Christian Focus

"‘Robust' - that's the word ...a robust understanding, defence, explanation and application of First Kings as the Word of God. Here is no ‘First Kings in my own words' - the boring, fruitless fate of most commentaries on Bible History - but a delicious feast of truth, proof that the ancients were right to call the historians ‘prophets'."

Alec Motyer, (1924–2016) Well known Bible expositor and commentary writer

... Dale Ralph Davis has provided yet another fine exposition of an Old Testament Book (he has previously published expositions of Joshua, Judges, 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel with the same publisher)....
It is apparent that Davis is well informed in the scholarly discussion of First Kings, but his purpose is not to display his learning. Rather, based on a full awareness of the issues in the text, he seeks to expound the text properly incorporating some illustrations and application.
In this way Davis provides a model for preaching from First Kings - a task which often appears quite daunting. On the one hand he does not get bogged down in details failing to get to what God is actually saying in the text and what we are to do about it. On the other hand he shows that carefully reading the text is necessary in order to grasp what God is saying rather than reading in whatever we want to find. I especially appreciate his sensitivity to structure and flow of thought as well as his careful connections across the covenants.
I think pastors will find this volume very helpful in the task of preaching

The Founders Journal