1 Kings 17-19, Elijah at Sarepta, on Carmel, and at Horeb, belong together; the beginning, which must in some way have brought Elijah upon the stage, is not preserved; 1 Kings 21 (Naboth's vineyard) may very well be from the same source; in the end of the chapter (vs. 20^b-26) the author of the Book of Kings has the word, and in the other chapters there are slight traces of the same hand. With these small exceptions the stories are old, and probably received their present literary form in the ninth century, certainly before the prophetic movement of the eighth. 2 Kings i. 2-17 is a legend of a different kind and presumably considerably younger. 2 Kings ii. 1-18, on the other hand, is akin to the older stories in 1 Kings 17-19, 21; it forms the connecting link with Elisha. Among the stories of Elijah stand other episodes of the Syrian wars in which prophets figure, 1 Kings 20; xxii. 1-38. The second of these, Micaiah ben Imlah before Ahab and Jehoshaphat, is of peculiar interest. They are apparently of the same age with their surroundings. In both a few verses are from later editors. To the same cycle probably belong 2 Kings iii. 4-27, the campaign against Moab, as well as 2 Kings ix. 1-x. 27, Jehu's revolt instigated by Elisha, the murder of King Ahaziah and of the queen mother, Jezebel, the massacre of the princes of the house of Omri and the extirpation of the worship of Baal. Beside these are a group of stories about Elisha, chiefly celebrating him as a wonder-worker, and bringing him into connection with the "sons of the prophets," who seem to have formed a kind of dervish order. The collector or editor has accumulated them all in one reign, probably against their original intention. Scattered through the narratives drawn from the lives of the prophets are brief notices from the annals and the usual deuteronomist appraisals by the author of Kings. The attempt of Jehu to exterminate the dynasty of Omri, involving the slaughter of the Judæan princes, had the unintended result of enabling the queen mother, Athaliah, a daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, to seize the throne. The revolution, planned by the chief priest of Jerusalem, which overthrew the usurper and brought the true heir, the seven-year-old Joash, to his own, is told in 2 Kings xi. 1-20; a somewhat minute account of the restoration of the temple in his reign follows in c. xii. 4-16, both from a good Judæan source, perhaps ultimately a temple chronicle. The author of Kings has his usual formulas, including the tolerated high places, in c. xii. 1-3. The extract from the annals at the end of the chapter, the straits into which Hazael of Syria brought Joash, and his death by a treasonable conspiracy, which might be thought to prove that piety is not always crowned with prosperity, is anticipated by the author of Kings in 2 Kings xii. 3--Joash's piety lasted only as long as he was in the leading strings of the priest Jehoiada.