Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Kings 13-14.

The account of the otherwise unidentified man of God who testified against Jeroboam, and his altar, always strikes me as strange.  Why did the old prophet deceive him into breaking God’s command?  Why did the man of God not follow the commands God had given him?  Why did God allow the man of God to be deceived?  I have never been satisfied by any of the answers I have come up with to those questions.  However, the story does act as an object lesson for us.  When the man of God spoke the prophecy God had given him, as God had commanded him, Jeroboam ordered him seized, but God intervened and Jeroboam relented.  So, the man of God demonstrated that he was a man of God.  When the man of God allowed himself to be deceived into violating the command which God had given him, God sent judgement upon him.  So, we see that God will protect us when we do His will, but when we go against His will, we will suffer the consequences.  Even when we are encouraged to go against what God has told us by those who have spoken God’s word in the past.

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 11-12.

Solomon took many wives, and many of them were from nations from whom God had warned the Israelites against taking wives.  God’s specific warning was that wives from those nations would turn the hearts of the men who married them away from God to the gods of those nations.  So, despite the fact that God had appeared to Solomon twice, he married women who worshiped other gods, and joined them in their worship.  Not only did he worship those gods, he built shrines to them just outside of Jerusalem.  The writer tells us that as a result of this, God raised up Hadad the Edomite to be a thorn in Solomon’s side in Edom.  David had conquered Edom and had all of the men of Edom destroyed, but Hadad, the son of Edom’s king, had escaped to Egypt with some of his father’s officials. The Pharaoh had arranged for his sister-in-law to marry Hadad and provided shelter for Hadad.  Later, Pharaoh provided support to Hadad when he wanted to return to Edom to cause problems for Solomon.  Pharaoh did this despite Solomon being his son-in-law.  Or, perhaps the writer is suggesting that Pharaoh supported Hadad because Solomon had so many wives in addition to his daughter.  I suspect that the writer was partially saying this second interpretation as a way to further condemn Solomon taking multiple wives.

The writer goes on to tell us the story of Jeroboam.  While Solomon was still king a prophet came to Jeroboam and told him that God would take 10 tribes of Israel from Solomon’s son and give them to Jeroboam.  Further the prophet told Jeroboam that if he did what was right in God’s eyes by obeying his commands, God would establish his dynasty.  Yet almost his first act after becoming king of the Northern Tribes was to set up a shrine to an idol in two separate locations in his new kingdom.  In addition, he set up shrines throughout his kingdom and appointed priests who were not Levites.

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 want to start writing about what God told Solomon when He appeared to him after Solomon “had achieved all he desired to do.”  When God told Solomon that if he (and the Israelite people) turned away from Him the temple would become a heap of rubble and all who passed by would ask why the Lord has done such a thing? And others would answer that it happened because they forsook the Lord their God, and embraced other gods.  That reminded me of the situation in Jerusalem today, not only is the temple a pile of rubble, there is a temple to another god built upon it.  Now, I do not want to spend much time on the idea that the Jewish people have forsaken the Lord.  Nevertheless, the fact that the temple is a pile of rubble is a reminder to us of the consequences of forsaking God and turning to other gods.  Of course, the fact that we know where the temple Solomon built was also reminds us that God put His name there forever.  However, the status of the temple in Jerusalem should be a cautionary tale for us as well, a warning against turning away from God and serving other gods.  God has now set up His temple in our hearts.  So, let us walk faithfully before God with integrity of heart, otherwise He may turn our hearts into a pile of rubble.

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.

When Solomon was crowned at David’s orders, he allowed his brother Adonijah, who had attempted to take the throne without their father’s blessing, to live with the agreement that he would retire to his estates and allow Solomon to rule.  Solomon also allowed Joab and Abiathar to keep their titles: Joab as commander of the army, and Abiathar as priest (possibly High Priest).  However, Adonijah would not settle for that and attempted to set himself up to challenge Solomon’s rule by marrying the last of David’s concubines.  Solomon was not fooled and ordered Adonijah executed.  In addition, Solomon appears to believe that Joab and Abiathar played a role in Adonijah’s ploy.  So, he ordered Joab executed and forced Abiathar into retirement, turning all of his priestly duties over to Zadok.  Or, perhaps Solomon was just taking advantage of Adonijah’s plot to eliminate threats to his authority, because immediately following this he called Shimei to the palace and ordered him to never leave Jerusalem again, on pain of death.  Shimei’s response to Solomon’s command seems to suggest that he had been using his position and connections to undermine Solomon’s authority .  I would guess that Shimei was not seeking to overthrow Solomon’s rule, merely to have a powerbase with which Solomon would have to negotiate.

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.

Josiah is probably my favorite of the kings of Judah.  He was eight years old when he was put on the throne after his father was assassinated by some of his officials.  Josiah’s father and grandfather had done great evil as king, but Josiah “did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and followed completely the ways of his father David,…”  When those he had set to renovating the temple found and brought to him the Book of the Law, he tore his clothes and sent an inquiry to a prophetess as to what he should do.  Josiah recognized that the people of Judah, including himself, had violated the covenant which God had made with them.  God responded that disaster would surely come, but not in Josiah’s lifetime.  Josiah then dedicated himself to eradicating the evil in the land.  Josiah’s reforms were extensive, and they extended throughout all of Israel, not just the part we know as Judah.  It is here where the writer lists the various forms of idolatry which Josiah eliminated from the land that we can a true picture of the extent of the evil committed by his predecessors.  Perhaps the biggest lesson we learn from Josiah is that no sooner had he died then the people reverted to the idolatry and sin which had preceded his reign.  That should remind us that each generation must choose for themselves if they will do good or evil.

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.

I usually write about Sennacherib and Hezekiah when I read this passage, but today I want to write about Hezekiah’s son and heir, Manasseh.   The writer tells us that he did detestable things and gives us a summary of those things.  He erected altars to Baal.  He constructed and Asherah pole and placed it in the temple of God.  Further, he built altars to the “starry host” in the temple of God. He worshiped at all of these shrines and even sacrificed his own son in the fire.  Manasseh did all of these things, but even worse, he led the people astray, so that they did more evil than the people whom God had driven out of the land ahead of them.  The writer finally tells us that Manasseh filled Jerusalem with the blood of the innocent.  I have always read that as Manasseh had many innocent people killed for his own pleasure.  While that may be true, I have come to wonder if perhaps it mean that Manasseh allowed crime to run rampant.  Manasseh’s son, Amon, followed in his father’s footsteps.  He committed the same sins that Manasseh had, until things became so bad that some of his officials assassinated him and put his son, Josiah on the throne.  Despite having seen Hezekiah, who held fast to the Lord his entire life, the people of Judah chose to follow Manasseh into doing evil.  They could have chosen to refuse to worship at the altars he built and to join him in sacrificing their children, but they chose otherwise.  They chose to follow their king, rather than their God.

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.

King Hoshea was the last king of Israel, the Northern Kingdom.  The writer tells us that he did evil in the sight of the Lord, but not as bad as the kings who preceded him.  But God did not exile the Israelites of the Northern Kingdom because of the sins of Hoshea, or even because of the sins of the kings which preceded him.  God exiled them because of their own sins.  The writer condemns them for following the practices of the people they had displaced in the land, practices which God had explicitly told them not to follow.  He condemned them for imitating the peoples around them, which God had explicitly told them not to do.  The the writer gets into more specific complaints about their behavior.  He writes that they forsook all of God’s commands, embracing various kinds of idolatry.  They crafted two golden calves to represent God, they built an Asherah pole.  It is worth noting that Asherah was viewed as the wife of and co-creator with the male god of creation in Canaanite mythology (there are today those who want to introduce a female creator alongside God into Christianity).  They bowed down to the starry hosts and worshiped Baal.  I have always understood the worship of the starry hosts to be a form of nature worship which focuses on the splendor of the night sky.  The writer goes on to tell us that they sacrificed their children, their sons and daughters.  And he finishes off their list of sins by saying that they sold themselves to do evil.  I was going to comment on those sins, but I will allow you to think about how the writer’s condemnation of the Israelites may, or may not, apply to our society today.

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