1 Kings 16:23

In the thirty and first year of Asa, king of Judah began Omri to reign over Israel, twelve years [As Omri was proclaimed king in the twenty-seventh and died in the thirty-eighth year of Asa (cf. 1 Kings 16:15 , 1 Kings 16:29 ), he cannot in any case have reigned twelve full years; whereas if his reign is to be dated, as it is here, from the thirty-first year of Asa, it is obvious that he would only have reigned seven, or, according to the Jewish mode of reckoning, eight years. Rawlinson proposes to get over the difficulty by rearranging the text. He would attach the first clause of this verse to 1 Kings 16:22 , and read, "And Omri reigned in the thirty-first," etc. But to this there are two serious objections. First, that 1 Kings 16:23 , as it now stands, only follows the usual formula with which a new reign is announced (cf. 1 Kings 16:8 , 1 Kings 16:15 , 1 Kings 16:29 ); and, second, it is extremely doubtful whether any prose sentence in the Hebrew ever begins as 1 Kings 16:23 would then do, " Reigned Omri over Israel twelve years." Such a sentence would certainly be quite alien to the usus loquendi of our author. We are therefore reduced to the conclusion either

Of these suppositions perhaps