1 Kings 17 Elijah

1 Kings 17

We saw at the end of the last chapter that Ahab was a particularly nasty king who did not just ignore the ways of God but positively is hostile to God.

Against Ahab and the moral degeneration God raised up a new breed of messenger, the prophets, starting with Elijah.
Elijah started his mission be announcing a prolonged drought on the land of Israel. He is then told to make himself scarce in the Kerith ravine where there is water to drink. God arranges that Elijah is fed morning and evening by ravens bringing him food.

Eventually since no rain or dew has fallen the brook ran dry and Elijah is told to head to Zarephath in Sidon where he meets a widow who is gathering sticks to make a fire.
Elijah asked her for some food and she explained patiently that she lived with her son and all they had to eat was a small amount of flour and olive oil and no chance of any more food to come, so this was going to be her and her son's last meal and they would starve to death very soon.
Elijah told her that if she shares her last meal with him she and her son would not starve.
Elijah winds up lodging with the widow an her son and the small amount of flour and oil never ran out and they lived.

Some time later the widow's son became seriously ill and stopped breathing. The widow asked him "what do you have against me man of God?, did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?"


Elijah asked for the sons body and prayed to God "Lord my God have you brought tragedy even on this widow I am staying with by causing her son to die?" He laid the body on the bed and stretched himself over the boy and prayed 3 times "Lord my God, let this boys life return to him".

The boy's life was returned and he came around. Elijah re-united him with his mother.

1 Kings 16 Baasha, Elah, Zimri, Omri, and Ahab - kings for a bit

1 Kings 16

Baasha was king of Israel in Tirzah for 24 years, but he followed the example of Jeroboam, and God sent a message that his family would be wiped out. Having gone to the trouble of raising up a king, the king basically ignoring God was not appreciated!

Elah, son of Baasha became the next king and he managed to rule for 2 years, until he was assassinated by 

Zimri - one of Elah's palace officials assassinated the king as he was getting drunk at the house of a friend of his Arza the palace administrator. Once on the throne he wiped out Baasha and Elah's entire family and all their friends.
Zimri was king for all of a week, yes only a week, though they are still recorded in the annals of the kings of Israel apparently.
Zimri died when the army led by Omri laid siege to Tirzah and he burned the palace down around him.
I'm impressed, the shortest monarch reign in England was 9 days and that was Lady Jane Grey in 1554!

Omri managed to come out on top of the power struggle following Zimri's death and he became the next king and reigned for 12 years.
The Bible is quite scathing about his character - he followed completely the example of Jeroboam and made God angry by doing the same wrong things that Jeroboam had done.

Omri's son, Ahab followed him as king and set new standards in not obeying the law of God. during his 22 year rule he considered it trivial that he committed the sins that Jeroboam had committed, he married Jezebel (a name that is still not popular to this day) daughter of the king of Sidon.
He built temples to Baal and Asherah poles , generally doing more to outrage God than anybody before him.

During Ahab's reign a guy called Hiel of Bethel rebuilt Jericho. His firstborn son Abiram died as he was clearing the foundations and his youngest son Segub died as he was setting the final touches and hanging the gates to the city.
This had been foretold by Joshua when the city was destroyed.

Things seem to have got very bad spiritually in Israel, in the next chapter we meet another great character in the Bible - the prophet Elijah.

1 Kings 15 Abijah, Asa and Nadab

1 Kings 15

Abijah becomes king of Judah in the 18th year of the reign of Jeroboam, he rules in Judah for 3 years only.
the Bible is quite scathing on him, he did not follow the law of God as his great grandfather, David had, yet God did not bring down judgement on him because of David who had wholeheartedly followed the law, apart from the incident with Uriah.

Abijah and Jeroboam were at war as well.

Asa, the son of Abijah becomes king on the death of Abijah and reigned for 41 years.
Asa did follow the law of God, as David had, he rid Judah of the shrine prostitutes and the Asherah poles and idols. He deposed his grandmother from her position as queen mother for making an idol.

Asa dedicated a lot of gold and silver to God and kept his promise until he was attacked by Israel at which point he bribed the king of Damascus to change his allegiance.

Meanwhile in Israel, Nadab son of Jeroboam became king for 2 years and he carried on as his father had, and after 2 years a guy called Baasha rebelled, killed all the members of Jeroboam's family, which is seen as the judgement of God on the sins of Jeraboam.

There was effectively civil war continually during the reigns of Jeroboam, Nadab and Baasha of Israel and Rehoboam, Abijah and Asa of Judah 

It starts to look like David and Solomon were very much the golden age of Israel

1 Kings 14 Political subterfuge

1 Kings 14

The son of King Jeroboam of Israel became ill and Jeroboam asked his wife to go in disguise to Shiloh in Judah where a prophet called Ahijah was living.

Ahijah was very old and blind but could tell right away that his visitor was the wife of Jeroboam, mainly because the word of God had spoken to him saying that she was coming!

God's message to Jeroboam was that he had torn the kingdom away from David's descendants and given it to Jerobaom with a promise that if Jeroboam walked according to the law his dynasty would be kings for a long time, but because Jeroboam had been more evil in the eyes of God than anybody before him (persuading all Israel to worship idols he made and appointing anybody priests who wanted to become a priest).

God will destroy the whole family of Jeroboam and raise up another king in Israel.
Jeroboam's son died at the moment his mother entered the palace.
The acts of Jeroboam are recorded in a book "The annals of the kings of Israel".
Having ruled for 22 years, Jeroboam died and he was succeeded by his son Nadab.

Meanwhile King Rehoboam, son of Solomon became king at the age of 41 and reigned for 17 years in Jerusalem.
In spite of having the Temple of God in his city and that Jeroboam in the north had advised his people not to go to the temple, Judah abandon worship of God and set up shrines in high places with shrine prostitutes and the people practised the detestable practises of the the people in the land before Israel.
The king of Egypt, Shishak attacked Rehoboam and Jerusalem and carried off all the treasures that Solomon had made, including all the golden shields. Rehoboam had them remade in bronze.

The events of Rehoboam' reign were recorded in the annals of the kings of Judah.
Rehoboam and Jeroboam were enemies all their lives and there was a continual state of war between them.

Abijah became king of Judah after the death of Rehoboam.

1 Kings 13 The troubles of a prophet

1 Kings 13

In the last chapter, Jeroboam king of Israel built idols and alters to stop his people from obeying the requirements of the law of Moses, which would involve them visiting the region of Israel that was not under his command or control.

God sent a man with a message to the alter where Jeroboam was making sacrifices, one day a descendant of David called Josiah will burn the priests who sacrificed animals on this alter - he also predicted that the alter would split and ashes would pour out.

Jeroboam was not impressed and commanded that the man be arrested, but the hand he used to point him out shrivelled and he could not pull it back, at the same time the alter split.
Jeroboam asked the man of God to pray for him and restore his hand. With his hand restored, Jeroboam asked to spend time and a meal with the man of God, but he declined saying he had instruction from God to eat and drink nothing in Israel and not to go back by the road he arrived on.

Word of this reached the ears of an old prophet who lived locally and he sent his sons out to find the man of God, he then met with him and lying told him that God had sent word that he should go for dinner with this local prophet. This seems particularly underhanded and rather unfair.

While they were sitting at the table, the word of God came to the old prophet saying that God had commanded his man to not eat and drink anything and since he had defied God he would not be buried in his home town.

After the meal, they parted company with the man of God departing on his donkey and was attacked and killed on the road by a lion - which did not eat the man or attack the donkey.
A passer by reported to the prophet what he had seen and he went out and recovered the body and buried him locally with instruction that when he die, the old prophet be buried with the man of God

Even after this Jeroboam continued to appoint anybody at priests and to ignore the law of Moses.
The Bible records that his line came to an end due to the sins of Jeroboam.

1 Kings 12 Honest politics

1 Kings 12

Here in the UK we will shortly be taking part in an election to the European Parliament and the various political parties and nut-jobs (Sorry if that phrase is offensive) are trying to persuade me that their policies and world views are not only healthy but in my best interest.
Political spin doctors also appear in this chapter of the Bible.

Solomon has died and his son Rehoboam has become king and the leaders of the people come to him with a request - your father laid a heavy yoke on us, forced labour, taxation and oppression. Make our lives better and easier and we will happily follow you. Sound familiar?

Rehoboam asked for 3 days thinking time and when they return in 3 days he will have made his decision.
He asked his father's advisors, men who have been in the administration and know what the king can get away with and what he cannot, and they advise king Rehoboam to relax his iron grip and lower his expectations, at least for now and he would be a good king of the whole land.

He also asked the friends and advisors he grew up with, young idealists with fiery ambition and hot heads and they told him to say basically "you think my Dad was hard on you, you ain't seen nothing yet!" 
My little finger is heavier than Dad's waist, if he beat you with whips, I'll tie scorpions to them, now stop whining and get on with it.
We saw with Moses in Exodus just how well that turned out last time!

The Israelites left Rehoboam saying we have no share in this, you are on your own pal, and when Rehoboam sent out people to enforce the forced labour they stoned him to death.

Meanwhile Jeroboam (not of champagne fame) has returned to Israel following Solomon's death and he is proclaimed king of the 10 tribes of Israel while Judah and Benjamin were loyal to Rehoboam and David's line.

Rehoboam and Jeraboam are all set to go to war for the kingdom, but God sent a message telling them not to go to war with thier brothers and to go home, which they did.

Jeroboam in the North was now faced with a dilemma, the temple of God, built for all Israel in Jerusalem was now in a hostile country and he did not want the good people of Israel leaving the land to worship God in Jerusalem, where they may be tempted to stay to properly worship the God of Israel.

Jeroboam had been told to carefully obey all the law of Moses, but what he does is build 2 idols, one in the North and the other in the south where the Israelites could worship (again I think i have seen similar before), and built alters on many high places and appointed priests who were no relative of Aaron and Levi 
He took the official Jewish celebration of Sukkot, the festival of tabernacles and instituted his own ceremony in competition - the Israelites could have their celebration locally without having to travel to Jerusalem.

With the split of Israel and Judah I am put in mind that Scotland will also be voting on whether to separate from the union and become a fully independent state - it is slightly remarkable that 
A) the rest of the union don't get a say in this as probably a lot of English would say something like "bog off back north of Hadrian's wall then, you ingrate" and
B) the same politicians urging Scotland to stay IN the UK are promising a referendum on whether the UK should leave the European Union and would urge us to get out of the EU

And now a partly political message from me to all politicians - 
Please stop telling me that you will fix all our problems - you won't.
Don't promise a utopia that you cannot or will not deliver
remember that you have to answer to a number of higher powers - we the electorate are one of those powers, and also to God, even if you do not believe in him.
You have a responsibility for all those you represent and speak for so please make sure that your words are honest, true, and above all build communities not walls.
My experience is that life goes on DESPITE politics and government and not BECAUSE of politics and government - I'd love to be proved wrong.

1 Kings 11 How many wives??

1 Kings 11

Solomon, despite, or possibly because, of his great wealth was courted by many women and he married loads of wives, I mean 700 wives of royal descent and 300 concubines.

I simply do not understand the logic of somebody being content to be one of 1000 women that were at the beck and call of Solomon - flipping heck just imagine the grief he would have if he upset one of the mothers-in-law or forgot a birthday or anniversary!

Anyway his wives coming from different countries all bought their religion with them and Solomon was accommodating enough to try and share their faiths and this led him away from serving the God of Israel, who Jews, Christians, and Muslims believe is the one true God.

Solomon started out asking the true God for wisdom but ended up making a mess of his faith being led astray by his wives.

Solomon built alters to these other gods on the hills around Jerusalem burning incense and making sacrifices.
This really upset God and God promised to take the kingdom away from Solomon as he had not followed the ways of God as David his father had, but for the sake of David, he would tear the kingdom from Solomon's son, not Solomon himself.

Solomon also found he had enemies - Hadad the Edomite had escaped when king David and Joab the army commander had defeated Edom and killed all the men. Hadad was young and escaped to Egypt.
He married the sister in law of the Pharaoh and when he heard that David and Joab were dead moved against Solomon, as did a ruler of Aram called Rezon.

From within Israel, one of Solomon's officials also rebelled - Jeroboam (Not sure if this is the inspiration behind the name given to and extra large bottle with the capacity of 4 bottles of champagne) was in charge of forced labour in Judah and was met by a prophet who tore his cloak into 12 and gave 10 parts to Jeroboam declaring that he would be king of 10 parts of Israel as God had decreed, all he had to do was walk in the way of God and keep the law and his dynasty would last .
Solomon tried to get Jeroboam but he escaped to Egypt.

Solomon dies at the end of the chapter and the Golden age of Israel is over - the Bible refers to a lost book, the annals of Solomon, and Solomon dies and is succeeded by his son Rehoboam 

We shall see how he gets on in the next post, he has a tough act to follow - Solomon had 1000 women in his harem and still found time to write books and run a country.
Sometimes I find it tough being single, writing a blog, and working as an engineer during the day.