Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- 1 Breaking Down Parables: Introductory Issues
- 2 Devouring Parables: Jotham's Parabolic Curse in Judges 9
- 3 Overallegorizing and Other Davidic Misinterpretations in 2 Samuel 11–12
- 4 Changing Face and Saving Face: Parabolic Petitions in 2 Samuel 14
- 5 Grasping the Conflict: Ahab's Negotiation of Conflicts and Parables in 1 Kings 20
- 6 Intellectual Weapons: The Parable's Function in 2 Kings 14 and 2 Chronicles 25
- 7 Conclusions and Implications for the Study of Hebrew Bible Parables
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Scriptural and Extra-Biblical Texts Index
- General Index
5 - Grasping the Conflict: Ahab's Negotiation of Conflicts and Parables in 1 Kings 20
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- 1 Breaking Down Parables: Introductory Issues
- 2 Devouring Parables: Jotham's Parabolic Curse in Judges 9
- 3 Overallegorizing and Other Davidic Misinterpretations in 2 Samuel 11–12
- 4 Changing Face and Saving Face: Parabolic Petitions in 2 Samuel 14
- 5 Grasping the Conflict: Ahab's Negotiation of Conflicts and Parables in 1 Kings 20
- 6 Intellectual Weapons: The Parable's Function in 2 Kings 14 and 2 Chronicles 25
- 7 Conclusions and Implications for the Study of Hebrew Bible Parables
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Scriptural and Extra-Biblical Texts Index
- General Index
Summary
“Whereas the judicial dilemma posed by the petitionary narrative in 1 Kings 3 is used to demonstrate one king's wisdom, that of the petitionary narrative in 2 Kings 6 is used to demonstrate another king's helplessness. In both cases the petitionary narrative is the focal point of the initial exposition of a larger story.”
–Simon B. Parker, Stories in Scripture and Inscriptions“Ahab has shown himself to be a king of hesed toward Ben-Hadad; he can exercise similar mercy toward a soldier wounded in his service. Or he can judge that the soldier's inattentiveness is blameworthy and hold him fully responsible.”
–Jerome T. Walsh, 1 KingsIn the last chapter, we examined how the wise woman of Tekoa creates a parable out of her fictitious petitionary narrative in 2 Samuel 14. We encounter this use of the petitionary narrative genre again when an unnamed prophet confronts the Israelite king Ahab in the closing verses of 1 Kings 20:
38. Then [the prophet] went and stood before the king alongside the road. He disguised himself with a bandage upon his eyes. 39. When the king was passing by, he cried out to the king and said, “Your servant went out in the midst of the battle. Look, a man turned aside and brought [another] man to me. He said, ‘Guard this man! If he goes missing, then it will be your life in place of his life or you will pay a talent of silver.’ 40. Now your servant was doing this and that and he [the guarded man] was no more!” The king of Israel said to him, “Thus is your judgment. You yourself decided it.” 41. [The prophet] acted quickly and removed his bandage from his eyes.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Parables and Conflict in the Hebrew Bible , pp. 74 - 92Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009