the books of first and second Kings
although they're two separate books in
our Bibles they were originally written
as one book telling a unified story that
continues on from the book of Samuel
that came before it so david has unified
the tribes of Israel into a kingdom and
God promised that from his line would
come a messianic king who would
establish God's kingdom over the nations
and fulfill the promises made to Abraham
so the book of Kings tells the story of
the long line of Kings that came after
David and none of them lived up to that
promise in fact they run the nation of
Israel right into the ground the book is
designed to have five main movements the
story begins and ends focus on Jerusalem
first with Solomon's reign in the
construction of the temple and then in
this last section ending with
Jerusalem's destruction and Israel's
exile to babylon and the story leading
up to this tragedy is what makes up the
center three sections which explain how
Israel split into two rival kingdoms how
God tried to prevent the corruption of
Israel by sending the prophets and how
exile became the unavoidable consequence
of Israel's sin the book opens with two
chapters about the kingdom passing from
the aging David to his son Solomon and
David's final words to Solomon they're
very similar to those of Moses and
Joshua and Samuel to the people it's a
call to remain faithful to the commands
of the Covenant and to give allegiance
to the God of Israel alone but David's
words ring somewhat hollow here because
David Solomon then go on to conspire how
they're going to consolidate this new
kingdom through a whole series of
political assassinations it's not off to
a great start
Solomon's brightest moment comes when he
asked God for wisdom to lead Israel and
he even completes David's dream to make
a temple for the God of Israel here the
story actually stops and describes the
design of this temple in detail just
like the tabernacle design in the Torah
there's all these gold and jewels and
depictions of angels and fruit trees
it's all symbolism echoing back to the
Garden of Eden it's the place where
heaven and earth meet where God's
presence dwells with his people but no
sooner does Solomon finished the temple
that he makes some really horrible
choices and the kingdom falls apart
he starts marrying the daughters of
other kings hundreds of them for
political alliances
and then he adopts their gods and
introduces the worship of those gods
into Israel
Solomon then accumulates huge amounts of
wealth he builds a huge army he even
Institute's slave labor for all of his
building projects now if you go back to
the Torah and look at God's guidelines
for Israel's Kings in Deuteronomy 17
Solomon is breaking every one so by the
time that he dies
Solomon resembles Pharaoh the king of
Egypt more than he does his father David
the next section of the book opens with
Solomon's son Rehoboam acting just like
his father it's a very sad story of
greed and lust for power he tries to
increase taxes for slave labor and under
the leadership of Jeroboam the northern
tribes reject this they rebel and secede
and form their own rival kingdom and so
now in the story you have the southern
kingdom Judah centered in Jerusalem with
Kings from the line of David and now
this new northern kingdom called Israel
whose capital will be Samaria eventually
Jeroboam also goes on to build two new
temples to compete with Solomon's Temple
in the south he puts a golden calf in
each one to represent the God of Israel
the connection to Exodus 32 in the
golden calf it's all quite explicit from
this point on the story goes back and
forth from north to south tracing the
fate of both kingdoms each one had about
20 successive kings and as the author
introduces each king he evaluates their
reign by a few criteria did they worship
the God of Israel alone or did they
promote the worship of other gods did
they deal with idolatry among the people
and did they remain faithful to the
Covenant like David or do they become
corrupt and unjust and according to
these criteria the author finds no good
Kings in northern Israel 0 for 20 and
then in southern Judah only 8 out of 20
get a positive rating which connects to
another huge purpose in this book and
that's to introduce the role of the
prophets key figures in Israel's history
so in the Bible prophets were not
fortune tellers rather they spoke on
behalf of the God of Israel and they
played the role of covenant watchdogs
which means they called out idolatry and
injustice among the kings and the people
they were constantly reminding Israel of
their calling to be a
right to the nations that they should
obey the commands of the Torah and so
the prophets challenged Israel to repent
and follow their God in these center
sections for each King God then raises
up prophets to hold them accountable
the most prominent prophets are the
northern ones aligned and his disciple
Elijah right here in the center of the
book Elijah was a wild man of a prophet
living out in the desert and his arch
nemesis was the northern King Ahab and
his Canaanite wife Jezebel together
these two had instituted the worship of
the Canaanite god bale over Israel and
so in a famous story Elijah challenged
450 prophets of bale to a contest to see
which God was real so they both built
altars and pray to their gods but only
the God of Israel answers with fire
after this
a hab uses his royal power to murder an
Israelite farmer and then steal his
family's vineyard and Elijah again
confronts a Habs injustice and he
announces the downfall of his house
Elijah eventually passes the mantle of
his prophetic leadership to a young
disciple named Elijah who asks for two
times the authority of Elijah and what's
fascinating here is how the author he's
recounted seven miraculous feats for
Elijah and then he offers stories of 14
acts of power from Elijah both prophets
were clearly remarkable men and they
played the same role confronting
Israel's Kings for idolatry and
injustice and ultimately they were
unsuccessful in turning Israel back from
apostasy in the next section the
northern kingdom is rocked by a bloody
revolution started by a king named J who
who destroys a Habs family and although
J who was at first commissioned by God
his violence just gets out of control
and it creates the spiral of political
assassinations and rebellions from which
Israel never recovered who follows qu
after J who and each King follows other
gods allows horrible injustice it all
leads up to 2nd Kings chapter 17 the Big
Bad Empire of Assyria swoops down and
takes out the Northern Kingdom
altogether in the capital city of
Samaria it's conquered and the
Israelites are exiled and scattered
throughout the ancient world
now chapter 17 is key the author stops
the story and offers this prophetic
reflection on what's just happened he
blames the downfall of the Northern
Kingdom on the idolatry and covenant
unfaithfulness of Israel in its kings
and so God has allowed them to face the
consequences of their decisions the
final movement of the book tells the
story of the lone southern kingdom and
here we meet some very heroic Kings like
Hezekiah who trusts God when the armies
of Assyria come knocking on Jerusalem's
door or Josiah who discovers this lost
scroll of the Torah in the temple so he
starts reading it he's convicted and he
Institute's religious reforms to remove
idolatry and Canaanite influences from
the land but Judah is just too far gone
the king right in between these two
Manasseh
he's the worst by far so he not only
introduces the worship of idol statues
into the Jerusalem Temple he also
Institute's child sacrifice and so God
sends prophets to say the time is up
Israel has reached the point of no
return the final chapters tell the story
of the Babylonian Empire coming to
invade Jerusalem destroy the temple and
carry the people and the royal line of
David off into exile and so the story
ends leaving us wondering has God done
with Israel is he done with the line of
David well the final paragraph zooms
about 40 years forward into the Exile
and it tells a very odd story it's about
you hiking a descendent from David who
would have been King if he was back in
Jerusalem and the king of Babylon
releases him from prison and invites him
to eat at the Royal table for the rest
of his life and the book ends so it's
not much but it's a story that gives a
glimmer of hope that God has not
abandoned the line of David so the
question now is how is God going to
fulfill his promises to Abraham to David
how is he going to bless the nation's
and bring the Messianic Kingdom and to
answer those questions you have to read
on into the wisdom and the prophetic
books but for now that's the book of
kings