The Book of Kings, like the Book of Samuel, as Josephus and early rabbinic sources indicate, was originally one book, not two. Its first two chapters, moreover, are clearly a completion of the story of David, showing the masterly hand of the great writer who fashioned the long narrative of Israel’s founding king. The ancient editors set this material at the beginning of the Book of Kings because it reports Solomon’s accession to the throne, though that story is intertwined with the wrenching portrait of the aging and failing David and his troubled relationship with his henchman Joab and his actual and potential enemies within and without the court. Once this story is completed, the Book of Kings proper exhibits an approach to politics, character, and historical causation that is quite different from the one that informs the David story.
Kings proves to be the most miscellaneous of the books assembled as the Former Prophets, although all of them are composite at least to some degree. The encompassing redactional framework is patently Deuteronomistic. The measure of every king is whether he did evil in the eyes of the LORD, and doing evil, with only a few limited exceptions, is conceived in cultic terms. The Deuteronomistic compiler repeatedly invokes the stipulation that there can be only one legitimate place of worship, which is the temple in Jerusalem—an idea that became firmly entrenched only with King Josiah’s reforms around 621 B.C.E., scant decades before the Babylonian exile. Through most of these stories, the editor holds clearly in view the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel in 721 B.C.E. and evidently also the destruction of the southern kingdom of Judah in 586 B.C.E. Since there is no hint, even at the end of the narrative, of any return to Zion after the exile, scholars have plausibly inferred that the book as a whole was put together in the early decades after the destruction of Judah.
It was put together, however, from a variety of widely disparate sources, which is why it is best to think of the person or persons responsible for its final form as a compiler or compilers. The large unit at the very beginning (1 Kings 1–11) in itself illustrates the composite character of the book as a whole. The first two chapters, as I have noted, belong to the end of the David story, exhibiting its brilliant deployment of dialogue and of techniques of narrative repetition and its shrewd sense of realpolitik. Chapter 3 begins with an emphatically theological story of God’s appearance to Solomon in a dream and the king’s request for the gift of wisdom. This encounter with the divine is followed in the second half of the chapter by the often recalled Judgment of Solomon, a fable obviously meant to illustrate his wisdom and clearly reflecting a different narrative genre, the folktale. Chapter 4 is a roster of Solomon’s royal bureaucracy, quite different from anything that precedes it.
The first half of chapter 5 is taken up with a report of the material grandeur of Solomon’s court and of his unsurpassed wisdom, manifested in his composition of proverbs and poems. The next two and a half chapters focus on Solomon’s great building projects, the Temple and the palace, undertaken with the collaboration of Hiram king of Tyre. Chapter 8 recounts the dedication of the Temple, most of it being the grand speech delivered by Solomon on that occasion (and deemed by many scholars to be a later composition). Chapter 9 begins with God’s theologically freighted response to Solomon, then moves on to more of his royal projects. In chapter 10 we get the enchanting folktale of the visit to Solomon’s court of the Queen of Sheba. The following chapter, the last in Solomon’s story, switches gears to show us the hitherto exemplary king led into the encouraging of pagan practices by his sundry foreign wives.
At the very end of the Solomon narrative, the editor informs us that “the rest of the acts of Solomon and all that he did, and his wisdom, are they not written in the Book of the Acts of Solomon?” (1 Kings 11:42). We may infer that at least some of the material in chapters 3–11 was drawn from this source, which seems to have been some sort of court annal. The reports of the royal bureaucracy and of Solomon’s building projects, including a great abundance of architectural details and catalogues of furnishings, and of his marriage to Pharaoh’s daughter, are likely candidates for this annalistic source. Other sources appear to have been tapped for the two folktales and probably also for the account at the end of Solomon’s backsliding into pagan ways.
The sundry stories of the kings that come after the Solomon narrative approximately follow this pattern of drawing together disparate documents. More than any other narrative book of the Bible, the stories in Kings are repeatedly and insistently framed by formulaic declarations. Wayward monarchs being preponderant, one king after another is said to swerve from the ways of the LORD, and in the case of the northern kingdom, to follow the dire path of its founder, Jeroboam son of Nebat, who offended and led Israel to offend. Again and again, the compiler, with his overriding concern for the exclusivity of the cult in the Jerusalem temple, inveighs against both northern and southern kings in formulaic language for allowing the people to burn incense and offer sacrifice on “the high places,” that is, local rural altars. And the story of each king is concluded, like Solomon’s, by a notation that the rest of the acts of this monarch are recorded in the Book of the Acts of the Kings of Judah or the Book of the Acts of the Kings of Israel, depending on whether the king is southern or northern.
The reasonable inference from this editorial procedure is that much of the factual material of the Book of Kings was drawn from these two annalistic sources, one for the Kingdom of Judah and the other for the Kingdom of Israel. There is no way of knowing how much of the two lost annals was left out of the canonical text, though it seems likely that a good deal of circumstantial detail about the various kings was deemed irrelevant to this narrative, encompassing four centuries of Israelite history, that is meant to expound the cumulative chain of actions that led to two nationally traumatic events, the destruction of the northern kingdom in 721 B.C.E. and, 135 years later, the destruction of its southern counterpart.
But we should not think of the Book of Kings merely as a series of extracts from two sets of royal annals. The Deuteronomistic editor provides a good deal of interpretation of the events, especially in his repeated insistence that cultic disloyalty to YHWH brought about the national catastrophes, and in all likelihood he also introduces some of his own narrative invention in order to support his interpretation of the history he conveys. Beyond these interventions, he incorporates materials from sources that are clearly not annalistic. In the later chapters of 2 Kings, there are a few extended passages perhaps taken directly from a narrative section of Isaiah, and, at the very end, a short section is drawn from Jeremiah (although it could well be the other way around—that the two Prophetic books drew from Kings). Elsewhere, there are numerous stories about prophets—not “writing prophets” but men of God who roam the countryside and are active players in the political realm—that have a strong folkloric stamp. Scholars have conjectured that there were collections of tales about prophets, probably produced in Prophetic circles, which the later compiler decided to include in the large narrative. However, the fact that these stories are about prophets does not necessarily mean that they were the product of a Prophetic milieu, and I would propose that what is most salient about them is their generic character as folktales—stories spun out by the people awestruck by the remembered or imagined powers of these men of God.
There is, in fact, a palpable tension between the narrative of the kings and the tales of the prophets, however they intersect. The royal narrative appears to be historical, at least in its broad outlines. The kingdom did split in two after the death of Solomon around 930 B.C.E. There is no reason to doubt the reports of chronic political instability, especially in the northern kingdom where there was no authorized dynasty, involving a long and bloody sequence of court conspiracies, assassinations of kings, and usurpations. Israel’s and Judah’s struggles with the Arameans, the Assyrians, and finally the Babylonians were actual historical events, many of them attested in the Assyrian and Babylonian annals that have been uncovered by modern archaeology. The compiler of Kings, then, registers the course of historical events in the two kingdoms, making efforts to synchronize their chronology with reference to regnal spans, though his commitment to theological historical causation leads him occasionally to introduce a supernatural event into the historical account. Thus, the Assyrian emperor Sennacherib did in fact conduct a campaign against Judah and neighboring regions toward the end of the seventh century B.C.E. and laid siege against Jerusalem in 601 B.C.E., then withdrew for reasons that remain uncertain. The author of Kings, however, chooses to represent the lifting of the siege as the result of an act of divine intervention in which the Assyrian army is suddenly stricken with a mysterious plague. This retreat of the Assyrian forces confirms his view that Jerusalem is a divinely protected city, the exclusive place that God has chosen to set his name upon. In this view, it is only the pagan outrages and the murderous practices of King Manasseh that later tip the balance and determine the destruction of Jerusalem.
If the accounts of the kings are by and large historical, the tales of the prophets—preeminently, the cycle of stories about Elijah and Elisha—abound in displays of supernatural powers that set them off not only from the royal history but also from virtually everything that precedes them in the Book of Samuel. Fire is brought down from the heavens to consume a sacrifice in a confrontation with the prophets of Baal; a dead child is revived; a cruse of oil becomes bottomless to provide for a destitute widow; a precious borrowed axehead, sunk in the Jordan, floats to the surface; Elijah does not die but ascends in a chariot of fire to the heavens. In the actual miracle-count, Elisha somewhat surpasses his master Elijah, but it is Elijah who is embraced by later tradition, singled out at the end of Malachi as the man who will announce the coming of the redeemer; serving as a model for the Gospel writers in their stories of the miraculous acts performed by Jesus; and becoming a cherished folk hero in later Jewish tradition. It is Elijah rather than Elisha who enjoys this vivid afterlife because he is the master, not the disciple, and perhaps also because he is finally the more sympathetic figure of the two—it is hard to forget Elisha’s initial act of sending bears to devour the boys who mock him, an event that already caused discomfort among the early rabbis.
The Elijah stories, it should be said, are not only a chronicle of signs and wonders but the representation of a rather arresting character. First we see him in flight, hiding out from Ahab’s wrath. Then he shows himself as the iron-willed spokesman of God, denouncing Ahab to his face as “the troubler of Israel.” After his triumph over the Baal prophets on Mount Carmel, finding himself nevertheless again mortally threatened by Ahab and Jezebel, he flees to the wilderness where he despairs, asking God, “Enough, now, LORD. Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers” (1 Kings 19:4). But the despair is countered by the epiphany vouchsafed him in the wilderness, and he climbs back from his nadir again to confront Ahab after the judicial murder of Naboth contrived by Jezebel—“Have you murdered and also taken hold?” (1 Kings 21:19).
In all this, as in the Samson stories and elsewhere in the Bible, the folktale fondness for wondrous acts is interfused with a subtle narrative art in which dialogue, cunning patterns of repetition, and intimations of the character’s inwardness are impressively deployed. Among all the narratives of monarchs, southern and northern, in the Book of Kings, pride of place is accorded to two characters—King Solomon and Elijah the prophet. Solomon is the embodiment of the regal grandeur of Israel’s divinely elected monarchy, and as such great attention is lavished on his wealth, his grand royal enterprises, and his wisdom. He, like Elijah, will survive in later tradition as a figure both unmatched and revered. At the end of his story, he is seen falling away from his high calling, thus providing a rationale for the dividing of the kingdom and, ultimately, for its destruction. Elijah’s story ends in a fiery ascent, assuring his future standing as the harbinger of the messiah and the folk hero who will come to the wretched of his people in their hour of distress.
The compiler who put Kings together for posterity above all sought to provide an account of the nation’s history and an explanation of why that history took the course it finally did. The artful crafting of narrative was not one of his conscious aims. The deep-seated storytelling impulse, however, that drives so much biblical narrative manifests itself in this book as well, in some degree in the luminous tales about King Solomon and even more in the cycle of stories marked by confrontation, triumph, and dejection about Elijah the Tishbite.
1And King David had grown old, advanced in years, and they covered him with bedclothes, but he was not warm. 2And his servants said to him, “Let them seek out for my lord the king a young virgin, that she may wait upon the king and become his familiar, and lie in your lap, and my lord the king will be warm.” 3And they sought out a beautiful young woman through all the territory of Israel, and they found Abishag the Shunamite and brought her to the king. 4And the young woman was very beautiful, and she became a familiar to the king and ministered to him, but the king knew her not.
5And Adonijah son of Haggith was giving himself airs, saying, “I shall be king!” And he made himself a chariot and horsemen with fifty men running before him. 6And his father never caused him pain, saying, “Why have you done thus?” And he, too, was very goodly of appearance, and him she had born after Absalom. 7And he parlayed with Joab son of Zeruiah and with Abiathar the priest, and they lent their support to Adonijah. 8But Zadok the priest and Benaiah son of Jehoiada and Nathan the prophet and Shimei and Rei and David’s warriors were not with Adonijah. 9And Adonijah made a sacrificial feast of sheep and oxen and fatlings by the Zoheleth stone which is near Ein-Rogel, and he invited all his brothers, the king’s sons, and all the men of Judah, the king’s servants. 10But Nathan the prophet and Benaiah and the warriors and Solomon his brother he did not invite.
11And Nathan said to Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother, saying, “Have you not heard that Adonijah son of Haggith has become king, and our lord David knows it not? 12And now, come let me give you counsel that you may save your own life and the life of your son Solomon. 13Go and get you to King David and say to him, ‘Has not my lord the king sworn to your servant, saying: Solomon your son shall be king after me, and he shall sit on my throne. And why has Adonijah become king?’ 14Look, while you are still speaking there, I shall come after you and fill in your words.”15And Bathsheba came to the king in the inner chamber, and the king was very old, with Abishag the Shunamite ministering to the king. 16And Bathsheba did obeisance and bowed down to the king, and the king said, “What troubles you?” 17And she said to him, “My lord, you yourself swore by the LORD your God to your servant, ‘Solomon your son shall be king after me, and he shall sit on my throne.’ 18And now, look, Adonijah has become king and my lord the king knows it not. 19And he has made a sacrificial feast of oxen and fatlings and sheep in abundance and has invited all the king’s sons and Abiathar the priest and Joab commander of the army, but Solomon your servant he did not invite. 20And you, my lord the king, the eyes of all Israel are upon you to tell them who will sit on the throne of my lord the king after him. 21And it will come about when my lord king lies with his fathers, that I and my son Solomon will be held offenders.” 22And, look, she was still speaking with the king when Nathan the prophet came in. 23And they told the king, saying, “Here is Nathan the prophet.” And he came before the king and bowed to the king, his face to the ground. 24And Nathan said, “My lord the king, have you yourself said, ‘Adonijah shall be king after me and he shall sit on my throne’? 25For he has gone down today and made a sacrificial feast of oxen and fatlings and sheep in abundance, and he has invited all the king’s sons and the commanders of the army and Abiathar the priest, and there they are eating and drinking before him, and they have said, ‘Long live King Adonijah!’ 26But me—your servant—and Zadok the priest and Benaiah son of Jehoiada and Solomon your servant he did not invite. 27Has this thing been done by my lord the king without informing your servant who will sit on the throne of my lord the king after him?” 28And King David answered and said, “Call me Bathsheba.” And she came before the king and stood before the king. And the king swore and said, 29“As the LORD lives Who rescued me from every strait, 30as I swore to you by the LORD God of Israel, saying, ‘Solomon your son shall be king after me, and he shall sit on my throne in my stead,’ even so will I do this day.” 31And Bathsheba did obeisance, her face to the ground, and bowed to the king and said, “May my lord King David live forever.” 32And David said, “Call to me Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet and Benaiah son of Jehoiada.” And they came before the king. 33And the king said to them, “Take with you your lord’s servants and mount Solomon my son on my special mule and bring him down to the Gihon. 34And Zadok the priest shall anoint him there, with Nathan the prophet, as king over Israel, and sound the ram’s horn and say, ‘Long live King Solomon.’ 35And you shall come up after him, and he shall come and sit on my throne, and he shall be king after me, him have I charged to be prince over Israel and over Judah.” 36And Benaiah son of Jehoiada answered the king and said, “Amen! May thus, too, say the LORD, my lord the king’s God. 37As the LORD has been with my lord the king, thus may He be with Solomon and make his throne even greater than the throne of my lord King David.”
38And Zadok the priest, with Nathan the prophet and Benaiah son of Jehoiada and the Cherithites and the Pelethites, went down and mounted Solomon on King David’s mule and led him to the Gihon. 39And Zadok the priest took the horn of oil from the Tent and anointed Solomon, and they blew the ram’s horn and all the people said, “Long live King Solomon!” 40And all the people went up after him, and the people were playing flutes and making such revelry that the very earth split apart with their noise. 41And Adonijah heard, and all the invited guests who were with him, and they had finished eating, and Joab heard the sound of the ram’s horn and said, “Why this sound of the town in an uproar?” 42He was still speaking when, look, Jonathan son of Abiathar the priest came. And Adonijah said, “Come! For you are a valiant fellow and you must bear good tidings.” 43And Jonathan answered and said to Adonijah, “Alas, our lord King David has made Solomon king. 44And the king has sent with him Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet and Benaiah son of Jehoiada and the Cherithites and the Pelethites, and they have mounted him on the king’s mule. 45And Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet have anointed him king at the Gihon, and they have gone up from there reveling, and the town is in an uproar. This is the sound you heard. 46And what’s more, Solomon is seated on the royal throne. 47And what’s more, the king’s servants have come to bless our lord King David, saying, ‘May your God make Solomon’s name even better than your name and make his throne even greater than your throne.’ And the king bowed down on his couch. 48And what’s more, thus has the king said, ‘Blessed is the LORD God of Israel Who has granted today someone sitting on my throne with my own eyes beholding it.’” 49And all of Adonijah’s invited guests trembled and rose up and each man went on his way. 50And Adonijah was afraid of Solomon, and he rose up and went off and caught hold of the horns of the altar. 51And it was told to Solomon, saying, “Look, Adonijah is afraid of King Solomon and, look, he has caught hold of the horns of the altar, saying, ‘Let King Solomon swear to me today that he will not put his servant to death by the sword.’” 52And Solomon said, “If he prove a valiant fellow, not a hair of his will fall to the ground, but if evil be found in him, he shall die.” 53And King Solomon sent, and they took him down from the altar, and he came and bowed to King Solomon, and Solomon said to him, “Go to your house.”
CHAPTER 1 NOTES
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1. And King David had grown old. Although an editor, several centuries after the composition of the story, placed this episode and the next one at the beginning of the Book of Kings, and after the coda of 2 Samuel 21–24, because of the centrality in them of Solomon’s succession, they are clearly the conclusion to the David story and bear all the hallmarks of its author’s distinctive literary genius. There are strong stylistic links with the previous David narrative; the artful deployment of dialogue and of spatial shifts is very similar; and there are significant connections of phrasing, motif, and theme.
they covered him with bedclothes, but he was not warm. This extraordinary portrait of a human life working itself out in the gradual passage of time, which began with an agile, daring, and charismatic young David, now shows him in the extreme infirmity of old age, shivering in bed beneath his covers.
2. Let them seek out for my lord the king a young virgin. The language used by the courtiers recalls that of the mentally troubled Saul’s courtiers, “We shall seek out a man skilled in playing the lyre” (1 Samuel 16:16)—the very words that were the prelude to the young David’s entrance into the court.
become his familiar. The exact meaning of the Hebrew noun sokhenet is uncertain. Some translate it as “attendant” on the basis of the context. The verbal stem from which the word is derived generally has the meaning of “to become accustomed,” hence the choice here of “familiar”—of course, in the social sense and not in the secondary sense linked with witchcraft. The only other occurrence of this term in the biblical corpus, Isaiah 22:15, seems to designate a (male) court official.
and lie in your lap. Nathan in his denunciatory parable addressed to David represented the ewe, symbolic of Bathsheba, lying in the poor man’s lap (2 Samuel 12:3).
4. the young woman was very beautiful … but the king knew her not. David, lying in bed with this desirable virgin, but now beyond any thought or capacity of sexual consummation, is of course a sad image of infirm old age. At the same time, this vignette of geriatric impotence is a pointed reversal of the Bathsheba story that brought down God’s curse on the house of David, triggering all the subsequent troubles of dynastic succession. There, too, David was lying in his bed or couch (mishkav, as in verse 47 here), and there, too, he sent out emissaries to bring back a beautiful young woman to lie with him, though to antithetical purposes.
5. was giving himself airs. The reflexive verb has a root that means to raise up (hence the King James Version, “exalted himself”). Since a common noun derived from that verb, nasiʾ, means “prince,” the reflexive verb might even have the sense of “acting the part of a prince.”
he made himself a chariot and horsemen with fifty men running before him. These acts of regal presumption are the same ones carried out by the usurper Absalom, Adonijah’s older brother.
6. his father never caused him pain. The obvious sense of the verb in context is “reprimand.” The Septuagint reads “restrained him” (ʿatsaro instead of ʿatsavo), either because the Greek translators had a better Hebrew version here or were smoothing out the Hebrew.
And he, too, was very goodly of appearance. As the second clause of this sentence makes clear, the “too” refers to Absalom, the son Haggith bore David before Adonijah.
8. Shimei and Rei. The Septuagint reads “Shimei and his companions” (reʿaw instead of reʿi).
9. made a sacrificial feast. The Hebrew verb z-b-ḥ refers both to the sacrifice of the animals, the greater part of which was kept to be eaten, and to the feast. This is clearly a ceremonial feast at which the monarchy is to be conferred on Adonijah.
the Zoheleth stone which is near Ein-Rogel. The spring (Hebrew ‘ayin) of Rogel is within a couple of miles of Jerusalem. The spatial proximity becomes important later in the story because Adonijah’s supporters, after they finish their feast, are able to hear the shouting from the city. Zoheleth means “creeping thing,” which has led some scholars to conjecture that this location was a sacred site dedicated to the worship of a snake deity.
and all the men of Judah, the king’s servants. Like his brother Absalom, Adonijah draws on a base of support from his own tribe, Judah. In political and royal contexts, the phrase “the king’s servants” usually refers to courtiers, members of the king’s inner circle.
10. But Nathan the prophet and Benaiah. In keeping with the established convention of biblical narrative, this list of the uninvited and the report of Adonijah’s self-coronation feast will be repeated more or less verbatim, with subtle and significant changes reflecting who the speaker is.
and the warriors. One should remember that Joab, commander of the army, was not listed in 2 Samuel 23 as a member of “the Three Warriors,” David’s elite fighting corps. Although few in number, they would have been a formidable counterforce in a struggle for the throne.
11. Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother. After her fatal affair with David, she disappears from the narrative. Now, after some two decades or perhaps more of elapsed time, she resurfaces. Whereas the beautiful young wife was accorded no dialogue except for her report to David of her pregnancy, the mature Bathsheba will show herself a mistress of language—shrewd, energetic, politically astute.
Adonijah … has become king, and our lord David knows it not. J. P. Fokkelman notes the play on words in the Hebrew between ʾAdoniyah (“my lord is Yah”) and ʾadoneinu (“our lord”). Playing also on the double sense of the Hebrew verb “to know,” the writer represents David in a state of both sexual and cognitive impotence: he knows not Abishag and he knows not Adonijah’s initiative to assume the throne.
13. Has not my lord the king sworn to your servant. The script that Nathan dictates to Bathsheba invokes a central ambiguity, which the writer surely intends to exploit. Perhaps David actually made a private vow to Bathsheba promising that Solomon would succeed him. There is, however, no mention of such a vow anywhere in the preceding narrative, including the report of Solomon’s God-favored birth, where one might expect it. This opens up a large, though by no means certain, possibility that Nathan the man of God has invented the vow and enlists Bathsheba’s help in persuading the doddering David that he actually made this commitment.
Solomon your son shall be king after me, and he shall sit on my throne. The verselike parallelism of David’s purported vow has the effect of impressing it on memory. It is repeated three times: here by Nathan, then by Bathsheba as she carries out Nathan’s orders, then by David, who will make one small but crucial change in the wording of the formula.
14. fill in your words. Many translate the Hebrew verb that means “to fill” as “confirm.” But in fact what Nathan will do is to complement Bathsheba’s speech, adding certain elements and not repeating certain others.
15. the inner chamber. At an earlier moment, a figure from David’s house, Amnon, was seen lying ill (or pretending) while a beautiful woman came to him in the inner chamber.
16. Bathsheba did obeisance and bowed down to the king. Whatever the actual relationship between Bathsheba and David at this very late point in his life, it seems reduced to a punctilious observance of palace protocol. In the background, silent, stands the beautiful young Abishag, now the king’s bedmate but not really his consort.
17. My lord, you yourself swore by the LORD your God. Bathsheba edits the script Nathan has given her in two ways: the third-person address to the king is switched to the second person, allowing her to introduce an emphatic, “you yourself” (in the Hebrew the addition of the pronoun ʾatah before the conjugated verb); and the vow is said to have been made solemnly “by the LORD your God.” If in fact the vow is a fabrication, perhaps Nathan the prophet was leery of invoking God’s name in connection with it.
19. oxen and fatlings and sheep in abundance. The last term, “in abundance,” is added to the verbal chain from the narrator’s initial report of the feast, a small magnification of the scale of the event that Adonijah has staged.
but Solomon your servant he did not invite. Nathan had not incorporated a list of the excluded in his instructions to her. Bathsheba singles out only her own son among the uninvited, but she is careful to identify him to David not as “my son” but as “your servant,” emphasizing Solomon’s status as loyal subject.
20. the eyes of all Israel are upon you to tell them who will sit on the throne. Now improvising, Bathsheba uses words that strongly evoke David’s authority, though in fact he has been out of the picture, failing and bedridden.
21. when my lord the king lies with his fathers … I and my son Solomon will be held offenders. With admirable tact, she uses a decorous euphemism for dying, and then expresses her perfectly plausible fear that as king, Adonijah would take prompt steps to eliminate both her and Solomon. (Compare Nathan’s “save your own life and the life of your son.”)
23. Here is Nathan the prophet. Nathan in his role as prophet is formally announced to David by the courtiers. According to biblical convention, there are no three-sided dialogues. Bathsheba presumably withdraws as soon as she sees Nathan enter. In verse 28, after the conversation with Nathan, David has to summon her back. All this takes place not in the throne room but in the “inner chamber,” where David lies in bed.
24. have you yourself said, “Adonijah shall be king.” Unlike Bathsheba, Nathan makes no reference to a vow regarding Solomon, presumably because it would have been a private vow to her. Instead, he refers to observable public events: have you authorized the succession of Adonijah? He uses the identical formula for succession that has already twice been attached to Solomon (“shall be king after me … shall sit on my throne”).
25. he has invited all the king’s sons and the commanders of the army. Nathan’s more political version of the unfolding usurpation adds to the list of Adonijah’s supporters the whole officer corps of the army.
Long live King Adonijah. This vivid acclamation of Adonijah’s kingship, not reported by the narrator, is calculated to rouse David’s ire. The evocation of the coronation feast (“they are eating and drinking before him”) is similarly more vivid than Bathsheba’s account.
26. But me—your servant. Nathan takes pains, in righteous indignation as prophet to the throne, to highlight his own exclusion, at the very beginning of the list.
30. as I swore to you by the LORD God of Israel. Whether or not David actually made this vow to Bathsheba, by now he is thoroughly persuaded that he did. Note that he raises Bathsheba’s language to still another level of politically efficacious resonance: Nathan had made no mention of God in invoking the vow; Bathsheba had said “you … swore by the LORD your God”; David now encompasses the whole national realm in declaring, “as I swore to you by the LORD God of Israel.”
he shall sit on my throne in my stead. David introduces a crucial change into the formula for the promise of succession, as Fokkelman shrewdly observes: to the understandable “after me” of the first clause he adds “in my stead,” implying not merely that Solomon will succeed him but that Solomon will replace him on the throne while he is still alive. Accordingly, David then proceeds to give instructions for an immediate ceremony of anointment. In the face of Adonijah’s virtual coup d’état, David appears to realize that he is no longer physically capable of acting as monarch and protecting himself against usurpation, and that the wisest course is to put his chosen successor on the throne without a moment’s delay.
31. May my lord King David live forever. Bathsheba’s tact remains flawless. Now that she has extracted from David exactly the commitment she wanted, she wishes him, hyperbolically, eternal life, even as he teeters on the edge of the grave.
33. your lord’s servants. That is, David’s courtiers.
my special mule. Literally, “the mule that is mine.” Seating Solomon on the royal mule is the first public expression of the conferral of the kingship on him.
the Gihon. This is a brook just outside the city walls. David enjoins his officials to act rapidly in anointing Solomon while Adonijah’s coronation feast is still under way a couple of miles off.
35. he shall come and sit on my throne. This reiterated symbolic statement is now literalized: after the anointment at the Gihon brook, Solomon is to be brought to the palace and publicly seated on the throne.
him have I charged to be prince. The term nagid, “prince,” previously attached to Saul and now to David, appears for the last time to designate the monarch. He is to be prince over Judah, where Adonijah has gathered support, as well as over Israel.
38. the Cherithites and the Pelethites. These members of the palace guard of Philistine origin provide a show of arms for the act of anointing Solomon.
39. took the horn of oil from the Tent. The Tent in question is obviously the cultic site where the Ark of the Covenant is kept—the emphasis is that the oil of anointment is sanctified oil.
40. the people were playing flutes and making such revelry that the very earth split apart with their noise. This hyperbolic report of the public rejoicing over Solomon’s succession to the throne serves two purposes: the tremendous clamor is so loud that the sound reaches Adonijah and his supporters at Ein-Rogel (verse 41), and it is a vocal demonstration that the choice of Solomon immediately enjoys extravagant popular support. This latter consideration is crucial for the politics of the story because it makes clear that Adonijah has no hope of mustering opposition to Solomon.
41. Adonijah heard, and all the invited guests … and Joab heard the sound of the ram’s horn. As a couple of commentators have noted, Adonijah and his followers hear only the hubbub from the town, whereas Joab, the military man, picks up the sound of the shofar, the ram’s horn. This would be either a call to arms or the proclamation of a king.
42. For you are a valiant fellow and you must bear good tidings. This obvious non sequitur ominously echoes David’s anxious words about Ahimaaz (2 Samuel 18), “He is a good man and with good tidings he must come.” Jonathan’s very first word, “alas,” shows how mistaken Adonijah is.
43. our lord King David has made Solomon king. Jonathan flatly begins with the brunt of the bad news, then fleshes out the circumstances to make it all the worse. He at once identifies David as “our lord,” conceding that, after all, David retains a monarch’s authority to determine his successor.
46–48. And what’s more, Solomon is seated… . And what’s more, the king’s servants have come… . And what’s more, thus has the king said. Jonathan’s long, breathless account of the installation of Solomon as king, with its reiterated “what’s more” (wegam), conveys an excited cumulative sense of the chain of disasters that have destroyed all of Adonijah’s hopes. He goes beyond what the narrator has reported to depict Solomon actually seated on the throne, receiving his father’s blessing.
48. someone sitting on my throne. Some textual critics propose instead the Masoretic reading “a son sitting on my throne.”
49. each man went on his way. Terrified, the supporters of Adonijah’s claim to the throne disperse. This moment is reminiscent of the dispersal and flight of “all the king’s sons” from Amnon’s feast after Absalom’s men murder Amnon.
50. caught hold of the horns of the altar. The typical construction of ancient Israelite altars, as archaeology has confirmed, featured a curving protuberance at each of the four corners, roughly like the curve of a ram’s horn. The association of horn with strength may explain this design. Gripping the horns—actually, probably one horn—of the altar was a plea for sanctuary: at least in principle, although not always in practice, a person in this posture and in this place should be held inviolable by his pursuers.
51. Let King Solomon swear … that he will not put his servant to death. Adonijah, compelled by force majeure, fully acknowledges Solomon’s kingship and his own status as subject in his plea for mercy.
52. And Solomon said. Until this point, Solomon has been acted upon by others, and no dialogue has been assigned to him. Now that he is king, he speaks with firm authority.
If he prove a valiant fellow. In immediate context, the force of the idiom ben ḥayil is obviously something like “a decent fellow.” But its usual meaning is worth preserving because it precisely echoes the term Adonijah addressed to Jonathan (verse 42), and it also points up ironically that Adonijah now is trembling with fear.
if evil be found in him, he shall die. The evil Solomon has in mind would be further political machinations. He thus does not agree to swear unconditionally, as Adonijah had pleaded, not to harm his half brother, and he will make due use of the loophole he leaves himself.
53. Go to your house. This injunction concludes the episode on a note of ambiguity. Solomon is distancing Adonijah from the palace. He sends him to the presumed safety of his own home, or is it to a condition of virtual house arrest? In any case, Adonijah is surely meant to be kept under surveillance, and Solomon has already put him on warning.
1And David’s time to die grew near, and he charged Solomon his son, saying: 2“I am going on the way of all the earth. And you must be strong, and be a man. 3And keep what the LORD your God enjoins, to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes, His commands, and His dictates and His admonitions, as it is written in the Teaching of Moses, so that you may prosper in everything you do and in everything to which you turn. 4So that the LORD may fulfill His word that He spoke unto me, saying, ‘If your sons keep their way to walk before Me in truth with their whole heart and with their whole being, no man of yours will be cut off from the throne of Israel.’ 5And, what’s more, you yourself know what Joab son of Zeruiah did to me, what he did to the two commanders of the armies of Israel, Abner son of Ner and Amasa son of Jether—he killed them, and shed the blood of war in peace, and put the blood of war on his belt that was round his waist and on his sandals that were on his feet. 6And you must act in your wisdom, and do not let his gray head go down in peace to Sheol. 7And with the sons of Barzillai the Gileadite keep faith, and let them be among those who eat at your table, for did they not draw near me when I fled from Absalom your brother? 8And, look, with you is Shimei son of Gera the Benjaminite from Bahurim, and he cursed me with a scathing curse on the day I went to Mahanaim. And he came down to meet me at the Jordan, and I swore to him by the LORD, saying, ‘I will not put you to death by the sword.’ 9And now, do not hold him guiltless, for you are a wise man, and you will know what you should do to him, and bring his gray head down in blood to Sheol!” 10And David lay with his fathers and he was buried in the City of David. 11And the time that David was king over Israel was forty years—in Hebron he was king seven years and in Jerusalem he was king thirty-three years. 12And Solomon sat on the throne of David like his father, and his kingdom was wholly unshaken.
13And Adonijah son of Haggith came to Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother, and she said, “Do you come in peace?” And he said, “In peace.” 14And he said, “There is something I have to say to you.” And she said, “Speak.” 15And he said, “You yourself know that mine was the kingship, and to me did all Israel turn their faces to be king, yet the kingship was brought round and became my brother’s, for from the LORD was it his. 16And now, there is one petition I ask of you, do not refuse me.” And she said, “Speak.” 17And he said, “Pray, say to Solomon the king, for he would not refuse you, that he give me Abishag the Shunamite as wife.” 18And Bathsheba said, “Good, I myself shall speak for you to the king.” 19And Bathsheba came to King Solomon to speak to him about Adonijah. And the king arose to greet her and bowed to her and sat down on his throne and set out a throne for the queen mother, and she sat down to his right. 20And she said, “There is one small petition that I ask of you, do not refuse me.” And the king said to her, “Ask, Mother, for I shall not refuse you.” 21And she said, “Let Abishag the Shunamite be given to Adonijah your brother as wife.” 22And King Solomon answered and said to his mother, “And why do you ask Abishag the Shunamite for Adonijah? Ask the kingship for him, as he is my older brother, and Abiathar the priest and Joab son of Zeruiah are for him.” 23And King Solomon swore by the LORD, saying, “Thus may God do to me and even more, for at the cost of his life has Adonijah spoken this thing! 24And now, as the LORD lives, Who seated me unshaken on the throne of David my father, and Who made me a house just as He had spoken, today shall Adonijah be put to death.” 25And King Solomon sent by the hand of Benaiah son of Jehoiada, and he stabbed him and he died. 26And to Abiathar the priest did the king say, “Go to Anathoth to your own fields, for you are a doomed man, but on this day I shall not put you to death, for you bore the Ark of the LORD God before David my father and you suffered through all that my father suffered.” 27And Solomon banished Abiathar from being priest to the LORD, so as to fulfill the word of the LORD that He spoke concerning the house of Eli at Shiloh.
28And the news reached Joab, for Joab had sided with Adonijah, though with Absalom he had not sided, and Joab fled to the Tent of the LORD, and he grasped the horns of the altar. 29And it was told to the king that Joab had fled to the Tent of the LORD, and there he was by the altar, and Solomon sent Benaiah son of Johoiada, saying, “Go, stab him.” 30And Benaiah came to the Tent of the LORD and said to him, “Thus says the king, ‘Come out.’” And he said, “No, for here I shall die.” And Benaiah brought back word to the king, saying, “Thus did Joab speak and thus did he answer me.” 31And the king said, “Do as he has spoken, and stab him and bury him, and you shall take away the blood that Joab shed for no cause, from me and from my father’s house. 32And the LORD will bring back his bloodguilt on his own head, for he stabbed two men more righteous and better than himself and he killed them by the sword, unbeknownst to my father David—Abner son of Ner, commander of the army of Israel, and Amasa son of Jether, commander of the army of Judah. 33And their blood will come back on the head of Joab and on the head of his seed forever, but for David and his seed and his house and his throne there will be peace evermore from the LORD.” 34And Benaiah son of Jehoiada went up and stabbed him and put him to death, and he was buried at his home in the wilderness. 35And the king put Benaiah son of Jehoiada in his stead over the army, and Zadok the priest did the king put instead of Abiathar.
36And the king sent and called to Shimei and said to him, “Build yourself a house in Jerusalem and dwell in it, and do not go out from there hither and yon. 37For should you cross the Wadi Kidron, on the very day you go out, you must surely know that you are doomed to die, your blood will be on your own head.” 38And Shimei said to the king, “The thing is good. Even as my lord the king has spoken, so will his servant do.” And Shimei dwelled in Jerusalem a long while. 39And it happened at the end of three years that two of Shimei’s slaves ran away to Achish son of Maacah, king of Gath, and they told Shimei, saying, “Look, your slaves are in Gath.” 40And Shimei arose and saddled his donkey and went to Gath, to Achish, to seek his slaves, and Shimei went and brought his slaves from Gath. 41And it was told to Solomon that Shimei had gone from Jerusalem and had come back. 42And the king sent and called Shimei and said to him, “Did I not make you swear by the LORD and warn you, saying, ‘The day you go out and move about hither and yon, you must surely know that you are doomed to die,’ and you said to me, ‘The thing is good. I do hear it.’ 43And why have you not kept the LORD’s oath and the command with which I charged you?” 44And the king said to Shimei, “You yourself know all the evil, which your own heart knows, that you did to David my father, and the LORD has brought back your evil on your own head. 45But King Solomon shall be blessed and the throne of David shall be unshaken before the LORD forevermore.” 46And the king charged Benaiah son of Jeohaiada, and he went out and stabbed him, and he died.
And the kingdom was unshaken in Solomon’s hand.
CHAPTER 2 NOTES
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3–4. These two relatively long verses are an unusual instance of the intervention of a Deuteronomistic editor in the dialogue of the original David story that was composed perhaps nearly four centuries before him. The language here is an uninterrupted chain of verbal formulas distinctive of the Book of Deuteronomy and its satellite literature: keep what the LORD your God enjoins, walk in His ways, keep His statutes, His commands, and His dictates and admonitions, so that you may prosper in everything you do and in everything to which you turn, walk before Me in truth with their whole heart and with their whole being. The very mention of the Teaching [torah] of Moses is a hallmark of the Deuteronomist, and as phrase and concept did not yet have currency in the tenth century. The long sentences loaded with synonyms are also uncharacteristic of the author of the David story, and there is no one in that story—least of all, David himself—who speaks in this high-minded, long-winded, didactic vein. Why did the Deuteronomistic editor choose to intervene at this penultimate point of the David story? It seems very likely that he was uneasy with David’s pronouncing to Solomon a last will and testament worthy of a dying mafia capo: be strong and be a man, and use your savvy to pay off all my old scores with my enemies. In fact, David’s deathbed implacability, which the later editor tries to mitigate by first placing noble sentiments in his mouth, is powerfully consistent with both the characterization and the imagination of politics in the preceding narrative. The all-too-human David on the brink of the grave is still smarting from the grief and humiliation that Joab’s violent acts caused him and from the public shame Shimei heaped on him, and he wants Solomon to do what he himself was prevented from doing by fear in the one case and by an inhibiting vow in the other. In practical political terms, moreover, either Joab, just recently a supporter of the usurper Adonijah, or Shimei, the disaffected Benjaminite, might threaten Solomon’s hold on power, and so both should be eliminated.
5. what he did to the two commanders of the armies of Israel. David is silent about the third murder perpetrated by Joab, and the one that caused him the greatest grief—the killing of Absalom. Perhaps he does not mention it because it was a murder, unlike the other two, that served a reason of state. But it was surely the one act he could not forgive.
shed the blood of war in peace, and put the blood of war on his belt … and on his sandals. Both killings were done on the roadway, Joab approaching his victim with gestures of peace. In the case of Abner, his rival had come to make peace with David, and the phrase “went in peace [shalom]” was attached to Abner in a triple repetition (2 Samuel 3). In the case of Amasa, Joab’s last words to him before stabbing him in the belly were “Is it well [shalom] with you, my brother?” (2 Samuel 20:9). The virtually visual emphasis of blood on belt and sandals recalls in particular the murder of Amasa, who lay in the middle of the road wallowing in blood, while the mention of Joab’s belt looks back to his stratagem of belting his sword to his waist so that it would fall out when he bent over, to be picked up by his left hand. The reference to Joab’s waist and feet conveys an image of a man splashed all over with blood. Beyond this integration of details from the preceding narrative in the words David chooses, the concentration on blood reflects a general belief that blood shed in murder lingers not only over the murderer but also over those associated with the victim like a contaminating miasma until it is “redeemed” or “taken away” by vengeance.
6. you must act in your wisdom. The wisdom of Solomon in the subsequent narrative is proverbial, but what David already has in mind here is political shrewdness: Joab is, after all, a formidable adversary, and Solomon will have to choose the right time and place, when Joab is without allies or protection, to dispatch him.
do not let his gray head go down in peace to Sheol. This proverbial phrase is actualized here because we realize that Joab, after half a century as David’s commander—forty regnal years plus several years before that in David’s guerilla band—is now an old man. He who shed the blood of war in peace will not be allowed to go down in peace to the underworld.
9. for you are a wise man, and you will know what you should do to him. In regard to Shimei, the “wisdom” Solomon must exercise is to find some legal loophole to obviate his father’s vow not to harm the Benjaminite. In the event, Solomon does this with considerable cleverness. David’s vow to Shimei was made at a moment when it seemed politically prudent to include the man who had cursed him in what was probably a general amnesty after the suppression of the rebellion. It is understandable that later on David would regret this binding act of forgiveness to a vile-spirited enemy.
bring his gray head down in blood to Sheol. Shimei had screamed at the fleeing David, “man of blood.” Now David enjoins Solomon to send him to the netherworld in blood. In his long career, David has had noble moments as well as affectingly human ones, but it is a remarkable token of the writer’s gritty realism about men in the vindictive currents of violent politics that the very last words he assigns to David are bedam Sheʾol, “in blood to Sheol.”
11. forty years. One may assume this is no more than an approximation of David’s regnal span since forty years, as the Book of Judges repeatedly shows, is a formulaic number for a full reign.
13. Adonijah son of Haggith. The reappearance of Solomon’s rival follows hard upon the report that his kingdom was unshaken, introducing a potential dissonance. Adonijah was not included in David’s list of enemies to be eliminated because he is Solomon’s problem, not David’s.
Do you come in peace? After Adonijah’s attempt to seize the throne that was then given to her son, Bathsheba is understandably uncertain about Adonijah’s intentions in coming to see her.
15. You yourself know that mine was the kingship … yet the kingship was brought round and became my brother’s, for from the LORD was it his. Adonijah tries to have it both ways in his overture to Bathsheba: on the one hand, the kingship really was his, and he enjoyed popular support; on the other hand, he is prepared to be reconciled with the idea that it was God’s determination that the crown should pass on from him to his brother. There may be a note of petulance here: Adonijah speaks of his situation as though he deserved some sort of consolation prize. It will prove a fatal imprudence that he should have addressed this complaint to the mother of the man he sought to anticipate in seizing the throne.
17. that he give me Abishag the Shunamite as wife. The promotion of fruitful ambiguity through narrative reticence so characteristic of the author of the David story is never more brilliantly deployed. What is Adonijah really up to? He approaches Solomon’s mother because he thinks she will have special influence over the king and because he is afraid to go to Solomon himself. Perhaps, Adonijah imagines, as a mother she will have pity for him and do him this favor. But in taking this course, Adonijah betrays the most extraordinary political naïveté. Why does he want Abishag? The political motive would be that by uniting with a woman who had shared the king’s bed, though merely as a bedwarmer, he was preparing the ground for a future claim to the throne. (The act of his brother Absalom in cohabiting with David’s concubines stands in the background.) If this motive were transparent, as it turns out to be in Solomon’s reading of the request, it would be idiotic for Adonijah to ask for Abishag. Perhaps he feels safe because Abishag was not technically David’s consort. Perhaps the political consideration is only at the back of his mind, and he really is seeking consolation in the idea of marrying a beautiful young woman who has, so to speak, a kind of association by contiguity with the throne. In any case, he will pay the ultimate price for his miscalculation.
18. I myself shall speak for you to the king. As with Adonijah, there is no explanation of her motive. But given the shrewdness with which Bathsheba has acted in the previous episode, it is entirely plausible that she immediately agrees to do this favor for Adonijah because she quickly realizes what escapes him—that it will prove to be his death sentence, and thus a threat to her son’s throne will be permanently eliminated.
19. and bowed to her. The Septuagint has “and kissed her” because of the anomaly of a king’s bowing to his subject.
20. There is one small petition that I ask of you. In accordance with the established convention of biblical narrative, she uses the very same words Adonijah has spoken to her, adding only the adjective “small.” This is just a tiny request, she appears to say, full knowing that Solomon is likely to see it, on the contrary, as a huge thing—a device that could be turned into a ladder to the throne on which Solomon sits. One should note that this whole large narrative begins when a woman who is to become a mother (Hannah) puts forth a petition (sheʾeilah, the same word used here).
22. as he is my older brother, and Abiathar … and Joab … are for him. If he makes the dead king’s consort his wife, that, together with the fact that he is my elder and has powerful supporters in the court, will give him a dangerously strong claim to the throne. In the Hebrew, the second clause appears to say “and for him and for Abiathar … and for Joab,” which makes little sense, and so the small emendation, deleting the second and third occurrence of “for” (a single-letter prefix in the Hebrew), is presumed in the translation.
26. to Abiathar the priest. Throughout this episode centering on Adonijah, Solomon shows himself to be decisive, emphatic, and ruthless—a worthy son of his father. The moment he hears of Adonijah’s pretentions to the late king’s nurse-bedmate, he orders him to be killed immediately. He then proceeds to remove from office and banish the key priestly supporter of Adonijah, and he will go on to deal with Joab as well.
on this day I shall not put you to death. There is a veiled threat in this formulation: right now I shall not kill you, and in any case you had better stay away from Jerusalem on the farm at Anathoth.
for you bore the Ark of the LORD … and you suffered through all that my father suffered. Solomon is circumspect in not ordering the execution of a priest—in sharp contrast to Saul, who thought he might protect his kingship from a perceived threat by massacring a whole town of priests who he imagined were allied with his rival. Solomon also honors the fact that Abiathar has shared many years of danger and hardship with David, and during that time never betrayed David, as Joab did.
27. so as to fulfill the word of the LORD … concerning the house of Eli. One sees how this chapter concludes a grand narrative that begins in 1 Samuel 1, and is not merely the end of a supposedly independent Succession Narrative.
28. And the news reached Joab … and Joab fled to the Tent of the LORD. With Adonijah dead and Abiathar banished, Joab realizes that all who remain from the recent anti-Solomon alliance have been isolated and cut off. This relentlessly political general recognizes that he has no power base left to protect him against the resolute young king. He has only the desperate last remedy of seeking sanctuary at the altar.
30. Thus says the king, “Come out.” Solomon’s blunt order was simply to stab Joab, but Benaiah, steely executioner though he has shown himself, is loath to kill a man clinging to the altar, and so he directs Joab to come down out of the Tent of the LORD.
31. stab him and bury him. Solomon’s command is to take Joab’s life in the very place of sanctuary (“for here shall I die”), a decision that is in accordance with biblical law: “And should a man scheme against his fellow man to kill him by cunning, from My altar you shall take him to die” (Exodus 21:14). But Solomon also enjoins Benaiah to see to it that Joab, who was after all a stalwart soldier and once David’s boon companion, should have a proper burial and not be thrown to the scavengers of sky and earth—the ultimate indignity in ancient Mediterranean cultures.
32. for he stabbed two men more righteous and better than himself … unbeknownst to my father David. Solomon in his “wisdom” has thus used the purported renewal of the Adonijah conspiracy to carry out the will of vengeance his father conveyed to him, and for the precise reasons David stipulated.
33. their blood will come back on the head of Joab and on the head of his seed. The miasma of blood guilt settles on the house of Joab for all time: a curse on the house of Joab was not part of David’s injunction, but perhaps Solomon means to ward off any prospect that resentful descendants of Joab will seek to marshal forces against the Davidic line.
but for David and his seed and his house there will be peace evermore. There is an emphatic contrast between permanent blessing on the line of David and an everlasting curse on the line of Joab, with “peace” counterpointed to “blood,” as in verse 5.
34. he was buried at his home in the wilderness. This notation has puzzled commentators because one would assume that Joab’s home (like David’s original home) was in the town of Bethlehem. The Hebrew for “wilderness,” midbar, has the basic meaning of uninhabited terrain, and it is not improbable that Joab would have had a kind of hacienda removed from the town. Nevertheless, the report of Joab’s burial in the wilderness concludes his story on a haunting note. That resonance has been nicely caught by the medieval Hebrew commentator Gersonides: “he was buried in the wilderness, which was the home fitting for him, for it would not be meet for a man like him to be part of civil society [lihyot medini] because he had killed men by devious means and by deception.”
37. should you cross the Wadi Kidron. This brook runs at the foot of Jerusalem to the east, and Shimei would have to cross it to go back to his native village of Bahurim.
your blood will be on your own head. Again, behind these words lies the spectacle of Shimei reviling David with the epithet “man of blood” and asking that the blood of the house of Saul come down on his head.
38. The thing is good. Shimei has no alternative but to agree—better virtual confinement in the capital city than death.
40. Shimei arose and saddled his donkey and went to Gath … to seek his slaves. According to several ancient Near Eastern codes (though not Israelite law), authorities were obliged to return a runaway slave. Evidently, by this point peaceful relations obtained between Israel and the Philistine cities. Lulled into a false sense of security by the passage of three years (“a long while”), Shimei may be allowing his cupidity for recovering lost property to override the concern he should have preserved about Solomon’s injunction not to leave Jerusalem. Or he may be a bad reader of Solomon’s oral text, construing the ban on crossing the Wadi Kidron as implicit permission to leave the city temporarily in the opposite direction, so long as he does not try to return to his hometown.
42. Did I not make you swear by the LORD. In the actual report, only Solomon swore (the Septuagint supplies an oath for Shimei), though perhaps Shimei’s taking a solemn oath is implied in verse 38.
The thing is good. I do hear it. Solomon adds “I do hear it” (shamaʿti) to the actual report in verse 38 of Shimei’s words, in order to emphasize that Shimei gave full and knowing assent to Solomon’s terms. Fokkelman notes that there is a pun on Shimei’s own name—Shimʿi/shamaʿti.
43. And why have you not kept the LORD’S oath. Here, then, is Solomon’s wisdom in carrying out his father’s will: he has set Shimei up, waiting patiently until he violates the oath, which then frees Solomon of any obligation lingering from David’s earlier oath to do no harm to Shimei.
45. But King Solomon shall be blessed. As in the killing of Joab, the imprecation pronounced over the doomed man is balanced by the invocation of the LORD’s perpetual blessing on the house of David.
46. And the kingdom was unshaken in Solomon’s hand. This seemingly formulaic notice at the very end of the story is a last touch of genius by that unblinking observer of the savage realm of politics who is the author of the David story: Solomon’s power is now firmly established, blessed by the God Who has promised an everlasting covenant with David and his descendants; but the immediately preceding actions undertaken so decisively and so shrewdly by the young king involve the ruthless elimination of all potential enemies. The solid foundations of the throne have been hewn by the sharp daggers of the king’s henchmen.
1And Solomon became son-in-law to Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he took Pharaoh’s daughter and brought her to the City of David till he could finish building his house and the house of the LORD and the wall of Jerusalem all around. 2But the people were sacrificing on the high places, for a house had not been built for the LORD as yet in those days. 3And Solomon loved the LORD, going by the statutes of David his father, but on the high places he was sacrificing and burning incense. 4And the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for it was a great high place—a thousand burnt offerings would Solomon offer up on that altar. 5In Gibeon did the LORD appear to Solomon in a night-dream, and God said, “Ask. What shall I give you?” 6And Solomon said, “You Yourself did great kindness with Your servant David my father, as he walked in Your presence in truth and in justice and in the heart’s rightness with You. And You kept for him this great kindness and gave him a son sitting on his throne to this day. 7And now, O LORD my God, You Yourself made Your servant king in place of my father when I was a young lad, not knowing how to lead into the fray. 8And Your servant was in the midst of Your people that You chose, a multitudinous people that could not be numbered and could not be counted for all its multitude. 9May You give Your servant an understanding heart to discern between good and evil. For who can judge this vast people of Yours?” 10And the thing was good in the eyes of the LORD that Solomon had asked for this thing. 11And God said to him, “Inasmuch as you have asked for this thing and you did not ask long life for yourself and did not ask wealth for yourself and did not ask for the life of your enemies, but you asked to discern and understand justice, 12look, I am doing according to your words. Look, I give you a wise and discerning heart, so that your like there will not have been before you, and after you none like you shall arise. 13And even what you did not ask I give to you—both wealth and honor, so that there will not have been any man like you among kings all your days. 14And if you go in My ways, to keep My statutes and My commands, as David your father went, I shall grant you length of days.” 15And Solomon awoke and, look, it was a dream. And he came to Jerusalem and stood before the Ark of the LORD’s Covenant and offered up burnt offerings and prepared well-being sacrifices and made a feast for all his servants. 16Then two whore-women did come to the king and stood in his presence. 17And the one woman said, “I beseech you, my lord. I and this woman live in a single house, and I gave birth alongside her in the house. 18And it happened on the third day after I gave birth that this woman, too, gave birth, and we were together, no stranger was with us in the house, just the two of us in the house. 19And this woman’s son died during the night, as she had lain upon him. 20And she rose in the middle of the night and took my son from by me, your servant being asleep, and she laid him in her lap, and her dead son she laid in my lap. 21And I rose in the morning to nurse my son, and, look, he was dead, and when I examined him in the morning, look, he was not my son whom I had born.” 22And the other woman said, “No, for my son is the living one and your son is dead.” And the other said, “No, for your son is dead and my son is the living one.” And they spoke before the king. 23And the king said, “This one says, ‘This is my live son and your son is dead,’ and this one says, ‘No, for your son is dead and my son is the living one.’” 24And the king said, “Fetch me a sword.” And they brought a sword before the king. 25And the king said, “Cut the living child in two, and give half to one and half to the other.” 26And the woman whose son was alive said to the king, for her compassion welled up for her son, and she said, “I beseech you, my lord, give her the living newborn but absolutely do not put him to death.” And the other was saying, “Neither mine nor yours shall he be. Cut him apart!” 27And the king spoke up and said, “Give her the living newborn, and absolutely do not put him to death. She is his mother.” 28And all Israel heard of the judgment that the king had judged, and they held the king in awe, for they saw that God’s wisdom was within him to do justice.
CHAPTER 3 NOTES
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1. And Solomon became son-in-law to Pharaoh. The Hebrew verb, although it involves marriage, indicates an establishment of relationship between the groom and the father of the bride. The marriage is thus politically motivated and will be the first of many such unions for Solomon in his effort to consolidate the mini-empire created by his father.
took. This ordinary verb often has the force of “marry,” as here.
2. But the people were sacrificing on the high places. Since the Temple was not yet built, there was no alternative to these local altars on hilltops. But the notation reveals the unease of the Deuteronomist with a moment when both the people and Solomon himself offered sacrifices at sites other than the center of the cult in Jerusalem. The strong presence of the Deuteronomist and the shift that reveals itself in the subsequent passages to a different kind of narrative suggest that the book has now moved on from the David story to the work of very different writers.
3. Solomon loved the LORD. This is not said of David. There may be a play on Solomon’s other name, Jedidiah, which means friend, or lover (though different from the verb used here), of the LORD.
4. for it was a great high place. Evidently, the altar at Gibeon was much larger than the one Solomon had available in Jerusalem, hence his move to Gibeon to offer a huge sacrifice.
5. a night-dream. This is a lesser form of divine revelation, one even vouchsafed the pagan king Abimelech (Genesis 20). In the David story, God calls upon Nathan the prophet in a night-vision, but it is Nathan as intermediary who then goes to deliver the message to David (2 Samuel 7).
6. David my father … walked in Your presence in truth and in justice. The words assigned here to Solomon adopt the Deuteronomist’s revisionist portrait of David (see the comment on 2:3–4) as an exemplary servant of God. The actual representation of David gives us a much more mixed picture of the man with all his calculations of power and his weaknesses and moral failings.
7. not knowing how to lead into the fray. The account of Solomon’s reign does not represent him as a military leader combating surrounding nations, but in assuming the throne he does have dangerous enemies in the court who could have contested the succession.
9. May You give Your servant an understanding heart. Solomon’s legendary wisdom is here given a divine etiology: it is the one gift he asks of God, and it is granted.
vast. Elsewhere this term usually means “heavy.”
13. wealth and honor, so that there will not have been any man like you among kings. This statement, of course, is a fantastic exaggeration because the head of a small kingdom like Israel could scarcely compare with the monarchs who commanded the great empires to the east and the south. Solomon, quite unlike David, is manifestly woven out of the stuff of legend in this literary account.
16. Then two whore-woman. The introduction of the story with “then,” ʾaz, is unusual in Hebrew narrative. It clearly serves to mark a direct link with the preceding episode: the gift of wisdom that God has granted Solomon will now be exemplified in this tale.
stood in his presence. A primary function of the monarch, in the Bible and in the Ugaritic texts before it, is to administer justice, and so the two whores come before him to make their case against each other.
17. a single house … gave birth alongside her in the house. The repetition of “house” (which recurs still again twice in the next verse) both underlines the idea of their sharing quarters and reflects the style of this story, which abounds in symmetrical repetitions. It may not be coincidental that the larger narrative of Solomon begins (verse 1) by twice using the same word, “house.”
18. no stranger was with us. There are therefore no witnesses.
19. as she had lain upon him. There is thus a suggestion that the mother of the dead child may have been negligent, and at any rate she was inadvertently responsible for her infant’s death.
22. “No, for my son” … And the other said, “No, for your son.” This interechoing dialogue, heightened by the fact that neither woman is given a name, underscores the seeming undecidability of the case: each is saying exactly the same thing, so how can anyone know which one is lying? Solomon’s repetition of their words in the next verse amplifies this effect.
25. Cut the living child in two. This momentarily shocking decree, which then will be seen to be a manifestation of Solomon’s wisdom, is a clear expression of the fabulous or folktale character of the whole story. There is an approximate equivalent of the Judgment of Solomon in Indian literature that some scholars think may even have been its ultimate source, reaching ancient Israel through oral transmission. In any case, it sounds very much like a tale of surprising wisdom told among the people, or perhaps among many peoples, that was eventually attributed to Solomon.
26. Neither mine nor yours shall he be. Finally, the bewildering symmetry between the two women is shattered, and the false mother reveals herself.
Cut him apart. This plural imperative is a single word in the Hebrew, gezoru (“cut”), exposing the brutal lack of maternal feeling of the lying woman.
28. for they saw that God’s wisdom was within him. This concluding flourish confirms that God’s promise to Solomon of a discerning heart has been amply realized.
1And Solomon was king over all Israel.
2And these are the names of the officials he had:
Azariah son of Zadok the priest.
3Elihoreph and Ahijah sons of Shisha, scribes.
Jehoshaphat son of Ehilud, recorder.
4And Benaiah son of Jehoiada, over the army.
And Zadok and Abiathar, priests.
5And Azariah son of Nathan, over the prefects.
And Zabud son of Nathan the priest, the king’s companion.
6And Ahishar, over the house,
and Adoniram son of Abda, over the forced labor.
7And Solomon had twelve prefects over all Israel, and they provisioned the king and his household—one month in a year each one had to provision. 8And these were their names: Ben-Hur, in the high country of Ephraim. 9Ben-Deker, in Makaz and in Shaalbim and Beth-Shemesh and Elon-Beth-Hanan. 10Ben-Hesed, in Arubboth, his was Socho and all the land of Hepher. 11Ben-Abinadab, all Naphath-Dor. Taphath daughter of Solomon became his wife. 12Baana son of Ahilud, Taanach and Megiddo and all Beth-Sheʾan, which is by Zarethon below Jezreel, from Beth-Sheʾan as far as Abel-Meholah, as far as the other side of Jokneam. 13Ben-Geber, in Ramoth-Gilead. His were the hamlets of Jair son of Manasseh that were in Bashan. His was the region of Argob which is in Bashan, sixty great towns with walls and bronze bolts. 14Ahinadab son of Iddo, at Mahanaim. 15Ahimaaz in Naphtali. He, too, took a daughter of Solomon, Bosmath, as wife. 16Baanah son of Hushi, 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 land of Shihor king of the Amorites and Og king of Bashan. And one prefect who was in the land of Judah. 20And Israel was multitudinous as the sand of the sea in multitude, eating and drinking and rejoicing.
CHAPTER 4 NOTES
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1. And Solomon was king over all Israel. This declaration of his sovereignty over the entire nation prefaces the catalogue of his royal bureaucracy.
2. And these are the names of the officials he had. Everything that follows in this chapter is another indication of the composite character of the Solomon narrative. First we have the story of his ascent to the throne, which is actually the last episode of the David story and manifestly written by its brilliant author. Then we are given the report of Solomon’s dream-vision in which he asks for the gift of wisdom, which is followed by the folktale of Solomon’s Judgment, illustrating the exercise of that wisdom. Now we are presented with two documents listing the royal bureaucracy. The first lists the members of his cabinet in the Jerusalem court, and the second the prefects overseeing the sundry regions of the country and making sure each supplies its due provision—a form of taxation—to the royal court. Both these sections may be old documents, though there are at least a few seemingly scrambled entries and probably some later additions.
son of Zadok. Zadok is the priest who sided with Solomon in his struggle for the throne. Not surprisingly, several of the members of the king’s inner circle listed here are either his supporters, or the sons of his supporters, in that struggle.
4. Benaiah. He is the man Solomon sent to kill Joab.
6. forced labor. Conscripted labor on behalf of the king was another instrument of taxation.
8. Ben-Hur. An oddity of the list of prefects is that many names are given with patronymic only and no first name.
19. And one prefect who was in the land of Judah. The Masoretic Text reads “And one prefect who was in the land.” The next verse then begins “Judah and Israel were multitudinous.” That division of the text is problematic for two reasons: it is unclear what a prefect “in the land,” with no specified territory to supervise, would be doing; beginning a new sentence without an introductory “and” (simply, “Judah”) diverges from the norm of biblical narrative style. The assumption of this translation is that in addition to the twelve prefects named, there was to be a thirteenth prefect, perhaps designated ad hoc by the king, over the king’s own tribal territory, which would also be obliged to make an annual contribution to the court.
20. eating and drinking and rejoicing. The last term of this series could also mean “making merry.” Although all the regions of the country have to make annual contributions to the court, the implication of this verse is that the prosperity—contrary to Samuel’s dire warnings about the monarchy in 1 Samuel 8—was shared by the entire country as its population swelled.
1And Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the River to the land of the Philistines and as far as the border of Egypt. They offered tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life. 2And Solomon’s fare for a single day was thirty kors of fine flour and sixty kors of plain flour, 3ten fatted oxen and twenty pasture-fed oxen and a hundred sheep, besides deer and gazelle and roebuck and fatted geese. 4For he held sway over all that was west of the River from Tiphsah as far as Gaza, over all the kings west of the River. And he had peace on all sides round about. 5And Judah and Israel dwelled secure, each man under his vine and under his fig tree, from Dan to Beersheba, all the days of Solomon. 6And Solomon had forty thousand horse stalls for his chariots and twelve thousand horsemen. 7And those prefects provisioned King Solomon and all who were adjoined to King Solomon’s table, each one for his month, they let nothing lack. 8And they would bring the barley and the straw for the horses and for the chargers to the place where each was, each man according to his regimen. 9And God gave very great wisdom and discernment to Solomon and breadth of understanding like the sand that is on the shore of the sea. 10And Solomon’s wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the Easterners and all the wisdom of Egypt. 11And he was wiser than all men, than Ethan the Ezrahite and Heman and Calcol and Darda, the sons of Mahol, and his fame was in all the nations round about. 12And he spoke three thousand proverbs, and his poems came to five thousand. 13And he spoke of the trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the moss that springs from the wall, and he spoke of beasts and birds and creeping things and fish. 14And from all peoples they came to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom.
15And Hiram king of Tyre sent his servants to Solomon, for he had heard that they had anointed him king in his father’s stead, for Hiram was friendly toward David always. 16And Solomon sent to Hiram, saying, 17“You yourself knew of David my father that he could not build a house for the LORD his God because of the fighting that was all round him, until the LORD should set them under his footsoles. 18And now, the LORD my God has granted me rest all around. There is no adversary nor evil chancing. 19And I am about to build a house for the name of the LORD my God as the LORD spoke to David my father, saying, ‘Your son whom I put in your stead on your throne, he shall build the house for My name.’ 20And now, charge that they cut down cedars from Lebanon, and my servants will be with your servants, and the wages of your servants I shall give you, whatever you say, for you yourself know that there is no man among us who knows how to cut down trees like the Sidonians.” 21And it happened when Hiram heard Solomon’s words that he greatly rejoiced, and he said, “Blessed is the LORD today, that He has given David a wise son over this large people.” 22And Hiram sent to Solomon, saying, “I have heard what you sent to me. I will meet all you desire in cedarwood and in cypresswood. 23My servants will come down from Lebanon to the sea, and I will turn the wood into rafts in the sea, to the place that you will tell me, and I will break it up there and you will bear it off. And you on your part will meet my desire to provide the bread of my house.” 24And so Hiram gave to Solomon cedar trees and cypress trees, all he desired. 25And Solomon gave to Hiram twenty thousand kors of wheat as provision for his house and twenty thousand kors of fine-pressed oil. Thus would Solomon give to Hiram year after year. 26And the LORD had given wisdom to Solomon as He had spoken to him. And there was peace between Hiram and Solomon, and the two sealed a pact. 27And King Solomon exacted forced labor from all Israel, and the forced labor came to thirty thousand men. 28And he sent them to Lebanon—ten thousand a month, by turns they were a month in Lebanon and two months at his house. And Adoniram was over the forced labor. 29And Solomon had seventy thousand porters and eighty thousand quarriers in the mountains, 30besides Solomon’s prefect officers who were over the labor, three thousand three hundred, who held sway over the people doing the labor. 31And the king gave the order, and they moved great stones, costly stones, for the foundation of the house, hewn stones. 32And Solomon’s builders and Hiram’s builders and the Gebalites carved and readied the timber and the stones to build the house.
CHAPTER 5 NOTES
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1. ruled … offered. The Hebrew uses a participial form of the verb, suggesting sustained activity over an extended time-span.
the River. As throughout the Bible, this means the Euphrates. It is highly unlikely that all the kingdoms to the east as far as the Euphrates could have been subject to Solomon.
2. fare. The literal sense is “bread,” a synecdoche for all kinds of food, and the list that follows includes meat and fowl.
kors. The kor is a large measure, so 30 kors would have been hundreds of pounds.
3. geese. In modern Hebrew, barbur means “swan,” but swans were rare in ancient Israel, and the likely fowl is the goose.
10. greater than the wisdom of all the Easterners and all the wisdom of Egypt. Wisdom was a known international activity, and both Mesopotamia and Egypt were renowned for their wisdom schools, their achievements in astronomy, mathematics, and much else. Here the celebration of Solomon’s unmatched wisdom is properly referred to the broad Near Eastern context.
11. Ethan … and Heman and Calcol and Darda. The first two are temple poets to whom, respectively, Psalm 88 and Psalm 89 are attributed, and the last two are mentioned in 1 Chronicles 2:6 as temple choristers, although in Chronicles the last name is spelled Dara. The link between wisdom and the fashioning of poetry or song is a commonly shared assumption in the ancient Near East.
12. proverbs. The proverb was thought of as a quintessential expression of wisdom, a notion evident in the Book of Proverbs, attributed by tradition to Solomon, in part because of this passage. The proverb was formulated in verse, and other kinds of poetry as well are supposed to have been composed by Solomon.
13. trees … beasts … birds … creeping things … fish. Solomon’s wisdom includes a mastery of the whole realm of nature. The words here gave rise to later legends that Solomon was able to speak the language of animals.
15. Hiram king of Tyre. Tyre is the principal city on the Phoenician coast.
Hiram was friendly toward David always. These words may reflect an actual historical alliance. It was David who subdued the Philistines, the great enemies of the Phoenicians on the Mediterranean coast, and that victory might conceivably have enabled the commercial and colonial impetus enjoyed by Phoenicia in the tenth century B.C.E.
17. should set them under his footsoles. This posture of subjugation appears in quite a few ancient Near Eastern bas-reliefs celebrating the victory of a king.
20. my servants will be with your servants. This proposal of joint labor may have been motivated by a desire to expedite the costly work. Hiram doesn’t mention it in his response, perhaps because he is not enthusiastic about the idea, but verse 27 reports that ten thousand Israelite workers were sent each month to Lebanon.
no man among us … knows how to cut down trees like the Sidonians. Sidon is another Phoenician city, and “Sidonians” is often used as a general term for Phoenicians. It is in their territory that there are large stands of timber, which they used to build ships and as a valuable export, and so they were experienced lumberjacks.
21. when Hiram heard Solomon’s words. A possible though not necessary inference from this formulation is that Solomon’s message was oral, but the emissary or a courtier might have read out a written message to the king.
he greatly rejoiced. He has good reason to rejoice because he sees here the opportunity for a lucrative agreement. The words that immediately follow are his exclamation and not part of his message in response to Solomon.
23. My servants will come down from Lebanon to the sea. They will take charge of transporting the timber from the mountainsides to the seashore.
the wood. This word is added in the translation for clarity. The Hebrew says “them,” a plural accusative suffix referring to “the trees.”
turn the wood into rafts. Binding the cut logs together into improvised rafts is a widespread device for transporting timber by water.
meet my desire to provide the bread of my house. Solomon had offered to pay the wages of Hiram’s workers. Hiram now counters this proposal by stipulating a much higher price—the cost of provisions for the Phoenician court with all its entourage for the entire period in which the labor is done. In this whole exchange, there is an element of canny bargaining reminiscent of the negotiations over a gravesite between Abraham and Ephron the Hittite in Genesis 23.
25. twenty thousand kors of wheat … twenty thousand kors of fine-pressed oil. The price exacted, one notes, is very high. Solomon provides wheat and olive oil, which the Land of Israel had in abundance. The mountainous terrain of Lebanon did not favor the cultivation of these crops but was ideally suited for timber, which Israel lacked.
31. they moved great stones. The stones, of course, would have been a much bigger challenge to transport than the wood, which was floated most of the way, but there were quarries in the mountains of Judah not far from Jerusalem.
32. And Solomon’s builders and Hiram’s builders and the Gebalites. It emerges that there was a blended labor force of Phoenicians and Israelites both in Lebanon and in Jerusalem. The Gebalites are residents of the Phoenician town of Gebal. One may infer from the separate reference to them here that they constituted a kind of guild with special building skills, perhaps as stonemasons.
1And it happened in the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites came out of Egypt, in King Solomon’s fourth year in the month of Ziv, which is the second month, that he set out to build a house to the LORD. 2And the house that King Solomon built was sixty cubits in length and twenty in width and thirty cubits in height. 3And the outer court that was in front of the great hall of the house was twenty cubits in length along the width of the house, ten cubits in width along the house. 4And he made inset and latticed windows for the house. 5And he built on the wall of the house a balcony all around the walls of the house in the great hall and in the sanctuary, and he made supports all around. 6And the lowest balcony was five cubits in width and the middle one six cubits in width and the third one seven cubits in width, for he set recesses in the house all around on the outside so as to fasten nothing to the walls of the house. 7And the house when it was built, of whole stones brought from the quarry it was built, and no hammers nor axes nor any iron tools were heard in the house when it was built. 8The entrance at the middle support was on the right side of the house, and on spiral stairs they would go up to the middle chamber and from the middle to the third. 9And he built the house and finished it, and he paneled the house with cedar beams and boards. 10And he built the balcony over all the house, five cubits in height, and it held the house fast in cedarwood. 11And the word of the LORD came to Solomon, saying: 12“This house that you build—if you walk by My statutes and do My laws and keep all My commands to walk by them, I shall fulfill My word with you that I spoke to David your father, 13and I shall dwell in the midst of the Israelites, and I shall not forsake My people Israel.” 14And Solomon built the house and finished it. 15And he built the walls of the house from within with cedar supports from the floor of the house to the ceiling, overlaid it with wood within, and he overlaid the floor of the house with cypress supports. 16And he built the twenty cubits from the corners of the house with cedar supports from the floor to the walls, and he built it from within the sanctuary, the Holy of Holies. 17And the house was forty cubits, which was the great hall. 18And cedar was the house inside, a weave of birds and blossoms. Everything was cedar, no stone was seen. 19And the sanctuary in the innermost part of the house he readied to place there the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD. 20And before the sanctuary twenty cubits in length and twenty cubits in width and twenty cubits in height he overlaid with pure gold, and he overlaid the altar with cedar. 21And Solomon overlaid the house from within with pure gold, and he fastened gold chains in front of the sanctuary and overlaid it with gold. 22And the house he overlaid with gold till the whole house was finished, and the whole altar which was in the inner sanctum he overlaid with gold. 23And in the sanctuary he made two cherubim of olivewood, 24one cherub with a five-cubit wing and the other wing five cubits, ten cubits from one edge of its wings to the other. 25And the second cherub was ten cubits, a single measure and shape for both cherubim. 26The height of the one cherub was ten cubits, and the same for the second cherub. 27And he placed the cherubim within the inner chamber. And the wings of the cherubim were spread, and the wing of the one touched the wall and that of the second cherub touched the other wall, and their inner wings touched wing to wing. 28And he overlaid the cherubim with gold. 29And all the walls of the house all round he wove in carvings of intertwined cherubim and palms and birds, within and without. 30And the floor of the house he overlaid with gold, within and without. 31And the entrance of the sanctuary he made of olivewood doors, five-sided capitals and doorposts, 32and two olivewood doors. And he wove on them a weave of cherubim and buds and overlaid them with gold, and he worked the gold down over the cherubim and the palms. 33And the same he did for the entrance of the great hall, four-sided olivewood doorposts. 34And the two doors were cypresswood, the two supports of the one door cylindrical and the two supports of the other door cylindrical. 35And he wove cherubim and palms and buds and overlaid them with gold directly over the incising. 36And he built the inner court in three rows of hewn stone and a row of cut cedars. 37In the fourth year did he lay the foundations of the LORD’s house, in the month of Ziv. 38And in the eleventh year, in the month of Bul, which is the eighth month, he finished the house in all its details and in all its designs, and he was seven years building it.
CHAPTER 6 NOTES
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1. the four hundred and eightieth year. This is a manifestly schematic figure, produced by multiplying two formulaic numbers, forty and twelve. In fact, the number of years from the Exodus to the building of the Temple would be not much more than half of 480.
in the month of Ziv. This name for the second month, which would roughly correspond to May, is borrowed from the Phoenician, and that may be why an explanatory gloss is added, “which is the second month.” The term for month is also not the standard term, ḥodesh, but rather yareaḥ (literally, “moon”). Ziv means “brilliance,” “bright light.”
2. sixty cubits. This would be less than 120 feet, perhaps as little as 100 feet, which makes Solomon’s temple a relatively intimate structure—the Chartres cathedral is three times as long, and the great mosque at Cordova, before its conversion into a church, still larger. These dimensions may be historically accurate.
4. he made inset and latticed windows for the house. The reader should be warned that the precise meaning of these and other architectural terms here is uncertain. Because of the perennial fascination with Solomon’s temple, many elaborate attempts to reconstruct its exact configuration have been made, in analytic descriptions, drawings, and scale models, but all of these remain highly conjectural. What is clear is that, like the sanctuary in Exodus, it had a tripartite structure: an outer court (’ulam), a great hall (heikhal), and an inner sanctuary (devir) in which the Ark of the Covenant was placed.
5. balcony … supports. The meaning of both these Hebrew terms, yatsiaʿ and tselaʿot, is much disputed.
7. of whole stones … it was built, and no hammers nor axes nor any iron tools were heard in the house. The stones were dressed at the site of the quarry and then set in place in Jerusalem. This procedure in part picks up the instructions for building the altar in Exodus 20:25: “you shall not build them of hewn stones, for your sword you would brandish over it and profane it.”
9. And he built the house and finished it. This report of completion marks the finishing of the stone structure. What follows is an account of the paneling, carving, and finishing of the structure.
12. if you walk by My statutes and do My laws. The language in God’s speech is preeminently Deuteronomistic.
14. And Solomon built the house and finished it. These words are what scholars call a “resumptive repetition” of verse 9. That is, when the continuity of a narrative is interrupted—here, by God’s address to Solomon—phrases or sentences from just before the break are repeated as the narrative resumes its forward momentum.
16. and he built it from within the sanctuary, the Holy of Holies. This is the first of several places in this chapter where the Hebrew syntax seems a little doubtful.
18. a weave. The “weave” of course is a carving of interlaced ornamental figures.
Everything was cedar, no stone was seen. The cedarwood paneling entirely covered the stone surfaces. The pervasive use of wooden elements made the stone structure thoroughly flammable, as the Babylonian army would demonstrate when it destroyed the temple in 586 B.C.E.
23. two cherubim. In a borrowing from Canaanite mythology, the cherubim were imagined, at least in poetry, as God’s mounts. (The word keruv means either “mount” or “hybrid.”) They were fierce-looking winged beasts, probably with leonine bodies and heads, perhaps resembling the Egyptian sphinx and other bas-relief figures that have been found across the Near East.
30. the floor of the house he overlaid with gold. From what can be made out from the preceding description, the gold would have been overlaid on the cedar paneling.
31. five-sided capitals and doorposts. The translation of the three Hebrew words here is conjectural, and the text looks suspect. It may well be that the ancient scribes were as confused as we moderns by the architectural details and thus scrambled words at some points.
33. four-sided. The Hebrew term is problematic in the same way that “five-sided” is in verse 31.
35. directly over the incising. This is still another architectural indication of uncertain meaning.
38. in the eleventh year. Thus the years of the building of the Temple are reported to conform to the sacred number seven, as the end of this verse confirms with a flourish.
in the month of Bul. This is still another Phoenician month name, accompanied by an explanatory gloss, as is Ziv in verse 1, and again the unusual term yareaḥ is used for “month.” As the eighth month, it would come in the late fall, and the name Bul may derive from a word that means “harvest.”
1And his own house Solomon was building for thirteen years, and he finished his house. 2And he built the Lebanon Forest House, a hundred cubits in length and fifty cubits in width and thirty cubits in height with four rows of cedar columns and cedar beams on the columns. 3And it was paneled in cedarwood from above on the supports, which were on the columns, forty-five, fifteen in each row. 4And there were windows in three rows, three tiers face-to-face. 5And all the entrances and the doorposts were square-windowed, three tiers face-to-face. 6And the Court of Columns he made fifty cubits in length and thirty cubits in width, and the court was in front of the columns, and the columns with a beam over them. 7And the Court of the Throne, where he meted out justice, the Court of Justice, did he make, and it was paneled in cedarwood from floor to roof-beams. 8And in his house in which he would dwell, there was another court besides the outer court made in the same fashion, and he made a house for Pharaoh’s daughter whom Solomon had married, like this court. 9All these were of costly stones, hewn in measure, smoothed with an adze inside and out, and from the foundation up to the coping and on the outside up to the great court, 10and founded with costly stones, great stones, stones of ten cubits and stones of eight cubits. 11And above were costly stones hewn in measure, and cedarwood. 12And the great court all around had three rows of hewn stone and a row of cedar planks, as for the inner court of the house of the LORD and for the outer court of the house.
13And King Solomon sent and fetched Hiram from Tyre. 14He was the son of a widow-woman from the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a Tyrean man who was a coppersmith, and he was filled with wisdom and discerning and knowledge to do every task in bronze. And he came to King Solomon and did all his task. 15And he fashioned the two pillars of bronze, eighteen cubits the height of each column, and a twelve-cubit line went round the second pillar. 16And he made two capitals to put on the tops of the pillars, cast in bronze, five cubits the height of the one capital and five cubits the height of the other capital. 17Nets of meshwork, chainwork wreaths for the capitals that were on the top of the pillars, seven for the one capital and seven for the other. 18And he made the pillars, with two rows around over the one net to cover the capitals that were on top of the pomegranates, and so he did for the other capital. 19And the capitals that were on top of the pillars in the outer court were a lily design, four cubits high. 20And the capitals on the two pillars above as well, opposite the curve that was over against the net, and the pomegranates were in two hundred rows around on the second capital. 21And he set up the pillars for the great hall and set up the right pillar and called its name Jachin and set up the left pillar and called its name Boaz. 22And on the top of the pillars was a lily design. And the task of the pillars was finished. 23And he made the cast-metal sea ten cubits from edge to edge, circular all around, and five cubits in height, and a line of thirty cubits going all around. 24And birds beneath its edge going all around it, ten cubits, encompassing the sea all around, two rows cast in its casting. 25It stood on twelve oxen, three facing north and three facing west and three facing south and three facing east. And the sea was on top of them, and their hind parts were inward. 26And its thickness was a hand-span, and its rim like the design of a cup’s rim, blossom and lily, two thousand bats did it hold. 27And he made ten stands of bronze, four cubits in length each stand and four cubits in width and three cubits in height. 28And this was the design of the stands: they had frames, and there were frames between the rungs. 29And on the frames between the rungs were lions, oxen, and cherubim on the bevels, so it was above and below the lions and the oxen, hammered metal spirals. 30And each stand had four bronze wheels and bronze axletrees. And its four legs had brackets beneath the laver. The brackets were cast in spirals opposite each. 31And its spout was within the capital a cubit above it, and its spout was round in the design of a stand, a cubit and a half. And on its spout, too, there was woven-work. And their frames were square, not round. 32And the four wheels were beneath the frames, and the axletrees of the wheels inserted in the stand. And the height of each wheel was a cubit and a half. 33And the design of the wheels was like the design of a chariot’s wheels. Their axletrees and rims and their spokes and their hubs were all of cast metal. 34And the four brackets at the four corners of each stand, of a piece with the stand were its brackets. 35And on top of the stand was a circular form all around, and on top of the stand its brackets and its frames were of a piece with it. 36And he carved on the panels of its brackets and on its frames cherubim, lions, and palms, each laid bare, and a spiral all around. 37Thus did he make the ten stands, each cast the same, a single measure and a single shape they all had. 38And he made ten lavers of bronze, each laver would hold forty bats, four cubits each laver on each stand, for the ten stands. 39And he placed the stands, five on the right side of the house and five on the left side of the house. And the sea he placed on the right side of the house to the east, facing south. 40And Hiram made the lavers and the shovels and the basins. And Hiram completed doing the task that he had done for King Solomon in the house of the LORD: 41two pillars and two globes of the capitals that were on top of the pillars and two nets to cover the two globes of the capitals that were on top of the pillars, 42and four hundred pomegranates for the nets, two rows of pomegranates for every net to cover the globes of the capitals that were on the pillars, 43and the ten stands and the ten lavers on the stands, 44and the one sea and the twelve oxen beneath the sea. 45And the bowls and the shovels and the basins and those vessels that Hiram made for King Solomon in the house of the LORD, burnished bronze. 46In the plain of the Jordan did the king cast them, in the thick of the ground, between Succoth and Zarethan. 47And Solomon left all the vessels unweighed on account of their very great abundance; the measure of the bronze was not taken. 48And Solomon made all the vessels that were in the house of the LORD, the gold altar and the gold table on which was the bread of display, 49and the pure gold lampstands, five on the right and five on the left in front of the sanctuary, and the gold blossoms and lamps and tongs, 50and the pure gold bowls and the snuffers and the basins and the ladles and fire-pans, and the gold sockets for the doors of the inner house, for the Holy of Holies, for the doors of the great hall of the house. 51And the task that King Solomon had done was finished in the house of the LORD, and Solomon brought the dedicated things of David his father, the silver and the gold, and he placed the vessels in the treasury of the house of the LORD.
CHAPTER 7 NOTES
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1. his own house. Solomon’s two main building projects were the Temple and the palace. No date is given for the inception of the palace, but the notation in 9:7 that the building of the two structures together took twenty years would indicate that the palace was begun after the Temple was completed. The palace, the bigger of the two structures, took almost twice as long to build.
2. the Lebanon Forest House. This structure is evidently so called because of the rows of Lebanon cedar it contained. Some think it may have served as an armory.
4. three tiers face-to-face. This is the first of many places in this chapter where the architectural indications are quite obscure in the Hebrew, whether because of scribal scrambling or because we have lost the precise applications of this technical vocabulary. In much of what follows, then, any translation, including this one, is no more than educated guesswork.
6. beam. The Hebrew ʿav usually means “cloud,” leading some to speculate that here it might refer to some sort of canopy or cover.
7. from floor to roof-beams. The Masoretic Text reads “from floor to floor,” but the Septuagint, more plausibly, has “from floor to roof-beams.”
8. he made a house for Pharaoh’s daughter. Although the ground plan of the palace is hard to reconstruct, the fact that a separate residence was built for one of Solomon’s wives reflects the grandeur of the overall construction.
13. And King Solomon sent and fetched Hiram from Tyre. The legendary and schematic character of the narrative at this point is manifest: it is highly unlikely that the Phoenician king himself would come to Jerusalem to perform or even supervise the building work. What this refers to is that Hiram may have sent master artisans from Tyre to participate in the project.
14. He was the son of a widow-woman from the tribe of Naphtali. It is even more unlikely that a Phoenician king would have had an Israelite mother, and a woman previously married, besides. The narrative here may be reaching to establish a genetic connection between Israel and the foreign king who helped to build both the Temple and the palace.
his father was a Tyrean man who was a coppersmith. The notion of an artisan king (both Hiram’s father and Hiram are represented as that) sounds odd, but the idea is that the king is imagined to embody the distinctive skills and expertise of his people.
20. the curve. The Hebrew is literally “belly,” and its architectural meaning is uncertain.
21. Jachin … Boaz. The naming of pillars and altars was not uncommon in the ancient Near East. These two names mean “he will firmly found” (yakhin) and “strength in him” (the latter is an attested personal name). Both names appear to refer to the stability of the royal dynasty.
23. the cast-metal sea. This is essentially a metal pool, to be used by the priests to bathe hands and feet before they perform their ritual duties. The Hebrew uses the rather grand term “sea” (yam) perhaps to suggest a cosmic correspondence between the structure of the Temple and of creation at large.
a line. The translation reads, with many Hebrew manuscripts, qaw for the incomprehensible Masoretic qawoh.
26. two thousand bats. The bat is a relatively large unit of liquid measure, but the precise quantity is uncertain.
28. rungs. The meaning of the Hebrew shelabim is conjectural, but a laddered structure may be involved.
30. four bronze wheels. Wheeled ritual vessels have been uncovered across the Near East.
in spirals opposite each. The Hebrew here is particularly obscure.
31. woven-work. As elsewhere, the term refers to carved interlaced figures.
36. each laid bare. The Hebrew kemaʿar ʾish is not intelligible. The translation is based on a tentative guess that the first of these words is a verbal noun derived from the root ʿ-r-h, “lay bare.”
40. And Hiram completed doing the task that he had done. This is an explicit echoing of Genesis 2:2, suggesting that the work of building the Temple is analogous to the work of building the world.
41. two pillars and two globes. What begins here is a summarizing catalogue of all the sacred furniture fashioned for the Temple.
45. those. The translation reads, with many Hebrew manuscripts, haʾeleh for the incomprehensible Masoretic haʾehel (a simple reversal of consonants, which is a common scribal error).
46. in the thick of the ground. The casting was done in earthen molds.
47. unweighed. This term is merely implied in the Hebrew.
50. snuffers. Others, including many Jewish commentators from Late Antiquity on, construe this to mean “musical instruments.”
51. And the task that King Solomon had done was finished. Through both this long chapter and the preceding one, it should be observed that Solomon virtually disappears as an individualized character: the king here functions as an impersonal royal “he” who directs these elaborate building projects.
1Then did Solomon assemble the elders of Israel, all the heads of the tribes, the patriarchal chieftains of the Israelites, round King Solomon in Jerusalem, to bring up the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD from the City of David, which is Zion. 2And every man of Israel assembled round Solomon in the month of Ethanim, which is the seventh month, at the festival. 3And all the elders of Israel came, and the priests carried the Ark. 4And they brought up the Ark of the LORD and the Tent of Meeting and all the sacred vessels that were in the Tent, and the priests and the Levites brought them up. 5And King Solomon and all the community of Israel who had gathered round him were with him before the Ark, sacrificing sheep and oxen that could not be numbered for their abundance. 6And the priests brought the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD to its place, to the sanctuary of the house, to the Holy of Holies, beneath the wings of the cherubim. 7For the cherubim spread wings over the place of the Ark, and the cherubim sheltered the Ark and its poles from above. 8And the poles extended, and the ends of the poles could be seen from the Holy Place in the front of the sanctuary, but they could not be seen from without, and they have been there to this day. 9There was nothing in the Ark except the two stone tablets that Moses had put there on Horeb, which the LORD had sealed as a covenant with the Israelites when they came out of the land of Egypt. 10And it happened when the priests came out of the Holy Place, that a cloud filled the house of the LORD. 11And the priests could not stand up to minister because of the cloud, for the LORD’s glory filled the house of the LORD. 12Then did Solomon say:
“The LORD meant to abide in thick fog.
13I indeed have built You a lofty house,
a firm place for Your dwelling forever.”
14And the king turned his face and blessed all the assembly of Israel with all the assembly of Israel standing. 15And he said: “Blessed is the LORD God of Israel Who spoke with His own mouth to David my father, and with His own hand has fulfilled it, saying, ‘16From the day that I brought out My people Israel from Egypt, I have not chosen a town from all the tribes of Israel to build a house for My name to be there, but I chose David to be over My people Israel.’ 17And it was in the heart of David my father to build a house for the name of the LORD God of Israel. 18And the LORD said to David my father, ‘Inasmuch as it was in your heart to build a house for My name, you have done well, for it was in your heart. 19Only you will not build the house, but your son, who issues from your loins, he will build the house for My name.’ 20And the LORD has fulfilled His word that He spoke, and I arose in place of David my father and sat on the throne of Israel as the LORD spoke and I have built the house for the name of the LORD God of Israel. 21And I have set there a place for the Ark in which is the covenant of the LORD that He sealed with our fathers when He brought them out of the land of Egypt.” 22And Solomon stood before the LORD’s altar over against all the assembly of Israel and spread his palms toward the heavens. 23And he said, “LORD God of Israel! There is no god like You in the heavens above and on the earth below, keeping the covenant and the kindness for Your servants who walk before You with all their heart, 24which You kept for David my father, what You spoke to him, and You spoke with Your own mouth, and with Your own hand You fulfilled it, as on this day. 25And now, LORD God of Israel, keep for Your servant David my father what You spoke to him, saying, ‘No man of yours will be cut off from before Me, sitting on the throne of Israel, if only your sons will keep their way to walk before Me as you have walked before Me.’ 26And now, God of Israel, may Your words, pray, be shown true that You spoke to David my father. 27But can God really dwell on earth? Look, the heavens and the heavens beyond the heavens cannot contain You. How much less this house that I have built. 28Yet turn to the prayer of Your servant and to his plea, LORD God of Israel, to hearken to the glad song and to the prayer that Your servant prays before You today, 29so that Your eyes be open to this house night and day, to this place of which You have said, ‘My name is there,’ to hearken to the prayer that Your servant prays in this place. 30And may You hearken to the plea of Your servant and of Your people Israel, which they will pray in this place, and may You hearken in Your dwelling place in the heavens, and hearken and forgive 31what a man offends against his fellow and bears an oath against him to bring a curse on him, and the oath comes before Your altar in this house. 32But You will hearken in the heavens and judge Your servant to condemn the guilty, to bring down his way on his head, and to vindicate him who is right, to mete out to him according to his righteousness. 33When Your people Israel are routed by an enemy, for they will offend You, and they come back to You and acclaim Your name and pray and plead to You in this house, 34You will hearken in the heavens and forgive the offense of Your people Israel, and bring them back to the land that You gave to their fathers. 35When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain, for the Israelites will have offended against You, and they pray in this place and acclaim Your name, You shall forgive the offense of Your servants and turn back from their offense, for You will answer them. 36You will hearken in the heavens and forgive the offense of Your servants, Your people Israel, for You will teach them the good way in which they should walk, and You will give rain upon Your land that You have given to Your people in estate. 37Should there be famine in the land, should there be plague, blight, mildew, locusts, caterpillars, should his enemy besiege him in the gates of his land, any affliction, any disease, 38any prayer, any plea that any man have in all Your people Israel, that every man know his heart’s affliction, he shall spread out his palms in this house. 39And You shall hearken in the heavens, the firm place of Your dwelling, and You shall forgive and act and give to a man according to his ways, as You know his heart, for You alone know the heart of all men. 40So that they may fear You all the days that they live on the land that You gave to their fathers. 41And the foreigner, too, who is not from Your people Israel and has come from a distant land for the sake of Your name, 42if he hearkens to Your great name and Your strong hand and Your outstretched arm and comes and prays in this house, 43You will hearken in the heavens, the firm place of Your dwelling and do as all that the foreigner will call out to You, so that all the peoples of the earth may know Your name to fear You as does Your people Israel, to know that Your name has been called on this house that I have built. 44Should your people go out to battle against its enemy on the way that You send them, they shall pray to the LORD through the city that You have chosen and the house that I have built for Your name. 45And You shall hearken in the heavens to their prayer and to their plea, and You shall do justice for them. 46Should they offend against You, for there is no man who does not offend, and You are furious with them and give them to the enemy, and their captors take them off to a distant or nearby land, 47and they turn their heart back to You in the land in which they are captive, and turn back to You and plead with You in the land of their captors, saying, ‘We have offended and have done wrong, we have been evil,’ 48and they turn back to You with all their heart and all their being in the land of their enemies who took them in captivity, and they pray to you through their land that You gave to their fathers, the city that You chose and the house that I have built for Your name, 49You shall hearken from the heavens, the firm place of Your dwelling, to their prayer and to their plea, and do justice for them. 50And You shall forgive Your people who have offended against you for all their crimes that they committed, and You shall grant them mercy before their captors, who will have mercy upon them. 51For they are Your people and Your estate that You brought out of the land of Egypt from the forge of iron. 52So that Your eyes be open to the plea of Your servant and the pleas of Your people Israel, to listen to them whenever they call to You. 53For You set them apart for You as an estate from all the peoples of the earth as You spoke through Moses Your servant when You brought out our fathers from Egypt, O Master LORD.” 54And it happened when Solomon finished praying to the LORD all this prayer and plea, that he rose from before the LORD’s altar from kneeling on his knees with his palms stretched out to the heavens. 55And he stood and blessed all the assembly of Israel in a loud voice, saying: 56“Blessed is the LORD Who has granted to his people Israel as all that He spoke. Not a single thing has failed of all His good word that He spoke through Moses His servant. 57May the LORD our God be with us as He was with our Fathers. May He not forsake us and not abandon us, 58to incline our heart to Him to walk in all His ways and to keep His commands and His statutes and His laws with which He charged our fathers. 59And may these words that I pleaded before the LORD be near the LORD our God day and night to do justice for His servant and justice for His people Israel day after day, 60so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD is our God, there is none else. 61And may your heart be whole with the LORD our God to walk in His statutes and to keep His commands as on this day.” 62And the king and all Israel with him were offering sacrifice before the LORD. 63And Solomon offered up the well-being sacrifices that he sacrificed to the LORD, twenty-two thousand oxen and a hundred twenty thousand sheep. And the king and all the Israelites dedicated the house of the LORD. 64On that day the king sanctified the midst of the court that was before the house of the LORD, for he did there the burnt offering and the grain offering and the fat of the well-being sacrifices. For the bronze altar that was before the LORD was too small to hold the burnt offering and the grain offering and the fat of the well-being sacrifices. 65And at that time Solomon performed the festival and all Israel his people was with him, a great assembly from Lebo-Hamath to the Wadi of Egypt, seven days and seven days—fourteen days. 66On the seventh day he sent off the people, and they blessed the king and went to their tents, rejoicing and of good cheer over all the good that the LORD had done for David his servant and for Israel His people.
CHAPTER 8 NOTES
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1. the City of David, which is Zion. Though part of Jerusalem, this area is distinct from the Temple mount, to its west. The Ark was kept here in a temporary structure (probably the Tent of Meeting) after David brought it up to Jerusalem (see 2 Samuel 6:12),
2. the month of Ethanim, which is the seventh month. Again, a nonstandard nomenclature for the months is used, necessitating the explanatory gloss. The seventh month would correspond approximately to October, and the festival celebrated on this occasion (see verse 65) is Succoth, which, because it was a seven-day festival at the end of the fall harvest, was of the three pilgrim festivals the one for which the greatest number of celebrants came to Jerusalem from all over the country. Solomon thus chooses wisely the time for dedicating the Temple.
7. its poles. The Ark was a portable structure, carried on poles.
9. as a covenant. These words are merely implied by the verb “sealed.”
11. the LORD’s glory filled the house. The manifestation of God’s glory, as is clear from a number of biblical texts, is a dense cloud. The ultimate source of this idea may be the poetic image of God, drawn from the Canaanite representation of Baal, as a dweller or rider of the clouds.
12. Then did Solomon say. This solemn declaration about where God abides is cast in a triadic line of poetry.
The LORD meant to abide in thick fog. What tradition—especially, poetic tradition—tells us of Him is that He abides in the clouds above.
13. I indeed have built You a lofty house. But with the erection of the Temple, a new era is inaugurated in which the God of Israel has an earthly abode.
a firm place for Your dwelling. This phrase, which will be repeated in Solomon’s lengthy address, occurs at the end of the Song of the Sea, Exodus 15:17.
15. to David my father. This weighted designation is reiterated throughout the speech: Solomon, consolidating his own rule through the construction of the Temple, repeatedly emphasizes that he is David’s son and sole heir and that God’s promises to his father are now fulfilled in him.
20. I arose in place of David my father. It should be recalled, as Solomon’s phrasing here invites us to recall, that he was designated by his father to assume the throne while his father was still alive.
for the name of the LORD. The Temple is understood to enhance the glory or reputation (“the name”) of the LORD.
21. in which is the covenant. The two stone tablets are conceived as the material equivalent of the covenant between God and Israel (see verse 9).
22. spread his palms toward the heavens. This conventional gesture of prayer is visible in many ancient Near Eastern statues and bas-reliefs.
23. LORD God of Israel. The first part of Solomon’s speech is an address to Israel in which he reminds the people that God’s promise to David is now fulfilled through his acts. At this point, he proceeds to voice a prayer to God.
There is no god like You in the heavens above and on the earth below. This wording may, like the Song of the Sea, reflects an older concept in which there are gods besides YHWH, but they are insubstantial and cannot compete with Him.
walk before You with all their heart. The language here is Deuteronomistic. The idiom “walk before” suggests entering into a relationship of devoted servitude.
27. can God really dwell on earth? Solomon now touches on a theological problem raised by the building of the Temple: it is figuratively and symbolically God’s dwelling place, but Solomon wants to deflect any literal notion that God actually abides in a human structure.
30. hearken to the plea of Your servant and of Your people. Throughout Solomon’s prayer, the emphasis is on the Temple as a place of prayer and supplication, a kind of terrestrial communications center for speaking with God. Sacrifice is not mentioned. It is possible, though not demonstrable, that the stress on prayer rather than sacrifice reflects some influence of the prophets, beginning with Isaiah in the late seventh century B.C.E. There are other features of Solomon’s speech that look late.
34. bring them back to the land. It is unlikely that the historical Solomon in the mid-tenth century B.C.E., at the very moment of his royal grandeur, with peace all around, should have introduced into his prayer, in the hearing of all Israel, this stark intimation of a future exile. The plausible inference is that the speech, or at the very least this part of it, was composed after the exile of the northern kingdom in 721 B.C.E. and perhaps even after the destruction of the southern kingdom in 586 B.C.E.
35. the Israelites. The Hebrew says simply “they,” but this implied antecedent is introduced in the translation to avoid the impression that it is the heavens that have offended.
37. Should there be famine in the land. This long run-on sentence—and there are more like it as the speech continues—is not typical of biblical prose style, although the Book of Deuteronomy exhibits a fondness for lengthy, periodic sentences, most of them more syntactically controlled that this one.
39. And You shall hearken in the heavens, the firm place of Your dwelling. This refrainlike clause picks up the previous notion that God does not actually dwell in the Temple but in the heavens above, from which He is disposed to listen to the prayers enunciated in the Temple because He regards it as a favored focal point for prayer.
41. And the foreigner, too. This sympathetic attitude toward the devoutness of foreigners who join the community of Israel sounds rather like a theme in Deutero-Isaiah, though one might argue that Solomon’s cordial relations, political, commercial, and marital, with surrounding nations might be reflected here.
44. through the city. Others understand the preposition as “in the direction of.”
46. their captors take them off. At this point, the prospect of exile becomes more explicit and emphatic.
47. We have offended and have done wrong, we have been evil. These words were incorporated in the short confession of sins in the Yom Kippur liturgy.
48. through their land. Again, the translation understands this to mean that they will invoke their land, though it could mean that they will turn in the direction of the land as they pray.
50. their captors, who will have mercy upon them. It is noteworthy that the defeat or humiliation of Israel’s enemies is not envisaged but rather the prospect that the captors will have compassion and treat them kindly. It is tempting to see in these words a reflection of Cyrus’s beneficence toward the exiled Israelites, but it is hard to know whether any of the speech could have been written that late.
56. Blessed is the LORD. This last part of Solomon’s quoted words, to the end of verse 61, is a kind of peroration that concludes his long address, appropriately invoking the divine promises to Moses and the importance of continuing loyalty to the covenant, framed once again in Deuteronomistic language.
63. twenty-two thousand oxen and a hundred twenty thousand sheep. These imposing numbers are surely a fantastic embellishment of the actual ceremony.
65. from Lebo-Hamath. This town was at the border of Lebanon in the north.
seven days and seven days—fourteen days. The wording is a little confusing. The designated span of the pilgrim festival of Succoth was seven days. Solomon evidently doubled the time, adding a second week of celebration. But the report in the next verse that he sent the people home on the seventh day might suggest that he continued a more private celebration, perhaps involving only the royal house and priests, for the second week. Alternately, “he sent off the people on the seventh day” might mean the seventh day of the second week
1And it happened when Solomon finished building the house of the LORD and the house of the king and all Solomon’s desire that he was pleased to do, 2that the LORD appeared to Solomon a second time as He had appeared to him in Gibeon. 3And the LORD said to him: “I have hearkened to your prayer and to your plea that you pleaded before Me. I have sanctified this house that you built to set My name there forever, and My eyes and My heart shall be there for all time. 4As for you, if you walk before Me, as David your father walked, wholeheartedly and uprightly, to do as all that I have charged you, My statutes and My laws to keep, 5I shall raise up the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever as I spoke to David your father, saying, ‘No man of yours shall be cut off from the throne of Israel.’ 6If you and your sons actually turn back from Me and you do not keep My commands, My statutes that I gave you, and you go and serve other gods and bow down to them, 7I shall cut Israel off from the land that I gave them, and the house that I have sanctified for My name will I send away from My presence, and Israel shall become a byword and a mockery among all the peoples. 8And this house will turn into ruins—all who pass by it will be dismayed and whistle in derision and say, ‘Why did the LORD do thus to this land and to this house?’ 9And they will say, ‘Because they forsook the LORD their God Who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt and held fast to other gods and bowed down to them and served them. Therefore has the LORD brought upon them all this harm.’”
10And it happened at the end of the twenty years that Solomon was building the two houses, the house of the LORD and the house of the king, 11that Hiram king of Tyre had furnished Solomon with cedarwood and cypresswood and gold as all that he desired, then did Solomon give Hiram twenty towns in the land of the Galilee. 12And Hiram went out from Tyre to see the towns that Solomon had given him, and they were not right in his eyes. 13And he said, “What are these towns that you have given me, my brother?” And they have been called the Land of Cabul to this day. 14And Hiram had sent to the king a hundred twenty talents of gold. 15And this is the aim of the forced labor that Solomon exacted: to build the house of the LORD and his house and the citadel, and the wall of Jerusalem and Hazor and Megiddo and Gezer. 16Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up and taken Gezer and burned it in fire and killed the Canaanites who dwelled in the town, and he gave it as a dowry to his daughter, Solomon’s wife. 17And Solomon rebuilt Gezer and Lower Beth-Horon, 18and Baalath and Tamor in the wilderness, in the land, 19and all the storehouse towns that were Solomon’s, and the towns for the chariots and the towns for the horsemen, and every desire of Solomon that he desired to build in Jerusalem and in Lebanon and in all the land of his dominion. 20All the people remaining in the land, the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite and the Jebusite, who were not of the Israelites, 21their sons who remained after them whom the Israelites could not wholly destroy, Solomon put to forced labor to this day. 22And of the Israelites Solomon made no slave, for they were men of war, and his servants and his commanders and his captains and the officers of his chariots and his horsemen. 23These were the commander-prefects who were over the tasks of Solomon, five hundred fifty holding sway over the people who performed the tasks. 24But Pharaoh’s daughter had gone up from the city of David to her house that he built for her. Then did he build the citadel. 25And three times in the year Solomon offered up burnt offerings and well-being sacrifices on the altar that he had built for the LORD, and turned it to smoke before the LORD and made the house whole. 26And a fleet did Solomon make in Ezion-Geber, which is by Eloth on the shore of the Red Sea in the land of Edom. 27And Hiram sent his servants to the fleet—shipmen, adept in the sea—with Solomon’s servants. 28And they came to Ophir and took four hundred twenty talents of gold from there and brought it to King Solomon.
CHAPTER 9 NOTES
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2. the LORD appeared to Solomon a second time. Solomon’s royal enterprise is framed by two revelations. Early in his reign, God appears to him at Gibeon and grants him the gift of wisdom (3:5–14). The wisdom is first manifested in the episode of the Judgment of Solomon and in his composing proverbs. His great building projects, now completed, may reflect another kind of wisdom because they consolidate his rule. Now God comes to him to tell him that the sanctity of the Temple is divinely ratified.
4. if you walk before Me, as David your father walked. The legitimacy of the dynasty necessitates this idealized representation of David. In fact, the older—and probing—narrative of David shows him to be deeply flawed—an adulterer, a murderer, and a man beset with weaknesses.
to do as … I have charged you, My statutes and My laws to keep. As in Solomon’s speech at the dedication of the temple, the language is emphatically Deuteronomistic.
7. I shall cut Israel off from the land. The invocation of the specter of exile, as earlier, looks like the reflection of a later historical moment.
I will send away from My presence. This is a slightly odd idiom to attach to the Temple. Its usual connotation is divorce, a trope often used by the Prophets for God’s disaffection with Israel.
a byword and a mockery. This phrase is also fairly common in the Prophets to indicate Israel’s national humiliation.
8. this house will turn into ruins. The received text reads, “this house will be exalted.” This translation reads instead of ʿelyon, “exalted” or “high,” ʿiyyim, “ruins,” along with the Syriac and two versions of the Vulgate.
9. Because they forsook the LORD. In keeping with the Deuteronomistic theology, it is cultic infidelity that will cause the catastrophe of exile.
10. the twenty years. That is, seven for the building of the Temple and another thirteen for the palace.
11. gold. This precious substance, which was needed for the furnishings of the Temple and the palace, was not mentioned in the initial negotiations between Solomon and Hiram. Though Tyre did not have its own gold mines, it would have accumulated stockpiles of gold through its flourishing international trade.
Solomon give Hiram twenty towns in the land of the Galilee. In the original agreement, Solomon was to pay for the cedarwood and cypresswood with wheat and olive oil. Perhaps Hiram’s providing gold came afterward and thus required additional payment.
13. What are these towns that you have given me, my brother? Hiram obviously regards these paltry towns on his southern border as poor recompense, but he maintains his diplomatic relationship with Solomon by adding “my brother” to his objection.
the Land of Cabul. No satisfactory explanation for the enigmatic kabul has been offered, although it clearly indicates something quite negative, mirroring Hiram’s disappointment. It could mean “land of the chained one” (the one chained to a bad agreement?). It could also mean “land like the produce” (land offered in payment, like the wheat and oil?). Perhaps an explanatory clause in Hiram’s speech has dropped out of the text.
14. And Hiram had sent to the king a hundred twenty talents of gold. It would make no sense for Hiram to send Solomon gold after his dismissing the twenty towns as poor payment. Thus, though the form of the Hebrew verb does not indicate a pluperfect, one is compelled to understand this as a reference to his earlier shipments of gold to Solomon.
15. And this is the aim of the forced labor. The connection with what precedes is associative: in the great building enterprise in which Hiram was Solomon’s partner, Israelite forced labor was used.
the citadel. The Hebrew milo’ derives from a root that means “to fill,” perhaps suggesting a raised citadel erected on landfill.
Hazor and Megiddo and Gezer. Solomon’s building projects thus extended far beyond Jerusalem, involving fortified towns around the country.
18. Tamor. The Masoretic marginal note (qeri) reads this as “Tadmor,” which is Palmyra in Syria. That would be an improbable place for Solomon to build, so the translation adheres to the consonantal text, indicating a town in the Negeb.
19. in Lebanon. This might mean on the border of Lebanon.
21. Solomon put to forced labor. This notion that the indigenous inhabitants of the land became forced laborers, subject to Israel, is put forth in the Book of Joshua.
22. And of the Israelites Solomon made no slave. The Israelite forced laborers paid what amounted to a tax through their labor for a limited period of time.
for they were men of war. Here, however, a different reason is offered for not enslaving Israelites—their value as warriors.
25. and turned it to smoke. The Masoretic Text adds “with him that,” which is syntactically incoherent and looks like a scribal error.
made the house whole. The verb shilem, which elsewhere means “requite,” derives from a root meaning “whole” and here may refer to an affirmation or restoration of the integrity of the Temple through the act of sacrifice.
26. Eloth. This place-name is evidently identical with Elath.
27. shipmen, adept in the sea. The Phoenicians, of course, were a great seafaring nation, and Solomon could well have used the expertise of his northern ally.
28. Ophir. This location, somewhere to the south by the shore of the Red Sea, is repeatedly identified in the Bible as a source of gold—so much so that in poetry the name “Ophir” alone can mean “fine gold.”
1And the Queen of Sheba heard the rumor of Solomon for the name of the LORD, and she came to try him with riddles. 2And she came to Jerusalem with a very great retinue—camels bearing a very great abundance of spices and gold and precious stones, and she came to Solomon and spoke to him all that was in her heart. 3And Solomon told her all her questions. There was no question hidden from the king that he did not tell her. 4And the Queen of Sheba saw all Solomon’s wisdom and the house that he had built, 5and the food on his table and the seat of his servants and the standing of his attendants and their garments and his cupbearers and the burnt offering he would offer up in the house of the LORD—and she was breathless. 6And she said to the king: “The word that I heard in my land about your doings and about your wisdom is true. 7And I did not believe these words until I came and my own eyes saw, and, look, the half of it was not told me. You exceed in wisdom and bounty beyond the rumor that I heard. 8Happy are your men, happy your servants, those who stand in your presence perpetually, listening to your wisdom. 9May the LORD your God be blessed, Who has desired you to set you on the throne of Israel through the LORD’s love of Israel forever, and has made you king to do judgment and justice.” 10And she gave the king a hundred and twenty talents of gold and a very great abundance of spices and precious stones—never again did such an abundance of spice come as the Queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon. 11And Hiram’s fleet as well that bore gold from Ophir brought from Ophir a great abundance of sandalwood and precious stones. 12And the king made from the sandalwood beams for the house of the LORD and the house of the king and lutes and lyres for the singers—the like of the sandalwood has not come nor been seen to this day. 13And King Solomon gave to the Queen of Sheba all she desired, for which she had asked, besides what Solomon had given her in royal bounty. And she turned and went off to her land, she and her servants.
14And the weight of gold that came to Solomon in a single year was six hundred and sixty-six talents of gold, 15besides what he had from the merchants and the traffic of the traders and all the kings of Arabia and the governors of the land. 16And King Solomon made two hundred shields of hammered gold, six hundred measures of gold he put on each shield, 17and three hundred bucklers of hammered gold, three hundred measures of gold on each buckler. And the king put them in the Lebanon Forest House. 18And the king made a great ivory throne and overlaid it with choicest gold. 19Six steps the throne had, and a round top behind it the throne had, and arms on each side at the seat and two lions standing by the arms. 20And twelve lions stood there on the six steps on each side. Its like was not made in all the kingdoms. 21And all King Solomon’s drinking vessels were gold, and all the vessels of the Lebanon Forest House pure gold. There was no silver—in Solomon’s days it was counted as naught. 22For the king had a Tarshish fleet in the sea together with Hiram’s fleet bearing gold and silver, ivory, apes, and parrots. 23And King Solomon was greater than all the kings of the earth in wealth and in wisdom. 24And the whole earth sought Solomon’s presence to hear his wisdom that God had put in his heart. 25And they would bring each his tribute, vessels of silver and vessels of gold and cloaks and arms and spices, horses and mules, the set amount year by year. 26And Solomon gathered chariots and horsemen, and he had a thousand four hundred chariots and twelve thousand horsemen, and he led them to the chariot towns, and with the king in Jerusalem. 27And the king made silver in Jerusalem as abundant as stones, and cedar as the sycamores in the lowlands. 28And the source of Solomon’s horses was from Muzri and from Kue. The king’s merchants would take them from Kue for a set price. 29And a chariot coming up out of Muzri cost six hundred silver shekels and a horse a hundred fifty. And thus by the sea to all the kings of the Hittites and to the kings of Aram they would bring them out.
CHAPTER 10 NOTES
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1. the Queen of Sheba. The consensus is that Sheba is far to the south of ancient Israel, somewhere on the Arabian peninsula along the shore of the Red Sea. This episode is linked associatively with the immediately preceding passage in which Solomon builds fleets on the Red Sea and carries on trade in rich materials with the south.
for the name of the LORD. This phrase, repeatedly used for the building of the Temple, is a little cryptic in the present context. It might mean that Solomon’s fabulous wisdom, granted to him as a special gift by God, was because of its divine source “for the name of the LORD.”
2. And she came to Jerusalem with a very great retinue. This encounter between the queen of a southern kingdom and the great King Solomon has gripped the imagination of readers, writers, and artists over the ages. Among countless elaborations of the story in poetry and painting, an especially memorable one is “The Visit of the Queen of Sheba,” a cycle of poems by the great Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai, which highlights the grand voyage over the Red Sea and teases out an erotic subtext from the biblical tale.
spoke to him all that was in her heart. The heart here is the locus of intellection, not emotion, so what she speaks are all the riddles she had carefully prepared to pose to him.
3. And Solomon told her all her questions. The verb “told,” is regularly used for pronouncing the solution to a riddle, as in the Samson story. “Questions” here is the term that usually means “words” but has to be rendered as “questions” to make the sentence intelligible. It is something of a tease that the story does not divulge any of her riddles—of course, leaving much room for later interpreters.
4. And the Queen of Sheba saw all Solomon’s wisdom. Scholars conventionally classify this story as a Wisdom text, a judgment that might be questioned. Wisdom is celebrated as a value, but in fact there is no Wisdom content in this story (in contrast to Proverbs or Qohelet).
and the house that he had built. She is impressed not only by Solomon’s wisdom but—perhaps just as much—by the material splendor and affluence of his palace and his court. One extravagantly wealthy monarch duly recognizes the tremendous wealth of the other.
5. the burnt offering. Two ancient versions vocalize this word differently to yield “the ascent on which he would go up to the house of the LORD,” though a grand abundance of daily sacrifices would certainly be evidence of his regal wealth.
9. May the LORD your God be blessed. The dazzling impression that Solomon makes on the Queen of Sheba is thus seen as a confirmation of the greatness of YHWH, the God of Israel. At the same time, the whole story of the triumphal encounter of Israel’s king with a great queen from the distant south is a vivid illustration of Solomon’s supreme regal grandeur, which has been a repeated theme in the preceding chapters.
10. And she gave the king a hundred and twenty talents of gold. There is no indication that a wager was involved in solving the riddles, as in the Samson story, although that is possible. The more likely explanation of her act is that she is moved to offer a generous gift from her own great wealth as a gesture of appreciation to the wise and great king. In verse 13, we learn that she on her part asks for an exchange of gifts, to which Solomon readily agrees. Some interpreters see this part of the story as an oblique reflection of trade relations between Israel and Sheba, though it may be more plausible to read it simply as a diplomatic exchange of regal generosity.
a very great abundance of spices. The Arabian peninsula was in fact known in the ancient world for its spices and perfumes, something of which Shakespeare was still aware when he had Lady Macbeth say, “All the perfumes of Araby will not sweeten this little hand.”
11. And Hiram’s fleet … that bore gold from Ophir. The obvious associative connection is the bringing of precious materials from southern regions. Ophir probably was also in the Arabian peninsula.
16. two hundred shields of … gold. These shields and bucklers (the precise distinction between the two Hebrew terms cannot be determined) made of gold are obviously not fashioned to be used in combat but as ornamental objects, evoking by their form the king’s military power and by their substance his great wealth.
17. three hundred. The received text reads “three,” too little if six hundred are used for the shields, but two ancient versions show “three hundred.”
the Lebanon Forest House. If this evidently impressive hall in the palace was, as some claim, an armory, it might have been a symbolic armory because the shields displayed in it were not actually for military use. Verse 21 notes that everything in the House of Lebanon was made of pure gold, so it could even have been a kind of treasury.
22. a Tarshish fleet. Tarshish is generally thought to be a Mediterranean port far to the west, though scholars differ about its precise location. The allied fleets of Solomon and Hiram, however, were plying the Red Sea, so it is more likely that the term refers to a kind of ship—the sort built in Tarshish or outfitted to reach far-off Tarshish. It has also been proposed that the term derives from the Greek tarsos, “oar,” and so designates a sailing ship that is also equipped with oars.
parrots. Others understand the term to mean “peacocks,” although parrots are a better pairing with apes.
23. And King Solomon was greater than all the kings of the earth in wealth and in wisdom. This stature has just been demonstrated in the story of the Queen of Sheba.
26. And Solomon gathered chariots and horsemen. The reiterated emphasis on Solomon’s chariots and horses might reflect historical reality, but it also echoes, perhaps a little ominously, the warning in Deuteronomy 17:16 for the future king, “Only let him not get himself many horses.” The text in Deuteronomy, of course, might be a response to Solomon’s royal extravagances.
twelve thousand horsemen. The fact that the number of horsemen is so much greater than the number of chariots suggests that the term parashim refers both to charioteers and to cavalrymen.
28. And the source of Solomon’s horses was from Muzri and from Kue. Both the geography and the terminology for Solomon’s international horse trading in these last two verses of the chapter are rather obscure. The received text reads Mitsrayim, “Egypt,” which was not known for the export of horses, but many scholars emend this to Mutsri, a town in northern Syria (Kue is in Asia Minor). The substitution of a familiar term for an unfamiliar word is one of the most common causes of scribal error.
29. coming up. Literally, “would come up and go out.” Some interpreters take this as an idiom for “export,” but that is not entirely clear.
by the sea. The Masoretic Text reads beyadam, “in their hand,” which is obscure because there is no clear antecedent for “their.” This translation follows the Septuagint, which appears to have used a Hebrew text that read bayam, a difference of a single consonant. The transportation of horses from the north by ship along the Mediterranean coast seems plausible.
to all the kings of the Hittites and to the kings of Aram. This would mean that Solomon not only purchased horses for his own use but engaged in an international trade of horses. It is also possible that the preposition “to” (a single-consonant particle) is a scribal error for “from.”
1And King Solomon loved many foreign women—Pharaoh’s daughter and Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, Hittites, 2from the nations of which the LORD had said to the Israelites, “You shall not come among them and they shall not come among you, for they will surely lead your heart astray after their gods.” To these did Solomon cling in love. 3And he had seven hundred princess wives and three hundred concubines, and his wives led his heart astray. 4And it happened in Solomon’s old age that his wives led his heart astray after other gods, and his heart was not whole with the LORD his God like the heart of David his father. 5And Solomon went after Ashtoreth goddess of the Sidonians and after Milcom abomination of the Ammonites. 6And Solomon did evil in the eyes of the LORD, and he did not obey the LORD like David his father. 7Then did Solomon build a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab on the mountain facing Jerusalem and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites. 8And, thus did he do for all his foreign wives who would burn incense and would sacrifice to their gods. 9And the LORD was furious with Solomon, for his heart had gone astray from the LORD God of Israel, Who had appeared to him twice, 10and had charged him about this thing not to go after other gods, and he had not kept what the LORD had charged. 11And the LORD said to Solomon: “Inasmuch as this was with you and you did not keep My covenant and my statutes that I charged to you, I will surely tear away the kingdom from you and give it to your servant. 12But in your days I will not do it, for the sake of David your father. From the hand of your son I will tear it away. 13Only the entire kingdom I will not tear away. One tribe I will give to your son, for the sake of David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen.” 14And the LORD raised up an adversary against Solomon, Hadad the Edomite, who was of the royal seed in Edom. 15And it had happened when David was in Edom, when Joab commander of the army went up to bury the fallen, that he struck down every male in Edom. 16For six months Joab had stayed there, and all Israel with him, until he cut off every male in Edom. 17And Hadad fled, and Edomite men of his father’s servants with him, and went to Egypt, and Hadad was a young lad. 18And they arose from Midian and came to Paran, and they took men with them from Paran and came to Egypt to Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he gave him a house, and he decreed food for him, and he gave him land. 19And Hadad found great favor in the eyes of Pharaoh, and he gave him a wife, the sister of his own wife Tahpanes the royal consort. 20And Tahpanes’s sister bore him his son Genubath, and Tahpanes weaned him in Pharaoh’s house, and Genubath was in Pharaoh’s house in the midst of Pharaoh’s sons. 21And Hadad had heard in Egypt that David lay with his fathers and that Joab the commander of the army was dead, and Hadad said to Pharaoh, “Send me off, that I may go to my land.” 22And Pharaoh said to him, “Why, what are you lacking with me that you should seek to go to your land?” And he said, “No. Send me off.” 23And God raised up against him as adversary Rezon son of Eliadu, who had fled from Hadadezer his master, king of Zobah. 24And he gathered men about him and became the commander of a troop after David killed them, and they went to Damascus and dwelled there, and they reigned in Damascus. 25And he was an adversary against Israel all the days of Solomon, together with all the harm that Hadad had done, and he loathed Israel and reigned over Aram.
26And Jeroboam son of Nebat, an Ephraimite from Zeredah, whose mother’s name was Zeruah, a widow-woman, was a servant to Solomon. And he raised his hand against the king. 27And this is how he raised his hand against the king: Solomon had built the Citadel, had closed the breaches of the City of David his father. 28And the man Jeroboam was an able fellow and Solomon saw that the lad could carry out tasks, and he appointed him over all the heavy labor of the house of Joseph. 29And it happened at that time that Jeroboam went out from Jerusalem, and the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite found him on the way, he covering himself in a new cloak and the two of them alone in the field. 30And Ahijah caught hold of the new cloak and tore it into twelve pieces. 31And he said to Jeroboam, “Take you ten pieces, for thus said the LORD God of Israel: ‘I am about to tear away the kingdom from Solomon’s hand and give it to the ten tribes. 32And the one tribe shall be his for the sake of My servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, the city that I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel, 33inasmuch as they have forsaken Me and have bowed down to Ashtoreth goddess of the Sidonians and to Chemosh god of Moab and to Milcom god of the Ammonites, and they have not walked in My ways to do what is right in My eyes and My statutes and My laws, like David his father. 34But I will not take the entire kingdom from his hand, for I will keep him as a prince all the days of his life for the sake of David whom I chose, who kept My commands and My statutes. 35And I will take the kingship from the hand of his son and give it to you—the ten tribes. 36And to his son I will give one tribe, so that there be a lamp for David my servant for all time before Me in Jerusalem, the city that I have chosen to set My name there. 37And you will I take, and you shall reign over all that you desire, and you shall be king over Israel. 38And it shall be, if you hearken to all that I charge you and walk in My ways and do what is right in My eyes to keep My statues and My commands as did David My servant, I shall be with you and build for you a lasting house, as I built for David, and I shall give Israel to you. 39And I shall afflict the seed of David because of this, but not for all time.’” 40And Solomon sought to put Jeroboam to death, and Jeroboam arose and fled to Egypt, to Shishak king of Egypt, and he stayed in Egypt until Solomon’s death. 41And the rest of the acts of Solomon and all that he did, and his wisdom, are they not written in the Book of the Acts of Solomon? 42And the time that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years. 43And Solomon lay with his fathers and was buried in the City of David his father. And Rehoboam his son reigned in his stead.
CHAPTER 11 NOTES
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1. And King Solomon loved many foreign women. These words mark a strong shift in the perception of Solomon. Up to this point, he had been portrayed as an ideally wise and fabulously wealthy king to whom God gave rousing promises and who built God’s house in Jerusalem. The previous mentions of his marriage to Pharaoh’s daughter do not put that alliance in any negative light. (Later prohibitions on intermarriage were not operative in the early centuries of Israelite national existence.) Here, however, the legendary profusion of Solomon’s foreign wives—a full thousand—leads to the sin of idolatry. The Deuteronomistic editor, for all the inherited stories of Solomon’s grandeur, needed an explanation for the splitting of the kingdom after Solomon’s death, and he now provides it in a manner in keeping with Deuteronomy’s conception of historical causation, in which idolatry leads to national disaster.
2. from the nations of which the LORD had said … , “You shall not come among them.” The Moabites and the Ammonites in particular were singled out for this ban.
To these did Solomon cling in love. This expression suggests that the wise Solomon was besotted with his foreign wives and hence ready to follow their lead in cultic practice.
3. his wives led his heart astray. One may infer that he initially allowed them freedom of worship and then was drawn into their pagan ways.
7. Then did Solomon build a high place for Chemosh. The building of “high places”—typically, rural hilltop altars—is a bête noire of the Deuteronomist both because he insists on the exclusivity of the Jerusalem temple and because such altars were vulnerable to pagan influences. Here Solomon is seen taking an active role in the pagan cult, actually promulgating it.
11. give it to your servant. In royal contexts, “servant,” ʿeved, usually means “courtier.” Jeroboam, who will appear later in the story, is a member of the royal bureaucracy and hence Solomon’s “servant.”
13. One tribe I will give to your son. It should be two tribes because the breakaway kingdom in the north will have ten. Either “one” is used hyperbolically, to emphasize how little will be left to Solomon’s line, or it reflects the assimilation of Benjamin into Judah, which became to all intents and purposes the only tribe of the southern kingdom.
14. adversary. The Hebrew satan does not strictly mean “enemy” but something like “troublemaker,” someone who is a stumbling block.
18. from Midian. This kingdom to the southeast of Israel would have been a way station between Edom, farther north, and Egypt.
came to Paran. Paran is in the Sinai desert, south of Midian and on the way to Egypt.
Pharaoh … gave him a house … food … land. The Pharaoh in David’s time, unlike the successor who gave his daughter to Solomon, was hostile to Israel. His providing refuge and sustenance to this Edomite refugee from David’s onslaught is politically motivated, with the calculation that at some future point Hadad might prove useful in the conflict with David.
19. the royal consort. Translations invariably render this as “the queen.” But the Hebrew does not call her queen, malkah, but rather gevirah, a term that elsewhere (including 15:13 in this book) designates the queen mother. Tahpenes could not be the king’s mother because she is his wife, but gevirah seems to be extended to a woman intimately related to the king though lacking the full authority and status of queen.
20. Tahpanes weaned him. This looks odd because as his aunt, she certainly would not have suckled the child. The attachment of this verb to her might suggest that she had a kind of adoptive relationship with the infant, a child fathered by a foreigner, and so in some symbolic or even legal fashion could be said to preside over his weaning.
22. No. Send me off. No continuation of the story is given, so there is no way of knowing whether Hadad was repatriated. If he was, then he would presumably have taken up his role as “adversary” to Solomon, son of the man who had massacred the male population of Edom. Verse 25 suggests that in fact he played this role.
23. who had fled from Hadadezer his master. Rezon is not referred to as being “of the royal seed.” The implication may be that he was a plebeian who may have been part of a conspiracy against the king.
24. they reigned in Damascus. The use of the plural may make sense in this context: Rezon is not of royal stock; he has gathered around him a private militia; and it is this group of fighting men who have seized control of Damascus.
25. together with. The Hebrew preposition looks a little strange but could simply mean that the harm perpetrated by Rezon was in addition to the harm done by Hadad.
26. a servant to Solomon. The precise nature of the service he performs in Solomon’s court is spelled out in verse 28.
28. an able fellow. The Hebrew gibor ḥayil in military contexts means “valiant warrior,” but it can also indicate in pacific contexts either competence or wealth.
the lad. The Hebrew naʿar here might refer not to youth but to subordinate position.
could carry out tasks. More literally, “was a carrier-out of tasks.”
the heavy labor. This activity is linked with the building and the repair of breaches in the wall mentioned in the previous verse. The Hebrew sevel derives from a root that means bearing burdens.
29. the prophet Ahijah. The only prophet who has appeared in this story until now is Nathan, but from this point there will be many. Unlike the so-called literary prophets, they do not deliver extensive poetic messages of rebuke or consolation, but they do pronounce what the future will be.
the two of them alone in the field. By its subversive nature, Ahijah’s communication to Jeroboam has to be in a clandestine setting.
30. tore it into twelve pieces. Turning the torn cloak into a sign picks up Saul’s tearing of Samuel’s cloak, which Samuel immediately turns into a sign that God will tear the kingship away from Saul. The earlier tearing of the garment was inadvertent, whereas this act is deliberately carried out as a symbol of what will happen.
34. prince. God’s words, as quoted by Ahijah, avoid the authoritative title “king” and instead use an ambiguous word that often designates a tribal chieftain. Solomon’s kingship, one sees, is already slipping away.
36. so that there be a lamp for David my servant. The language of the prophecy labors to preserve the notion of a divinely elected Davidic dynasty even as most of the kingdom is about to be shorn from the line of David.
38. if you hearken to all that I charge you. Once again, the language is explicitly Deuteronomistic.
39. because of this. Presumably the reference is to the idolatrous backsliding under the rule of Solomon.
40. And Solomon sought to put Jeroboam to death. No report is given of the actions by Jeroboam that might have provoked the king’s attempt to kill him (the Septuagint supplies details, but these are of doubtful authority), but one must assume that after the encounter with Ahijah, Jeroboam took steps—like Macbeth after the prophecy of the witches—to secure the throne for himself.
Shishak king of Egypt. This is clearly a Pharaoh who has come after the one who gave his daughter to Solomon, and who regards Solomon’s kingdom with suspicion, if not hostility.
41. the Book of the Acts of Solomon. This text would seem to be some sort of court annals. It is quite possible that the writer or writers responsible for Solomon’s story beginning with 1 Kings 3 drew materials from this book, though that remains in the realm of conjecture.
42. forty years. This is, of course, a formulaic number—one frequently used to designate the length of time a leader in the Book of Judges remained in power. In all likelihood, it reflects knowledge that Solomon reigned for a relatively long time, a full generation in biblical terms.
1And Rehoboam came to Shechem, for all Israel had come to Shechem to make him king. 2And it happened when Jeroboam son of Nebat heard, and he was still in Egypt where he had fled from King Solomon, and Jeroboam had stayed in Egypt, 3that they sent and called to him, and Jeroboam and all the assembly of Israel came and spoke to Rehoboam, saying, 4“Your father made our yoke heavy, and you, now lighten the hard labor of your father and his heavy yoke that he put on us, that we may serve you.” 5And he said to them, “Go off another three days and come back to me,” and the people went off. 6And King Rehoboam took counsel with the elders who stood in the service of his father while he was alive, saying, “How do you counsel to respond to this people?” 7And, they spoke to him, saying, “If today you will be a servant to this people and serve them and answer them and speak good words to them, they will be servants to you always.” 8And he forsook the counsel of the elders that they had given him and took counsel with the young men with whom he had grown up, who stood in his service. 9And he said to them, “What do you counsel that we should respond to this people that has spoken to me, saying, ‘Lighten the yoke that your father put on us’?” 10And the young men with whom he had grown up spoke to him, saying, “Thus shall you say to these people who have spoken to you, saying, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, and you, lighten it for us.’ Thus shall you say to them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins. 11And now, my father burdened you with a heavy yoke, and I will add to your yoke. My father scourged you with whips, and I will scourge you with scorpions.’” 12And Jeroboam, and all the people with him, came to Rehoboam on the third day, as the king had said, “Return to me on the third day.” 13And the king answered the people harshly and forsook the counsel of the elders that they had given him. 14And he spoke to them according to the counsel of the young men, saying, “My father made your yoke heavy and I will add to your yoke. My father scourged you with whips and I will scourge you with scorpions.” 15And the king did not hearken to the people, for it was brought about by the LORD in order to fulfill His word that the LORD had spoken through Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam son of Nebat. 16And all Israel saw that the king had not hearkened to them, and the people responded to the king, saying,
“We have no share in David
nor an estate in the son of Jesse.
To your tents, O Israel!
And Israel went to their tents. 17As to the Israelites dwelling in the towns of Judah, Rehoboam was king over them. 18And King Rehoboam sent out Adoram, who was over the forced labor, and all Israel stoned him and he died. Then King Rehoboam hastened to mount a chariot to flee to Jerusalem. 19And Israel has rebelled against the house of David to this day. 20And it happened when all Israel heard that Jeroboam had come back, that they sent and called him to the community and made him king over all Israel. There was no one following the house of David save Judah alone. 21And Rehoboam came to Jerusalem and assembled all the house of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin, a hundred eighty thousand picked warriors to do battle with the house of Israel to bring back the kingship to Rehoboam son of Solomon. 22And the word of the LORD came to Shemaiah man of God, saying, 23“Say to Rehoboam son of Solomon king of Judah and to all the house of Judah and Benjamin and the rest of the people, saying, 24Thus said the LORD, ‘You shall not go up and you shall not do battle with your Israelite brothers. Go back each man to his house, for from Me has this thing come about.’” And they heeded the LORD’s word and turned back from going, according to the LORD’s word.
25And Jeroboam rebuilt Shechem in the high country of Ephraim and dwelled in it. And he went out from there and rebuilt Penuel. 26And Jeroboam said in his heart, “Now the kingdom will turn back to the house of David, 27if this people go up to do sacrifices in the house of the LORD in Jerusalem, the heart of this people will turn back to their master, to Rehoboam king of Judah, and they will kill me and turn back to Rehoboam king of Judah.” 28And the king took counsel and made two golden calves and said to the people, “Enough for you to go up to Jerusalem! Here are your gods, Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” 29And he placed one in Bethel and the other he set in Dan. 30And this thing became an offense; and the people marched before the one in Bethel and the other in Dan. 31And he made buildings for the high places and made priests from the pick of the people who were not from the sons of Levi. 32And Jeroboam made a festival in the eighth month on the fifteenth day of the month like the festival that was in Judah, and he went up on the altar. Thus did he do in Bethel to sacrifice to the calves that he had made, and he set up in Bethel the priests of the high places he had made. 33And he went up on the altar that he had made in Bethel on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, in the month he had devised from his own heart. And he made a festival for the Israelites and went up on the altar to burn incense.
CHAPTER 12 NOTES
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1. for all Israel had come to Shechem to make him king. Shechem was a frequent assembly point in the tribal period. One might have expected, however, that the coronation would take place in Jerusalem. In this national meeting at Shechem there appears to be an intimation that Rehoboam’s succession to the throne was not an automatic matter, or, to put this differently, that the Davidic rule over what had been, barely half a century earlier, a federation of tribes was not entirely assured. Thus Rehoboam comes out from Jerusalem to an assembly that he hopes will acclaim or ratify his succession. His knowledge of Jeroboam’s ambitions for the throne may be a motivator.
4. made our yoke heavy. The literal sense of the Hebrew verb is “made hard,” but in all the subsequent occurrences of “yoke” in this story, the more expected “heavy” is used.
now lighten the hard labor. The people refer, of course, to the punishing taxation through forced labor necessitated by Solomon’s vast building projects. Requests for remission of taxes and obligations to the crown when a new king assumed the throne were common in the ancient Near East.
6. the elders. These would be a group of state councillors, experienced men who are not necessarily aged but knowledgeable.
7. this people. They are referred to by all parties in this story with the demonstrative pronoun, distancing them and indicating them as a refractory group with which one must know how to deal properly.
8. the young men with whom he had grown up. The word for “young men,” yeladim, usually means “child” or even “infant.” Since we later learn that Rehoboam was forty when he became king, these are actually middle-aged men. The term may have been chosen to underscore their puerile behavior. In any case, the episode surely reflects the ancient predisposition to seek wisdom from elders, as Job’s three friends repeatedly stress.
10. My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins. This extravagant metaphor is the advice of arrogance. In the event, Rehoboam deletes these words in his response to the people. A few interpreters have seen a sexual allusion here, perhaps because of the proximity to loins, with “little finger” a euphemism for the male member (in rabbinic Hebrew, “little member” means “penis”). That would be in keeping with the macho brashness of these words.
11. I will scourge you with scorpions. These would be either actual scorpions, perhaps poisonous, or an iron implement with a ragged head, perhaps one carved to resemble a scorpion.
15. for it was brought about by the LORD. Rehoboam’s alienating the people has been reported in realistic—possibly historical—terms as a very unwise policy decision. Now, however, it is given a theological explanation: this is the means through which God causes Ahijah’s prophecy to be fulfilled.
16. See to your house, O David! The people’s response, in two lines of poetry, vividly expresses the distance they now feel from the Davidic monarchy: Rehoboam’s brutal language makes them realize that this recently founded dynasty has been a bad idea, and that they owe no fealty to it.
18. Adoram. Earlier, his name was given a longer form, Adoniram.
who was over the forced labor. It is precisely the forced labor that had been the people’s chief complaint. Rehoboam, not yet realizing that his writ no longer extends over the whole people, sends out the chief overseer over the forced labor, unwittingly consigning him to his death.
Then King Rehoboam hastened to mount a chariot. Adoram’s murder by the mob makes Rehoboam realize that his own life is in danger.
21. the tribe of Benjamin. Part of Benjamin remained loyal to the house of David.
the house of Israel. Henceforth, this phrase will refer to the northern tribes, in contradistinction to Judah.
22. Shemaiah man of God. He is clearly a prophet, precisely like Ahijah, but here an alternate designation is used.
24. And they heeded the LORD’s word. It is not clear that they would automatically concede the divine authority of words pronounced by a particular prophet or man of God. In this instance, however, the prospect of a bloody civil war and of a military confrontation between two tribes and ten may have disposed them to accept the prophecy. It is noteworthy that “they”—the people—heed the prophecy, while no explicit mention is made of the king. It may be that the force of the prophetic injunction swayed the people, leaving Rehoboam no choice but to acquiesce.
25. rebuilt Shechem … rebuilt Penuel. Penuel was destroyed by Gideon to revenge the failure of its elders to give provisions to his troops (see Judges 8). In the case of Shechem, fortification may be what is indicated.
26. Now the kingdom will turn back to the house of David. Jeroboam clearly understands what Josiah in the seventh century B.C.E. will understand, that possession of a cultic center is also a claim to centralized political authority. Thus he takes steps to create cultic places in the north.
28. two golden calves … “Here are your gods, Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” The representation of Jeroboam’s act as idolatrous—underscored by the use of “gods” in the plural—is tendentious. Calves or bulls were often conceived as a mount or a throne of God, precisely like those winged leonine figures, the cherubim. In all historical likelihood, Jeroboam’s intention was not to displace the worship of YHWH but merely to create alternate cultic centers to Jerusalem with an alternate temple iconography. But the narrator pointedly represents all this in precisely the terms, with an explicit quotation, of Aaron’s golden calf (Exodus 32).
29. one in Bethel and the other … in Dan. Bethel was a well-known cultic site, and archaeologists have uncovered the remnants of a substantial cultic site at Dan in the far north. Jeroboam’s decision to create two cultic centers may be a concession on his part to the loose and disparate nature of the constellation of tribes that constituted his new kingdom.
30. And this thing became an offense. It is important for the Deuteronomistic writer to establish that the first king of Israel, despite the admonition of Ahijah, initiated idolatry in his realm, thus setting the stage for the eventual destruction of the northern kingdom.
and the people marched before the one in Bethel and the other in Dan. The Masoretic Text lacks “the one in Bethel,” surely an inadvertent omission. One might have expected the phrase “to go after,” the preposition used for idolatry in 11:2 and 4. Here “to go” is rendered as “to march,” presupposing that the reference is to a procession before the cultic calves.
31. he made buildings for the high places. The literal sense of the Hebrew is “he made a house of high places.” The reference may be to the erection of sanctuaries around the hilltop altars.
the pick of the people. This is what this Hebrew phrase indicates elsewhere, though others understand it in an opposite sense, “the common people.” Jeroboam, however, would have had no motivation to enlist priests from the peasantry. His waywardness is rather reflected in bypassing the priestly caste. See Genesis 47:2, where this same expression appears to mean “the pick” or “the best.”
32. a festival in the eighth month. Calendric differences have often been the lever of sectarian or political divisions among Jews. The festival referred to is Succoth, the most densely attended of the three pilgrim festivals. Its designated date is on the fifteenth of the seventh month, so Jeroboam, by pushing it a month later, is marking a pointed difference between his realm and the southern kingdom.
to sacrifice to the calves that he had made. The wording again represents the cult Jeroboam had set up as sheer idolatry.
1And, look, a man of God came from Judah through the word of the LORD to Bethel, with Jeroboam standing on the altar to burn incense. 2And he called out against the altar by the word of the LORD and said, “Altar, altar! Thus says the LORD: ‘Look, a son is to be born to the house of David, Josiah his name, and he shall sacrifice upon you the priests of the high places who burn incense upon you, and they shall burn upon you human bones.’” 3And he gave a portent on that day, saying, “This is the portent, that the LORD has spoken: look, the altar is about to be torn asunder, and the ashes that are upon it will be spilled.” 4And it happened when the king heard the word of the man of God that he had called out against the altar in Bethel, Jeroboam reached out his hand, saying, “Seize him.” And the hand he reached out against him withered, and he could not pull it back. 5And the altar was torn asunder and the ashes were spilled from the altar according to the portent that the man of God had given by the word of the LORD. 6And the king spoke out and said to the man of God, “Entreat, please, the LORD your God and pray for me, that my hand come back to me.” And the man of God entreated the LORD, and the king’s hand came back to him and was as it had been before. 7And the king spoke to the man of God, “Come into the house with me and dine, that I may give you a gift.” 8And the man of God said to the king, “Should you give me half your house, I would not come with you and I would not eat bread and I would not drink water in this place. 9For thus it was charged me by the word of the LORD, saying, ‘No bread shall you eat nor water shall you drink nor shall you go back on the way that you went.’” 10And he went off on another way, and he did not return on the way that he had come to Bethel. 11And a certain old prophet was dwelling in Bethel, and his sons came and recounted to him the whole deed that the man of God had done that day in Bethel, the words that he had spoken to the king, they recounted them to their father. 12And their father spoke to them, “By what way did he go?” And his sons showed him the way on which the man of God who had come from Judah had gone. 13And he said to his sons, “Saddle the donkey for me.” And they saddled the donkey for him and he mounted it. 14And he went after the man of God and found him sitting under a terebinth. And he said to him, “Are you the man of God who came from Judah?” And he said, “I am.” 15And he said, “Come home with me and eat bread.” 16And he said, “I cannot go back with you, nor will I eat bread nor will I drink water in this place. 17For a word came to me, by the word of the LORD, ‘You shall eat no bread nor shall you drink water nor shall you go back to go on the way that you went.’” 18And he said to him, “I, too, am a prophet like you, and a divine messenger spoke to me with the word of the LORD, saying, ‘Bring him back with you to your house, that he may eat bread and drink water.’” He lied to him. 19And he went back with him and ate bread in his house and drank water. 20And it happened as they were sitting at the table, that the word of the LORD came to the prophet who had brought him back, 21and he called out to the man of God who had come from Judah, saying, “Thus said the LORD: ‘Inasmuch as you have flouted the word of the LORD and not kept the command that the LORD your God commanded you, 22and you came back and ate bread and drank water in the place of which He spoke to you, Do not eat bread nor drink water, your carcass shall not come to the grave of your fathers.’” 23And it happened after he had eaten bread and after he had drunk water that the prophet who had brought him back saddled the donkey for him. 24And he went off, and a lion found him on the way and killed him, and his carcass was flung down on the way with the donkey standing by him and the lion standing by the carcass. 25And, look, people were passing by, and they saw the carcass flung down on the way and the lion standing by the carcass, and they came and spoke of it in the town in which the old prophet lived. 26And the prophet who had brought him back from the way heard and he said, “It is the man of God who flouted the word of the LORD, and the LORD has given him over to the lion, and it has torn him apart and killed him, according to the word of the LORD that He spoke to him.” 27And he spoke to his sons, saying, “Saddle the donkey for me,” and they saddled it. 28And he went and found his carcass flung down on the way. The lion had not eaten the carcass and had not torn apart the donkey. 29And the prophet lifted the man of God’s carcass and laid it on the donkey, and he brought him back to the town of the old prophet to keen for him and to bury him. 30And he lay his carcass in his grave and keened for him, “Woe, my brother.” 31And it happened after he had buried him that he said to his sons, saying, “When I die, bury me in the grave in which the man of God is buried; by his bones lay my bones. 32For the word will surely come about that he called by the word of the LORD concerning the altar which is in Bethel and concerning all the buildings of the high places that are in the towns of Samaria.” 33Yet after this thing Jeroboam did not turn back from his evil way, and again he made priests from the pick of the people. Whoever desired was ordained and became one of the priests of the high places. 34And this thing became an offense for the house of Jeroboam, to wipe it out and destroy it from the face of the earth.
CHAPTER 13 NOTES
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1. a man of God. As before, this is an alternate designation for prophet. In this story, however, the man who comes from Judah to Bethel is consistently called a man of God, whereas the old man who will go after him and bring him home to dine is called a prophet. Verse 26 is the one seeming exception, but that may reflect a textual problem.
2. Altar, altar! This sort of apostrophe to an inanimate object is not a usual form of prophetic address. The man of God adopts it for shock effect, to direct attention to what he understands to be an entirely illegitimate altar and cult.
a son is to be born to the house of David, Josiah his name. Josiah was king of Judah three centuries after the time of this story, which thus was surely composed no earlier than the late seventh century B.C.E. The continuation of this story appears in 2 Kings 23, where Josiah is reported to have undertaken a sweeping campaign to destroy idols and the apparatus of pagan worship. In the course of that campaign, he slaughters the idolatrous priests and also exhumes bones from graves and burns them on the altar of Bethel in order to make it forever ritually impure.
7. Come into the house with me and dine. Jeroboam, having seen the man of God’s fearsome power both in the destruction of the altar and the paralyzing and restoring of his arm, seeks to make him an ally.
9. No bread shall you eat nor water shall you drink. This prohibition is understandable as an expression of God’s absolute rejection of Jeroboam’s wayward kingdom: the man of God must shun the king, not breaking bread with him or even drinking water in his house.
nor shall you go back on the way you went. This third prohibition is less transparent. Perhaps the fact that he must take a different route back to Judah is meant to indicate that the dire prophecy he has pronounced is irreversible, though it looks rather like the kind of arbitrary injunction one often encounters in folktales: if you fail to follow these precise stipulations for your mission, disaster will ensue.
11. a certain old prophet. The fact that the old prophet lies to the man of God (verse 18) may raise questions about his legitimacy as prophet, but in verse 21 he is represented as the authentic vehicle for the word of the LORD.
his sons. The Masoretic Text has a singular here, but two Hebrew manuscripts and three ancient versions show a plural, the form that appears in the rest of the verse and in the next one.
14. And he went after the man of God. The man of God, as the sons have reported to the old man, has just demonstrated his credentials by performing two spectacular portents. It would appear that, as a result, the old prophet wants to associate himself with the man of God from Judah, perhaps enhancing his own prophetic status in this fashion.
18. He lied to him. Although the lie has fatal consequences, it may have been impelled by a good intention. The old man might well have imagined that the stern prohibition was directed against the king’s house but not against the house of a prophet like himself—a professional colleague of the man of God. Seeing how determined the man from Judah is to observe the prohibition, he permits himself to fabricate the story about the divine messenger.
20. the word of the LORD came to the prophet. The old man, now made the conduit of the prophecy of doom pronounced upon the man of God, is forced to see how drastically mistaken he was in bringing the man home with him under false pretences.
22. your carcass. The Hebrew neveilah usually refers to an animal carcass, not to a human corpse. Its repeated use here may emphasize the abject condition of the slaughtered man of God, his body flung down on the way.
23. the prophet who had brought him back saddled the donkey for him. The Masoretic Text reads: “and he saddled the donkey for the prophet which he had brought back.” This reading is problematic because throughout the story only the old man is called a prophet, and the other is invariably referred to as the man of God. The emendation on which the translation rests involves the change of a single consonant, hanaviʾ instead of lanaviʾ with no alteration of the Hebrew word order.
24. a lion found him on the way. This part of the story is not miraculous because in ancient Israel there was an abundance of lions in the countryside, a fact reflected in the currency of five different terms for “lion” in biblical Hebrew.
his carcass was flung down on the way with the donkey standing by him and the lion standing by the carcass. It is in this bizarre tableau that the miraculous character of the event is manifested. As we learn in verse 28, the lion kills the man but does not eat him and does not harm the donkey. Moreover, he remains standing by the body and the donkey instead of going off, as one would expect.
26. who flouted the word of the LORD. It must be said that the old prophet plays a rather ambiguous role in this story. After all, it was his lie about having received instructions from a divine messenger that led the man of God to go back with him to his house and thus flout the word of the LORD. His pronouncement here does not appear to express any remorse or any sense of guilt about the death that he has caused. Perhaps he still feels that he acted out of good intentions and that the man of God should have strictly observed the divine prohibitions, whatever the persuasive force of an argument to the contrary.
31. bury me in the grave in which the man of God is buried. He had wanted to have communion with this prophetic colleague through an act of hospitality. Now he wants to have solidarity with him after his death through a common grave. In the completion of this story in 2 Kings 23, this joint burial will have a positive posthumous consequence for the old prophet because Josiah will spare the bones buried in the man of God’s grave from being exhumed and burned on the Bethel altar.
32. For the word will surely come about. The old prophet appears to have foreseen the means by which human bones will be burned on this altar in order to render it impure—the exhumation of bones from local graves—and so he may be buying himself a kind of burial insurance by having his body buried together with the man who pronounced the dire prophecy about the altar. This entire story remains bizarre to the end.
34. to wipe it out and destroy it from the face of the earth. The late writer, formulating his story more than a century after the total destruction of the northern kingdom, has that historical catastrophe in mind (although the immediate reference is to the house of Jeroboam) and here offers a theological explanation, in keeping with his Deuteronomistic outlook—the offense of cultic disloyalty.
1At that time Abijah son of Jeroboam fell ill. 2And Jeroboam said to his wife, “Rise, pray, and disguise yourself, that they will not know you are Jeroboam’s wife, and go to Shiloh, for Ahijah the prophet is there, who spoke to me to become king over this people. 3And take in your hand ten loaves of bread and cakes and a jar of honey and come to him. He will tell you what will happen to the lad.” 4And so did Jeroboam’s wife do: she rose and went to Shiloh and came to Ahijah’s house, but Ahijah could not see, for his eyes had gone blind from old age. 5And the LORD had said to Ahijah, “Look, Jeroboam’s wife is about to come to you to ask an oracle concerning her son, for he is ill, and thus and so shall you speak to her. And when she comes she will feign to be another.” 6And it happened when Ahijah heard the sound of her footsteps coming through the entrance, he said, “Come in, wife of Jeroboam. Why should you feign to be another when I have been sent to you with harsh tidings? 7Go, say to Jeroboam, ‘Thus said the LORD God of Israel: Inasmuch as I have raised you up from the people and made you prince over My people Israel, 8and I have torn the kingdom from the house of David and given it to you, but you have not been like My servant David, who kept My commands and who walked after Me with all his heart to do only what was right in My eyes, 9and you have done evil more than all who were before you and have gone and made yourself other gods and molten images to vex Me, and Me have you flung behind your back, 10therefore am I about to bring evil on the house of Jeroboam, and I will cut off from Jeroboam every pisser against the wall, bondsman and freeborn in Israel, and I will burn out from the house of Jeroboam as one burns dung till it is gone. 11Jeroboam’s dead in the town the dogs will eat, and the dead in the field, the fowl of the heavens, for the LORD has spoken.’ 12And you, rise, go to your house. As your feet come into the town, the child will die. 13And all Israel shall keen for him and bury him, for he alone of Jeroboam shall come to a grave inasmuch as in him alone in the house of Jeroboam a good thing is found before the LORD God of Israel. 14And the LORD will raise up for Himself a king over Israel who will cut off the house of Jeroboam this day and, indeed, even now. 15And the LORD will strike Israel as a reed sways in the water, and He will uproot Israel from the good land that He gave to their fathers and will scatter them beyond the River inasmuch as they have made their sacred poles that vex the LORD. 16And He will give Israel up because of the offenses of Jeroboam that he committed and that he led Israel to commit.” 17And Jeroboam’s wife rose and went off and came to Tirzah. She was coming over the threshold of the house when the lad died. 18And all Israel buried him and keened for him, according to the word of the LORD that He had spoken through His servant Ahijah the prophet. 19And the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, wherein he did battle and whereby he reigned, why they are written in the Book of the Acts of the Kings of Israel. 20And the time that Jeroboam reigned was twenty-two years. And he lay with his fathers, and Nadab his son was king in his stead.
21And Rehoboam son of Solomon king of Judah was forty-one years old when he became king, and seventeen years he was king in Jerusalem, the city that the LORD chose to set His name there from all the tribes of Israel. And his mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonite. 22And Judah did what was evil in the eyes of the LORD, and they provoked Him more than all that their fathers had done in their offenses that they committed. 23And they, too, built high places and steles and sacred poles on every high hill and under every lush tree. 24And male cult-harlots, too, there were in the land. They did like all the abominations of the nations that the LORD had dispossessed before Israel. 25And it happened in the fifth year of Rehoboam’s reign that Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem. 26And he took the treasures of the house of the LORD and the treasures of the house of the king, and everything did he take, and he took all the gold bucklers that Solomon made. 27And Rehoboam made bronze bucklers in their stead and entrusted them to the officers of the royal sentries who guarded the entrance of the king’s house. 28And it happened, when the king would come to the house of the LORD, the royal sentries would carry them and bring them back to the chamber of the royal sentries. 29And the rest of the acts of Rehoboam, and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Acts of the Kings of Judah? 30And there was constant war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam. 31And Rehoboam lay with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the City of David. And his mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonite. And Abijam his son reigned in his stead.
CHAPTER 14 NOTES
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1. At that time. This particular temporal reference is a generalized formulaic phrase that does not indicate that what follows happened precisely at the same time as the preceding events in the narrative.
3. ten loaves of bread and cakes and a jar of honey. It was customary to bring gifts to a prophet or seer when seeking oracular counsel from him. These in effect constituted his professional income.
4. but Ahijah could not see. This is the first indication that Jeroboam’s plan has gone awry. He has instructed his wife to go in disguise, but the disguise proves to be pointless because the prophet is blind. In any case, God will expose the disguise in speaking to the blind prophet. The blindness, a consequence of old age, is also an indication that a good deal of time has passed since Ahijah’s fateful encounter on the road with Jeroboam.
5. thus and so shall you speak to her. This convention of using a phrase like this of summary without stipulation of the actual words is not infrequent in biblical dialogue and reflects its formal bias of stylization. In this case, it is a means of postponing the revelation of the prophecy of doom that Ahijah will pronounce against the house of Jeroboam.
6. when Ahijah heard the sound of her footsteps. This detail nicely captures the perspective of the blind man, who has to depend on his acute sense of hearing. Though sightless, he of course knows who has come, why she has come, and the fact that she is disguised, because God has told him all this.
7. prince. In God’s words, the term melekh, “king,” is avoided, and the vaguer term nagid, “prince” (etymologically, he who takes the place in front of others), is used instead for Jeroboam.
8. My servant David, who kept My commands. As before, this is an idealized image of David that does not square with the narrative in 1 and 2 Samuel.
9. and you have done evil more than all who were before you. In light of the fact that there is only one king between Jeroboam and David, the reference here is probably to all the bad behavior of the people of Israel from the backslidings in the Wilderness stories onward.
10. I will cut off from Jeroboam every pisser against the wall. This coarse epithet for males, which David uses in vowing to destroy Nabal and all the males of his household (1 Samuel 25:22), may well have been formulaic in pronouncing resolutions of total destruction, so that even God uses it.
bondsman and freeborn. The meaning of these two Hebrew terms is much in dispute.
as one burns dung. The Hebrew verb can mean “root out,” “eradicate,” but since pieces of dried dung were used as fuel, it is fairly likely that the sense of burning is activated here, or that there is a punning relationship between rooting out the house of Jeroboam and burning dung. The simile of dung obviously conveys a withering sense of the value of the house of Jeroboam.
11. Jeroboam’s dead in the town the dogs will eat. As in the Greek world, leaving a corpse to the degradation of scavengers was conceived as a fundamental violation of the sanctity of the human body.
12. As your feet come into the town. This slightly odd phrase for arrival picks up the sound of the woman’s feet that the blind prophet heard as she came into his house.
13. a good thing is found before the LORD. The virtue in the sick child that earns him a proper burial is left unspecified.
14. this day and, indeed, even now. The Hebrew words—each of them perfectly ordinary—sound a little peculiar, but the gist seems to be that the end of the house of Jeroboam is very imminent.
15. beyond the River. The Euphrates.
19. the Book of the Acts of the Kings of Israel. As with the Book of the Acts of Solomon, this appears to be some sort of royal annals that was probably drawn on as a source by the author of our narrative.
20. And he lay with his fathers. Since, according to the terms of the curse on the house of Jeroboam, he was not supposed to come to a proper burial, this must be taken as a general idiom for dying.
21. And Rehoboam son of Solomon king of Judah. From this point onward, the narrative will switch back and forth between the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah.
22. And Judah did. In contrast to Jeroboam, Rehoboam is not said to be directly responsible, so he may have been seen as merely permissive about pagan practice.
23. on every high hill and under every lush tree. This is a formulaic phrase, obviously reflecting the writer’s view that the only legitimate place for the cult was in the Jerusalem temple. But the phrase also marks what is seen as a dangerous intertwining between worship and nature: “high places” or shrines on hilltops, rituals under sacred trees, in some instances may have been associated with a fertility cult. There is an easy segue from the lush trees of this verse to the male cult-harlots in the next verse.
25. Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem. Finally, the biblical text gives us a Pharaoh with a name. An inscription at one entrance of a sanctuary at Karnak in fact offers a list of towns in Judah and Israel that Shishak attacked in the course of a sweeping military campaign in 926 B.C.E. Jerusalem, however, does not appear in the list. The language of the biblical text here is a little vague: Shishak “came up against Jerusalem” and “took the treasures.” This leaves open the possibility that he besieged the city without conquering it and that he extorted the treasures from Rehoboam in return for lifting the siege.
27. the royal sentries. The Hebrew ratsim means “runners,” but men put in charge of palace treasures would scarcely be couriers, and it is immediately stated that they served as guards. Perhaps the Hebrew term was used because they also had some function of running before the king’s chariots in royal processions.
29. the Book of the Acts of the Kings of Judah. See the comment on verse 19.
30. And there was constant war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam. This brief notice suggests how selective the narratives of the kings are. Nothing is reported of the course of war between the two kingdoms. For Jeroboam, we get only his backsliding into idolatry and the consequent prophecies of doom for his house. For the shorter narrative about Rehoboam, again we are told of the spread of pagan worship, and of the surrender of the treasures to Shishak—nothing more. The story of the kings, in keeping with the Deuteronomistic perspective, is more focused on cultic dereliction, always seen as the cause of historical disaster, than on political history.
31. and was buried with his fathers. Pointedly, this phrase is absent from the report of Jeroboam’s death in verse 20.
And his mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonite. This verbatim repetition of the identification of Rehoboam’s mother from verse 21 may seem a bit odd, and could be the result of an editorial glitch, though perhaps the writer meant to underscore both at the beginning and the end of Rehoboam’s story the link of this king with the world of idolatry.
1And in the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam son of Nebat, Abijam was king over Judah. 2Three years he was king in Jerusalem, and his mother’s name was Maachah daughter of Absalom. 3And he went in all the offenses of his father that he had done before him, and his heart was not whole with the LORD his God like the heart of David his forefather. 4For the LORD his God for David’s sake had given him a lamp in Jerusalem to raise up his son after him and to make Jerusalem stand, 5as David had done what was right in the eyes of the LORD and had not swerved from all that He charged him all the days of his life, except for the matter of Uriah the Hittite. 6And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of his life. 7And the rest of the acts of Abijam and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Acts of the Kings of Judah? And there was war between Abijam and Jeroboam. 8And Abijam lay with his fathers, and they buried him in the City of David, and Asa his son was king in his stead.
9And in the twentieth year of Jeroboam king of Israel, Asa king of Judah became king. 10And forty-one years he was king in Jerusalem, and his mother’s name was Maachah daughter of Absalom. 11And Asa did what was right in the eyes of the LORD like David his forefather. 12And he rid the land of male cult-harlots and removed the vile idols that his fathers had made. 13And Maachah his mother, too, he removed from being queen mother, as she had made a horror for Asherah. And Asa cut down her horror, and burned it in the Kidron Wadi. 14But the high places did not disappear, only the heart of Asa was whole with the LORD all his days. 15And he brought his father’s consecrated things and his own consecrated things into the house of the LORD—silver and gold and vessels. 16And there was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days. 17And Baasha king of Israel came up against Judah and built Ramah so as not to allow anyone to come or go who belonged to Asa king of Judah. 18And Asa took all the silver and the gold remaining in the treasuries of the house of the LORD and the king’s treasuries and put them in the hand of his servants, and King Asa sent them to King Ben-Hadad son of Tabrimmon son of Hezion of Aram, who dwelled in Damascus, saying, 19“There is a pact between you and me, between your father and my father. Look, I have sent you a payment of silver and gold. Go, revoke your pact with Baasha king of Israel, that he withdraw from me.” 20And Ben-Hadad heeded King Asa and sent the commanders of the troops that he had against the towns of Israel, and he struck down Ijon and Dan and all Abel-Beth-Maacah and all Kinroth, with all the land of Naphtali. 21And it happened, when Baasha heard, that he left off building Ramah, and he stayed in Tirzah. 22And King Asa had mustered all Judah, none was exempt. And they bore off the stones of Ramah and its timbers with which Baasha had built, and King Asa built with them Geba-Benjamin and Mizpah. 23And the rest of all the acts of Asa and all his valor and all that he did and the towns that he built, are they not written in the Book of the Acts of the Kings of Judah? Only in his old age he was ailing in his feet. 24And Asa lay with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the City of David his forefather. And Jehoshaphat his son was king in his stead.
25And Nadab son of Jeroboam had become king over Israel in the second year of Asa king of Judah, and he was king over Israel two years. 26And he did evil in the eyes of the LORD and went in the way of his father and his offense that he had led Israel to offend. 27And Baasha son of Ahijah of the house of Issachar plotted against him, and Baasha struck him down in Gibethon, which was the Philistines’, when Nadab and all Israel were besieging Gibethon. 28And Baasha put him to death in the third year of Asa king of Judah, and he became king in his stead. 29And it happened when he became king that he struck down the whole house of Jeroboam, he did not leave Jeroboam any breathing creature, until he destroyed him, according to the words of the LORD which He had spoken through His servant Ahijah the Shilonite, 30for the offenses of Jeroboam that he committed and that he led Israel to commit, through the vexation through which he vexed the LORD God of Israel. 31And the rest of the acts of Nadab and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Acts of the Kings of Israel? 32And there was constant war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel. 33In the third year of Asa king of Judah, Baasha son of Ahijah became king over all Israel in Tirzah, for twenty-four years. 34And he did evil in the eyes of the LORD, and he went in the way of Jeroboam and in his offense that he had led Israel to commit.
CHAPTER 15 NOTES
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2. his mother’s name was Maachah daughter of Absalom. There is a problem in this notice because Maachah is also said (verse 10) to be the mother of the next king, Asa, who is Abijam’s son, and there is no warrant for the use of “mother” to mean “grandmother.” (In 2 Chronicles 13:2 it is reported that Abijam’s mother was Michaiah, daughter of Uriel from Gibeah. It is unlikely that the Absalom mentioned here is the same person as David’s son who usurped the throne.)
5. except for the matter of Uriah the Hittite. The murder of Uriah is David’s great crime, but even this notation reflects a rather selective reading of his checkered history.
6. And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam. This would have to mean the house of Rehoboam because it is the reign of Abijam that is being discussed. The repetition of this whole sentence at the end of the next verse looks redundant and may reflect a scribal error.
12. vile idols. The vocabulary of the Deuteronomistic writers, for understandable ideological reasons, is rich in invective terms for idols, some of them perhaps original coinages. The Hebrew gilulim is formed on a root that suggests “dung.”
13. he removed from being queen mother. From this we may infer that the role of queen mother, gevirah, had certain ceremonial or perhaps even legal functions attached to it. See the comment on 11:19.
horror. The Hebrew mifletset is clearly derived from a verbal root that means to suffer spasms of horror. Its use as an epithet for “idol” is similar to gilulim in verse 12.
And Asa cut down her horror. Some sort of sacred pole was employed in the cult of Asherah—hence the verb “cut down.”
14. But the high places did not disappear. The reason would be either that Asa regarded them as acceptable sites for the worship of YHWH or that they were spread across the countryside and hence resistant to royal control.
19. I have sent you a payment. The noun shoḥad in most other contexts means “bribe.” Either the writer put this word in Asa’s mouth to convey his own judgment that the payment to turn Ben-Hadad against Baasha was a nasty business, or—perhaps more likely—the semantic range of shoḥad extended to mean any payment offered in order to persuade someone to serve one’s purposes.
20. he struck down Ijon and Dan … with all the land of Naphtali. Ben-Hadad’s attack is to the north, whereas Baasha’s troops are concentrated in the south. This would have the effect of making them withdraw from their positions around Ramah. (See the next verse.)
23. Only in his old age he was ailing in his feet. This notice of foot disease (or perhaps paralysis in the feet) is by no means essential to the story and so appears to reflect an actual historical memory about the later years of King Asa, perhaps made poignant by the fact that he had previously been a valiant military commander.
25. And Nadab son of Jeroboam had become king over Israel. Both the form of the verb and the content of the statement mark this as a pluperfect: the narrative now backtracks in order to explain how it came about that Baasha supplanted Jeroboam’s son Nadab as king of Israel.
29. he struck down the whole house of Jeroboam. This liquidation of all the males in the house of Jeroboam is both the fulfillment of the prophet Ahijah’s curse and common ancient Near Eastern practice when someone usurps a royal house. One recalls Macbeth’s impulse to kill Banquo and any of his offspring in order to eliminate anyone who might lay claim to the throne.
1And the word of the LORD came to Jehu son of Hanani about Baasha, saying: 2“Inasmuch as I have raised you from the dust and have made you prince over My people Israel, yet you went in the way of Jeroboam and led My people Israel to offend, to vex Me with their offenses. 3I am about to root out Baasha and his house, and I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat. 4The dogs will eat Baasha’s dead in the town, and his dead in the field the fowl of the heavens will eat.” 5And the rest of the acts of Baasha and that which he did and his valor, are they not written in the Book of the Acts of the Kings of Israel? 6And Baasha lay with his fathers, and he was buried in Tirzah, and Elah his son was king in his stead. 7And indeed through the prophet Jehu son of Hanani the word of the LORD had come against Baasha and against his house, because of the evil he had done in the eyes of the LORD to vex Him by the work of his hands, to become like the house of Jeroboam, and because he had struck him down.
8In the twenty-sixth year of Asa king of Judah, Elah son of Baasha became king over Israel for two years. 9And his servant Zimri commander of half the chariotry plotted against him when he was in Tirzah in a drunken stupor at the house of Arzah, who was appointed over the palace, in Tirzah. 10And Zimri came and struck him down and put him to death in the twenty-seventh year of Asa king of Judah, and he became king in his stead. 11And it happened when he became king, when he took his seat on the throne, that he struck down the whole house of Baasha, he did not leave him a pisser against the wall, nor a blood-redeemer or companion. 12And Zimri destroyed the whole house of Baasha according to the word of the LORD that He had spoken against Baasha through Jehu the prophet, 13for all the offenses of Baasha and the offenses of Elah his son, which they committed and which they led Israel to commit, to vex the LORD God of Israel with their empty idols. 14And the rest of the acts of Elah and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Acts of the Kings of Israel?
15In the twenty-seventh year of Asa king of Judah, Zimri became king in Tirzah for seven days, while the troops encamped at Gibethon, which was the Philistines’. 16And the encamped troops heard, saying, “Zimri has hatched a plot and actually struck down the king.” And all Israel made Omri, commander of the army, king over Israel on that day in the camp. 17And Omri, and all Israel with him, came up from Gibethon and besieged Tirzah. 18And it happened when Zimri saw that that town was taken, he came into the palace, the king’s house, and he burned down the king’s house upon himself and died 19for the offenses that he had committed to do evil in the eyes of the LORD, to go in the way of Jeroboam and in his offense that he had done to lead Israel to commit. 20And the rest of the acts of Zimri and the plot that he had hatched, are they not written in the Book of the Acts of the Kings of Israel? 21Then was the people of Israel divided in two—half the people followed Tibni son of Ginath to make him king and the other half followed Omri. 22And the people who followed Omri were stronger than the people who followed Tibni son of Ginath, and Tibni died, and Omri became king.
23In the thirty-first year of Asa king of Judah, Omri became king over Israel for twelve years. In Tirzah he was king six years. 24And he bought the Mount of Samaria from Shemer for two talents of silver and built up the mount and called the name of the town that he had built up after the name of Shemer master of Mount Samaria. 25And Omri did evil in the eyes of the LORD, and he was more evil than all who were before him. 26And he went in all the way of Jeroboam son of Nebat and in his offenses that he had led Israel to commit, to vex the LORD God of Israel with their empty idols. 27And the rest of the acts of Omri and his valor which he did, are they not written in the Book of the Acts of the Kings of Israel? 28And Omri lay with his fathers and was buried in Samaria, and Ahab his son was king in his stead.
29And Ahab son of Omri became king over Israel in the thirty-eighth year of Asa king of Judah, and Ahab son of Omri was king over Israel in Samaria twenty-two years. 30And Ahab son of Omri did evil in the eyes of the LORD more than all who were before him. 31And it happened, as though it were a light thing for him to follow in the offenses of Jeroboam son of Nebat, that he took as wife Jezebel, daughter of Ithbaal king of the Sidonians, and he went and served Baal and bowed down to him. 32And he set up an altar to Baal in the house of Baal that he had built in Samaria. 33And Ahab made a sacred pole, and Ahab continued to act so as to vex the LORD God of Israel more than all the kings of Israel who were before him. 34In his days Hiel the Bethelite built up Jericho. At the cost of Abiram his firstborn he laid its foundation and at the cost of Segib his youngest he put up its gates, according to the word of the LORD that He spoke through Joshua son of Nun.
CHAPTER 16 NOTES
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1. about Baasha. The Hebrew preposition could also mean “against” and even “to.” In any case, God’s address in the words of the prophecy is directed to Baasha, not to the prophet.
4. The dogs will eat Baasha’s dead in the town. For the force of this curse, which will recur in connection with Ahab and Jezebel, it should be kept in mind that in ancient Israel dogs were semiferal scavengers, not pets, and thus an apt match for “the fowl of the heavens,” which would be vultures and related aerial scavengers.
7. and because he had struck him down. This clause is a little cryptic. The initial “he” has to be Baasha, and so the person he struck down is Jeroboam. Since the destruction of the house of Jeroboam for the offense of idolatry was announced in a divinely authorized prophecy, one might have thought that there was no sin in Baasha’s killing Jeroboam and all the males of his house. Perhaps the writer means to suggest that ruthless murder, even if it is the enactment of deserved retribution, remains ruthless murder, especially if the motives of the killer are far from noble, as appears to be the case with Baasha. In all these reports, the writer manifestly struggles with putting forth a theological explanation for political upheavals. The history of the kingdom of Judah, whatever its vulnerabilities and cultic derelictions, reflects relative stability: Asa’s reign lasts forty years, while a series of kings in the rival kingdom of Israel are assassinated, with one regnal span as little as two years and another only seven days. One might infer that this instability goes back to the fact that the northern kingdom was established by a usurper, Jeroboam, in contrast to the Davidic dynasty in the south with its claim of divine election and the heroic figure of David as its iconic founder. The writer, however, feels constrained to explain that each murdered monarch perished because of his idolatrous ways.
9. commander of half the chariotry. The inevitable inference is that the royal chariotry was divided into two units, but the “half” here anticipates the hostile division between factions that will occur.
when he was in … a drunken stupor. Zimri shrewdly waits for this moment when Elah will be an easy target for attack.
who was appointed over the palace. More literally, “over the house.” Elah is attending a feast at the house of his court official.
11. blood-redeemer. “Blood” is merely implied. The “redeemer” is a relative who in the code of vendetta justice has the obligation to avenge a murdered kinsman. No avenger is left alive by Zimri.
13. for all the offenses of Baasha and the offenses of Elah his son. As noted above, a theological explanation is offered for what appears to be a self-interested act of assassination on the part of a person who wants to seize power.
16. And all Israel. Since Israel is now clearly split into two warring factions, this formulaic phrase must mean all the Israelites present in the military encampment at Gibethon.
made Omri, commander of the army, king. One sees the rapidity with which people rise to, or claim, the throne. What this amounts to in this case is a military coup: the troops, seeing that Zimri has assassinated Elah son of Baasha, who himself assassinated the second monarch of the northern kingdom, decide to proclaim their own commander king. Omri prevails over Zimri because he has a large part of the army behind him.
18. the palace, the king’s house. This is the first time in a narrative book that the term ʾarmon, “palace,” appears. The only other occurrence in a narrative text is in Chronicles, although it is frequently used in poetry. The usual narrative designation for “palace” is “the king’s house,” which here appears as an apposition or perhaps even as a gloss on ʾarmon.
21. half the people followed Tibni son of Ginath. No information is provided about Tibni, so it is unclear whether he is a follower of the dead Zimri or simply an opportunist who seeks to seize the kingship in a moment of political chaos.
22. And the people who followed Omri were stronger. Again, it appears that Omri prevails because he can muster more troops.
24. Shemer … Samaria. In Hebrew, the connection between the two names is more transparent because the Hebrew for Samaria is Shomron.
29. Ahab … was king over Israel in Samaria twenty-two years. Despite being the most flagrantly idolatrous of all the kings of Israel, he enjoys a relatively long reign, though he will come to an ignominious end.
31. Jezebel, daughter of Ithbaal king of the Sidonians. Her name and lineage proclaim her roots in the world of idolatry. She is a Phoenician (Sidon being a principal Phoenician city); her father’s name contains the pagan theophoric element “Baal”; her name means “Where is the prince.” The Masoretic Text polemically revocalizes the name of the Phoenician god Zebul as zebel, “dung.”
he went and served Baal and bowed down to him. Ahab, outdoing his royal predecessors in Judah and Israel, does not merely tolerate the idolatry of a foreign wife but becomes an active worshipper of Baal, even establishing a temple and altar dedicated to Baal (the next verse) in his capital city.
34. Hiel the Bethelite. He appears to be a royal official.
built up Jericho. Joshua, after the destruction of Jericho, had pronounced a curse (Joshua 6:26) on whoever might presume to rebuild Jericho. The violation of that solemn prohibition by one of Ahab’s people is of a piece with Ahab’s building a site of worship to a pagan god.
At the cost of Abiram his firstborn he laid its foundation. The probable meaning is that according to the terms of Joshua’s curse, his firstborn died when he laid the town’s foundations and his youngest when the gates were put up, marking the completion of the building. But the ghost of the ancient Near Eastern practice of a foundation sacrifice, in which a ruler sacrificed his firstborn to ensure the well-being of the city, flickers through this grim verse.
1And Elijah the Tishbite, of the inhabitants of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the LORD God of Israel lives, Whom I have served, there shall be no rain or dew except by my word.” 2And the word of the LORD came to him saying, 3“Go from here and turn you eastward and hide in the Wadi of Cherith, which goes into the Jordan. 4And it shall be, that from the wadi you shall drink, and the ravens have I charged to sustain you there.” 5And he went and did according to the word of the LORD, and he went and stayed in the Wadi of Cherith, which goes into the Jordan. 6And the ravens would bring him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and from the wadi he would drink. 7And it happened after a time that the wadi dried up, for there was no rain in the land. 8And the word of the LORD came to him, saying, 9“Rise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and stay there. Look, I have charged a widow-woman there to sustain you.” 10And he rose and went to Zarephath and came to the entrance of the town, and, look, a widow-woman was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, “Fetch me, pray, a bit of water in a vessel that I may drink.” 11And she went to fetch and he called to her and said, “Fetch me, pray, a crust of bread in your hand.” 12And she said, “As the LORD your God lives, I have no loaf but only a handful of flour in the jar and a bit of oil in the cruse and I am about to gather a couple of sticks, and I shall make it for me and for my son and we shall eat it and die.” 13And Elijah said to her, “Fear not. Come, do as you have spoken, only first make me from there a little loaf and bring it out to me, and for you and for your son make afterward. 14For thus the LORD God of Israel has said, ‘The jar of flour will not go empty nor will the cruse of oil be drained until the day the LORD sends rain over the land.’” 15And she went and did according to Elijah’s word, and she ate, she and he and her household, many days. 16The jar of flour did not go empty nor was the cruse of oil drained, according to the word of the LORD that He spoke through Elijah. 17And it happened after these things that the son of the woman, mistress of the house, fell ill, and his illness was very grave, till no breath was left in him. 18And she said to Elijah, “What is between you and me, O man of God? You have come to me to recall my crime and to put my son to death.” 19And he said to her, “Give me your son.” And he took him from her lap and brought him up to the upper chamber where he was staying and laid him in his bed. 20And he called out to the LORD and said, “LORD my God, have You actually done harm to the widow with whom I sojourn to put her son to death?” 21And he stretched out over the child three times and called out to the LORD and said, “LORD my God, let the life-breath, pray, of the child go back into him.” 22And the LORD heeded Elijah’s voice, and the child’s life-breath went back into him, and he revived. 23And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper chamber and gave him to his mother, and Elijah said, “See, your son is alive.” 24And the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth.”
CHAPTER 17 NOTES
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1. Elijah the Tishbite. Elijah springs into the narrative, like several previous prophets, with no introduction or explanation. Part of the role he will play is like that of his predecessors; another part is quite new, as we shall see.
Whom I have served. Literally, before Whom I have stood.
there shall be no rain or dew except by my word. A persistent drought is the background of the stories that follow. It will be broken only at the climax of Elijah’s confrontation with the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel. He tells Ahab that he has the power to bring a drought through his own word—a posture that previous prophets have not assumed. The implication appears to be that the drought is a punishment for Ahab’s idolatry, but Elijah does not spell that out in his brief and peremptory speech.
3. Go from here and turn you eastward. God’s instruction to Elijah presupposes that the prophet is in mortal danger after his harsh words to the king and so must take refuge in a wilderness region along the Jordan.
which goes into the Jordan. The literal sense is “which is by” or “which faces.” This wadi, unidentified by scholars, is obviously a tributary of the Jordan.
4. the ravens have I charged to sustain you. This is the first in a series of miraculous notes that mark the Elijah story.
7. after a time. This elastic indication of time might also mean “at the end of a year.”
9. Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon. The second place of flight for Elijah is in Phoenician territory, a little north of the Israelite border. Thus the widow for whom Elijah miraculously intervenes is not Israelite. Her coming to recognize the God of Israel is an ironic contrast to Ahab, Israel’s king. The closeness of Phoenician to Hebrew (if the writer thought of such things) would have made conversation between them possible.
I have charged a widow-woman. God has not actually spoken to the widow, as will become evident, but rather has designated her to play this role.
10. gathering sticks. Her intention is to make a fire over which she can bake, Bedouin-style, the bit of flour she carries with her.
Fetch me, pray, a bit of water in a vessel that I may drink. This request is reminiscent of the request of Abraham’s servant to Rebekah in Genesis 24. In this case, however, water would have to be scarce because of the extended drought.
12. we shall eat it and die. This telescoped clause is a vivid expression of the woman’s desperation. The little flour that she possesses is scarcely enough to sustain two starving people; it will provide no more than a teasing taste, a mere scrap of flatbread baked over embers.
13. only first make me from there a little loaf. The order of feeding he stipulates is deliberately perverse: first the prophet then the woman and last her son, instead of the other way around when there is not enough flour even for two. It challenges the woman to place implicit faith in the prophet.
14. the LORD God of Israel. This set phrase has special force in being addressed to a Phoenician woman: it is Israel’s uniquely powerful God, YHWH, who has the power to perform these wonders.
The jar of flour will not go empty nor will the cruse of oil be drained. This is the point at which Elijah’s role as a miracle worker becomes explicit. Unlike the figure cut by Nathan or Ahijah, Elijah looks very much like the protagonist of a cycle of folktales, providing sustenance in time of famine through supernatural means and reviving the dead. It is obviously Elijah, not Moses or Isaiah, who establishes the template for many of the stories about Jesus in the Gospels. It was also this aspect of Elijah as a miraculous and compassionate intervener on behalf of the wretched of the earth that was picked up by later Jewish folklore. His other role, as implacable reprover, was not embraced by folk-tradition.
until the day the LORD sends rain over the land. The inexhaustible jar of flour and cruse of oil thus provide continuing drought insurance for the widow and her son.
17. till no breath was left in him. The somewhat ambiguous phrasing in which the breath, neshamah, has gone out of the boy leaves it unclear whether he has actually died or whether he is in a comatose state in which breathing is barely detectable. In verses 21 and 22, it is the “life-breath,” nefesh, that is said to return to the child. Neshamah and nefesh are close synonyms, though the former may be more closely associated with breathing and the latter with life itself.
18. What is between you and me. This idiom, rendered literally, could mean either What quarrel is there between you and me?, or What should I have to do with you?
You have come to me to recall my crime. One need not assume that she has actually committed any heinous crime. Ancient Near Eastern people, both Israelites and their neighbors, usually assumed that affliction came as retribution for wrongdoing. The woman thus feels that the very presence of a man of God has exposed to God’s attention some transgression, however inadvertent or unconscious, for which she is now punished by the death of her only son.
19. the upper chamber where he was staying. In a piece of delayed exposition, we are now informed that Elijah has not only miraculously provided flour and oil for the widow but has taken refuge—still hiding from Ahab’s wrath—in the upper chamber of her house.
21. he stretched out over the child. Some interpreters see here, as in the parallel story about Elisha, an act of resuscitation through artificial respiration, though the writer probably conceived it as a miraculous intervention, the prophet imparting the supernatural vitality of his own body to the boy. Elijah’s prayer to God obviously supports the notion of a divine miracle.
24. Now I know that you are a man of God, and the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth. She had previously addressed him as “man of God,” but in anger. Now the positive force of this identity has been confirmed by his act. The two aspects of Elijah’s mission—wonder worker and prophesier-reprover—are interdependent, the former demonstrating to skeptics the authority of the latter. This pattern, which will be picked up in the stories about Jesus, does not appear in the reports about the prophets before Elijah. Sometimes one detects a belief that the prophet has the power to project a kind of spiritual force-field as when Samuel zaps the messengers Saul sends to him (1 Samuel 19), but Samuel does not go around the countryside performing acts of resurrection and miraculous provision of food.
1And it happened after a long time, that the word of the LORD came to Elijah in the third year, saying, “Go and appear before Ahab, that I may send rain over the land.” 2And Elijah went to appear before Ahab, and the famine was severe in Samaria. 3And Elijah called to Obadiah, who was appointed over the palace, and Obadiah feared the LORD greatly. 4And it had happened, when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the LORD, that Obadiah had taken a hundred prophets, fifty men to a cave, and sustained them with bread and water. 5And Ahab said to Obadiah, “Go through the land to all the water-springs and to all the wadis. Perhaps we shall find grass and we can keep horse and mule alive and will not lose all our beasts.” 6And they divided up the land for them to pass through—Ahab went one way by himself and Obadiah went another way by himself. 7And it happened, when Obadiah was on the way, that, look, Elijah was coming toward him, and he recognized him and fell on his face and said, “Are you my lord Elijah?” 8And he said to him, “I am. Go and say to your lord, ‘Elijah is here.’” 9And he said, “How have I offended, that you should place your servant in Ahab’s hands to put me to death? 10As the LORD lives, there is no nation or kingdom to which my lord has not sent to seek you out, and they said, ‘He is not here,’ and he made the kingdom or nation swear that you were not found. 11And now you say to me, ‘Go, say to your lord, Elijah is here’? 12And so, I shall go away from you, and the LORD’s spirit will bear you off to I know not where, and I shall come to tell Ahab and he won’t find you, and he will kill me. And your servant has feared the LORD from his youth. 13Why, it has been told to my lord what I did when Jezebel killed the prophets of the LORD, that I hid a hundred men of the prophets of the LORD, fifty men to a cave, and I sustained them with bread and water. 14And now you say to me, ‘Say to your lord, Elijah is here,’ and he will kill me!” 15And Elijah said, “As the LORD of Armies lives, Whom I have served, today I will appear before him.” 16And Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him, and Ahab went to meet Elijah. 17And it happened, when Ahab saw Elijah, that he said to him, “Is it you, troubler of Israel?” 18And he said, “I have not troubled Israel but rather you and your father’s house in your forsaking the LORD’s commands and going after the Baalim. 19And now, send out, gather for me all Israel at Mount Carmel, and the four hundred fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.” 20And Ahab sent out among all the Israelites and gathered the prophets at Mount Carmel. 21And Elijah approached all the people and said, “How long will you keep hopping between the two crevices? If it’s the LORD God, go follow Him, and if it’s Baal, go follow him.” And the people answered him not a word. 22And Elijah said to the people, “I alone remain a prophet of the LORD, and the prophets of Baal are four hundred fifty men. 23Let them give us two bulls, and let them choose for themselves one bull and cut it up and put it on the wood, but let them set no fire, and I on my part will prepare the other bull and put it on the wood, but I will set no fire. 24And you shall call in the name of your god, and I on my part will call in the name of the LORD, and it shall be that the god who answers with fire, he is God.” And all the people answered and said, “The thing is good.” 25And Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose one of the bulls for yourselves and go first, for you are the many, and call in the name of your god, but set no fire.” 26And they took the bull that he had given them, and they prepared it and called in the name of Baal from morning to noon, saying, “O Baal, answer us!” But, there was no voice and none answering, and they hopped about on the altar that he had made. 27And it happened at noon that Elijah mocked them and said, “Call out in a loud voice, for he is a god. Perhaps he is chatting or occupied or off on a journey. Perhaps he is sleeping and will awake.” 28And they called out in a loud voice and gouged themselves with swords and spears as was their wont till blood spilled upon them. 29And it happened, as the morning passed, that they prophesied until the hour of the afternoon offering, but there was no voice and none answering and none hearing. 30And Elijah said to all the people, “Draw near me.” And all the people drew near him, and he mended the wrecked altar of the LORD. 31And Elijah took twelve stones, like the number of the tribes of Jacob’s sons, to whom the word of the LORD came saying, “Israel shall be your name.” 32And he built with the stones an altar in the name of the LORD and made a trench wide enough for two seahs of seed around the altar. 33And he laid out the wood and cut up the bull and put it on the wood. 34And he said, “Fill four jugs with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood,” and he said, “Do it a second time,” and they did it a second time, and he said, “Do it a third time,” and they did it a third time. 35And the water went round the altar, and the trench, too, was filled with water. 36And it happened at the hour of the afternoon offering that Elijah the prophet approached and said, “LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, this day let it be known that You are God in Israel and I am Your servant, and by Your word have I done all these things. 37Answer me, LORD, answer me, that this people may know that You are the LORD God, and that it is You Who turned their heart backward.” 38And the LORD’s fire came down and consumed the offering and the wood and the dirt, and the water that was in the trench it licked up. 39And all the people saw and fell on their faces and said, “The LORD, He is God; the LORD, He is God.” 40And Elijah said to them, “Seize the prophets of Baal. Let no man of them escape.” And they seized them and Elijah took them down to the Wadi of Kishon and slaughtered them there. 41And Elijah said to Ahab, “Go up, eat and drink, for it is the rumbling sound of rain.” 42And Ahab went up to eat and to drink, while Elijah had gone up to the top of Carmel and stooped to the ground and put his head between his knees. 43And he said to his lad, “Go up, pray, look out to the sea.” And he went up and looked out and said, “There is nothing.” And he said “Go back” seven times. 44And it happened on the seventh time that he said, “Look, a little cloud like a man’s palm is coming up from the sea.” And he said, “Go up, say to Ahab, ‘Harness and come down, and let not the rain hold you back.’” 45And it happened, meanwhile, that the heavens grew dark with clouds, and there was wind, and there was heavy rain. And Ahab rode off and went to Jezreel. 46And the hand of the LORD had come upon Elijah, and he girded his loins and ran before Ahab till you come to Jezreel.
CHAPTER 18 NOTES
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1. in the third year. This is clearly the third year of the drought. Some interpreters think the story is evenly divided in thirds—a year at the Wadi of Cherith, a year in the house of the widow at Zarephath, and a year in which Elijah moves across the country, finally confronting Ahab—but there is no explicit indication of such a division.
3. Obadiah, who was appointed over the palace, and Obadiah feared the LORD greatly. Obadiah’s name means “servant of God,” a role he affirms in the risky business of hiding and sustaining the hundred prophets of the LORD. At the same time, he is a high official in Ahab’s court.
4. a hundred prophets. This large number suggests they are not prophets directly assigned a specific mission by God, like Elijah, but rather members of a kind of guild of prophets, probably figuring as ecstatics, like the prophets in the Saul story, though with the assumption that the ecstasy is inspired by YHWH. Ahab’s swerving from God, then, is seen to have taken a new deadly turn—not only does he foster the worship of Baal but also he takes violent steps to extirpate devotion to YHWH.
6. And they divided up the land for them to pass through. The cause of their separation is the pressing severity of the drought, but it is also important that they be separated—Obadiah would normally have remained in the palace—so that Elijah can speak to him in Ahab’s absence.
7–8. my lord Elijah … say to your lord. There is an ironic interplay between this designation of two different men—Elijah, recognized by Obadiah as his lord through the force of his spiritual authority, and Ahab, who is Obadiah’s lord in the political hierarchy as his king.
9. How have I offended. The exchange between Obadiah and Elijah is one of the most spectacular deployments of the biblical technique of contrastive dialogue, in which the two speakers are sharply differentiated by antithesis in tone and attitude and, often, by an opposition between brevity and prolixity (see, for example, Joseph and Potiphar’s wife in Genesis 39). Elijah expresses a concise imperative, “Go and say to your lord, ‘Elijah is here,’” and then the steely resolution at the end of the dialogue, “As the LORD of Armies lives, Whom I have served, today I will appear before him.” Obadiah, on the other hand, terrified by the prospect of conveying this message to Ahab, spouts a stream of highly nervous volubility, anxiously repeating twice what he regards as Elijah’s impossible order to him and at the same time defending his own record as a God-fearing man. The effect is almost comical: he is a good man and has incurred danger in his loyalty to the LORD, but he is also an ordinary man, susceptible to fear. The contrast to the iron-willed Elijah is striking. At the same time, Obadiah’s terror vividly reflects Ahab’s ruthlessness as a paganizing monarch.
12. the LORD’s spirit will bear you off to I know not where. For nearly three years, Elijah has proven to be a successfully elusive fugitive from Ahab’s wrath, and so Obadiah feels it is safe to assume that the prophet will continue on this path.
19. And now, send out, gather … all Israel at Mount Carmel. Ahab may be willing to accept this challenge instead of having Elijah killed on the spot because it presents itself as the opportunity for a grand public triumph. Nine hundred pagan prophets will surely overwhelm one prophet of the LORD in any contest, and even the place of confrontation is favorable to the pagan cause, Mount Carmel near the northern coast and close to the border of Lebanon being in proximity to the Phoenician sphere and a place where an altar of YHWH lies in ruins, presumably replaced by Baal worship. The king’s calculation is probably first to humiliate Elijah before the assembled people and then to kill him.
21. How long will you keep hopping between the two crevices? This is obviously an idiom that means trying to have it both ways. The Hebrew noun has three different meanings: seʿif can be a “thought” (hence “opinions” in the King James Version), a “branch,” or a “crevice.” This translation assumes that the idiom invokes a concrete image, and opts for “crevices” because of the physical evocation of a person awkwardly jumping between two cracks in a rock.
22. I alone remain a prophet of the LORD. The 100 prophets hidden in caves, who have no mission and are not standing on Mount Carmel confronting the 450 prophets of Baal, would not count.
four hundred fifty men. The 450 prophets of the goddess Asherah appear to be out of the picture.
25. Choose one of the bulls for yourselves. He creates the impression of giving them the advantage of, one might say, serving first.
26. the bull that he had given them. That is, he offered two bulls and allowed them to choose.
they hopped about on the altar. The verb here satirically picks up the “hopping between the two crevices” in verse 21.
27. Perhaps he is chatting. Though both the Prophets and Psalms denounce idols as having ears and mouth but without the capacity for hearing or speech, Elijah turns this notion into biting sarcasm in dialogue.
28. gouged themselves. This is an attested pagan cultic practice, prohibited in the Torah, and is either a gesture of self-immolation or an act of sympathetic magic (blood spurting to stimulate fire springing out from the wood).
29. prophesied. The reflexive conjugation of the verb associated with prophecy that is used here means to fling oneself into a state of ecstasy or frenzy.
none hearing. Literally, “no hearing.”
34. Fill four jugs with water. Pouring water over the wood and the sacrificial animal magnifies the miraculous nature of the appearance of fire that is about to occur. Elijah, together with his gift of rhetoric and satire, is a grand stage manager at this event.
36. at the hour of the afternoon offering. This would be late afternoon.
approached. This is the same verb as “draw near” in verse 30 but here has the technical sense of approaching a sacred zone.
37. it is You Who turned their heart backward. The clause is ambiguous. It could mean, given the narrative context: it is You Who made them again realize that YHWH alone is God. But “backward,” aḥoranit, often has a negative connotation, so the clause could mean: it was You Who allowed them to fall back into idolatry, for God causes all things.
39. The LORD, He is God. This awestruck proclamation of faith has, appropriately, been introduced into the Yom Kippur liturgy at the very end of the concluding service.
40. Elijah … slaughtered them there. The verb used is singular, so the slaughterer is Elijah. There are other verbs for killing—this particular verb is generally used for animals. Elijah is as ruthless in his zealotry for YHWH as Ahab in his pagan despotism.
41. Go up, eat and drink. Feasting is in order because the drought is about to come to an end.
42. stooped. Usually the verb gahar means to stretch out, but he could scarcely be stretched out if his head is between his knees.
44. Harness and come down. Ahab has “gone up” to eat and drink, perhaps somewhere on the slopes of Mount Carmel. Now he will descend by chariot into the Valley of Jezreel.
46. he girded his loins and ran before Ahab till you come to Jezreel. Some interpret Elijah’s running ahead of Ahab’s chariot as a gesture of alliance with the king. More probably, he is again demonstrating a power superior to the king’s: filled with the divine afflatus, he sprints ahead of the king’s chariot all the way to Jezreel, outstripping the galloping horses.
1And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and all about how he killed all the prophets by the sword. 2And Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah saying, “So may the gods do to me, and even more, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like the life of one of them.” 3And he was afraid, and he arose and went off to save himself, and he came to Beersheba, which is Judah’s, and he left his lad there. 4And he had gone a day’s journey into the wilderness, and he came and sat under a certain broom-tree, and he wanted to die, and he said, “Enough now, LORD. Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” 5And he lay down and slept under a certain broom-tree, and look, a divine messenger was touching him, and he said to him, “Arise, eat.” 6And he looked, and there at his head was a loaf baked on hot coals and a cruse of water. And he ate and he drank and he lay down once more. 7And the LORD’s messenger came back again and touched him and said, “Arise, eat, for your way is long.” 8And he rose and ate and drank and walked in the strength of that eating forty days and forty nights as far as the mountain of God, Horeb. 9And he came into a cave and spent the night there, and, look, the word of the LORD came to him and said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 10And he said, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God of Armies, for the Israelites have forsaken Your covenant—Your altars they have destroyed, Your prophets they have killed by the sword, and I alone remain, and they have sought to take my life.” 11And He said, “Go and stand on the mountain before the LORD, and, look, the LORD is about to pass over, with a great and strong wind tearing apart mountains and smashing rocks before the LORD. Not in the wind is the LORD. And after the wind an earthquake. Not in the earthquake is the LORD. 12And after the earthquake—fire. Not in the fire is the LORD. And after the fire, a sound of minute stillness.” 13And it happened, when Elijah heard, that he covered his face with his mantle and he went out and stood at the entrance to the cave, and, look, a voice came to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 14And he said, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God of Armies, for the Israelites have forsaken Your covenant—Your altars they have destroyed, and your prophets they have killed by the sword, and I alone remain, and they have sought to take my life.” 15And the LORD said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus, and you shall come and anoint Hazael king over Aram. 16And Jehu son of Nimshi you shall anoint king over Israel, and Elisha son of Shephat from Abel Meholah you shall anoint prophet in your stead. 17And it shall be, that who escapes the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall put to death, and who escapes the word of Jehu, Elisha shall put to death. 18And I shall leave in Israel seven thousand, every knee that did not bow to Baal and every mouth that did not kiss him.” 19And he went from there and found Elisha son of Shaphat while he was plowing with twelve yokes of oxen before him, and he was with the twelfth. And Elijah crossed over to him and flung his mantle upon him. 20And he abandoned the cattle and ran after Elijah. And he said, “Let me, pray, kiss my father and my mother and I will come after you.” And he said to him, “Go, return, for what have I done to you?” 21And he turned back from him and took the yoke of oxen and slaughtered them, and with the wood from the gear of the oxen he cooked the meat and gave it to the people, and they ate. And he arose and went after Elijah and ministered to him.
CHAPTER 19 NOTES
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1. all. This word is repeated three times in the report of Ahab’s speech to Jezebel, probably to suggest his emphasis in speaking to her of the enormity perpetrated by Elijah—all the things he did.
all the prophets. In this instance, the repeated phrase “the prophets of Baal” is not used. Moshe Garsiel has aptly observed that this usage reflects the viewpoint of Ahab and Jezebel, who see the prophets of Baal as prophets tout court, with no need of a qualifier.
3. And he was afraid. The received text reads “And he saw” (a difference of a single vowel in the Hebrew), but several Hebrew manuscripts and most of the ancient translations have “And he was afraid.” One suspects that the Masoretic editors balked at the notion that the iron-willed Elijah could have shown fear. In fact, this turn in the narrative is by no means implausible: Elijah has spent two years or more hiding out from Ahab’s wrath. He then decides to confront him in the conviction that a show of divine force on Mount Carmel will disabuse the king of his idolatrous illusions and make him bend to Elijah’s spiritual authority. But Elijah has not reckoned with Jezebel’s implacability, and now, finding that she seeks his life despite the spectacular public triumph on Mount Carmel, he is afraid and flees.
4. Enough now, LORD. Take my life. The fear for his life inspired by Jezebel is, here, followed by despair. If, after his tremendous performance publicly demonstrating that YHWH is God, the royal couple still seek to kill him and remain unrepentant in the idolatrous ways they have fostered in Israel, his prophetic mission has been a failure, and there is no point in his going on.
6. a loaf baked on hot coals. This is the immemorial Bedouin method of making flatbread (modern-day pittah).
7. your way is long. As the next verse explains, his journey on foot will take forty days, recalling Moses’s forty days on the mountain.
9. What are you doing here, Elijah? This might be a challenge to Elijah for abandoning his people to flee to the wilderness, or it might mean, in view of the attention to the details of epiphany that will follow: what are you doing following in Moses’s footsteps to Mount Horeb?
10. and I alone remain. As before, the hundred prophets hidden by Obadiah are not taken into account because they are not on a prophetic mission.
11. Go and stand on the mountain before the LORD. Elijah is commanded to assume the stature of Moses, but the epiphany he is vouchsafed vigorously revises the details of Moses’s epiphany: God will reveal himself not in storm or fire or the shaking of the mountain but in a small, barely audible sound. On Mount Carmel, God spoke through fire; here at Horeb, he speaks in a more subtle language, for the deity is by no means limited to seismic manifestations.
13. What are you doing here, Elijah? These words, and Elijah’s response, replicate the exchange between “the word of the LORD” and the prophet in verse 9. Either the repetition is intended to frame Elijah’s encounter with God symmetrically, before and after the epiphany in a virtually still voice, or it reflects a duplication in scribal transmission.
15. you shall come and anoint Hazael king over Aram. Perhaps this act is meant to manifest God’s sovereignty over all nations, but it seems strange, and historically altogether unlikely, that a Hebrew prophet could have taken upon himself to anoint an Aramean king.
16. you shall anoint prophet in your stead. The term “in your stead” is the same one used for royal succession. Elisha, then, is designated not merely as ministrant to Elijah but as his successor, so there is an intimation that Elijah’s days are now numbered.
17. who escapes the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall put to death. The prophetic campaign against Ahab and Jezebel is now to take a new path. Since they have demonstrated that no proof of God’s power will deflect them from the promotion of idolatry, they must be destroyed—first by a foreign enemy, then by an Israelite who will depose Ahab, and in the last instance by Elisha, who will follow Elijah’s prophetic precedent in slaughtering Baal worshippers.
19. twelve yokes of oxen. This would make him a rather prosperous farmer, even though the number twelve is obviously symbolic of the twelve tribes of Israel.
flung his mantle upon him. This act, which would produce an English idiom, is a clear indication that Elijah is passing on the authority of the prophet’s role to Elisha. In the Samuel story, the prophet’s vocation is similarly associated with a distinctive garment.
20. Let me, pray, kiss my father and my mother. This gesture of filial affection is a contrast to the idolatrous kissing of Baal icons mentioned in verse 18.
Go, return, for what have I done to you? It seems more plausible not to construe these words as a rebuke for hesitancy on the part of Elisha but as an assent: Why shouldn’t you go back to take fond leave of your parents? I have made no unreasonable demands of you.
21. the gear of the oxen. That is, the plow. Elisha’s turning the wooden plow into firewood is a sign that he is definitively putting behind him his life as a farmer to assume the role of prophet.
he cooked the meat and gave it to the people. The slaughtering of the two oxen, then, is not a sacrificial act, or at any rate not primarily a sacrificial act, but rather Elisha’s means of providing a kind of farewell feast for his parents and kinsmen.
1And Ben-Hadad king of Aram gathered all his forces, and thirty-two kings were with him, and horses and chariots, and he came up and besieged Samaria and battled against it. 2And he sent messengers to Ahab king of Israel in the town and said to him, 3“Thus says Ben-Hadad: ‘Your silver and your gold are mine and your wives and your goodly sons are mine.’” 4And the king of Israel answered and said, “As you have spoken, my lord the king. Yours am I and all I have.” 5And the messengers came back and said, “Thus says Ben-Hadad, saying: ‘As I sent to you, saying, “Your silver and your gold and your wives and your sons are mine,” give them over. 6For at this time tomorrow I will send my servants to you and they will search your house and your servants’ houses, and it shall be that whatever is precious in their eyes they will put in their hand and take.’” 7And the king of Israel called in all the elders of Israel and said, “Mark, pray, and see that he intends this harm, for he has sent to me for my wives and for my sons and for my silver and for my gold, and I did not withhold them from him.” 8And the elders and all the people said to him, “Do not listen, nor should you agree.” 9And he said to the messengers of Ben-Hadad, “Everything concerning which you sent at first to your servant I will do, but this thing I cannot do.” And the messengers went off, and brought him the response. 10And Ben-Hadad sent to him and said, “So may the gods do to me and even more, if the ground of Samaria will be enough for the footsteps of all the troops that are at my heels.” 11And the king of Israel answered and said, “Let not the buckler of armor boast like the unfastener.”
12And it happened when he heard this thing he was drinking, he and the kings, at Succoth—that he said to his servants, “Set forth,” and they set forth against the town. 13And, look, a certain prophet approached Ahab king of Israel and said, “Thus says the LORD: ‘Have you seen all this great throng? I am about to give it into your hand today, and you shall know that I am the LORD.’” 14And Ahab said, “Through whom?” And he said, “Thus says the LORD, ‘Through the aides of the provincial commanders.’ “And he said, “Who will join battle?” And he said, “You.” 15And he mustered the aides of the provincial commanders, and they came to two hundred and thirty. And after them he mustered all the troops, all the Israelites, seven thousand. 16And they sallied forth at noon while Ben-Hadad was in a drunken stupor at Succoth, he and the thirty-two kings aiding him. 17And the aides of the provincial commanders sallied forth first. And they sent to Ben-Hadad and told him, saying, “Men have sallied forth from Samaria.” 18And he said, “If in peace they have come forth, seize them alive, and if for war they have come forth, alive seize them.” 19And these had sallied forth from the town, the aides of the provincial commanders and the forces that were behind them. 20And each man struck down his man, and the Arameans fled and Israel pursued them, and Ben-Hadad escaped on a horse with horsemen. 21And the king of Israel sallied forth and struck down the horses and the chariots, and struck a great blow against Aram. 22And the prophet approached the king of Israel and said, “Go, summon strength, and mark and see what you should do, for at the turn of the year the king of Aram will be coming up against you.” 23And the servants of the king of Aram said to him, “Their god is a mountain god. Therefore they prevailed over us. But when we do battle with them on the plain, we will surely prevail over them. 24And this thing do: remove the kings each from his place and set governors in their stead. 25And as for you, assemble a force like your force that fell, and horses like the horses and chariots like the chariots, that we may do battle against them on the plain. We will surely prevail over them.” And he heeded their voice and thus he did. 26And it happened at the turn of the year, that Ben-Hadad mustered Aram and went up to Aphek for battle with Israel. 27And the Israelites had been mustered and had been provisioned. And they went to meet them, and the Israelites encamped opposite them like two little flocks of goats, but the Arameans filled the land. 28And the man of God approached and said to the king of Israel, “Thus says the LORD: ‘Inasmuch as the Arameans have said, The LORD is a mountain god and not a valley god, I will give all this great throng into your hand and you shall know that I am the LORD.’” 29And they encamped each opposite the other seven days. And it happened on the seventh day that the battle was joined, and the Israelites struck down a hundred thousand Aramean foot soldiers in a single day. 30And the remaining ones fled to Aphek to the town, and the wall fell on twenty-seven thousand men of those remaining, and Ben-Hadad fled and came into the town, to an inner chamber. 31And his servants said to him, “Look, pray, we have heard that the kings of Israel are merciful kings. Let us, pray, put sackcloth on our loins and ropes on our heads and go out to the king of Israel. Perhaps he will let us live.” 32And they bound sackcloth on their loins and ropes on their heads and came to the king of Israel and said, “Your servant Ben-Hadad has said, ‘Let me, pray, live.’” And he said, “Is he still alive? He is my brother.” 33And the men divined and quickly and firmly said, “Ben-Hadad is your brother!” And he said, “Come, fetch him.” And Ben-Hadad came out to him, and he put him up on a chariot. 34And he said, “The towns that my father took from your father I will give back, and you may place markets for yourself in Damascus as my father placed in Samaria, and as for me, I will send you off with a pact,” and he sealed a pact with him and sent him off. 35And a certain man among the followers of the prophets had said to his companion by the word of the LORD, “Strike me, pray,” but the man had refused to strike him. 36And he said to him, “Inasmuch as you did not heed the voice of the LORD, you are now about to go away from me, and a lion will strike you.” And he went away from him and a lion encountered him and struck him down. 37And he encountered another man and said, “Strike me, pray,” and he struck him, hitting and wounding him. 38And the prophet went and stood before the king on the road and disguised himself with a scarf over his eyes. 39And as the king was passing by, he cried out to the king and said, “Your servant sallied forth in the midst of the battle, and, look, a man turned aside and brought me a man and said, ‘Guard this man. If he should indeed be missing, it is your life instead of his, or you will weigh out a talent of silver.’ 40And it happened, as your servant was doing one thing and another that, look, he was not there.” And the king of Israel said to him, “So be your judgment. You yourself have decreed it.” 41And he hastened to remove the scarf from over his eyes, and the king recognized him, that he was of the prophets. 42And he said to him, “Thus says the LORD. ‘Inasmuch as you set free from My hand the man I condemned, it will be your life instead of his and your people instead of his people.’” 43And the king of Israel went off to his house sullen and morose and came to Samaria.
CHAPTER 20 NOTES
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1. thirty-two kings were with him. This large number suggests that these “kings” may have been no more than local warlords.
4. the king of Israel. From this point on in the story, he will be referred to only by this title and not as “Ahab.” It may be that the writer made this choice because in this entire episode of the conflict with Aram, Ahab plays a very different role from the one in which he has been seen up to now as Elijah’s adversary. It is also possible that this entire episode, editorially set in the Ahab story, was originally about a different king.
As you have spoken, my lord the king. Ahab’s absolute submission to Ben-Hadad’s imperious demands is surprising. After all, the Aramaen king has asked him to hand over not only his treasure but his sons (presumably to be slaves) and his wives, including Jezebel (presumably to become Ben-Hadad’s consorts). Perhaps he feels that the overwhelming numerical superiority of the Aramean forces leaves him no alternative.
6. whatever is precious in their eyes. The received text reads “your eyes.” The translation here reflects the reading of the Septuagint. The added demand of Ben-Hadad that becomes a deal breaker is that the prized possessions of the king’s servants—that is, his courtiers—are also to be expropriated. Ahab had been willing to sacrifice what was his own, but now everyone around him is asked to submit to the same exorbitant demands of the Aramean king.
9. but this thing I cannot do. Ahab will not agree to the confiscation of his courtiers’ possessions. Surrendering what is his own would reduce him to a vassal king; surrendering the treasures of those around him might make him the object of a palace coup.
10. if the ground of Samaria will be enough for the footsteps of all the troops that are at my heels. English translations since the seventeenth century have rendered this as “if the dust of Samaria will suffice for handfuls.” But the Hebrew word that means “handfuls” is shoʿalim, whereas the word here is sheʿalim, “footsteps.” This actually yields a more coherent image: the troops commanded by Ben-Hadad are so numerous that there will scarcely be enough space on the soil of Samaria for all of them to stand. The use of “at my heels” (literally, “at my feet”) reinforces this focus on feet.
11. Let not the buckler of armor boast like the unfastener. The Hebrew has a terrific compactness that, alas, is impossible in English: just four weighted words, ʾal-yithalel ḥoger kemefateaḥ. A very different side of Ahab is manifested here. In the face of Ben-Hadad’s intimidating threat, he responds coolly with a pithy proverb: do not arrogantly presume before the battle is joined to know who will be the victor when the fighting is done.
12. he was drinking, he and the kings. The fact that Ben-Hadad is drinking with his allies just before the battle is a vivid expression of his overconfidence. In verse 16, we learn that he is in fact dead drunk when the Israelite forces attack.
17. And they sent to Ben-Hadad. The implied referent of “they” is presumably Aramean scouts.
18. If in peace they have come forth. This is the same verb, “to go out,” which is rendered above as “sally forth,” its technical sense in military contexts. But since Ben-Hadad is unsure whether they are coming out to surrender or to fight, the unambiguous “sally forth” would not make sense here. In either case, he unquestionably assumes he can take them as prisoners.
22. for at the turn of the year the king of Aram will be coming up against you. The same phrase is used in 2 Samuel 11:1 for the time of year when kings go forth to do battle. This would be the spring—the spring month Nissan is the first month in the biblical calendar—when the winter rains are over.
23. Their god is a mountain god. Their remark reflects the pagan view that different gods have jurisdiction over different realms of nature. But they are also making a strategic calculation: the Aramean chariots and cavalry will give them an advantage in fighting on the plain that they would lose on mountainous terrain.
24. remove the kings … and set governors in their stead. The governors might be military officials more directly answerable to Ben-Hadad as their commander than the kings.
26. Aphek. Located near the Jordan, this would be on more level land than Mount Samaria and in keeping with the courtiers’ counsel.
27. like two little flocks of goats. The unusual Hebrew locution is a little uncertain in meaning (at least the “little flocks” component), though it clearly expresses the small size of the Israelite forces in relation to Aram, a theme throughout this story.
30. Ben-Hadad fled and came into the town, to an inner chamber. The boastful Ben-Hadad tries to hide in an inner chamber within a town that has already fallen to the Israelites.
32. Is he still alive? He is my brother. This expression of concern and solidarity is surely odd after Ben-Hadad has demanded Ahab to hand over all his treasure and his wives and children, and then promised to destroy him. Ahab appears to act out of political calculation—which will prove misguided. He may think that the Arameans are too numerous for him to hold them under long-term subjugation by occupying Aram, and that therefore he is better off showing generosity to Ben-Hadad while obliging him to relinquish the towns his father had taken from Israel.
34. you may place markets for yourself in Damascus. These would be something like trade missions. The implication is that in such a peace agreement the superior power is allowed to conduct trade on favorable terms in the territory of the other kingdom.
35. Strike me, pray. This bizarre exchange between two members of a guild of prophets, beney haneviʾim, proposes a rather loose analogy for Ahab vis-à-vis Ben-Hadad. If the word of the LORD prompts you to strike someone, even if you are disinclined, you must do it or face dire consequences.
36. a lion will strike you. Although “strike” is not a verb one would expect to be attached to a lion, it is used here to convey the idea of a quid pro quo: he who failed to strike will be struck down. Though the Hebrew verb does have the primary sense of delivering a blow, it has an extended meaning of “to kill.”
37. he struck him, hitting and wounding him. The second person obeys the word of the LORD, but it may go against his better instincts.
38. a scarf. The Hebrew noun occurs only here, but it is clearly some sort of head cloth or scarf (perhaps the sort that Bedouins use in a sandstorm) that can be pulled down over the eyes.
39. brought me a man. The context would indicate that this is an enemy captive, which brings the parable close to the situation of Ahab and Ben-Hadad.
or you will weigh out a talent of silver. This is an enormous amount, far more than the value of a captive slave. The silver is “weighed out” because this is an era before coinage, when payment is made in weights of silver and gold.
40. So be your judgment. You yourself have decreed it. The story of the captured enemy whom the man allows to escape functions quite like Nathan’s parable of the poor man’s ewe in 2 Samuel 12: the king, having condemned the reported act, does not realize until the prophet tells him that the tale is about his own malfeasance.
41. the king recognized him. Ahab evidently has had some personal acquaintance with the members of this group of prophets. It is even possible that they are the hundred prophets whom Obadiah hid in the caves.
42. you set free from My hand the man I condemned. The Masoretic Text reads “from a hand,” but two ancient versions and a Hebrew manuscript have “My hand,” which is more plausible. It is God Who has granted the victory to Ahab, and so the defeated king is in God’s hand. It must be said that there has been no direct indication in the story until now that God has condemned Ben-Hadad to death or told Ahab he must kill him, though the prophet assumes that Ahab should have known this. Behind the theological reasoning lies a political calculation: allowing Ben-Hadad to go free will lead to a new attack on Israel.
1And it happened after these things, that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard that was in Jezreel near the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. 2And Ahab spoke to Naboth, saying, “Give me your vineyard that I may have it as a garden of greens, for it is close to my house, and let me give you in its stead a better vineyard, or should it be good in your eyes, let me give you silver as its price.” 3And Naboth said to Ahab, “The LORD forbid that I should give away the estate of my fathers.” 4And Ahab came to his house sullen and morose over this thing that Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him and said, “I will not give away the estate of my fathers.” And he lay down on his couch and turned away his face and ate no food. 5And Jezebel his wife came to him and said, “What is this? You are sullen in spirit and eat no food.” 6And he spoke to her, “When I spoke to Naboth the Jezreelite and said to him, ‘Give me your vineyard for silver, or if you wish, I shall give you a vineyard in its stead,’ he said, ‘I will not give you my vineyard.’” 7And Jezebel his wife said to him, “You, now, must act like a king over Israel! Rise, eat food, and be of good cheer. I myself will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.” 8And she wrote letters in Ahab’s name and sealed them with his seal and sent the letters to the elders and the notables who were in his town, who dwelled with Naboth. 9And she wrote in the letters, saying, “Proclaim a fast and seat Naboth at the head of the people. 10And seat two worthless fellows opposite him, that they may bear witness against him, saying, ‘You have cursed God and king.’ And take him out and stone him to death.” 11And the men of his town, the elders and the notables, who dwelled in his town, did as Jezebel had sent to them as was written in the letters that she had sent them, 12“Proclaim a fast and seat Naboth at the head of the people.” 13And the two worthless fellows came and sat opposite him, and the worthless fellows bore witness against Naboth before the people, saying, “Naboth has cursed God and king.” And they took him outside the town and stoned him to death. 14And they sent to Jezebel, saying, “Naboth has been stoned and he is dead.” 15And it happened when Jezebel heard that Naboth had been stoned to death, Jezebel said to Ahab, “Rise, take hold of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, who refused to give it to you for silver, for Naboth is not alive, for he is dead.” 16And when Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, Ahab rose to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite to take hold of it. 17And the word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite saying, 18“Rise, go down to meet Ahab king of Israel, who is in Samaria. Look, he is in the vineyard of Naboth where he has gone down to take hold of it. 19And you shall speak to him, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD: Have you murdered and also taken hold?’ And you shall speak to him saying, ‘Thus says the LORD: Where the dogs licked Naboth’s blood they will lick your blood, too.’” 20And Ahab said to Elijah, “Have you found me, O my enemy?” And he said, “I have found you. Inasmuch as you have given yourself over to doing evil in the eyes of the LORD, 21I am about to bring evil upon you, and I will root you out, and I will cut off every pisser against the wall of Ahab’s, and ruler and helper 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 for the vexation with which you have vexed Me, leading Israel to offend.” 23And for Jezebel, too, the word of the LORD came, saying, “The dogs shall devour Jezebel in the flatland of Jezreel. 24Ahab’s dead in the town the dogs shall devour, and the dead in the field the fowl of the heavens shall devour.” 25Surely there was none like Ahab, who gave himself over to doing evil in the eyes of the LORD, as Jezebel his wife had enticed him to do. 26And he acted most loathsomely to go after foul idols, as all that the Amorites had done, whom the LORD had dispossessed before the Israelites. 27And it happened when Ahab heard these words that he rent his garments and put sackcloth on his flesh and fasted and lay down in the sackcloth and walked meekly. 28And the word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, 29“Have you seen that Ahab has humbled himself before Me? Because he has humbled himself before Me, I will not bring the evil in his days. In his son’s days will I bring the evil upon his house.”
CHAPTER 21 NOTES
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1. And it happened after these things. As elsewhere, this vague temporal formula introduces a new narrative unit.
2. Give me your vineyard. The verb “give” sometimes means “to sell,” as Ahab’s subsequent words here make clear.
a better vineyard … silver as its price. Ahab initially offers fair value for the vineyard. The alternative of a better vineyard, stated first, is the more attractive because Naboth will still possess real estate (and a favorable possession), which was a prime consideration in Israelite society.
3. The LORD forbid that I should give away the estate of my fathers. Naboth is thinking in traditional tribal terms rather than in those of a fluid economy in which property is fungible for value. Hanging on to inherited land is conceived as a sacred obligation.
4. sullen and morose. This phrase is pointedly picked up from the last sentence of the previous episode.
And he lay down on his couch and turned away his face and ate no food. Ahab, who in the preceding episode had shown martial resolution against Ben-Hadad’s threats, now acts like a petulant adolescent. He has a child’s fixation on the desired object he can’t have, but it does not occur to him to wield royal power in order to seize it.
6. Give me your vineyard for silver. In his repetition of his own words to Jezebel, he pointedly switches the order, representing himself as having made the lesser offer first.
I will not give you my vineyard. This seeming repetition is a drastic recasting of Naboth’s actual words: there is no pious “The Lord forbid” and no mention of the sacred obligation to retain the estate of his fathers. In this version, for Jezebel’s benefit, Naboth sounds merely obstinate.
7. act like a king. The literal sense of the Hebrew is “act [or do] kingship.”
I myself will give you the vineyard of Naboth. She is careful not to explain the means by which she will effect this transaction.
8. she wrote letters in Ahab’s name and sealed them with his seal. She in effect usurps his royal power, “acting like a king” instead of him.
who were in his town, who dwelled with Naboth. The seeming redundancy underlines the idea that his own neighbors, alongside of whom he had always lived, will be complicit in betraying him.
9. Proclaim a fast. A common function of an ad hoc communal fast was to supplicate God when some ill had befallen the community because of an offense committed within the community. In all likelihood, the occasion of the fast, which would have been a reason for assembling the community, sets the stage for exposing the purported crime committed by Naboth.
10. seat two worthless fellows opposite him. Her written instructions, fully accepted by the elders, are candid about using scoundrels willing to perjure themselves in a false accusation against Naboth.
13. the worthless fellows bore witness against Naboth. Unlike the altered repetitions in Ahab’s report of his interchange with Naboth, every item of Jezebel’s murderous instructions is precisely carried out.
15. for Naboth is not alive, for he is dead. Her repetition at this point of what was first her written instructions, then the narrative report of their implementation, entirely omits reference to the stoning to death or to the false accusation that led to the stoning. The redundancy of her statement to Ahab is dramatically apt: she tells her fearful husband he is no longer alive, he’s actually dead, so you have nothing to worry about and can seize the vineyard.
19. Have you murdered and also taken hold? The Hebrew evinces the power of compressed statement: haratsaḥta wegam yarashta is just three words. Though Ahab was unaware of Jezebel’s scheme, these words of denunciation name him directly as the murderer.
Where the dogs licked Naboth’s blood. We learn not only that Naboth was stoned to death on a false accusation but also that his body was left in the open to be desecrated by scavengers.
20. Inasmuch as you have given yourself over to doing evil. Ahab’s previously condemned transgressions were all cultic. Now an act of moral turpitude is excoriated, and it will be this that dooms his royal line.
21. I will cut off every pisser against the wall. This coarse epithet for males is reserved for curses.
ruler and helper. The Hebrew term is somewhat obscure, but it appears to refer to political leadership. Compare Deuteronomy 32:36.
23. flatland. The received text reads ḥel, “rampart,” not a likely place for the devouring of Jezebel’s body, but many Hebrew manuscripts show ḥeleq (one additional consonant), which means something like “cultivated field.”
26. he acted most loathsomely to go after foul idols. Here the chief reason for the condemnation of Ahab shifts back from ethical to cultic infraction.
29. I will not bring the evil in his days. This postponement of retribution proves to be rather qualified. In the event, Ahab does not die peacefully in his bed, as one might infer from these words, but, after the passage of some time, he is killed in battle, after which the dogs lick his blood, in keeping with the terms of the initial prophetic curse.
1And they stayed three years with no war between Aram and Israel. 2And it happened in the third year that Jehoshaphat king of Judah came down to the king of Israel. 3And the king of Israel said to his servants, “Did you know that Ramoth-Gilead is ours? Yet we refrain from taking it from the hand of the king of Aram.” 4And he said to Jehoshaphat, “Will you go with me to battle at Ramoth-Gilead?” And Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, “I am like you, my people like your people, my horses like your horses.” 5And Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, “Inquire, pray, now the word of the LORD.” 6And the king of Israel gathered the prophets, about four hundred men, and he said to them, “Shall I go against Ramoth-Gilead for battle or should I desist?” and they said, “Go up, that the Master may give it into the king’s hand.” 7And Jehoshaphat said, “Is there no prophet of the LORD left here, that we might inquire of him?” 8And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “There is still one man through whom to inquire of the LORD, but I hate him, for he will not prophesy good about me but evil—Micaiah son of Imlah.” And Jehoshaphat said, “Let not the king say thus.” 9And the king of Israel called to a certain eunuch and said, “Hurry here Micaiah son of Imlah.” 10And the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat king of Judah were sitting each on his throne dressed in royal garb on the threshing floor at the entrance gate of Samaria, and all the prophets were prophesying before them. 11And Zedekiah son of Chenaanah made himself iron horns and said, “Thus says the LORD: ‘With these shall you gore the Arameans until you destroy them.’” 12And all the prophets were prophesying thus, saying, “Go up to Ramoth-Gilead and prosper, and the LORD shall give it into the hand of the king.” 13And the messenger who had gone to call Micaiah spoke to him, saying, “Look, pray, the words of the prophets as with one mouth are good for the king. Let your word, pray, be like the word of one of them, and you should speak good things.” 14And Micaiah said, “As the LORD lives, that which the LORD says to me will I speak.” 15And he came to the king and the king said to him, “Micaiah, shall we go up to Ramoth-Gilead to battle or shall we refrain?” and he said to him, “Go up and prosper, and the LORD shall give it into the hand of the king.” 16And the king said to him, “How many times must I make you swear that you shall speak to me only truth in the name of the LORD?” 17And he said, “I saw all Israel scattered over the mountains like sheep that have no shepherd. And the LORD said, ‘These have no master. Let each go back home in peace.’” 18And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “Did I not say to you, he will not prophesy good about me but evil?” 19And he said, “Therefore hear the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on His throne with all the army of the heavens standing in attendance by Him at His right and at His left. 20And the LORD said, ‘Who will entice Ahab, that he go up and fall at Ramoth-Gilead?’ And one said this way and one said another way. 21And a spirit came out and stood before the LORD and said, ‘I will entice him.’ 22And the LORD said, ‘How?’ And it said, ‘I will go out and become a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And He said, ‘You shall entice and you shall also prevail. Go forth and thus do.’ 23And now, look, the LORD has placed a lying spirit in the mouth of all these prophets of yours, but the LORD has spoken evil against you.” 24And Zedekiah son of Chenaanah approached and struck Micaiah on the cheek and said, “How has the spirit of the LORD passed from me to speak to you?” 25And Micaiah said, “You are about to see on that day when you will enter the innermost chamber to hide.” 26And the king of Israel said, “Take Micaiah and bring him back to Amon commander of the town and to Joash the king’s son, 27and say, ‘Thus said the king: Put this fellow in the prison-house and feed him meager bread and meager water until I return safe and sound.’” 28And Micaiah said, “If you really return safe and sound, the LORD has not spoken through me.” And he said, “Hear, all peoples!”29And the king of Israel went up, and Jehoshaphat king of Judah with him, to Ramoth-Gilead. 30And the king of Israel said, “I will disguise myself and go into battle, but you, don your royal garb.” And the king of Israel disguised himself and went into the battle. 31And the king of Aram had charged the commanders of his thirty-two chariots, saying, “You shall battle against neither small nor great but against the king of Israel alone.” 32And it happened, when the commanders of the chariots saw Jehoshaphat, that they said, “He must be the king of Israel,” and they swerved against him to do battle, and Jehoshaphat cried out. 33And it happened, when the commanders of the chariots saw that he was not the king of Israel, they turned back from him. 34But a man drew the bow unwitting and struck the king of Israel between the joints of the armor. And he said to his charioteer, “Turn your hand back and take me out of the fray, for I am wounded.” 35And the battle surged on that day, and the king was propped up in the chariot facing Aram. And he died in the evening, and the blood of the wound spilled out onto the floor of the chariot. 36And the rumor passed through the camp as the sun was setting, saying, “Each man to his town and each man to his land.” 37And the king died, and they came to Samaria and buried the king in Samaria. 38And they flushed out the chariot by the pool of Samaria, and the dogs licked his blood, and the whores had bathed, according to the word of the LORD that He had spoken. 39And the rest of the acts of Ahab and all that he did, and the ivory house that he built and all the towns that he built, are they not written in the Book of the Acts of the Kings of Israel? 40And Ahab lay with his fathers, and Ahaziah his son was king in his stead.
41And Jehoshaphat son of Asa had become king over Judah in the fourth year of Ahab king of Israel. 42Jehoshaphat was thirty-five years old when he became king, and he was king in Jerusalem twenty-five years. And his mother’s name was Azubah daughter of Shilhi. 43And he went in all the ways of Asa his father, he did not turn away from them, to do what was right in the eyes of the LORD. 44Only the high places were not removed. The people were still sacrificing and burning incense on the high places. 45And Jehoshaphat made peace with the king of Israel. 46And the rest of the acts of Jehoshaphat and his valor that he performed and with which he fought, are they not written in the Book of the Acts of the Kings of Judah? 47And the rest of the male cult-harlots who were left in the days of Asa his father he rooted out from the land. 48And there was no king in Edom but a royal governor. 49Jehoshaphat had fashioned Tarshish ships to go to Ophir for gold, but they did not go, for the ships had broken up in Ezion-Geber. 50Then did Ahaziah son of Ahab say to Jehoshaphat, “Let my servants go with your servants in ships,” but Jehoshaphat did not agree. 51And Jehoshaphat lay with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the City of David his father, and Jehoram his son became king in his stead. 52Ahaziah son of Ahab had become king over Israel in Samaria in the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and he was king over Israel two years. 53And he did what was evil in the eyes of the LORD and went in the way of his father and in the way of his mother and in the way of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who had led Israel to offend. 54And he worshipped Baal and bowed down to him and vexed the LORD God of Israel as all that his father had done.
CHAPTER 22 NOTES
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2. Jehoshaphat king of Judah came down to the king of Israel. The verb here is slightly odd for a movement from south to north. It could reflect the high elevation of the Judahite capital in Jerusalem.
3. the king of Israel. Throughout this long episode, with just one exception, the northern monarch is referred to as “king of Israel,” not “Ahab,” in a striking divergence from most of the preceding stories about Ahab. Some scholars, citing the contradiction of this need to retake Ramoth-Gilead when the king of Aram had agreed to return all Israelite towns in his terms of surrender, propose that the king of Israel here is Ahab’s son Ahaziah, with that story then being attached to the Ahab narrative. The fact that it is not Elijah but a different prophet, Micaiah, who confronts the king, may support this view.
4. Will you go with me to battle. The northern and southern kingdoms had long been at war with each other, but now they become allies, perhaps because of the threat to both of Aram.
5. Inquire, pray, now the word of the LORD. As we have seen before, it was standard practice in the biblical world and throughout the ancient Near East to inquire of an oracle before a battle.
7. Is there no prophet of the LORD left here. The precise cultic identity of the four hundred prophets is ambiguous. Jehoshaphat’s words here suggest that he does not regard them as prophets of the LORD. In their own words, they invoke “the Master,” which could be YHWH or another deity. Three possibilities emerge: they are actually pagan prophets; they are syncretistic prophets, alternately turning to YHWH and to other gods; they are purported prophets of the LORD, claiming to speak in the name of YHWH with no actual access to Him. It is plausible that this king of Israel, whether Ahab or his son, would keep a throng of dubious court prophets around him.
8. Micaiah son of Imlah. The king withholds this name until the very end of his speech, as though he could barely bring himself to utter it.
10. each on his throne dressed in royal garb. This display of royal regalia, rather odd in this threshing floor location, sets the stage for the battle scene, when one of the two will dress as a commoner in a futile effort to protect himself from harm.
11. made himself iron horns. This use of symbolic props to illustrate the prophecy is occasionally taken up by the Literary Prophets. Here, however, it is made to stand in contrast to Micaiah’s mode of operation: he resorts to no symbols but simply reports his prophetic vision.
13. Let your word, pray, be like the word of one of them. The messenger is perfectly aware that the king anticipates only bad news from Micaiah, and he tries to ward off trouble by encouraging him to deliver a positive prophecy.
14. that which the LORD says to me will I speak. His words are reminiscent of the ones spoken by the pagan seer Balaam in Numbers 22:38. Balaam was summoned to pronounce doom on Israel but blessed them instead; Micaiah, when the king of Israel would like him to prophesy good, will deliver a message of doom.
17. like sheep that have no shepherd … “These have no master.” In the first instance, evidently following the messenger’s instructions, Micaiah prophesies victory, in a vague formulation. Now, pressed by the suspicious king, he couches his true prophecy in oblique terms, but the response of the king of Israel in the next verse indicates his clear understanding that the sheep without a shepherd is a prediction of his own death.
19. And he said. Jehoshaphat does not answer the rhetorical question of the king of Israel. Instead, Micaiah picks up the moment of silence by pronouncing a second prophecy of doom, far more explicit than the first.
I saw the LORD sitting on His throne with all the army of the heavens standing in attendance. There is a convergence between the visionary scene and the actual one. As armies assemble below, the celestial army stands in attendance on God (He is LORD of Armies, or LORD of Hosts). The two kings have been sitting on their thrones, which, as Moshe Garsiel has aptly observed, is precisely how Micaiah sees the LORD in his vision.
20. Who will entice Ahab. This story puts forth a theological explanation of false prophecy. A celestial spirit answers God’s call and volunteers to lure Ahab to his destruction by putting a false message in the mouths of the four hundred prophets claiming to speak the word of the LORD. By means of this contrivance, everything in this story is seen to be determined by God, and the false prophecy is not merely the human initiative of prophets seeking to curry the king’s favor. It is only here that the monarch is named as Ahab, not “king of Israel.”
28. And he said, “Hear, all peoples!” The “he” is Micaiah speaking again. The repetition of the formula for introducing direct speech, with no intervening response from the king, suggests that the king is flabbergasted by the prophet’s obduracy, even in the face of imprisonment. But the hortatory “Hear, all peoples!” is an odd thing for the prophet to say in this narrative context. In fact, these three words are borrowed from the beginning of Micah’s prophecies (Micah 1:2) and are almost certainly an editorial interpolation intended to establish a link between Micaiah son of Imlah and the literary prophet Micah (the same name without the theophoric suffix, who lived a century later). Some versions of the Septuagint lack these three words.
30. I will disguise myself. The Masoretic Text reads “disguise yourself,” which is flatly contradicted by the next clause, in which the king of Israel tells Jehoshaphat to wear royal garb. Three ancient versions have the king of Israel and not Jehoshaphat disguising himself, and this is surely the original reading.
34. drew the bow unwitting. He is simply targeting an Israelite in a chariot, unaware that the man in commoner’s clothes is the king of Israel.
35. the king was propped up in the chariot facing Aram. His initial command to the charioteer to carry him away from the front is not carried out, either because the fighting is so thick that the chariot cannot get away or because the charioteer decides on his own that the removal of the king would demoralize the troops. The dying king, propped up in the chariot, appears to be continuing to battle.
the floor of the chariot. The Hebrew uses an anatomical term, literally “bosom.” The passage of several hours indicates that the king dies of loss of blood from the wound, so there would have been a considerable quantity of blood on the floor of the chariot.
36. Each man to his town and each man to his land. This flight of the troops on the news of the king’s death is an explicit fulfillment of Micaiah’s prophecy. “I saw all Israel scattered over the mountains like sheep that had no shepherd” and “Let each go back home in peace.”
38. And they flushed out the chariot by the pool of Samaria, and the dogs licked his blood. This is only an approximate fulfillment of Elijah’s prophecy to Naboth. Elijah had said the dogs would lick Ahab’s blood in the place they had licked Naboth’s blood, which would be in Jezreel, not Samaria. Also, the dogs evidently do not lick the blood from the corpse or from the chariot but from the bloodied water of the pool used to clean the chariot. This indirection was no doubt necessary because the royal attendants would not have allowed the king’s body to be desecrated or the chariot to be invaded by dogs.
and the whores had bathed. Presumably, they used the pool to bathe and thus the king’s blood, however diluted, passed over their bodies. This added indignity was not part of Elijah’s prophecy of doom, at least not in the versions we have in the received text.
39. ivory house. This is a house with ivory panels or ornamentation, as ivory would have not been a suitable material for the structural elements of the building.
44. Only the high places were not removed. This refrain reflects the view of the Deuteronomist that the local altars were a kind of paganism, though they could well have been legitimate places for the worship of YHWH.
48. but a royal governor. The Hebrew lacks “but” and sounds a little crabbed.
49. Tarshish ships. Since the destination of the ships is on the Red Sea, it is clear at least in this instance that “Tarshish ships” refers to a particular design of ship, not to a geographical location.
50. Let my servants go with your servants in ships. Perhaps the northern kingdom had greater proficiency in seafaring because of its proximity to Phoenicia. In any case, Jehoshaphat rejects the proposal, probably because he doesn’t want to share the gold of Ophir.
54. And he worshipped Baal. If this scarcely seems a proper ending for the book, that is because Kings, like Samuel, was originally one book, the division into two reflecting merely the limits of the length of a scroll.
