The Judgments of the Israelite and Judahite Kings in Diachronic and Historical Perspective

Abstract This article reassesses the bamah themes in 1–2 Kings as they relate to the “good” and “evil” judgments that the book offers upon the kings of Israel and Judah, following the arguments for an early edition of Kings during the reign of Josiah. Its literary analysis leads to the following conclusions: 1) The bamôt in both Israel and Judah appeared as an overarching antagonistic theme in the book only through secondary revision. 2) Jeroboam and his “sin” at the bet-bamôt were connected to Bethel only secondarily, probably as the book was integrated into a larger “Enneateuchal” literary horizon. 3) The judgments on the Judahite kings, which predate the overarching bamôt theme, were originally passed based on whether the kings maintained exclusive cultic fidelity to the dynasty’s patron deity and his temple in Jerusalem or, under the influence of foreign powers, promoted the worship of deities other than Yhwh.