Evil-Merodach and the Deuteronomist 177 appears to be implicitly operative in the corpus’ presentation of the Israelite kingship. Most of Samuel hinges upon the notion that while the deity may disenfranchise other royal houses, such as that of Saul, for relatively minor errors, even very serious blunders and transgressions do not disqualify David and his successors, at least not entirely or not forever (9). In perfect agreement with this notion, a mere eleven chapters into Kings the Davidic dynasty survives Solomon’s ultimate transgression of idolatry, with YHWH explicitly pardoning him “for David’s sake” (1 Kgs 11,13; similarly 1 Kgs 11,32.36). Abijam and Jehoram are spared despite their misbehavior for exactly the same reason (1 Kgs 15,4 and 2 Kgs 8,19 respectively). The punishment that the deity does mete out to Davidides, the secession of the northern tribes soon after Solomon’s death, effectively expires when Assyrians deport these tribes, leaving David’s descendants in charge of what remains of Israel; even what amounts to a national catastrophe ultimately benefits the dynasty. What is more, the narrator mentions the breakaway tribes’ disloyalty to the house of David when discussing the reasons of their deportation (2 Kgs 17,21). Finally, the multiple offenses of the Davidide Manasseh cause YHWH to… destroy Jerusalem and Judah while leaving the house of David in charge to the bitter end (the denunciation of Manasseh in 2 Kgs 21,11- 15 does not include any specific penalties for his dynasty) and letting one of its scions, Jehoiachin, conveniently to escape the disaster (10). On a broader scale, the Former Prophets is informed by the principle (which may or may not be secondary to the Davidic promise) that the merits or shortcomings of the dynasty’s founder exclusively determine its fate. In addition to David, the narrator explicitly formulates this principle with regard to Saul (1 Sam 13,13-14), Jeroboam I (1 Kgs 14,7-11), Baasha (1 Kgs 16,2-4), Ahab (1 Kgs 21,19-24), and Jehu (2 Kgs 10,30) (11). Only the ephemeral dynasties that ruled the Northern Kingdom in the last decades of its existence are (9) On this notion as operative in 2 Samuel, see S. FROLOV, “Succession Narrative: A ‘Document’ or a Phantom?” JBL 121 (2002) 99-101. (10) 1 Kgs 9,4-9 seems to anticipate this turn of events. (11) Technically, Ahab did not found a dynasty: he succeeded his father Omri (1 Kgs 16,28). The narrator accuses Omri of “doing what YHWH saw as evil and surpassing in evil all those who were before him” (1 Kgs 16,25) but blames Ahab for bringing the dynasty down. However, in terms of literary prominence, it is Ahab, featured in seven chapters (1 Kings 16-22), not Omri, whose reign is recounted in a mere four verses (1 Kgs 16,23-26), who functions as a founding king.