1 Kings 11:42-43

The Voice

The Book of Kings is not the only historical record of Judah’s and Israel’s monarchies. This book is based on several source materials, including the book of the acts of Solomon, the book of the chronicles of Judah’s kings, and the book of the chronicles of Israel’s kings. Although these books and the stories they tell are lost, the simple citation of these sources reveals a lot about Kings: the editor of this book is writing at the end of Judah’s time as an independent nation, the memory of the monarchy is important enough to have been recorded by several independent sources, and the editor is keenly concerned with narrating the stories that occurred centuries before he lived.