Theopedia

1 Kings

Will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!

— 1 Kings 8:27

Overview

1 Kings opens the account of Solomon’s reign and the kingdom’s division, continuing without a break the narrative begun in Samuel from David’s last days.1 1 and 2 Kings originally formed a single work; the division into two books goes back to the Greek Septuagint, which titled the pair the Third and Fourth of the Kingdoms, followed by the Latin Vulgate and finally admitted into printed Hebrew texts by Daniel Bomberg in the sixteenth century.2 1 Kings narrates Solomon’s accession, the building and dedication of the temple, the kingdom’s division under Rehoboam and Jeroboam, and the opening of Elijah’s ministry against Ahab and the worship of Baal.

Timeline

  • David’s last days; Solomon anointed: As David’s strength fails, Adonijah tries to seize the throne, but David has Solomon anointed king instead, securing the succession before his death (1 Kings 1-2).
  • Solomon asks for wisdom: At Gibeon the LORD offers Solomon anything he wishes; Solomon asks for wisdom to govern the people, and God grants it along with riches and honor (1 Kings 3).
  • Solomon builds the temple: Solomon conscripts labor and gathers materials from Hiram of Tyre to build a permanent house for the LORD on Mount Moriah, replacing the wilderness tabernacle (1 Kings 5-6).
  • The temple dedicated: The ark is brought into the temple, the LORD’s glory fills the house, and Solomon prays that it be a place where God’s name dwells and hears prayer (1 Kings 8).
  • Solomon’s wealth and wisdom displayed: The queen of Sheba travels to test Solomon’s wisdom with hard questions and comes away amazed at his wealth and understanding (1 Kings 10).
  • Solomon’s apostasy through foreign wives: Solomon’s many foreign wives turn his heart to other gods in his old age, provoking the LORD to tear most of the kingdom from his line (1 Kings 11).
  • The kingdom divides: Rehoboam’s harsh response to Israel’s request for relief drives ten tribes to rebel under Jeroboam, splitting the united kingdom into Israel and Judah (1 Kings 12).
  • Jeroboam’s golden calves: To keep his subjects from worshiping at Jerusalem, Jeroboam sets up golden calves at Bethel and Dan, a sin every later king of Israel is said to repeat (1 Kings 12).
  • Elijah confronts Ahab and a drought: Elijah announces a drought as judgment on Ahab’s idolatry, then is fed by ravens and a widow at Zarephath whose flour does not run out (1 Kings 17).
  • Elijah defeats the prophets of Baal: On Mount Carmel, Elijah calls down fire from heaven to prove the LORD is God before the prophets of Baal, who are then put to death (1 Kings 18).
  • Elijah flees to Horeb: Fleeing Jezebel’s threat, Elijah journeys to Horeb, where the LORD passes by not in wind, earthquake, or fire, but in a low whisper (1 Kings 19).
  • Ahab’s wars and death: Ahab defeats Syria but spares its king against the LORD’s command, then dies in battle at Ramoth-gilead as Elijah had prophesied (1 Kings 20-22).

Author and Date

The book names no author.3 Jewish tradition ascribed it to Jeremiah, partly because the closing chapter of Jeremiah largely repeats material from 2 Kings, though the prophet and the book’s compiler may simply have drawn on the same underlying sources rather than being the same hand.3 The narrative itself points to a compiler working from official records: at the close of Solomon’s reign the text directs the reader to further sources, “the book of the acts of Solomon” (1 Kings 11:41), archival material distinct from the biblical books of Chronicles.4 The extended narrative of Elijah, in particular, reads as prophetic composition rather than the plain record of a royal scribe.5

Historical and Literary Context

1 Kings covers the reign of Solomon over the united kingdom and the kingdom’s subsequent division.4 Solomon’s reign is marked first by his request for wisdom to govern the people (1 Kings 3:9) and by the construction of the temple, an event the book treats as a turning point in the history of God’s dealings with Israel, replacing the wilderness tabernacle with a fixed sanctuary of lasting splendor.4 Solomon’s later years, however, are marked by his multiplication of foreign wives, who turned his heart to other gods (1 Kings 11:1-4), sin the book presents as the direct cause of the kingdom’s division after his death.4

That division, recorded in 1 Kings 12, produced two hostile kingdoms under Rehoboam and Jeroboam. Jeroboam, the first king of the northern kingdom, established rival worship at Bethel and Dan as a matter of state policy to secure his throne, a sin every subsequent king of Israel is said to have repeated.4 Against this backdrop the book narrates the opening of Elijah’s ministry, whose conflict with Ahab and Jezebel over the worship of Baal, including the confrontation on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18), occupies the closing chapters and continues into the ministry of his successor Elisha in 2 Kings.6

Structure

1 Kings divides into three movements, the last of which continues into 2 Kings:4

  1. Solomon’s reign and the temple (chs. 1-11): David’s last days and Solomon’s accession, Solomon’s request for wisdom, the building and dedication of the temple, Solomon’s wealth and wisdom, and his apostasy through foreign alliances and idolatry.
  2. The kingdom divided (chs. 12-16): Rehoboam’s folly and Jeroboam’s rebellion, the establishment of rival worship in the north, and the successive dynasties and kings of Israel and Judah down to Ahab.
  3. Elijah’s ministry (chs. 17-22): Elijah’s confrontation with Ahab and the prophets of Baal, his flight to Horeb, the call of Elisha, and Ahab’s wars and death.

Major Themes

Covenant fidelity is the standard by which every king is judged

The book’s account of Solomon’s decline is not merely political narrative but a sustained argument that outward power and splendor are no substitute for faithfulness to the LORD; Solomon’s own kingdom reached its height of magnificence only after it had already passed the height of its true strength, because his foreign marriages “corrupted his religion and that of the nation.”4 The same standard governs the book’s treatment of Jeroboam, whose state-sponsored idolatry is named repeatedly as the reason for the north’s instability.4

The temple is the place of God’s name and presence, without confining him to it

At the temple’s dedication the priests could not stand to minister “because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD” (1 Kings 8:10-11), yet Solomon’s own prayer immediately qualifies what this presence means: “will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!” (1 Kings 8:27).7 The temple functions in the narrative as the place where God has set his name and hears his people’s prayers, not as a structure that limits or houses him.7

Solomon’s wisdom, given by God, is real but not ultimately redemptive

Solomon received wisdom directly from the LORD to govern his people (1 Kings 3:9-12) and was celebrated for it even by foreign visitors such as the queen of Sheba, yet the same book records that this wisdom did not keep him from disobeying the law’s own instruction for kings by multiplying wives who turned his heart from the LORD (1 Kings 11:1-4; Deut. 17:17).8 A greater son of David would later be identified, in the Gospels, as the one exceeding Solomon in wisdom (Matt. 12:42).8

Related Doctrines

References

  1. Oren Rhea Martin, “The Land Promise in God’s Redemptive Plan: Part 1, The Old Testament,” in “Bound for the Kingdom: The Land Promise in God’s Redemptive Plan” (PhD diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2013), 179. ↩

  2. Elijah Porter Barrows, Companion to the Bible (New York: American Tract Society, 1867), 252: “These two books, like the two of Samuel, originally constituted a single work. The division was first made by the Greek translators, was followed by the Vulgate, and was finally admitted by Daniel Bomberg into the printed Hebrew text.” ↩

  3. Barrows, 255: “The author of the books of Kings is unknown. Jewish tradition ascribes them to Jeremiah, perhaps on the ground that the last chapter of Jeremiah is mostly a repetition of 2 Kings from chap. 24:18 to the end of the book. But Jeremiah and the author of these books may both have made use of common documents.” ↩ ↩2

  4. Barrows, 253-254. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8

  5. Barrows, 249-250. ↩

  6. Craig A. Carter, Contemplating God with the Great Tradition: Recovering Trinitarian Classical Theism (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021), chap. 8: “The Elijah Cycle in 1 Kings 17-22 describes the fierce war waged by the prophet Elijah against the importation of Baal worship into Israel by the Omri dynasty, especially by Ahab’s queen Jezebel.” ↩

  7. Matthew Barrett, None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2019), chap. 9, “Is God Bound by Space? Omnipresence”: “Solomon then stands before the altar with Israel present, lifts up his hands to heaven, and exclaims that there is no God like his God… Notice Solomon’s logic: not even heaven itself can contain God, so how much less can this house.” ↩ ↩2

  8. Micah John McCormick, “Messiah’s Obedience for Eternal Life Fulfilled,” in “The Active Obedience of Jesus Christ” (PhD diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2010), 229: “Solomon had a certain kind of wisdom, but he did not demonstrate the moral fortitude necessary to live wisely. He was unwilling to obey God’s instructions to the king (Deut 17; 2 Kgs 11:2).” ↩ ↩2