Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Kings 15-17.

I find it interesting that the passage does not tells us that Abijah, son of Rehoboam, did evil in the eyes of the Lord.  Instead it tells us that he committed all of the sins of his father and was not fully devoted to the Lord.  I find this interesting because it seems to be in contrast to what it says about the kings of Israel, the Northern Kingdom.  Of each of those kings it says some variation of. “he did evil in the eyes of the Lord.”  This suggests to me that Abijah at least tried to serve the Lord, but allowed himself to be led into sin by his desires.  Later, it describes Omri as doing evil in the eyes of the Lord AND sinning more than all of those before him.  It then describes Omri’s son Ahab as doing more evil than any of those before him.  The passage explains saying this about Ahab by saying that he not only committed the sins of Jeroboam (worshiping the calf idols Jeroboam had made and appointing non-Levites as priests), but he began to worship and serve Baal.  So, we have Abijah, who ruled in Jerusalem was not fully devoted to the Lord, but was not quite as bad as the kings of the Northern Kingdom, who followed the sins of Jeroboam.  Then we have Ahab, who went beyond the sins of Jeroboam to fully embrace the worship of pagan gods.  This suggests that those who followed the cult established by Jeroboam followed the worship practices established by Moses, but directed them at the idols made by Jeroboam rather than at God.  However, it also tells us that as we fail to follow one of the commands which God has given us will lead us to move further and further away from Him.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.