On the Greek text. The Greek follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint (Rahlfs-Hanhart in its main wording, itself an ancient, public-domain text); the distinctively copyrighted critical apparatus is not reproduced. Versification follows the LXX.

The Third Book of Kingdoms (1 Kings) (LXX) — Interlinear: Themes, Outlines & Translation Notes

A consolidated companion to the 3 Kingdoms data set: every chapter of LXX 3 Kingdoms (1–22) rendered as a six-tier Greek reverse-interlinear (Greek · gloss · parsing/case · syntax · semantic force · lexical note), with per-verse discourse analysis and a chapter argument-outline.

This document gathers the theme, the argument outline (the outline movements authored into each data file), and the translation / textual / exegetical notes (the text_note of each file, reproduced verbatim) — followed by a summary of the major translation and interpretive cruxes that were deliberately annotated rather than silently resolved. 3 Kingdoms (ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Γ′ — the LXX name for 1 Kings) runs from the accession of Solomon to the death of Ahab: the building and dedication of the temple, the visit of the Queen of the South (Matt 12:42), Solomon's apostasy and the schism of the kingdom, and the Elijah cycle — the drought (Jas 5:17), the widow of Sarepta (Luke 4:25–26), the contest on Carmel, the still small voice, and the seven thousand who have not bowed to Baal (Rom 11:4); its Old Greek differs markedly from the Hebrew — a shorter, rearranged text with the large 'miscellanies' (2:35,46) and Jeroboam supplement (12:24) pluses and a 20↔21 chapter swap. The Greek follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint (Rahlfs–Hanhart in its main wording, itself an ancient public-domain text); the distinctively copyrighted apparatus is not reproduced, and versification follows the LXX.

Scope

Each annotated word carries Greek, a working gloss, color-coded grammatical case, parsing (Tense·Voice·Mood·Person·Number + lemma), a Wallace-style syntactic-function label, an aspectual semantic-force label (verbal forms), and a condensed lexical note. As translation Greek, the annotation additionally flags Hebraisms and the underlying Hebrew idiom where it illuminates the rendering.

The argument of the book

The macro-structure of the whole book — its major movements — under which the chapter-by-chapter detail below unfolds. 3 Kingdoms is one of the most divergent LXX books: the annotation flags its large Old-Greek pluses (the 2:35/2:46 miscellanies, the 12:24a–z Jeroboam supplement, the 16:28 synchronism), its many minuses (the short ch. 4–6, 8–9, 11, the eleven-verse ch. 14), and the LXX/MT swap of chapters 20 and 21. (Section divisions are interpretive; the more common analysis is generally followed.)

• I · 1–11 — Solomon. The accession over Adonijah and David's death; the consolidation of the kingdom with the LXX miscellanies; the dream at Gibeon and the judgment of the harlots; the officials and the surpassing wisdom; Hiram and the seven-year building of the temple and palace; the dedication with the cloud of glory and the great prayer; the Queen of Sheba and the height of splendor; and the foreign wives, the apostasy, and the prophecy of the kingdom torn from his son.
• II · 12–16 — The divided kingdom. Rehoboam's folly and the schism; Jeroboam's golden calves at Bethel and Dan (with the Greek supplement); the man of God from Judah; the reigns of Judah (Abijam, Asa) and the rapid northern dynasties — Nadab, Baasha, Elah, Zimri, Omri — down to Ahab and Jezebel and the cult of Baal.
• III · 17–22 — Elijah and Ahab. The drought and the ravens and the widow of Sarepta; the contest on Carmel and the coming of rain; Horeb and the still small voice and the call of Elisha; Naboth's vineyard and the doom on Ahab's house; the Aramean wars; and Micaiah's vision of the lying spirit and the death of Ahab — the book closing on Jehoshaphat and Ahaziah.

Chapter-by-chapter

3 Kingdoms 1 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Γ′ Α′

Theme. David's weakness sparks Adonijah's bid for the throne, but Nathan and Bathsheba secure Solomon's anointing.

Outline.

• A · 1:1–4 — David's old age and Abishag the Shunammite. The aged David cannot keep warm, so his servants seek throughout Israel a beautiful young virgin to attend and warm him. They find Abishag the Shunammite and bring her; she ministers to him, but he 'did not know her' (οὐκ ἔγνω αὐτήν), a notice of failing potency that frames the whole succession-crisis.
• B · 1:5–10 — Adonijah exalts himself as king; the feast by En-rogel. Adonijah son of Haggith declares ἐγὼ βασιλεύσω and assembles chariots, horsemen, and fifty runners. His unchecked father had never rebuked him. Joab and Abiathar back him; Zadok, Benaiah, Nathan, and David's warriors do not. He holds a sacrificial feast at the Stone of Zoheleth by the spring Rogel, inviting all the king's sons and the men of Judah — but not Nathan, Benaiah, the warriors, or Solomon.
• C · 1:11–14 — Nathan counsels Bathsheba. Nathan warns Bathsheba that Adonijah has become king without David's knowledge and proposes a plan to save her life and Solomon's: she is to recall David's oath and ask why Adonijah is king; Nathan will follow to confirm her words.
• D · 1:15–21 — Bathsheba before David: the forgotten oath. Bathsheba enters the bedchamber where the very old king lies with Abishag attending, bows, and recalls David's oath sworn 'by the LORD your God' (ἐν κυρίῳ τῷ θεῷ σου). She reports Adonijah's accession and feast and the exclusion of Solomon, declares that all Israel's eyes are on David, and warns that she and Solomon will be counted offenders once David sleeps with his fathers.
• E · 1:22–27 — Nathan corroborates before David. As Bathsheba is still speaking, Nathan arrives and is announced. He asks whether David decreed Adonijah's reign, reports the feast and the acclamation ζήτω ὁ βασιλεὺς Αδωνιας and the exclusion of the loyalists, and asks pointedly whether this was done by the king's authority without informing his servant.
• F · 1:28–31 — David renews his oath: Solomon shall reign. David summons Bathsheba and swears by the living LORD who redeemed his life from every distress (ζῇ κύριος) that he will fulfill this very day his sworn word that Solomon will reign in his place. Bathsheba bows to the ground and blesses the king: ζήτω ὁ κύριός μου ὁ βασιλεὺς Δαυιδ εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα.
• G · 1:32–37 — David's decree: anoint Solomon at Gihon. David summons Zadok, Nathan, and Benaiah and commands them to set Solomon on the royal mule and bring him to Gihon, where Zadok and Nathan are to anoint him king over Israel, blow the trumpet, and cry ζήτω ὁ βασιλεὺς Σαλωμων, for Solomon shall sit on David's throne and rule in his stead. Benaiah answers with an amen-blessing.
• H · 1:38–40 — Solomon anointed; the people rejoice. Zadok, Nathan, Benaiah, and the Cherethites and Pelethites set Solomon on the king's mule and bring him to Gihon. Zadok takes the horn of oil from the tent and anoints Solomon; the trumpet sounds and all the people cry ζήτω ὁ βασιλεὺς Σαλωμων. The whole people go up dancing and rejoicing with great joy, so that the earth is split by their sound.
• I · 1:41–48 — Adonijah's feast hears the news; Jonathan's report and David's blessing. Adonijah and his guests hear the trumpet as they finish eating, and Joab asks the meaning of the city's uproar. Jonathan son of Abiathar reports that David has truly made Solomon king: the delegation anointed him at Gihon, Solomon now sits on the royal throne, the servants have blessed David, and David himself has blessed the LORD for granting an heir on his throne while his own eyes still see it.
• J · 1:49–53 — Adonijah's terror; the altar and Solomon's conditional clemency. Adonijah's guests scatter in terror. Adonijah, fearing Solomon, flees and seizes the horns of the altar, demanding an oath that Solomon will not put him to death by the sword. Solomon answers that if Adonijah proves a worthy man not a hair of his head shall fall, but if evil is found in him he shall die. Solomon brings him down from the altar; Adonijah bows to King Solomon, who dismisses him to his house.

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 3 Kingdoms 1 (1 Kings) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. In the LXX the books of Samuel and Kings form a single tetralogy of 'Reigns' (Βασιλειῶν), so that 1 Kings is 3 Kingdoms (Βασιλειῶν Γ′); this chapter opens the Solomonic succession-narrative whose Hebrew Vorlage corresponds closely to the MT of 1 Kings 1. The chapter is a tightly woven court-intrigue: David's senility and the search for Abishag (vv. 1–4); Adonijah's self-coronation with chariots, fifty runners, and the backing of Joab and Abiathar, climaxing in the feast at the Stone of Zoheleth by En-rogel (vv. 5–10); Nathan's coaching of Bathsheba and her appeal to David's sworn oath (vv. 11–21); Nathan's corroborating audience (vv. 22–27); David's emphatic oath ζῇ κύριος (v. 29) and his decree that Solomon ride the royal mule to Gihon (vv. 28–37); the anointing by Zadok with the horn of oil from the tent, the trumpet, and the acclamation ζήτω ὁ βασιλεὺς Σαλωμων (vv. 38–40); the collapse of Adonijah's banquet (vv. 41–48); and Adonijah's flight to the horns of the altar, released under a conditional pledge of clemency (vv. 49–53). A recurring Hebraism is the deferential address κύριέ μου βασιλεῦ / ὁ κύριός μου ὁ βασιλεύς ('my lord the king'), where κύριος denotes the human sovereign David, not the Tetragrammaton; the divine name κύριος appears proper in the oath ζῇ κύριος (v. 29), in ἐν κυρίῳ τῷ θεῷ (vv. 17, 30), and in the blessings of vv. 36–37, 47–48. Proper names Δαυιδ, Σαλωμων, Αδωνιας, Ναθαν, Βηρσαβεε, Σαδωκ, Αβιαθαρ and the transliterated Cherethites and Pelethites (ὁ χερεθθι, ὁ φελεθθι) are indeclinable, while declinable names (Βαναιας, Ιωαβ, Ιωναθαν, Σαρουια) take case-endings.

3 Kingdoms 2 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Γ′ Β′

Theme. David charges Solomon, who secures the kingdom by judging Adonijah, Abiathar, Joab, and Shimei.

Outline.

• A · 2:1–4 — David's charge to Solomon: keep the law of Moses. As his days draw near to die (v. 1), David charges Solomon first to covenant fidelity: 'be strong and become a man' (v. 2), keep the charge of the LORD (φυλάξεις τὴν φυλακὴν κυρίου) by walking in his ways and observing the commandments written in the law of Moses (v. 3), so that YHWH may establish (στήσῃ) his dynastic word — that David will never lack a man on the throne of Israel if his sons walk before God in truth (v. 4).
• B · 2:5–9 — David's charge concerning Joab, Barzillai's sons, and Shimei. Deal wisely with Joab, who shed the blood of war in peace (Abner and Amasa), and do not let his gray head go down to Hades in peace (vv. 5–6); show ἔλεος to the sons of Barzillai the Gileadite (v. 7); and though David swore by the LORD not to kill Shimei son of Gera, who cursed him at Bahurim, Solomon — a wise man — is to bring his gray head down to Hades in blood (vv. 8–9).
• C · 2:10–12 — David's death and the establishment of Solomon's reign. David sleeps with his fathers and is buried in the city of David (v. 10); a regnal summary records forty years' reign — seven in Hebron, thirty-three in Jerusalem (v. 11). Solomon sits on the throne of David, and his kingdom is firmly established (v. 12).
• D · 2:13–25 — Adonijah's request for Abishag and his execution. Adonijah, through Bathsheba, asks Solomon for Abishag the Shunammite as wife (vv. 13–21). Solomon reads the request as a renewed bid for the kingdom (v. 22), swears by the LORD that Adonijah has spoken against his own life (vv. 23–24), and dispatches Benaiah, who strikes him down (v. 25).
• E · 2:26–27 — Abiathar deposed to Anathoth. Solomon banishes Abiathar to his field at Anathoth, sparing his life because he bore the ark before David and shared his afflictions (v. 26); thereby he removes him from the priesthood, fulfilling the word against the house of Eli at Shiloh (v. 27).
• F · 2:28–35 — Joab slain at the altar; Benaiah and Zadok installed; the first miscellany. Joab flees to the tent of the LORD and seizes the horns of the altar (v. 28); when he refuses to come out, Benaiah is ordered to kill him there, so that the innocent blood he shed returns on his own head while David's house has peace forever (vv. 29–33); Benaiah strikes him down (v. 34). The king sets Benaiah over the army and Zadok as chief priest (v. 35), after which the long first miscellany (35a–o) gathers notices of Solomon's wisdom and building works.
• G · 2:36–46 — Shimei confined and executed; the kingdom established; the second miscellany. Solomon confines Shimei to Jerusalem on pain of death should he cross the Kidron (vv. 36–38). After three years Shimei pursues runaway slaves to Gath and returns (vv. 39–40); Solomon confronts him for breaking the oath of the LORD (vv. 41–44), pronounces blessing on his throne (v. 45), and has Benaiah strike him down (v. 46), which introduces the long second miscellany (46a–l) on Solomon's prosperity and dominion.

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 3 Kingdoms (1 Kings) 2 follows the Rahlfs–Hanhart critical edition of the Septuagint (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. 3 Kingdoms is the LXX's designation for the book English Bibles call 1 Kings (ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Γ′, 'Of Kingdoms, the Third'). The chapter's most distinctive LXX feature is the so-called 'MISCELLANIES' — two long blocks of supplementary material with no equivalent in the Hebrew Masoretic Text, traditionally lettered 2:35a–o and 2:46a–l. In the present edition these pluses are run together within the long verses 35 and 46 (the source's editorial sub-letter markers, originally inserted as inline tags before each lettered unit, have been removed and are not annotated as words). The first miscellany (35a–o) gathers notices of Solomon's God-given wisdom 'as the sand by the sea,' his marriage to Pharaoh's daughter, his building of the temple, the walls of Jerusalem, the Millo (ἄκρα), and store-cities, his corvée of seventy thousand burden-bearers and eighty thousand quarrymen, his bronze sea and temple furnishings, and a doublet of David's charge concerning Shimei. The second miscellany (46a–l) summarizes Solomon's surpassing wisdom, the peace and prosperity of his realm where Judah and Israel dwelt secure 'each under his vine and his fig tree from Dan to Beersheba,' his lavish daily provisions, the roster of his chief officers, his forty thousand chariot-horses, and his dominion 'from the River to the border of Egypt.' This material the MT distributes across 1 Kings 3–5 and 9–10, so that 3 Kingdoms stands as a primary witness to a Hebrew Vorlage and editorial arrangement differing markedly from the MT. Throughout the chapter κύριος renders the Tetragrammaton (except the human honorific 'my lord the king' at v. 38); David's charge employs the deuteronomistic idiom φυλάξεις τὴν φυλακὴν κυρίου ('you shall keep the charge of the LORD,' v. 3) and the dynastic-promise formula οὐκ ἐξολεθρευθήσεταί σοι ἀνήρ ('a man shall not be cut off from you,' v. 4).

3 Kingdoms 3 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Γ′ Γ′

Theme. Solomon asks for a hearing heart, receives wisdom, and proves it in the judgment of the two women.

Outline.

• A · 3:2–4 — Cultic preface: worship on the high places and Solomon at Gibeon. Because no temple has yet been built τῷ ὀνόματι κυρίου, both the people (v. 2) and Solomon himself (v. 3) sacrifice on the high places, even as Solomon loves the LORD and walks in David's statutes. The greatest of the high places is Gibeon, where Solomon offers a thousand whole-burnt-offerings (v. 4), setting the stage for the night-theophany.
• B · 3:5–9 — The Gibeon theophany: God's offer and Solomon's request. κύριος appears to Solomon in a dream and invites him to ask any gift (v. 5). Solomon answers with a recital of God's covenant ἔλεος toward David (v. 6), confesses his own youth and inexperience as παιδάριον μικρόν set over an innumerable people (vv. 7–8), and asks for a καρδίαν ἀκούειν — a discerning heart to judge the people and distinguish ἀνὰ μέσον ἀγαθοῦ καὶ κακοῦ (v. 9).
• C · 3:10–14 — Divine pleasure and the grant of wisdom, riches, and honor. Solomon's request pleases the LORD (v. 10). Because he asked for σύνεσις to hear judgment and not for long life, riches, or his enemies' lives (v. 11), God grants him an unparalleled καρδίαν φρονίμην καὶ σοφήν (v. 12) and adds the unrequested πλοῦτον καὶ δόξαν (v. 13), with long life held out conditionally upon walking in God's ways as David did (v. 14).
• D · 3:15 — Solomon awakes and sacrifices before the ark in Jerusalem. Solomon wakes and recognizes the dream; he goes to Jerusalem, stands before the altar facing the ark of the covenant of the LORD in Zion, offers whole-burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, and makes a great feast for all his servants — translating the granted wisdom into covenant worship.
• E · 3:16–22 — The two harlots: the disputed living child. Two prostitutes stand before the king (v. 16). One tells how they bore sons three days apart in the same house, how the other's son died in the night, and how the other woman exchanged the dead child for her living one (vv. 17–21). The two women contradict each other before the king, each claiming the living son and assigning the dead one to the other (v. 22).
• F · 3:23–28 — The judgment of the sword and the fear of all Israel. Restating the deadlock (v. 23), the king calls for a sword (v. 24) and orders the living child divided in two (v. 25). The true mother, her womb stirred with compassion, begs that the child be given alive to the other rather than killed, while the false claimant assents to the division (v. 26); the king awards the child to the woman who would save it, naming her the true mother (v. 27). All Israel hears the judgment and fears the king, perceiving that the wisdom of God is in him to do justice (v. 28).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 3 Kingdoms 3 (= 1 Kings 3 in the Hebrew/English numbering) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. Note on versification: in the Rahlfs LXX this chapter has no verse 1 — the text begins at verse 2 (πλὴν ὁ λαὸς ἦσαν θυμιῶντες) and runs continuously through verse 28; the verse numbers used here (2–28, twenty-seven verses) reproduce the reference text exactly and are not renumbered. The chapter unfolds in three great movements. First, a cultic preface (vv. 2–4): the people and Solomon are still sacrificing ἐπὶ τοῖς ὑψηλοῖς ('on the high places') because no house has yet been built τῷ ὀνόματι κυρίου, and Solomon goes up to Gibeon to offer a thousand whole-burnt-offerings. Second, the theophany at Gibeon (vv. 5–14): κύριος appears to Solomon ἐν ὕπνῳ τὴν νύκτα and invites him to ask any gift; Solomon, confessing himself παιδάριον μικρόν, asks not for long life, riches, or the lives of his enemies but for a καρδίαν ἀκούειν ('a heart to hear / understand') to judge YHWH's innumerable people, ἀνὰ μέσον ἀγαθοῦ καὶ κακοῦ; God, pleased, grants him a καρδίαν φρονίμην καὶ σοφήν unequalled before or after, plus the unrequested πλοῦτον καὶ δόξαν, conditioning long life on obedience. Third, after Solomon wakes and sacrifices before the ark in Jerusalem (v. 15), comes the celebrated Judgment of the Two Harlots (vv. 16–28): two πόρναι dispute a living child; the king calls for a μάχαιρα and orders the child divided (διέλετε τὸ παιδίον … εἰς δύο); the true mother's compassion (ἐταράχθη ἡ μήτρα αὐτῆς) betrays her, and Solomon awards her the living child, so that all Israel fears the king, seeing that φρόνησις θεοῦ ἐν αὐτῷ τοῦ ποιεῖν δικαίωμα. Two occurrences of κύριε (vv. 17, 26) are the harlots' deferential address to the king and are rendered as the human 'my lord,' not as the divine name.

3 Kingdoms 4 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Γ′ Δ′

Theme. Solomon's kingdom is ordered through officials, provisioners, and disciplined administration over all Israel.

Outline.

• A · 4:1–6 — Solomon's high officials: the court cabinet. Under the heading καὶ ἦν ὁ βασιλεὺς Σαλωμων βασιλεύων ἐπὶ Ισραηλ (v. 1), the roster lists the chief officers of the realm (οἱ ἄρχοντες, v. 2): Azariah son of Zadok; the scribes Eliareph and Ahijah (γραμματεῖς, v. 3); Jehoshaphat the recorder (ὑπομιμνῄσκων); the priests Zadok and Abiathar (ἱερεῖς, v. 4); Orniah over the appointed officers and Zabouth the king's companion (ἑταῖρος τοῦ βασιλέως, v. 5); Ahiel the steward (οἰκονόμος), Eliab over the household, and Adoniram over the levy (ἐπὶ τῶν φόρων, v. 6).
• B · 4:7 — The twelve provisioners introduced. Solomon appoints twelve officers (δώδεκα καθεσταμένοι) over all Israel to supply (χορηγεῖν) the king and his household; the duty rotates so that each man provisions the court for one month in the year (μῆνα ἐν τῷ ἐνιαυτῷ … ἐπὶ τὸν ἕνα χορηγεῖν). This verse states the system that the following roster (vv. 8–19) enumerates district by district.
• C · 4:8–19 — The roster of the twelve district governors. The names and territories of the twelve are listed, each entry typically closed by the tally εἷς ('one'): the hill country of Ephraim (v. 8); the towns of Machemas to Bethanan (v. 9); Esoth's region (v. 10); Chinanadab, married to Solomon's daughter Tableth (v. 11); Bakcha over Taanach, Megiddo, and the house of San (v. 12); the son of Gaber over Ramoth-Gilead with its sixty fortified cities (v. 13); Ahinadab in Mahanaim (v. 14); Ahimaas in Naphtali, married to Solomon's daughter Basemmath (v. 15); Baana in Maalath (v. 16); Samaa in Benjamin (v. 17); Gaber in the land of Gad, the realm of Sihon and Og (v. 18); and Jehoshaphat in Issachar (v. 19).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 3 Kingdoms 4 follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. The LXX of 3 Kingdoms (1 Kings) diverges markedly from the Masoretic Text in arrangement and length: the chapter division here is shorter than MT 1 Kings 4–5, ending at v. 19, and the underlying Old Greek often transliterates rather than translates the place- and personal-names of the district list, frequently agglutinating Hebrew construct chains into single opaque forms (e.g. Βηρβηθνεμα, Λουσαμηνχα, v. 10; Βαισαφουδ, Εβελμαωλα, v. 12). The chapter is a two-part administrative document: first the roster of Solomon's high officials — the court cabinet of scribes (γραμματεῖς), recorder (ὑπομιμνῄσκων, rendering מַזְכִּיר), priests (ἱερεῖς), steward (οἰκονόμος), the officer over the levy (ἐπὶ τῶν φόρων), and the king's companion (ἑταῖρος τοῦ βασιλέως) — and then the list of the twelve provisioners (καθεσταμένοι) set over all Israel, each responsible for supplying (χορηγεῖν) the king and his household one month of the year (vv. 7–19). The repeated tally-word εἷς ('one', i.e. 'one [governor]') punctuates the district entries as a counting device. Because the names are overwhelmingly indeclinable Hebrew transliterations, they are parsed as indeclinable; the Greek connective, article, and common-noun skeleton (υἱός 'son', βασιλεύς, οἶκος, πόλεις) carries the syntax. Two governors are noted as sons-in-law of Solomon, having married his daughters Ταβληθ (v. 11) and Βασεμμαθ (v. 15), binding the provincial administration to the royal house by marriage.

3 Kingdoms 5 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Γ′ Ε′

Theme. Solomon's wisdom, abundance, and alliance with Hiram gather the resources and labor for the temple.

Outline.

• A · 5:1–4 — Solomon's daily provision and dominion over the River-land. The appointed officers (οἱ καθεσταμένοι) supply King Solomon's table month by month without ever falling short, together with the barley and straw for the horses and chariots wherever the king is (v. 1). The daily ration is itemized — thirty kors of fine flour and sixty of meal (v. 2), ten choice oxen, twenty pasture-fed cattle, a hundred sheep, besides deer, gazelles and fatted fowl (v. 3) — a portrait of imperial abundance. The reason follows (ὅτι, v. 4): Solomon ruled over all the region beyond the River and had peace on every side round about.
• B · 5:9–14 — The gift of surpassing wisdom. The LORD gave Solomon φρόνησις and exceedingly great σοφία and breadth of heart as the sand by the sea (v. 9); his understanding surpassed that of all the ancients and all the wise of Egypt (v. 10), exceeding even the named sages Gaithan, Aiman, Chalkal and Darda (v. 11). He spoke 3,000 proverbs and his songs were 5,000 (v. 12), and he discoursed on the whole order of creation — trees from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop, beasts, birds, reptiles, fish (v. 13). All peoples came to hear his wisdom, and he received tribute from every king of the earth; the verse then absorbs the transposed notices of the marriage to Pharaoh's daughter and the rebuilding of Gezer (v. 14).
• C · 5:15–26 — Negotiations with Hiram of Tyre for temple timber. Hiram of Tyre, ever a friend of David, sends his servants to Solomon (v. 15), and Solomon sends word in turn (v. 16): David could not build a house for the LORD's name because of the surrounding wars (v. 17), but now there is rest on every side (v. 18), so Solomon purposes to build the house as the LORD promised David (v. 19), and requests Lebanon timber, offering wages and acknowledging Sidonian skill in felling (v. 20). Hiram rejoices and blesses the God who gave David a wise son (v. 21); he agrees to supply cedar and cypress (v. 22), to float the timber by sea to an appointed place (v. 23). So Hiram gave Solomon all he wished (v. 24), and Solomon gave Hiram wheat and pressed oil yearly (v. 25); the LORD gave Solomon wisdom as promised, and the two made a covenant of peace (v. 26).
• D · 5:27–32 — The labor levy and the preparation of materials. The king raised a levy out of all Israel — thirty thousand men (v. 27) — and sent them to Lebanon in shifts of ten thousand a month, one month there and two at home, with Adoniram over the levy (v. 28). Solomon had seventy thousand burden-bearers and eighty thousand quarrymen in the mountain (v. 29), besides the 3,600 overseers set over the works who directed the labor (v. 30). And they prepared the stones and the timber over three years (v. 32).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 3 Kingdoms 5 follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. 3 Kingdoms (Βασιλειῶν Γ′) is the LXX designation for the book known in the Hebrew/Masoretic tradition as 1 Kings, and the Greek versification of this chapter diverges markedly from the MT (≈ 1 Kgs 5 + 4:29–34). In the LXX arrangement of this chapter the wisdom-material precedes the Hiram negotiations, and several verses present in other arrangements are absent here: the chapter contains exactly 27 verses, numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32 — so that vv. 5–8 and v. 31 are not present and the numbering jumps 4→9 and 30→32. Verse 14 is unusually long because it absorbs two transposed narrative pluses — Solomon's marriage to Pharaoh's daughter and the burning/rebuilding of Gezer — which in the source were flagged editorially with the sigla [a] and [b]; those inline markers have been removed from the running Greek text and no word-objects are generated for them. The chapter unfolds in four movements: the daily provision for Solomon's table and his dominion over the land beyond the River (vv. 1–4); the gift of surpassing φρόνησις and σοφία — greater than all the men of the east and all Egypt, 3,000 παραβολαί and 1,005 songs (here, in the LXX figure, five thousand), discourse on trees from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop, on beasts, birds, reptiles and fish, with all peoples coming to hear (vv. 9–14); the diplomatic exchange with Χιραμ (Hiram) of Tyre for cedar and cypress timber, sealed with a covenant of peace (vv. 15–26); and the labor levy raised out of all Israel — 30,000 conscripts in rotation, 70,000 burden-bearers, 80,000 quarrymen and 3,600 overseers — who prepared the stones and timber over three years (vv. 27–32). Throughout, the indeclinable proper names Σαλωμων, Χιραμ, Δαυιδ and Φαραω are construed by their accompanying articles; κύριος renders the Tetragrammaton at every occurrence in the chapter.

3 Kingdoms 6 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Γ′ Ϛ′

Theme. Solomon builds the temple with ordered splendor, setting the holy house at the center of his reign.

Outline.

• A · 6:1 — Date and foundation: the 440th year and the great quarried stones. The LXX-expanded opening dates the work to the four hundred and fortieth year of the Exodus and Solomon's fourth year (the second month). The king commands; great costly and unhewn stones are taken up for the foundation, hewn by the sons of Solomon and of Hiram and laid. The house of the LORD is founded in the month Niso and finished in the eleventh year, in the month Baal — the eighth month — according to all its plan and arrangement.
• B · 6:2–10 — The house and its measures: porch, windows, side-chambers, and cedar ceiling. The dimensions (40 × 20 × 25 cubits, v. 2) and the αιλαμ/porch (v. 3); the hidden latticed windows (v. 4); the beams and surrounding side-chambers (πλευραί) for nave and δαβιρ (v. 5); the three ascending storeys with increasing breadth and the external offset-recess (vv. 6, 8); the silent construction in dressed quarried stone with no iron tool heard (v. 7); the cedar ceiling and cedar binders fastening the whole (vv. 9–10).
• C · 6:15–22 — The cedar-lined interior and the δαβιρ: the Holy of Holies overlaid with gold. The interior panelled in cedar from floor to rafters and lined with pine (v. 15); twenty cubits partitioned off to make the δαβιρ into the Holy of Holies (vv. 16–17); the sanctuary set in the inmost house to receive the ark of the covenant (v. 19); its perfect cube (20 × 20 × 20) overlaid with pure gold (vv. 20–21); the whole house covered with gold to completion (v. 22).
• D · 6:23–28 — The two cherubim of the inner sanctuary. Two cherubim ten cubits high (v. 23); each wing five cubits, ten cubits tip to tip (v. 24); the two of one measure and one design (vv. 25–26); standing in the innermost house with wings outspread, each touching a wall and meeting wing to wing in the middle (v. 27); overlaid with gold (v. 28).
• E · 6:29–35 — Carved cherubim, palms, and flowers; the golden floor and the temple doors. All the walls, inner and outer, engraved with cherubim and palm-trees (v. 29); the gilded floor (v. 30); doors of juniper wood with five-fold posts for the δαβιρ (v. 31); the doors carved with cherubim, palms and outspread petals and gilded so the gold runs down over them (v. 32); the nave's doorway made likewise with juniper posts (v. 33); the double leaves of pine swinging on their hinges (v. 34), carved and gilded over the relief (v. 35).
• F · 6:36 — The inner court and the curtain of the porch. Solomon builds the innermost court of three courses of unhewn stone and a course of dressed cedar round about, and makes the curtain for the court of the αιλαμ of the house that stands before the nave — closing the building account before the chapter's end.

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 3 Kingdoms 6 (= 1 Kings 6) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. The LXX of 3 Kingdoms differs markedly from the Masoretic 1 Kings in this chapter: the Greek lacks the equivalents of MT vv. 11–14 (the divine word to Solomon), v. 18 (the cedar carved with gourds and open flowers), and the closing vv. 37–38 (foundation in Ziv, completion in Bul after seven years), so that the 31 verses present here carry the numbers 1–10, 15–17, 19–36; the verse-numbers of this edition are retained exactly and not renumbered. Verse 1 is greatly expanded in the LXX relative to the MT: it dates the founding not to the 480th but to the 440th year after the Exodus (τεσσαρακοστῷ καὶ τετρακοσιοστῷ ἔτει) and folds into a single verse the command to quarry great costly stones (λίθους μεγάλους τιμίους), the hewing by the workmen of Solomon and Hiram, the foundation in the month Niso, and the completion in the eleventh year in the month Baal (here called the eighth month). The chapter narrates the building of the temple: its dimensions (v. 2), the αιλαμ or porch (v. 3), the latticed windows (v. 4), the surrounding side-chambers (πλευραί) in three storeys (vv. 5–8), the cedar ceiling (v. 9), the cedar-panelled interior and the δαβιρ or inner sanctuary set apart as the Holy of Holies to house the ark (vv. 15–22), the two cherubim overlaid with gold (vv. 23–28), the walls and doors carved with cherubim, palm-trees (φοίνικες) and outspread flowers (πέταλα διαπεπετασμένα) and overlaid with gold (vv. 29–35), and the inner court with the curtain of the porch (v. 36). The architectural loanwords αιλαμ (Hebrew אוּלָם, 'porch / vestibule') and δαβιρ (Hebrew דְּבִיר, 'inner sanctuary / oracle'), together with the transliteration χερουβιν / χερουβ (כְּרוּב), are left untranslated by the Greek translator and are treated here as indeclinable. Note the recurring technical verb ἐκοιλοστάθμησεν ('he ceiled / panelled with coffer-work', vv. 9, 15) and the leitmotif περιέσχεν χρυσίῳ ('he covered with gold') that dominates the second half. The inline edition markers present in vv. 1 and 36 have been removed.

3 Kingdoms 7 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Γ′ Ζ′

Theme. Hiram's bronze work and Solomon's finishing labors complete the temple furnishings and royal building program.

Outline.

• A · 7:1–2 — Hiram of Tyre, the master bronze-worker. Solomon fetches Hiram from Tyre, son of a widow of Naphtali and a Tyrian bronze-worker, filled with τέχνη, σύνεσις, and ἐπίγνωσις to do every work in bronze — a portrait echoing Bezalel and Oholiab (Exod 31; 35).
• B · 7:3–9 — The two bronze pillars: Jachin and Boaz. Hiram casts the two hollow pillars (18 cubits high, circumference 14) with their five-cubit capitals, covering networks, two rows of bronze pomegranates, lily-work, and a connecting beam; the pillars are erected at the vestibule and named Ιαχουμ and Βααζ.
• C · 7:10–13 — The molten Sea on twelve oxen. The round Sea (10 cubits across, 5 high, circumference 33) rests on encircling supports, its cup-like rim a lily-blossom; twelve oxen in four triads face the compass-points with hindquarters inward, bearing it up.
• D · 7:14–25 — The ten wheeled bronze stands and their lavers. Ten paneled stands (5 × 4 × 6 cubits) framed between projecting borders, figured with lions, oxen, cherubim, and palm-trees, each on four chariot-like wheels with shoulder-pieces; all of one measure, each crowned by a forty-measure basin, five set on the right and five on the left of the house with the Sea on the southeast.
• E · 7:26–32 — Hiram's bronze works completed and their immeasurable weight. Pots, shovels, and basins finish Hiram's labor; a recapitulatory inventory lists pillars, capitals, networks, four hundred pomegranates, stands, basins, Sea, oxen, and all vessels — forty-eight columns in all — bronze beyond weighing.
• F · 7:33 — The casting-ground in the plain of the Jordan. The king casts the bronze in the thick clay of the Jordan plain, between Sokchoth and Sira.
• G · 7:34–37 — The gold furnishings of the temple. The golden altar and table of the Presence; ten lampstands before the δαβιρ with their lamps and oil-vessels; gold door-fittings, censers, and the doors of the Holy of Holies and the nave; then the work is complete and Solomon brings in David's and his own dedicated silver, gold, and vessels.
• H · 7:38–45 — Solomon's palace complex. In thirteen years Solomon builds his house: the House of the Forest of Lebanon on three rows of cedar columns, paneled and tiered; the Hall of Pillars; the Hall of the Throne / Judgment; his own residence with its court; and a house of like make for Pharaoh's daughter.
• I · 7:46–50 — The precious-stone masonry and the great court; the work completed. All of costly stones hewn to measure, from foundation to coping, founded on great ten- and eight-cubit blocks, with cedar courses; the great court has three courses of stone and a course of carved cedar — and Solomon completed the whole of his house.

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 3 Kingdoms 7 (= 1 Kings 7) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. The LXX of 3 Kingdoms diverges markedly from the Masoretic order of 1 Kings 6–7: the account of Hiram's bronze furnishings is brought forward and interleaved with the palace account, so the chapter runs from Hiram's summons (vv.1–2), through the pillars (vv.3–9), the Sea (vv.10–13), the stands and lavers (vv.14–25), the bronze recapitulation (vv.26–32), the Jordan-plain foundry (v.33), and the gold furnishings (vv.34–37), before turning to Solomon's house, the House of the Forest of Lebanon, the Hall of Pillars, the Hall of the Throne, and Pharaoh's daughter's house (vv.38–45), closing with the precious-stone court (vv.46–50). The translator's vocabulary is heavily technical, with a cluster of transliterated Hebrew architectural terms left untranslated: αιλαμ (אוּלָם, 'vestibule / portico'; plural αιλαμμιν, v.43), μεχωνωθ (מְכֹנוֹת, 'stands / bases'), δαβιρ (דְּבִיר, 'inner shrine'), and χερουβιν (כְּרוּבִים, 'cherubim'). The proper names Σαλωμων, Χιραμ, Φαραω, Δαυιδ, Νεφθαλι, Σοκχωθ, and Σιρα are indeclinable; Τύρος, Λίβανος, and Ιορδάνης are declined. The recurrent completion-formulae (συνετέλεσεν, v.26; ἀνεπληρώθη, v.37; συνετέλεσεν … ὅλον τὸν οἶκον, v.50) bracket the work as a finished creative act, echoing Gen 2:2 and Exod 40:33; the double negation of v.32 (οὐκ ἦν σταθμός … οὐκ ἦν τέρμα) frames the bronze as beyond all reckoning.

3 Kingdoms 8 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Γ′ Η′

Theme. The ark enters the temple, the glory fills the house, and Solomon dedicates it with prayer and sacrifice.

Outline.

• A · 8:1–11 — The ark brought into the inner sanctuary; the cloud of glory fills the house. When Solomon has finished building the house of the LORD and his own house, he assembles the elders in Zion to bring up the ark from the city of David (vv. 1–2). The priests carry the ark, the tent of witness, and the holy vessels (vv. 3–4); king and people sacrifice innumerable victims (v. 5). The ark is set in the δαβιρ beneath the cherubim's outspread wings (vv. 6–8); within are only the two stone tablets Moses placed there at Horeb (v. 9). As the priests withdraw, the cloud fills the house and they cannot minister, for the δόξα κυρίου fills it (vv. 10–11).
• B · 8:14–21 — Solomon blesses the assembly: the LORD's word to David fulfilled. Solomon turns and blesses the assembly (v. 14), then blesses the LORD who has fulfilled with his hand what he spoke with his mouth (v. 15). He rehearses the divine word: the LORD chose no city before, but chose Jerusalem for his name and David for his people (v. 16); David desired to build, but the deed was reserved for his son (vv. 17–19). Now the word is raised up: Solomon sits on the throne, has built the house, and has set there a place for the ark (vv. 20–21).
• C · 8:22–30 — Solomon at the altar: the incomparable God; will God dwell on earth? Standing before the altar with hands spread to heaven (v. 22), Solomon addresses the incomparable covenant-keeping God (οὐκ ἔστιν ὡς σὺ θεός, v. 23), who has fulfilled his promise to David (v. 24); he prays for the dynastic promise to be confirmed (vv. 25–26). The theological climax follows: will God truly dwell with men, when the heaven of heavens cannot contain him (v. 27)? Yet let him regard the prayer toward this house day and night (vv. 28–29) and hear from heaven and forgive (v. 30).
• D · 8:31–40 — Petitions I: the oath at the altar, defeat, drought, famine and plague. The body of petitions, each invoking divine hearing: the sacral oath in cases of wronging a neighbor (vv. 31–32); defeat before enemies through sin (vv. 33–34); the shut heaven and withheld rain (vv. 35–36); famine, pestilence, blight, locust, and siege — any calamity (vv. 37–38); and the appeal that God, who alone knows the human heart, render to each according to his ways, that they may fear him (vv. 39–40).
• E · 8:41–43 — Petition for the foreigner. The fifth petition concerns the ἀλλότριος who is not of Israel (v. 41) but comes and prays toward this house (v. 42). Solomon asks that God hear from heaven and do all the foreigner calls for, so that all the peoples of the earth may know the name and fear the LORD as Israel does, and know that the name has been called over this house (v. 43) — the prayer's universalist height.
• F · 8:44–53 — Petitions: war and exile; Israel set apart from all peoples. When the people go to war and pray toward the city and the house (vv. 44–45); and when they sin and are carried captive, yet turn back with all their heart, confessing 'we have sinned' (vv. 46–48). Solomon asks God to hear, forgive, and grant them mercy before their captors (vv. 49–50), for they are his inheritance, brought from the iron-furnace of Egypt (v. 51); let his eyes be open to their plea (v. 52), for he set them apart from all peoples (v. 53; the embedded 'sun' couplet and the Book of the Song).
• G · 8:54–61 — Solomon's standing blessing: rest given, hearts inclined. Rising from kneeling with hands spread to heaven (v. 54), Solomon stands to bless the assembly (v. 55): blessed be the LORD who has given rest, not one word of his good promise failing (v. 56). May the LORD be with us as with our fathers (v. 57), inclining our hearts to walk in his ways (v. 58); may these words be near the LORD day and night (v. 59), that all peoples may know the LORD is God and there is no other (v. 60), and may our hearts be perfect toward him (v. 61).
• H · 8:62–66 — The dedicatory sacrifices and the seven-day feast. King and people sacrifice before the LORD (v. 62); Solomon offers the peace-offerings — twenty-two thousand oxen and a hundred twenty thousand sheep — and dedicates the house (v. 63). The court is consecrated because the bronze altar is too small for the whole offering (v. 64). Solomon keeps the feast, a great assembly from the entrance of Hamath to the river of Egypt, seven days (v. 65); on the eighth day the people are dismissed, going home rejoicing and glad of heart for all the good the LORD has done for David and for Israel (v. 66).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 3 Kingdoms 8 (= 1 Kings 8 MT) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. The chapter is the centrepiece of the temple narrative: the ark is borne into the δαβιρ (the inner sanctuary, transliterating Hebrew דְּבִיר) beneath the wings of the cherubim, and the cloud of the LORD's δόξα fills the house so that the priests cannot stand to minister (vv. 1–11); Solomon then turns to bless the assembly and rehearses the LORD's word to David (vv. 14–21); standing at the altar he prays the great dedicatory prayer, opening with the incomparability of God (οὐκ ἔστιν ὡς σὺ θεός, v. 23) and the famous question whether God will truly dwell with men on earth, since οὐρανὸς καὶ ὁ οὐρανὸς τοῦ οὐρανοῦ — heaven and the heaven of heavens — cannot contain him (v. 27); seven petitions follow (the oath at the altar, defeat before enemies, drought, famine and plague, the foreigner, war, and exile), each turning on εἰσακούσῃ ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ and ἵλεως ἔσῃ ('hear from heaven and be merciful'); the prayer closes (vv. 54–61) with Solomon rising to bless the assembly because the LORD has given κατάπαυσιν ('rest'), and the chapter ends with the enormous peace-offerings, the dedication of the house, and the seven-day feast with the people dismissed χαίροντες καὶ ἀγαθῇ καρδίᾳ (vv. 62–66). The Rahlfs verse-numbering of this chapter follows the Hebrew/Masoretic count, so that the present chapter runs 1–11, then 14–66: verses 12 and 13 of the Hebrew (Solomon's couplet, 'The LORD said he would dwell in thick darkness; I have surely built you a house to dwell in') are absent at that point in the Greek, which instead embeds an expanded form of the 'sun' couplet — ἥλιον ἐγνώρισεν ἐν οὐρανῷ κύριος ... οἰκοδόμησον οἶκόν μου ... ἰδοὺ αὕτη γέγραπται ἐν βιβλίῳ τῆς ᾠδῆς ('this is written in the Book of the Song') — later, within v. 53 (after the doubled κύριε κύριε). The reference to the Book of the Song (= 'the Book of Jashar', reading השיר for הישר) is marked in the edition by an inline siglum, which is not part of the running text and is omitted here.

3 Kingdoms 9 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Γ′ Θ′

Theme. The Lord warns Solomon that the house and throne stand only through covenant fidelity, even amid wealth and alliances.

Note on versification. The chapter as transmitted in Rahlfs contains seventeen verses with an internal gap: it runs 1–14 and then jumps to 26–28; vv. 15–25 are absent in the Greek tradition at this point. Much of the corresponding Hebrew material (1 Kings 9:15–25: the forced labor, Millo, store- and chariot-cities, the Canaanite levy, the three annual sacrifices) is either relocated within the LXX's substantially reorganized Solomon-narrative or omitted. The verse-numbering here reproduces the transmitted sequence exactly and is not renumbered.

Outline.

• A · 9:1–9 — The LORD's second appearance: conditional promise and warning of ruin. When Solomon has finished the temple and palace (v. 1), the LORD appears to him a second time, as at Gibeon (v. 2). YHWH declares that he has heard Solomon's prayer and has consecrated the house, setting his name and his eyes and heart there forever (v. 3). The conditional dynastic promise follows: if Solomon walks as David did, his throne over Israel will be established forever (vv. 4–5); but if he and his sons turn away to serve other gods, YHWH will cut off Israel from the land and cast off the consecrated house (vv. 6–7). The exalted house will become a ruin at which every passer-by hisses, asking ἕνεκα τίνος ('why?'), and the answer is given: because they forsook the LORD their God who brought them out of Egypt (vv. 8–9).
• B · 9:10–14 — Solomon and Hiram: the twenty cities of Galilee (Cabul). After the twenty years in which Solomon built the two houses (v. 10), Hiram king of Tyre, who had supplied cedar, pine, and gold according to all Solomon's desire, receives from the king twenty cities in the land of Galilee (v. 11). Hiram comes out from Tyre to inspect the cities and they do not please him (v. 12); he protests, 'What are these cities you have given me, brother?' and names them Ὅριον ('Boundary' = Cabul) to this day (v. 13). Nonetheless Hiram sends Solomon a hundred and twenty talents of gold (v. 14).
• C · 9:26–28 — The fleet at Ezion-geber and the gold of Ophir. Solomon builds a ship (fleet) at Ezion-geber (Γασιωνγαβερ) beside Ailath on the shore of the farthest sea in the land of Edom (v. 26). Hiram sends in the fleet his own servants, experienced seamen who know the sea, together with Solomon's servants (v. 27). They go to Sophera (Ophir) and take from there a hundred and twenty talents of gold and bring it to King Solomon (v. 28).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 3 Kingdoms 9 (= 1 Kings 9 MT) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. The chapter opens with the Hebraizing temporal formula καὶ ἐγενήθη ὡς συνετέλεσεν ('and it came to pass when … had finished', v. 1), and the theophany verb ὤφθη κύριος (v. 2) is the classic LXX rendering of the Niphal נִרְאָה, tying this second appearance to the Gibeon dream of ch. 3. The divine speech employs a striking string of first-person perfects — ἤκουσα ('I have heard'), πεποίηκά ('I have done'), ἡγίακα ('I have consecrated', v. 3) — expressing the settled, abiding character of YHWH's commitment to the temple, where his ὀφθαλμοί and καρδία ('eyes and heart') will remain πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας. The conditional structure pivots on the contrast between v. 4's protasis (ἐὰν πορευθῇς … καθὼς ἐπορεύθη Δαυιδ, 'if you walk as David walked') and its apodosis at v. 5 (ἀναστήσω τὸν θρόνον … εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα), grounded in the Davidic-covenant formula οὐκ ἐξαρθήσεταί σοι ἀνὴρ ἡγούμενος ἐν Ισραηλ. The dark counterpart (vv. 6–7) deploys the intensifying Hebraism ἀποστραφέντες ἀποστραφῆτε ('if you utterly turn away', a calque of the infinitive-absolute שׁוֹב תְּשֻׁבוּן) and inverts the promise-verb: the line that shall never be 'cut off' (ἐξαρθήσεται, v. 5) is matched by the threat that Israel will be 'cut off' (ἐξαρῶ, v. 7) from the land. Israel becomes εἰς ἀφανισμόν ('a desolation') and εἰς λάλημα ('a byword') among all peoples (v. 7), and the exalted house — ὁ οἶκος … ὁ ὑψηλός, a pendent nominative — provokes the passer-by to ἐκστήσεται καὶ συριεῖ ('be appalled and hiss', v. 8), the conventional ANE gesture of shocked derision at a ruin. The judgment-question ἕνεκα τίνος ('why?') is answered in v. 9 by the causal ἀνθ᾿ ὧν ('because') and the Exodus-credo (ὃς ἐξήγαγεν … ἐξ Αἰγύπτου ἐξ οἴκου δουλείας) — note the bitter recurrence of οἶκος (the 'house of bondage' set against the temple-house under judgment) and of the root δουλ- (freed from slavery, Israel re-enslaves itself to idols, ἐδούλευσαν). Verse 9 then appends, with paratactic τότε, a notice of Solomon's relocation of Pharaoh's daughter to her own house (MT 1 Kgs 9:24), an editorial seam in the LXX's rearranged narrative. In the Hiram section, ἀντελάβετο ('supported / took hold of', v. 11) ironically echoes Israel's grasping after foreign gods (ἀντελάβοντο, v. 9); the disappointing cities are named Ὅριον ('Boundary', v. 13), the LXX's rendering of the obscure Hebrew Cabul (כָּבוּל). The maritime coda resumes after the gap with the rare classical noun ναῦς (ναῦν, v. 26; νηί, v. 27) for the fleet at Γασιωνγαβερ (Ezion-geber), located by the idiom ἐχομένην Αιλαθ ('adjoining Ailath') ἐπὶ τοῦ χείλους τῆς ἐσχάτης θαλάσσης ('on the shore of the farthest sea') in Edom; Hiram's ἄνδρας ναυτικούς … εἰδότας θάλασσαν ('sailing men knowing the sea', v. 27) supply the Phoenician expertise, and the expedition returns from Σωφηρα (Ophir) with ἑκατὸν καὶ εἴκοσι τάλαντα χρυσίου (v. 28), the same figure as Hiram's gift (v. 14), forming a numerical inclusio around the chapter's wealth-motif.

3 Kingdoms 10 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Γ′ Ι′

Theme. The queen of Sheba and the wealth of the nations display the worldwide fame of Solomon's wisdom and splendor.

Outline.

• A · 10:1–13 — The queen of Sheba tests Solomon and is overwhelmed. Drawn by the fame of Solomon and of the name of the LORD, the queen of Sheba comes to Jerusalem to test him with riddles (vv. 1–2). Solomon answers every question; nothing is hidden from him (v. 3). Seeing his wisdom, his house, his table, his court, and his ascending offerings at the temple, the queen is left breathless (vv. 4–5). She confesses that the report she heard was true but understated — "the half was not told me" (vv. 6–7) — blesses Solomon's servants and the LORD who set him on the throne to do justice (vv. 8–9), gives him 120 talents of gold, spices, and precious stones (v. 10), and after receiving Solomon's royal bounty returns to her land (vv. 11–13).
• B · 10:14–22 — Solomon's gold: revenue, shields, the ivory throne, the ships. The narrator tallies Solomon's annual gold income of 666 talents (vv. 14–15), the three hundred gold spears and three hundred gold shields for the House of the Forest of Lebanon (vv. 16–17), the great ivory throne overlaid with refined gold with its six steps and twelve lions, unequalled in any kingdom (vv. 18–20), and the drinking-vessels all of gold — silver counting for nothing in Solomon's days (v. 21). Verse 22, a single sweeping sentence in the LXX, frames the ships of Tarshish and the king's whole building enterprise and corvée as the engine of this splendor.
• C · 10:23–29 — Solomon's surpassing splendor and the horse trade. Solomon surpasses all the kings of the earth in wealth and wisdom (v. 23), and they all seek his face to hear the wisdom God has put in his heart, bringing annual tribute (vv. 24–25). His chariotry numbers four thousand horses and twelve thousand horsemen, and he rules from the River to the border of Egypt (v. 26). In Jerusalem silver becomes as common as stones and cedar as sycamore (v. 27); the chapter ends with the horse-and-chariot trade routed through Egypt and Kue to the kings of the Hittites and of Syria (vv. 28–29).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 3 Kingdoms 10 (= 1 Kings 10) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. The chapter is the narrative apex of Solomon's reign. It opens with the visit of the queen of Sheba (βασίλισσα Σαβα), who, hearing the fame of Solomon "and the name of the LORD" (τὸ ὄνομα κυρίου, v. 1), comes to test him ἐν αἰνίγμασιν ("with riddles / hard questions"); overwhelmed, she confesses οὐκ ἔστιν τὸ ἥμισυ καθὼς ἀπήγγειλάν μοι ("the half was not told me", v. 7), the saying Jesus invokes when he names "the queen of the South" (βασίλισσα νότου, Matt 12:42 // Luke 11:31). She blesses YHWH who set Solomon on the throne of Israel to do justice (v. 9) and gives him gold, spices, and precious stones (v. 10). The narrative then catalogues Solomon's splendor: the navy of Hiram (Χιραμ) bringing gold from Ophir (here Σουφιρ) and the "unhewn timber" (ξύλα ἀπελέκητα, the almug wood, vv. 11–12); the annual revenue of 666 talents (ἑξακόσια καὶ ἑξήκοντα ἓξ τάλαντα, v. 14); the gold spears and shields housed in the House of the Forest of Lebanon (vv. 16–17); the great ivory throne with its six steps and twelve lions, unmatched in any kingdom (vv. 18–20); the gold drinking-vessels with silver counted as nothing (v. 21); and the long expansion at v. 22 — in the LXX a single vast sentence (printed with internal asterisked sections [a][b][c], here stripped) enfolding the ships of Tarshish (ναῦς Θαρσις), Solomon's building "enterprise" (πραγματεία) of temple, palace, the wall of Jerusalem, the citadel (ἄκρα), and a string of cities, together with the corvée raised from the surviving Canaanite peoples and the exemption of the sons of Israel from forced labor. The chapter closes with Solomon's surpassing wealth and wisdom (v. 23), the kings of the earth seeking his face (v. 24), the annual tribute (v. 25), the four thousand chariot-horses and twelve thousand horsemen (v. 26), silver made "as stones" and cedar as sycamore (v. 27), and the import-export horse trade with Egypt and Kue (Θεκουε, vv. 28–29). The LXX of 3 Kingdoms diverges markedly from the Masoretic 1 Kings in arrangement; the verse-22 megasentence is a conspicuous feature of the Old Greek's distinctive ordering of the Solomon material.

3 Kingdoms 11 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Γ′ ΙΑ′

Theme. Solomon's foreign loves turn his heart, and the Lord raises adversaries and Jeroboam against his kingdom.

Outline.

• A · 11:1–8 — Solomon's foreign wives and the turning of his heart to idols. Solomon the φιλογύναιος (v. 1) takes seven hundred ruling wives and three hundred concubines from the forbidden nations (v. 2). In his old age (v. 4) his foreign wives incline his heart after their gods, and he builds a high place for Chemosh, for Milcom (τῷ βασιλεῖ αὐτῶν, v. 5), and for Astarte the abomination of the Sidonians (v. 6); he does the like for all his wives, burning incense and sacrificing (v. 7), and so does evil before the LORD, not following him fully as David did (v. 8). [Verse 3 is absent from the Greek versification.]
• B · 11:9–13 — The LORD's anger and the sentence: the kingdom torn away, one scepter kept for David. The LORD is angry (v. 9) because Solomon turned from the God who had appeared to him twice and commanded him not to follow other gods (v. 10). The verdict (ἀνθ᾽ ὧν): the kingdom torn from his hand by the cognate-accusative διαρρήσσων διαρρήξω and given to his servant (v. 11) — yet not in his days, for David's sake (v. 12), and not wholly: one scepter remains to his son for David and Jerusalem (v. 13).
• C · 11:14–22 — The adversaries raised up: Hadad the Edomite, his Egyptian exile and return. The LORD raises up adversaries (σαταν) — Hadad of Edom's royal seed and the Aramean Esrom/Hadadezer who seizes Damascus (v. 14). A flashback to David's destruction of Edom under Joab (vv. 15–16) recounts the boy Hadad's escape to Egypt (vv. 17–18), his marriage into Pharaoh's house and his son Genubath reared among the royal princes (vv. 19–20), and his request to return on hearing of David's and Joab's deaths (vv. 21–22). [Verses 23 and 24 are absent from the Greek versification.]
• D · 11:25–28 — Hadad's enmity summarized; Jeroboam son of Nebat introduced. A closing note sums up Hadad's evil and his reign in Edom (v. 25). Jeroboam son of Nebat, an Ephrathite of Sarira, son of a widow and Solomon's servant, is introduced (v. 26); the occasion of his rise is linked to Solomon's building of the citadel and the closing of the city of David's breach (v. 27); a mighty and industrious man, he is set over the forced labor of the house of Joseph (v. 28).
• E · 11:29–38 — Ahijah the Shilonite tears the new garment: ten tribes given to Jeroboam. Ahijah meets Jeroboam on the road (v. 29), tears his new cloak into twelve pieces (v. 30), and bids him take ten, for the LORD will tear the kingdom from Solomon and give him ten scepters (v. 31), leaving two for David and Jerusalem (v. 32). The ground (v. 33) repeats the abomination-list; the whole kingdom is not taken in Solomon's lifetime, for David's sake (vv. 34–36); the LORD chooses Jeroboam as king over Israel (v. 37) and promises him a sure house on condition of David-like obedience (v. 38).
• F · 11:40–43 — Solomon seeks Jeroboam's life; Jeroboam flees to Egypt; Solomon's death and Rehoboam's succession. Solomon seeks Jeroboam's death; Jeroboam flees to Shishak king of Egypt until Solomon dies (v. 40). The regnal-source formula follows (v. 41), then the forty-year reign-length (v. 42), and finally Solomon's death and burial, Jeroboam's return from Egypt to Sarira in Mount Ephraim, and the accession of Rehoboam (v. 43). [Verse 39 is absent from the Greek versification.]

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 3 Kingdoms 11 (= 1 Kings 11) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. The Old Greek of 3 Kingdoms diverges markedly from the Masoretic versification of 1 Kings: the chapter as transmitted preserves thirty-nine verses, and the verse numbers 3, 23, 24, and 39 are absent (the numbering jumps 2→4, 22→25, and 38→40). The chapter opens with a Hebraizing nominal clause framing Solomon as φιλογύναιος ('woman-lover', v. 1), a term with no single Hebrew equivalent. The leading verb of the apostasy-theme is ἐκκλίνω ('turn aside'), which knits together the prohibition (μὴ ἐκκλίνωσιν, v. 2), its violation by the wives (ἐξέκλιναν, v. 4), and Solomon's owning of it (ἐξέκλινεν, v. 9). The Ammonite deity Milcom is rendered obliquely as τῷ βασιλεῖ αὐτῶν ('their king', vv. 5, 33), reading מלכם as the common noun; the foreign gods are branded εἴδωλον ('idol', vv. 5, 7), βδέλυγμα ('abomination', vv. 6, 33), and προσόχθισμα ('detestable thing', v. 33). The Deuteronomistic verdict ἐποίησεν τὸ πονηρὸν ἐνώπιον κυρίου (v. 8), normally reserved for wicked kings, falls here on the temple-builder. The sentence employs the cognate-accusative Hebraism διαρρήσσων διαρρήξω ('by tearing I will surely tear', v. 11), enacted visibly when Ahijah tears his cloak (διέρρηξεν … δώδεκα ῥήγματα, v. 30) and re-applied as ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ ῥήσσω (v. 31). The Hebrew loanword σαταν ('adversary', שָׂטָן) is left untranslated and indeclinable, both as object (ἤγειρεν … σαταν) and predicate (ἦσαν σαταν, v. 14). In that same verse κύριον αὐτοῦ ('his lord', of Hadadezer) is the ordinary human-master sense of the word, not the divine name. Two further cognate-accusative Hebraisms appear: ἐξαποστέλλων ἐξαποστελεῖς ('you will surely send me away', v. 22) and ἀντιτασσόμενος ἀντιτάξομαι (v. 34). The 'lamp for David' motif of v. 36 is rendered θέσις ('a standing-place / abiding position', for Hebrew נִיר), grounded in the name-theology τοῦ θέσθαι ὄνομά μου ἐκεῖ (Deut 12:5, 11). Jeroboam's conditional dynastic promise (v. 38) echoes the Davidic covenant: οἶκον πιστόν ('a sure house', בַּיִת נֶאֱמָן). The chapter closes with the conventional death-and-succession formulae (ἐκοιμήθη μετὰ τῶν πατέρων αὐτοῦ … ἐβασίλευσεν Ροβοαμ … ἀντ᾽ αὐτοῦ, v. 43), here expanded — and the formula stated twice, framing a notice of Jeroboam's return from Egypt — in an Old-Greek arrangement that diverges from MT 1 Kgs 11:43.

3 Kingdoms 12 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Γ′ ΙΒ′

Theme. Rehoboam's harshness splits the kingdom, and Jeroboam entrenches the schism with rival worship at Bethel and Dan.

Outline.

• A · 12:1–5 — Rehoboam at Shechem: the people's plea for a lighter yoke. Rehoboam goes to Shechem because all Israel has gathered there to make him king (v. 1). The people ask him to lighten the hard servitude and heavy yoke imposed by Solomon, pledging service in return (vv. 3–4). He defers his answer three days, and the assembly disperses (v. 5).
• B · 12:6–11 — The two counsels: elders versus young companions. The elders counsel conciliation — become a servant to this people today and they will serve you forever (vv. 6–7). Rejecting this, Rehoboam consults the young men raised with him (vv. 8–10), who counsel intransigence: "my little finger is thicker than my father's loins; my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions" (vv. 10–11).
• C · 12:12–15 — Rehoboam's harsh answer and the LORD's hidden purpose. On the third day Rehoboam answers σκληρά ("harshly"), forsaking the elders' counsel for the young men's (vv. 12–14). The narrator supplies the theological key: the king did not listen because this μεταστροφή was from the LORD, to establish the word spoken by Ahijah the Shilonite concerning Jeroboam son of Nabat (v. 15).
• D · 12:16,18–20 — The schism: "What portion have we in David?" Seeing the king's refusal, Israel raises the secession-cry and departs to its tents (v. 16). The tribute-officer Adoniram is stoned to death and Rehoboam barely escapes by chariot to Jerusalem (v. 18). Israel revolts from the house of David "to this day" (v. 19); Jeroboam is recalled and made king over the ten tribes, only Judah and Benjamin remaining loyal (v. 20).
• E · 12:21–24 — Shemaiah forbids civil war; the Jeroboam supplement (12:24a–z). Rehoboam musters 120,000 warriors to reconquer the north (v. 21), but Shemaiah the man of God forbids the war — "this thing has come about from me" — and they obey (vv. 22–24). Embedded in v. 24 is the long Old-Greek supplement: a parallel account of Solomon's death and Rehoboam's accession, Jeroboam's origins and flight to Shishak, his Egyptian marriage, the sickness and death of his child, Ahijah's oracle of doom, the torn-garment sign of the ten tribes, and a second telling of the Shechem assembly and schism.
• F · 12:25–33 — Jeroboam's golden calves, high places, and rival cult. Jeroboam fortifies Shechem and Penuel (v. 25), then reasons that continued pilgrimage to Jerusalem will turn the people's hearts back to Rehoboam (vv. 26–27). He makes two golden calves — "behold your gods, O Israel" (v. 28) — set at Bethel and Dan (v. 29), which "became a sin" (v. 30); he builds high-place shrines, appoints non-Levitical priests (v. 31), and institutes a rival eighth-month feast, ascending the Bethel altar to sacrifice to the calves he had made (vv. 32–33).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 3 Kingdoms 12 (= 1 Kings 12 in the Hebrew/English tradition) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. NOTE ON VERSE NUMBERING: the chapter as preserved here contains 31 verses, numbered exactly 1, 3–16, 18–33; vv. 2 and 17 are absent from this Greek tradition (in the Hebrew, v. 2 narrates Jeroboam's return from Egypt and v. 17 the Israelites dwelling in Judah's cities; both are absorbed or omitted in the Old Greek arrangement). The chapter is notable for its sustained verbal irony: the people ask relief from a δουλεία σκληρά ("hard servitude," v. 4) and receive a σκληρά ("harsh") answer (vv. 12–13); they offer to δουλεύειν ("serve," v. 4) the king who refuses to be their δοῦλος ("servant," v. 7). The κλοιός ("yoke/collar," vv. 4, 9–11) and σκορπίοι ("scorpions," barbed scourges, vv. 11, 14) dominate the rhetoric of oppression. The secession-cry of v. 16 ("τίς ἡμῖν μερὶς ἐν Δαυιδ … ἀπότρεχε Ισραηλ εἰς τὰ σκηνώματά σου") reproduces the rebel-cry of Sheba son of Bichri (2 Sam 20:1). The narrator's μεταστροφή … παρὰ κυρίου (v. 15) renders the Hebrew סִבָּה, framing the political folly as divinely orchestrated dual causality, fulfilling Ahijah's word (1 Kgs 11:29–39). The calf-proclamation ἰδοὺ θεοί σου Ισραηλ οἱ ἀναγαγόντες σε ἐκ γῆς Αἰγύπτου (v. 28) reproduces verbatim the golden-calf cry of Exod 32:4,8, branding the northern cult as a repetition of Israel's archetypal apostasy; ἐγένετο … εἰς ἁμαρτίαν (v. 30) pronounces the verdict, and the chapter ends by exposing the feast as one ᾗ ἐπλάσατο ἀπὸ καρδίας αὐτοῦ ("which he devised out of his own heart," v. 33). NOTE ON THE JEROBOAM SUPPLEMENT: v. 24 is extraordinarily long because the Old Greek embeds at this point the famous "supplement" or "miscellany" conventionally lettered 12:24a–z — a second, independent, and substantially divergent account of Jeroboam's rise, Solomon's death, Rehoboam's accession, the Shechem assembly, the torn-garment sign, the sickness and death of Jeroboam's child, and the schism. In the source the lettered sections are separated only by editorial markers (rendered "
[a]" … "
[z]"); these have been stripped, and the entire 1,017-word Greek of the supplement is annotated verbatim as a single continuous v. 24. Among the supplement's distinctive details: Rehoboam is sixteen (not forty-one) at accession and reigns twelve (not seventeen) years; his Ammonite mother is named Naanan; Jeroboam's mother Sarira is a harlot; Shishak gives Jeroboam Ano, sister of the queen Thekemina, as wife; and the prophet of the torn-garment sign is named Shemaiah the Elamite rather than Ahijah.

3 Kingdoms 13 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Γ′ ΙΓ′

Theme. A man of God condemns Jeroboam's altar, and his own death proves the deadly seriousness of the Lord's word.

Outline.

• A · 13:1–3 — The man of God's oracle against the altar at Bethel. A man of God comes from Judah ἐν λόγῳ κυρίου while Jeroboam stands at the altar (v. 1) and cries against it: a son named Josiah will be born to the house of David who will slaughter the high-place priests upon it and burn human bones (v. 2); as guarantee he gives a τέρας — the altar torn and the fat-ash (πιότης) poured out (v. 3).
• B · 13:4–6 — Jeroboam's hand withered and restored. The king stretches out his hand with the order συλλάβετε αὐτόν, but it withers (v. 4); the altar is rent per the sign (v. 5). At the king's plea the prophet entreats the LORD's face and the hand is restored (v. 6).
• C · 13:7–10 — The man of God refuses hospitality and departs by another road. Offered food and a gift (v. 7), the prophet refuses even half the king's house, citing the LORD's command to eat no bread, drink no water, and not return by his road (vv. 8–9); he leaves by another way (v. 10).
• D · 13:11–19 — The old prophet of Bethel deceives the man of God into returning. An old prophet, told by his sons of the day's events (vv. 11–12), saddles his donkey and overtakes the man of God under an oak (vv. 13–14); the man refuses his invitation (vv. 15–17), but the old prophet lies — claiming an angel's word (v. 18) — and the man returns and eats and drinks in his house (v. 19).
• E · 13:20–25 — Oracle of doom and the lion on the road. At the table the true word of the LORD comes to the old prophet (v. 20), who pronounces that, because the man rebelled and ate where forbidden, his body shall not reach the tomb of his fathers (vv. 21–22). After the meal (v. 23) a lion meets and kills the man of God on the road, his corpse cast down with donkey and lion standing by (v. 24); passers-by report it in Bethel (v. 25).
• F · 13:26, 28–32 — The old prophet recovers, buries, and laments the man of God. The old prophet recognizes the dead man as the rebel against the LORD's word (v. 26), finds the body with the lion having neither eaten it nor crushed the donkey (v. 28; verse 27 is absent from this edition's numbering), brings it back, buries it in his own tomb with the lament οὐαὶ ἀδελφέ (vv. 29–30), and charges his sons to bury him beside the man of God's bones, for the oracle against the Bethel altar and the Samarian high places will surely come to pass (vv. 31–32).
• G · 13:33–34 — Jeroboam's persistent apostasy and the ruin of his house. Even so Jeroboam does not turn from his evil but again makes high-place priests of any who wished (v. 33); and this thing became sin to his house, unto destruction and obliteration from the face of the earth (v. 34).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 3 Kingdoms 13 (= 1 Kings 13 in the Hebrew Bible and most English versions) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. NOTE ON VERSE NUMBERING: the verses preserved here are numbered 1–26 and 28–34 — verse 27 is ABSENT from the numbering of this edition (the narrative runs continuously from v. 26 to v. 28 with no break in sense); the numbering has not been altered to fill the gap. The chapter is governed by the refrain ἐν λόγῳ κυρίου ('by the word of the LORD', vv. 1, 2, 5, 9, 17, 32) and by the prohibition μὴ φάγῃς ἄρτον … μὴ πίῃς ὕδωρ ('eat no bread, drink no water'), whose violation is fatal. At v. 2 the man of God names the future reformer — Ιωσιας ὄνομα αὐτῷ ('Josiah by name') — a long-range prophecy fulfilled at 4 Kgdms 23:15–18, rendered with the present-tense τίκτεται ('is born') for prophetic immediacy. The judicial vocabulary of provocation — παρεπίκρανας / παρεπίκρανε τὸ ῥῆμα κυρίου (vv. 21, 26) — uses παραπικραίνω, the LXX's standard rendering of מָרָה ('rebel'), framing the disobedience as covenant rebellion. The sign of the altar uses the cognate pair ῥήγνυται / ἐρράγη ('is torn / was rent', vv. 3, 5) and the noun πιότης ('fat-ash', vv. 3, 5) for the spilled ashes. The lion that ἐθανάτωσεν the man yet neither ἔφαγεν the body nor συνέτριψεν the donkey (vv. 24, 28) marks a controlled, manifestly divine judgment rather than natural predation. The keyword ἐπιστρέφω ('turn / return / repent') threads the chapter — the restored hand (v. 6), the forbidden return (vv. 9, 16, 17), the deceptive bringing-back (vv. 18–20, 23, 26, 29), and finally Jeroboam's refusal to repent (v. 33). The old prophet's lament οὐαὶ ἀδελφέ (v. 30) and his charge παρὰ τὰ ὀστᾶ αὐτοῦ θέτε με (v. 31) bind the two prophets in death and guarantee the oracle's witness (cf. 4 Kgdms 23:17–18). The closing triad εἰς ἁμαρτίαν … εἰς ὄλεθρον … εἰς ἀφανισμόν (v. 34) escalates from 'sin' to total effacement of Jeroboam's house from the face of the earth (fulfilled 3 Kgdms 15:29).

3 Kingdoms 14 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Γ′ ΙΔ′

Theme. Rehoboam's Judah falls into apostasy, and Shishak's invasion strips the kingdom of its former glory.

Verse range. This is a GAP CHAPTER: the Rahlfs LXX of 3 Kingdoms 14 contains only eleven verses, numbered 21–31. Verses 1–20 — the Hebrew (MT) narrative of Jeroboam's sick son and the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite — are absent here, their material being represented instead in the long Greek supplement attached to 3 Kingdoms 12:24 (the 'Jeroboam supplement'). The chapter therefore begins at v. 21, and the numbering below (21–31) follows the reference text exactly, without renumbering.

Outline.

• A · 14:21 — Accession notice: Rehoboam reigns over Judah in Jerusalem. The chapter opens (after the LXX gap at vv. 1–20) with the standard regnal-accession formula for Rehoboam son of Solomon over Judah: his age at accession (forty-one years), his seventeen-year reign in Jerusalem — the city YHWH chose to place his name there out of all the tribes of Israel — and the queen-mother, Naamah the Ammanite. The notice of the chosen city quietly frames the apostasy that follows.
• B · 14:22–24 — Judah's apostasy: high places, pillars, Asherim, and cult-prostitution. Rehoboam did the evil thing before the LORD and provoked him to jealousy beyond all their fathers' sins (v. 22). They built for themselves high places (ὑψηλά), pillars (στήλας), and sacred groves/Asherim (ἄλση) on every high hill and under every shady tree (v. 23); and a σύνδεσμος — the LXX rendering of the male cult-prostitutes — arose in the land, so that they imitated all the abominations of the nations YHWH had driven out before the sons of Israel (v. 24): the apostasy reverses the conquest.
• C · 14:25–28 — Shishak's invasion: temple plundered, gold shields replaced with bronze. In Rehoboam's fifth year Shishak (Σουσακιμ) king of Egypt comes up against Jerusalem (v. 25) and carries off the treasures of the house of the LORD and the palace, including the gold shields David had taken from Hadadezer of Zobah (v. 26). Rehoboam replaces the plundered gold with bronze shields, entrusted to the commanders of the runners who guard the palace gate (v. 27); whenever the king entered the temple the runners bore the shields and returned them to their guardroom (θεε, v. 28). The diminished bronze measures Judah's reduced glory.
• D · 14:29–31 — Regnal summary: source-citation, war with Jeroboam, death and succession. The rest of Rehoboam's acts are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah (v. 29); there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days (v. 30); and Rehoboam slept with his fathers and was buried in the city of David, his son Abia (Αβιου) reigning in his place (v. 31).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 3 Kingdoms 14 (= 1 Kings 14) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. As a gap chapter it preserves only vv. 21–31 with the MT verse-numbering of its second half; vv. 1–20 (the Jeroboam/Ahijah material) stand instead in the 12:24 supplement. The chapter is a tightly compressed panel on Rehoboam over Judah: the accession formula with age, regnal length, capital, and queen-mother (v. 21); the Deuteronomistic indictment of Judah's cultic apostasy (vv. 22–24); Shishak's invasion and the stripping of the temple and palace treasures, including David's gold shields from Hadadezer of Zobah (vv. 25–26); the bronze-for-gold substitution and the runners' safekeeping of the shields (vv. 27–28); and the closing regnal formula — chronicle-citation, perpetual war with Jeroboam, death, burial, and the accession of Abia (vv. 29–31). The recurring evaluation ἐποίησεν τὸ πονηρὸν ἐνώπιον κυρίου (v. 22) is the fixed Deuteronomistic verdict, and παρεζήλωσεν ('provoked to jealousy') frames the apostasy as covenant infidelity against the jealous God. The triad ὑψηλά / στήλας / ἄλση with the locale-formula 'on every high hill and under every shady tree' (v. 23) is the standard idiom for the proscribed Canaanite cult (cf. Deut 12:2). At v. 24 σύνδεσμος ('a binding / league') renders the MT's קָדֵשׁ ('male cult-prostitute'), the translator apparently associating the consonants with קֶשֶׁר ('conspiracy'). At v. 28 the untranslated transliteration τὸ θεε preserves the Hebrew architectural term תָּא ('guard-chamber'). The closure formulae of vv. 29–31 — τὰ λοιπὰ τῶν λόγων ... γεγραμμένα ἐν βιβλίῳ λόγων τῶν ἡμερῶν, πόλεμος ... ἀνὰ μέσον ... ἀνὰ μέσον, and ἐκοιμήθη μετὰ τῶν πατέρων αὐτοῦ ... ἐβασίλευσεν ... ἀντ᾿ αὐτοῦ — are the stock Deuteronomistic regnal frames.

3 Kingdoms 15 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Γ′ ΙΕ′

Theme. Judah and Israel pass through contrasting reigns as Asa reforms while northern dynasties fall under prophetic judgment.

Outline.

• A · 15:1–5 — Abia (Abijam) of Judah: a brief, flawed reign preserved for David's sake. Synchronized to Jeroboam's eighteenth year, Abia son of Rehoboam reigns six years; his heart is not perfect with the LORD as David's was (v. 3), yet for David's sake the LORD grants him a κατάλειμμα — offspring after him and the establishment of Jerusalem (vv. 4–5).
• B · 15:7–8 — Abia's closing notice, the war with Jeroboam, death, and Asa's accession. The annalistic citation-formula refers his acts to the chronicles of the kings of Judah and notes ongoing war with Jeroboam (v. 7); Abia sleeps with his fathers, is buried in the city of David, and Asa his son reigns (v. 8). (Verse 6 is absent from the LXX numeration.)
• C · 15:9–15 — Asa of Judah: the reforming king who does right like David. Asa reigns forty-one years (vv. 9–10), does right before the LORD (v. 11), removes the cult-rites and his fathers' idolatrous practices (v. 12), deposes the queen-mother Ana/Maacah and burns her Asherah-objects in the Kidron (v. 13); the high places remain, but his heart is perfect with the LORD all his days (v. 14), and he dedicates silver, gold, and vessels in the temple (v. 15).
• D · 15:16–22 — The Baasha war and Asa's treaty with Ben-Hadad of Damascus. Continual war with Baasha (v. 16), who fortifies Ramah to blockade Judah (v. 17). Asa empties the treasuries to buy off the son of Ader (Ben-Hadad) of Syria (vv. 18–19); Ben-Hadad strikes the towns of Naphtali (v. 20); Baasha abandons Ramah and withdraws to Tirzah (v. 21); Asa conscripts all Judah to carry off Ramah's stones and timber to fortify Geba of Benjamin and the watchtower (v. 22).
• E · 15:23–24 — Asa's closing notice, illness, death, and Jehoshaphat's accession. His acts and might are referred to the chronicles, with the note that in old age he suffered in his feet (v. 23); he sleeps with his fathers and Jehoshaphat his son reigns (v. 24).
• F · 15:25–31 — Nadab of Israel and Baasha's coup: the extinction of Jeroboam's house. Nadab son of Jeroboam reigns two years (v. 25), doing evil (v. 26). Baasha son of Ahijah strikes him down at Gabathon (vv. 27–28) and, on accession, exterminates the whole house of Jeroboam, leaving no breathing thing, 'according to the word of the LORD … by the hand of his servant Ahijah the Shilonite' (v. 29), because of Jeroboam's provoking sins (v. 30); the rest of Nadab's acts are in the chronicles of the kings of Israel (v. 31).
• G · 15:33–34 — Baasha of Israel: accession and the persistence of Jeroboam's sin. In Asa's third year Baasha begins to reign over Israel in Tirzah twenty-four years (v. 33), doing evil and walking in the way and sin of Jeroboam by which he caused Israel to sin (v. 34). (Verse 32 is absent from the LXX numeration.)

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 3 Kingdoms 15 (= 1 Kings 15) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. The chapter is governed by the regnal-formula structures of the Deuteronomistic 'book of the chronicles' (βιβλίον λόγων τῶν ἡμερῶν), alternating Judah and Israel. In the LXX (Old Greek) the versification differs from the Masoretic: the reference text preserves verses 1–5, 7–31, and 33–34, so that BOTH verse 6 AND verse 32 are absent from the numeration — yielding 32 verses present (a feature of the Greek verse-system here, not a narrative lacuna). Distinctive LXX features include the indeclinable Hebraizing onomastics (Αβιου, Ασα, Βαασα, Αχια, Θερσα, Γαβαθων), the recurring 'perfect-heart' formula καρδία τελεία μετὰ κυρίου (vv. 3, 14, rendering לֵב שָׁלֵם עִם יהוה), the stock approval/condemnation idioms ἐποίησεν τὸ εὐθὲς / τὸ πονηρὸν ἐνώπιον κυρίου, and the causative ἐξαμαρτάνω + accusative ('cause Israel to sin', vv. 26, 30, 34, rendering the Hiphil of חטא). The 'lamp in Jerusalem' theology of 11:36 is rendered conceptually as a κατάλειμμα ('remnant / surviving posterity', v. 4). Asa's reform vocabulary is notable: τελετάς ('cult-rites', v. 12, for קְדֵשִׁים), ἄλσος ('sacred grove' = Asherah, v. 13), and the LXX's interpretive σύνοδον ('assembly') and καταδύσεις ('hiding-places') for Maacah's cult-objects burned in the χείμαρρος ('wadi') Kidron. The diplomatic episode renders 'Ben-Hadad' as υἱὸς Αδερ ('son of Hadad') and 'cut a covenant' as διάθου διαθήκην (v. 19), with the demand διασκέδασον ('break/scatter') the rival pact. The northern climax is theologically explicit: οὐχ ὑπελίπετο πᾶσαν πνοήν ('he left no breathing thing', v. 29) is the Hebraism for total extermination (cf. Josh 10:40), and κατὰ τὸ ῥῆμα κυρίου ὃ ἐλάλησεν ἐν χειρὶ δούλου αὐτοῦ Αχια τοῦ Σηλωνίτου marks Baasha's purge as the fulfilment of Ahijah's oracle (3 Kgdms 14). The cognate παροργισμῷ … παρώργισεν (v. 30) is a figura etymologica intensifying Jeroboam's provocation of the LORD God of Israel.

3 Kingdoms 16 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Γ′ ΙϚ′

Theme. Northern instability deepens from Baasha to Omri, and Ahab's rise with Jezebel drives Israel further into evil.

Outline.

• A · 16:1–4 — The prophetic oracle against Baasha (Jehu son of Hanani). The word of the LORD comes by the hand of Jehu son of Hanani: because YHWH raised Baasha from the dust and made him ἡγούμενον over Israel, yet he walked in Jeroboam's way and made Israel sin, YHWH will sweep away his house as he did Jeroboam's (vv. 1–3), sealed by the dog-and-bird curse (v. 4).
• B · 16:5–14 — Baasha's death, Elah's brief reign, and Zimri's exterminating coup. The regnal-summary closes Baasha's reign; Elah his son succeeds (vv. 5–6), with a retrospective on the oracle (v. 7). Elah reigns two years (v. 8) before Zimri, commander of half the chariotry, kills him drunk and seizes the throne (vv. 9–10), exterminating the house of Baasha κατὰ τὸ ῥῆμα κυρίου (vv. 11–13); Elah's summary closes (v. 14).
• C · 16:15–22 — Zimri's seven days and suicide; the Omri–Tibni civil war. Zimri reigns seven days while the army besieges Gibbethon (v. 15); it acclaims Omri and marches on Tirzah (vv. 16–17). Zimri burns the palace over himself (v. 18) for his sins (v. 19); his summary closes (v. 20). The people split between Tibni and Omri (v. 21); Omri's faction prevails, Tibni dies, Omri reigns (v. 22).
• D · 16:23–28 — Omri builds Samaria and does evil; the Jehoshaphat synchronism (v. 28 plus). Omri reigns twelve years, six in Tirzah (v. 23); he buys the hill of Shemeron, builds Samaria, and names it for Shemer (v. 24). He does worse than all before him (vv. 25–26); his summary closes (v. 27). He is buried in Samaria, Ahab succeeding (v. 28) — to which the Old Greek appends a long synchronistic summary of the reign of Jehoshaphat of Judah.
• E · 16:29–33 — Ahab, Jezebel, and the worship of Baal. Ahab reigns twenty-two years in Samaria (v. 29) and outdoes all before him (v. 30): he marries Jezebel daughter of the Sidonian king Ethbaal and serves and worships Baal (v. 31), erecting an altar in a Baal-temple in Samaria (v. 32) and making an ἄλσος ('grove / Asherah'), provoking the LORD beyond all the kings of Israel (v. 33).
• F · 16:34 — Hiel rebuilds Jericho: Joshua's curse fulfilled. In Ahab's days Hiel the Bethelite rebuilds Jericho, laying its foundation at the cost of his firstborn Abiram and its gates at the cost of his youngest Segub, κατὰ τὸ ῥῆμα κυρίου spoken by the hand of Joshua son of Nun (cf. Josh 6:26).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 3 Kingdoms (1 Kings) 16 follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. The chapter is a rapid annalistic survey of the unstable northern monarchy: the prophetic word of Ιου (Jehu) son of Ανανι against Βαασα (Baasha), echoing the dynastic-doom formula already pronounced over Jeroboam (vv. 1–4); Baasha's death and the two-year reign of his son Ηλα (Elah) (vv. 6–8); the coup of Ζαμβρι (Zimri), commander of half the chariotry, who kills Elah while he is drunk and exterminates the house of Baasha in fulfilment of the oracle (vv. 9–13); Zimri's reign of seven days, the army's acclamation of Αμβρι (Omri), and Zimri's suicide by fire in the burning palace (vv. 15–19); the civil war between the partisans of Omri and Θαμνι (Tibni) and Omri's victory (vv. 21–22); Omri's purchase of the hill of Σεμερων from Σεμηρ and the building of Σαμαρεία, with the verdict that he did worse than all before him (vv. 23–28); and the accession of Αχααβ (Ahab) son of Omri, who marries Ιεζαβελ (Jezebel) daughter of the Sidonian king Ιεθεβααλ, serves Βααλ, builds a Baal temple and an ἄλσος ('grove / Asherah'), and provokes the LORD more than all the kings of Israel before him (vv. 29–33). The chapter closes with the notice that Αχιηλ (Hiel) the Bethelite rebuilt Ιεριχω (Jericho) at the cost of his firstborn and youngest sons, fulfilling the curse spoken through Joshua son of Nun (v. 34). A distinctive feature of the Old Greek here is the long synchronistic plus at v. 28 (marked [a]–[h] in printed editions), a Septuagintal summary of the reign of Jehoshaphat of Judah inserted at Omri's death-notice; in the printed source these inserted units are flagged with editorial sigla, which are stripped here so that only the verbatim Greek text is annotated.

3 Kingdoms 17 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Γ′ ΙΖ′

Theme. Elijah begins the drought, is sustained in hidden places, and raises the widow's son by the Lord's word.

Outline.

• A · 17:1 — Elijah the Tishbite announces the drought before Ahab. Elijah confronts Ahab with an oath by the living LORD, the God of hosts before whom he stands (ᾧ παρέστην ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ): there shall be no dew or rain in these years except by the prophet's word (εἰ μὴ διὰ στόματος λόγου μου). The verse sets the drought in motion and establishes the prophetic word as the controlling power over the elements, the premise James appeals to at Jas 5:17.
• B · 17:2–7 — The Wadi Cherith: Elijah hidden and fed by the ravens. The word of the LORD directs Elijah eastward to hide at the Wadi Cherith (Χορραθ) facing the Jordan, where he drinks from the torrent and the ravens (κόραξιν) are commanded to sustain him (vv. 2–4). Elijah obeys, and the ravens bring bread and meat morning and evening while he drinks from the wadi (vv. 5–6). When the wadi dries up for lack of rain (v. 7), the very drought he announced forces the next stage.
• C · 17:8–16 — The widow of Sarepta: the jar of meal and cruse of oil that do not fail. The word of the LORD sends Elijah to Sarepta of Sidon, where a widow has been commanded to feed him (vv. 8–9). He finds her gathering sticks for a last meal before she and her son die; he asks first for water, then for bread (vv. 10–11). She swears by the living LORD that she has only a handful of meal and a little oil (v. 12); Elijah bids her make him a small cake first, with the promise τάδε λέγει κύριος that jar and cruse will not fail until the LORD sends rain (vv. 13–14). She obeys, and meal and oil do not give out, according to the word of the LORD (vv. 15–16). Jesus invokes this widow at Luke 4:25–26.
• D · 17:17–24 — The raising of the widow's son. The widow's son falls fatally ill until no breath remains (v. 17); she accuses Elijah of coming to recall her sins and kill her child (v. 18). Elijah takes the boy to his upper room, lays him on the bed, and cries out to the LORD, the witness of the widow (vv. 19–20). He breathes upon the child three times (τρίς) and prays that the boy's soul return; the LORD answers and the child revives (vv. 21–22). Elijah brings him down alive to his mother (v. 23), and she confesses that Elijah is a man of God and the word of the LORD in his mouth is truth (v. 24).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 3 Kingdoms 17 follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. 3 Kingdoms 17 (= MT 1 Kings 17) inaugurates the Elijah cycle: the prophet Ηλιου ('Elijah') the Tishbite enters without introduction, swearing by the living LORD (ζῇ κύριος, חַי־יְהוָה) that there shall be neither dew nor rain except by his word (v. 1) — the announcement of the drought that frames chapters 17–18. The chapter unfolds in three sustaining miracles: the ravens (οἱ κόρακες) feed Elijah at the Wadi Cherith (Χορραθ) morning and evening (vv. 2–7); the Sidonian widow (χήρα) of Sarepta (Σαρεπτα) shares her last handful of meal (δρὰξ ἀλεύρου) and oil, which then do not fail (οὐκ ἐξέλιπεν … οὐκ ἐλαττονώθη) through the famine, in fulfilment of the prophetic word (vv. 8–16); and finally the widow's son dies and is raised when Elijah breathes upon him and the LORD restores his life (vv. 17–24). The chapter is doubly important for the New Testament: Jesus cites the Sarepta widow as the paradigm of grace reaching beyond Israel (Luke 4:25–26), and James appeals to Elijah's prayer that 'it might not rain' as the model of the righteous person's effective petition (Jas 5:17–18, echoing the drought-oath of v. 1). The LXX text is markedly Hebraic in its καί-parataxis and in idioms such as ζῇ κύριος, τί ἐμοὶ καὶ σοί ('what to me and to you?', v. 18), and ἄνθρωπος τοῦ θεοῦ / ἄνθρωπος θεοῦ ('man of God', vv. 18, 24). The divine name κύριος renders the Tetragrammaton throughout, except where the widow is styled ἡ κυρία τοῦ οἴκου ('the mistress of the house', v. 17), the ordinary human use of κυρία. The LXX of v. 21 reads ἐνεφύσησεν τῷ παιδαρίῳ ('breathed upon the child') where MT has Elijah stretching himself upon the boy; the threefold action (τρίς) is common to both.

3 Kingdoms 18 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Γ′ ΙΗ′

Theme. Elijah's contest on Carmel exposes Baal's impotence, restores the Lord's honor, and ends with returning rain.

Outline.

• A · 18:1–6 — The word of the LORD in the third year; the famine and Obadiah. After the long drought the word of the LORD comes to Elijah in the third year: show yourself to Ahab, for I will give rain (vv. 1–2). The narrator introduces Obadiah, Ahab's steward, who feared the LORD greatly and had hidden a hundred prophets by fifties during Jezebel's purge, feeding them with bread and water (vv. 3–4). Ahab and Obadiah divide the parched land to seek grass for the surviving animals (vv. 5–6).
• B · 18:7–16 — Obadiah meets Elijah; the prophet's oath and Obadiah's fear. Obadiah meets Elijah on the road and falls on his face: "Is it you, my lord Elijah?" (v. 7). Elijah commands him to announce his presence to Ahab (v. 8). Obadiah protests in fear that the Spirit of the LORD will carry Elijah off and Ahab will kill the messenger (vv. 9–14), recounting how he hid the hundred prophets. Elijah swears by the LORD of hosts that he will appear that very day (v. 15), and Obadiah goes to bring word (v. 16).
• C · 18:17–20 — Ahab confronts Elijah: "the troubler of Israel"; the summons to Carmel. Ahab meets Elijah with the accusation "Are you he who troubles Israel?" (v. 17). Elijah turns the charge back: it is Ahab and his father's house who have troubled Israel by forsaking the LORD and going after the Baalim (v. 18). He commands Ahab to gather all Israel to Carmel with the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the prophets of the groves (v. 19), and Ahab complies (v. 20).
• D · 18:21–24 — Elijah's challenge: "how long will you limp between two opinions?" Elijah confronts the people: how long will you go limping on both hams? If the LORD is God, follow him; if Baal, follow him (v. 21) — and the people answer not a word. Elijah, the lone prophet of the LORD against the four hundred and fifty of Baal (v. 22), proposes the contest: two bulls, no fire, and the God who answers by fire is God; the people approve (vv. 23–24).
• E · 18:25–29 — The prophets of Baal cry and cut themselves in vain. Baal's prophets prepare their bull and call from morning to noon — but there is no voice and no answer (vv. 25–26). Elijah mocks them: cry louder, for he is a god — perhaps he is musing, or busy, or on a journey, or asleep (v. 27). They gash themselves with swords and lances until the blood gushes out, prophesying until the evening offering — yet no voice, no answer, no attention (vv. 28–29).
• F · 18:30–35 — Elijah repairs the altar of twelve stones and drenches it. Elijah calls the people near and heals the broken altar of the LORD with twelve stones according to the tribes of Israel (vv. 30–32). He arranges the wood, cuts the offering, makes a trench, and commands water poured over everything three times until the trench is filled (vv. 33–35), removing every natural explanation for the fire to come.
• G · 18:36–40 — Elijah's prayer, the fire of the LORD, and the slaughter at Kishon. Elijah prays to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel that the people may know that the LORD is God and that he has turned their hearts back (vv. 36–37). Fire falls from the LORD and consumes the offering, the wood, the stones, the dust, and the water (v. 38); the people fall and confess "truly the LORD, he is God!" (v. 39). Elijah seizes the prophets of Baal and slaughters them at the wadi Kishon (v. 40).
• H · 18:41–46 — The coming of the rain and Elijah's run to Jezreel. Elijah tells Ahab to eat and drink, for there is the sound of rain (v. 41). On Carmel Elijah bows with his face between his knees and sends his servant seven times to look toward the sea (vv. 42–43). At the seventh a little cloud like a man's footprint rises (v. 44); the heavens darken and a great rain falls (v. 45). The hand of the LORD comes on Elijah, who girds his loins and outruns Ahab's chariot to Jezreel (v. 46) — the answered-prayer rain of Jas 5:17–18.

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 3 Kingdoms 18 (= 1 Kings 18) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. The chapter frames the whole Carmel episode between the divine promise δώσω ὑετόν ("I will give rain", v. 1) and its fulfilment in the ὑετὸς μέγας ("great rain", v. 45) — the rain-by-prayer tradition James invokes (Jas 5:17–18, "Elijah… prayed earnestly that it might not rain… and again he prayed, and the heaven gave rain"). The "third year" (v. 1) lies behind James' "three years and six months." The LXX construes ἡ λιμός as feminine (v. 2). The hundred preserved prophets (vv. 4, 13) anticipate the remnant theology of 19:18, which Paul cites at Rom 11:2–4 (the seven thousand who have not bowed to Baal); Elijah's ἐγὼ ὑπολέλειμμαι… μονώτατος ("I alone am left", v. 22) likewise foreshadows the lament of 19:10 quoted at Rom 11:3. The LXX repeatedly substitutes dysphemisms for the Baal-prophets: οἱ προφῆται τῆς αἰσχύνης ("of the shame", vv. 19, 25) and τῶν προσοχθισμάτων ("of the abominations", v. 29). Elijah's challenge ἕως πότε ὑμεῖς χωλανεῖτε ἐπ᾽ ἀμφοτέραις ταῖς ἰγνύαις ("how long will you limp on both hams?", v. 21) renders the Hebrew פָּסַח ("limp/hop"); ironically the Baal-prophets then διέτρεχον ("limped about") their altar (v. 26). Elijah's mockery (v. 27) heaps up euphemisms — ἀδολεσχία ("musing"), χρηματίζει (taken as "relieving himself"), καθεύδει ("asleep") — against the God who never sleeps (cf. Ps 121:4). The altar is built of twelve stones κατ᾽ ἀριθμὸν φυλῶν τοῦ Ισραηλ, with the Jacob-renaming cited (v. 31; Gen 32:28). Elijah "heals" (ἰάσατο) the demolished altar (v. 32), a striking medical metaphor, and digs a θααλα (a transliterated trench). The fire παρὰ κυρίου ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ (v. 38) consumes everything and ἐξέλιξεν ("licks up") even the stones, dust, and water — proof of its supernatural character; the people's ἀληθῶς κύριός ἐστιν ὁ θεός (v. 39) answers the criterion οὗτος θεός of v. 24. The chapter ends with χεὶρ κυρίου ἐπὶ τὸν Ηλιου (v. 46), the idiom of prophetic empowerment.

3 Kingdoms 19 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Γ′ ΙΘ′

Theme. Elijah flees to Horeb, meets the Lord in the quiet voice, and receives renewed commission with a remnant preserved.

Outline.

• A · 19:1–3 — Jezebel's death-oath and Elijah's flight to Beersheba. Ahab reports Elijah's slaughter of the Baal-prophets to Jezebel (v. 1); she sends a self-imprecatory oath threatening his life by this hour tomorrow (v. 2); Elijah, afraid, flees 'for his life' to Beersheba of Judah and leaves his servant there (v. 3) — the reversal from prophet of fire to fugitive.
• B · 19:4–8 — Despair under the broom-tree; the angel, the cake, and forty days to Horeb. A day into the wilderness Elijah prays to die (v. 4); an angel touches him and bids him eat — a coal-baked cake and a cruse of water (vv. 5–6); a second time the angel rouses him: 'the journey is too great for you' (v. 7); in that strength he walks forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mountain of God (v. 8), the Moses/Exodus typology unmistakable.
• C · 19:9–14 — Theophany at Horeb: wind, earthquake, fire, and the sound of a light breeze. The word of the LORD asks τί σὺ ἐνταῦθα (v. 9); Elijah answers with his complaint (v. 10, cited Rom 11:3). A great wind, an earthquake, and fire pass — the LORD in none of them; after the fire, φωνὴ αὔρας λεπτῆς, and there the LORD is (vv. 11–12). Elijah veils his face in his mantle, and the question and complaint are repeated verbatim (vv. 13–14).
• D · 19:15–18 — The commission: Hazael, Jehu, Elisha, and the seven thousand. The LORD answers despair with mission: anoint Hazael king of Syria (v. 15), Jehu king over Israel, and Elisha prophet in your place (v. 16); the three form an inescapable chain of judgment (v. 17). Finally the LORD corrects 'I alone': he has kept seven thousand who have not bowed to Baal (v. 18) — the remnant-word cited at Rom 11:4.
• E · 19:19–21 — The call of Elisha at the plowing. Elijah finds Elisha plowing with twelve yoke of oxen and casts his mantle over him (v. 19); Elisha runs after him, asks to take leave of his father, and receives Elijah's enigmatic reply (v. 20); he slaughters the oxen, burns the gear to feed the people, and follows Elijah as his minister (v. 21) — the decisive break and the beginning of prophetic succession.

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 3 Kingdoms 19 follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. The chapter is built on Hebraizing καί-parataxis and twice deploys the emphatic cognate (infinitive-absolute calque) construction — ζηλῶν ἐζήλωκα ('I have been very zealous', vv. 10, 14). At v. 4 the broom-tree is rendered by transliteration (ραθμ, Hebrew רֹתֶם), with the variant φυτόν ('plant') at v. 5; the angel's provision is an ἐγκρυφίας ὀλυρίτης ('coal-baked cake of spelt') with a καψάκης ὕδατος ('cruse of water', v. 6). The forty days and nights to Horeb (v. 8) explicitly recall Moses (Exod 34:28; Deut 9:9). The theophany sequence (vv. 11–12) — πνεῦμα μέγα κραταιόν, συσσεισμός, πῦρ — is each negated by the refrain οὐκ ἐν … κύριος, climaxing in the famous φωνὴ αὔρας λεπτῆς (Hebrew קוֹל דְּמָמָה דַקָּה, 'a sound of thin silence / a still small voice') and the verbless affirmation κἀκεῖ κύριος ('and there was the LORD'). The complaint of vv. 10 and 14 is near-verbatim, varying only in 'forsaken you' / 'forsaken your covenant (τὴν διαθήκην σου)' and κατέσκαψαν / καθεῖλαν. Elijah's 'I alone am left' (ὑπολέλειμμαι ἐγὼ μονώτατος) is cited at Rom 11:3, and the LORD's seven thousand (ἑπτὰ χιλιάδας ἀνδρῶν … οὐκ ὤκλασαν γόνυ τῷ Βααλ) at Rom 11:4 — the LXX reading the verb as 2nd-person καταλείψεις ('you shall leave'), where Paul and the Hebrew read 1st-person ('I have kept for myself', κατέλιπον ἐμαυτῷ). Indeclinable proper names (Ηλιου, Ιεζαβελ, Αχααβ, Βηρσαβεε, Ιουδα, Χωρηβ, Αζαηλ, Ιου, Ναμεσσι, Ελισαιε, Σαφατ, Αβελμαουλα, Βααλ, Ισραηλ) are carried over from the Hebrew; the call of Elisha culminates in the mantle (μηλωτή) cast over him (v. 19) and his ministering service (ἐλειτούργει αὐτῷ, v. 21).

3 Kingdoms 20 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Γ′ Κ′

Theme. Naboth's murder exposes Ahab and Jezebel, and Elijah announces judgment only briefly delayed by Ahab's humility.

Outline.

• A · 20:1–4 — Ahab covets Naboth's vineyard; Naboth's refusal and Ahab's sulking. Narrative exposition introduces the vineyard beside Ahab's property (v. 1, where LXX reads 'threshing floor' for MT 'palace'). Ahab offers to buy or trade it for a vegetable garden (v. 2); Naboth refuses on covenantal grounds — the ancestral inheritance cannot be sold (v. 3). Ahab withdraws to his bed, spirit τεταραγμένον, refusing food (v. 4).
• B · 20:5–7 — Jezebel learns the cause and promises to secure the vineyard. Jezebel finds Ahab sulking and asks why (v. 5); he recounts Naboth's refusal, trimmed of its theological core (v. 6); she mocks his royal impotence, commands him to rise and eat, and pledges to deliver the vineyard herself — ἐγὼ δώσω (v. 7).
• C · 20:8–14 — Jezebel's plot: the sealed letters, the fast, the sons of Belial, Naboth stoned. She writes letters in Ahab's name, seals them with his seal, and sends them to the city's elders and free men (v. 8); the letters order a fast, Naboth seated at the head of the people, and two 'sons of lawless men' to bring the false charge and effect his stoning (vv. 9–10). The townsmen comply exactly (vv. 11–12); the witnesses testify, Naboth is led out and stoned (v. 13), and word is sent to Jezebel that he is dead (v. 14).
• D · 20:15–16 — Ahab rises to take possession of the vineyard. Jezebel tells Ahab to rise and 'inherit' the vineyard, for Naboth is dead (v. 15). Ahab tears his garments, dons sackcloth, then rises and goes down to take possession (v. 16) — the LXX adds the mourning-rites absent from MT.
• E · 20:17–24 — Elijah's confrontation and the oracle of doom on Ahab's house. The word of the LORD comes to Elijah the Tishbite (v. 17), sending him to meet Ahab in the vineyard (v. 18) with the talionic oracle — dogs (and swine) will lick Ahab's blood where they licked Naboth's, and harlots will bathe in it (v. 19). Ahab greets him as his enemy; Elijah pronounces total doom (vv. 20–21): every male cut off, the house made like Jeroboam's and Baasha's (v. 22), Jezebel devoured by dogs at Jezreel (v. 23), Ahab's dead consumed by dogs and birds (v. 24).
• F · 20:25–29 — Narrator's verdict, Ahab's repentance, and the deferral of judgment. A verdict marks Ahab as one who sold himself to evil, incited by Jezebel (v. 25), following the abominations of the Amorites whom YHWH dispossessed (v. 26). Yet, pierced by the word, Ahab weeps, tears his tunic, wears sackcloth, and fasts (v. 27). The word of the LORD comes again to Elijah (v. 28): because Ahab humbled himself, the disaster is deferred from his days to his son's (v. 29).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 3 Kingdoms 20 follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. NOTE ON CHAPTER NUMBERING: the LXX (Greek) and MT (Hebrew) differ in the ordering of the latter chapters of 1 Kings. LXX 3 Kingdoms 20 corresponds to MT 1 Kings 21 — the narrative of Naboth's vineyard — while LXX 3 Kingdoms 21 corresponds to MT 1 Kings 20 (the Aramean wars); the two chapters are transposed in the Greek tradition. Several LXX features stand out. At v. 1 the Greek reads παρὰ τῷ ἅλῳ ('beside the threshing floor') where MT has אֵצֶל הֵיכַל ('beside the palace') of Ahab, reflecting a different reading of the consonantal text. Naboth's refusal at v. 3 uses the optative of negation μή μοι γένοιτο ('may it not be to me'), the standard LXX rendering of the Hebrew imprecatory חָלִילָה לִּי. The false charge at vv. 10, 13 reads ηὐλόγησεν / ηὐλόγηκας θεόν ('he blessed / you have blessed God') — the well-known antiphrastic euphemism by which the LXX (following Hebrew בֵּרַךְ) substitutes 'bless' for 'curse / blaspheme' in contexts of blasphemy against God (cf. Job 1:5, 11; 2:5, 9). The two false witnesses are υἱοὶ παρανόμων ('sons of lawless men'), the LXX rendering of בְּנֵי בְלִיַּעַל ('sons of Belial'). At v. 19 the LXX expands the Hebrew oracle: alongside the dogs (οἱ κύνες) it adds αἱ ὕες ('the swine') licking Naboth's blood and the gruesome clause καὶ αἱ πόρναι λούσονται ἐν τῷ αἵματί σου ('and the harlots will bathe in your blood'). The judgment formula at v. 21, ἐξολεθρεύσω τοῦ Αχααβ οὐροῦντα πρὸς τοῖχον ('I will cut off from Ahab him that urinates against a wall'), is a literal rendering of the crude Hebrew idiom מַשְׁתִּין בְּקִיר, an idiom for 'every male', completed by the merism συνεχόμενον καὶ ἐγκαταλελειμμένον ('bond and free / restrained and abandoned'). Ahab's house is consigned to the fate of the houses of Jeroboam son of Nabat and Baasha son of Ahijah (v. 22). The verdict of vv. 25–26 employs a figura etymologica of cultic loathing (ἐβδελύχθη … βδελυγμάτων) and reprises the self-sale metaphor (ἐπράθη … ποιῆσαι τὸ πονηρόν). The κύριος of vv. 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27, 28 renders the Tetragrammaton יהוה. The chapter closes (vv. 27–29) with Ahab's penitential self-abasement (κατενύγη, 'was pierced with remorse'; sackcloth, fasting, weeping) and YHWH's gracious deferral of the catastrophe to the days of Ahab's son (fulfilled against Joram, 4 Kgdms 9–10), the same mercy-in-judgment pattern visible across the Deuteronomistic narrative.

3 Kingdoms 21 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Γ′ ΚΑ′

Theme. The Lord gives Ahab victory over Aram, but his mercy to Ben-hadad becomes disobedience and sentence.

NOTE — LXX/MT chapter swap. In 3–4 Kingdoms the Greek and Hebrew differ in chapter order here: LXX 3 Kingdoms 21 = MT 1 Kings 20 (the Aramean wars), while LXX 3 Kingdoms 20 = MT 1 Kings 21 (Naboth's vineyard). English readers comparing a Hebrew-based version should consult 1 Kings 20.

Outline.

• A · 21:1–12 — Ben-Hadad besieges Samaria: the escalating demands and Ahab's defiance. Ben-Hadad with thirty-two kings besieges Samaria (v. 1) and demands Ahab's silver, gold, wives, and children (vv. 2–3); Ahab submits ('I am yours', v. 4). When the demand escalates to a hand-search and plunder (vv. 5–6), the elders counsel refusal (vv. 7–8); Ahab sends back a partial defiance (v. 9), meets Ben-Hadad's drunken boast (v. 10) with the proverb κυρτός/ὀρθός (v. 11), and the assault is ordered from the tents (v. 12).
• B · 21:13–21 — The prophet's word and the rout by the young men of the provincial governors. A prophet promises victory 'that you may know that I am the LORD' (v. 13); the instrument is τὰ παιδάρια τῶν ἀρχόντων τῶν χωρῶν, with Ahab leading (v. 14). The 232 young men and 60,000 troops muster (v. 15) and sally at noon against a drunken Ben-Hadad (v. 16); his order to take the scouts alive (vv. 17–19) recoils as each Israelite fells his man, Syria flees, and Ben-Hadad escapes on horseback (vv. 20–21).
• C · 21:22–30 — The second Aramean campaign and the slaughter at Aphek. The prophet warns of a renewed attack at the year's turn (v. 22). The Aramean counsel — 'a god of the mountains, not of the valleys' — leads to replacing the kings with satraps and fighting on the plain (vv. 23–25). Ben-Hadad advances to Aphek (v. 26); Israel, like two little flocks of goats, faces the land-filling host (v. 27). The man of God again promises victory (v. 28); after seven days Israel kills 100,000 in one day (v. 29), and a falling wall crushes 27,000 survivors while Ben-Hadad hides in an inner room (v. 30).
• D · 21:31–34 — Ahab spares Ben-Hadad: the covenant of 'my brother'. Ben-Hadad's servants, trusting Israelite mercy, plead in sackcloth and ropes (vv. 31–32a); Ahab calls him 'my brother' (v. 32b); the men seize the favorable word and bring him onto Ahab's chariot (v. 33). Ben-Hadad offers restored cities and trading-quarters in Damascus, and Ahab makes a covenant and releases him (v. 34).
• E · 21:35–43 — The prophet's acted parable: 'your life shall be for his life'. A son of the prophets, by the word of the LORD, is wounded (a refusal brings a lion's death, vv. 35–36; a second man complies, v. 37) and disguises himself with a bandage (v. 38). He tells Ahab the parable of an escaped prisoner under penalty of life or a talent of silver (vv. 39–40); Ahab pronounces his own sentence. Unveiled and recognized (v. 41), the prophet delivers the verdict: because Ahab released the banned man, his life answers for that life and his people for that people (v. 42); the king goes home to Samaria sullen and dispirited (v. 43).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 3 Kingdoms 21 follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. The single most important orientation point is the LXX/MT chapter swap: LXX 3 Kingdoms 21 = MT 1 Kings 20. The chapter divides into the first siege of Samaria and its defiance (vv. 1–12), the prophetic victory through the provincial governors' young men (vv. 13–21), the Aphek campaign and the refutation of the 'god of the mountains' theology (vv. 22–30), Ahab's sparing of Ben-Hadad (vv. 31–34), and the condemning sign-parable (vv. 35–43). The LXX renders the dynastic name בֶּן־הֲדַד by the calque ὁ υἱὸς Αδερ ('the son of Hader'), with Αδερ indeclinable; Συρία/Σύρος stands for אֲרָם (Aram) and Δαμασκός for דַּמֶּשֶׂק. Ahab's vassal address κύριε βασιλεῦ (v. 4) and the servants' τῷ κυρίῳ ὑμῶν (v. 9) are human 'lord(s)', whereas κύριος in the prophetic oracles (vv. 13, 14, 28, 35, 36, 42) renders the Tetragrammaton. Note the cognate-accusative Hebraisms ἐπάταξεν πληγὴν μεγάλην (v. 21) and the infinitive-absolute calque ἐκπηδῶν ἐκπηδήσῃ (v. 39); the recognition-formula γνώσῃ ὅτι ἐγὼ κύριος (vv. 13, 28); the proverb ἱκανούσθω μὴ καυχάσθω ὁ κυρτὸς ὡς ὁ ὀρθός (v. 11); the simile ὡσεὶ δύο ποίμνια αἰγῶν (v. 27); and the substitution-formula ἡ ψυχή σου ἀντὶ τῆς ψυχῆς αὐτοῦ (vv. 39, 42). Two verses are textually difficult: v. 19 transmits a negated third-person imperative (μὴ ἐξελθάτωσαν) where the narrative requires the affirmative sortie of the vanguard, and v. 40's closing clause (ἰδοὺ καὶ τὰ ἔνεδρα παρ᾿ ἐμοὶ ἐφόνευσας) resists smooth construal against the Hebrew 'so is your judgment; you yourself have decided it.' The peculiar ταῖς ἀλώπεξιν ('for the foxes', v. 10) reflects a literalistic rendering of a Hebrew homonym better taken as 'handfuls.'

3 Kingdoms 22 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Γ′ ΚΒ′

Theme. Micaiah's true word prevails over lying prophecy as Ahab falls at Ramoth-gilead and the book turns toward 4 Kingdoms.

Outline.

• A · 22:1–5 — Three years' peace broken: the alliance against Ramoth-Gilead. After three years without war between Syria and Israel (v. 1), Jehoshaphat of Judah comes down to the king of Israel (v. 2). Ahab reminds his servants that Ramoth-Gilead is rightfully theirs yet still held by Syria (v. 3) and proposes a joint campaign; Jehoshaphat pledges total solidarity — 'as I am, so are you; my people as your people; my horses as your horses' (v. 4). But Jehoshaphat insists they first inquire of the LORD (ἐπερωτήσατε δὴ σήμερον τὸν κύριον, v. 5).
• B · 22:6–12 — The four hundred yes-prophets and the call for a true prophet. Ahab assembles some four hundred prophets who unanimously promise victory (v. 6), but Jehoshaphat asks whether there is yet a prophet of the LORD to consult (v. 7). Ahab admits there is one more — Micaiah son of Imlah — whom he hates because he never prophesies good concerning him, only evil (v. 8). A eunuch is sent to fetch Micaiah (v. 9) while the two kings sit enthroned at the gate of Samaria with all the prophets prophesying (v. 10). Zedekiah son of Chanana makes iron horns and dramatizes total victory with the messenger-formula τάδε λέγει κύριος (v. 11), and all the prophets concur (v. 12).
• C · 22:13–18 — Micaiah's ironic echo and his true oracle of the scattered flock. The messenger urges Micaiah to conform his word to the favorable consensus (v. 13), but Micaiah swears by the living LORD to speak only what the LORD says (v. 14). His first answer ironically mirrors the yes-prophets — 'Go up and prosper' (v. 15) — until the king adjures him to speak truth in the name of the LORD (v. 16). Then Micaiah delivers the true vision: all Israel scattered on the mountains as a flock without a shepherd, the LORD declaring they have no master and each should return home in peace (v. 17) — vindicating Ahab's complaint that Micaiah prophesies only evil concerning him (v. 18).
• D · 22:19–23 — The throne-vision and the lying spirit. Micaiah unveils the heavenly council: he saw the LORD, the God of Israel, enthroned, with all the host of heaven standing about him on his right and left (v. 19). The LORD asks who will deceive Ahab so that he goes up and falls at Ramoth-Gilead (v. 20); a spirit comes forward, stands before the LORD, and offers to deceive him (v. 21), declaring it will become a lying spirit (πνεῦμα ψευδές) in the mouth of all his prophets — and is commissioned to do so (v. 22). Micaiah concludes: the LORD has therefore put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets, and the LORD has spoken evil against you (v. 23).
• E · 22:24–28 — Zedekiah's blow and Micaiah's imprisonment. Zedekiah son of Chanana strikes Micaiah on the jaw, sneering 'which way did the Spirit of the LORD pass from me to speak in you?' (v. 24). Micaiah answers that Zedekiah will see on the day he flees into an inner chamber to hide (v. 25). The king of Israel orders Micaiah handed over to Emer the city-governor and to Joash the king's son (v. 26), to be put in prison on the bread and water of affliction until the king returns in peace (v. 27). Micaiah's parting word seals the test: if you indeed return in peace, the LORD has not spoken in me (v. 28).
• F · 22:29–38 — The battle, Ahab's disguise, and the random arrow. The two kings go up to Ramoth-Gilead (v. 29); Ahab disguises himself but tells Jehoshaphat to wear the royal robes (v. 30). The king of Syria has ordered his thirty-two chariot-commanders to fight none but the king of Israel (v. 31); they pursue Jehoshaphat until his cry reveals he is not Ahab and they turn back (vv. 32–33). A man draws his bow 'with good aim' and strikes the king of Israel between the lung and the breastplate; mortally wounded, Ahab orders his charioteer to carry him out of the battle (v. 34). The battle rages and the king, propped in his chariot, bleeds into its hollow and dies at evening (v. 35); the herald dismisses the army at sunset (v. 36); the king is buried in Samaria (v. 37); and the chariot is washed at the pool of Samaria where dogs lick his blood and harlots bathe, κατὰ τὸ ῥῆμα κυρίου (v. 38).
• G · 22:39–46 — Ahab's closing formula and Jehoshaphat's good reign. The chronicle-formula closes Ahab's reign — his ivory house and cities recorded in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel — and Ochozias his son succeeds him (vv. 39–40). The narrative then turns to Judah: Jehoshaphat son of Asa began to reign in Ahab's fourth year (v. 41), aged thirty-five, reigning twenty-five years in Jerusalem, his mother Azuba daughter of Selei (v. 42). He walked in all the way of Asa his father, doing right in the LORD's eyes (v. 43), except that the high places were not removed and the people still sacrificed there (v. 44); he made peace with the king of Israel (v. 45); and his remaining acts are recorded in the chronicles of the kings of Judah (v. 46).
• H · 22:51–54 — Jehoshaphat's death and the accession of Ahaziah son of Ahab. Jehoshaphat sleeps with his fathers and is buried in the city of David, succeeded by Joram his son (v. 51). The book closes by introducing the next reign in Israel: Ochozias (Ahaziah) son of Ahab began to reign over Israel in Samaria in Jehoshaphat's seventeenth year, reigning two years (v. 52). He did evil before the LORD, walking in the way of his father Ahab and his mother Jezebel and in the sins of the house of Jeroboam son of Nabat (v. 53), serving the Baalim and provoking the LORD God of Israel — the closing indictment that carries the reader directly into 4 Kingdoms (v. 54).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 3 Kingdoms 22 (= 1 Kings 22) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. This chapter closes the book of 3 Kingdoms and forms the bridge into 4 Kingdoms. The LXX verse-numbering of the chapter differs from the Masoretic/English arrangement at its end: the chapter contains fifty verses numbered 1–46 and then 51–54, with verses 47, 48, 49, and 50 absent from the LXX sequence (the Hebrew material concerning the absence of a king in Edom and the wrecked Tarshish-ships of Jehoshaphat at MT 1 Kgs 22:47–50 is largely compressed or relocated in the Greek tradition). The narrative falls into clear movements: the three years' peace broken when Jehoshaphat of Judah comes down to Ahab of Israel and the two ally to retake Ρεμμαθ Γαλααδ (Ramoth-Gilead) from Syria (vv. 1–5); the four hundred court-prophets who unanimously promise victory, against Jehoshaphat's request for a true προφήτης τοῦ κυρίου and the summoning of Μιχαιας son of Ιεμλα (vv. 6–12); Micaiah's first ironic echo of the yes-prophets and then his true oracle of scattered Israel 'as a flock with no shepherd' (vv. 13–18); the great throne-vision — Micaiah sees τὸν κύριον θεὸν Ισραηλ enthroned with πᾶσα ἡ στρατιὰ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, and the LYING SPIRIT (πνεῦμα ψευδές) volunteering to deceive Ahab's prophets, sent out by divine permission so that the false oracle is itself a deliverance of judgment (vv. 19–23); Zedekiah son of Chanana striking Micaiah, and Micaiah's imprisonment on bread and water of affliction until the king's (never-to-come) safe return (vv. 24–28); the battle, Ahab's disguise (συγκαλύψομαι), the Syrian command to strike only the king of Israel, the random arrow shot εὐστόχως ('with good aim') that strikes Ahab ἀνὰ μέσον τοῦ πνεύμονος καὶ ἀνὰ μέσον τοῦ θώρακος (between the lung and the breastplate), and his slow death propped in his chariot until evening (vv. 29–35); the herald's dismissal of the army, Ahab's burial in Samaria, and the washing of the chariot at the pool of Samaria where the dogs (and sows) licked his blood and the harlots bathed, κατὰ τὸ ῥῆμα κυρίου ('according to the word of the LORD', vv. 36–38); the regnal closing-formula for Ahab and the accession of Οχοζιας his son (vv. 39–40); and finally the regnal summary of JEHOSHAPHAT of Judah — the good king who walked in all the way of Asa his father, did not remove the high places, made peace with the king of Israel (vv. 41–46), died and was succeeded by Joram (v. 51) — and the accession of Οχοζιας (Ahaziah) son of Ahab over Israel, with the indictment of his Baal-worship that paragons the sins of his father, mother Jezebel, and Jeroboam son of Nabat (vv. 51–54). The recurring messenger-formula τάδε λέγει κύριος (v. 11), the oath-formula ζῇ κύριος ('as the LORD lives', v. 14), and the fulfilment-formula κατὰ τὸ ῥῆμα κυρίου ὃ ἐλάλησεν (v. 38) bind the chapter into a sustained meditation on the true and false prophetic word, vindicated by the death of the king who 'hated' the one prophet who told the truth.

Major translation & exegetical cruxes

Where the Greek legitimately admits more than one rendering or reading — or where the LXX diverges from the Hebrew — the point was flagged in the lexical notes and chapter text_notes rather than decided silently; the more common analysis was generally taken and the alternative noted. The principal cruxes in LXX 3 Kingdoms:

How the data set is organized

• lxx-interlinear/data/3kingdoms{1..22}.json — the durable scholarly content: one JSON object per chapter (reference, titles, text-note, outline, and verses with per-word annotation and per-verse discourse notes). The data set shares the nt-interlinear toolkit and schema with the New Testament volumes.
• lxx-interlinear/ — the LXX data home and index builder; rendering reuses the chapter-agnostic nt-interlinear toolkit (stdlib-only HTML; headless-Chromium PDF). Adding a chapter (or a book) requires no code changes.
• Rendered artifacts — 3Kingdoms{1..22}.html and .pdf under lxxsite/3Kingdoms/, linked from its index.html in the Septuagint site root.

The interpretive tiers (syntactic function, semantic force, discourse structure, and the proposed argument outlines) are interpretive by nature; where readings legitimately differ, the more common analysis was generally chosen, and the lexical notes are condensed orientation rather than a substitute for a lexicon (e.g. LEH / Muraoka) or a full commentary.