1 Kings 14:21-16:14 "The Divided Kingdom" Introduction Did you ever have to memorize all the kings of Israel and Judah? That was one requirement in seminary (we also had to identify whether they were "good" or "bad"!) Passages like this are a nightmare. The pattern is the same: A king began to reign; a king reigned; a king sins; a king dies. Then his son begins to reign; his son reigns; his son sins; his son dies. And so on. And so on. And so on. How do you distinguish between them? The pattern is so predictable that it is hard to remember which one is which. We hear of battles but the battles are never described (unlike David). We hear of sins but there are no details (unlike David). Henry Ford said that history was one damn thing after another. Kings says that it's worse than that! It's the same damn thing after another! In other words, the book of Kings is boring. There you have it! Your pastor just confirmed exactly what you have thinking (but unwilling to admit) ever since you were thirteen years old! The book of Kings (except for the stories of Solomon, Elijah and Elisha, and maybe Hezekiah and Josiah) is boring. It is supposed to be boring. It is intentionally boring. Because what is the story of the book of Kings (except for Solomon, Elijah and Elisha, and maybe Hezekiah and Josiah)? It is a story of sin, rebellion, and idolatry. And what could be more boring than the same old, same old story of sin, rebellion, and idolatry? So prepare to be bored! (How's that for an introduction to a sermon? For the next thirty minutes you're going to hear a boring story!) The first 14 chapters of Kings cover the 60 years of the reigns of Solomon and Jeroboam. The next 60 years takes only two chapters. Tonight we are looking at three kings of Judah, and then three kings of Israel. And the opening pattern for both kingdoms is illustrative of the whole, boring history that will follow! In chapters 12-14 we heard of the sin and death of Jeroboam. Jeroboam had been offered a kingdom "like David," but Jeroboam did not walk in the ways of David, he built two golden calves, and called Israel to worship them. The "sin of Jeroboam" will become the characteristic sin of the northern kingdom of Israel. 1. Rehoboam of Judah: The End of the Golden Age (14:21-31) After spending two and a half chapters talking about Jeroboam, verse 21 of chapter 14 returns us to the story of Rehoboam. Rehoboam reigned 17 years in Jerusalem, the city that the LORD had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there. Right up front we are reminded that Rehoboam is ruling in the right place. But land and seed are supposed to go together. In the days of his father, Solomon, the Promised Land and the Promised Seed came together, and the result was a golden age, where the glory of the nations streamed into Jerusalem. But Rehoboam will not keep the glory that he inherited. His mother's name was Naamah the Ammonite. He is the offspring of one of Solomon's foolish foreign marriages. And his religious practices spread throughout Israel: Judah did what was evil in the sight of the LORD. They built for themselves high places and pillars and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree. Asherah was the Canaanite goddess of fertility. There are even archeological sites that demonstrate the idolatry of Judah, as they have pictures of "Yahweh and his Asherah." In the ancient world, male and female deities were paired together. The male deity would have a female consort (often including prostitution as a religious ritual)-- as verse 24 suggests "and there were also male cult prostitutes in the land." Verse 21 reminds us that Yahweh has no "Asherah"; Jerusalem is his consort. God has only one bride and that is his people. So Judah did according to all the abominations of the nations that the LORD drove out before the people of Israel. If anything, Judah's sin is worse than Israel's! Israel is trying to worship Yahweh with golden calves. But Judah is doing all the abominations of the nations. As a result, in the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, and Shishak took all the gold out of the temple and the king's house. When they came out of Egypt during the Exodus, Israel had plundered the Egyptians. Now, as Israel has sinned against God, Egypt plunders the very house of God. Solomon's day had been a golden age. Now the gold is plundered. The shields of gold are gone and King Rehoboam made in their place shields of bronze. Indeed, Rehoboam jealously guards these bronze shields, storing them carefully in the guardroom. The golden age is over. Rehoboam presides over an age of bronze. The plundering of the temple is plainly a foreshadowing of what is to come. If Solomon and Rehoboam's sins are met with an immediate response from God, tearing the kingdom apart, and handing the gold back to Egypt, then what will happen if Israel and Judah continue to rebel? The wages of sin is death. And after we are told of Rehoboam's death, we are reminded that his mother's name was Naamah the Ammonite. After hearing of all his wickedness and the judgment that God brought, we are told the root of the trouble: his mother's name was Naamah the Ammonite. As Bathsheba had been the wise and faithful mother who led Solomon in good paths, so now Naamah the Ammonite is the faithless mother who led Solomon's son to destruction. 2. Abijam of Judah: The Lamp of David (15:1-8) We will continue to see the importance of mothers in our story! Abijam is a variant of the name Abijah. So Jeroboam had a son named Abijah, while Rehoboam had a son named Abijam. In other words, the difference between Jeroboam and Rehoboam is minimal! He reigned for three years, from the 18th year of Jeroboam to the 20th. (You might say, but 20-18 is only 2 years! Yes, but usually the biblical counting includes parts of years, so if he began to reign in the 18th year, then that is the first year of his reign; then the 19th year of Jeroboam is his second year, and the 20th year of Jeroboam is his third year while it is also the first year of Asa's reign) We are told very little about Abijah, except for the fact that he was not like David. First, his mother's name was Maacah the daughter of Abishalom. The first Maacah in the Bible is a wife of David (2 Samuel 3:3). She was apparently the daughter of the king of Maacah (in the north of Israel), and her son's name was Absalom. Now we are told that Rehoboam married Maacah, the daughter of Abishalom. While it is possible that this is an unrelated, anonymous person, it is far more likely that this Maacah is the daughter (or probably granddaughter) of Absalom (2 Chronicles 13:2 identifies her as the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah) There is nothing shocking or inappropriate for Rehoboam to marry his cousin (Leviticus does not prohibit marriage between first cousins). What is shocking is verse 10. Abijam was the son of Maacah, the daughter of Abishalom. But so is his son, Asa. There is only one explanation for this! Abijam married his mother. Incestuous royal marriages were common enough in Egypt, but Leviticus 18:7 expressly prohibits sleeping with your mother! Indeed, Leviticus 18:24-29 goes on to say that such abominations will cause the land to spit Israel out! As verse three says, his heart was not wholly true to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father. The phrase "was not wholly true" could also be translated, "his heart was not complete with Yahweh." The LORD was not enough for him. The LORD had been enough for David except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite but Abijam walks in the ways of Absalom, sleeping with his father's wife (just as Absalom had slept with David's concubines). Are we complete? Or do we long for something in addition to the LORD? If you long for something more than God, then you will find yourself in all sorts of trouble! But verse 4 reminds us that God is not finished with the house of David: Nevertheless, for David's sake the LORD his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem, setting up his son after him, and establishing Jerusalem, because David did what was right in the eyes of the LORD and did not turn aside from anything that he commanded him all the days of his life (except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite) In the first part of Israel's history in the Exodus and wilderness wanderings, God is merciful to Israel because God remembers his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But now, in the new covenant under the Davidic covenant God is merciful to Judah because God remembers his covenant with David. Because David did what was right (except for Bathsheba!). We need a king who will do what is right in God's eyes without exception! And we need for God to look upon us in mercy because of him! 3. Asa of Judah: Reformed at Heart, but Sick in the Feet (15:9-24) God shows that mercy through an unlikely source. Asa, the son of Abijam's incest. Asa's mother is also Asa's grandmother! One can only wonder what Asa thought growing up as he realized how horribly his father had sinned. As the first reforming king, Asa gets rid of the male cult prostitutes and the idols that Rehoboam and Abijam had made. With great courage he removes his own mother/grandmother, Maacah, from the ceremonial position of queen mother. He cut down her image and burned it at the brook Kidron. When Jesus said that you must hate your father and mother to follow him, this is what he was talking about. If your mother is leading your people astray, then get rid of her! And while he failed to remove all the high places, at least Judah only worshiped Yahweh in his day! His heart was complete with Yahweh it was wholly true to the LORD all his days. And in his day there was at least a partial return to the golden age of Solomon. No longer was the temple plundered, but Asa brought gifts of silver, gold and vessels. But then verses 16-22 reveal that Asa himself plundered the temple! When Baasha king of Israel began fortifying Ramah in order to seal off his southern border, Asa takes all the silver and the gold that were left in the treasures of the house of the LORD and the treasures of the king's house, and gave them to Ben-hadad, the king of Syria, saying, Let there be a covenant between me and you, as there was between my father and your father. This is a politically shrewd move. He buys off the Syrians, and they break their covenant with Israel, and forces Baasha to stop building up Ramah. But at what price? Asa was right Solomon had entered some sort of covenant with Syria, but it appears that Solomon's covenant with Syria brought treasure into the house of the LORD (1 Kings 4:24). If the nations are paying Israel, then Israel may make covenants. But Israel is not supposed to become dependent upon the nations! Now Judah is paying Syria, enriching Syria, and helping to create the monster that will for the next 200 years be a thorn in the side of God's people. Asa's covenant works. Israel stops building up Ramah. And Judah carries away the stones and timber and uses it to fortify their own border. But while Asa's heart is in the right place, his feet do not follow his heart! And just as his feet took him to the Syrians for aid, so now he is diseased in his feet. The book of Kings does not explicitly condemn Asa, but it hints that the disease that has crept into Asa's feet is making its way towards Judah's heart. Chronicles will tell us of the prophet Hanani, who rebukes Asa, telling him that if he had relied on God, then God would have allowed him to defeat both Israel and Syria. But Asa fails, because he does not rely on God. Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6) For David's sake, Yahweh has kept a light lit in Jerusalem. The son of David still sits on the throne, and every now and then there is a good king who keeps the boredom of sin away! But Israel looks a lot like modern Africa, with conspiracies, assassinations, and constant regime change. 4. Nadab of Israel: the Death of the House of Jeroboam (15:25-32) Nadab is the son of Jeroboam. Ahijah the prophet had prophesied that the house of Jeroboam would be utterly destroyed. And that comes to pass in the second year of the reign of Nadab. The dynasty of Jeroboam is over. One long reign; one short reign; dynasty decimated! (Just like Saul! Remember that Saul's son Ish-bosheth reigned briefly in Israel after the death of Saul) The life of an Israelite dynasty is nasty, short and brutish! And Nadab is like his father. He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and walked in the way of his father, and in his sin which he made Israel to sin. In other words, he continued worshiping the golden calves, and calling them Yahweh! The rest of the story of Nadab is the story of his overthrow and assassination! Baasha, the son of Ahijah no, not Ahijah the prophet (he was from Shiloh), but Ahijah of Issachar. (Nonetheless, while Baasha is the son of a different Ahijah, he is plainly the fulfillment of Ahijah's prophecy!) Because Baasha assassinated Nadab, took his place, and killed all the house of Jeroboam. He left to the house of Jeroboam not one that breathed, according to the word of the LORD that he spoke by his servant Ahijah the Shilonite. If you mess with God, God will mess with you! 5. Baasha of Israel: Just Another Jeroboam (15:33-16:7) It is worth pointing out that David had defeated the Philistines, but now the Philistines have rebuilt. Indeed, the city of Gibbethon is in the north (it was once a Levitical city! Joshua 21:23), suggesting that the Philistines have regained considerable power. Gibbethon is the beginning of the dynasty of Baasha; it will also be the location where Israel is still fighting at the end of Baasha's dynasty. When you get to 16:15 and Israel is again encamped before Gibbethon, the reader is supposed to say, "haven't we been here before?" In other words, Israel's history is boring. It is just the same thing all over again. That is reflected also in 15:33-34 where Baasha is a carbon copy of Jeroboam. And in 16:1-4, where Jehu the son of Hanani speaks the same prophecy against Baasha, that Ahijah had proclaimed against Jeroboam. Since I exalted you out of the dust and made you leader over my people Israel, and you have walked in the way of Jeroboam and have made my people Israel to sin, provoking me to anger with their sins, behold, I will utterly sweep away Baasha and his house, and I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nabat. And in the exact words of 14:11, anyone belonging to Baasha who dies in the city the dogs shall eat, and anyone of his who dies in the field the birds of the heavens shall eat. Verse 7 says something very interesting: Baasha is condemned both because he is like Jeroboam, but also because he destroyed the house of Jeroboam. Just because God uses one man to bring judgment against another, does not make the first man innocent. In the modern world it is important to understand that the guilt of one nation or one party does not establish the innocence of another! God may well use one corrupt nation to chastise another only to turn around and chastise the very instrument of his wrath! 6. Elah of Israel: the Death of the House of Baasha (16:8-14) The son of Baasha never had a chance. Elah is a drunkard and a fool. Rather than go with his troops to Gibbethon, he stays in Tirzah drinking with his friends. And while he was doing this, Zimri, commander of half his chariots conspired against him, and struck him down and killed him. And as soon as he seated himself on the throne, he fulfilled the word of the LORD through Jehu the prophet, by destroying all the house of Baasha. He did not leave him a single male of his relatives or his friends. (16:11) Conclusion The story of the kingdom of Judah is that in the midst of rebellion, God preserved a lamp in Jerusalem, and the house of David endures, in spite of their frequent failures. The story of the kingdom of Israel is that sin and rebellion lead to judgment and death. Indeed, the wicked kings of Israel and Judah appear quite boring. And this is the author's point: Idolatry is boring. There is nothing new about idolatry nothing interesting nothing fresh and exciting. Solomon's reign now that was exciting! Reforming kings that is interesting! Prophets who speak the word of the LORD are the only things that spice up the narrative of idolatry. When prophets show up hands wither, altars split, lions kill people but then don't eat them! When prophets are around there are never-empty jars of oil, dead people are raised. Strange and exciting things happen all the time when prophets show up! Many people seem to think that sin is exciting. Righteousness and wisdom is boring. But is that really true? Sin produces a never-ending circle of rebellion and death. Only the Word of the LORD brings life and peace. When God speaks, amazing things happen. [With thanks to Peter Leithart for his insightful studies in Kings]