drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and give it for ever to the descendants of Abraham your friend?’ Jehoshaphat quoted directly from the prayer of his ancestor, Solomon: ‘If calamity comes upon us, whether the sword of judgement, or plague or famine, we will stand in your presence before this temple that bears your Name and will cry out to you in our distress, and you will hear us and save us’ (20:7, 9; cf. 6:24–31). Does this prayer seem a little presumptuous? Jehoshaphat’s