Summary: Bible - Book of 1 Kings

The GIST

1 Kings begins with a dying king and a palace plot and ends with a king bleeding to death in his chariot. Between those scenes Israel reaches its height and breaks apart. The book opens in the last days of David, follows his son Solomon through a reign of legendary wisdom and splendor, including the building of the Temple in Jerusalem, and then records how the kingdom split into two rival states, Israel in the north and Judah in the south. Its final chapters belong to a prophet, Elijah, and his contest with the northern king Ahab and Ahab's queen, Jezebel.

In the Hebrew Bible, Kings is a single book. Christian Bibles divide it in two, and this is the first half. It closes a long history that runs from Joshua through Judges and Samuel, and it was written with a question in mind: how did a people who had been given a land, a king and a Temple come to lose all three? Scholars think the work took shape in the late seventh century BC and was completed during the exile in Babylon. Its authors drew on royal annals along with tales of prophets and wonders, and they judged every king by one standard: whether he was faithful to the God of Israel.

What It Says

The succession (chapters 1 and 2). David is old and failing, and a young woman named Abishag is brought to care for him. His son Adonijah decides not to wait. Backed by the general Joab and the priest Abiathar, he holds a feast to have himself made king, pointedly leaving out the prophet Nathan and his own brother Solomon. Nathan goes to Bathsheba, Solomon's mother, and the two of them remind David of his promise that Solomon would succeed him. David acts at once. Solomon is anointed by Zadok the priest at the Gihon spring, the trumpet sounds, and the city shouts, "God save king Solomon." Adonijah's guests scatter. David gives his son his last advice and dies, and Solomon secures the throne with a series of executions: Adonijah, when he asks to marry Abishag; Joab, even at the altar; and Shimei, who had once cursed David.

Solomon the wise (chapters 3 and 4). At Gibeon God appears to the young king in a dream and offers him whatever he asks. Solomon asks for "an understanding heart to judge thy people." God is pleased and adds riches and honor besides. The gift is shown at once in the most famous judgment in the Bible. Two women claim the same baby. Solomon calls for a sword: "Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other." The woman who would sooner give the child up than see it die is revealed as the true mother. "Give her the living child," the king says, "and in no wise slay it: she is the mother thereof." Solomon organizes his government, and the nation prospers.

Solomon the builder (chapters 5 to 9). With timber supplied by Hiram, king of Tyre, Solomon spends seven years building the Temple his father had wanted to build, and thirteen years on a palace for himself. When the Temple is finished the priests carry the Ark of the Covenant inside, and a cloud fills the house so that they cannot continue. Solomon's prayer of dedication holds one of the book's great questions: "But will God indeed dwell on the earth? behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded?" God accepts the prayer and renews the promise to David's house, with a condition attached. If the kings turn to other gods, it will all be lost.

Solomon the magnificent (chapters 9 and 10). Solomon builds a fleet and grows rich on trade. The Queen of Sheba comes to test his reputation and leaves overwhelmed: "behold, the half was not told me." Gold pours in, 666 talents of it in a single year.

The decline (chapter 11). Then the turn. "And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart." Solomon builds shrines for the gods of his foreign wives. God tells him that the kingdom will be torn from his son, all but one tribe. Enemies rise on the borders. And a capable official named Jeroboam meets the prophet Ahijah on the road. Ahijah tears his cloak into twelve pieces and hands ten of them to Jeroboam. Solomon tries to kill him, and Jeroboam flees to Egypt. Solomon dies after reigning forty years.

The kingdom splits (chapters 12 and 13). Solomon's son Rehoboam goes to Shechem to be made king. The people, with Jeroboam as their spokesman, ask him to lighten the burdens his father imposed. The older advisers urge him to agree. He listens to his young friends instead and gives one of the most foolish speeches on record: "my father hath chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions." The answer is immediate: "to your tents, O Israel." Ten tribes make Jeroboam their king. Only Judah, with Benjamin, stays with the house of David. Jeroboam, afraid that pilgrimages to Jerusalem will draw his subjects back, sets up golden calves at Bethel and Dan with his own priests and festivals. For the writers of Kings this is the original sin of the northern kingdom, and every later northern king is measured against it.

Two kingdoms (chapters 14 to 16). The narrative now moves back and forth between the two states. In Judah, Rehoboam's reign sees Jerusalem plundered by the Egyptian pharaoh Shishak, who carries off Solomon's golden shields. His grandson Asa is a reformer who removes idols. In the north, dynasties rise and fall by assassination: Jeroboam's son is murdered by Baasha, Baasha's son by Zimri, and Zimri, besieged after seven days on the throne, sets fire to the palace. The army's commander, Omri, takes the throne and builds a new capital at Samaria. His son Ahab outdoes all his predecessors. He marries Jezebel, a princess of Sidon, and builds a temple for her god, Baal.

Elijah (chapters 17 to 19). Into this comes Elijah, with no introduction, announcing a drought. He hides by a brook, where "the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening." When the brook dries up he is sent to a widow in Zarephath who is down to her last handful of flour. He promises her, "The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail," and when her son dies, he prays and the boy lives.

In the third year he returns to face Ahab and proposes a trial on Mount Carmel. The prophets of Baal are gathered, and Elijah puts the choice to the people: "How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him." Each side prepares a sacrifice and calls on its god to send fire. Baal's prophets cry out from morning until noon and beyond, and nothing happens. Elijah has his altar drenched with water, prays, and fire falls. The people fall on their faces: "The LORD, he is the God; the LORD, he is the God." The prophets of Baal are killed, and the rain comes.

The triumph lasts a day. Jezebel swears to kill him, and Elijah runs for his life into the wilderness and asks to die. An angel feeds him, and he travels forty days to Horeb, the mountain of God. There comes a wind, an earthquake and a fire, and God is in none of them. Then comes "a still small voice," and the question, "What doest thou here, Elijah?" He is told he is not as alone as he thinks, since seven thousand in Israel have not bowed to Baal, and he is sent back with work to do. He finds Elisha plowing and throws his mantle over him.

Ahab's end (chapters 20 to 22). Ahab fights two wars against Ben-Hadad of Aram and wins them, then lets his enemy go, for which a prophet condemns him. The story that seals his fate is smaller. Ahab wants a vineyard next to his palace. Its owner, Naboth, will not sell his family's inheritance. Jezebel arranges for false witnesses, Naboth is stoned, and Ahab goes down to take possession. Elijah is waiting. "Hast thou killed, and also taken possession?" Ahab's reply is the cry of a guilty man: "Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?" He humbles himself, and the sentence on his house is postponed. Three years later he persuades Jehoshaphat of Judah to join him in an attack on Ramoth-Gilead. Four hundred court prophets promise victory. One man, Micaiah, tells the truth: "I saw all Israel scattered upon the hills, as sheep that have not a shepherd." Ahab jails him, goes into battle in disguise, and is struck by an arrow shot at random. He dies at evening.

Why It Matters

1 Kings is a study in how greatness is lost. Solomon has everything, wisdom included, and still drifts; the text is unsentimental about the fact that his own choices undo him. Rehoboam throws away most of a kingdom with one arrogant answer. The book's judgment on rulers is consistent. Power, wealth and buildings count for little, and loyalty to God counts for everything.

It is also the book in which prophets step forward as the conscience of the nation. Nathan, Ahijah, Elijah and Micaiah all stand in front of kings and say what the kings do not want to hear. The story of Naboth's vineyard has been read ever since as a charter for the claim that rulers are under the law and that the weak have rights the strong may not take.

Jews and Christians alike read Kings as sacred history. Modern scholars see the book as part of a larger history shaped by the outlook of Deuteronomy and written to explain the fall of Jerusalem. They regard it as mixing court records with legend and miracle story, while still finding it largely reliable for the outline of events.

Who Should Read It

Read 1 Kings for some of the best-known stories in the Bible and for its hard-headed view of politics. It will hold readers who like history told through character, and anyone interested in the corruptions of success. The lists of kings in the middle chapters go quickly; the Solomon and Elijah stories are worth reading slowly.