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1 Kings16:29–34

Ahab Reigns in Israel, Marries Jezebel

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1 Kings 16:29–34 — Ahab Reigns in Israel, Marries Jezebel. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.

29

In the thirty-eighth year of Asa’s reign over Judah, Ahab son of Omri became king of Israel, and he reigned in Samaria twenty-two years.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

šə·lō·šîm ū·šə·mō·neh biš·naṯ šā·nāh lə·’ā·sā me·leḵ yə·hū·ḏāh wə·’aḥ·’āḇ ben- ‘ā·mə·rî mā·laḵ ‘al- yiś·rā·’êl ’aḥ·’āḇ ben- ‘ā·mə·rî way·yim·lōḵ ‘al- yiś·rā·’êl bə·šō·mə·rō·wn ‘eś·rîm ū·šə·ta·yim šā·nāh

Word by word23 · parsed
שְׁלֹשִׁ֤יםšə·lō·šîmIn the thirty-eighthH7970
√ shᵉlôwshîym — thirtyNumbercommon plural
וּשְׁמֹנֶה֙ū·šə·mō·neh. . .H8083
√ shᵉmôneh — a cardinal number, eight (as if a surplus above the 'perfect' seven)Conjunctive wawNumberfeminine singular
בִּשְׁנַ֨תbiš·naṯyearH8141
√ shâneh — a year (as a revolution of time)Preposition-bNounfeminine singular construct
shâneh (shânâh) — a year, as a revolution of time The construct biš·naṯ opens the fixed regnal formula. Light word, heavy office: it is the seam that stitches the northern narrative to the Davidic dating.
שָׁנָ֔הšā·nāhH8141
√ shâneh — a year (as a revolution of time)Nounfeminine singular
לְאָסָ֖אlə·’ā·sāof Asa’sH609
√ ʼÂçâʼ — Asa, the name of a king and of a LevitePreposition-lNounpropermasculine singular
מֶ֣לֶךְme·leḵreignH4428
√ melek — a kingNounmasculine singular construct
יְהוּדָ֑הyə·hū·ḏāhover JudahH3063
√ Yᵉhûwdâh — Jehudah (or Judah), the name of five IsraelitesNounpropermasculine singular
וְאַחְאָ֣בwə·’aḥ·’āḇAhabH256
√ ʼAchʼâb — Achab, the name of a king of Israel and of a prophet at BabylonConjunctive wawNounpropermasculine singular
בֶּן־ben-sonH1121
√ bên — a son (as a builder of the family name), in the widest sense (of literal and figurative relationship, including grandson, subject, nation, quality or condition, etcNounmasculine singular construct
עָמְרִ֗י‘ā·mə·rîof OmriH6018
√ ʻOmrîy — Omri, an IsraeliteNounpropermasculine singular
מָלַךְ֙mā·laḵbecame kingH4427
√ mâlak — to reignVerbQalPerfectthird person masculine singular
mâlak — to reign (Qal perfect) The perfect states the accession as an accomplished fact before the narrative moves. K&D reads this verse as the hinge of the book: the throne of Israel is occupied by the man under whom the calf cult will be overtaken by open Baalism, though the ground was already prepared by Omri.
עַל־‘al-ofH5921
√ ʻal — above, over, upon, or against (yet always in this last relation with a downward aspect) in a great variety of applicationsPreposition
יִשְׂרָאֵ֔לyiś·rā·’êlIsraelH3478
√ Yisrâʼêl — Jisrael, a symbolical name of JacobNounpropermasculine singular
אַחְאָ֨ב’aḥ·’āḇH256
√ ʼAchʼâb — Achab, the name of a king of Israel and of a prophet at BabylonNounpropermasculine singular
ʼAchʼâb — Ahab, king of Israel The name recurs here in full with the patronymic. Pulpit's gloss on the name ("Father's brother") is joined to his judgment that Ahab was his father's second self in impiety; the Hebrew's refusal to shorten the name keeps Omri in the frame throughout.
בֶּן־ben-H1121
√ bên — a son (as a builder of the family name), in the widest sense (of literal and figurative relationship, including grandson, subject, nation, quality or condition, etcNounmasculine singular construct
עָמְרִ֤י‘ā·mə·rîH6018
√ ʻOmrîy — Omri, an IsraeliteNounpropermasculine singular
וַ֠יִּמְלֹךְway·yim·lōḵand he reignedH4427
√ mâlak — to reignConjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singular
mâlak — to reign (consecutive imperfect) The waw-consecutive picks the same root back up and carries it forward through twenty-two years. Repetition of the verb, not a new verb, is how Hebrew narrates a reign: one act of reigning extended in time.
עַל־‘al-H5921
√ ʻal — above, over, upon, or against (yet always in this last relation with a downward aspect) in a great variety of applicationsPreposition
יִשְׂרָאֵל֙yiś·rā·’êlH3478
√ Yisrâʼêl — Jisrael, a symbolical name of JacobNounpropermasculine singular
בְּשֹׁ֣מְר֔וֹןbə·šō·mə·rō·wnin SamariaH8111
√ Shômᵉrôwn — Shomeron, a place in PalestinePreposition-bNounproperfeminine singular
Shômᵉrôwn — Samaria Omri's new capital (1 Kings 16:24) is where Ahab reigns and where, three verses later, the house of Baal will stand. The city named here innocently as a seat of government becomes, by v. 32, the address of the rival temple.
עֶשְׂרִ֥ים‘eś·rîmtwenty-twoH6242
√ ʻesrîym — twentyNumbercommon plural
וּשְׁתַּ֖יִםū·šə·ta·yim. . .H8147
√ shᵉnayim — twoConjunctive wawNumberfd
שָׁנָֽה׃šā·nāhyearsH8141
√ shâneh — a year (as a revolution of time)Nounfeminine singular
shâneh — year "Twenty and two year" (singular noun after the numeral, as Hebrew does). Barnes checks this figure against the synchronisms and doubts it.
30

However, Ahab son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD, more than all who were before him.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

’aḥ·’āḇ ben- ‘ā·mə·rî way·ya·‘aś hā·ra‘ bə·‘ê·nê Yah·weh mik·kōl ’ă·šer lə·p̄ā·nāw

Word by word10 · parsed
אַחְאָ֧ב’aḥ·’āḇHowever, AhabH256
√ ʼAchʼâb — Achab, the name of a king of Israel and of a prophet at BabylonNounpropermasculine singular
בֶּן־ben-sonH1121
√ bên — a son (as a builder of the family name), in the widest sense (of literal and figurative relationship, including grandson, subject, nation, quality or condition, etcNounmasculine singular construct
עָמְרִ֛י‘ā·mə·rîof OmriH6018
√ ʻOmrîy — Omri, an IsraeliteNounpropermasculine singular
וַיַּ֨עַשׂway·ya·‘aśdidH6213
√ ʻâsâh — to do or make, in the broadest sense and widest applicationConjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singular
ʻâsâh — to do or make (Qal consecutive imperfect) The narrative verb that runs the whole unit: he did evil (v. 30), he made an Asherah (v. 33). Kings measures a reign by what a man's hands produced, not by what he professed.
הָרַ֖עhā·ra‘evilH7451
√ raʻ — bad or (as noun) evil (natural or moral)ArticleAdjectivemasculine singular
raʻ — bad, evil (with article) The definite "the evil" is a technical term in Kings for departure from covenant worship. Gill's gloss is precise about what escalated: "Adding other idols to the calves," so that the sin is no longer a corrupt way of worshipping the right God but the worship of another.
בְּעֵינֵ֣יbə·‘ê·nêin the sightH5869
√ ʻayin — an eye (literally or figuratively)Preposition-bNouncdc
ʻayin — an eye (dual construct) "In the eyes of YHWH" is the court of assessment in Kings. It matters that the judgment is not Israel's verdict on Ahab nor the historian's taste, but a seeing attributed to the LORD himself.
יְהוָ֑הYah·wehof the LORDH3068
√ Yᵉhôvâh — Jehovah, Jewish national name of GodNounpropermasculine singular
Yᵉhôvâh — the covenant name The divine name stands here as the one offended, and returns in v. 33 as "YHWH, God of Israel," and in v. 34 as the one whose word was spoken by Joshua. The three occurrences hold the unit together: offended, provoked, vindicated.
מִכֹּ֖לmik·kōlmore than allH3605
√ kôl — properly, the wholePreposition-mNounmasculine singular
אֲשֶׁ֥ר’ă·šerwhoH834
√ ʼăsher — who, which, what, thatPronounrelative
לְפָנָֽיו׃lə·p̄ā·nāwwere before himH6440
√ pânîym — the face (as the part that turns)Preposition-lNouncommon plural constructthird person masculine singular
pânîym — the face (plural construct with suffix) "Before him" is literally "to his faces," of predecessors in time. The same word closes v. 33.
31

And as if it were not enough for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, he even married Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and he then proceeded to serve and worship Baal.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

way·hî hă·nā·qêl leḵ·tōw bə·ḥaṭ·ṭō·wṯ yā·rā·ḇə·‘ām ben- nə·ḇāṭ way·yiq·qaḥ ’iš·šāh ’eṯ- ’î·ze·ḇel baṯ- ’eṯ·ba·‘al me·leḵ ṣî·ḏō·nîm way·yê·leḵ way·ya·‘ă·ḇōḏ ’eṯ- hab·ba·‘al way·yiš·ta·ḥū lōw

Word by word21 · parsed
וַיְהִי֙way·hîAnd as if it wereH1961
√ hâyâh — to exist, iConjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singular
הֲנָקֵ֣לhă·nā·qêlnot enoughH7043
√ qâlal — to be (causatively, make) light, literally (swift, small, sharp, etcVerbNifalPerfectthird person masculine singular
qâlal — to be light, slight, trifling (Niphal perfect) The root means to be light in weight, hence to be treated as trifling. Prefixed with the interrogative, it asks whether the calf-worship was too small a sin to satisfy him. Poole and Benson both render it as a question implying strong denial; K&D and Ewald read it as a causal clause. The grammar genuinely admits both, and the verse's whole tone depends on which is chosen.
לֶכְתּ֔וֹleḵ·tōwfor him to walkH1980
√ hâlak — to walk (in a great variety of applications, literally and figuratively)VerbQalInfinitive constructthird person masculine singular
hâlak — to walk (infinitive construct with suffix) "His walking" in Jeroboam's sins. Cambridge glosses the clause as meaning Ahab "was unwarned by all the visitations which had befallen the kings before him." The sin of Jeroboam is named in Kings some twenty times as the inherited path; here it is the floor Ahab stands on before he builds higher.
בְּחַטֹּ֖אותbə·ḥaṭ·ṭō·wṯin the sinsH2403
√ chaṭṭâʼâh — an offence (sometimes habitual sinfulness), and its penalty, occasion, sacrifice, or expiationPreposition-bNounfeminine plural construct
יָרָבְעָ֣םyā·rā·ḇə·‘āmof JeroboamH3379
√ Yârobʻâm — Jarobam, the name of two Israelite kingsNounpropermasculine singular
בֶּן־ben-sonH1121
√ bên — a son (as a builder of the family name), in the widest sense (of literal and figurative relationship, including grandson, subject, nation, quality or condition, etcNounmasculine singular construct
נְבָ֑טnə·ḇāṭof NebatH5028
√ Nᵉbâṭ — Nebat, the father of Jeroboam INounpropermasculine singular
וַיִּקַּ֨חway·yiq·qaḥhe even marriedH3947
√ lâqach — to take (in the widest variety of applications)Conjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singular
lâqach — to take, in the widest application The marriage verb. Ellicott calls this marriage "the fatal turning-point" in Ahab's life, and Henry generalizes: marriages with daring offenders "imbolden in wickedness." Deuteronomy 7:3 had forbidden precisely such alliances with the peoples of the land, and Poole notes she was "of a heathenish and idolatrous race, and such whom the kings and people of Israel were expressly forbidden to marry."
אִשָּׁ֜ה’iš·šāh. . .H802
√ ʼishshâh — a womanNounfeminine singular
אֶת־’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Direct object marker
אִיזֶ֗בֶל’î·ze·ḇelJezebelH348
√ ʼÎyzebel — Izebel, the wife of king AhabNounproperfeminine singular
ʼÎyzebel — Jezebel, wife of king Ahab K&D and Pulpit both derive the name as "without cohabitation," that is, chaste or untouched, which is either a bitter irony or an ordinary Phoenician theophoric name whose sense the commentators have guessed at. The name occurs only of her in the Hebrew Bible. Her father's name, by contrast, is transparent.
בַּת־baṯ-the daughterH1323
√ bath — a daughter (used in the same wide sense as other terms of relationship, literally and figuratively)Nounfeminine singular construct
אֶתְבַּ֙עַל֙’eṯ·ba·‘alof EthbaalH856
√ ʼEthbaʻal — Ethbaal, a Phoenician kingNounpropermasculine singular
ʼEthbaʻal — Ethbaal, a Phoenician king Barnes gives the sense: "With him is Baal." Menander via Josephus, cited independently by Ellicott, Barnes, Cambridge, K&D and Pulpit, identifies him as a priest of Astarte who seized the Tyrian throne by assassinating Pheles and reigned thirty-two years. The marriage is therefore not merely foreign but priestly-dynastic: Ahab married into the house of Baal's own clergy.
מֶ֣לֶךְme·leḵkingH4428
√ melek — a kingNounmasculine singular construct
צִידֹנִ֔יםṣî·ḏō·nîmof the SidoniansH6722
√ Tsîydônîy — a Tsidonian or inhabitant of TsidonNounpropermasculine plural
Tsîydônîy — a Sidonian Ellicott notes that Ethbaal is styled king of the Sidonians rather than king of Tyre, reviving the older name.
וַיֵּ֙לֶךְ֙way·yê·leḵand he then proceededH1980
√ hâlak — to walk (in a great variety of applications, literally and figuratively)Conjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singular
וַֽיַּעֲבֹ֣דway·ya·‘ă·ḇōḏto serveH5647
√ ʻâbad — to work (in any sense)Conjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singular
ʻâbad — to work, to serve Service is the covenant word for worship rendered to a master. K&D reads the string "he went and served" as a deliberate narrative device, "a pictorial description of what took place, to give greater prominence to the new turn of affairs." The verb that Israel owed to YHWH alone (Exodus 20:5, Deuteronomy 6:13) is here paid to the Baal.
אֶת־’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Direct object marker
הַבַּ֔עַלhab·ba·‘alH1168
√ Baʻal — Baal, a Phoenician deityArticleNounpropermasculine singular
Baʻal — Baal, a Phoenician deity (with article) K&D observes that the noun is always ha-Baal, "the Baal," that is, "the Lord" by pre-eminence, and Ellicott adds that the name is "a mere title, by the almost invariable prefix of the article." That is why Hosea 2:16 can play on it: the day comes when Israel will call YHWH "my husband" and no longer "my Baal."
וַיִּשְׁתַּ֖חוּway·yiš·ta·ḥūand worshipH7812
√ shâchâh — to depress, iConjunctive wawVerbHitpaelConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singular
shâchâh — to bow down, prostrate (Hitpael) The root means to depress or bow low, and the Hitpael makes it reflexive: he put himself down. This is the very verb of the Second Commandment's prohibition, where Israel is told not to bow down to a carved image nor serve it (Exodus 20:5), and it is paired here with that same partner verb, ʻâbad, in the same order. Ahab's body, not only his state policy, goes to the ground before the Baal, and the last word of the verse leaves the object as a bare pronoun, "to him."
לֽוֹ׃lōw[Baal]
Prepositionthird person masculine singular
32

First, Ahab set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he had built in Samaria.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

way·yā·qem miz·bê·aḥ lab·bā·‘al bêṯ hab·ba·‘al ’ă·šer bā·nāh bə·šō·mə·rō·wn

Word by word8 · parsed
וַיָּ֥קֶםway·yā·qemFirst, [Ahab] set upH6965
√ qûwm — to rise (in various applications, literal, figurative, intensive and causative)Conjunctive wawVerbHifilConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singular
qûwm — to rise; Hiphil, to cause to stand The causative stem is the verb of official establishment. Where prophets are said to be raised up by God, here a king raises up an altar. Barnes marks this as the decisive novelty of Ahab's reign, "his formal establishment of this gross and palpable idolatry as the religion of the state."
מִזְבֵּ֖חַmiz·bê·aḥan altarH4196
√ mizbêach — an altarNounmasculine singular
mizbêach — an altar From the root meaning to slaughter in sacrifice. An altar is not ornament but the working plant of a cult: it means blood, fire and a priesthood. JFB records what was done at it in Tyrian practice, including that the fire was kept perpetually burning and the priests went barefoot.
לַבָּ֑עַלlab·bā·‘alfor BaalH1168
√ Baʻal — Baal, a Phoenician deityPreposition-l, ArticleNounpropermasculine singular
בֵּ֣יתbêṯin the templeH1004
√ bayith — a house (in the greatest variation of applications, especially family, etcNounmasculine singular construct
bayith — a house, in the widest application The word that names the temple in Jerusalem, and the word that will name Ahab's dynasty when Micah speaks of "the house of Ahab." Here a house is built for a god who has no word to speak in it.
הַבַּ֔עַלhab·ba·‘alof BaalH1168
√ Baʻal — Baal, a Phoenician deityArticleNounpropermasculine singular
אֲשֶׁ֥ר’ă·šerthatH834
√ ʼăsher — who, which, what, thatPronounrelative
בָּנָ֖הbā·nāhhe had builtH1129
√ bânâh — to build (literally and figuratively)VerbQalPerfectthird person masculine singular
bânâh — to build The building verb, which returns in v. 34 for Hiel's rebuilding of Jericho and is shared with the curse of Joshua 6:26. Within this unit the same root produces a house for Baal and a cursed city: both are construction projects against the word of the LORD.
בְּשֹׁמְרֽוֹן׃bə·šō·mə·rō·wnin SamariaH8111
√ Shômᵉrôwn — Shomeron, a place in PalestinePreposition-bNounproperfeminine singular
Shômᵉrôwn — Samaria The capital named in v. 29 as a seat of rule is now named as a sanctuary site.
33

Then he set up an Asherah pole. Thus Ahab did more to provoke the LORD, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel before him.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

’aḥ·’āḇ ’eṯ- way·ya·‘aś hā·’ă·šê·rāh ’aḥ·’āḇ la·‘ă·śō·wṯ way·yō·w·sep̄ lə·haḵ·‘îs ’eṯ- Yah·weh ’ĕ·lō·hê yiś·rā·’êl mik·kōl mal·ḵê yiś·rā·’êl ’ă·šer hā·yū lə·p̄ā·nāw

Word by word18 · parsed
אַחְאָ֖ב’aḥ·’āḇThen [he]H256
√ ʼAchʼâb — Achab, the name of a king of Israel and of a prophet at BabylonNounpropermasculine singular
אֶת־’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Direct object marker
וַיַּ֥עַשׂway·ya·‘aśset upH6213
√ ʻâsâh — to do or make, in the broadest sense and widest applicationConjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singular
הָאֲשֵׁרָ֑הhā·’ă·šê·rāhan Asherah poleH842
√ ʼăshêrâh — Asherah (or Astarte) a Phoenician goddessArticleNounfeminine singular
ʼăshêrâh — Asherah, a Phoenician goddess (with article) Cambridge identifies it as "the image which was to represent the female divinity, of which Baal was the male," and Ellicott connects the Asherah here with the Phoenician Astarte worshipped alongside Baal as the receptive principle. Poole notes the direct prohibition of Deuteronomy 7:5, where Israel is commanded to cut down the Asherim. Making one is therefore the exact reversal of a standing command.
אַחְאָ֜ב’aḥ·’āḇThus AhabH256
√ ʼAchʼâb — Achab, the name of a king of Israel and of a prophet at BabylonNounpropermasculine singular
לַעֲשׂ֗וֹתla·‘ă·śō·wṯdidH6213
√ ʻâsâh — to do or make, in the broadest sense and widest applicationPreposition-lVerbQalInfinitive construct
ʻâsâh — to do or make (infinitive construct) The infinitive completes "he added to do," so the clause is literally "Ahab added to do, to provoke." Doing is the verb of the whole unit.
וַיּ֨וֹסֶףway·yō·w·sep̄moreH3254
√ yâçaph — to add or augment (often adverbial, to continue to do a thing)Conjunctive wawVerbHifilConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singular
yâçaph — to add, to augment The bookkeeping verb of the indictment. Where v. 30 said he did the evil more than all before him, v. 33 says he kept adding, so the charge is not a single act but a running account still open when Elijah appears in the next chapter.
לְהַכְעִיס֙lə·haḵ·‘îsto provokeH3707
√ kaʻaç — to troublePreposition-lVerbHifilInfinitive construct
kaʻaç — to trouble, to provoke to anger (Hiphil) The standing formula of Kings for the sin of the northern dynasties. Because it is a Hiphil infinitive of purpose, the grammar makes provocation the aim and not merely the effect. Gill's reason for the superlative is exact: "his idolatries being more open and barefaced, and without any excuse."
אֶת־’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Direct object marker
יְהֹוָה֙Yah·wehthe LORDH3068
√ Yᵉhôvâh — Jehovah, Jewish national name of GodNounpropermasculine singular
אֱלֹהֵ֣י’ĕ·lō·hêthe GodH430
√ ʼĕlôhîym — gods in the ordinary senseNounmasculine plural construct
ʼĕlôhîym — God (plural construct) "God of Israel" binds the offended party to the offending nation. The title is the hinge for the Carmel contest of 1 Kings 18, where the question put to the people is which of the two is God in Israel.
יִשְׂרָאֵ֔לyiś·rā·’êlof Israel, {to anger}H3478
√ Yisrâʼêl — Jisrael, a symbolical name of JacobNounpropermasculine singular
מִכֹּ֨לmik·kōlthan allH3605
√ kôl — properly, the wholePreposition-mNounmasculine singular construct
מַלְכֵ֣יmal·ḵêthe kingsH4428
√ melek — a kingNounmasculine plural construct
יִשְׂרָאֵ֔לyiś·rā·’êlof IsraelH3478
√ Yisrâʼêl — Jisrael, a symbolical name of JacobNounpropermasculine singular
אֲשֶׁ֥ר’ă·šerH834
√ ʼăsher — who, which, what, thatPronounrelative
הָי֖וּhā·yūH1961
√ hâyâh — to exist, iVerbQalPerfectthird person common plural
לְפָנָֽיו׃lə·p̄ā·nāwbefore himH6440
√ pânîym — the face (as the part that turns)Preposition-lNouncommon plural constructthird person masculine singular
pânîym — face (with suffix) "Before him," closing the verse exactly as v. 30 closed, so that the two verdicts frame the account of the altar and the Asherah.
34

In Ahab’s days, Hiel the Bethelite rebuilt Jericho. At the cost of Abiram his firstborn he laid its foundation, and at the cost of Segub his youngest he set up its gates, according to the word that the LORD had spoken through Joshua son of Nun.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

bə·yā·māw ḥî·’êl bêṯ hā·’ĕ·lî ’eṯ- bā·nāh yə·rî·ḥōh ba·’ă·ḇî·rām bə·ḵō·rōw yis·sə·ḏāh ū·ḇiś·ḡīḇ ṣə·‘î·rōw hiṣ·ṣîḇ də·lā·ṯe·hā kiḏ·ḇar ’ă·šer Yah·weh dib·ber bə·yaḏ yə·hō·wō·šu·a‘ bin- nūn

Word by word22 · parsed
בְּיָמָ֞יוbə·yā·māwIn [Ahab’s] daysH3117
√ yôwm — a day (as the warm hours), whether literal (from sunrise to sunset, or from one sunset to the next), or figurative (a space of time defined by an associated term), (often used adverb)Preposition-bNounmasculine plural constructthird person masculine singular
חִיאֵ֛לḥî·’êlHielH2419
√ Chîyʼêl — Chiel, an IsraeliteNounproperfeminine singular
בֵּ֥יתbêṯvvvH1017
√ Bêyth hâ-ʼĔlîy — a Beth-elite, or inhabitant of BethelPreposition
הָאֱלִ֖יhā·’ĕ·lîthe BetheliteH1017
√ Bêyth hâ-ʼĔlîy — a Beth-elite, or inhabitant of BethelNounproperfeminine singular
Bêyth hâ-ʼĔlîy — a Beth-elite, inhabitant of Bethel Pulpit and Cambridge both weigh the address: it was a man of Bethel, one of the two shrine cities of the calf worship, who did this. Cambridge draws the line plainly, that "the neglect of one command had led to ignorance or disregard of another." The interlinear's parse of these two words is uneven (word 2 is tagged as a preposition and carries a garbled gloss), which is a limitation of the source data, not of the text.
אֶת־’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Direct object marker
בָּנָ֥הbā·nāhrebuiltH1129
√ bânâh — to build (literally and figuratively)VerbQalPerfectthird person masculine singular
bânâh — to build Pulpit and K&D both take this as refortification rather than founding from nothing, since Judges 3:13 and 2 Samuel 10:5 show Jericho inhabited. The curse of Joshua 6:26 fell on the man who would rebuild the city, and the Verifier records bânâh as one of the shared lexemes between that verse and this one.
יְרִיחֹ֑הyə·rî·ḥōhJerichoH3405
√ Yᵉrîychôw — Jericho or Jerecho, a place in PalestineNounproperfeminine singular
בַּאֲבִירָ֨םba·’ă·ḇî·rāmAt the cost of AbiramH48
√ ʼĂbîyrâm — Abiram, the name of two IsraelitesPreposition-bNounpropermasculine singular
ʼĂbîyrâm — Abiram, the firstborn The name means "my father is exalted." It is spent as the price of a wall. The preposition that governs it (beth of cost) is what turns a date into an indictment.
בְּכֹר֜וֹbə·ḵō·rōwhis firstbornH1060
√ bᵉkôwr — firstbornNounmasculine singular constructthird person masculine singular
bᵉkôwr — firstborn A shared lexeme with Joshua 6:26 per the Verifier. The firstborn is the covenant's own weight-bearing category, the one redeemed by substitute in Exodus 13:13. Here nothing is substituted.
יִסְּדָ֗הּyis·sə·ḏāhhe laid its foundationH3245
√ yâçad — to set (literally or figuratively)VerbPielPerfectthird person masculine singularthird person feminine singular
yâçad — to found, to lay a foundation (Piel) The third of the three roots this verse shares with Joshua's curse. The Piel is deliberate and technical: this is a formal foundation-laying, and the word of the LORD had specified the exact moment.
וּבִשְׂגִיבū·ḇiś·ḡīḇand at the cost of SegubH7687
√ Sᵉgûwb — Segub, the name of two IsraelitesConjunctive waw, Preposition-bNounpropermasculine singular
צְעִירוֹ֙ṣə·‘î·rōwhis youngestH6810
√ tsâʻîyr — littleAdjectivemasculine singular constructthird person masculine singular
tsâʻîyr — little, youngest Poole and Gill both read the two named sons as the endpoints of a longer attrition, with the other children dying "successively in the progress of the work." That reading fills a gap the text leaves open; the Hebrew names only the firstborn and the youngest, matching the two clauses of the curse.
הִצִּ֣יבhiṣ·ṣîḇhe set upH5324
√ nâtsab — to station, in various applications (literally or figuratively)VerbHifilPerfectthird person masculine singular
nâtsab — to station, to set up (Hiphil) Causative again, as in v. 32. Ahab raises up an altar; Hiel sets up gates. The unit's two builders are joined by their stems.
דְּלָתֶ֔יהָdə·lā·ṯe·hāits gatesH1817
√ deleth — something swinging, iNounfeminine dual constructthird person feminine singular
כִּדְבַ֣רkiḏ·ḇaraccording to the wordH1697
√ dâbâr — a wordPreposition-kNounmasculine singular construct
dâbâr — a word The noun that governs the verse's last clause and answers its first. Everything in this unit that Ahab and Hiel raise up is answered by one thing they did not make. Benson puts the chronology bluntly: the prediction was "fulfilled upward of five hundred years after it was delivered."
אֲשֶׁ֣ר’ă·šerthatH834
√ ʼăsher — who, which, what, thatPronounrelative
יְהוָ֔הYah·wehthe LORDH3068
√ Yᵉhôvâh — Jehovah, Jewish national name of GodNounpropermasculine singular
דִּבֶּ֔רdib·berhad spokenH1696
√ dâbar — perhaps properly, to arrangeVerbPielPerfectthird person masculine singular
בְּיַ֖דbə·yaḏthroughH3027
√ yâd — a hand (the open one (indicating power, means, direction, etcPreposition-bNounfeminine singular construct
yâd — a hand, the open one, indicating power and agency "By the hand of Joshua": the standard Hebrew idiom for prophetic mediation. The word belongs to the LORD; the hand is the servant's.
יְהוֹשֻׁ֥עַyə·hō·wō·šu·a‘JoshuaH3091
√ Yᵉhôwshûwaʻ — Jehoshua (iNounpropermasculine singular
בִּן־bin-sonH1121
√ bên — a son (as a builder of the family name), in the widest sense (of literal and figurative relationship, including grandson, subject, nation, quality or condition, etcNounmasculine singular construct
נֽוּן׃סnūnof NunH5126
√ Nûwn — Nun or Non, the father of JoshuaNounpropermasculine singular

The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.

Grand Commentary — the unit, read whole

synthesis · verify

AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.

i. The date-line, and the father who will not leave the frame — 16:29

The unit opens in the flattest register Kings possesses: a synchronism, a patronymic, a capital, a count of years. בִּשְׁנַת שְׁלֹשִׁים וּשְׁמֹנֶה שָׁנָה, in the thirty-eighth year of Asa, the north is dated by the south, as always. Then the Hebrew does something the English hides. It gives the full name twice: Ahab son of Omri reigned over Israel, and he reigned, Ahab son of Omri, over Israel in Samaria. Pulpit calls the repetition "noticeable" and wonders whether a chronologer has revised the verse; Cambridge records that the Septuagint simply omits the second clause, and gives "in the second year of Jehoshaphat" for the date, a reading that collides with 1 Kings 22:41 in the Greek itself. Barnes, on other grounds, doubts the twenty-two years and would cut the reign to twenty or twenty-one. ⚙ None of this unsettles the point the Hebrew is making by repetition: the son is not allowed to be read apart from the father. K&D says it exactly, that Ahab's accession "formed a turning-point for the worse," yet "the way had already been prepared by his father Omri." What follows is an escalation, not an eruption.

ii. "Was it a light thing?" The grammar of escalation — 16:30 to 16:31

Verse 30 repeats, word for word, the verdict passed on Omri in v. 25, which Pulpit notices and presses: the same formula, a worse reality. Gill states the difference in one clause: "Adding other idols to the calves." JFB frames it institutionally, that symbol-worship had been the offensive form of apostasy "but now gross idolatry is openly patronized by the court," and Barnes locates the novelty precisely in "his formal establishment of this gross and palpable idolatry as the religion of the state." Then v. 31 opens with a verb that the commentators cannot agree on. הֲנָקֵל is a Niphal of qâlal, to be light, with an interrogative prefix. Poole and Benson read a question implying strong denial: was this a small sin, that he needed to add more abominations? K&D, citing Ewald, reads it causally: because it was too little. ⚙ The difference matters. On Poole's reading the narrator is indignant; on K&D's he is diagnostic, reporting Ahab's own estimate of Jeroboam's sin as insufficient. The consonants will not decide it, and this synthesis does not pretend to. What both readings share is the arithmetic of the verse: the calf worship is treated as a quantity too small, and the deficit is made up by a marriage. Ellicott calls that marriage "the fatal turning-point in the life of a man physically brave, and possibly able as a ruler, but morally weak." Henry generalizes it into a rule, that marriages with daring offenders "imbolden in wickedness." And the Hebrew, having spent one verb on the marriage, spends three on what followed: he went, he served, he bowed himself down. K&D reads the first of those as deliberate staging, "a pictorial description of what took place, to give greater prominence to the new turn of affairs."

iii. A house for the Lord who is not the LORD — 16:32 to 16:33

Hebrew calls Ahab's building בֵּית הַבַּעַל, house of the Baal, using the same noun it uses for the house of YHWH in Jerusalem. Benson hears the mirror and names it: because God's temple stood in the royal city of the other kingdom, Ahab "would have Baal's temple in Samaria, that, being near him, he might the more frequently attend it, protect, and put honour upon it." Pulpit adds, plausibly but without warrant in the text, that the building must have been splendid, since "Jezebel would not be satisfied with less." The altar is raised by a Hiphil, וַיָּקֶם, the stem of official establishment; JFB supplies from classical sources what happened at such altars in Tyrian practice, including a fire kept constantly burning and barefoot priests. Beside the altar goes the Asherah. Here the older English "grove" (Poole, Geneva, and Gill's first attempt) has simply been overtaken: Cambridge identifies it as "the image which was to represent the female divinity, of which Baal was the male," K&D as "the Asherah belonging to the temple of Baal," an idol of Astarte, and Gill himself corrects course mid-sentence. ⚙ The deepest irony is lexical and is flagged by Ellicott himself: בַּעַל means only "lord," and carries the article almost invariably, so that what Ahab installed in Samaria was a house for "the Lord" who is not the LORD. Ellicott notes that Hosea 2:16 can therefore promise a day when Israel will call YHWH "my husband" and no longer "my Baal." The verdict of v. 33 closes with the accounting verb וַיּוֹסֶף, he added, and with a Hiphil infinitive of purpose, לְהַכְעִיס, to provoke to anger. Gill gives the reason for the superlative: the idolatries were "more open and barefaced, and without any excuse."

iv. Hiel at Jericho: the word that waited five hundred years — 16:34

The unit ends by leaving the palace. A private man from Bethel refortifies a ruined city, and two of his sons die. Barnes reads the placement as evidence of the age: the curse of Joshua "had hitherto been believed and respected," but faith had so decayed that it "had lost its power" over men's calculations. Cambridge traces the contagion to the address, that Hiel had lived at a seat of the calf worship and "the neglect of one command had led to ignorance or disregard of another," and adds the grammatical key to the verse: the preposition in בַּאֲבִירָם "is used to express the cost or price of anything," so the Revised Version reads "with the loss of Abiram." Barnes notes the correspondence is exact, "In exact accordance with the words of Joshua's curse," firstborn at the foundation, youngest at the gates. Benson and Poole both count the years, Benson at upwards of five hundred, Poole at eight hundred, and Gill at between four and five hundred; ⚙ the commentators disagree on the arithmetic and none of them shows his work, so the honest statement is simply: centuries. JFB is careful to record a dissenting modern reading, that the two sons mark the beginning and end of a slow project rather than two deaths, and concedes that "the poetical form of the ban" does not settle the question. JFB's own conclusion is the one this unit is built to deliver: "the unresisted act of Hiel affords a painful evidence how far the people of Israel had lost all knowledge of, or respect for, the word of God."

Read under Sola Scriptura — this tool’s own fallible reading (⚙)

⚙ This is the tool's own fallible reading, offered to be tested. Read the six verses as a list of things men caused to stand. Ahab causes an altar to stand (Hiphil, וַיָּקֶם); he builds a house; he makes an Asherah; Hiel founds a city (Piel, יִסְּדָהּ) and causes its gate-leaves to stand (Hiphil, הִצִּיב). Five acts of construction in five verses, by the strongest king the north had yet produced and by a wealthy subject who copied him. Against that list the unit sets exactly one thing that nobody in it made: כִּדְבַר יְהוָה, according to the word of the LORD, spoken by the hand of Joshua and still load-bearing after centuries in which no one repeated it. Note where the narrator places the proof. He does not answer Ahab's altar with fire from heaven; that comes two chapters later at Carmel. He answers it with a building permit in Jericho and two funerals, and he lets the palace go unanswered for now. ⚙ The reading I offer is this: the word of God does not compete with the building programme, it outlasts it. The house of Baal in Samaria stood, and 2 Kings 10:27 records who pulled it down. Jericho's gates went up, and the men who paid for them were not the men who wanted them. What Ahab could add to (וַיּוֹסֶף) was a total of provocations; what he could not add to, subtract from, or outlive was one sentence spoken by a dead man on the far side of five hundred years. I hold this loosely at one point: the text never says Hiel knew the curse. Pulpit, weighing it, leans toward defiance; Cambridge leans toward ignorance bred by Bethel. If Cambridge is right, the verse is even harsher than it reads, because the word held whether or not anyone remembered it.

Five things were built in these six verses and one thing was not built, and only the unbuilt thing was still standing at the end. (This is the tool's own line, not a verse of Scripture.)

Canonical Threads — out to the whole of Scripture

cross-refs · verify

AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.

Joshua's curse, collected at the door verbal / quotation: confirmed

The verse names its own source: כִּדְבַר יְהוָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר בְּיַד יְהוֹשֻׁעַ, according to the word of the LORD which he spoke by the hand of Joshua. The Verifier confirms the link lexically as well as by citation: Joshua 6:26 and 1 Kings 16:34 share bânâh (build), bᵉkôwr (firstborn) and yâçad (lay a foundation), which are the three load-bearing terms of the oath itself. Barnes reads the correspondence as exact, firstborn at the foundation and youngest at the gates; K&D says the fulfilment shows how the Lord "will not allow the word of His servants to be transgressed with impunity." JFB honestly records the dissenting view that the phrasing is poetic and may describe a slow project rather than two deaths, and grants that the ban's form does not decide it.

Joshua 6:26

basis: The text itself cites the oracle by speaker and mediator. Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H1129 bânâh (in 344 vv), H1060 bᵉkôwr (in 100 vv), H3245 yâçad (in 42 vv), which are precisely the terms of Joshua's curse

"The statutes of Omri are kept": a prophet names this reign as a standard of measure structural / thematic: confirmed

Micah, generations later, indicts Judah by naming this house: the statutes of Omri are kept, and all the works of the house of Ahab. The Verifier records the shared proper names ʼAchʼâb and ʻOmrîy, the latter a relatively uncommon lexeme (16 verses). ⚙ What binds the passages is not a quotation but a pattern that acquired a name: the dynasty founded in 1 Kings 16 became shorthand in the prophetic vocabulary for a state-sponsored apostasy, and the fact that Micah aims it at Judah shows how far the contagion ran. Cambridge traces one route by which it ran, through Jezebel's daughter Athaliah into the southern royal house.

Micah 6:16

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H256 ʼAchʼâb (in 81 vv) and H6018 ʻOmrîy (in 16 vv). These are proper names, not a quoted phrase, so the link is named reference within a shared motif and is deliberately not tiered verbal

Omri's house, read backward through 1 Kings 16 structural / thematic: confirmed

The Verifier's densest cluster of candidates is the immediate context: 1 Kings 16:16, 16:17, 16:21, 16:22, 16:23, 16:25, 16:27 and 16:28, all sharing ʻOmrîy and most sharing mâlak. ⚙ That is not an accident of vocabulary but the shape of the chapter: Kings tells Omri's rise four times over before it tells Ahab's reign once, so that when v. 30 repeats against Ahab the very formula used of Omri in v. 25, the reader has the earlier verdict fresh. Pulpit makes the comparison explicitly, noting that the same words were used of the father, and explaining how the son surpassed him. K&D says the way "had already been prepared by his father Omri."

1 Kings 16:25 · 1 Kings 16:28

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H6018 ʻOmrîy (in 16 vv), H4427 mâlak (in 284 vv), H8111 Shômᵉrôwn (in 101 vv), H256 ʼAchʼâb (in 81 vv). Same-chapter continuity of formula, not a quotation

The other Segub: a rare name that is not a link flagged: verify source

The Verifier's two highest-scoring candidates for this unit are 1 Chronicles 2:21 and 2:22, on the strength of Sᵉgûwb, a genuinely rare lexeme occurring in only three verses. ⚙ It should not be followed. The Segub of 1 Chronicles 2 is the son of Hezron by the daughter of Machir, in the genealogy of Judah, and has nothing to do with the youngest son of Hiel the Bethelite. This entry is recorded, and flagged, precisely because rarity of a shared lexeme is ordinarily strong evidence of a verbal link, and here it is evidence of nothing but a shared personal name. Nothing in the sources of this brief connects the two men.

1 Chronicles 2:21 · 1 Chronicles 2:22

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H7687 Sᵉgûwb (in 3 vv), rare enough to score highest of all candidates, but the referents are different men. Recorded as a homonym, not a link

A name carried into the Apocalypse typological

Gill and Poole both close their notes on Jezebel by pointing forward to Revelation 2:20, where the risen Christ rebukes Thyatira for tolerating "that woman Jezebel," a self-styled prophetess teaching God's servants to commit sexual immorality and eat food sacrificed to idols. Poole lists the reference alongside 1 Kings 18:4, 1 Kings 21:8 and 2 Kings 9:22; Gill says she "is made the emblem of the whore of Rome." ⚙ The link cannot be tiered verbal here: the Apocalypse is Greek and this unit is Hebrew, so no shared Strong's lexeme can be computed between them, and a Greek transliteration of a Hebrew name is not a quotation of this verse. What it is, is a figural naming: a pattern of a tolerated teacher inside the covenant community, married to the political power, is given her name. Gill's further identification with Rome is Reformation polemic and is recorded as his, not endorsed here.

Revelation 2:20

basis: Cross-Testament Greek to Hebrew, so no shared Strong's lexeme is computable and no verbal tier is possible. Basis is the NT's own figural use of the name, recorded in this brief by Gill and Poole. Ancient and widely-held as a reading; Gill's application to Rome is his own

The Baal who is only "the lord" structural / thematic: confirmed

K&D notes that the noun always appears as הַבַּעַל, the Baal, "i.e., Lord" by pre-eminence, and Ellicott adds that the name "only signifies 'Lord'" and is "marked as being a mere title, by the almost invariable prefix of the article." Ellicott then observes that Hosea 2:16 applies the very word to YHWH himself, in a promise that Israel will one day call him "my husband" and no longer "my Baal." ⚙ Read together with 1 Kings 16:31, the Hosea oracle is the exact remedy for the exact disease of this unit: a marriage to Sidon that brought a lord into the house, answered by a marriage language purified of the word. The connection is drawn here through Ellicott's own citation; the Verifier supplied no Hosea candidate, so this is recorded as motif and not as a computed verbal link.

Hosea 2:16

basis: No Verifier candidate was returned for Hosea 2:16; the link rests on the shared lexeme Baʻal (H1168) as cited by Ellicott in the sourced commentary, within a shared marriage motif. Recorded as thematic, deliberately not tiered verbal, since the shared-lexeme frequency was not computed for this pair

Christ in the Unittypology · verify

AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.

The word that outlived every builder novel

⚙ The theological spine of this unit is the durability of a spoken word. Five acts of construction are recorded and one sentence is recalled, and the sentence proves harder than the masonry. Benson draws the lesson himself, that the fulfilment is "a most striking proof of the divine prescience, as well as of the authority of those sacred writings which contain so remarkable a prophecy," and that God "never forgets what he has spoken." Poole says the same in the register of warning, that Israel should not think itself safe merely because the judgment threatened by Ahijah was not yet executed. K&D: the Lord "will not allow the word of His servants to be transgressed with impunity." ⚙ The redemptive-historical extension is mine and is offered to be tested: a word that holds across five centuries without a single speaker to maintain it is the same word Jesus says heaven and earth will pass away before it fails, and the same word John says did not merely endure but became flesh. In Kings the word's durability is felt as threat, because the only people it touches here are the ones building against it. In the Gospel the identical durability is the ground of hope, because the Word that keeps its appointments has taken a body and come to stand where Hiel's sons stood.

Matthew 24:35 · John 1:14 · Isaiah 40:8

Jericho: a firstborn spent for a cursed city, and a Firstborn given novel

⚙ Jericho is the first city Israel took and the only one placed under a standing curse against rebuilding (Joshua 6:26). In this unit a man rebuilds it and pays with בְּכֹרוֹ, his firstborn, and finally with his youngest, the Hebrew preposition making the sons the purchase price. Cambridge states the grammar without flinching: the beth expresses "the cost or price of anything, and so here the penalty which Hiel paid for his transgression." ⚙ Hold that against the Gospel's return to the same town. Into Jericho, the city bought with a firstborn, walks the one Paul calls the firstborn over all creation and the firstborn from the dead; he gives sight to a beggar at its gate and salvation to a tax collector in its streets, and announces that the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost. The direction of payment reverses: Hiel's firstborn was spent to raise the walls of a cursed place, and the Firstborn of God was spent to redeem those inside one, having become a curse for us. I mark this as my own reading, not the church's settled exegesis of 1 Kings 16:34; the commentators in this brief draw the fulfilment lesson and do not draw this one.

Luke 19:1-10 · Galatians 3:13 · Colossians 1:15-18

"My husband" and not "my Baal": the marriage that reverses this one ancient/widely-held

The commentators in this brief agree that the marriage of v. 31 is the hinge of the disaster. Ellicott calls it "the fatal turning-point"; Henry says marriages with daring offenders "imbolden in wickedness"; Poole notes the union was of a race Israel was expressly forbidden to marry; Cambridge traces its issue through Athaliah into Judah, where Jezebel's line "all but exterminated the royal race." ⚙ Scripture's own remedy for a nation wedded to the Baal is not celibacy but a better marriage. Ellicott himself points to Hosea 2:16, where the word Baal is taken out of Israel's mouth and replaced with the word husband. The apostolic writers finish the arc: Paul presents the church as a pure virgin to one husband, and describes Christ as the one who gave himself for the church to sanctify and present her to himself. This is the widely-held bridegroom reading of the covenant, attested from Hosea onward and taken up by Paul and the Apocalypse; my only added claim is the local one, that 1 Kings 16:31 is the negative photograph of it, a king who took a wife and received her gods, answered by a Bridegroom who took a bride and gave her his own righteousness.

Hosea 2:16-20 · 2 Corinthians 11:2 · Ephesians 5:25-27

Apparatus & Provenance

The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.

Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:

  • Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible (1834)
  • Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, (1880s)
  • Charles Ellicott, Commentary for English Readers (1878)
  • Geneva Study Bible, Marginal Notes (1599)
  • Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory (1871)
  • John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible (1746–63)
  • Joseph Benson, Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1810s)
  • Keil & Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1860s)
  • Matthew Henry, Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706)
  • Matthew Poole, Annotations upon the Holy Bible (1685)
  • The Pulpit Commentary, Spence & Exell, eds. (1880s)

Text and versions. Cambridge records three Septuagint divergences in this unit: at v. 29 the Greek dates Ahab's accession to "the second year of Jehoshaphat" (which disagrees with 1 Kings 22:41 in the Greek itself) and omits the second "and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel"; at v. 32 it renders "house of Baal" as "house of his abominations," the scribal avoidance that also produced Ishbosheth for Eshbaal; at v. 33 it adds a clause about the destruction of Ahab's soul. The Hebrew of v. 29 repeats the full patronymic, and Pulpit suspects a chronologer's revision there. These are recorded, not adjudicated.

Chronology. Barnes argues from 1 Kings 15:10 and 22:51 that Ahab reigned "not more than 21 years" and perhaps barely more than twenty, against the Hebrew's twenty-two. Gill's own lemma at v. 29 reads "in the thirty fifth year of Asa," which disagrees with the Hebrew text printed above it and with every other commentator in this brief; the discrepancy is noted here without explanation, since none of the sources supplies one. On the interval between Joshua's curse and its fulfilment the sources simply differ: Benson says upward of five hundred years, Gill between four and five hundred, Poole eight hundred, JFB more than five hundred. None shows his reckoning.

Exegetical uncertainty. The opening of v. 31, הֲנָקֵל, is read by Poole and Benson as a rhetorical question implying strong denial and by K&D, following Ewald, as a causal clause ("because it was too little"); Pulpit prefers a third shading ("was it such a light thing... that he must needs also?"). This synthesis does not choose between them. At v. 33 the older rendering "grove" (Poole, Geneva, Gill's first phrase) has been superseded by "the Asherah" as an image of the goddess (Cambridge, K&D, Pulpit, and Gill's own correction); BSB's "Asherah pole" picks the cult object. At v. 34 JFB records a modern alternative in which Hiel's two sons mark the span of a long project rather than two bereavements, and grants that the poetical form of the ban does not settle the matter; the commentators' further claim that all the intervening children died (Poole, Gill, Cambridge) is inference beyond what the verse states.

Source data. The interlinear supplied in the brief lists the words of vv. 29, 33 and 34 in English rather than Hebrew order in places, so the literal renderings above follow the Hebrew sequence of the Masoretic text rather than the row order of the source table. In v. 34 the two words of "the Bethelite" are parsed unevenly (word 2 is tagged as a preposition under H1017 and carries a placeholder gloss); Pulpit's note on the form is the only guidance the brief offers. Extra-biblical detail about Ethbaal and Tyrian ritual (Menander via Josephus, cited by Ellicott, Barnes, Cambridge, K&D and Pulpit; JFB on barefoot priests and perpetual fire; Cicero, quoted by K&D) is classical and patristic testimony, not Scripture, and is reported as theirs.

Machine layer. Everything marked ⚙ above, including the sola reading, the pullquote, the Christ entries marked novel, and every tier judgment, is the tool's own fallible synthesis and is offered to be tested against the text. No quotation above was typed by the tool; each was selected by anchors from the verbatim sources.

= human, public-domain source, quoted and named. = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)