First Kings

First Kings is a history of the kings of Israel and Judah beginning with the transition for David to his son Solomon.  The book also recounts some of the notable prophets of the time, particularly Elijah and Elisha.

Solomon was David’s contested successor.  David had many sons older than Solomon, though some were dead, notably Absalom who had tried to usurp the throne.  David’s son Adonijah was preparing to succeed his father, and even organized an elaborate celebration to court the favor of important aristocrats.  The prophet Nathan discovered the plot.  He, Solomon, David, and Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother, arranged to elevate Solomon to the throne while his father still lived.

Solomon was notable for his wisdom.  God offered to the young king what he wanted.  He asked for wisdom to govern the people rightly.  God was pleased with the answer and gave Solomon wealth and power in addition to wisdom.

Wisdom didn’t keep Solomon out of trouble.  He had many wives (no doubt trouble by itself), and he permitted his foreign wives to continue practicing their religions, so the worship of false gods was allowed in the kingdom.  Idol-worship would be common amongst Solomon’s successors.

After Solomon, the kingdom was divided.  The ten northern tribes formed a kingdom generally referred to as Israel.  Two southern tribes made Judah.  Throughout this period, idol-worship prevailed in Israel.  Some kings of Judah served God, but many did not, and the godly kings did not succeed in eradicating idolatry.

Following Solomon, most of the kings of both the north and the south are summed up briefly.   Some just get a paragraph.  We see the kingdom rise and fall based on the faithfulness of the people.  When they sought God, even imperfectly, He blessed them and they thrived.  When they sought to gratify themselves and follow false gods, they quickly ran into trouble.  This is a pattern in the history of ancient Israel that started before the kings and continued after them.

First Kings ends with the reign of Ahab, famously married to Jezebel.    These monarchs promoted the worship of Baal and suppressed the worship of God.  They were opposed by the prophet Elijah.  Elijah is associated with some spectacular miracles.  God withheld rain from the land until Elijah called an end to the drought.  Elijah called out the prophets of Baal in a contest to call down fire from heaven  Baal did not answer his worshippers, but God sent fire for Elijah, who that day executed hundreds of Baal’s priests.  This put him in serious conflict with Ahab and Jezebel.

Elijah is also well known in that he did not die, at least not in a conventional sense.  He was taken up to heaven in a chariot of fire.  He appeared to Christ and a few disciples on during the Transfiguration.

It is clear that First Kings is intended to be a summary.  It frequently refers to records of the actions of the kings as if these might be available to a reader who wanted to confirm the recounting of find more information.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

First and Second Samuel

Luke

Mark

Matthew

Proverbs

First Kings.  The Holy Bible.  New King James Version.  Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

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Second Kings

In the Hebrew Bible, First and Second Kings are one book.  Collectively, they are a history of the Israelite monarchy.   During most of this period, it is dual monarchies because two southern tribes make up the kingdom of Judah, the remaining tribes being Israel.

Second Kings covers a period of about 250 years.  It begins in the reign of Ahaziah.  It ends with the fall of Judah to Babylon.

Fall is an appropriate word.  The book describes the decline of the Israelite monarchy.  It is strongly associated with moral decline and apostasy.  Israel was called out to be God’s people.  Instead, they worshiped the gods of the people who occupied the land before them or of their neighbors.  Sometimes this idol worship was introduced and encouraged by the kings.  Some of the practices associated with these foreign religions included temple prostitution, sodomy, and child sacrifice.

When God established ancient Israel as a nation, he made a covenant with them.  If they followed Him, He would cause them to prosper in the land He gave to them.  If they did not, and especially if they abandoned Him to worship other gods and do evil, he would cut them off from the land and let their enemies overcome them.  That is exactly what happened.

Israel, the northern kingdom, succumbed first.  It fell during the reign of Hoshea.  It became a vassal state to Assyria.  More than that, the Assyrians removed the Israelite population to other lands and resettled Israel with people from across its empire.  Chapter 17 is an indictment against Israel, listing its crimes the judgment of expulsion from the land.

God did not let Israel go easily.  Much of the first half of the book is devoted to the exploits of Elijah and Elisha.  These prophets called people back to God and stood up against the influence of false religions.  Later, Isaiah would warn against the coming captivity to Assyria.

Judah held out longer, in part probably because of fitful reforms by kings such as Hezekiah and Josiah.   None of the kings of Israel committed themselves to god, but some of the kings of Judah turned their hearts to God, restoring the worship of God and sometimes even breaking down the idols of false gods.  Even so, they fell like their brothers to the north.

Babylon was the empire that overtook Judah during the reign of Zedekiah.  Zedekiah himself was appointed by Babylon after it took his nephew Jehoiachin as a prisoner.  Babylon also moved much of the population.  The poor were left to tend the farms, but anyone with status, military skill, training in crafts, or education was moved to Babylon to serve there.  The Israelite monarchy was finally broken and replaced with a Babylonian governor.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Deuteronomy

First and Second Samuel

First Kings

Second Kings.  The Holy Bible.  New King James Version.  Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

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Ezekiel

Ezekiel was a prophet to the Israelites who were captives to Babylon. He was a contemporary of Jeremiah, who was a prophet to the people left behind in Jerusalem.

When Ezekiel was taken into captivity, the Babylonians had not yet destroyed Jerusalem. His early prophesies related to the imminent fall of Jerusalem and the horrors of the sieges that would lead to it. His visions made clear that the destruction of Jerusalem was a judgment on the immorality of the people, especially the variety of idol worship they practiced even in the temple.

Nebachudnezzar, the Babylonian emperor, extend his reach far beyond Israel and Judah. Ezekiel warned that other nations would fall to Babylon. Some of these were comparatively weak such as Ammon, Moab, Edom and Philistia. Others were powerful: Tyre and Egypt.

Ezekiel also saw that the captivity had a limit. The Israelite would return to their homeland. In particular, God was preserving and protecting those who were faithful to Him.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested it

Daniel

Jeremiah

Second Chronicles

Second Kings

Ezekiel. The Holy Bible. New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

Daniel

Daniel was a prophet during the Babylonian captivity. He was carried to Babylon as a youth and eventually rose to high office in the courts of Nebachudnezzar and other rulers.

When the Babylonians occupied Israel and Judah, they carried forcibly resettled the aristocratic, wealthy and others they deemed valuable. Daniel was among these. He was brought to Babylon and trained to serve in the court of the king.

Daniel rose to prominence early on. He had a passion to serve God. He showed this by asking to be fed a diet of vegetables rather that the food from the kings table. This was probably food from sacrifices to Babylonian gods (though it may have just not been kosher). He must have been persuasive, for he prevailed. Because he and his friends were very healthy on this diet, he gained a reputation for wisdom.

His reputation grew when God began to show him interpretations of Nebachudnezzar’s dreams. In one of these dreams, Daniel saw the rise and fall of empires from the Babylonians to the time of Christ (the Roman Empire with the Persian and Greek empires in between). Much of his prophecies deal with the kingdoms to come from his own time to the first coming of Christ and the fate of Israel in that time.

The most famous story of Daniel is his survival of a night in the lion’s den. He was cast into it as a form of capital punishment for his devotion to God. This book also contains the story of Daniel’s friends Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego who were cast into the fire of a hot furnace for refusing to worship and idol, a statue in the image of Nebachunezzar. God brought them through unharmed.

Daniel is also mentioned in the book of Ezekiel.

Daniel. The Holy Bible. New King James Version. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1982.