Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Kings 11-12.

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In yesterday’s passage we saw that Solomon built a trade empire.  In today’s passage we see that Solomon used his trade empire to acquire many wives.  He probably used his economic might to convince many powerful people to form alliances with him by giving him their beautiful daughters to be among his wives.  In doing so, he broke God’s commands about forming alliances with these peoples.  Specifically, God’s command not to marry their daughters.  I am sure that Solomon justified doing this as necessary to secure trade agreements and maintain the security of the kingdom of Israel.  We get the impression that initially, Solomon built a temple for the daughter of Pharaoh to worship her gods, but that he did not, at least initially, join her in that worship.  He probably justified that by telling himself that Pharaoh was too powerful to offend, that he needed to do this to keep Pharaoh’s daughter happy.  Unfortunately, that started him down the path which ended with him joining his wives in their worship of their gods.  Worship which likely appealed to the hedonism he had begun practicing by taking so many wives.  Solomon did this despite the fact that God had appeared to him twice.  We must be careful not to follow Solomon’s example.  It is entirely too easy to forget God’s presence in our life and allow ourselves to little by little fall into idolatry.

We see something similar with Jeroboam.  Reading between the lines in this passage, it seems likely that Jeroboam saw that Solomon was demanding too much of the people.  He would have opportunity to do so as the head over the forced labor of the house of Joseph for Solomon.  When he started to speak on behalf of the people, Solomon sought to have him killed.  Before that happened God spoke to Jeroboam and told him that He would make him king over the northern ten tribes.  While doing that, God warned Jeroboam not to make the mistake of falling into idolatry which Solomon had made.  Despite that warning, almost the first thing Jeroboam did was to set up two idols for the people to worship in place of God.  Jeroboam justified this sin to himself as necessary to keep the people from killing him and turning back to Rehoboam.

At the root of their failure to be faithful to God both Solomon and Jeroboam made the same mistake.  Solomon thought that he needed to take many wives in order to secure his political situation.  Jeroboam thought that he needed to prevent his people from going to Jerusalem to worship God in order to secure his political position.  Both of them failed to trust that God would secure their position if they put their faith in Him and faithfully followed His commands.  Ultimately, we sin most often because we do not trust God to care for us.  We think that we must secure our position.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Kings 9-10.

I have a Youtube video of me reading the Scripture passage and my comments. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts.

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At several points while I was reading this I debated interjecting a minor thought, but I decided to wait until I was done reading to include those thoughts here.   Hopefully I will remember all of those thoughts because I think they better understanding of Scripture.  The first thing I noted was the phrase, “All the people who were left of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of the people of Israel…”  My first thought when I read that was that it said that there were people who were left of those groups who had become part of the people of Israel.  Perhaps, that is not the correct.  When I thought more about it, I realized that it could also be interpreted as saying that the people listed were not of the people of Israel.  Nevertheless, I am inclined to think that the writer is suggesting that many of the peoples of the land assimilated into the people of Israel.  I would even say that Solomon’s practice of enslaving those peoples who did not do so accelerated that process.

Then I noticed that the account about the queen of Sheba hearing about Solomon and coming to Jerusalem to investigate comes immediately after it mentions that Solomon built a fleet of trade ships on the shore of the Red Sea which brought back gold from Ophir.  That led me to conclude that the queen of Sheba heard about Solomon because of those trade ships.  A little bit of investigation showed me that Sheba was about where Yemen is now and that it was a civilization which traded by sea with India and East Africa.  In fact, it seems to me that Sheba filled a role in the Arabian Sea similar to the role Tyre filled in the Mediterranean Sea.  So, when a new power began trading in her area of influence, the queen of Sheba went to check them out.  The queen of Sheba’s visit to King Solomon was that of the head of one trading empire checking out a competitor.  She appears to have concluded that attempting to destroy this competitor was futile.  Fortunately for Sheba, Solomon’s son did not have the wisdom to successfully continue his trade practices into the next generation.  I am sorry that I have no spiritual insights for today.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Kings 4-6.

I have a Youtube video of me reading the Scripture passage and my comments. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts.

Also, here is the link for my Patreon page

Wow, that was a tough read, reading some of those names out loud really challenged me.  On the other hand, as I said shortly after I started making a video of me reading the Scripture for my Bible study every day, reading it out loud really helps me pay attention on parts which I generally find little of interest in, such as the detailed description of who Solomon’s officials were.  It says here that Zadok and Abiathar were priests.  Yet in yesterday’s passage it tells us that Solomon expelled Abiathar from being a priest.  Hopefully you can understand that this is not a contradiction.  Because in that same list of Solomon’s officials it says that Azariah the son of Zadok was the priest, and that Zabud the son of Nathan was priest.  That means that at the beginning of Solomon’s reign Zadok and Abiathar were the priests.  At a later point in Solomon’s reign, Zadok’s son was priest and Nathan’s son was also the priest.  I do not think we can tell whether Abiathar’s son and Nathan’s son were priests at the same time or not.  It would certainly be consistent to believe that Zabud, Nathan’s son became priest alongside Zadok when Abiathar was expelled from the priesthood, and then continued to serve as priest when Ahaziah, Zadok’s son, succeeded his father as priest.  I mention this because there are other places in the Bible where someone is mentioned as having a role which seems to contradict what is said elsewhere about who had that role.

One example of this is Mark 2:26 (I have linked to the entire story so you can see the context) where Jesus refers to when David was fleeing King Saul and came to Ahimelech.  In that passage Jesus says that David “entered the house of God, in the time of Abiathar the high priest.”  Some people say, “But the high priest in that story was Ahimelech, Abiathar’s father.  How can Jesus be God if He mistakes Abiathar for Ahimelech?”  My answer to that is this.  Abiathar was alive when David did that, which means that it was in the time of Abiathar.  Abiathar was also later the high priest.  We often speak in this manner.  We might say, “When President George H.W. Bush was a fighter pilot.”  When George H.W. Bush was a fighter pilot, someone else was the President of the United States, but no one would say I was wrong for saying what I wrote about him.  So, Jesus was not wrong, David ate the bread of the presence in the time of Abiathar.  I am just using this story as an example of ways in which a biblical passage might refer to things which a casual reader might think was a contradiction, but is not.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Kings 2-3.

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I am going to start writing about Solomon’s judgement in the case of which woman was the mother of the child.  When I was first exposed to Solomon’s judgement in this passage it was explained to me that Solomon made this decision because he understood that the child’s biological mother would do anything to save her child, even giving it up to be raised as another woman’s son.  However, as I have gotten older I have realized that this is not necessarily true.  I have known several mothers who were willing to sacrifice the well-being of their child in order to satisfy their desires.  Further, I have heard and read of many more such situations.  And that is when I realized that Solomon’s wisdom far exceeded what was attributed to him by that first explanation I was given.  When Solomon said that the woman who was willing to give up the child in order to save the child’s life was the mother, he was saying that she was the woman who demonstrated motherly love towards the child.  Solomon did not give two tosses for who the child’s biological mother was.  He made his judgement based on who would look out for the child’s best interests, an who would raise the child best.  Solomon’s decision was not based on deciding who was the child’s actual biological mother.  It was based on determining which woman would sacrifice her desires in order to achieve what she believed in her heart was in the best interest of the child.  I want to note that even though Solomon’s judgement did not determine which of the women was the biological mother, most of the time the woman who chooses to sacrifice her interests for the sake of the child will be the biological mother.

I want to note that the child’s true parents, in the sense of the above commentary, may not do what you or I think is in the best interest of the child, but they will do what they believe in their heart is in the best interest of their children.

When I started writing I was debating whether I would go back and review other parts of this passage.  I have decided that I will conclude here.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Kings 22-25.

I taught a Sunday School class on Sunday and the teacher’s material stated that King David was uniquely righteous among the kings of Israel and Judah.  Today’s passage contradicts that statement.  The passage tells us that Josiah did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and followed completely the ways of David.  When Josiah was brought the Book of the Law, he heard what was in it and immediately sent an emissary to inquire of God.  In response to God’s message that His anger would not be turned aside, but that it would be delayed for Josiah’s lifetime, Josiah increased his efforts to be faithful to God.  When we read the list of things which Josiah did to cleanse the land we realize how far the Israelites fell short of keeping God’s covenant.  Even Josiah had fallen short of doing what was right up until this point.  It was the eighteenth year of Josiah’s rein when the Book of the Law was brought to him, and it was after that that he began to cleanse the land.  The passage tells us that when Josiah began cleansing the land he destroyed the quarters of male shrine prostitutes which were in the temple.  That tells us that for eighteen years of Josiah’s rein there were male shrine prostitutes in the temple.  I am not condemning Josiah for that, since, as I read this passage, he did not know that it was wrong until the Book of the Law was read to him.  Josiah was not the first king of Judah to do what was right in the eyes of the Lord, but none of those before him had desecrated the idolatrous shrines which King Solomon had built.  I think that is worth noting.  We think of King Solomon as the man who built the temple of the Lord, but that was not the only temple he built.  However, I want to focus on King Josiah.  Even after God had told him that nothing he would do would cause God to withhold His judgement against Judah, Josiah dedicated himself, and called on the people of Judah to dedicate themselves, to serving God faithfully.  Josiah did not serve God for reward, he served God because it was the right thing to do.  We should do likewise.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Kings 19-21.

The message which God gave to Isaiah concerning Sennacherib’s threats against Jerusalem can be a lesson for us today when people speak against God and His people.  God had given power to Sennacherib in order to accomplish His purposes, but Sennacherib came to believe that his successes were due to his wonderfulness.  Like many he ridiculed God and those who put their faith in Him.  He thought that his success meant that nothing could keep him from accomplishing whatever goal he set himself.  God replied that all that Sennacherib had accomplished was according to His plans from long before Sennacherib had been born.  God has made His plans for us and will use us to accomplish His goals.  If we accept His plans for us and willingly serve Him, He will bless us.  If, on the other hand, we ridicule God and His people, He will show us the folly of our ways.

The prophecy God gave through Isaiah to Sennacherib bears a close resemblance to a psalm of David.  Isaiah said to Sennacherib:
“But I know where you are
    and when you come and go
    and how you rage against me.”
And this was a warning.  David said of God in Psalm 139,
“You know when I sit and when I rise;
    you perceive my thoughts from afar.”
After telling him that He knew his comings and goings, God told Sennacherib,
“I will put my hook in your nose
    and my bit in your mouth,”
Those are not pleasant ways to be guided.  David on the other hand after saying that God knows his comings and goings said,
“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.”
Both David and Sennacherib were directed by God, but responded differently.  

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Kings 17-18.

So, I had a different perspective on today’s passage than has previously occurred to me.  The passage begins by recounting how Israel, the Northern Kingdom, was completely conquered by Assyria and the people deported to other lands.  It tells us that they were deported for their sins and gives a list of some of those sins.  Then it tells us that the Assyrians brought people from foreign lands to settle in the Israelite lands.  When those foreigners first settled there they had problems with lions, which the Assyrians attributed to these new settlers not worshiping the god of the land (which was God).  So, the Assyrians brought back one of the priests they had deported from the land to teach these new settlers how to worship the Lord.  The writer then tells us that although these new settlers began worshiping God, they also continued to worship the gods of their homelands.  As the writer describes the practices of the people whom the Assyrians settled in the land his description sounds very much like his description as to why God allowed the Israelites to be deported.  Often  I have seen people interpret the description of the practices of the people the Assyrians settled in the land as justification for the claims by the post-Exilic Jews that their descendants had no rights to the land.  What struck me today that while this passage was indeed used that way, it actually tells us that the Israelites were exiled from the land because they were no more faithful in worshiping God than these foreigners with no connection to Abraham.  And how does this apply to us today?   The Israelites claimed to worship God, but they also worshiped other gods.  The settlers whom the Assyrians settled in the land, took up to forms of worshiping God, but did not give up their worship of other gods.  Do we today who claim to worship God allow ourselves to be drawn into the practices of those around us who worship other gods?  God has repeatedly told us that if we worship other gods we are not worshiping Him.

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