The plan of this volume of commentary on the New English Bible text of the First Book of Kings follows the pattern of the now well-established series on the Old and New Testaments. The main divisions of the text are those provided by the New English Bible itself, but these are further subdivided for the purposes of the commentary, which is printed in short sections following the relevant portion of the text. Canon Robinson suggests that the editors of I Kings compiled their history in order to teach the Hebrews that their existence as Israel, the covenant people of God, depended upon their continuing loyalty to their own religious traditions, and their refusal to exchange them for the very different traditions of the Canaanites among whom they lived.