《Pett’s Commentary on the Bible – 1 Kings (Vol. 1)》(Peter Pett)
Commentator
Dr. Peter Pett BA BD (Hons-London) DD is a retired Baptist minister and college lecturer. He holds a BD (good honours) from King's College London and was trained at what is now the London School of Theology (formerly London Bible College).
In this modernly written verse-by-verse commentary of the Bible (see book exclusions below), Dr. Peter Pett leads the reader through the Scriptures with accuracy and insight. Students and scholars alike will delight at Pett's clear and direct style, concisely examining the original text, its writers, translations and above all, the God who inspired it. Study the bible online.
Commentary excludes 1 and 2 Chronicles, Esther, Job, and Psalms 67-150 because the material has not yet been written.
00 Introduction
Commentary on KINGS (or 1 & 2 Kings)
By Dr. Peter Pett BA BD (Hons-London) DD
The Book of Kings (Kings 1 & 2).
Introduction.
The Book of Kings was originally one book, but was divided into two when it was translated into Greek. This was in order to fit it onto the available scrolls (unlike primitive Hebrew, Greek had vowels and thus required twice as much space). Like Samuel therefore it should be treated as one book. It covers the four hundred or so years from the last days of David (c.970 BC) to the judgment of the Exile and the subsequent evidence of God’s continuing mercy in the release of Jehoiachin (c.560 BC), which was seen as an earnest of what was to come.
In one sense its opening section can be seen as ‘the turning point’ in Israel’s long history, for, following the gradual growth in Israel’s fortunes which had resulted in the powerful Empire of David, the book describes the gradual slide of Israel and Judah away from outward conformity to God and His ways, (something which had reached its pinnacle in the time of David), into a condition where God could no longer allow them to continue, and would thus bring them to final destruction. One of its major lessons is thus that disobedience to God’s covenant with us, and to God’s Law (here the Law of Moses), can only result in disaster. Another is of God’s continual attempts to win His people over, even when they were least deserving.
In this sense therefore it mirrors the present day. It depicts all the obstacles in the way of the growth of the Kingly Rule of God as those who are supposed to be His people sink into formalism and even heresy, the equivalent of the ancient ‘high places’, while at the same time reminding us that God is at work in His own way behind the scenes, and will finally emerge triumphant. Thus as we read in Kings of the failure to deal with the ‘high places’ or even of the glad and willing acceptance of them, we should ask ourselves, ‘what are our high places today?’ And the answer lies in the realms of overindulgence in, or wrong usage of, sex (which was at the very heart of the religion at the high places), music, sport, and anything else which takes up our minds to the exclusion of God.
It is not, however, to be seen as intended to be ‘a history of Israel’ because too much is deliberately left out. While it does give us valid information about the history of both Israel and Judah, a large part of that history is ignored (and we are actually referred to contemporary history books for the information). The book is rather a prophetic interpretation of that history, (which is why the Jews included it within ‘the former prophets’), using carefully selected events, depicting how God worked within history and through it, in bringing about His judgments, and how He saw men in each age. It is seeking to see everything from God’s viewpoint. It describes history in terms of the working of God through time as He sought to lead His people in the way of righteousness. And it describes the way in which, apart from the few, they refused to follow Him because they were too taken up with their own interests.
Its Place In The Sequence of Prophetic History.
There is no doubt that it was intended to be a sequel to the history in Samuel, for it commences with an introductory ‘and’, and the first two chapters of 1 Kings describe the death of David, whose life was depicted in Samuel. Furthermore it takes up themes from Samuel (e.g. David’s dealings with Joab, Barzillai and Shimei). And it lays great emphasis initially on YHWH’s covenant with David about the everlasting kingship (2 Samuel 7), and in the fact that David’s ‘lamp’ is being maintained. Thus in a sense it can be said to take up the story of David from where Samuel leaves off. But it should be noted that there is no direct link in the book with any particular point in Samuel, (which ends with David’s kingdom flourishing, if a little chastened), and the closing events of David’s reign prior to his death are only described in Kings in so far as they affect the accession of Solomon. It is thus commencing a new section of history rather than finishing off an old.
One reason for the sense of continuity is that the first two chapters (or parts of them) of Kings are seen by many as using the same source for their information as 2 Samuel 9-20, a source often spoken of as coming from ‘The Court History of David’. We have no objection to that description as long as it is not carried too far. But it is going much too far to suggest that that was all that the court history of David consisted of, for in context 2 Samuel 11-20 is more a history of the troubles that came on David consequent on his sins in connection with Bathsheba and Uriah than a simple court history, while other important events in the latter part of David’s reign are undoubtedly omitted.
In fact the main stress of Samuel was unquestionably very different from that of Kings. Its concentration was on the establishment of the Davidic kingship, with an emphasis on both its successes and its failures, as brought about by the Spirit of YHWH (1 Samuel 16:13). In contrast in Kings we find that the Spirit is still at work. Not, however, through the kings but as passing from one generation to the next through the prophets (1 Kings 18:12; 2 Kings 2:9; 2 Kings 2:15-16). The Spirit is nowhere connected with kings (who only connect with lying spirits – 1 Kings 22:22), not even Solomon. On the whole it explains why that kingdom failed. The Spirit of YHWH had to take up a new avenue for His work because the old had been closed to Him through their disobedience. And this comes out in the fact that there are continual reference to prophets throughout the history, whilst the Elijah/Elisha cycle takes up one third of the book.
This brings us to one remarkable fact about the reign of Solomon. Although he was helped to the throne by Nathan the prophet (1 Kings 1) during the life of David, and it is through the writings of Nathan the prophet that we know much about his reign (2 Chronicles 9:29), there is no indication anywhere of the activity of the prophets during his reign. And even though the final verdict on him was that he ‘did evil in the sight of YHWH’, no prophet is depicted as having arisen to give him any warning. In fact throughout the whole account of his life he only has qualified approval, for there are continual indications of something not quite right, and yet no prophetic voice comes to warn him. Given the continual reference to prophets throughout the Book of Kings this must be seen as quite surprising. Was this because he was so confident in his own prophetic ability that he had somehow silenced the prophets? Had they been sidelined and indeed not included within the ministry of the new Temple? Why was the voice of prophecy silent? Towards the end of his reign Ahijah was to be found in Shiloh informing Jeroboam that through him Solomon’s house was to be punished (1 Kings 11:29), and when Rehoboam commenced his reign, Shemaiah the prophet came to warn him against civil war with Israel (1 Kings 12:22), but no prophetic voice ever spoke directly to Solomon. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that in some way the prophets were suppressed and prevented from speaking during his reign.
The Relationship Of Samuel To Kings.
In spite of many who think so, there are no real grounds for seeing behind the Book of Samuel the same set of hands as was responsible for Kings, even though Kings does build on Samuel. We would, of course, expect to find some indication of Samuel’s contents simply because Samuel was by then looked on as Scripture, but there is no attempt to refer back, and what are often pointed to as evidences of a single editor can just as easily be seen as resulting simply from the fact that the earlier writings have influenced the later writers so that they worked within the same mode and along the same lines. This comes out, for example, in that the ascriptions to Saul (1 Samuel 13:1) and David (2 Samuel 4:4-5) in Samuel at the commencement of their kingship may appear to be similar to those in Kings. But they are in fact only in an outline form compared with what eventually comes to full fruition in Kings where the name of the mother is regularly also given for kings of Judah, and a verdict is given on the king’s reign (e.g. 1 Kings 15:1-3). The latter has built upon the former. And yet it is noteworthy that even in Kings the ascriptions concerning Solomon and Jeroboam do not follow what would later become the normal pattern, coming rather in connection with their deaths than at their accession (1 Kings 11:42-43; 1 Kings 14:19-20). It is only following this that the ascriptions begin being shown at the commencement of the reign. Thus the writer of Kings may well have utilised the primitive pattern found in Samuel as he planned the final production of his own history, but if he did so it was in order later to develop it into his own more detailed pattern which he began to apply from 1 Kings 14:21 onwards, not because he had consciously taken up and was continuing a pattern. It was because it best suited his purpose. The parallel theology can also be seen as having arisen on a similar basis, with the later inspired prophets simply following up on the earlier ones because they acknowledged the truth of what they said. They would not be the first to tailor their writings to those of their predecessors, and in those days plagiarism was admired rather than discouraged. No single ‘editor’ of both Samuel and Kings is thus required. Such an idea arose from holding a particular view of history which is not justified by the text.
The Sources For The Information In Kings.
The fact that the history in Kings is written from a theological viewpoint does not necessarily make it unreliable (all histories, even the most objective, are written from a particular viewpoint). In reality it suggests that the opposite is the case. For the prophets would have been concerned to ensure that they kept to factual history precisely because the whole truth of their position depended on the fact that what they described really happened like they said, and they were fully aware that what they said could be checked against official records, to which the prophetic author of Kings regularly refers. Nor (unlike the annals of other nations) were they out to exaggerate in order to boost the king’s ego. They were out to reveal the truth, because the truth of the history brought out the truth about YHWH.
Furthermore they were quite well aware that they were open to being contradicted if they strayed from the facts. For the historical facts contained in what they wrote were obtained from detailed records maintained throughout the period of which they speak, such as The Book Of The Acts (Words/Deeds) Of Solomon, The Record Of The Words/Deeds Of The Days Of The Kings Of Judah, and The Record Of The Words/Deeds Of The Days Of The Kings Of Israel (1 Kings 11:41; 1 Kings 14:19; 1 Kings 14:29 and often). And these were available to their readers, who were specifically referred to them. The original records were thus clearly preserved and available in the author’s time, for like all the nations the kings of Israel and Judah had had their own recorders who had kept a record of their own histories (compare the Assyrian Lists and Annals; the Babylonian Chronicles; and so on), as indeed David had previously (2 Samuel 8:16). It is probable also that there were other prophetic writings which had been written in order to preserve details of the activities of the prophets such as Elijah and Elisha, the writing and maintenance of such being no doubt seen by ‘the sons of the prophets’ as one of their key responsibilities (Isaiah 8:16). It was they who were called on to maintain truth in Israel and Judah.
The Viewpoint Of The Narrative
It is important, however, to recognise that what would have been considered as important by a secular historian is often ignored by the author(s) of Kings. Apart from in the case of Solomon (and even then it was from a religious viewpoint), the writer(s) was not interested in the greatness of the kings from a secular viewpoint, or in their worldly achievements. Omri and Jeroboam II, who were undoubtedly two of Israel’s greatest kings (as evidenced by external sources) were dismissed in a few lines, simply because they were not considered theologically important. And we will soon discover that even in the cases of kings where we are given more detail, it is the religious aspects of the reigns and activities of those kings which are dealt with in detail rather than the secular. The secular only comes in when it results in a theological lesson, and that is why, when we come across a piece of secular history we have to ask, ‘what is the author trying to tell us from this?’
That is also why each reign begins with a verdict on how the king was looked at by YHWH, and on the basis of whether they had done what was good or what was evil in the sight of YHWH, a verdict reached simply by considering their attitude towards pure Yahwism and the covenant, although we may undoubtedly affirm that that attitude would unquestionably have affected their behaviour and how they judged the people, and the behaviour of the people themselves. Under good kings the covenant flourished because their ways and their interest in it caused it to do so, under bad kings it withered. Thus the writer was not out to exalt or debunk the kings of Israel and Judah for their own sake, but to appraise them from YHWH’s viewpoint. To him their history was only important in so far as they either advanced Yahwism, and the keeping of the covenant that went with it, or brought judgment on Israel through their behaviour. And his final message was one of God’s judgment on both Israel and Judah, even though it was with the hint of better things to come.