the owner, was unwilling to enter on a sale or an exchange.  The king was angry, yet thought he could do no more in the matter; but Jezebel of Tyre had other notions of might and right and said to him, “Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? be of good courage; I will get thee the vineyard.”  She wrote a letter to the authorities of the town, and got Naboth put out of the way by means of corrupt judges.  As Ahab was just going to take possession of the vineyard which had fallen into his hands, his enemy came upon him.  The prophet Elijah, always on the spot at the right moment, hurled the word at him, “Hast thou killed and also taken possession?  Behold, in the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, shall dogs lick thy blood also.”  Here this story breaks off.  What follows is not the true continuation.

The thread of the narrative xvii.-xix. xxi. is also broken off here, without reaching its proper conclusion.  The victory of Jehovah over Baal, of the prophet over the king, is wanting; the story of Naboth is, as we said, only the introduction to it.  We are sufficiently informed about the facts, but in form the narratives do not answer to the announcement in chapter xix. and xxi.; they are drawn from other sources.  According to xix. 1 7 the Syrian wars ought to result in vengeance on the worshippers of Baal, and specially on the idolatrous royal house; but in the narrative of the wars (1Kings xx. xxii. 2Kings vii. ix. ) this point of view does not prevail.  On the contrary, Ahab and Joram there maintain themselves in a manly and honourable way against the superior power of Damascus it is ONLY AFTER the extirpation of Baal worship under Jehu that affairs took an unfortunate turn, and Hazael, who brought about this change, was not anointed by Elijah but by Elisha (2Kings viii. 7 seq.) /.l/

************************************* 1.  The same applies to Jehu (2Kings ix. 1 seq.).  This is the reason of the above remarked omission after 1Kings xix. 21:  cf.  Thenius’s commentary. *************************************

The massacre at Jezreel, too, which is predicted in the threat of 1Kings xxi. 19, would need to be told otherwise than in 2Kings ix. x., to form a proper literary sequel to the story of Naboth.  According to 1Kings xxi. 19 the blood of Ahab is to be shed at Jezreel; according to 2Kings ix. 25 his son’s blood was shed there, to avenge Naboth.  It is true, the explanation is appended in xxi. 27-29, that, as the king took to heart the threats of Elijah, Jehovah made a supplementary communication to the prophet that the threat against Ahab’s house would only be fulfilled in the days of his son; but who does not see in this an attempt to harmonise conflicting narratives? 2 A whole series of