jehu son of Hanani against Baasha, saying, ²“Since I exalted you out of the dust and made you leader over my people Israel, and you have walked in the way of Jeroboam, and have caused my people Israel to sin, provoking me to anger with their sins, ³therefore, I will consume Baasha and his house, and I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat. ⁴Anyone belonging to Baasha who dies in the city the dogs shall eat; and anyone of his who dies in the field the birds of the air shall eat.”

⁵Now the rest of the acts of Baasha, what he did, and his power, are they not written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Israel? ⁶Baasha slept with his ancestors, and was buried at Tirzah; and his son Elah succeeded him. ⁷Moreover the word of the Lord came by the prophet Jehu son of Hanani against Baasha and his house, both because of all the evil that he did in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger with the work of his hands, in being like the house of Jeroboam, and also because he destroyed it.

⁸In the twenty‐sixth year of King Asa of Judah, Elah son of Baasha began to reign over Israel in Tirzah; he reigned two years. ⁹But his servant Zimri, commander of half his chariots, conspired against him. When he was at Tirzah, drinking himself drunk in the house of Arza, who was in charge of the palace at Tirzah, ¹⁰Zimri came in and struck him down and killed him, in the twenty‐seventh year of King Asa of Judah, and succeeded him.

¹¹When he began to reign, as soon as he had seated himself on his throne, he killed all the house of Baasha; he did not leave him a single male of his kindred or his friends. ¹²Thus Zimri destroyed all the house of Baasha, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke against Baasha by the prophet Jehu— ¹³because of all the sins of Baasha and the sins of his son Elah that they committed, and that they caused Israel to commit, provoking the Lord God of Israel to anger with their idols. ¹⁴Now the rest of the acts of Elah, and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Israel?

¹⁵In the twenty‐seventh year of King Asa of Judah, Zimri reigned seven days in Tirzah. Now the troops were encamped against Gibbethon, which belonged to the Philistines, ¹⁶and the troops who were encamped heard it said, “Zimri has conspired, and he has killed the king”; therefore all Israel made Omri, the commander of the army, king over Israel that day in the camp. ¹⁷So Omri went up from Gibbethon, and all Israel with him, and they besieged Tirzah. ¹⁸When Zimri saw that the city was taken, he went into the citadel of the king’s house; he burned down the king’s house over himself with fire, and died— ¹⁹because of the sins that he committed, doing evil in the sight of the Lord, walking in the way of Jeroboam, and for the sin that he committed, causing Israel to sin. ²⁰Now the rest of the acts of Zimri, and the conspiracy that he made, are they not written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Israel?

²¹Then the people of Israel were divided into two parts; half of the people followed Tibni son of Ginath, to make him king, and half followed Omri. ²²But the people who followed Omri overcame the people who followed Tibni son of Ginath; so Tibni died, and Omri became king. ²³In the thirty‐first year of King Asa of Judah, Omri began to reign over Israel; he reigned for twelve years, six of them in Tirzah.

²⁴He bought the hill of Samaria from Shemer for two talents of silver; he fortified the hill, and called the city that he built, Samaria, after the name of Shemer, the owner of the hill.

²⁵Omri did what was evil in the sight of the Lord; he did more evil than all who were before him. ²⁶For he walked in all the way of Jeroboam son of Nebat, and in the sins that he caused Israel to commit, provoking the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger by their idols. ²⁷Now the rest of the acts of Omri that he did, and the power that he showed, are they not written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Israel? ²⁸Omri slept with his ancestors, and was buried in Samaria; his son Ahab succeeded him.

²⁹In the thirty‐eighth year of King Asa of Judah, Ahab son of Omri began to reign over Israel; Ahab son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty‐two years. ³⁰Ahab son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him.

³¹And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, he took as his wife Jezebel daughter of King Ethbaal of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshiped him. ³²He erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he built in Samaria. ³³Ahab also made a sacred pole.^a Ahab did more to provoke the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than had all the kings of Israel who were before him. ³⁴In his days Hiel of Bethel built Jericho; he laid its foundation at the cost of Abiram his firstborn, and set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke by Joshua son of Nun.

¹⁷Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe^a in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.” ²The word of the Lord came to him, saying, ³“Go from here and turn eastward, and hide yourself by the Wadi Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. ⁴You shall drink from the wadi, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.” ⁵So he went and did according to the word of the Lord; he went and lived by the Wadi Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. ⁶The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening; and he drank from the wadi. ⁷But after a while the wadi dried up, because there was no rain in the land.

⁸Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, ⁹“Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” ¹⁰So he set out and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink.” ¹¹As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” ¹²But she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” ¹³Elijah said to her, “Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son. ¹⁴For thus says the Lord the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.” ¹⁵She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. ¹⁶The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.

¹⁷After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill; his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. ¹⁸She then said to Elijah, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son!” ¹⁹But he said to her, “Give me your son.” He took him from her bosom, carried him up into the upper chamber where he was lodging, and laid him on his own bed. ²⁰He cried out to the Lord, “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?” ²¹Then he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried out to the Lord, “O Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.” ²²The Lord listened to the voice of Elijah; the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. ²³Elijah took the child, brought him down from the upper chamber into the house, and gave him to his mother; then Elijah said, “See, your son is alive.” ²⁴So the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.”

The geography of the Elijah narratives. The dashed line shows the approximate boundaries between Israel, Judah, and Philistia.

¹⁸ After many days the word of the Lord came to Elijah, in the third year of the drought,^a saying, “Go, present yourself to Ahab; I will send rain on the earth.” ²So Elijah went to present himself to Ahab. The famine was severe in Samaria. ³Ahab summoned Obadiah, who was in charge of the palace. (Now Obadiah revered the Lord greatly; ⁴when Jezebel was killing off the prophets of the Lord, Obadiah took a hundred prophets, hid them fifty to a cave, and provided them with bread and water.) ⁵Then Ahab said to Obadiah, “Go through the land to all the springs of water and to all the wadis; perhaps we may find grass to keep the horses and mules alive, and not lose some of the animals.” ⁶So they divided the land between them to pass through it; Ahab went in one direction by himself, and Obadiah went in another direction by himself.

⁷As Obadiah was on the way, Elijah met him; Obadiah recognized him, fell on his face, and said, “Is it you, my lord Elijah?” ⁸He answered him, “It is I. Go, tell your lord that Elijah is here.” ⁹And he said, “How have I sinned, that you would hand your servant over to Ahab, to kill me? ¹⁰As the Lord your God lives, there is no nation or kingdom to which my lord has not sent to seek you; and when they would say, ‘He is not here,’ he would require an oath of the kingdom or nation, that they had not found you. ¹¹But now you say, ‘Go, tell your lord that Elijah is here.’ ¹²As soon as I have gone from you, the spirit of the Lord will carry you I know not where; so, when I come and tell Ahab and he cannot find you, he will kill me, although I your servant have revered the Lord from my youth. ¹³Has it not been told my lord what I did when Jezebel killed the prophets of the Lord, how I hid a hundred of the Lord’s prophets fifty to a cave, and provided them with bread and water? ¹⁴Yet now you say, ‘Go, tell your lord that Elijah is here’; he will surely kill me.” ¹⁵Elijah said, “As the Lord of hosts lives, before whom I stand, I will surely show myself to him today.” ¹⁶So Obadiah went to meet Ahab, and told him; and Ahab went to meet Elijah.

¹⁷When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, “Is it you, you troubler of Israel?” ¹⁸He answered, “I have not troubled Israel; but you have, and your father’s house, because you have forsaken the commandments of the Lord and followed the Baals. ¹⁹Now therefore have all Israel assemble for me at Mount Carmel, with the four hundred fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.”

²⁰So Ahab sent to all the Israelites, and assembled the prophets at Mount Carmel. ²¹Elijah then came near to all the people, and said, “How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” The people did not answer him a word. ²²Then Elijah said to the people, “I, even I only, am left a prophet of the Lord; but Baal’s prophets number four hundred fifty. ²³Let two bulls be given to us; let them choose one bull for themselves, cut it in pieces, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire to it; I will prepare the other bull and lay it on the wood, but put no fire to it. ²⁴Then you call on the name of your god and I will call on the name of the Lord; the god who answers by fire is indeed God.” All the people answered, “Well spoken!” ²⁵Then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose for yourselves one bull and prepare it first, for you are many; then call on the name of your god, but put no fire to it.” ²⁶So they took the bull that was given them, prepared it, and called on the name of Baal from morning until noon, crying, “O Baal, answer us!” But there was no voice, and no answer. They limped about the altar that they had made. ²⁷At noon Elijah mocked them, saying, “Cry aloud! Surely he is a god; either he is meditating, or he has wandered away, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.” ²⁸Then they cried aloud and, as was their custom, they cut themselves with swords and lances until the blood gushed out over them. ²⁹As midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice, no answer, and no response.

³⁰Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come closer to me”; and all the people came closer to him. First he repaired the altar of the Lord that had been thrown down; ³¹Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord came, saying, “Israel shall be your name”; ³²with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord. Then he made a trench around the altar, large enough to contain two measures of seed. ³³Next he put the wood in order, cut the bull in pieces, and laid it on the wood. He said, “Fill four jars with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood.” ³⁴Then he said, “Do it a second time”; and they did it a second time. Again he said, “Do it a third time”; and they did it a third time, ³⁵so that the water ran all around the altar, and filled the trench also with water.

³⁶At the time of the offering of the oblation, the prophet Elijah came near and said, “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your bidding.

³⁷Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.” ³⁸Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust, and even licked up the water that was in the trench. ³⁹When all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, “The Lord indeed is God; the Lord indeed is God.” ⁴⁰Elijah said to them, “Seize the prophets of Baal; do not let one of them escape.” Then they seized them; and Elijah brought them down to the Wadi Kishon, and killed them there.

⁴¹Elijah said to Ahab, “Go up, eat and drink; for there is a sound of rushing rain.” ⁴²So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; there he bowed himself down upon the earth and put his face between his knees. ⁴³He said to his servant, “Go up now, look toward the sea.” He went up and looked, and said, “There is nothing.” Then he said, “Go again seven times.” ⁴⁴At the seventh time he said, “Look, a little cloud no bigger than a person’s hand is rising out of the sea.” Then he said, “Go say to Ahab, ‘Harness your chariot and go down before the rain stops you.’” ⁴⁵In a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind; there was a heavy rain. Ahab rode off and went to Jezreel. ⁴⁶But the hand of the Lord was on Elijah; he girded up his loins and ran in front of Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel.

¹⁹ Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. ²Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.” ³Then he was afraid; he got up and fled for his life, and came to Beer‐sheba, which belongs to Judah; he left his servant there.

⁴But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under asolitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” ⁵Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, “Get up and eat.” ⁶He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. ⁷The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.” ⁸He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God. ⁹At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there.

Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” ¹⁰He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”

¹¹He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; ¹²and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. ¹³When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” ¹⁴He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” ¹⁵Then the Lord said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram. ¹⁶Also you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abelmeholah as prophet in your place. ¹⁷Whoever escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall kill; and whoever escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall kill. ¹⁸Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.”

¹⁹So he set out from there, and found Elisha son of Shaphat, who was plowing. There were twelve yoke of oxen ahead of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle over him. ²⁰He left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, “Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.” Then Elijah^a said to him, “Go back again; for what have I done to you?” ²¹He returned from following him, took the yoke of oxen, and slaughtered them; using the equipment from the oxen, he boiled their flesh, and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out and followed Elijah, and became his servant.

²⁰ King Ben‐hadad of Aram gathered all his army together; thirty‐two kings were with him, along with horses and chariots. He marched against Samaria, laid siege to it, and attacked it. ²Then he sent messengers into the city to King Ahab of Israel, and said to him: “Thus says Ben‐hadad: ³Your silver and gold are mine; your fairest wives and children also are mine.” ⁴The king of Israel answered, “As you say, my lord, O king, I am yours, and all that I have.” ⁵The messengers came again and said: “Thus says Ben‐hadad: I sent to you, saying, ‘Deliver to me your silver and gold, your wives and children’; ⁶nevertheless I will send my servants to you tomorrow about this time, and they shall search your house and the houses of your servants, and lay hands on whatever pleases them,^b and take it away.”

⁷Then the king of Israel called all the elders of the land, and said, “Look now! See how this man is seeking trouble; for he sent to me for my wives, my children, my silver, and my gold; and I did not refuse him.” ⁸Then all the elders and all the people said to him, “Do not listen or consent.” ⁹So he said to the messengers of Ben‐hadad, “Tell my lord the king: All that you first demanded of your servant I will do; but this thing I cannot do.” The messengers left and brought him word again. ¹⁰Ben‐hadad sent to him and said, “The gods do so to me, and more also, if the dust of Samaria will provide a handful for each of the people who follow me.” ¹¹The king of Israel answered, “Tell him: One who puts on armor should not brag like one who takes it off.” ¹²When Ben‐hadad heard this message—now he had been drinking with the kings in the booths—he said to his men, “Take your positions!” And they took their positions against the city.

¹³Then a certain prophet came up to King Ahab of Israel and said, “Thus says the Lord, Have you seen all this great multitude? Look, I will give it into your hand today; and you shall know that I am the Lord.” ¹⁴Ahab said, “By whom?” He said, “Thus says the Lord, By the young men who serve the district governors.” Then he said, “Who shall begin the battle?” He answered, “You.” ¹⁵Then he mustered the young men who served the district governors, two hundred thirty‐two; after them he mustered all the people of Israel, seven thousand.

¹⁶They went out at noon, while Ben‐hadad was drinking himself drunk in the booths, he and the thirty‐two kings allied with him. ¹⁷The young men who served the district governors went out first. Ben‐hadad had sent out scouts,^c and they reported to him, “Men have come out from Samaria.” ¹⁸He said, “If they have come out for peace, take them alive; if they have come out for war, take them alive.”

¹⁹But these had already come out of the city: the young men who served the district governors, and the army that followed them. ²⁰Each killed his man; the Arameans fled and Israel pursued them, but King Ben‐hadad of Aram escaped on a horse with the cavalry. ²¹The king of Israel went out, attacked the horses and chariots, and defeated the Arameans with a great slaughter.

²²Then the prophet approached the king of Israel and said to him, “Come, strengthen yourself, and consider well what you have to do; for in the spring the king of Aram will come up against you.”

²³The servants of the king of Aram said to him, “Their gods are gods of the hills, and so they were stronger than we; but let us fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they. ²⁴Also do this: remove the kings, each from his post, and put commanders in place of them; ²⁵and muster an army like the army that you have lost, horse for horse, and chariot for chariot; then we will fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they.” He heeded their voice, and did so.

²⁶In the spring Ben‐hadad mustered the Arameans and went up to Aphek to fight against Israel. ²⁷After the Israelites had been mustered and provisioned, they went out to engage them; the people of Israel encamped opposite them like two little flocks of goats, while the Arameans filled the country. ²⁸A man of God approached and said to the king of Israel, “Thus says the Lord: Because the Arameans have said, ‘The Lord is a god of the hills but he is not a god of the valleys,’ therefore I will give all this great multitude into your hand, and you shall know that I am the Lord.” ²⁹They encamped opposite one another seven days. Then on the seventh day the battle began; the Israelites killed one hundred thousand Aramean foot soldiers in one day. ³⁰The rest fled into the city of Aphek; and the wall fell on twenty‐seven thousand men that were left.

Ben‐hadad also fled, and entered the city to hide. ³¹His servants said to him, “Look, we have heard that the kings of the house of Israel are merciful kings; let us put sackcloth around our waists and ropes on our heads, and go out to the king of Israel; perhaps he will spare your life.” ³²So they tied sackcloth around their waists, put ropes on their heads, went to the king of Israel, and said, “Your servant Ben‐hadad says, ‘Please let me live.’” And he said, “Is he still alive? He is my brother.” ³³Now the men were watching for an omen; they quickly took it up from him and said, “Yes, Ben‐hadad is your brother.” Then he said, “Go and bring him.” So Ben‐hadad came out to him; and he had him come up into the chariot. ³⁴Ben‐hadad^a said to him, “I will restore the towns that my father took from your father; and you may establish bazaars for yourself in Damascus, as my father did in Samaria.” The king of Israel responded,^b “I will let you go on those terms.” So he made a treaty with him and let him go.

³⁵At the command of the Lord a certain member of a company of prophets^c said to another, “Strike me!” But the man refused to strike him. ³⁶Then he said to him, “Because you have not obeyed the voice of the Lord, as soon as you have left me, a lion will kill you.” And when he had left him, a lion met him and killed him. ³⁷Then he found another man and said, “Strike me!” So the man hit him, striking and wounding him. ³⁸Then the prophet departed, and waited for the king along the road, disguising himself with a bandage over his eyes. ³⁹As the king passed by, he cried to the king and said, “Your servant went out into the thick of the battle; then a soldier turned and brought a man to me, and said, ‘Guard this man; if he is missing, your life shall be given for his life, or else you shall pay a talent of silver.’ ⁴⁰While your servant was busy here and there, he was gone.” The king of Israel said to him, “So shall your judgment be; you yourself have decided it.” ⁴¹Then he quickly took the bandage away from his eyes. The king of Israel recognized him as one of the prophets. ⁴²Then he said to him, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Because you have let the man go whom I had devoted to destruction, therefore your life shall be for his life, and your people for his people.’” ⁴³The king of Israel set out toward home, resentful and sullen, and came to Samaria.

²¹ Later the following events took place: Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard in Jezreel, beside the palace of King Ahab of Samaria. ²And Ahab said to Naboth, “Give me your vineyard, so that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near my house; I will give you a better vineyard for it; or, if it seems good to you, I will give you its value in money.” ³But Naboth said to Ahab, “The Lord forbid that I should give you my ancestral inheritance.” ⁴Ahab went home resentful and sullen because of what Naboth the Jezreelite had said to him; for he had said, “I will not give you my ancestral inheritance.” He lay down on his bed, turned away his face, and would not eat.

⁵His wife Jezebel came to him and said, “Why are you so depressed that you will not eat?” ⁶He said to her, “Because I spoke to Naboth the Jezreelite and said to him, ‘Give me your vineyard for money; or else, if you prefer, I will give you another vineyard for it’; but he answered, ‘I will not give you my vineyard.’” ⁷His wife Jezebel said to him, “Do you now govern Israel? Get up, eat some food, and be cheerful; I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.”

⁸So she wrote letters in Ahab’s name and sealed them with his seal; she sent the letters to the elders and the nobles who lived with Naboth in his city. ⁹She wrote in the letters, “Proclaim a fast, and seat Naboth at the head of the assembly; ¹⁰seat two scoundrels opposite him, and have them bring a charge against him, saying, ‘You have cursed God and the king.’ Then take him out, and stone him to death.” ¹¹The men of his city, the elders and the nobles who lived in his city, did as Jezebel had sent word to them. Just as it was written in the letters that she had sent to them, ¹²they proclaimed a fast and seated Naboth at the head of the assembly. ¹³The two scoundrels came in and sat opposite him; and the scoundrels brought a charge against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, “Naboth cursed God and the king.” So they took him outside the city, and stoned him to death. ¹⁴Then they sent to Jezebel, saying, “Naboth has been stoned; he is dead.”

¹⁵As soon as Jezebel heard that Naboth had been stoned and was dead, Jezebel said to Ahab, “Go, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give you for money; for Naboth is not alive, but dead.” ¹⁶As soon as Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, Ahab set out to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it.

¹⁷Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying: ¹⁸Go down to meet King Ahab of Israel, who rules^a in Samaria; he is now in the vineyard of Naboth, where he has gone to take possession. ¹⁹You shall say to him, “Thus says the Lord: Have you killed, and also taken possession?” You shall say to him, “Thus says the Lord: In the place where dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, dogs will also lick up your blood.”

²⁰Ahab said to Elijah, “Have you found me, O my enemy?” He answered, “I have found you. Because you have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the Lord, ²¹I will bring disaster on you; I will consume you, and will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel; ²²and I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha son of Ahijah, because you have provoked me to anger and have caused Israel to sin. ²³Also concerning Jezebel the Lord said, ‘The dogs shall eat Jezebel within the bounds of Jezreel.’ ²⁴Anyone belonging to Ahab who dies in the city the dogs shall eat; and anyone of his who dies in the open country the birds of the air shall eat.”

²⁵(Indeed, there was no one like Ahab, who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of the Lord, urged on by his wife Jezebel. ²⁶He acted most abominably in going after idols, as the Amorites had done, whom the Lord drove out before the Israelites.)

²⁷When Ahab heard those words, he tore his clothes and put sackcloth over his bare flesh; he fasted, lay in the sackcloth, and went about dejectedly. ²⁸Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite: ²⁹“Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the disaster in his days; but in his son’s days I will bring the disaster on his house.”

²² For three years Aram and Israel continued without war. ²But in the third year King Jehoshaphat of Judah came down to the king of Israel. ³The king of Israel said to his servants, “Do you know that Ramothgilead belongs to us, yet we are doing nothing to take it out of the hand of the king of Aram?” ⁴He said to Jehoshaphat, “Will you go with me to battle at Ramoth‐gilead?” Jehoshaphat replied to the king of Israel, “I am as you are; my people are your people, my horses are your horses.”

⁵But Jehoshaphat also said to the king of Israel, “Inquire first for the word of the Lord.” ⁶Then the king of Israel gathered the prophets together, about four hundred of them, and said to them, “Shall I go to battle against Ramoth‐gilead, or shall I refrain?” They said, “Go up; for the Lord will give it into the hand of the king.” ⁷But Jehoshaphat said, “Is there no other prophet of the Lord here of whom we may inquire?” ⁸The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “There is still one other by whom we may inquire of the Lord, Micaiah son of Imlah; but I hate him, for he never prophesies anything favorable about me, but only disaster.” Jehoshaphat said, “Let the king not say such a thing.” ⁹Then the king of Israel summoned an officer and said, “Bring quickly Micaiah son of Imlah.” ¹⁰Now the king of Israel and King Jehoshaphat of Judah were sitting on their thrones, arrayed in their robes, at the threshing floor at the entrance of the gate of Samaria; and all the prophets were prophesying before them. ¹¹Zedekiah son of Chenaanah made for himself horns of iron, and he said, “Thus says the Lord: With these you shall gore the Arameans until they are destroyed.” ¹²All the prophets were prophesying the same and saying, “Go up to Ramoth‐gilead and triumph; the Lord will give it into the hand of the king.”

¹³The messenger who had gone to summon Micaiah said to him, “Look, the words of the prophets with one accord are favorable to the king; let your word be like the word of one of them, and speak favorably.” ¹⁴But Micaiah said, “As the Lord lives, whatever the Lord says to me, that I will speak.”

¹⁵When he had come to the king, the king said to him, “Micaiah, shall we go to Ramothgilead to battle, or shall we refrain?” He answered him, “Go up and triumph; the Lord will give it into the hand of the king.” ¹⁶But the king said to him, “How many times must I make you swear to tell me nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord?” ¹⁷Then Micaiah^a said, “I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains, like sheep that have no shepherd; and the Lord said, ‘These have no master; let each one go home in peace.’” ¹⁸The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “Did I not tell you that he would not prophesy anything favorable about me, but only disaster?”

¹⁹Then Micaiah^a said, “Therefore hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, with all the host of heaven standing beside him to the right and to the left of him. ²⁰And the Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab, so that he may go up and fall at Ramoth‐gilead?’ Then one said one thing, and another said another, ²¹until a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, saying, ‘I will entice him.’ ²²‘How?’ the Lord asked him. He replied, ‘I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ Then the Lord^a said, ‘You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do it.’ ²³So you see, the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; the Lord has decreed disaster for you.”

²⁴Then Zedekiah son of Chenaanah came up to Micaiah, slapped him on the cheek, and said, “Which way did the spirit of the Lord pass from me to speak to you?” ²⁵Micaiah replied, “You will find out on that day when you go in to hide in an inner chamber.” ²⁶The king of Israel then ordered, “Take Micaiah, and return him to Amon the governor of the city and to Joash the king’s son, ²⁷and say, ‘Thus says the king: Put this fellow in prison, and feed him on reduced rations of bread and water until I come in peace.’” ²⁸Micaiah said, “If you return in peace, the Lord has not spoken by me.” And he said, “Hear, you peoples, all of you!”

²⁹So the king of Israel and King Jehoshaphat of Judah went up to Ramoth‐gilead. ³⁰The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “I will disguise myself and go into battle, but you wear your robes.” So the king of Israel disguised himself and went into battle. ³¹Now the king of Aram had commanded the thirtytwo captains of his chariots, “Fight with no one small or great, but only with the king of Israel.” ³²When the captains of the chariots saw Jehoshaphat, they said, “It is surely the king of Israel.” So they turned to fight against him; and Jehoshaphat cried out. ³³When the captains of the chariots saw that it was not the king of Israel, they turned back from pursuing him. ³⁴But a certain man drew his bow and unknowingly struck the king of Israel between the scale armor and the breastplate; so he said to the driver of his chariot, “Turn around, and carry me out of the battle, for I am wounded.” ³⁵The battle grew hot that day, and the king was propped up in his chariot facing the Arameans, until at evening he died; the blood from the wound had flowed into the bottom of the chariot. ³⁶Then about sunset a shout went through the army, “Every man to his city, and every man to his country!”

³⁷So the king died, and was brought to Samaria; they buried the king in Samaria. ³⁸They washed the chariot by the pool of Samaria; the dogs licked up his blood, and the prostitutes washed themselves in it,^a according to the word of the Lord that he had spoken. ³⁹Now the rest of the acts of Ahab, and all that he did, and the ivory house that he built, and all the cities that he built, are they not written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Israel? ⁴⁰So Ahab slept with his ancestors; and his son Ahaziah succeeded him.

⁴¹Jehoshaphat son of Asa began to reign over Judah in the fourth year of King Ahab of Israel. ⁴²Jehoshaphat was thirty‐five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty‐five years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Azubah daughter of Shilhi. ⁴³He walked in all the way of his father Asa; he did not turn aside from it, doing what was right in the sight of the Lord; yet the high places were not taken away, and the people still sacrificed and offered incense on the high places. ⁴⁴Jehoshaphat also made peace with the king of Israel.

⁴⁵Now the rest of the acts of Jehoshaphat, and his power that he showed, and how he waged war, are they not written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah? ⁴⁶The remnant of the male temple prostitutes who were still in the land in the days of his father Asa, he exterminated.

⁴⁷There was no king in Edom; a deputy was king. ⁴⁸Jehoshaphat made ships of the Tarshish type to go to Ophir for gold; but they did not go, for the ships were wrecked at Ezion‐geber. ⁴⁹Then Ahaziah son of Ahab said to Jehoshaphat, “Let my servants go with your servants in the ships,” but Jehoshaphat was not willing. ⁵⁰Jehoshaphat slept with his ancestors and was buried with his ancestors in the city of his father David; his son Jehoram succeeded him.

⁵¹Ahaziah son of Ahab began to reign over Israel in Samaria in the seventeenth year of King Jehoshaphat of Judah; he reigned two years over Israel. ⁵²He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of his father and mother, and in the way of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin. ⁵³He served Baal and worshiped him; he provoked the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger, just as his father had done.

1.1–11.43: The reign of King Solomon. The story of Solomon can be divided into three parts: chs 1–2; 3.1–9.9; and 9.10–11.43. Chapters 1–2 relate Solomon’s rise to power. The second section, the main narrative of his reign, is bookmarked by two divine manifestations in chs 3 and 9. Chapters 3–8 present the positive part of Solomon’s activity: his wisdom and especially his construction of the Jerusalem Temple, which is concluded by a long prayer. The second divine speech to Solomon in ch 9 is forward looking, evoking the possibility of his disobedience, and ultimately the destruction of the Temple and the exile. First Kings 9.10–11.43, the final section, presents Solomon negatively: he imposes forced labor upon the people, marries many foreign women, and worships their deities. These chapters prepare the reader for ch 12, where the kingdom is divided.

1.1–53: Solomon’s rise to the throne. The opening chapters of 1 Kings continue the account of the succession to David from 2 Samuel. Chapter 1 makes clear that Solomon was not the expected successor, but became king after a court intrigue; this is a well‐attested motif in Assyrian and Babylonian literature, and may reflect historical reality. 1–4: Virility and the ability to govern were connected in antiquity (see, e.g., 2 Sam 16.22). David’s servants try to “warm up” their king by sending him the beautiful virgin Abishag. This strategy fails, because David is unable to have sex with her; the question of his successor has thus become unavoidable. 3: Abishag was from Shunem, a town in the Jezreel valley in northern Israel, ca. 8 mi (13 km) south of Nazareth. 5–8: After the deaths of Amnon and Absalom (2 Sam 13.28–29; 18.14–15; Chileab, absent here, is mentioned only in 2 Sam 3.4), Adonijah, the next oldest son, wants to succeed his father to the throne. The narrator, who presents him as having David’s favor, suggests his suitability because he is very handsome, a royal attribute (see 1 Sam 9.2; 16.12). Adonijah’s actions recall the revolt of Absalom, who also claimed to be the legitimate king during David’s reign; this foreshadows Adonijah’s fall. Two important members of the court side with Adonijah: Joab, apparently David’s nephew (see 1 Chr 2.16) and head of the army, and Abiathar, one of David’s priests, who had escaped Saul’s slaughter of the priests of Nob (1 Sam 22.20–23; 2 Sam 20.25). The opposing group (v. 8) includes members of the Jerusalemite aristocracy: the priest Zadok, the prophet Nathan, Benaiah, a chief of foreign mercenaries (2 Sam 8.18), and Shimei (perhaps the same Shimei mentioned in 2 Sam 16.5–14). The Zadok‐Nathan party is also supported by David’s own warriors, David’s bodyguard (cf. 2 Sam 23.8–39). 9–10: Adonijah’s abundant sacrifices by the stone Zoheleth (the “snake stone”) at En‐rogel (the “fuller’s spring,” in the Kidron Valley southeast of Jerusalem) are meant to foster unity among his party and to make public his claim to become David’s successor. 11–14: This oath, not mentioned previously, may be an invention of Nathan and Bathsheba to manipulate the ailing king. 15–31: Although Nathan knows how to plot by pretending that Adonijah has already been proclaimed king (the narrative speaks only about his sacrificial feast and not about a coronation), Bathsheba and Nathan’s strategy is successful in convincing David to proclaim Solomon his successor, and they also make David believe that he has already confirmed Solomon as king by oath. In v. 22 Bathsheba is present while Nathan is speaking to David, but in v. 28 she seems to have left the audience, suggesting that the story has undergone revision. 32–40: The anointing of Solomon by Nathan and Zadok takes place at Gihon, the main spring of Jerusalem located in the Kidron Valley. 38: Saul and David were anointed only by the prophet Samuel (1 Sam 10.1; 16.13), but following the Lord’s instructions; Solomon is anointed by a prophet and by a priest, but without explicit divine authorization. Strikingly, the story does not explicitly state that Solomon’s coronation was the Lord’s will (but cf. 2.15). The Cherethites and Pelethites, David’s personal troops; the names may allude to their Cretan and Philistine origin. 39: The Tent, the mobile sanctuary, which David transferred to Jerusalem, will soon be replaced by the Temple built by Solomon. 40: After the anointing a solemn procession with music and exuberance begins the new king’s rule. The noise is so intense that the earth splits (cf. Num. 16.31), reflecting the ancient Near Eastern idea that the coronation of a new king had cosmic consequences. 41–53: Jonathan, the son of Abiathar, who supported David during Absalom’s revolt (2 Sam 15.36; 17.17) informs Adonijah that he will not become king over Israel. 47: David bowing on his bed might reflect bowing before Solomon, thereby acknowledging him as the new king. 50: Adonijah fears Solomon’s revenge, flees to the sanctuary and grasps the horns of the altar. The altar with four horns (see Ex 29.12; 30,3; Lev 4.7), quarter‐round stones on each corner, was understood in some traditions as offering a place of asylum. 52: Solomon promises that he will not harm Adonijah if he proves to be a worthy man, behaving loyally to the new king (but see 2.29–30).

2.1–12: David’s last words and his death. 1–4: This passage, marked by Deuteronomistic style and ideology, recalls God’s words to Joshua, Israel’s leader after Moses’s death (Josh 1.2–3,7–9). Solomon, like every king in Israel, must abide by God’s commandments as written in the law of Moses, particularly in the book of Deuteronomy; many of David’s exhortations are taken from that book (see Deut 4.29,40; 8.6; 10.12; 11.1; 29.9). 4: A summary and interpretation of the dynastic promise of 2 Sam 7.12–16, though the unconditional promise of an eternal dynasty in 2 Sam 7 is here transformed into a conditional promise, stating that the Davidic dynasty will last only if his successors respect God’s will as expressed in Deuteronomy. This transformation explains the catastrophe of Israel’s and Judah’s fall. 5–9: These words put on David’s lips legitimate Solomon’s cruel killing of Joab and Shimei (vv. 28–46). 5–6: Joab, a supporter of Adonijah, was formerly a loyal follower of David, who had carried out several murders, some at David’s request. David accuses him of killing Abner (2 Sam 3.6–39) and Amasa (2 Sam 20.9–10). 8–9: Shimei, who did not support Adonijah (1.8), has to die because he cursed David; David had sworn to him that he would not harm him (2 Sam 19.23), but he now asks Solomon to kill his former antagonist. 9: Solomon’s wisdom (Heb “ḥokmah”), which will be a main feature of his reign, is first alluded to here, although the word can also mean”cunning.” Sheol, the underworld where all the dead go. 7: In contrast to Joab and Shimei, Barzillai was a model of dutiful service to the king (2 Sam 17.27–29; 19.32–39), so his sons must be treated with respect and be allowed to eat at the king’s table, a high distinction (cf. 2 Kings 25.27–30). 10: David slept with his ancestors, this standard formula occurs for kings who died a natural death and expresses the idea of being united with one’s ancestors in the underworld; see also 16.25n. 11: The forty‐year reign of David (and later, of Solomon—see 11.42) should be understood symbolically as a reign of a complete, perfect period. It is impossible to reconstruct historical dates for Israel’s first kings (Saul, David, and Solomon), though they likely ruled in the first half of the tenth century bce; see Chronological Table of Rulers on pp. 2312–15. 12: The notice about the establishment of Solomon’s kingdom is repeated in v. 46; between these two verses the narrator tells us how this was accomplished.

2.13–46: Solomon’s elimination of his enemies and consolidation of his kingship. The narrator’s attitude toward these events is often unclear. 13–25: Adonijah’s request, which is relayed by Bathsheba, to marry David’s last concubine Abishag could be understood as legitimating a claim to the throne (see 2 Sam 16.20–23). 19: Bathsheba’s coming to Solomon is similar to her coming to David in 1.15–21 (see also 2 Sam 11.4). In both cases her focus is on Adonijah, though here, in contrast to ch 1, she pleads on his behalf. 23: In Solomon’s eyes Adonijah is still a rival who has to die. 24: This alludes to 2 Sam 7.11,16,26, and Solomon thereby presents himself as the one who will continue the Davidic dynasty. 26–27: Adonijah’s death is followed by banishing his supporter, the priest Abiathar. Abiathar’s exile to Anathoth (ca. 4 mi [6 km] northeast of Jerusalem), the hometown of the prophet Jeremiah, fulfills the divine oracle against the descendants of the priest Eli in 1 Sam 2.27–36. 28–35: The death of Joab casts a negative light on Solomon since he has Benaiah (who also killed Adonijah) kill him while he is seeking sanctuary, grasping the horns of the altar as Adonijah had done earlier (see 1.50). 31: The guilt for the blood, see vv. 5–6n. 34: House, the reading in some Greek manuscripts as “grave” is preferable. 36–46: Shimei is first put under house arrest in Jerusalem in order to prevent him from crossing the Wadi Kidron, to enter the territory of Benjamin, King Saul’s home. As a descendant of Saul, Shimei was a potential danger to the Davidic dynasty. When Shimei goes westward to the Philistine town of Gath, Solomon takes this opportunity to have him executed. 46: Solomon’s kingdom is established by violence, but the author does not evaluate this negatively; Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian annals tell similar stories about the rise to power of important kings.

3.1–28: Solomon’s wisdom. A more positive image of Solomon than in the previous chapter. 1: The story of Solomon’s reign starts with a note about his marriage with Pharaoh’s daughter, also mentioned in the MT in 7.8 and 9.16–17,24, while the LXX reports it in different places (2.35c,f.; 5.14; 7.45). The historicity of this information is difficult to establish, especially since the Pharaoh’s name is not given, but it may be Shishak, mentioned in 11.40. 2–3: The people and Solomon, in contradiction to Deuteronomic law (Deut 12) worship Yahweh at the high places, local open‐air sanctuaries, which are often condemned as idolatrous. Solomon is here exonerated, since the temple for the God of Israel, the only legitimate sanctuary in the eyes of the Deuteronomists, has not yet been built. Walking in the statutes of his father David refers back to 2.2–4. 4–15: The divine vision, along with that in 9.1–9, organizes the story of Solomon’s rule into two parts: 3.4–8.66 relates mostly the positive aspects of his reign, which culminates with the building of the Temple; 9.10–11.43 relates Solomon’s problematic behavior, which led to disaster. 4: Gibeon, ca. 6 mi (10 km) north‐northwest of Jerusalem, was an important religious and political center during the monarchy. Solomon honors the place by seeking there, through sacrifices and an incubation dream, a divine oracle at the beginning of his reign. 5–9: God tests Solomon and he behaves rightly in asking for wisdom in order to accomplish his royal task. 7: Solomon’s self‐presentation as a little child or a young boy is a conventional expression of incapacity to accomplish an important task (see Judg 6.15; Jer 1.6). To go out or come in concerns military experience (see Num 27.15–17). 10–13: God is pleased by Solomon’s quest for wisdom and not for long life (see Ps. 21.5) or victory against his enemies (see Ps 2.8–9), and also promises him outstanding wealth. Both themes are developed in the following account of Solomon’s reign. 14: The divine promise is offered conditionally with a typical Deuteronomistic vocabulary and theology: the king must obey the divine law; see also 6.11–13n. 15: Solomon moves from Gibeon to Jerusalem, emphasizing that the only legitimate place for worshiping the Lord is in Jerusalem. 16–28: The “judgment of Solomon” is the first illustration of the king’s newly acquired wisdom. Solomon’s name is not mentioned in this story, which may originally have been an independent folktale. 16: The protagonists in this story are two prostitutes who live together in the same house for economic reasons; the text does not condemn their profession. 19–24: For the king as for the reader, it is difficult to decide which woman is speaking the truth and which is lying. The mortality rate of newborn babies in antiquity was very high. 24–27: Contrary to ch 2, where Solomon kills his enemies by the sword, it is used here to preserve life and establish justice. 26: Compassion, literally “bowels” or “womb,” a seat of emotions in the ancient Near East. 28: Solomon is legitimated through his divine wisdom, which means he represents God to his subjects.

4.1–34: The organization of Solomon’s kingdom. 1–6: A list of Solomon’s high officials. The most important positions at the royal court were the priest; the state‐secretary or “scribe” and spokesman; the chief commander of the army; the chief of the officials (see vv. 7–19); the king’s friend, a title for the king’s confidant; the prime minister, called the one who “was in charge of the palace,” the most important official (cf. Gen 39.4; 41.40); and the supervisor of the forced labor, a new institution that will play an important role during Solomon’s reign. 4: Surprisingly Abiathar, who according to 2.27 had been banished, is mentioned together with Zadok. 6: The mention of Adoniram as in charge of the corvée (see also 5.14) prepares the reader for the conflict that arises in ch 12, after Solomon’s death. 7–19: Twelve officials who functioned as governors in charge of twelve regions in northern Israel, only partially based on traditional tribal areas (see map on p. 503). They organized taxes and provisions for the king and the Jerusalem court, with each region responsible for the provision for one month of the year. Judah was not represented in this system. 19: The text is uncertain here. The NRSV reference to Judah is found in some Greek manuscripts but not in the Hebrew. A later copyist probably missed a reference to Judah and inserted it here. The Hebrew reads: “there was one official in the land,” probably the person “over the officials” mentioned in v. 5 to whom the twelve district‐officials were responsible. 20: The concluding remark suggests that under Solomon’s reign God’s promise that Israel would be as numerous as the sand by the sea (Gen 22.17; 32.12) had been fulfilled. 21–28: Solomon is described as dominating all kingdoms in the ancient Near East, an idealized description based on the borders of the land promised to Abraham in Gen 15.18. This description covers the Persian satrapy of Transeuphratene, beyond the Euphrates, which is likely reflected in the Hebrew text of v. 24. More realistic boundaries of Israel are found in v. 25, “from Dan to Beer‐sheba,” the traditional northern and southern limits of Israel and Judah, though this too was probably too extensive for the boundaries of Israel in this period. 22–23, 27–28: Additional information (see 4.7) about the royal provisions, which are incredibly high. 26: For Solomon’s horses see 10.26–29 and also the critique in Deut 17.16. 29–34: Solomon surpasses the other nations also in wisdom. He is wiser than the great nations of wisdom, Egypt and the people of the east (perhaps Assyria and Babylon, but see Prov 30.1; 31.1) and wiser than the great men known for their wisdom: Ethan, Heman, Calcol, and Darda (mentioned in 1 Chr 2.6; 6.18–28). 32: Solomon’s reputation as a maker of proverbs is reflected in Prov 1.1; 10.1; 25.1, where he is considered the author of different collections of proverbs. For the attribution of songs to Solomon, see Pss 72; 127; Song 1.1.

5.1–18: Solomon’s relation with Hiram of Tyre and the preparations for building the Temple. According to 2 Sam 5.11, King Hiram of Tyre, an important Phoenician city on the Mediterranean coast just north of Israel, was an ally of David. This Hiram is not mentioned in nonbiblical sources; a king of Tyre named Hirummu appears ca. 730 bce in the annals of the Assyrian king Tiglath‐pileser III. 3–4: The divine gift of rest from all enemies is a prominent theme in the Deuteronomistic History (e.g., Deut 12.10; Josh 21.44; 23.1; 2 Sam 7.1). Here this rest is a necessary condition for the building of the Temple, explaining that David could not build the Temple because he, unlike Solomon, had to fight many wars. 6: The Phoenicians were famous for their cedars, one of their chief exports. Sidon was a city just north of Tyre; Sidonians is used as a general term for the Phoenicians. 7–12: Hiram transports the wood in rafts and Solomon pays with very large amounts of wheat and oil. 11: A cor as a liquid measure was ca. 61 gal (230 L), as a dry measure ca. 6.5 bushels (230 L). 12: There is wordplay between peace (Heb “shalom”) and Solomon (“Shelomoh”). 13–18: Contrary to 9.20–22, this passage states that Solomon used Israelite forced labor in order to build the Temple. 16: Three thousand three hundred supervisors, an exaggerated number, as are the others in this unit. 18: The Gebalites, the inhabitants of Byblos, a Phoenician city north of Beirut, are mentioned here as a separate group. From early times Byblos was an important timber port, and later was a major shipping center of papyrus; the term “Bible” is derived from the city’s name.

6.1–38: The building of the Temple. The Temple and its furnishings are described in detail, whereas the larger palace complex is described more briefly (7.1–12), suggesting that the writer was more interested in the Temple than the palace. The Temple is foreshadowed in the Tabernacle of Ex 25–31; 35–40, and is similar in design to sanctuaries found in Assyria, Syria, and Israel; the closest parallels are at Hazor in Israel, Tell Tayinat in southeastern Turkey, and Ain Dara in Syria. It is difficult to know what kind of information the author has about the First Temple of Jerusalem. The whole complex of 1 Kings 5–8 is similar to Assyrian royal inscriptions where the king reports how he received a divine call to construct or reconstruct a temple, the preparations for the construction, the description of the building, and the dedication of the sanctuary. In many places in chs 6–8, the MT and the LXX differ in details, 1: The four hundred eightieth year (LXX “four hundred fortieth”) after the Exodus belongs to a late system, which tries to provide a chronological structure to the narrative running from Genesis to 2 Kings. Ziv, the second month according to the Babylonian system from the spring New Year, falls in April‐May. 2–10: A cubit is the distance from the tip of the elbow to the tip of the middle finger (ca. 18 in [45 cm]). The Temple’s form is tripartite, comprising the vestibule or entrance hall, the nave or main hall, and the inner sanctuary, the “most holy place” (v. 16) of the sanctuary, to which access was severely restricted. A complex structure is built around the Temple, especially side chambers that served as storage rooms, offices, and “chapels.” 7: No iron tools were used at the Temple site; cf. Ex 20.25; Deut 27.5. 1 Chr 22.2, however, notes that David prepares hewn stones for the Temple. 9: The note about the completion of the work is reminiscent of Gen 2.1. 11–13: God’s speech to Solomon interrupts the building report and insists that the divine presence will inhabit the sanctuary only if Solomon observes the divine commandments (see also Jer 7.1–15). This corrects the idea in 2 Sam 7.11–16 of an unconditionally eternal dynasty. v. 12 reflects Deuteronomistic terminology, while v. 13 is Priestly. 14–36: After the building of the external structure is concluded, the construction of the interior of the Temple is described. 15–18: The interior walls, floors, and ceilings are covered with wood, so that all stones are concealed. 16: Most holy place, lit., “holy of holies.” 19–28: Particular attention is paid to the inner sanctuary, the holiest part of the Temple where the ark of the covenant is placed. The ark symbolizes the Lord’s presence among his people. 23–28: The cherubim are winged composite creatures (human head and animal body) well known in the ancient Near East. In Assyria and Babylon, statues of similar hybrid creatures stood outside of temples and palaces to control and to protect the entrance; see also Gen 3.24, where they are guardians of the garden of Eden. In Canaanite and Phoenician art, winged human‐faced creatures support the throne of a king, a function they likely had in the Temple (see Ps 99.1; 2 Kings 19.15); thus the ark as a whole was the throne of the Lord. 29–36: This passage highlights the splendor of the decoration: everything was overlaid with gold, and there were special carvings, with the cherubim symbolizing divine protection, and open flowers and palm trees for fertility. The different, richly decorated doors separate the three parts of the Temple. 36–38: Building the Temple took seven years and six months. Bul, September‐October.

7.1–12: Building the palace. In the ancient Near East the palace and the (royal) sanctuary often belong to the same complex. Here the Temple is relatively modest compared to the palace. 1: Solomon spent thirteen years, almost twice as long on his palace as he did on the Temple. 2–5: House of the Forest of the Lebanon, the rows of cedar pillars suggest the idea of a forest. Such a structure, which may show Egyptian influence, was perhaps a treasury and armory (see 1 Kings 10.17; Isa 22.8) or a reception hall. For the author, this was the most important building of the palace complex. Cubit, see 6.2–10n. 6–7: The Hall of Pillars could have been the waiting hall for the Hall of the Throne, where the king held audience and dispensed justice. 8: The private quarters comprise Solomon’s residence and a residence for the daughter of Pharaoh (see 3.1; 9.24). The author does not tell us about the harem for Solomon’s other wives. 9–12: The foundations were built with huge quarry blocks.

7.13–51: Hiram and the furnishings of the Temple. 13–14: The Israelite Hiram who appears here as craftsman, called Huram‐abi in 2 Chr 2.12–13, should not be confused with King Hiram of ch 5. His skills are like those of Bezalel, who constructed the Tabernacle (Ex 31.3; 35.31). 15–22: The two huge pillars (more than 26 ft [8 m] high) at the entry of the vestibule symbolize the Lord’s protection of the royal dynasty. Jachin, meaning “he will establish,” refers to God’s initiative to establish the throne of the king (2 Sam 7.13); Boaz, “by (his) strength,” expresses the king’s dependence on the divine favor. Apparently, these pillars function as stylized gates of the Temple; in Mesopotamia, gates often bore specific names that implored the deities for blessing and assistance. 23–26: Molten, molded or cast. The molten sea was a large metal basin filled with water representing the primeval watery chaos subdued by the Lord, creator of the world (see, e.g., Pss 74.12–17; 89.9–12). The twelve oxen or bulls that supported the basin represented divine strength (cf. 1 Kings 12.28), while the number twelve also alludes to the twelve tribes of Israel. Two thousand baths, ca. 12,000 gal (46,000 L). 27–39: The wheeled stands and their basins may have originally symbolized God’s power to provide water and rain, but later they were understood to provide the water necessary for the performance of sacrificial worship (2 Chr 4.6). 40–51: The division of work between Hiram and Solomon: Hiram made the objects of bronze, whereas Solomon made the more prestigious vessels of gold. The lists in vv. 45–45 and 48–51 resemble an inventory. 46: Hiram did his work in the Jordan valley, where appropriate clay is to be found. Succoth, probably Deir Alla, and Zarethan, were in Transjordan near the Jabbok River. 48–50: Solomon himself is responsible for all objects related directly to sacrificial worship. These verses depend on the Tabernacle account in Ex 25 and 30, one of the few places where a Priestly editor has revised Kings. 48: Bread of the Presence, see Ex 25.30; Lev 24.5–9. Such breads were placed in front of a statue that symbolized the presence of the deity in the sanctuary. 51: See 2 Sam 8.9–12, on the tribute that David dedicated.

8.1–66: The inauguration of the Temple. 1–13: The ark is now transferred from the tent sanctuary into the inner sanctuary of the Temple. 1–2: The different identification of those assembled is one of many indications of the composite nature of this chapter; see also v. 65. The Temple was finished in the eighth month (6.38), so the inauguration took place in the following year in the seventh month (September‐October), after the end of the harvest seasons, at the festival of booths (Sukkoth). 3–4: As in Josh 3–4, the ark is carried by the priests and Levites, because touching it is dangerous for lay people; see also 2 Sam 6.6–7. 5: The ceremony is framed by sacrifices; see v. 62. 9: The statement that nothing was in the ark but the tablets of stone that Moses had placed (see Deut 10.1–5) is meant to counter the popular idea that there were other objects in the ark representing God’s presence; but see Heb 9.4 and cf. Ex 16.32–34; Num 17.10. 10–11: A cloud signifies divine presence (e.g., Ex 13.21–22; 16.10; 19.9) and covered the earlier tent sanctuary upon its completion (Ex 40.34–38). 12–13: An independent poetic statement, which appears in a different, perhaps more original form in the LXX after v. 53. It depicts the God of Israel as a storm god who wants to dwell in the darkness of a thick cloud. 14–66: Solomon pronounces three prayers that provide important clues to the authors’ and redactors’ theological understanding of the Temple. 14–21: The first prayer, in front of the assembly, builds on the promise to David of an eternal dynasty in 2 Sam 7 and highlights that Solomon is David’s legitimate successor and the proper Temple builder. 16: The Lord chose David before he chose a city for his dwelling place. Some Greek manuscripts add “I have chosen Jerusalem that my name might be there” to correct the idea that David chose Jerusalem (2 Sam 5.6–9). 22–53: The second prayer, in front of the altar, is the central piece of the dedication. The author and redactors of this prayer reassert seven times that the Lord does not dwell in the Temple (contrast v. 13), but in heaven (vv. 32,34,36,39,43,45,49). The Temple is here not so much the place for sacrifices, but the place to pray to God, suggesting an exilic or postexilic origin for this prayer. Solomon enumerates seven different occasions for prayer—sin of an individual (vv. 31–32); defeat in battle (vv. 33–34); drought (vv. 35–36); famine and plagues (vv. 37–40); a foreigner who comes to pray (vv. 41–43); war (vv. 44–45); sin of the people and deportation (vv. 46–51). In the first occasions, prayer is located in the Temple, then in v. 35 it is in the direction of the sanctuary (“toward this place”), and finally, the praying individuals are in another country and pray toward the city and the Temple (v. 48), explicitly presupposing the situation in the Babylonian exile. 33–40, 46–51: These occasions for prayer parallel the curses in Deut 28.21–25,38,64–65. 46: A correction of the traditional Deuteronomistic implication that one can keep all the commandments and live without sin (see also Eccl 7.20). 50: This verse also reflects the exile, hoping that the (Babylonian) captors will be merciful to the deportees. Rather than envisaging return to Israel, it hopes for a peaceful life in the Diaspora. 51: The idea that Israel is the Lord’s heritage typifies Deuteronomistic theology. Iron‐smelter, see Deut 4.20; Jer 11.4. 54: This verse presupposes that Solomon prayed kneeling, but in v. 22 he was standing. 55: Introduction to the last prayer, which is presented as a blessing of the people. Solomon is again standing, the typical posture for someone blessing others. 56–61: The last prayer reasserts, like Josh 21.43–45, that the Lord has fulfilled all his promises. It repeats the Deuteronomistic exhortation to respond to this gift by the observance of the divine commandments. 60: The affirmation that Yahweh alone is God is also made in Deut 4.35,39 and often in Second Isaiah, both exilic texts. 62–64: The number of the sacrifices is highly exaggerated, symbolizing Solomon’s wealth and his devotion to the new sanctuary. 65–66: The dedication of the Temple took place during the festival of Tabernacles. Following Deut 16.13–15 (but not Lev 23.36,39), the festival lasts seven, not eight days. The limits of the land are defined here (less extensively than in 4.21,24) in the north by Lebo‐hamath (in the southern Orontes valley in Lebanon) and in the south by the Wadi of Egypt (the Wadi el‐Arish or the Wadi Besor, both south of Gaza).

9.1–9: God’s second appearance to Solomon. This recalls 3.4–15 and hints at the king’s sinful side, which will appear more and more clearly. 3–5: God’s loyalty to Solomon depends on his behavior regarding the divine law. 5: The promise of an everlasting dynasty reflects 2 Sam 7.13. 6–9: The disobedience of Solomon and his successor is suggested; this disobedience will lead to the exile. 8–9: Cf. Deut 29.23–24. Similar language is used in inscriptions of the seventh‐century bce Assyrian king Assurbanipal to describe the fate of his enemies.

9.10–28: The ambiguity of Solomon’s wealth (see also 10.14–29). 10–14: The text reports that Solomon paid a heavy price to the king of Tyre, twenty cities; this almost makes Solomon into Hiram’s vassal. To correct this idea, the text states that Hiram had paid Solomon 120 talents of gold (a talent is ca. 75 lb [34 kg]). 13: The name of the town of Cabul, ca. 8 mi (14 km) southeast of Acco, is explained with a play on the Heb “to be like nothing.” 15: The many building projects attributed to Solomon are accomplished through forced labor. The Millo (lit., “filled‐in”) refers to terraces to stabilize the wall and the official buildings of Jerusalem. 15–19: The cities that Solomon built are located in strategic places, and are enumerated from north to south. 16: The note about Gezer, claiming that the town was presented as Pharaoh’s dowry to Solomon (see also 3.1; 9.24; 11.1), interrupts the list. 19: The same Heb term for storage cities, perhaps an Akkadian loanword, occurs also in Ex 1.11, where the Hebrews in Egypt have to build such places, and several times in 2 Chr. 20–23: This passage modifies 5.13 and 11.26–28, stating that only the former inhabitants of the land, and not all Israel, were conscripted for forced labor. 24–28: Miscellaneous collection of different notes about Solomon’s reign. 26: Ezion‐geber, perhaps a small island in the Gulf of Aqaba/Eilat. Eloth, also spelled “Elath,” is at the northern tip of the same body of water. Red Sea, lit., “Sea of Reeds.” In Hebrew the same term is used in the account of the crossing of the sea after the Exodus (Ex 14; etc.), but it can hardly be the same sea. 28: The location of Ophir is uncertain. For the biblical writers it probably designated southern Arabia (Gen 10.29; Isa 13.12; Job 28.16).

10.1–13: The visit of the queen of Sheba. This story, which resembles a tale from A Thousand and One Nights, interrupts the enumeration of Solomon’s wealth. Assyrian inscriptions from the seventh century bce mention Arabian queens, and the author of this story may have known this situation. The queen of Sheba, in Arabia, is overwhelmed by Solomon’s wealth and wisdom, and praises the God of Israel. Although the biblical narrative does not hint at a sexual relationship between Solomon and the queen of Sheba, an Ethiopian tradition sees the Ethiopian emperors as descendants of a union between them. 11–12: These verses, which interrupt the narrative, belong to 9.26–28. Ophir, see 9.28n. Almug wood, a precious wood of uncertain species (traditionally sandalwood).

10.14–29: The ambiguity of Solomon’s wealth, continued (see also 9.10–28). 14–22: Contrary to Deut 17.17, Solomon has an obsession for gold. 14–15: A talent is ca. 75 lb (34 kg). The number six hundred sixty‐six, Solomon’s income of gold, symbolizes totality (see also Ezra 2.13; contrast Rev 13.18); the annual amount is more than twenty‐five tons 16: A shekel, ca. 0.4 oz (11.5 g). 17: A mina, ca. 20 oz (570 g). 18–20: Solomon’s throne, which symbolizes the divine cosmos of which the king was the guarantor, has many parallels in ancient Near Eastern art. 22: The location of Tarshish is uncertain; it may be Tarsus in southern Turkey or Tartessus in southern Spain. If peacock is a correct translation, this would imply a trade connection with India. 26–29: Contrary to Deut 17.16, Solomon accumulates many horses and apparently engages in horse trading. 27: The Shephelah, the foothills between the Mediterranean coastal plain and the Judean hill country. 28–29: According to this translation, Solomon was the intermediary in horse trading between Egypt and Asia Minor. 28: Kue, Cilicia, in southern Asia Minor. 29: The price of a chariot is highly exaggerated, as is Solomon’s wealth in general. Hittites, a non‐Semitic population in northern Syria and Asia Minor; Aram, northeast of Israel.

11.1–43: The troublesome end of Solomon’s reign. 1–8: Solomon’s many wives, contrary to Deut 17.17. 2: A quotation from Deut 7.3–4, which prohibited intermarriage with the Canaanite population. Strictly speaking, the nations listed in v. 1 do not belong to the indigenous population of Canaan. 3: Even for an oriental monarch, a harem with a thousand wives is difficult to imagine. According Song 6.8, Solomon had sixty wives and eighty concubines. 4: The note about Solomon’s old age recalls the aging David, who was manipulated by his wife Bathsheba. Now the foreign wives lead Solomon to worship their foreign deities (see Deut 17.17). 5: Astarte, a popular Canaanite goddess especially venerated in Sidon; Milcom, the chief god of the Ammonites. 7: High place, an open‐air sanctuary, also used for worshiping the Lord (see 3.4). Chemosh, the chief god of the Moabites. Molech, a deity associated with child sacrifice, may be a mistake for Milcom (see v. 33). The mountain east of Jerusalem, the Mount of Olives. 9–13: In his final speech to Solomon, the Lord announces the splitting up of the kingdom during the reign of Solomon’s son. 14–40: Solomon is also punished during his own lifetime by three enemies that God raises up. 14–22: Hadad, an Edomite prince who fled to Egypt during David’s campaign against Edom (2 Sam 8.14); this episode thus would have transpired early rather than late in Solomon’s reign, suggesting that the material here is arranged theologically, not chronologically. 19–22: Hadad’s integration into Pharaoh’s house recalls the story of the young Moses (Ex 2.5–10). Like Solomon he also marries an Egyptian princess. Tahpenes, not a proper name, but a transcription of the Egyptian title “wife of the king.” 20: Genubath, perhaps loan word meaning “guest”; cf. Ex 2.22. 23–25: Rezon son of Eliada, a mercenary who had served king Hadadezer of Zobah, an Aramean city‐state north of Damascus, where he became king. Rezon’s rise to kingship is reminiscent of David’s rise to the throne. 25: The reintroduction of Hadad may be a secondary insertion. 26–40: The third enemy, Jeroboam. 26: Zeredah, an important town in the hill country of Ephraim. Zeruah, the name of his mother, means “having a skin disease”; scribes may have modified her original name to vilify the first ruler of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. 28: Jeroboam is supervisor of the corvée of the house of Joseph, which designates northern tribes, especially Ephraim and Manasseh. 29–39: The encounter between Jeroboam and the prophet Ahijah from Shiloh, an important sanctuary in Ephraim (see 1 Sam 1.3), ca. 20 mi (32 km) north of Jerusalem, has many parallels with the account of Saul’s rejection in 1 Sam 15.27–28. 29–33: After the prophet tore his mantle into twelve pieces, ten parts (symbolizing ten tribes) are given to Jeroboam and only one tribe (Judah) is given to the Davidic dynasty. The missing tribe may be Benjamin (see 12.21), sometimes belonging to the Northern Kingdom, and finally, perhaps under King Josiah, annexed by Judah; or it may be Simeon, absorbed into Judah. 34–39: Because of the promise related in 2 Sam 7.11–16, God will not bring David’s dynasty to a total end. 36: The lamp of David, also in 15.4; 2 Kings 8.19 (and see Ps 132.17), meaning that the Davidic dynasty will continually shine. 40: Like Hadad, Jeroboam seeks asylum in Egypt. The Pharaoh Shishak is Shoshenq I, ruled ca. 945–924 bce; he is the first pharaoh named in the Bible. 41–43: The concluding formula for Solomon. The Book of the Acts of Solomon may have been a source for the authors of 1 Kings 1–11. Forty years, like David; see 2.11n. Rehoboam ruled ca. 928–911 bce.

12.1–33: The disruption of Solomon’s kingdom. 1–5: To rally the northern tribes, Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, goes to Shechem, an important political and religious center (Gen 12.6–7; Josh 24) located between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim near modern Nablus. For David, the northern tribes had come to Hebron in the south (2 Sam 5.3); now Solomon’s successor Rehoboam is obliged to go north. 2–5: His rival Jeroboam is depicted as a second Moses who has come back from Egypt to liberate the people, who suffer under forced labor. He negotiates with Rehoboam as Moses did with Pharaoh. 6–15: Rehoboam is patterned after the Pharaoh of the Exodus story, increasing the labor he requires from the populace (the yoke). 10: NRSV my little finger follows the interpretive translation of the LXX; MT has “my small one,” probably a euphemism for the penis. Rehoboam thinks that he is much more virile than his father Solomon. 11: Scorpions, an apt metaphor for a whip embedded with thorns. 16–20: The tribes of the north refuse to follow Rehoboam. 16: To your tents, O Israel! a traditional exclamation (see 2 Sam 20.1) of the northern tribes, perhaps used as an appeal to return home after a battle. 17: It is unclear who the Israelites who lived in the towns of Judah are. 18: Adoram, a variant spelling of Adoniram (4.6; 5.14). 19: This conclusion, written from a Judahite perspective, is from a period when the Northern Kingdom still existed. 21–24: Rehoboam, who wants to wage war against the northern tribes, is forbidden to do so by the otherwise unknown prophet Shemaiah. LXX has a second, shorter and different, version of 12.1–33, labeled 12.24.a–z, a midrashic addition of the sort found in Chronicles. 25–33: Jeroboam constructs national sanctuaries at northern and southern cities in his kingdom, Dan and Bethel, an act referred to in a refrain throughout Kings as “the sin of Jeroboam.” 28–29: According to the Deuteronomistic historians, Jeroboam worshiped the Lord there in the form of a calf; thus the plural in v. 28 (“your gods”) may refer to the two statues at Dan and Bethel. More likely, however, an original singular (as in Neh 9.18) has been changed to a plural to accuse Jeroboam not only of idolatry, but of polytheism. The wording is almost identical to the people’s comment when Aaron made the golden calf in the desert (Ex 32.4), which has also the plural form. 31–33: The Judean authors relate what they believe are further religious transgressions of Jeroboam: high places, illegitimate priests, and a different festival calendar.

13.1–34: Jeroboam and the man of God from Judah. 1–10: Jeroboam is confronted by an anonymous man of God, a prophet, who announces the end of the kingdom of Israel and the profanation of the sanctuary of Bethel by the late seventh‐century bce Judean king Josiah. This oracle is fulfilled in 2 Kings 23.15–19, and originates from the period of Josiah. Such prophecies that connect distant parts of this work are typical of the Deuteronomistic History. This is one of many stories imported into Kings from a prophetic source that also included the Elijah and Elisha stories (see Introduction). 2–3: Uniquely, the oracle is addressed not to the king, but to the altar where Jeroboam is offering incense. 4: The withered (lit., “dried”) hand of Jeroboam demonstrates the prophet’s power over the king. 5: This verse interrupts the story of the king’s dried hand and was inserted by a redactor who wanted to anticipate the destruction of the altar of Bethel. 6–10: Having restored the king’s hand, the prophet obeys the Lord’s order and refuses any compensation. 11–32: In the following story the man of God acts differently and follows a prophet from Bethel who claims that God has also spoken to him; together, the stories illustrate the difficulty in distinguishing true from false divine oracles, and suggest, like Deut 18.21–22, that the prophetic word is absolute and unchanging. 24–28: The motif of a lion as instrument of divine punishment is also associated with Bethel in 2 Kings 17.25–26. The odd behavior of the lion—killing a man and then standing over the body beside an uneaten donkey— show that the lion was carrying out a divine order. 32: Samaria became the capital of the Northern Kingdom only under Omri (16.24). The name here, which reflects a broad area beyond the capital city, likely reflects the Assyrian province of Samerina. 33–34: These verses bridge the preceding and following stories.

14.1–31: The deaths of Jeroboam of Israel and Rehoboam of Judah. 1–18: The story of the illness of Jeroboam’s son leads to an encounter between Jeroboam’s wife and the prophet Ahijah, who had invested Jeroboam as ruler over Israel (11.29–31). 2: Jeroboam asks his wife to disguise herself, thinking that a woman immediately recognized as the king’s wife might receive a more positive oracle. 3: It was a common practice to offer something to a prophet when seeking advice. 4–5: Ahijah has become blind but the Lord is still revealing his plans to him. 6–11: Ahijah first delivers an oracle about the fall of Jeroboam’s dynasty, unrelated to the illness of his son. 10: The curse to cut off … every male, both bond and free in Israel is used against other northern kings (1 Kings 21.21; 2 Kings 9.8); every male, lit., “whoever urinates against a wall.” 11: This curse also appears in Assyrian loyalty treaties for those who do not respect the treaty (see also Deut 28.26). 12–13: Only now does Abijah announce the death of Jeroboam’s son. His burial contrasts with the violent end of the house of Jeroboam. The something pleasing in his behavior is not elaborated. 14: An allusion to the conspiracy of Baasha (15.27–30), who overthrew the dynasty of Jeroboam. 15–16: A further prophecy predicting the fall of the Northern Kingdom. 15: Ancestors, lit., “fathers,” the generation that entered the land; beyond the Euphrates, allusion to the Assyrian empire, which annexed the Northern Kingdom and deported part of its population in 722 bce (see 2 Kings 17.6). Sacred poles, symbols of the goddess Asherah, who may have also been venerated as the consort of the God of Israel. 16: The sins of Jeroboam, see 12.25–33n. 17–18: The mention of Tirzah (probably Tell el‐Farah, ca. 6 mi [10 km] north‐northeast of Shechem) suggests that it had become Jeroboam’s city of residence. According to 15.21 it became Israel’s capital under Baasha. 19–20: A standard conclusion for the reign of each king (see Introduction). 21–31: In the view of the Deuteronomists, the reign of Rehoboam is not much better than that of Jeroboam; the description of the disorder in worship is very close to what is reported from the north. 21: The presentation of his mother as an Ammonite (see also the repetition in v. 31, which frames the account of his reign) links back to Solomon’s foreign wives. 23: Pillars, phallus‐shaped standing stones, which stood, together with the Asherah poles (see v. 15n.), on high hills and under green trees, a standard expression for open‐air sanctuaries (see, e.g., Deut 12.2–3, Jer 2.20). 24: Male prostitutes, lit., “holy, consecrated persons,” perhaps associated with the worship of the goddess Asherah. 25–28: The campaign of Pharaoh Shishak (see 11.40) to the north is also attested in Egyptian sources that mention many locations in the Northern Kingdom but not Jerusalem or the specific names of the kings of Judah or Israel. 30: Wars will frequently occur between Israel and Judah.

15.1–24: Abijam and Asa, kings of Judah. From this point until the fall of the Northern Kingdom, the accession year of each Judean king is dated with respect to the year of reign of the northern king. 1–8: Abijam (called Abijah in the books of Chronicles), who reigned for a short time (ca. 911–908 bce), is said to be as bad as Rehoboam. 2: His mother was Maacah (see 2 Sam 3.3; 2 Chr 11.20; but 2 Chr 13.2 gives a different name), identified as the daughter of Abishalom. It is not clear whether this is the same person as David’s son Absalom whose only known daughter is Tamar. 4: The Lord maintains the dynasty only because of David; a lamp, see 11.36n. 5: The matter of Uriah the Hittite, see 2 Sam 11–12. 6: Contrary to the NRSV translation, the verse repeats 14.30; it may be misplaced or copied from there, and is missing in most Greek manuscripts. 9–24: Asa is depicted as a good king with one of the longest reigns (ca. 907–867 bce). 10–15: If the Maacah here is identical with the one mentioned in 15.2, then Asa would be Abijam’s brother, and not his son (v. 8). Perhaps mother is here a title for the queen mother, who would remain in power as long as she lived; Maacah’s removal from that office (v. 13) strengthens this hypothesis. According to the Deuteronomistic authors of Kings, Asa is the first reforming king, who acts against the presence of other deities in Jerusalem. Nevertheless he does not close the high places, sanctuaries for the God of Israel outside of Jerusalem, although he favored the Jerusalem Temple. 12: Male temple prostitutes, see 14.24n. 16–22: Military hostilities between Asa and the northern usurper Baasha, whose reign is related in 15.27–30 and 15.33–16.7. 17: Baasha conquered Ramah, in the territory of Benjamin 6 mi (10 km) north of Jerusalem, and fortified it as a border citadel against Judah. 18–19: Asa is forced to make an alliance against Baasha with King Ben‐hadad of Damascus, the name of several Aramean kings. 20–21: Ijon, see 2 Kings 15.29; Dan, at the headwaters of the Jordan River; Abel‐beth‐maacah, 5 mi (8 km) west of Dan; Chinneroth, on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee (the plural refers to the town and the surrounding territory.) 21: Tirzah, see 14.17–18n. 22–24: Asa builds two border fortresses in northern Benjamin because he wants to stress that Benjamin belongs to Judah: Geba, ca. 6 mi (10 km) north of Jerusalem, and Mizpah, ca. 8 mi (12 km) north of Jerusalem, whose name means “lookout post” and which became an important administrative center after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 bce (see 2 Kings 25.22). 23–24: The note about the king’s disease of the feet, perhaps a euphemism for the genitals, may come from the royal archives. This could mean that his son Jehoshaphat (22.41) governed during the last years of Asa’s life.

15.25–16.34: The northern kings from Nadab to Ahab. This section emphasizes the instability of the northern monarchy, in contrast to that of Judah. 15.25–32: The authors provide little precise information about Nadab’s short reign, ca. 907–906 bce. 27–28: Baasha, an officer from the tribe of Issachar, kills Nadab during the siege of the Philistine town Gibbethon, ca. 22 mi (35 km) west‐northwest of Jerusalem. No motive, other than the theological, is given for this assassination. 29–30: The extermination of the whole family of Jeroboam fulfills the prophetic oracle against the house of Jeroboam in 14.7–14. 15.33–16.7: Baasha (ca. 906–883) reigned in Tirzah (see 14.17–18n.; 16.23–24). 16.1–4: The divine oracle by the otherwise unknown prophet Jehu (not to be confused with the later King Jehu) announces to Baasha, who walked in the way of Jeroboam (15.34), the end of his dynasty, as had the prophet Ahijah to Jeroboam (14.7–14). 8–14: Baasha’s son Elah (ca. 883–882 bce) has a very short reign. His officer Zimri murders him during a banquet in the house of Arza, the royal chamberlain (for the title, see 4.6). Zimri’s father is not named, which may indicate foreign origin or a lowly lineage. Like Baasha (15.29–30), Zimri exterminates all the descendants of the murdered king. 11: Every male, lit., “whoever urinates against a wall.” 15–22: The reign of Zimri is the shortest of any king, lasting only a week—the Judean editor seems to delight in the instability of the non‐Davidic kings. During the siege of Gibbethon (see 15.27–28n.), Omri, supported by an important part of the army (“all Israel” in vv. 17 is a rhetorical exaggeration) besieged Tirzah in order to remove Zimri from the throne. Zimri committed suicide to avoid the humiliation of being killed by his enemy. Such heroic motifs are well attested in classical tradition. 21–22: For five years there are two competing factions in the Israelite army. Omri’s claim to kingship is challenged by Tibni, who finally died; in all likelihood, he was killed. The LXX mentions a brother (Joram) who died with him, which may suggest that both fell in battle. 23–28: The biblical authors describe Omri’s reign (ca. 882–871) very briefly. The Assyrians considered Omri as one of Israel’s most important kings, referring to Israel as “the land of the house of Omri” long after Omri’s descendants had ceased to rule. The disparity between the Assyrian and Judean sources highlights the theological nature of Kings. The name Omri is likely not Hebrew, perhaps reflecting non‐Israelite ancestry. 24: The only reported event of his reign is his purchase of the hill of Samaria (modern Sebaste), which became the capital of the Northern Kingdom until its fall in 722; cf. David’s purchase of Araunah’s threshing floor in 2 Sam 24.18–25. 25–27: The rest consists of stereotypical expressions, presenting Omri as a worse sinner than his predecessors. 28: Slept with his ancestors is a stereotypical expression (see 2.10n.) and does not suggest that the bones of the former Israelite kings had been transferred to Samaria. 29–34: Ahab’s reign (ca. 873–852 bce) is presented as even worse than Omri’s. 31: The authors condemn his marriage to Jezebel, a Phoenician princess, whose name includes a title of the Canaanite god Baal, “Zebul” (“Prince”). Her father Ethbaal appears in an Assyrian inscription as king of Tyre and Sidon (for Sidon as a general term, see 6.6n.). 32–33: According to this account, Ahab introduces the worship of Baal into the Northern Kingdom, though it probably had existed earlier. Baal, a title meaning “lord, master,” is given in the Levant to the storm god who brought rain and fertility to the land. Despite the claim of these verses, the names of Ahab’s children all contain a form of the name of the God of Israel. 34: A fulfillment of Josh 6.26, joining the books of Joshua and Kings. Archeological evidence, however, suggests that Jericho was reoccupied only in the seventh century bce. The text implies that two brothers were offered as foundation sacrifices when the city was rebuilt.

17.1–21.29: Elijah. Most of the narratives about the prophet Elijah are inserted into the account of the reign of Ahab, whose death is related in 22.37–40; the final Elijah narratives take place during the reign of Ahaziah (2 Kings 1–2). Originally independent folklore, the narratives about Elijah and his successor Elisha continue the Deuteronomistic historians’ use of prophets to shape their history.

17.1–18.46: Elijah and the drought. 17.1: Elijah comes from Tishbe, a town in Transjordan mentioned only here. Elijah’s name, which means “My god is the Lord,” may reflect his theological program, since he will fight against the worship of Baal. The Lord’s bringing a drought upon the land shows that he is the real storm god instead of Baal. 2–5: Following a divine order Elijah escapes the famine and dwells at the Wadi Cherith, east of the Jordan. 6: The feeding of the hero by animals is a frequent motif in folktales. 9: Zarephath, 10 mi (16 km) south of Sidon, is in Phoenician territory, the heartland of Baal‐worship. 12: The use of the Lord’s name by the Phoenician widow is surprising. Meal and oil are the basic ingredients for bread. 14–16: Elijah’s miracle shows the power of the God of Israel. 17–24: Elijah’s revival of the widow’s son again manifests the Lord’s power. The biblical story may be polemical, emphasizing that the God of Israel is not a dying god, like Baal in Ugaritic myth; on the contrary, his prophet is able to bring the dead back to life. 18: The woman understands the death of her son as punishment for some unnamed sin. 19–23: Elijah’s lying on the dead boy has a parallel in a related story about Elisha in 2 Kings 4.34. It reflects a magical conception of transferring life into a dead body, although the story emphasizes that this magic can work only if God pays attention to the voice of his prophet. 24: Only now does the woman acknowledge Elijah as God’s true prophet. 18.1–46: Elijah, the prophet of the Lord, directly confronts the prophets of Baal. 1–16: This confrontation is introduced by an encounter between Elijah and Obadiah, Ahab’s chamberlain, which prepares the way for the meeting between Elijah and Ahab. As Obadiah’s name (“servant of the Lord”) indicates, he is a faithful worshiper of the God of Israel and protects God’s prophets from Ahab’s wife Jezebel. 10: For Ahab, Elijah is a traitor, so he calls upon allied kingdoms have Elijah extradited. 17–20: The encounter between Ahab and Elijah prepares the way for the competition between the many prophets of Baal and the one prophet of the Lord. 19: The high number of the prophets of Baal (four hundred fifty) emphasizes the disproportion of forces. The four hundred prophets of Asherah, who do not appear again, have been inserted here to further denounce Jezebel’s religious practices. The competition is on Mount Carmel, on the Mediterranean coast above modern Haifa, a symbol of majesty and fertility. 20: All the Israelites, a rhetorical expression, meaning the people as represented by its elders and other dignitaries. 21: Limping with two different opinions, the translation obscures the implicit metaphor, which is of a bird hopping on two branches. 22: I only am left, but see 18.4. 24: For the Lord’s association with fire and lightning, see, e.g., Ex 19.16–18; Lev 9.24. Baal was also venerated as a storm god, associated with thunder and lightning. 25–29: Baal’s prophets are unsuccessful, despite their engaging in self‐laceration, a ritual likely meant to evoke the deity’s sympathy, until evening, the time of the offering of the oblation. 26: The prophets of Baal perform a ritual dance in order to attract the deity’s attention. 27: He has wandered away, a disrespectful euphemism meaning that Baal is relieving himself. 29: They raved, lit., “they prophesied (in an ecstatic way).” 30–32: Elijah prepares for the revelation of the Lord by restoring (v. 30) or building (vv. 31–32) an altar for sacrifice. Apparently the text is composite. 30–32: A sacrifice to the Lord needs to be offered on an altar. The author quotes Gen 35.10. 33–35: The large trench filled with water prevents any human manipulation; the presence of water is inconsistent with the drought framework, another indication of a composite text. 36–37: Elijah’s prayer contrasts with the ecstatic behavior of the prophets of Baal. 36: The invocation of the Lord as the “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel” (instead of Jacob) appears elsewhere only in 1 Chr 29.18; 2 Chr 30.62. 38–39: The people’s cry The Lord indeed is God echoes the name of Elijah (see 17.1n.). 40: For a parallel to the killing of the prophets of Baal, see Ex 32.27–28. Wadi Kishon, a seasonal stream at the eastern base of Mount Carmel. 41–46: The conclusion of the drought narrative. 45: Ahab and Jezebel had a palace (21.1) in the town of Jezreel, ca. 25 mi (40 km) southeast of Mount Carmel, in the Valley of Jezreel. 46: Elijah ran as fast as Ahab’s chariot, which illustrates his extraordinary power as a “man of God.”

19.1–18: Elijah at the mountain of God. 1–3: Elijah’s violence against the prophets of Baal provokes Jezebel’s violence against him, and he flees until he reaches Beer‐sheba, at the southern border of Judah. 4–8: He goes to the wilderness, the place of death, but again the Lord miraculously nourishes him (see 17.6) and orders him to take a long journey to Mount Horeb, an alternate name, especially in Deuteronomy, for Mount Sinai. 4: Like Jonah (Jon 4.8), Elijah wants to die. In v. 3 he fled for his life, but now he thinks that he is no better than his forefathers who died in the wilderness. 5–6: He is again miraculously fed, this time by a divine messenger. 8: Here and in what follows Elijah is depicted as a new Moses. The mention of the forty days and forty nights recalls Moses’s sojourn on the mountain of God (see, e.g., Deut 9.9; 10.10). 9–14: Elijah’s encounter with the Lord takes place at the cave where Moses had stood to meet the God of Israel (Ex 33.21–23). The encounter is framed by Elijah’s statement that he has been zealous for the Lord, that is, enthusiastic and exclusive in devotion to the Lord. The same word, sometimes translated “jealous,” is used to describe God in Ex 20.5 and elsewhere. 10–13: This unexpected divine manifestation may be a critique of the idea that God has to reveal himself spectacularly by wind, earthquake, and fire (see Ex 19.16–18; Deut 4.36; 1 Kings 18.38). Here God comes to Elijah in sheer silence, in a barely audible whisper. The author of this narrative thus presents a theological counter to the previous Carmel narrative. 15–18: The order given to Elijah to anoint Hazael as king over Aram (see 2 Kings 8.7–15), Jehu as king over Israel (2 Kings 9.1–10), and the prophet Elisha as his successor (2 Kings 2.9–14) looks ahead to the following narratives. Anointing of kings by a prophet is common; a prophet anointing another prophet is unique. Elisha rather than Elijah will anoint Hazael and Jehu. 15: Wilderness of Damascus, missing in the LXX, probably refers to the desert east of the Sea of Galilee. 17: The narratives about Elisha and Jehu differ from this divine oracle, and no text tells of Elisha killing those who escaped Jehu’s massacre.

19.19–21: Elisha becomes Elijah’s servant and successor. Elisha is the first of the three persons mentioned in vv. 15–18 to enter the scene. 19: Twelve yoke of oxen, likely an allusion to the twelve tribes of Israel. Threw his mantle over him, a symbolic act, transferring Elijah’s power and abilities to his successor; cf. 2 Kings 8.7–15. 21: The burning of the yoke symbolizes Elisha’s break with his former life.

20.1–43: Wars between Israel and Aram. Elijah does not appear in this narrative, and Ahab is mentioned by name only in vv. 2,13–14, which may indicate this story originally belonged to a later time, perhaps that of the Jehu dynasty. 1–12: Ben‐hadad may be the same mentioned in 15.18. Here he is the head of an impressive alliance of thirty‐two kings (likely an exaggeration, as are other numbers in this chapter). He besieges Samaria and tries to convince the king of Israel to become his vassal. 11: Ahab quotes a military aphorism meaning that the battle is not won until it is over. 13–15: Through an anonymous prophet, the Lord announces to the king of Israel that he give victory against the Arameans. 14–15: The victory will be achieved through young men, unmarried soldiers, attendants of the district officers. District (Heb “medinah”), a word normally used of the provinces of the Persian Empire (e.g., Ezra 2.1; Dan 8.2). Seven thousand recalls the same number in 19.18. 16–22: Attacking at an unexpected time, at noon, when the besiegers were relaxing and even drunk, the Israelite army defeats the Arameans. 22: The prophet mentioned here is probably the same as in v. 13. 23–34: A new war in the spring. 23: Their gods are gods of the hills, or “their god is a god of the mountains.” It is unclear whether the Arameans think that the Israelites worship several mountain gods, or only the Lord. 26–30: The battle takes place at Aphek, just east of the Sea of Chinnereth. 28: A man of God, better “the man of God,” the prophet mentioned in vv. 13,22, who confirms the saying of the Arameans; see v. 23n. 29–30: The outcome recalls the battle of Jericho in Josh 6: on the seventh day the Israelites win the battle, and the wall of Aphek, where the Arameans have fled, falls down. 30–34: Ben‐hadad has no other choice than to offer a treaty to the king of Israel. 32–33: Brother here connotes an equal treaty partner. 34: Restore the towns that my father took, no loss of territory is reported in the reign of Omri, Ahab’s father. Possibly this is a reference to 15.20. Bazaars allow the Israelites free trade in Damascus. 35–43: The Deuteronomistic historians criticize the treaty that the king of Israel concluded with Ben‐hadad. A member of a prophetic guild, who pretends to have been wounded during the war, confounds the king with an invented case (like Nathan in 2 Sam 12.1–7) to denounce the king’s action as contrary to God’s will. Thus, a story that initially reflects favorably on Ahab ultimately condemns him. 36: A lion … killed him, recalling the prophetic story in 13.24. 39: A talent of silver (about 75 lb [34 kg]) was an exorbitant amount, beyond most people’s reach. 42: Cf. 1 Sam 15.

21.1–29: Naboth’s vineyard. 1–4: Naboth of Jezreel, where Ahab had a winter palace (see 18.45n.), refuses to sell his land to the king, because he does not want to his clan to lose its property (cf. Lev 25.8–34; 1 Sam 8.14). The story, secondarily inserted here, interrupts the link between chs 20 and 22; in the LXX it follows ch 19. 5–14: As elsewhere, Jezebel is here depicted negatively, as an active wife who usurps the role of her husband ; v. 25 ultimately blames Ahab’s behavior on Jezebel. 10: Scoundrels, lit., “sons of worthlessness.” 15–16: It is unclear why the king could now have access to his property; perhaps he could claim the possessions of a man who had been condemned to death. 17–29: Although Jezebel took the initiative to kill Naboth, the Lord sends Elijah to confront Ahab. 18: According to this verse (see textual note a) the incident transpired in Samaria and not in Jezreel. 21: See 14.10n. 23–24: The absence of a proper burial place is one of the worst curses in the Bible (e.g., Deut 28.26; Jer 34.20) and other ancient texts. For Ahab’s fate, see 22.37–38; for Jezebel’s, see 2 Kings 9.33–35. 27–29: Since Ahab adopts the traditional mourning rites, the punishment is transferred to his son Joram (see 2 Sam 12.13).

22.1–40: The campaign of Ramoth‐gilead and the death of Ahab. 1–36: In this battle story, continuing ch 20, Ahab is mentioned by name only in v. 20 (see 20.1–43n.). 1–4: The beginning of the story suggests that king Jehoshaphat of Judah (see vv. 41–50) is a vassal of the Israelite king, since he is obligated to participate in a war against the king of Aram to recapture Ramoth‐gilead in Transjordan. 5–28: The story about the prophetic counsel interrupts the battle report that is continued in v. 29. 7–9: Jehoshaphat, sensing that the king’s prophets are acting on his behalf, asks for an independent prophet of the Lord. Micaiah son of Imlah, a prophet of doom, is not the same as the prophet Micah of the book of that name. Surprisingly, the king of Israel does not mention the prophet Elijah in this context; this story was probably not part of the Elijah cycle. 10–16: Zedekiah is the chief of the official court prophets. His symbolic action (horns of iron) predicts the king’s victory; horns are symbols of power and strength. Prophets often perform symbolic actions, and Zedekiah’s is similar to Hananiah’s in Jer 28. Micaiah’s first answer, repeating the favorable oracle, reflects either irony or fear of punishment (see v. 24). 17–18: The second oracle describes a vision of a flock without a shepherd, namely the king, who in the ancient Near East was the shepherd of his people. 19–23: Micaiah’s second vision describes the heavenly court, legitimating his oracle of doom by suggesting he has access to the divine sphere. 22: The lying spirit is a member of the divine council and plays a similar role as the satan in Job 1–2. 24–28: The king is not impressed by this vision and prefers the majority view. 26: Like Jeremiah (Jer 37.15), Micaiah is kept in prison, in the house of the king’s son. 29–36: The disguise of the king of Israel indicates that he lacks faith in victory and is trying to avert Micaiah’s first vision, but he is killed despite his disguise. 37–40: The conclusion of Ahab’s reign is described in stereotypical expressions known from other kings, except for v. 38, which alludes to Elijah’s prophecy in 21.19. The astonishing reference to the prostitutes bathing in his blood exceeds what Elijah announced. The text spoke perhaps originally of dogs and pigs (so LXX) before it was altered.

22.41–53: Jehoshaphat of Judah and Ahaziah of Israel. 41–50: For the Deuteronomistic historians, Jehoshaphat (ca. 870–846 bce) was a good king, except that he tolerated open‐air sanctuaries. 46: Male temple prostitutes, see 14.24n. 47–50: Like Solomon, Jehoshaphat built ships of the Tarshish type in order to continue his ancestor’s exotic expeditions, but he did not succeed; see 10.22n. 51–53: This introduces the reign of the Israelite king Ahaziah (ca. 852–851 bce), which is continued in 2 Kings 1. Originally, the two books of Kings were a single book (see Introduction).

^a Gk: Heb the commanders

^a Gk: Heb one

^a Ch 5.1 in Heb

^a Ch 5.15 in Heb

^b Gk Tg Vg: Heb my feet or his feet

^a GK: Meaning of Heb uncertain

^a Gk: Heb structure

^b Heb lacks each story

^a Meaning of Heb uncertain

^a Cn: Heb and a cord of twelve cubits encircled the second pillar; Compare Jer 52.21

^b Heb: Gk a net

^a A Heb measure of volume

^a Or when you answer

^b Gk Syr: Heb in the land

^a Compare Gk: Heb seven days and seven days, fourteen days

^a Syr Old Latin: Heb will become high

^b Perhaps meaning a land good for nothing

^c Gk: Heb offering incense with it that was

^a Or Sea of Reeds

^b Meaning of Heb uncertain

^c Gk Syr: Heb men

^a Or baboons

^a Heb him

^b Heb lacks in the wall

^a Gk Syr Vg: Heb they have

^b Gk Vg Compare 2 Chr 10.2: Heb lived in

^a Gk: Heb to them

^b Compare Gk: Heb went to the one as far as Dan

^a Gk Vg Compare 13.32: Heb a house

^a Heb he

^b Gk: Heb he came to the town of the old prophet

^a Meaning of Heb uncertain

^b Heb Asherim

^a Heb Asherim

^a Heb him

^a Heb Asherah

^a Gk: Heb of the settlers

^a Heb lacks of the drought

^a Heb he

^b Gk Syr Vg: Heb you

^c Heb lacks scouts

^a Heb He

^b Heb lacks The king of Israel responded

^c Heb of the sons of the prophets

^a Heb who is

^a Heb he

^a Heb lacks in it