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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 September 2009
“Whereas the judicial dilemma posed by the petitionary narrative in 1 Kings 3 is used to demonstrate one king's wisdom, that of the petitionary narrative in 2 Kings 6 is used to demonstrate another king's helplessness. In both cases the petitionary narrative is the focal point of the initial exposition of a larger story.”
–Simon B. Parker, Stories in Scripture and Inscriptions“Ahab has shown himself to be a king of hesed toward Ben-Hadad; he can exercise similar mercy toward a soldier wounded in his service. Or he can judge that the soldier's inattentiveness is blameworthy and hold him fully responsible.”
–Jerome T. Walsh, 1 KingsIn the last chapter, we examined how the wise woman of Tekoa creates a parable out of her fictitious petitionary narrative in 2 Samuel 14. We encounter this use of the petitionary narrative genre again when an unnamed prophet confronts the Israelite king Ahab in the closing verses of 1 Kings 20:
38. Then [the prophet] went and stood before the king alongside the road. He disguised himself with a bandage upon his eyes. 39. When the king was passing by, he cried out to the king and said, “Your servant went out in the midst of the battle. Look, a man turned aside and brought [another] man to me. He said, ‘Guard this man! If he goes missing, then it will be your life in place of his life or you will pay a talent of silver.’ 40. Now your servant was doing this and that and he [the guarded man] was no more!” The king of Israel said to him, “Thus is your judgment. You yourself decided it.” 41. [The prophet] acted quickly and removed his bandage from his eyes.
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