Reading: 1 Kings 14-16, Psalm 98

From this point on, the book of Kings does some alternating between the rulers of Judah and those of Israel (the northern tribes), though we will hear a good deal more about the rulers of Israel for quite a while. Today’s reading will carry the story from the reign of Jeroboam to that of Ahab, whose ways will characterize the northern kingdom and who stands as the primary example of a rebellious king in the Hebrew Scriptures. In Judah, we will begin with the terrible reign of Rehoboam and wind up in with Jehoshaphat, one of Judah’s best kings.

The story of Jeroboam, who started out called by God but ended up making his own declaration of independence from the God of Israel, will not be pretty. We are told a story about how when his son gets sick, he turns to the prophet who called him in the first place, Ahijah. But rather than go himself, he sends his wife. In disguise. With a cheap gift. Jeroboam is inquiring of God, at least in a way, but he is doing so in a cheap and fundamentally dishonest way. The prophet gives him some pretty bad news about the fate of his family due to his sin. The rest of the story of the northern kingdom of Israel is basically the playing out of this curse.

Next we get the story of Rehoboam, who is frankly a terrible king of Judah. He introduces foreign worship, institutes ritual prostitution, and leads all of Judah into sin. God allows the Pharaoh Shishak to raid the Jerusalem and take the temple treasures, some of which Rehoboam replaces with bronze, indicating how far the kingdom has fallen in just one generation. His elder son Abijam is just as bad, and the author takes the time to tell us the only reason God spares the kingdom at all is for the sake of David’s line. Abijam dies after only three years, apparently without an heir, and his younger brother Asa comes to the throne. Asa breaks the bad streak in Judah. He returns to the worship of the God of Israel, restores the temple treasures, and manages to gain significantly in the war with the northern kingdom through some intelligent alliances. He removes the worst offences of his father and brother, and even has his mother, who was encouraging the foreign worship, removed. He is not perfect, but Asa gives Judah hope.

In Israel, things are not so great. Jeroboam’s son comes to the throne, but he is assassinated by Baasha. Baasha is no better, and God pronounces judgment against him through a prophet named Jehu. Baasha’s son comes to the throne, but he is assassinated by his chariot commander Zimri. Zimri only rules for a week, because the people would rather the commander of the army, Omri, be king. Zimri burns the royal palace of Jeroboam down around him. Omri is described as even worse than Baasha and Zimri in terms of sinfulness, though he is at least a capable ruler, and he builds the city of Samaria, which will be the capital of the northern kingdom until it’s demise. Finally Omri’s son Ahab comes to the throne, and he is described as even worse than his father, promoting the worship of terrible foreign gods and marrying the notorious Jezebel, princess of Sidon.

We are given insight into the attitudes of the people during the hundred or so years of degenerate rulers through a side story about the city of Jericho. Back in the book of Joshua we saw Jericho totally destroyed and a curse placed on the land where the city was, such that anyone who rebuilt it would do so at the cost of their sons. While the location was a crossroads and therefore almost certainly occupied, it was not a walled city from the time of Joshua until the reign of Ahab. It was during this time of moral collapse in both Israel and Judah that the curse is fulfilled and Jericho rebuilt. God’s people have already undone the conquest of the promised land by worshiping the gods of the nation they were to destroy, and now they are undoing the conquest in more material ways, undoing the miraculous victory at Jericho.

Neither the northern nor the southern kingdoms come off very well here, though we see God acting to preserve the southern kingdom of Judah for the sake of David. No such promises are made for the northern kingdom, and they are quickly falling into a spiral that sounds much like the pre-flood collapse of humanity. But God hasn’t forgotten the northern tribes, and he will not be silent against the sinful authority of Ahab. While the people of Israel will suffer terribly for the rebelliousness of their king, God will give him many chances to repent before carrying out judgment on him and all the tribes of Israel. When the kings fail, God will speak through prophets, and we are about to be introduced to the paragon of the prophets, Elijah the Tishbite.