1 Kings 2:23

2:23 King Solomon then swore an oath by the Lord, “May God judge me severely, 1  if Adonijah does not pay for this request with his life! 2 

1 Kings 8:27

8:27 “God does not really live on the earth! 3  Look, if the sky and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this temple I have built!

1 Kings 17:24

17:24 The woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a prophet and that the Lord really does speak through you.” 4 

1 Kings 22:18

22:18 The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “Didn’t I tell you he does not prophesy prosperity for me, but disaster?”

1 tn Heb “So may God do to me, and so may he add.”

2 tn Heb “if with his life Adonijah has not spoken this word.”

3 tn Heb “Indeed, can God really live on the earth?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Of course not,” the force of which the translation above seeks to reflect.

4 tn Heb “you are a man of God and the word of the Lord is truly in your mouth.”

sn This episode is especially significant in light of Ahab’s decision to promote Baal worship in Israel. In Canaanite mythology the drought that swept over the region (v. 1) would signal that Baal, a fertility god responsible for providing food for his subjects, had been defeated by the god of death and was imprisoned in the underworld. While Baal was overcome by death and unable to function like a king, Israel’s God demonstrated his sovereignty and superiority to death by providing food for a widow and restoring life to her son. And he did it all in Sidonian territory, Baal’s back yard, as it were. The episode demonstrates that Israel’s God, not Baal, is the true king who provides food and controls life and death. This polemic against Baalism reaches its climax in the next chapter, when the Lord proves that he, not Baal, controls the elements of the storm and determines when the rains will fall.