1. And Moab rebelled against Israel after Ahab’s death. This notation locates the story temporally but is not otherwise linked to it, except to indicate that Israel’s dominance over vassal states was shaken in the political uncertainty after Ahab’s death.

2. inquire. The Hebrew verb darash is the technical term used for inquiring of an oracle. From the monotheistic point of view, it is of course outrageous that a king of Israel should go out of his way to inquire of a pagan oracle.

Baal-Zebub. This appears to mean “Lord of the flies,” and in the New Testament Baal-Zebub, or Beelzebub, is demoted from pagan deity to demon. A plausible scholarly proposal is that the original name was Baal-Zebul, “Baal the Prince,” and that the final consonant was changed by the Hebrew writers in order to make it a term of opprobrium.

3. But the LORD had spoken to Elijah. The entire episode is constructed through dialogue, with further cited speech nesting within the dialogue, and the verb “to speak” is repeated again and again.

the king of Samaria. This epithet diminishes the sphere of the king of Israel.

for lack of a god. The wording also could mean “for lack of gods.”

6. Go back to the king who sent you. In the reiterated pattern of verbatim repetition in this story, this clause stands out as an added element that was not part of Elijah’s speech to the messengers. The clause has the effect of underscoring the king’s responsibility for sending the messengers to a pagan oracle.

8. He is a hairy man, and a leather belt is bound round his waist. This is the first indication in the whole cycle of stories of Elijah’s appearance. There is something rough-hewn and perhaps forbidding in his distinctive look.

9. with his men. Literally, “with his fifty.” The usage is repeated.

10. let fire come down from the heavens. Celestial fire is Elijah’s prophetic medium. It came down to consume the sacrifice in the contest with the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel. At the end of his story, he will ascend to the heavens in a fiery chariot.

11. And he persisted. The literal sense is “and he went back.”

Quick, come down. In the verbatim repetition, “quick” is added, suggesting a mounting urgency after the failure of the first contingent of fifty.

12. spoke to him. The Masoretic Text has “to them,” but Elijah’s answer (“you and your men”) makes clear he is speaking to the captain, and two Hebrew manuscripts as well as the Septuagint and the Syriac show the singular.

13. these fifty servants of yours. The pleading captain is careful to address Elijah in deferential terms, as would a subject to his monarch, referring to his own troops as Elijah’s servants.

15. Do not fear him. The captain’s expressed terror of Elijah confirms that the prophet has nothing to fear from him.

16. is it for lack of a god in Israel? In the two preceding repetitions of this clause, it appeared at the beginning of the sentence, “Is it for lack of a god in Israel that you go . . .?” Here, instead, it appears as an outraged interjection in the middle of the sentence after the mention of Baal-Zebub.

therefore from the bed you mounted you shall not come down. The sentence of doom is an invariable element in the three repetitions, and always occurs at the end of the prophetic statement. The three repetitions of the prophecy are joined by the three repeated reports of a captain and his fifty men going up to Elijah. The folktale pattern, often deployed in the Bible, is used in which there are two identical repetitions and then a third that diverges from the first two (as in “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”),

17. And he died according to the word of the LORD. In the narrative report, nothing is allowed to intervene between Elijah’s pronouncement of the prophecy of doom directly to the ailing king and the king’s death.

and Jehoram became king . . . in the second year of Jehoram . . . king of Judah, for he had no son. The seeming confusion is the result of a historical coincidence: Jehoram, brother of the heirless Ahaziah, happened to have the same name as the king reigning in Judah at that time. In a culture that favored theophoric names, this one, which means “God is exalted,” might have been fairly common.