The plan of this volume of commentary on the New English Bible text of
the First Book of Kings follows the pattern of the now well-established
series on the Old and New Testaments. The main divisions of the text are
those provided by the New English Bible itself, but these are further
subdivided for the purposes of the commentary, which is printed in short
sections following the relevant portion of the text. Canon Robinson
suggests that the editors of I Kings compiled their history in order to
teach the Hebrews that their existence as Israel, the covenant people of
God, depended upon their continuing loyalty to their own religious
traditions, and their refusal to exchange them for the very different
traditions of the Canaanites among whom they lived.