Kings, Book

So why aren’t we told which mother actually stole the baby?

At the end of David’s life, he is old and cold, and his advisors find him a beautiful young virgin to keep him warm. They appoint her as sōkhenet, an administrator of the royal household, allowing her to play a key role as an official witness to the court cabal ensuring Solomon’s succession.

Bathsheba first appears as the object of David’s lust, then as the mother of Solomon, who pleads with the king to make her son his heir. And yet, a close look at her actions shows her to be someone with agency, able to manipulate her husband and even her son to ensure Solomon’s safety and rule.

Deuteronomy does not have the festival of Shemini Atzeret (“the eighth day of assembly”), while Leviticus and Numbers do. This difference can help explain why the festival is absent in the story of Solomon’s dedication of the Temple in Kings but appears in the version of this same story in Chronicles.

In 722 B.C.E., Assyria conquered the kingdom of Israel, and deported many of the residents of Samaria and its surroundings to other Assyrian provinces, and brought deportees from other conquered territories to Samaria to take their place. Excavations at Tel Hadid, near Lod in Israel, have unearthed material remains that contribute to our understanding of these transformative years.

Will the gentiles really say that because Israel “forsook the covenant that YHWH, God of their fathers, made with them when He freed them from the land of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 29:24) that YHWH is punishing them?