50. Author’s Notes
(I’m not sure the book needs this page. These issues are good fodder for blog posts, and maybe that’s all they need to be.)
So, what are the facts? Or what really happened? Or how did Obadiah’s life really go?
1. The Age of Marriage
Did Obadiah and Ahab marry as young as 15?
I’ve not found anything definitive about the marriage age in 9th century B.C. Scholars seem to agree 900 years later, Jesus’ mother Mary was a teenage mother. Some say EZEKIEL 16:7–8 implies marriage at puberty.
Although recent custom in America is to put off marriage until later, it’s my unresearched opinion that in most parts of the world, people married and still marry right after puberty.
2. How many wives did Ahab have?
He had 70 sons. The Bible usually counts grandsons in “sons.” To produce seventy male descendants, he needed several wives.
3. How could evil kings sing good songs?
“They feared the Lord and served their own gods.” reference?
4. Talents or pounds?
1 Kings 16:24 says King Omri then bought Shemer’s Hill for 150 pounds of silver (MSG) or two talents of silver (AKJV).
5. Obadiah’s village. I placed Obadiah and Ahab in tiny Keslote, כְּסֻלּוֹת, kĕsullôt – fertile places; the loins), a town of Issachar, on the slopes of a mountain between Jezreel and Shunem (Joshua 19:18). It has been identified with Chisloth-tabor, 2 1/2 miles to the west of Mount Tabor, and north of Jezreel; now called Iksal.)
6. Threshing floor – first seen in Chapter 4. Tall Chicken
The gate guards stepped aside.
Lavan and Shochar rattled the bridge of loose planks, plowed through chaff, and jumped a pile of straw on the threshing floor. As they clip-clopped across the stones of the plaza, Obadiah closed his eyes and breathed.
7. Tomb or grave? – Why wasn’t Obadiah’s father buried in a tomb? Because he is not royalty.
8. The stele – This famous stele (carved obelisk) documents that Jehu was a king of the Israelite Northern Kingdom and that he did pay tribute to the Assyrian emperor Shalmaneser III.
9. Prophets – I departed from the scriptural use of the term. Probably without enough fear and trepidation.
Why? Too many of my early readers did not realize the abundance of prophets in the 9th century BC. Those who wore white hats prophesied for the Lord. The others served Moloch and Asherah. So when readers saw prophets wearing black hats, they thought the Lone Ranger or Tonto was mistaken. Solution? I called the good ones bubblers (the root word) and the bad ones agents or officials. And now I’m in deep trouble with your Sunday-school teacher.
