One of my interests lies in exmaning the role of social location in biblical interpretation. This is a crucial, oft-neglected topic for many “average” readers of the Bible (and not a few scholars as well). I’m prepping for a course at present, and I think I’m going to use 1 Kings 10-11 on the opening day as an example for them.

I have noticed a tension in the presentation of Solomon’s wealth in 1 Kings 10. His accumulation of possessions (10:14-25), power (chariots and horses, paritcularly from Egypt, 10:26-29), and pleasure (wives, especially “imports,” 11:1ff) runs explicitly against Deut 17:14-17 (vv 18-20). There is a tension in Solomon’s reign the writer wants us to pick up: yes, it was good to be blessed with wealth (see especially the beginning of his reign, 4:20, 25, with the wealth spreading to the people, and Solomon focusing upon “justice and righteousness,” 10:8-9); yet such prosperity was not unproblematic in light of God’s word, which he had been called to obey in 9:4-5 and elsewhere.

Readers miss this connection to Deut 17, for a variety of reasons: an unhelpful chapter division; poor English translations which emphasize disjunction: “however,” NIV; “But,” NKJV; contrast NRSV, Holman Christian Standard Bible, and NAB. ESV adds a very slight disjunctive, “Now,” as this translation typically does in this book. But no disjunctive is required here for Hebrew’s standard vav consecutive and LXX standard trans for the same (kai).

This emphasis is not found in the Chronicler’s more idealistic presentation, of course. It also has no role to play in many of our comfortable lives–not because it’s not in the text (I think it’s pretty strong!), but because we have no need to be criticized for wealth or what we do with it.

Yesterday at the library I scanned a few study Bibles; I also checked out my favorite expositor/commentator on historical books, the always fun D. Ralph Davis (great little commentaries for doing Bible study, leading small groups, etc). Davis errs here, I think: “1 Kings 10 speaks a word of testimony, namely, that the prosperity of the people of God is always a gift of Yahweh’s goodness” (his italics; p. 107). Davis wants us to learn to enjoy wealth with gratitude and not worry so much about such passages, i.e., let’s not be afraid of material prosperity. He does not deal with or mention the Deut 17 connection. While I agree the theme of grateful enjoyment as an ideal is present in 1 Kings, there is also an intentional tension here to which we absolutely must attend, all the more so (for Christians) given NT warnings about accumulation and lack of generosity.

The only study Bibles I found which adequately explored the challenge posed by Deut 17 were the Spirit of the Reformation Study Bible and New Oxford Annotated (whose excellent notes on Kings were done by Iain Provain, whose short commentary on Kings is also good); NASB Study Bible, New Jerome, New Geneva, and many others fail to help the reader make the connection.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 24th, 2007 at 4:31 pm by jbhood and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.