Bible Reading Challenge Blog

This is one of the most dramatic stories in the entire Old Testament.  You have to know it by now, and if you don’t, you have to learn it.  The chapter begins innocently enough as we learned in the previous chapter that there was going to be a drought until the Lord tells Elijah that there is no longer a drought.  The king is helpless in this situation because God is only speaking through Elijah.  The king is worshiping Baal even though he is supposed to be in charge of the people of Israel.  But there is one person in Ahab’s court who is still faithful to the Lord, and that is Obadiah.  His name means literally: “servant of the Lord”.  I think if I were born in another life I would love to have that as a name.

Obadiah is given the task to go find grass to feed the horses and on his way he meets with Elijah.  Elijah commands him to tell the king that he found him.  But Obadiah is terrified because he knows if he goes back and tells the king and Elijah disappears then the king will kill him.  Why?  Let’s just say that Elijah has had a bounty on his head which was not insignificant, placed there by the king.  But Elijah promises him that he wasn’t going anywhere.

Now the fun begins, as does the drama.  The king comes and Elijah tells the king to bring all the Israelites and all of the prophets of Baal to Mt. Carmel.  I’ve been there, it is really, really impressive.  What is somewhat surprising to me is that the King actually does what Elijah asks him to do.  Elijah challenges the prophets to a religious duel where each side gets to prove that their god is the most powerful.  The prophets of Baal go first and ask fire to come down from heaven to consume a bull  and wood sacrifice.  Nothing happens and Elijah mocks them and trash talks them.

When it is Elijah’s turn he does the same, he asks for fire to come down from heaven, but not before he inundates the bull and the wood with water just to show how powerful God really is.  Almost like with the game being tied and you have two free throws to win the game and you shoot them with your eyes closed.  Yeah, exactly like that.  The shots go in, God brings down fire, Elijah commands that all the priests of Baal be slaughtered and they are.  He then tells Ahab that the rain is going to start coming down, he better get home so he doesn’t get wet and yelled at by his wife Jezebel. 

That’s where we find ourselves.  The power of God is revealed and you would think the story is over, God wins, Elijah wins, and the people and rulers of Israel turn to worship God again.  Not so fast…

We find ourselves introduced in this chapter to Elijah, one of the most well known prophets of God.  You can see above where the map where he undertook his ministry.  It all took place in the north, so that means it all took place under the watchful eye of the kings of the north, including Ahab.  He is from the place called Tishbe which is right to the east of the Jordan.  We find him opening his ministry by speaking against Ahab in vs.1 warning him that there will be no rain or dew until Elijah says so.  Which basically means until God tells Elijah.

As a result he goes and settles just south of his home town in a little wadi, which basically means a small stream.  But since there was a drought, as he predicted, that stream dried up and he was without water.  The word of God sends him to a town to live with a widow and her boy.  I hope you noticed in vs.13 that  Elijah encourages her to take a chance and serve him first and then she and her boy would be served throughout the whole time of the drought.  She believes him and serves him for a long time and so the water and the oil do not run out, which is a miracle, by the way.  She took the risk of using up her last ingredients, and she was paid back by being provided for throughout the drought.

But then her boy is sick and basically dies.  She yells at the prophet wondering where God was in the midst of all of this.  How soon she forgot her words from vs.12 that she was going home to die before she met the prophet.  Elijah takes the boy up to the room, yells at God by saying: “have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying?”  And then he adds: “Let this child’s life come into him again.”  

The miracle takes place, the boy rises from the dead, and it isn’t until that happens that the widow states: “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.”  It took the raising of her son, not the daily provision which was in and of itself a miracle, which made the difference.

I pray that we are able to see the hand of God at work in our life before God has to actually work specific miracles that blow us away.  I pray that we are able to see the hand of God even in the ordinary every day things in life.  

Here we see an advantage in having a single king for 41 years who provides stability and consistency while the neighbor up north is falling apart.  The southern Kingdom, under the kingship of Asa, seemed to be plodding along with the king following the will of God. But the north saw ruler after ruler with even there being a period of time where there were three kingdoms.  One in the south ruled by Asa and then two in the north ruled by military figures.  That finally got sorted out but at the cost of many lives which were lost.

We find ourselves being led up to the reign of Ahaz which takes place after this long mess of rulers and people killing each other and vying for a spot.  Ahaz is a really, really important figure because he introduces us to Elijah who is a prophet in the northern kingdom, you know, where all this mess took place.  We see that Ahaz, the king of the north, marries Jezebel who led her husband, the king of the north which is actually called Israel, while the south is called Judah, to worship Baal.  This is a serious, serious offense.  In fact, Ahaz is described in vs.30 as one who “did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him.”  That is no light thing.  

The next chapter we see the battle between God and Baal as set up by Elijah vs. Ahaz and Jezebel.  In this age without sports we are about to see a pretty intense competition and some trash talking taking place.  Wait for it…

Now we begin what some could describe as a bit of a tedious accounting of the acts of the kings that followed Rehoboam and Jeroboam.  Remember, with Solomon, who was the father of Rehoboam, there was only one kingdom.  But once he died then that all changed.  One kingdom became two.  Now we see a series of successors who come along.  They are all unfaithful as we would expect them to be.

All of them except Asa who was faithful to God.  He removed the queen mother because she worshiped idols.  He, according to vs.11: “did what was right in the sight of the Lord.”  He got rid of the male temple prostitutes.  Doesn’t say anything about the female prostitutes associated with the temple, however.  He got rid of the idols.  He brought into the temple things of value after they had been stripped.  

Asa was also diplomatic in reaching out to the neighboring countries who had made alliances with the northern kingdom, again the enemy of the south, where Asa ruled.  Notice that Asa ruled for 41 years.  That’s pretty impressive.  I would call it the pax asana.  

We find before us in this chapter pretty much the complete destruction of Israel as the nation that we once knew it.  We find the passing of a generation with the death of both Rehoboam and of Jeroboam.  Their sons take over for them which brings us a couple of generations past Solomon.  So there were people still living who remembered the glory days, but now were living in this chaotic time.  

Look at vs. 25 and following where we see that the king of Egypt, whom we would call Pharaoh, invaded Jerusalem and the surrounding lands and took away all the treasures of the house of the Lord.  Is this when the ark of the covenant is taken?  Does this mean that it is now in Egypt?  Most scholars think it is taken by the Philistines.  But if you consider the Raiders of the Lost Ark a scholarly movie then you would have heard his name mentioned.  

We are focused on the king Jeroboam, remember, the one who was in charge of the northern kingdom who took away the people from the son of Solomon, Rehoboam.  This king was completely opposed to worshiping the God of Israel and only wanted his people to worship the idols that were surrounding them and their region.  A prophet of God came and spoke out against him in a forceful way, telling him that the high places that he built up to worship foreign idols, will be torn down.

The king tried to capture this prophet, but his hand shriveled up and he was mortified by that.  I’m struck by what the king does next.   He doesn’t ask for protection for his people, rather he is so stuck with focusing on his own problems that he asks for healing for his hand, and not healing for the land.  The hand is restored but the prophet has no more time for the king and heads home.

On the way home the prophet was met by another prophet who lies to him and convinces him to come to his house for a meal and water.  As a result of his disobedience to God by stopping on the way home, which was encouraged by a prophet who told him he had heard from God but hadn’t, he then returns home and is killed by a lion on the road.

It is so hard to discern what God wants from us and how to know when it is God’s voice speaking to us or the voice of society and culture, or our own desires that are infringing upon our ability to discern the voice of God.  This prophet I do not blame, the one who was killed.  If you have a colleague who tells you that God has spoke to him and has a new message for you, I guess you do need to check with God to see if it is really from God.  But cut the guy a break.  Yeah, not so much.  At least the prophet who lied was sorry about it.  But he doesn’t really suffer any consequences as a result of the lie that took the life of another prophet of God.

Things start to go from bad to worse.  I forgot to mention that Solomon dies in the end of the last chapter, and in his death we see that his son, Rehoboam,  takes over the reigns. The first thing that Jeroboam does, I told you to remember his name, was to ask for an audience with the king, now Rehoboam, to ask for a lightening of the load upon them.  He has an audience with the king and asks basically that he would lower the taxes and lower the amount of work that was expected of them.

Rehoboam does the smart thing and takes counsel.  He asks his elderly counselors what he should do, and they tell him to lighten the load.  He asks his school buddies what he should do and they tell him to make the load harder on those who were complaining.  He doesn’t listen to the wizened folks and so increases the suffering of his people, the people of Israel.  How important it is to not only have counselors around you, but counselors who have wisdom and to whom you will listen.  

The kingdom of Israel is taken from Rehoboam and Jeroboam takes over the 10 tribes that weren’t directly located in Judah, that would be Jerusalem and the surrounding areas.  But things don’t stay right with Jeroboam.  He is jealous of Jerusalem’s religious preeminence and so he builds  two golden calves, sound familiar?, in order for the ten tribes to have an opportunity to worship.  But they become false gods and Jeroboam and the people turn away from the God of Israel.  Now things are going to start to break apart.

Just as a summary: you now have two kingdoms – one ruled by the son of Solomon which is tiny and basically located around Jerusalem, and the other ruled by Jeroboam which comprised of the remaining 10 tribes.  The one ruled by Solomon’s son is the southern kingdom.  The one ruled by Jeroboam is called the northern kingdom.

We see that lust is the root of all evil for Solomon.  The Scripture tells us that he had 700 wives who were all princesses from foreign lands.  Let that sink in, and then imagine that he also had 300 concubines aside from those princesses.  But just lust in and of itself was not the downfall for Solomon.  It would have been okay, I guess, for Solomon to have these wives, except for one problem

God had commanded the Israelites not to marry foreign wives for one reason and one reason alone.  Look at vs.2 which is taken directly from Deuteronomy 7:3-4 where we read in I Kings: “You shall not enter into marriage with them (foreigners who worship idols)…for they will surely incline your heart to follow their gods.”  Well, this happened in spades to Solomon.  If you look at vs.4 we read: “his wives turned away his heart after other gods…”

So where does that leave us today in marrying someone who does not have our same religious background or our same faith?  Are we forbidden to marry someone who does not believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior?  We do read Paul who tell us in II Corinthians 6:14 “Do not be mismatched with unbelievers.”  So I think that leaves us with the answer being yes.  We are not to marry those who have a different religious perspective than we do.

Solomon does not follow that advice and so as a result the Lord leaves him and raises up two enemies.  One who will be a military rival for Solomon’s son, and the other will be the king of a divided kingdom.  Jeroboam is a really important figure which you need to remember and keep in the front of your mind. He will develop into a major character in the Bible.

We find a visit from the Queen of Sheba.  Below you will see a 15th century depiction of her.

She is thought to be a queen who came from what is considered modern day Yemen.  She comes pretty much out of curiosity to see if all the rumors about Solomon are true.  She discovers that the rumors hadn’t actually given Solomon enough credit for the type of ruler that he actually was.  She finds out that people had underestimated his wisdom, his wealth, the joy of the people serving him, all those things which are important for a ruler of that day.  

Solomon was an exquisite host as we read in vs. 13: he “gave to the queen of Sheba every desire that she expressed.”  As a result of this visit Solomon’s fame grew and his wealth grew exponentially.  But we do see that a storm is on the horizon.

We find Solomon who is amassing his wealth and frankly amassing his military might with not only chariots and land cavalry and battle arrangements, but also a very formidable navy, just in case things might go sour.

We read about this relationship that he has with the king of Tyre, a guy named Hiram, who had basically been the main supplier for all of the goods that were needed in order to build the temple.  Solomon was grateful and so gave to this king 20 cities in Galilee, cities which were not very satisfactory to Hiram.  In fact, he calls them Cabul which could mean “a land good for nothing”.  Not a great vote of confidence for someone who has done so much for you.  But it doesn’t seem to affect their relationship.  

We also read about a relationship that Solomon had with the king of Egypt, whom we would know as Pharaoh, to the point where he gave his daughter to Solomon as a wife.  Keep this account in mind because we will see that this will start to lead to Solomon falling away from the Lord and beginning to worship the gods of Egypt.  Almost as if it is an end that states: To be continued…