1 Kings 10 Arrival of the Queen of Sheba

1 Kings 10

I just realised it has been nearly a week since I posted last, sorry about that. Hopefully normal posting will be resumed

This chapter is the inspiration for one of the most famous pieces of classical music, countless wives have walked down the aisle to Handel's masterpiece Arrival of the Queen of Sheba.
Personally I'm holding out for either the imperial march from Star Wars or the theme from Thunderbirds for the future Mrs Newnham to come down the aisle to - little wonder I am single! 

Sheba appears to be in modern day Ethiopia, and stories of the wisdom of Solomon seem to have travelled down the trade routes until the queen of Sheba decided to see for herself, arriving with a splendid caravan with lots of expensive stuff to test out if the stories of Solomon were exaggerated.

Solomon answered all the questions the queen could think of and she was very impressed with Solomon's wisdom, his palace and his lifestyle.
The queen was apparently envious of Solomon and how his people lived, the wonder of his servants who would hear constantly the king's wisdom and the people living with such a ruler.

The queen gave Solomon a gift of about 4.5 tonnes of gold, spices, precious stones.
Solomon in return gave gifts to the queen of Sheba and she left in peace.

Solomon received in tribute every year about 23 tonnes of gold, in addition to taxation of merchants.
Solomon made 200 solid gold shields each weighing about 7 kg, and 300 small shields each weighing 3.5 kg which he put in his palace in the forest of Lebanon.

He also made a throne covered in gold and ivory (elephants were apparently not endangered then!) there were 6 steps up to the throne and at the end of each step was the statue of a lion and there was a lion under each armrest of the throne. Apparently it must have looked extremely impressive and was unique.

All the metal used in Solomon's palace were made of gold, silver was far too cheap.
At sea Solomon's trading ships put into port every 3 years with exotic animals, spices, gold, silver and ivory.

Solomon became incredibly wealthy and his fame bought him visitors from all over the known world, each bringing gifts.
Solomon acquired vast numbers of horses and chariots which he put in garrison towns built to house them.
In Jerusalem silver was as common as stone and cedar as plentiful as sycamore figs.

All the time Solomon carried out arms trading importing horses and chariots from Egypt and selling them on to the Hittites and Arameans.

The period of Solomon's reign must have been really quiet compared to what had passed before!

Thinking about wedding music - if I did not loathe football as much as I do (which is quite a lot - any soft spot I hold for the game of football is quicksand!) perhaps the match of the day theme??

1 Kings 9 Israel at peace

1 Kings 9

After 20 years Solomon has built the temple and his palace, and he had more or less completed what he set out to achieve, when God appeared to him again.

God had heard the prayer of Solomon regarding the temple and promised to keep his eye on it and his heart there and promising eternal prosperity for Israel so long as they remain faithful to God's laws.
IF they do not keep the law, they will be thrown out of the  land.

 Solomons building projects used literally tonnes of cedar and juniper wood and gold from king Hiram in Sidon, and Solomon gave several towns to Hiram in payment but when he saw them he was not at all impressed!

Solomon rebuilt and strengthened several towns, built a palace for his wife (not sure if this is singular or plural) and basically the land was at peace enough that big building projects could be started and finished.
He also conscripted the remnants of the original inhabitants to work as manual labour on his projects, though he did not enslave the Israelites.

Solomon also built ships, which I do not believe was all that common in Israelite history and traded in the Mediterranean sea.
He also went to the temple the 3 times a year he was required to go. 

1 Kings 8 Opening ceremonies

1 Kings 8

In this chapter Solomon officially opens and consecrates the temple he has just had built.

The Ark of the covenant is put into the most holy place, carried by the priests and Levites, and with so many sacrifices that they could not actually count how many there were.

When installed in the Most holy place the poles that were used to carry the Ark of the covenant were visible in the next holiest place, but only from there.

When the Ark is installed God paid a visit in the form of a cloud, and the priests are actually unable to do their offices due to the presence of God!

Can a vicar really argue with an insurance company about an "Act of God"? Just a side thought.

Solomon prays in front of the people thanking God for his presence and asks that God would fulfil his promises and, although the earth cannot contain him, let alone a temple built by men, that God would pay special attention to the temple.

Solomon asked that when trouble comes prayers in the temple would be heard and answered, and if they are scattered, praying toward the temple.

Solomon and the priests offered burned offerings for the temple opening - 22000 cattle and 120,000 sheep and goats, so many so that the alter of burned offerings was overwhelmed and they had to improvise.

The opening ceremony lasted 2 whole weeks with people from all over the land in attendance.

1 Kings 7 Beat that Solomon?

1 Kings 7

In the last chapter we saw that Solomon took 7 years to build a house for God, well not Solomon personally, it is like Hadrian's wall on the English Scottish border (which may get a new lease of life if Scotland votes for independence), Neither Solomon nor Hadrian actually built anything themselves, they just hired (or coerced) people to do it for them and then took the credit!

However Solomon took 13 years to build his temple - nearly twice as long as the temple of God.
His palace is enormous, 45 m long by 23 m wide by 14 m high - this is smaller than Buckingham palace (the Queens official residence) is  108 metres long and 24 m high. But Solomon's palace is still quite respectable 
By contrast the Temple is 27 m long by 9 m wide and 14 m high.

Solomon took advice from Hiram of Tyre for advice on decoration - He made 2 huge columns out of bronze 8 m tall and 5.4 m in circumference with decorations and capitals shaped like lotus flowers, with pomegranates.
He also made a sea of bronze which was quite large and was used by the priests for ceremonial washing - there is a slight mathematical error in the Bible at this point, the Bible records that the sea is 10 cubits in diameter and 30 cubits around the rim - I suspect it was rounded down from 31.4151492654 cubits to 30.

The sea was decorated around and stood on 12 bronze oxen and would hold about 140 tonnes of water 
Solomon also ordered 10 movable bowls with stands that each held about 880 kg of water. Along with various other items connected with the Temple 
All of these bronze items were sand cast - a technique that is still sometimes used for bronze and iron to this day.

Solomon also made (or, more probably, ordered somebody to make while he took the credit) a gold alter, gold lamp stands, and censors as well has some door sockets (out of gold? - that is madness, gold is quite soft and is not generally used for load bearing applications as it is easy to deform.)

All this stuff Solomon had been passed by David to use for the Temple.

! Kings 6 Building the temple

1 Kings 6

480 years after Israel entered the promised land, and 520 years since Moses led Israel out of Egypt, and the 4th year of Solomon's reign, construction began of the temple of God.

That is slightly longer than the time it took Tesco (Supermarket chain) to get planning permission in Ilkley (where I live) for a new store.

The mid part of the chapter describes the temple, I always think that a picture paints a thousand words - so if you want to try and picture it - try 
http://www.3ds.com/blog/draftsight/architecture-and-engineering-feats-before-2d-cad/king-solomons-temple-model/
It is a 3d rendered model of the temple but since the original is not around for inspection, I don't think I can gainsay what is shown!

I think Solomon rather went to town overlaying pretty much everything with gold  
Though having said that I do know that some rich folk GET GIVEN gold plated versions of the latest and greatest top end smartphones while we spend hard earned money on mere plastic versions. 
Dear HTC/Samsung/LG/Apple/Smartphone manufacturer - if you feel like giving me a brand new 24 carat gold plated flagship mobile communications device.
Come to think of it - Google, I rather like the idea of a gold plated Google gkass and the next Nexus when you get around to it.  I'd really appreciate it and say something particularly nice about you on the internet then donate them to some needy cause ('cause I really need a gold plated phone, only joking)

The temple took 7 years to complete, which may seem remarkable in this day and age, but remember they worked much faster back then! (I "borrowed" the joke from Humphrey Littleton and the radio show "I'm Sorry I Haven't a clue" before I get hate messages from builders!)

Having said that - so far Tesco in Ilkley have been 3 years since they got the planning permission and so far they have only made a few (Very small) holes on the site, so a Tesco in Ilkley could well take longer to build than the temple of Solomon (and not be anywhere near as impressive or covered in bling!)

1 Kings 5 Building projects

1 Kings 5

Israel has had peaceful relations with Sidon and Tyre for years and Hiram, king of Tyre sent a message to Solomon following his accession to the throne.

Solomon told Hiram of his plans to build a Temple to honour the name of God, and requests Hiram send him superior cedar wood from Lebanon. 
To build the temple Solomon and his officials conscript 30,000 labourers to help chop down the trees, transport them to the sea and build them into rafts for transport to Israel. These men worked 1 month away and had 2 months at home.
Solomon also employed 70,000 porters and 85,000 stone masons and 3,300 foremen.

Solomon paid Hiram for the labour and timber in the form of annual payment of 3250 Tonnes of grain and about 440,000 litres of pressed olive oil 

I don't know if any part of Solomon's temple still stands, however I am informed that the wailing wall in Jerusalem however is constructed from stone blocks that make the ones in the pyramids seem a bit on the small side.....

This is a really, really big building project. 
There is a really good novel (which has been turned into a TV series) by Ken Follett which covers the period of building a cathedral in the 11th and 12th century, it is probably as close as I can think of to the building of the Temple and gaining an insight into perhaps how it was to build these great buildings for the name and honour of God.

1 Kings 4 Day to day with Solomon

1 Kings 4

One of the things any ruler needs is a number of advisers, today the queen has the whole of the house of commons and the house of lords.

Solomon had 23 chief advisers including 12 regional governers.

Every day his court consumed the following - 

• 5 Tonnes of fine flour
• 10 tonnes of grain/meal
• 10 head of cattle
• 20 head of free range cattle
• 100 sheep and goats
• deer and other game 

It is not recorded how many cooks he had!

During Solomon's time there was peace on every side, and every person could take ease under his own fig tree, or vine.

Solomon had 4000 stalls for horses and a herd of 12,000 horses.

The job of supplying all this stuff to the king went to the 12 regional governers - each for 1 month... I pity the poor guys who got the winter months!

Solomon was blessed by God with wisdom and insight and people came from all over the world to learn and listen to him.

I wish I were that eloquent!

1 Kings 3 Solomon the wise

1 Kings 3
Solomon made an alliance with Egypt ensuring peace and sealed with marriage. He also went up and made offerings to God and walked in the way of God much the same as his father, David had.

In a dream God spoke to Solomon offering the one thing he desired most. Solomon's response is that God has been good to him and David and that what the young Solomon needs most to lead the nation in the way that God wants is wisdom and this is what he asks for.

God is delighted by this answer and says that since Solomon did not ask first for long life or riches or fame or power that he would be given all the above as side orders to wisdom.

Solomon now shows his wisdom in judging a case between two prostitutes - each had a son, but one mother had killed hers by rolling on him while they slept and the swapped her dead son for the living son of the other prostitute, so Solomon is faced with 2 women each claiming a living child was hers and a dead child belonged to the other.
Solomon's solution? - kill the living child and cut him in half and give each woman half each.
At this the real mother said to let the child live and her friend have him, while her friend was all for the King's suggestion.

In his book Pyramids, Sir Terry Pratchett actually plays a riff on this story - the hero of the story Pteppic, king of Djelibeybi (Literally Child of the Djel) is asked to judge a case of an oxen that was claimed by 2 farmers. Pteppic told them to slaughter the animal and share the meat between both farmers. "They'll call me Pteppic the wise he thought"
The high priest interprets this to mean that the most devout farmer owned the animal which was to be sacrificed to the Gods (and presumably the priest would eat beef!) 

1 Kings 2 Revenge served up cold

1 Kings 2

I've commented before that some characters in the Bible seem to hang on and on - I thought we had king David's last words at the end of the last book - but here he asks his successor Solomon to settle some scores.

His speech started with advice to walk in the way of God and to honour and observe the laws of God.with a promise that if Solomon and his descendants follow the way of God then the kingdom and dynasty of David would last for a very long time.

I thought that David did not hold a grudge but it seems that in fact David really has not forgotten or forgiven various people.

David asks Solomon to deal with several people including 
Joab - former commander of the army, who had killed Abner (former commander of Saul's army) and Amasa (former commander of Absalom's army) both of whom had sworn peace with David.
The sons of Barzillai from Gilead however, are to be treated with kindness as he showed kindness to David.
Shimei - relative of Saul who cursed David as he fled from Absalom, David promised that he would not hurt him, but now he asked Solomon to take his revenge against him,

David died and is buried in Jerusalem.

Meanwhile Solomon has become king and taken the throne.
Adonijah (Solomon's elder brother) went to Bathsheba (Solomon's mother) to ask her to appeal to Solomon that he be given Abishag (David's virgin hot water bottle - see yesterdays post) as his wife.
When Bathsheba asked Solomon on behalf of Adonijah, Solomon went ballistic - by trying to marry David's concubine, and as the elder brother to the king he would be able to mount some kind of coup later.

Solomon ordered a death sentence on his elder brother and Benaiah struck him down.
Solomon also removed Abiathar the priest from his position as he had sided with Adonijah, he would not kill him as he was a priest.
Joab got word that his name was on a death list and ran for sanctuary taking hold of the horns of the alter and refusing to come out.
Following a repeated order from the king, he is killed still right at the side of the alter.

Shimei is told to build a house in Jerusalem and live there as a city of refuge, but should he leave he would become a legitimate target.
Some time later a slave ran away and Shimei chased him, which led to Solomon bringing down the revenge of David on him.

So David has died after 40 years as king and now Israel starts what is generally referred to as the golden age.  

1 Kings 1 Succession dramas

1 Kings 1 

David has turned from a king of action, battle and strife into an old man, constantly cold.
His attendants decided to find him a young, pretty virgin to share his bed and keep him warm. Me I'd be extremely lucky to get a hot water bottle! 
Quite why his attendants got David a virgin to keep him warm, I'm pretty sure that at least some of David's wives were still around and could have done the job - or at very least buy the old guy a hot water bottle!!

David shared a bed with this young woman named Abishag, but they never had sex. 

David's 2 eldest sons were dead, Amnon was killed by Absalom, and Absolom died in battle when his hair got caught in a tree, his third son Adonijah made a move to become regent and get made king when David eventually died.
Joab the commander of the army and Abiathar the priest give their support to Adonijah and he proclaimed himself the next king.

However Zadok the priest and the leader of David's bodyguard and Nathan the prophet remain with David and Nathan gets Bathsheba to intervene to make Solomon the king as he was the chosen and also he had a temperament that would make a good king.

Bathsheba reminded David that he promised her son Solomon would be king. and while she was talking Nathan came in and told them that Adonijah was currently making himself king just outside Jerusalem.

David quickly arranged Solomon to be made king by Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet make Solomon king. They sound trumpets and start rejoicing - the sound carried to Adonijah and his party and when the find out the cause Adonijah capitulated and took sanctuary holding on to the horns of the alter.

Solomon forgives Adonijah and he is sent off home.

It seems that David's end days are every bit as exciting as his earlier life.

2 Samuel 24 Census time

2 Samuel 24

This is a rather odd statement to start off the chapter "Again the anger of the LORD burned against Israel and he incited David against them saying "Go and take a census of Israel and Judah""

What is all that about? I don't get it.
I also don't understand the timing of this chapter, David had his last words in Chapter 23, now he is taking a census? 

From our time spent in the books of the law, we saw that if there was a census every person counted had to pay a ransom, but there had been censuses before this occasion, so I don't really know what the big deal is - unless people were leaving the ransom to God out?

David gave the task of the census to Joab and the army commanders to go and find out how many conscripts he could get into the army.
Joab tried to persuade the king against the plan, he saw trouble ahead evidently, but David was king and overruled him.

The census took nearly 10 months and at the end they had counted 1.3 million men who were of military age (800,000 in Israel and 500,000 in Judah) or about double the men from the censuses in the time of Moses and Joshua.

David had a massive attack of conscience after this and begged God to forgive him. Despite the fact that at the start of the chapter God incited him to do it because he was angry.

God tells David through his seer, Gad, that he can choose the punishment, either 3 years of famine, or 3 months of defeat at the hands of the enemy, or 3 days of plague.

David chose the plague as it was the one God was most in control of, and about 70000 people died.
The plague was about to hit Jerusalem when God relented and stopped his angel at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.

God told David to build an alter on the threshing floor, so David outright bought the threshing floor, oxen and all the other equipment saying when Araunah offered him the land "I will not sacrifice to God something that cost me nothing".

This bought an end to the plague - and also to the books of Samuel.
It seems that 2 Samuel is probably the oddest title for a book we have yet seen, Samuel does not even put in an appearance - he has been dead the whole time!

The nation of Israel has somehow changed and come together united behind a king (mostly) and the judges that ruled Israel in a kind of as required leader are now history.   

2 Samuel 22 & 23 David's memorable tunes

2 Samuel 22

One of king David's hobbies in between ruling a country and fighting enemies and putting down rebellions was writing and singing songs and poems.

This chapter is one of David's songs, in it David praises God for his goodness and deliverance. Through all his struggles, times he feared for his life

I'm not much of a poet or critic so I'll suggest that you read it and see what you think.
In a few months we will get to the book of Psalms, quite a few of these are the artistic output of David.

2 Samuel 23

David finalises his artistic efforts with his last words, asserting that his house is right with God, as God has given hi a 

The chapter concludes with the chief fighters in David's army.

There are 37 of these mighty men, 
The three highest regarded are Josheb-Basshebeth, Eleazar, Son of Doda, and Shammah - these guys were extraordinary fighters, and the kind of guys who would sneak into an enemy held town just to get a drink of water to cheer up the king. 
David refused to drink it and poured it as an offering to God.
The last of the fighters listed here was Uriah the Hittite, the man that David arranged to have killed.   

2 Samuel 21 More stress

2 Samuel 21

Following the heels of 2 rebellions, Israel suffers 3 successive years of famine. 
On enquiring of the cause God revealed that it was due to king Saul trying to wipe out the Gibeonites.

A bit of a reminder - in case you missed the post on them - the Gibeonites were resident in the land before Joshua and the Israelites invaded it and had been servants of Israel ever since, they made the peace by telling Joshua and the Israelites that they had come a great distance, which fooled them.
Evidently Saul had decided to wipe them out despite their peaceful relationship. This attempted genocide was not acceptable to God, though he took his time in acting!

David asked the Gibeonites what he should do for them to make amends and lift the famine.
The Gibeonites did not want gold or silver, they would not repair the damage done, they demand that 7 of Saul's male descendants be handed over and they would be killed and exhibited in Gibeon.

Surprisingly David accedes to this rather brutal request. Though he protected Mephibosheth, Saul's grandson in memory of Jonathan's friendship with David.

He handed over the five sons of Saul's daughter Merab, and 2 sons of Saul's concubine Rizpah. The Gibeonites killed them all and left them on the hillside.

Rizpah took sackcloth and from the beginning of harvest until the rains poured down she kept vigil over the bodies day and night preventing any animals or birds from disturbing them.
When David heard about Rizpah he got the bodies of Saul and Jonathan from Jabesh Gilead where they had been buried shortly after they died. He also gathered up the bodies of those killed and buried them all in the Saul's family tomb in Benjamin.
After this God lifted the famine.

The end of this chapter describes more battles with the Philistines - including Goliath's brother and various other huge men described as "descendants of Rapha" - whoever he was!

2 Samuel 20 Another rebellion

2 Samuel 20

One thing I have noticed about David is that his life is never really easy. He gained the enmity of  his first patron, David's predecessor King Saul. He then has a fairly long campaign against most of the neighbouring nations, his son killed his brother, then attempted a coup.

David now has another rebellion on his hands, this time led by a guy called Sheba - he incited Israel to desert king David saying they had no claim on the king and he had no claim on them. At this a lot of Israelites deserted David.

In Jerusalem, David took back command of his palace and he locked up the concubines that he had left in charge because Absalom had slept with them all - they were treated as widows, given provisions from the king but they never saw the king again.

In response to Sheba David ordered Amasa his new army commander to muster the fighting men of Judah.
Some of the men that Amasa had roused were Joab and his brothers. Joab went to greet Amasa (who had been given his job) but stabbed him to death.

Joab retook command of the army and pursued Sheba, eventually trapping him in a besieged city while they built a siege ramp.

A wise woman in the city challenged Joab why he was destroying part of the inheritance of Israel, to which Joab replied he was only after Sheba. 

The citizens then cut Sheba's head off and chucked it over the wall to the army of Joab and the rebellion was crushed (Perhaps Darth Vader should have paid attention?)

David's other officials incldued Joab in charge of the army, Adoniram was in charge of forced labour, with priests Abiathar and Zadok as priests, Jehoshaphat was recorder and Sheva secretary and Ira was David's personal priest.

One thing I note is that despite the extremely hectic and troubled life that David has lived, he still maintained his faith. With the exception of the incident with Uriah and Bathsheba he has acted with integrity and mercy (compared to a lot of others, some of his actions were a bit iffy from a modern point of view but much less bad than other people of similar times from all accounts).

Some people think that as believers our lives are suddenly really easy, we never have problems or setbacks. That simply is not true - many of the most holy and faith filled people led lives of extraordinary hardship and suffering.

Those who claim that faith is a crutch, I don't hold with that, often faith is more like a shield that helps us to stand when things do go wrong and in the time of trial and testing.

2 Samuel 19 Enjoying victory (eventually)

2 Samuel 19

Joab, army commander fresh from killing the rebellious Absalom headed into David's royal presence where he is busy weeping and wailing over the death of Absalom, destroying the goodwill of his men as well as their morale.

Joab gave David some advice and told him that as king he had to man up and lead the country. eventually David comes out and sits in the city gate in public.
Absalom's army meanwhile had all gone home, deserting any remnant of the rebellion.

David is now free to return to Jerusalem having demanded, and received, assent from the tribes to proclaim David as king.

On his way back to Jerusalem, Shimei, the relative of Saul greeted him and apologised for having cursed David and pelted him with stones as he fled.

Joab's brother Abishai strongly recommended to David that he strike Shimei dead for his earlier transgression, but David will not allow any additional deaths that day.

He also reached his limit with Joab and his violent family and declares that he will appoint Absalom's military commander Amasa to replace Joab.

He is also met by Mephibosheth, Saul's grandson, who did not join David in his departure, when questioned he declared that being lame he asked his servant Ziba to saddle his donkey so he could leave with David, but Ziba let him down. 
If you remember, Ziba had met David and said Mephibosheth was hoping to be made king in the confusion.

David could not go back on his word to Ziba, but split the property so that Mephibosheth was not destitute.

Another ally of David, Barzillai from Gilead had supported David and his men and was invited to stay in the palace with David, but at 80 years old Barzillai claimed that his taste buds were worn out and all the luxury would be wasted on him at his age

David had been accompanied by the people of Judah, his relatives, but the rest of Israel took some offence and claimed that they had 10 shares in the king compared to 1 from Judah