Figure 33: Kings of Israel & Judah
Figure 34: Outline Joel
Figure 32: Kings -where are we? -time
Chapter 10 KINGS
The Book of Kings was finished sometime after the Israelite’s exile into Babylon.
The new generation were puzzled as to why God had allowed Israel to fall to their enemies. Where is God? Why has the temple been destroyed? The book of kings is the answer to why God let this happen. “It’s your ancestors own fault because they became immoral, disobedient and idolatrous”. The Hebrew title for these books is, “the Kingdoms”. It is as about the rule of a man and not his territory. It’s about a reign not a realm. It’s about the amount of power not the amount of property. That is why it was easier for the Jews than us to understand the kingdom of God. The kingdom is entirely dependent on the king, is he is good or bad?
Samuel had warned the people about three things: First, kings would prove to be a curse rather than a blessing. Second, God’s blessing was based on a covenant faithfulness of the people but if a king was the authority then, the faithfulness of the king would be the test. Third, God warned the people, the consequence of sins would continue to the third and fourth generation. Now the sins of David and Solomon are playing out in the nation. We might think that our personal sins only affect us, but as we have already seen, the battle of Ai was lost because of one man’s sin. David took many wives, which meant sibling rivalry. David’s courtiers were taking sides out of their ambition for power in the kingdom. Solomon’s many wives brought with them their gods. Solomon’s foreign wives came with “in-laws”- in the form of alliances and compromises with other countries. Adonijah pronounced himself as the next king against Solomon with the support of many.
David was not a great dad, but he did pass on two pieces of advice to Solomon. Take care of vertical relationships by meditating on the law and take care of the horizontal relationships by dealing with the internal divisions within the leadership. Joab and Simi were officials but rivals and get a special mention here. Having done that Solomon tries to unite the country with the temple building project. Solomon’s wisdom did not sort that one out either. Because he did not have enough skills within the land, he employed mainly gentile labourers. This caused jealousy and strain within his own people. “Those Immigrants”, are not a modern phenomenon.
Saul had united the Kingdom. He had started well and severely weakened the Philistine Enemy. When the Philistines did try again later, they set one man, Goliath to challenge one man David. Once they saw that had failed they ran for their lives and did not return for some time. This allowed Solomon to strengthen and unite the kingdom. As a good administrator, Solomon made many good deals and sets good goals at first. He did promise he would uphold all those laws of Moses which apply to the King,136 but broke every one of them. He began to hoard gold 137, trades horses with Egypt138, took foreign wives,139 and sucked up to Egypt by building a palace and a temple for his Egyptian wife and her god. While the Temple project was underway people got involved, but for Solomon it was about the prestige and not the purpose of the Temple. Once the project was finished, his interest faded. He turned his attention to other matters. He had seven-hundred concubines but singled out only one or be two. He said he loved the Lord but sacrificed to other gods.140 Solomon’s story is a picture of helplessness—he was never mentored by his father David because David was too busy running the country. But then again David was never mentored by Jesse but just left to his own devices looking after sheep. It’s a failing of so many biblical leaders as it is of others. Under Solomon, all the wealth concentrated in the South, and the North began to resent it. Another modern day story? Solomon created a bondage labour market modelled on Egypt.
When Rehoboam became king of the South, the split began to widen. The people protested to him against the extortion and harsh labour, citing the heavy treatment under Solomon. Rehoboam rejected the advice of his counsellors and consults his mates.
“Your father made our yoke heavy, please lighten it for us,” Rehoboam replied “My little finger is thicker than my father’s thighs. My father laid on you a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.”’ 141
Jeroboam, in the North, joined the devolution campaign which was reinforced by the prophet Ahijah. He prophesied to Jeroboam:
And he said to Jeroboam, “Take for yourself ten pieces, for thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘‘Behold, I am about to tear the kingdom from the hand of Solomon and will give you ten tribes (but he shall have one tribe, for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, the city that I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel), because they have forsaken me and worshipped Ashtaroth the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh the god of Moab, and Milcom the god of the Ammonites, and they have not walked in my ways, doing what is right in my sight and keeping my statutes and my rules, as David his father did.142
So ten tribes chose Jeroboam as king. They kept the title Israel and almost immediately made a treaty with Syria to come against Judah. After that failed, they set up their own temples of worship in Bethel & Dan. None of these kings were descendent of Judah and did not have a claim to the sceptre line, but they did have one trial after another for eighty years following the split. There were no good kings in the North. Some kings started well but all ended badly. The average reign for bad kings was eleven-years, the average reign for good kings was thirty-three. We cannot conclude that death itself is the judgement for these bad kings. There were many more poor and undeserving that died younger because of the sin of these kings. We can perhaps conclude that their time was shortened for that sake of the torment in the land. Judgement is not death itself but facing a creator God who will ask for an account afterwards.
The two tribes in the South were administered by priests who became very legalistic. It was named Judah simply because Judah was the bigger of the two tribes. The priests were neglecting scriptural study and replacing it with philosophy and opinion under the rising Greek influence. This philosophy separated the spiritual and secular so they could justify living secular lives while preaching sacred. When the people lost respect for this ‘‘priestly wisdom’’, Priests tried to make many laws to control the people.
Meanwhile, the ten Northern tribes, (who would be finally captured under Assyria,143 taken out of the land and replaced them with others from other lands to become known as Samaria), were also having trouble with their own kings. Ahab married Jezebel the Sidonian. In the Sidonian language Jezebel means “Primrose”, but in Hebrew it means “dunghill”. Jezebel brought her religion to the palace and country. She and her husband vigorously propagated Baal and sex-god worship, to this end Jezebel brought with her seven-hundred priests of Baal. Jezebel is mentioned again in Revelation where she is pictured as still active against the Church by encouraging immorality, false prophesy and idol worship in the church. The year Elijah stepped into the scene, Jezebel was the main influence. Hiel of Bethel tried to rebuild Jericho. He got as far as putting up the gates when the curse spoken by Joshua took effect, God killed his sons. This was all during Elijah’s time.
Jumping to king Hezekiah, who became sick for a time and had a delegation of well-wishers from a little town called Babylon. Babylon was only a small country then but it was rising rapidly. Hezekiah showed the well-wishers around temple with all its treasures. When Isaiah heard about it he was angry and prophesied, “Babylon would come and take everything you have shown them”, and they did, but it was few years later, and we will meet that again in another prophet’s book.
Josiah was a contemporary of Jeremiah they were both eight-years old at the time Josiah was crowned, although Jeremiah is not mentioned in Kings. Josiah ordered the cleaning of temple and found book of the law. He had the book read before the people because he was surprised at how far they had moved from its commandments while it had been lost. Under the influence of his uncle, the High Priest, he tried to clean up by land by legislation, but did not succeed because you can’t legislate people into righteousness. He mentions a “book of Chronicles of the Kings of Judah”, that is not our Chronicles but another book lost in history. Josiah made a big mistake when he formed an alliance Egypt. Egypt went to battle with Assyria and Josiah went with him against the prophet’s advice. He died in that battle. In his days Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt, King Josiah tried to stop the Egyptian army at Megiddo. He went up to join the king of Assyria at the river Euphrates. Neco killed him on the edge of Megiddo, so his servants carried him from Megiddo to Jerusalem to bury him in his own tomb.144 Judah crowned Jehoahaz his son and made him king in his father’s place.
Manasseh followed Jehoahaz. He was an evil king introducing Satan worship and sacrificing his own sons in valley of Hinnom. The valley Hinnom became known a Gehenna (hell). The tribe Manasseh, were the sons of Joseph. They had the largest land area but were not the largest tribe. They claimed, because of their heritage they should have more. When Joshua said no, they resented it. This was a seed of the sin that continued to the third generation and led the hatred and death of Isaiah? Manasseh’s hatred of Isaiah drove him to order Isaiah be sawn in two in a hollow tree.145
We need to stop off here for a moment because our promised seed line is in danger again. This time it is at the hands of Jezebel’s Daughter—Athaliah. Jezebel of the North managed to get her daughter, Athaliah, married off to king Jehoram in the South by making a trade treaty. Jehoram was a wicked king, and to be sure his position as king was secure he killed all six of his brothers. As soon as he died, Ahaziah set out to kill all Jehoram’s sons, hoping she could be first queen of Judah thereby finishing the promised line. Youngest son, seven-year-old Jehoash, (or Joash), was taken and hidden in the living quarters of the temple by Jehosheba.146 Under Jehosheba, the priests executed a revolt, killed Athaliah and Ahaziah and crowned Jehoash who was still only seven-years old. So once again God secured his promise of the seed line and removed the bad kings who would have taken the throne before Jehoash.147
While the book is named Kings, it tells a lot about the prophets and their relationship with the kings. There was a time of peace in which Elijah and Elisha lived. But then for fifty-years, before the Northern tribes were carried off to Babylon, there were many minor wars. We will look at the prophets later, but for now, God gave numerous chances to repent during those fifty-years by sending prophets to foretell the exile. But they would not, so the prophets, (mainly Elijah & Elisha to North; Amos & Hosea to South), foretold their capture to Babylon with only a remanent returning after seventy-years.
Figure 37: Outline Joel
Figure 35: Jonah -where are we?- Time
Figure 36: Jonah -where are we? -Place
136 As in Deuteronomy 17: 16-17
137 Chronicles 10: 14 ff
138 Chronicles 10: 26 ff
139 Chronicles 11: 1 ff.
140 1 kings 3
141 1 Kings 12: 10
142 1 Kings 11: 31-33
143 not Syria which was a country to the North of Israel not North East
144 2 Kings 23: 29
145 Hebrews 11 “some were sawn asunder” refers to this incident
146 Jehosheba was the high priest whom Joash’s Aunt had married.
147 You can read the details in 2 Kings 11