3 - A Native Hill (1 Kings 20–22)

Summary

Chapter 3 examines three progressively related chapters whose main character is Ahab, not Elijah, and thus whose connection with the Elijah narratives (or lack thereof) has attracted much scholarly discussion. It demonstrates that an agrarian hermeneutic generates new insight on the unit’s rhetorical coherence alongside 1 Kings 17–19. In contrast to Elijah’s theological submission to and physiological dependence on Yhwh, 1 Kings 20–22 dramatizes Ahab’s corresponding theological autonomy from Yhwh, leading to the material loss of life and land. Ahab’s story – interwoven with Elijah’s (see 1 Kings 21) but also remaining separate from it (1 Kings 20 and 22) – therefore pre-enacts the Exile in which the book of Kings resolves.