We will begin this weeks reading tomorrow with Elisha demonstrating God’s sovereign power, while a succession of kings in the northern kingdom accompanies trouble because of the wickedness and idolatry of the people.  Change is in the air.

English: Kurkh stela of Shalmaneser that reports battle of Karkar, of 853 BC. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As or schedule has left first 1 Kings behind and has skipped over some of the wicked king Ahab’s story (some will be revisited next week), we thought it appropriate to include another interesting bit of archaeological evidence of Ahab’s rule from the Assyrian empire, which was on the rise at the time.  This article from Bible and Spade contains a picture and account of a monolith found in 1861 in southeastern Turkey, which inscriptions record the Assyrian kings first six military campaigns.  The battle in 853 BCE listing 2,00 chariots and 10, 000 soldiers received as aid from “Ahab, the Israelite” is not mentioned in the Bible because it is not relevant.  A bit ironic that Israel provided aid to the rise of an empire that would come to crush them later.

Summing Up

Each weekend, I am now posting a small PDF of one week of chapter summaries (on the website’s “Summaries” page), current to the beginning of the previous week.  I have posted the summary for Week 23 (June Week 1) of the schedule I am following.  This short PDF document contains condensed comments about 1 Kings 1, 2, 3, 6, and 8:1 – 9:9, with hyperlinks to the ESV version of each chapter for listening or reading, and joins the summaries for other weeks already posted there.

/Bob’s boy

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image © V. Gilbert & Arlisle F. Beers

Please note: I did not design the reading plan that I am following in my blog.  All of my comments in this blog, however, are solely my responsibility.  When reading ANY commentary, you should ALWAYS refer first to the scripture, which is God’s unchanging and unfailing word. Reading schedules, as well as a link to the site where you can get the reading plan that I’m currently following for yourself can be found on the “Bible Reading Schedules” page of my website at http://graceofourlord.com.  For questions and help, please see the “FAQ” and “Summaries” pages there.