Truth Before [denominational] Tribe

This Week’s Readings

Monday, June 11: 2 Kings 1-5
Tuesday, June 12: 2 Kings 6-10
Wednesday, June 13: 2 Kings 11-15
Thursday, June 14: 2 Kings 16-20
Friday, June 14: 2 Kings 21-25

Next week we will read Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon.

The overall year’s plan is here.

2 Kings 16

Elath, which Rezin captured, sits at the top of the Dead Sea close to the Jordan. Thus it is about 30 miles from Jerusalem.

The Arameans are the same as the Syrians. (Some translations have Rezin as the king of Syria and others as the king of Aram. Aram is the Hebrew word for Syria.) Their land is east of the Jordan, north of the Sea of Galilee. The land east of the Jordan between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea had already been taken by the Arameans (2 Kings 10:32-33), when Hazael was king, and thus Gad, Asher, and the half tribe of Manasseh had already lost their ancestral lands.

Ahaz turns to Assyria for deliverance from Rezin and Pekah, and in the end he turns to the religion of the Assyrians as well. The Scriptures don’t say that he was worshiping an Assyrian god, but he had a copy of the Assyrian altar made at the temple, and he set things up so the Assyrian king would be pleased.

We will see the contrast when the Assyrians run into Hezekiah, Ahaz’ son.

2 Kings 17

This chapter records the fall of the ten tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel. The three-year siege of Samaria began in 724 B.C. and ended in 721 B.C. King Hoshea was already in Assyrian captivity while this siege went on.

The first king of Israel, when the kingdom was united, was Saul, who began his reign c. 1020 B.C. The first king of the divided kingdom of Israel was Jeroboam, who began his reign c. 922 B.C. Thus, the ten tribes had a kingdom for 300 years total, 100 united with Judah and 200 split from them. Actually, it’s 98 years and 201 years for a total of 299 years, but I thought 100, 200, and 300 would be easier to remember. And since most of those dates, outside of the fall of Samaria, have a "c." for circa (meaning about or near), rounding by one or two years is not a stretch.

The king of Assyria brought people from Babylonia and Cuthah (two Babylonian cities), Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim (probably all Syrian cities, but that’s only certain for Hamath), and he settled them in Samaria. These forced immigrants, along with Israelites left in the land are the ancestors of the Samaritans whom we read about in the Gospels 700 years later.

It’s ironic that the Samaritans were despised by the Jews, probably because of their "half-breed" status and because they were descendants of a nation that constantly worshiped idols and provoked God to wrath, but now, because of Jesus’ parable, the name "Samaritan" has become synonymous with kindness to strangers.

The last verse of this chapter gives you an idea of how long after the fact this history was written and also by whom it was written. The comments about how these Samaritans serve and don’t serve Yahweh make it probable that a scribe/historian in Judah is writing this part of the history, and he is at least two generations removed from the time of Samaria’s conquest because he’s able to comment on the behavior of the Samaritan’s grandchildren.

Judah began to fall about 120 years after the fall of Samaria, though they hung on as vassals of the Babylonian king (who had overthrown the power of Assyria by then). By the way, I’m getting all these dates from crivoice.org. I like lists of the Israelite and Judah kings that come with dates. Very helpful in picturing this history.

2 Kings 18

Jehoshophat had to break apart the bronze serpent that Moses had made to heal Israel from the poisonous snake bites they received in the desert. They had been worshiping it on and off since the exodus some 700 years earlier. (Solomon is said by the Scriptures, in 1 Kings 6:1, to have begun his reign 480 years after the Israelites left Egypt.)

It’s a little humorous that the Scripture adds here that the Israelites were calling it "Nehushtan." The note in the NASB (and several sites I checked online) says that Nehushtan means "piece of bronze."

Verse 5 says there was none like Jehoshaphat among the kings of Judah, not before or after him. This is not the only place you’ll read something like that. That’s because the sentence was written by a human historian who died at some point. He means, "Among the few other kings I’ve seen in my lifetime after Jehoshophat died, there have been no others as righteous as Jehoshaphat."

Later, after this historian died, another historian wrote about Josiah, and he said that Josiah was more righteous than any other that was before or after him (2 Kings 23:25). The person writing about Josiah was correct for all of Israel’s history, though, for after Josiah, Israel had no other righteous king at all.

The story of Assyria’s attack on Hezekiah and Jerusalem is told three times in the Hebrew Scriptures. Chronicles repeats the story, and it is in Isaiah as well, who is the prophet involved in this story. Perhaps it is important to God!

In this chapter, we find Sennacherib, king of Assyria, sending messengers to the gate, and Hezekiah gives excellent advice to his people: Don’t answer them.

I tell you based on 30 years of experience as a Christian that answering in such a situation is a waste of time and worse than a waste of time. The messengers of Sennacherib—or in our case, the messengers of satan and the world—are not going to listen to answers even if they’ve present arguments. Arguing with them, attempting to refute them … these are just opportunities for these people to present their blasphemies all over again or find new blasphemies and ignorant scoffing to spew.

They’re not listening to you, why waste your breath! If you must instruct your friends, or in Hezekiah’s case, the people on the wall, then do so after the deaf, blind, and careless scoffers leave. And they’ll leave faster if you don’t answer them.

On top of that, you can trust God that he will answer them. His answer to Sennacherib is powerful and doesn’t involve exchanging words at the wall.

I am not saying you should not try to help and convert those for whom there is hope. However, it is Jesus who said not to throw holy things to dogs and pearls to pigs. He was calling close-minded, hard-hearted, purposefully ignorant, careless people animals, and he was comparing their behavior to animals.

Do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you become like him. (Prov. 26:4)

2 Kings 19

In verse 9, the king of Cush is the king of Ethiopia.

This is another great story to memorize and tell to kids. There is nothing that is too hard for God.

2 Kings 20

Speaking of there being nothing too hard for God. In this chapter, God causes the sun to go backwards in the sky (v. 11).

There have been numerous objections to this event by unbelievers. If the earth stopped rotating, the oceans would race across the planet, wiping out all life, and that’s in addition to all the problems of orbit and relation to the moon that such an event would cause.

God is the Creator. There is nothing too difficult for him, and laws of the universe are not out of his control.

Those of you who have experienced miracles from God, which I assume is most of the people who read this blog, know what it feels like. In some cases, the results are so obvious and so powerful that you just rejoice at God’s intervention or his answer to prayer. In many cases, though, you just look and think, "Did that just happen? No way. That did not happen." You doubt yourself, even if you just prayed for the miracle to happen. Then you start wondering if maybe it was just coincidence or if you didn’t understand what happened correctly.

From July, 2011 to May, 2012 I was in Nashville being treated for leukemia. I spent three of those months in the hospital (four stays, the longest being six weeks). During the most difficult of those times, we felt somewhat like we had text-a-miracle as an app on my wife’s iPhone. She would text, "Shammah’s blood pressure is down, if it’s not back up by tomorrow they’re putting him in ICU." Friends would pray. At the next check, it would be up. One prayer after another prayer after another.

I can imagine that ‘the shadow going backward ten steps’ was similar. It should have been a huge miracle, blowing their minds, but when the shadow began moving the wrong direction, it probably seemed as natural as sunset, even a little unbelievable, except for the strongly spiritual, like Isaiah.

People forget and explain away and doubt. If we could remember all God has done for us. If we all together trusted God enough to take risks, we’d have so many stories that we’d laugh at a skeptic’s suggestion that the sun moving backward in the sky couldn’t happen. It could happen without scoffers even knowing it happened.

This Week’s Readings

Monday, June 11: 2 Kings 1-5
Tuesday, June 12: 2 Kings 6-10
Wednesday, June 13: 2 Kings 11-15
Thursday, June 14: 2 Kings 16-20
Friday, June 14: 2 Kings 21-25

Next week we will read Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon.

The overall year’s plan is here.

2 Kings 11

Athaliah is the only queen to reign over Judah or Israel. She reigned for six years.

She had to kill all her grandchildren to do so. The fact that she was so easily overthrown with no one to stand by her suggests that she as evil a queen as she was a grandmother.

The Carites that Jehoiada called upon were probably the same as the Cherethites, who were David’s palace guard.

The fact that Joash became king at seven lets us know that Jehoiada was making all the royal decisions for several years until Joash at least became a teenager.

2 Kings 12

Jehoash did right only as long as Jehoiada was advising him. But despite the fact that Jehoiada gave righteous advice, he was apparently plagued by the same problems a lot of modern religious organizations are plagued by. He and the other priests were unable to account for money in the building fund!

Despite doing right while Jehoiada advised him (and we’re not told what wrong he did afterward), Joash did not turn to the Lord when he was attacked by the king of Aram. Instead, he gave away Judah’s wealth and the wealth of the house of the Lord to buy him off.

It’s strange that the king of Aram was attacking Gath. Aram was on the other side of the Jordan, to the north near the sea of Galilee, while Gath was a Philistine city, near the Mediterranean coast west of Jerusalem.

Finally Jehoash is assassinated, though his son still managed to keep the throne.

2 Kings 13

I heard a sermon once on the prophecy of Elisha to Jehoash. The teacher talked about the importance of zeal in our obedience to God. Jehoash gave a half-hearted response to the prophet’s command to beat the floor with arrows, and so he got partial results rather than everything God had for him.

2 Kings 14

The prophet Jonah mentioned in this chapter is the same one that was swallowed by the great fish and taken to Nineveh. Though the king was evil, it appears that occasionally God would deliver Israel because of the righteousness of the prophet or prophets who spoke to Israel and because of his promises to the fathers of Israel (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, and David).

2 Kings 15

This chapter details all the assassinations and turning over of the throne that happened in the northern kingdom during that time.

The city of Tiphsah that Menahem attacked was far north, on the Euphrates river. He must have made some real progress in expanding Israel because Tiphsah is north even of Syria and its capitol, Damascus.

The Uzziah that is mentioned is Azariah.

Pekah, the son of Remaliah, and Rezin of Aram (v. 37) are talked about in Isaiah chapter 7 as well. There God gives a prophecy that he would deliver Judah from these two kings in the time of Ahaz. That prophecy is a dual prophecy, applying in Ahaz’ time, but also applying to the virgin birth of Jesus Christ as well. We will talk more about dual prophecies when we get there, though we discussed this some when we went through Genesis as well.

This Week’s Readings

Monday, June 11: 2 Kings 1-5
Tuesday, June 12: 2 Kings 6-10
Wednesday, June 13: 2 Kings 11-15
Thursday, June 14: 2 Kings 16-20
Friday, June 14: 2 Kings 21-25

Next week we will read Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon.

The overall year’s plan is here.

2 Kings 6

The Lord was apparently giving the king of Israel (probably Jehoram) an opportunity to choose the right path. The first time the king of Aram came to Israel, God helped the king through Elisha even without the king asking. The next time, the king got no help at all. Amazingly, he wanted to blame Elisha for that!!!

The circumstances of the siege were horrifying. I won’t repeat any of them here.

2 Kings 7

God delivers Samaria again through Elisha. In this case, the king had to go to Elisha and appeal to him. He appealed in an unusual way, threatening Elisha’s life, but God decided to answer.

2 Kings 8

God answered the king in chapter 7, but he put a 7-year famine on the land in this chapter. It didn’t cause Jehoram of Israel to repent at all.

Ahaziah of Judah starts his reign in this chapter and reigns for one year. The year is 843 B.C. or something very close to that. Just over 150 years have passed since David began to reign.

2 Kings 9

It’s interesting to note that the captains who were with Jehu referred to the prophet as a madman (v. 11). I have always wondered about the appearance of Israelite prophets. We simply see black and white words on a page, printed in a professional font and professionally bound. The Israelites saw prophets who laid on one side for almost a year (Ezekiel 4:4-6) and walked naked for three years prophesying that Israel would go into captivity "with their buttocks uncovered" (Isaiah 20:4).

Jehu assassinates both the king of Judah and the king of Israel, but he only ascends to the throne of Israel.

2 Kings 10

Jehu calls himself zealous for Yahweh, and he kills all the worshipers of Baal. He destroys the temple of Baal. But he kept the golden calves at Dan and Bethel. He’s the closest thing to a righteous king that Israel had, despite the vast amount of assassinations at the start of his reign.

In ancient Jewish culture, the word "zeal" or "zealous" is tied to violence. Jehu was zealous for Yahweh by killing Yahweh’s enemies. The Maccabees (from the Apocrypha, found in Catholic Bibles) were zealous by fighting against Greek kings. Even Paul said that before he was a Christian he was zealous because he persecuted the church (Php. 3:6).

This Week’s Readings

Monday, June 11: 2 Kings 1-5
Tuesday, June 12: 2 Kings 6-10
Wednesday, June 13: 2 Kings 11-15
Thursday, June 14: 2 Kings 16-20
Friday, June 14: 2 Kings 21-25

Next week we will read Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon.

The overall year’s plan is here.

2 Kings: General Comments

At the end of this week, you will have completed most of the history of Israel as it is known in the Hebrew Scriptures. Chronicles is the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah, and it covers the same time period as 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings do. In fact, in many languages, those books are not known as Samuel and Kings, but they are 1, 2, 3, and 4 Kings.

Kings ends with the capture of Judah by the Babylonians. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah tell the story of the return from Babylon, and Esther describes a small period during the Babylonian captivity. Several of the prophets address either the Babylonian captivity or afterward as well.

After Ezra and Nehemia, there is no Biblical history of Israel until the Gospels, a 400-year gap. Protestants know this period as "the 400 silent years," but that’s not accurate. There are 4 books of the Maccabees giving the history of Israel during the 3rd and 2nd century B.C. Two of those are in the Roman Catholic Bible, and some Orthodox versions of the Bible have all four.

It appears that all Christian teachers of the period immediately after the apostles were familiar with the Maccabbees, as well as with Tobit and Ecclesiasticus, books that are found only in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Old Testament Scriptures. It’s likely they were familiar with all seven books that are called "the Apocrypha" and are contained in Roman Catholic Bibles, but not Protestant ones.

I’m not going to discuss whether they ought to be in the Bible. Even Jerome, who translated the Latin Vulgate which the Roman Catholic Church used throughout the middle ages, set those seven books in their own category separate from the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures. However, Christian teachers should be familiar with them. If it’s worth it to know the history of Israel up to and immediately after the Babylonian captivity, it’s worth knowing it all the way to the time of Christ. Maccabees gives great insight into the culture of the Gospels because the Pharisees were basically trying to carry out the reforms that the Maccabees instituted, though their attitude was such that they made God mad, while God was with the family of the Maccabees.

So whether we consider the seven books of "the Apocrypha" to be Scripture or not, we who consider ourselves students of God’s word—and especially if we consider ourselves teachers—should at least be familiar with them. Our predecessors, including Martin Luther, John Calvin and the Anabaptist leaders, were deeply familiar with them.

2 Kings 1

At the end of 1 Kings, Ahab was shot by an arrow in battle even though he was disguised. You can hide from men, but you cannot hide from God. Ahaziah his son is now king, and Jehoshaphat is still king of Judah, having survived the battle that killed Ahab.

Also, Ahab’s evil wife, Jezebel, is still alive, though God will rectify that eventually as well.

The reigns of Jehoshaphat, and the two Jehorams, the king of Judah and the king of Israel, are wickedly difficult to reconcile. Verse 17 of this chapter says that Jehoram of Israel became king in the second year of the reign of Jehoram of Judah. Yet 2 Kings 3:1 says that he became king in the 18th year of the reign of Jehoshaphat. 1 Kings 22:51 gives us basically the same time frame as 2 Kings 3:1 because it says that Ahaziah became king in the 17th year of Jehoshaphat, and he only reigned two years. Taking into account that two years doesn’t mean "two years exactly to the day (or month)," it makes sense that Ahaziah’s son Jehoram would be king in the 18th year of Jehoshaphat.

Jehoshaphat reigned 25 years. How could his 18th year also be the 2nd year of the reign of Jehoram of Judah, Jehoshaphat’s son?

We get a clue in a few chapters. 2 Kings 8:16 says that Jehoshaphat was still king when his son Jehoram began to reign.

Here is the general understanding of Biblical scholars:

When Jehoshaphat went with Ahab to fight against the Syrians, the battle we just read about in which Ahab died, he left the administration of the kingdom in the control of his son Jehoram. Thus Jehoram became a viceroy or co-regent with his father starting in the 18th year of Jehoshaphat’s reign.

Later, in the 23rd year of his reign, Jehoshaphat retired and turned the kingdom completely over to his son and died two years later. It’s in the 23rd year of Jehoshaphat’s reign that Jehoram, his son, marks the beginning of his reign, except right here in 2 Kings 1:17, where the historian, for some unknown reason, marks Jehoram of Judah’s first year as the year he became co-regent with his father.

Understand, I am no defender of Biblical inerrancy when it comes to science and history. I don’t have any problems with spots where it is basically impossible to line up two Bible passages historically. I call those contradictions because I don’t believe that God feels any obligation to divinely enhance the memory of certain events so that Gospel writers and Jewish historians get every detail and conversation correct down to the word. For example, even skilled commentators are at a loss to explain why the Gospel of John says that the Pharisees stayed out of Pontius Pilate’s court so they could be clean to eat the Passover (18:28). According to the other Gospels, Jesus and his disciples had eaten the Passover the evening before. Various explanations are given by commentaries, none of which I find satisfactory. My explanation? John wrote his Gospel late in life, in the A.D. 90’s, about 60 years after the events transpired. Because Jesus’ death was so associated with the Passover, and perhaps also because John was by then used to reckoning days by Greek time rather than Jewish time, he remembered the day wrong.

But in the case of 2 Kings 1, I agree with the commentators. I think the historian gives the dates he does because of Jehoram’s co-regency with his father. I don’t think there’s a Bible contradiction or historical error here.

2 Kings 2

This is another example of the kind of shape Elijah was in. The trip from Gilgal to Bethel to Jericho was at least 50 miles. Crossing the Jordan would have added a couple miles to that.

Elisha cursing the children is shocking to us. I have no explanation that would stop it from being shocking, but perhaps the following explanation by Augustine will make it less so. This is taken from bible.cc in the Keil & Delitzsch section:

"The insolent boys," [Augustine] says, "are to be supposed to have done this at the instigation of their parents; for they would not have called out if it had displeased their parents." And with regard to the object of the judicial punishment, he says it was inflicted "that the elders might receive a lesson through the smiting of the little ones, and the death of the sons might be a lesson to the parents; and that they might learn to fear the prophet, whom they would not love, notwithstanding the wonders which he performed."

John Wesley adds this, from the same page:

If any of these children were more innocent, God might have mercy upon their souls, and then this death was not a misery, but a real blessing to them, that they were taken away from that education which was most likely to expose them not only to temporal, but eternal destruction. In the name – Not from any revengeful passion, but by the motion of God’s Spirit, and by God’s command and commission. God did this, partly, for the terror and caution of all other idolaters and prophane persons who abounded in that place; partly, to vindicate the honour, and maintain the authority of his prophets; and particularly, of Elisha, now especially, in the beginning of his sacred ministry.

2 Kings 3

A notable miracle happened in this chapter, and God delivered Israel, Judah, and Edom through the words of Elijah. However, I want to point out the role of the minstrel in this chapter. It was as the minstrel played and Elijah got into God’s presence that the word of God came to him.

Verse 27 is another horrifying occurrence. It’s impossible to tell just by looking at the verse whose wrath is being discussed. The Keil & Delitzsch commentary says that the Hebrew phrase used here is always used of divine wrath in every other occurrence in the Hebrew Scriptures. So they understand it to mean that God was angry with Israel for occasioning such a sacrifice.

If that’s true, there’s still no way to know in what way the Israelites felt that divine wrath. The result was that they went home. It’s possible that they were simply sickened by the sight, for the king burned his son to death on the wall.

Rabbinic tradition teaches that the king of Moab was told by advisors that the Israelites had power against him because their founder, Abraham, had offered his son as a burnt sacrifice in quick obedience to God. (Of course, we know that God supplied a replacement, but the king of Moab didn’t know.) So the king of Moab did the same, hoping for the same power the Israelites had.

I’m pretty sure that in this case, rabbinic tradition is just the speculation of rabbis centuries later.

2 Kings 4

Shunem was near Jezreel, some 30 miles northeast of Samaria, which was the king of Israel’s capitol. Abishag, the young maiden who kept King David warm in his old age, was also from Shunem.

Note that when the Shunammite came to Elisha, he said that the Lord had hidden her problem from him. It seems that this was unusual and that in most cases, Elisha would have known what it was that was troubling the people who came to him. Powerful prophet!

The rest of this chapter is devoted to miracles that Elisha performed.

Make sure you’re reading the Scriptures and not just my commentary. These are great and inspiring stories.

Don’t think they can’t happen to you. If you listen to God, there are many opportunities to witness your own miracles. Maybe they won’t be as spectacular as some of Elisha’s, but spiritual Christians can normally list numerous places where they have seen the intervention of God in their lives or the lives of others after prayer.

I remember once being prompted by God to ask the church to pray for a drought to end here in Tennessee (spring, 2008, I think). When I asked the church to pray, one of the sisters in the church asked if we could pray for the rain to start on Tuesday because she was taking many children to the zoo on Tuesday. We laughed, but we prayed, and the rain started while they were in the parking lot leaving the zoo on Tuesday.

We had of course all been praying for an end to the drought, but on that day God was ready to do something about it, and he let us have a hand in seeing something special. This sort of thing can be ordinary life for a church of disciples, who love God, believe in his Son, know his promises, and who rely on his mercy daily.

2 Kings 5

Jesus uses Naaman as an example in his preaching. He points out that there were many lepers in Elisha’s day, but the only one that he healed was Naaman the Syrian. It made the Jews so mad that they tried to kill him (Luke 4:27-30).

There’s lessons for us in that story. We have to beware of excluding people. (Of course, we also have to beware of including people that we shouldn’t, as Jehoshaphat found out when he was rebuked by a prophet for going to war with Ahab.)

Gehazi’s greed is also a lesson to us. How many of us, given the opportunity, would have followed in his footsteps? He wasn’t stealing. He was just greedily taking advantage of an opportunity that wasn’t his to take advantage of.

There’s a lesson to be learned from Naaman as well. He had an expectation of how he was to be healed, and he almost missed his healing because of it.

I’d sum up those lessons this way: A spiritual person is flexible, brave (standing up to and against the wicked), merciful (open to all who come to God honestly), and trusts God strenuously.

This Week’s Readings

Monday, June 4: 1 Kings 1-4
Tuesday, June 5: 1 Kings 5-8
Wednesday, June 6: 1 Kings 9-12
Thursday, June 7: 1 Kings 13-17
Friday, June 8: 1 Kings 18-22

We will start 2 Kings on Monday (June 11).

The overall year’s plan is here.

1 Kings 18

This is, of course, one of the most famous stories in the Bible. It’s the showdown between the prophets of Baal (and Asherah) and Elijah, the prophet of Yahweh.

You may wonder, as many skeptics have, where the people found 12 water jars full of water at the end of a 3-year drought. Mt. Carmel, which is only 1,742 feet high, sits right on the Mediterranean coast. The water probably came from the sea and was salt water.

As I pointed out yesterday, Elijah is persistent in prayer. He prays seven times, and each time he sends his servant to check on the results of his prayer.

At the faintest hint of an answer (a cloud as small as a man’s hand, v. 44), Elijah announces a deluge and sends Ahab back to Samaria to dodge the storm.

Elijah runs back ahead of Ahab’s chariot. You can see on the map that Jezreel is about 30 miles from Mt. Carmel. From Mt. Carmel on the coast (it’s on a little horn in C5 or D5) follow the Plain of Megiddo to the Valley of Jezreel. The city of Jezreel is just above the word "valley" there.

Jezreel was Ahab’s residence, but no other kings after Ahab lived there. Today it’s a village called Ze’rin (ref).

1 Kings 19

James, the Lord’s brother, tells us that Elijah was a man "of like passions to us" (Jam. 5:17). Perhaps this chapter is the reason he says it. Elijah, who has just conquered Ahab and 850 prophets of false gods, finds himself terrified and fleeing from Jezebel.

The Scriptures don’t say how many days he fled, but the trip from Jezreel to Beersheba was about 100 miles. It’s in the bottom left corner of the map I linked.

I found an excellent commentary on this chapter which includes the distances of Elijah’s travels. Horeb, which is Mt. Sinai of which the exact location is unknown, is 160 to 220 miles, as the crow flies, south of Beersheba. According to the commentary link at the start of this paragraph, it could be up to 420 miles if he took the roads.

The commentary suggests that Elijah was a younger man than we’re used to thinking of him as. He needed God’s strength to get to Horeb without eating, taking 40 days and 40 nights, but he traveled the 100 miles to Beersheba without divine intervention.

It is not at all unthinkable for a human in good shape to travel 40 to 50 miles a day for days on end and even further for one day only.

You’ve probably heard the term "still, small voice." This comes from verses 11 and 12.

Elijah is encouraged by God, and he goes back north to anoint two kings, one of which is to replace Ahab, though Ahab’s stories are by no means over at this point. He also anoints Elisha as his own replacement.

Elijah finds Elisha at Abel-Maholah, which is in the Valley of Jezreel though its exact location is unknown and it may be a region, not a city. Elisha is plowing with 12 yoke of oxen, indicating he is from a wealthy family. He leaves all that, however, to become Elijah’s student.

1 Kings 20

This is a bit of an unusual chapter. Unknown prophets approach King Ahab that are really sent from God. God helps King Ahab, declared by Scripture to be more evil than any of his predecessors (21:25), to defeat Ben-Hadad. (But see my comments on chapter 21.)

Also, we would expect that Ahab was finally doing something good in being merciful to a conquered king, but God curses him for doing so.

It is the word of the Lord that matters, and several kings and leaders are rebuked by God in Scripture for letting kings go that God had marked out for destruction. Saul is an example when he let Agag, king of the Amalekites live. God removed him from being king for not following through.

The figurative application for us today is that we need to deal with sin and with the things that make us stumble and make us weak in the same way God wanted Ahab to deal with Ben-Hadad. We must utterly purge our lives, leaving nothing of that weak area behind to tempt us.

I knew a man who was invited to a movie. He asked if there were anything in the movie to be concerned about. The person who invited him said, "Well, there’s a short scene where a beautiful girl walks around in a bikini; only a few seconds."

The man said, "I can’t see it. I’ve had difficulties in the past with my desires, and that would be like giving heroin to an addict."

That man was being thorough.

Are we really serious about following God?

(As I write that, I am convicted myself of a couple areas where I have not been thorough with God. Conviction should not discourage us, but should painfully empower us to action that we already knew was right.)

1 Kings 21

In chapter 21, we get an idea why God was so patient with Ahab. The truly evil one was Jezebel. Ahab himself was guilty for being pushed by and following Jezebel, but notice that there appears to be no one that stood up to Jezebel during her lifetime except God himself … and that includes Elijah the Tishbite!

Even here, Elijah is sent by God to speak to Ahab, not Jezebel. Speaking to Jezebel could well have resulted in the death of the prophet, but Ahab had more respect than that. Somewhere, deep beneath his evil behavior, Ahab knew that Yahweh was God.

Even Jehu, whom had Jezebel put to death and who will come up in 2 Kings, exchanged no words with her. He simply asked those with her to throw her out the upper story window.

1 Kings 22

Jehoshaphat’s expressions of unity with Ahab in verse 4 are entirely inappropriate, and God rebukes him for it (2 Chr. 19:2). We are to despise evil, and we are certainly not supposed to form bonds of unity with evil men.

Notice, too, that down in verse 44 that Jehoshophat’s peace with the king of Israel is listed among the deeds of his life, but it seems to be listed in the negative section of his deeds, not the positive—the "exceptions" to his righteousness, if you will.

I think it is safe to conclude that Ahab’s 400 prophets were clearly unreliable prophets. Jehoshaphat asks if there’s any other to hear from, even though four hundred were presented before him, all speaking with one voice.

Ahab brings Micaiah. I have to wonder if Ahab kept Micaiah in prison so he could "have his cake and eat it, too." Deep down, he knew that though Micaiah always prophesied evil about him, Micaiah prophesied truth. He couldn’t acknowledge that Micaiah was true, so he found a terrific compromise. He threw Micaiah in prison. This allowed him to hear true prophecy while still ignoring it, pretending he didn’t recognize truth when it was spoken to him. He also got to relieve his anger by ill-treating Micaiah.

When I read the story of the battle, I get the impression that Jehoshaphat, though a righteous man himself, wasn’t very courageous in standing up to evil men, or at least to evil kings. For some crazy reason, he agrees to let Ahab disguise himself in the midst of the battle while Jehoshaphat himself dressed in his royal robes.

Why would Jehoshaphat agree to be a decoy for Ahab?

God worked it all out despite Jehoshaphat’s foolishness, and Ahab got his just punishment from God, the same punishment we will all get if we ignore the truth that is told to us.

This Week’s Readings

Monday, June 4: 1 Kings 1-4
Tuesday, June 5: 1 Kings 5-8
Wednesday, June 6: 1 Kings 9-12
Thursday, June 7: 1 Kings 13-17
Friday, June 8: 1 Kings 18-22

The overall year’s plan is here.

1 Kings 13

When we left Jeroboam yesterday he had set up two golden calves, one in the far north in Dan, and the other in the south near the border with Judah in Bethel. He had made a new priesthood and new temples. All this to prevent his people from going to Jerusalem to properly worship Yahweh, the God who had given Jeroboam his kingdom in the first place.

Chapter 12 ends with Jeroboam burning incense at the altar in Bethel during his new feast that took place in the eighth month. (The main feasts prescribed in the Law of Moses take place in the 1st, 7th, and 10th months of the year. The new year for the Jews begins in March or April depending on cycles of the moon and when the first crop grows.)

1 Kings 13 begins with the appearance of the man of God, who is never named, at the altar in Bethel while Jeroboam was by the altar.

The man of God’s prophecy came to pass (2 Kings 23:16) about 300 years later, during the reign of Josiah, which began c. 641 B.C. Jeroboam’s reign began approximately 925 B.C.

The story of the man of God and the prophet is a strange story, indeed. Why did the prophet lie to the man of God? Why would God speak through the prophet after he lied?

We can speculate about those questions, but the lesson I give to my kids when I tell them this story (which is another favorite story of theirs) is that they need to stick to what God has told them no matter what others tell them. I’m a big believer in the church as the pillar and foundation of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15), and I’m a big believer in getting advice so that you are not deceived by your own heart (Jer. 17:9; Heb. 3:13) in imagining that you heard God when you did not, but if you are convinced that God has spoken to you (whether in your heart, through circumstances, through the Scriptures, or through the church), you must follow through and obey no matter who opposes.

The man of God had no reason to doubt that it was God who spoke to him, as his words had been backed up by miraculous power. Nonetheless, he trusted the prophet when the prophet gave him words that eased God’s demands on him, which turned out to be a big mistake.

1 Kings 14

Ahijah prophesies not only the death of Jeroboam’s son, but the captivity and scattering of the northern kingdom of Israel. Israel only lasted about 200 years as a separate kingdom, and all its kings were evil. Not one is declared by the Scriptures to be good. Only Judah had good kings, and they had only a few.

The Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel is mentioned in verse 19, but we don’t have that book. We do have the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah (v. 29), which we know as 1 and 2 Chronicles.

1 Kings 15

Verse 6 says there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of Abijam’s life. A few Hebrew manuscripts say "Abijam and Jeroboam," which is obviously what is meant. The LXX, the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, leaves that line completely out.

Asa was a good king, and his history illustrates the difference between Chronicles and Kings. Chronicles covers only the kings of Judah, not the kings of Israel, but Chronicles is also a more spiritual book. The historians who wrote Chronicles let us know that God was not happy with Asa’s reliance on Ben-hadad, nor that Asa didn’t seek the Lord when he became diseased in his feet (2 Chr. 16:7-12).

Jeroboam’s line comes to an end after his son Nadab reigns two years. Baasha is a completely different family, coming from the tribe of Issachar. Jeroboam was from the tribe of Ephraim (1 Kings 11:26).

1 Kings 16

This chapter describes the awful state Israel was in, with the throne being turned over regularly. Zimri only reigned a week!

It also describes the founding of Samaria, which would be Israel’s capital for the next two centuries. The city would also give its name to the Samaritans, the Assyrian-Israelite mixed race that was despised by the Jews in Jesus’ time.

I finally found a decent, clickable map of the cities we’re looking at. They have Tirzah, where Omri was reigning, and Samaria highlighted so they’re easy to see.

We are introduced to Ahab, the son of Omri here, and 1 Kings spends some time on him because it was during his reign that Elijah the prophet arose.

This chapter ends with by mentioning the rebuilding of Jericho at the cost of two sons, which had been prophesied by Joshua (Joshua 6:26).

1 Kings 17

The Brook Cherith can be found on the map I linked above. If you go north from Tirzah, you’ll see Bezek. Go due east across the Jordan, and you’ll see the Brook Cherith. One of the towns on the brook was Tishbe, which is Elijah’s home town. He went somewhere familiar to hide out from Ahab.

Zarephath, where Elijah stayed with the widow, is also on the map, in the far north on the Mediterranean coast just south of Sidon. That was a long trip for Elijah, 60 or 70 miles from Tishbe.

We see a couple of Elijah’s miracles in this chapter. Elijah has to pray three times to raise the widow’s son. Later, when he prays for the rain to return, he prays seven times. Elijah was a persistent man of God, and perhaps this is what James means when he mentions Elijah and says that the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much (Jam. 5:16-18).

This Week’s Readings

Monday, June 4: 1 Kings 1-4
Tuesday, June 5: 1 Kings 5-8
Wednesday, June 6: 1 Kings 9-12
Thursday, June 7: 1 Kings 13-17
Friday, June 8: 1 Kings 18-22

The overall year’s plan is here.

1 Kings 9: Eternal Security

I have to say something about eternal security here, the teaching that once you accept Jesus, you have a free entrance to heaven no matter what you do in the future. The first nine verses of this chapter begin by reiterating God’s promises to David, but God then makes it clear that those promises do not apply if Solomon or his sons turn away from following God.

There is nothing Scriptural about reaping God’s promises unconditionally. Colossians 1:21b-23a is a great example:

Yet now he has reconciled [you] in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy, blameless, and unreproveable in his sight, if you continue in the faith grounded and settled. (KJV)

As we go further in the New Testament, you might want to mark the "ifs" as we come to them. They tell an interesting story, and that story is not eternal security.

I know that when I apply 1 Kings 9:1-9 to the subject of eternal security, I’m using an Old Covenant passage to apply to New Covenant people. My justification for that is 1 Corinthians 10:1-12. If for some reason you don’t trust what I’m saying here, even though it was the only and universal teaching of the early churches formed by the apostles, read through that passage. I shouldn’t have to explain that the point of that passage is to tell us Christians that we should look at the way God treated Israel and realize that he is going to treat us the same way. It ends with, "Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall."

1 Kings 9

The definition of the name Cabul can’t be pinned down certainly, but it sounds a lot like a Hebrew phrase that means "good for nothing." It may also come from an Akkadian root (the Akkadians preceded the Babylonians as a civilization) that means "restricted" or "bound."

It appears most Bible notes prefer "good for nothing" as the meaning.

The NASB that I usually use has "Millo" in verse 24 that Solomon built for Pharaoh’s daughter. The New English Translation Bible says the word means "terrace," and they render the verse that way, but Strong’s Concordance says it’s part of the fortifications of Jerusalem.

Ophir is probably in southeast Arabia, though there’s disagreement about that. You can read the arguments for or against that at the link I just gave you (which is very short and to the point).

1 Kings 10: The Queen of Sheba

The Queen of Sheba is a well-known figure, and her story is central to Ethiopia’s history. Surprisingly, however, archaeologists can’t say for certain where Sheba is! I read some arguments for Ethiopia and some for Yemen, and the archaeological arguments that ancient Sheba was in modern Yemen seemed the best to me.

Ethiopia, however, has a better story. They say the Queen of Sheba visited Solomon and came back pregnant (cf. v. 13). She had a son named Menelik. When Menelik was grown, he visited Solomon, and Solomon offered to let him reign in his place when he died. Menelik turned him down and returned to Ethiopia, but not before stealing the ark of the covenant with his entourage. Ethiopia claims to this day to possess the ark of the covenant and to know exactly where it is.

This story is at the very basis of the nation of Ethiopia, giving its kings the divine right to rule, but there’s no primary evidence for it. It’s just such a prominent, well-known story that it’s hard to believe there’s absolutely no basis for it. While the details may not be true (like the legend that she had one goat’s foot), the prominence of the story does provide some evidence that the queen of Sheba was from Ethiopia.

If you want to calculate all the amounts of metals, here’s how to do it (ref):

1 talent = 60 mina = 3600 shekels = 30 kg. (66 lbs.)
1 mina = 60 shekels (the Jewish Virtual Library says 50 shekels) = 500 g. (1.1 lbs.)

Thus, a shekel is about 1/3 of an oz.

The 666 talents of gold that Solomon received each year was, according to my calculator, 43,956 pounds or just over 20 tons.

Finally, I can’t help remembering God’s command to Israel’s king not to multiply gold and silver to himself, nor to build up horses from Egypt (Deut. 17:16-17). Solomon violated this so badly that silver was worthless in his day!

1 Kings 11

In the first few verses of this chapter, the scribe who wrote Solomon’s history finally stops praising him for violating the Law of Moses. He doesn’t reference the Law of Moses, which forbids the king multiplying wives to himself, but he does point out that the Lord had warned the Israelites not to become too friendly with the nations that Solomon was getting his wives from. The danger was that they would shift their allegiance to foreign gods, and that is exactly what happened to Solomon.

The reason that only eleven tribes (ten for Jeroboam, one for Solomon and Rehoboam) are mentioned is not certain to me. It is probable that the tribe of Levi is left out because they did not have any land of their own; thus, they are included in both kingdoms and "owned" by neither.

History says, though, that David’s house held onto not just Judah, but Benjamin as well. Eventually, the ten northern tribes (which included Manasseh and Ephraim, the two sons of Joseph, rather than just Joseph) became lost to history after their capture by Assyria. Judah remained, however, and that is why the Jews were called the Jews, short for Judah.

Thus, in the apostles’ writings we read about descendants of Judah and about Levites, but not about any of the other tribes except Benjamin. Paul is from the tribe of Benjamin (Php. 3:5).

Finally, the Book of the Acts of Solomon (v. 41) is not known to us today.

1 Kings 12

This is the story of the split of Israel into Israel and Judah. I tell this story to children all the time. It’s one of the more popular stories I tell. (Several of the stories in Daniel are very popular with children, too.)

In verses 20 and 21, you can see the Judah/Benjamin difficulty. Verse 20 says only the tribe of Judah followed Rehoboam, but in verse 21 we see him gathering warriors from Judah and Benjamin.

I’m not sure why the terminology in Kings is like that, but it is. The one tribe of Judah included Benjamin. That’s not a mistake. It’s repeated consistently. For some reason, that seemed normal to the scribe who wrote this portion of the Book of Kings.

The chapter ends with Jeroboam’s faulty reasoning about how to keep his kingdom. His decision would lead to his family losing the throne within a few generations, and eventually would lead to Israel, the northern kingdom, becoming so evil that God let them be dragged off permanently, lost to history.

We were created by God, and when our reasoning does not include him, we lose all wisdom and reap the results of that. We may feel very wise today, with our scientific advancement and our insights into the universe and evolution, but our society’s exclusion of the influence of God has led to rampant loneliness, depression, and crime. Science has not come up with a way to overcome the flesh. Only Jesus can do that. The great miracle of the New Covenant is to enter into fellowship with God through the blood of Jesus Christ, and to become children of God by being infused with his Spirit.

That can’t be measured, quantified, or put in a test tube, but it can produce results that can be seen and marveled at. That is why it is so important for us to live spiritually, being taught by God, and growing in unity and love, for our unity and love is the testimony to the world that Jesus is who he said he was (Jn. 17:20-23 and 13:34-35).

This Week’s Readings

Monday, June 4: 1 Kings 1-4
Tuesday, June 5: 1 Kings 5-8
Wednesday, June 6: 1 Kings 9-12
Thursday, June 7: 1 Kings 13-17
Friday, June 8: 1 Kings 18-22

The overall year’s plan is here.

1 Kings 5

A lot of people worked on the building of the temple. There were 3300 supervisors, and it appears there were about 180,000 workers. Quite a project!

One of the groups said to be working on the project were the Gebalites (v. 18). Gebal was a city right on the Mediterranean coast south of Israel. For some reason, the KJV translates Gebalites as "stonesquarers." Since Gebal means "a boundary," I don’t know where they got that translation from, but no one translates it that way today. The Septuagint, the 2000-year-old Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, dodges the whole issue. It doesn’t include verse 18!

1 Kings 6

The temple was approximately 90’x30′, or 2,700 square feet. It was 45 feet tall.

There were additional rooms built outside the wall of the temple on the side, extending out up to seven cubits. Apparently, the wall was built step-style, so that a first, second, and third story of rooms, for the priests to live in, could be five, six, and seven cubits long, extending out from the wall, and the extra length would rest on the ledges in the wall.

This would have added about 20 more feet to the width of the temple.

Verse 7 is a great analogy of God’s work in us. All the work on the stones was done in the quarry. Once the stone was transported to the temple, it was simply set in place. No hammer, axe, or chisel was applied to the stone once it was part of the temple.

That is why it is so important for us to walk by the Spirit and allow God to mold us, even through trials and tribulations. This life is the quarry. Once we leave it, no more work is being done on us. We need to be ready to be dropped into the spiritual house of which we are living stones, the eternal dwelling place of God (1 Pet. 2:4-5).

The house had a sanctuary, the holy of holies, at the end which took the last 20 cubits (30 feet) of the house. It apparently had its own ceiling of cedar, too, because the holy of holies was only 20 cubits high, 15 feet short of the height of the whole temple.

The holy of holies was an exact cube, 30 feet wide, long, and high. New Jerusalem is an exact cube, too. It is mentioned in Revelation, a book full of figurative language, and New Jerusalem’s dimensions are so huge (around 1500 miles each dimension, including its height) that it is clear that it is symbolic of something (Rev. 20:16).

I’ll leave the symbolism of the exact cube to you. I have some ideas, but I’m not confident enough about any of them to want to get in the way of whatever the Lord would give you or you can come up with.

The altar mentioned in verses 20 and 22 has to be the altar of incense, not the large one for burning sacrifices, because it is said to be next to the inner sanctuary.

The problem is that the golden altar of incense is mentioned again in 7:48 along with a lot of other furniture that hadn’t been mentioned yet. 7:48 sounds like it is the altar incense, and there’s no reference in either chapter to the large altar for sacrifices.

It’s pretty confusing, but commentators seem to just accept the idea that 1 Kings 6:20 and 22 are referring to the altar of incense.

1 Kings 7

I have trouble picturing Solomon’s house. It had a hall of pillars that took up more than 1/4 of the house, a hall for the throne from which he judged, and his own home. It was 150 feet by 75 feet, so it was quite large, about 11,000 square feet.

It’s interesting to me that the pillars of the temple were named: Jachin and Boaz (v. 21). Jachin means "he will establish," and Boaz means "fleetness" or "strength." So their names basically say, "God will establish quickly" or "God will establish firmly."

Hiram made an elaborate basin, about 15 feet in diameter, standing on oxen. It held 2,000 baths. Since a bath was approximately nine gallons, that meant it could hold 180,000 gallons!

The basin was for priests to wash in before they offered sacrifices.

1 Kings 8

The ark of the covenant is brought to the Lord’s house. We read that only Moses two tablets are in it. Then Solomon refers to those two tablets as "the covenant of the LORD" (v. 21). Once again we are told that the 10 commandments qualify as the Old Covenant.

This day is probably the height of Israel’s glory. They are at peace. They have no enemies that can stand against them. They have just built the temple and the king’s house. They are wealthy enough to 142,000 animals as peace offerings. (Remember, in peace offerings, most of the meat is eaten by the priests and the offerers. It’s the fat and innards that are burned on the altar. There must have been quite a crowd there to eat all that meat!)

The rest of the history of Israel moves along very quickly. They never again achieved the heights that they held under Solomon. In fact, the nation was split in two during the reign of Solomon’s son. But we will get to that in a couple of days.

This Week’s Readings

Monday, June 4: 1 Kings 1-4
Tuesday, June 5: 1 Kings 5-8
Wednesday, June 6: 1 Kings 9-12
Thursday, June 7: 1 Kings 13-17
Friday, June 8: 1 Kings 18-22

The overall year’s plan is here.

1 Kings 1: Solomon Becomes King

Gihon, where Solomon was anointed king, was very close to Jerusalem.

It’s not known for sure who the Cherethites and Pelethites, who were with David, were. The majority of commentaries seem to consider them Philistine mercenaries who fought for David. They also suggest that both words can refer to the Philistines in general. There is a Jewish tradition (Haggadah) that they were the Sanhedrin (the ruling Israelite council) of that time, but I think almost no one believes that the Sanhedrin existed that early.

1 Kings 2

Much of chapter 2 seems harsh to me. Why didn’t David do something about the murder of Amasa by Joab when it happened?

I just chalk all of it up to a different culture and time. Just because a historian reports the activity of a king, it doesn’t mean God approved of that activity.

1 Kings 3

Solomon begins being dragged away from God by becoming Pharaoh’s son-in-law. Deuteronomy 17:14-20 gives some requirements for a king of Israel, should Israel ask for a king. The king was not to multiply horses, wives, silver, and gold for himself, both of which Solomon would end up doing, but he was also not to do anything to cause the people to turn their hearts toward egypt. Marrying an Egyptian princess violates that command, and it would be a major part of turning Solomon’s heart away from God.

The rest of the chapter is much more positive. God gives Solomon great wisdom as a reward for seeking what was best for his people rather than what was pleasurable for himself. The result of that is the book of Proverbs, which has been dispensing wisdom for 3,000 years.

1 Kings 4

Here is another place with a person, Zabud the son of Nathan, whose job in the kingdom is described simply as "the king’s friend." Hushai the Archite fulfilled that role for David.

If there is any office that would be the best to be called into in Jesus Christ’s kingdom, it would surely be as the King’s friend. What’s great is that this relationship is offered to all of us (Jn. 15:14-15).

Solomon’s entire kingdom and his great wisdom are described in this chapter. There are even a few wise men listed, and Solomon is said to be wiser.

On the negative side, Solomon had 40,000 horses, which I believe clearly qualifies as "multiplying horses to himself." In that passage in Deuteronomy 17:14-20, the horses are tied to Egypt, which apparently was the best source of horses at that time.

In Scripture, both horses and Egypt are tied to trusting in the flesh, in the power of man (e.g. Isaiah 31:1-3).

One final note. The provision for Solomon’s household and officers was immense. 300 bushels of flour, 600 bushels of meal, 30 oxen, 100 sheep, plus hunted animal every day. A measure (KJV) or kor (NASB) was about 10 bushels.