New International Bible Commentary

Top Highlights

“He predicts the horrors they had sought to avoid including deportation of themselves and of the Jews who had fled before them to Egypt (40:11–12); Josephus Ant. x. 182). Babylonian inscriptions attest an attack in 568/7 B.C.” (Page 791)

“Here it is taken that Benhadad I of 15:18 obtained some military advantage over Omri (20:34) and that his son Benhadad II continued the policy of harassment in the middle years of Ahab’s kingship. The détente of 20:34b continued (see 22:1) and strengthened into the alliance both kings shared against Assyria at Qarqar in the summer of 853. Thereafter Ahab resumed hostilities to retrieve Ramoth Gilead (perhaps promised but not ceded) and died there later in 853.” (Page 416)

“As Paul turns to the practical outworking of the doctrine he has expounded, he faces the worst misunderstanding of all: that of antinomianism, the idea that freedom from the law was freedom to disregard its precepts, and therefore to sin at will.” (Page 1425)

“Porneia is never used in lxx or NT of simple adultery. The Orthodox Church has understood it to mean here repeated acts of adultery, which make the wife no better than a harlot.” (Page 1125)

“Evidently, many of these slaves were enduring persecution at the hands of unconverted masters, whose legal authority over them was virtually absolute.” (Page 1556)