232 Why in town?

I think you’re at liberty to concoct this as you wish.  If what I said earlier about Ahab being a shrewed king is right, then when his border scouts had reported suspicious activity on the Damascene border weeks ago, he had already sent for the council to discuss how they would respond if invaded.  So maybe those chieftains are already at Samaria with their provincial commanders (and the commanders hot headed sons and nephews).  Maybe all he has to walk out to where they’re assembled and lay out the new plan of attack.

I’m not sure how the battle order of the NK would have been composed, but it has always seemed like it was still tribally oriented to the degree that there were no legions, nor any phalanx’ like the Greeks would have later.  They didn’t organize in fighting units of tens and then hundreds the way Romans did.   The Israelites don’t sound as if they had that level of sophistication, but they do seem to have organized by groups under preset commanders. It sure sounds as if they (still) organized around their tribal and clan identities.

To me the organization sounds like it was around the tribal heads who each had their own troops lead by “provincial commanders”.  And these, I think, are whose kids are about to go into battle for you and Ahab and the kingdom.

But if you look at this historically this passage conflicts somewhat with that tribal scheme. It shows us what’s going on during this time as the kingdom consolidates and becomes the dominant system over Saul’s old tribal system.  Provinces are coming into vogue; tribes are receding.  That is part of the tension between Elijah and the “old school” rural peasants and the elites in the new provincial capitals: Dor; Megiddo; Dan etc., the places where those hippo jars with the king’s stamp are; where the foreign made goods are; where the foreign queens are.

Does that help?

Steve Abbott