Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Kings 18-19.

I love today’s passage, there is so much to write about in it.  It starts with Elijah approaching Obadiah, King Ahab’s palace administrator to take word to Ahab that Elijah wanted to meet with him.  We are told that Obadiah was a devout follower of the Lord who had protected 100 prophets of the Lord from Jezebel’s campaign to kill them all.  Obadiah reminds Elijah that he had done this.  Yet when Elijah confronts the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, he claims that he is the only prophet of God left.  Perhaps something had happened to those 100 prophets in between Obadiah protecting them and Elijah’s speech on Mount Carmel, or, perhaps Elijah was referring to himself as the only prophet of God willing to appear before King Ahab by that point.  While he was on Mount Carmel Elijah was the perfect example of the boisterous showman, playing to the crowd and capturing its attention.  A few days later, when he was fleeing from Jezebel’s threat to kill him, he exhibits the symptoms of someone experiencing depression, he had had enough and wanted to die.

Elijah flees through the wilderness for forty days and forty nights until he ends up at Mount Horeb.  When he gets there. God asks him why he is there.  To which he replies that he has been zealous for the Lord, but the people have not responded and now he is the only one left and they are trying to kill him.  Then God tells him, “Stand up for I am about to pass by.”  So Elijah stood up while God sent a fierce wind, an earthquake, and a mighty fire before arriving as a gentle whisper.  Once more God asked Elijah why he is there.  Elijah replies with the same answer he had just given.  Which leads God to tell Elijah, “Get over yourself.  You are still alive because I still have work for you to do.  And you are not alone.  I have reserved a multitude who have been just as faithful as you.”  Elijah had become depressed because he had exhausted himself and he thought he was alone in this world in being faithful to God.  He felt like it was all pointless, like he was useless.  God’s answer was that until you are dead, you are not useless, and none of us are alone.  The best treatment for depression is to seek, and perform, what tasks God has for you, and the company of those who love the Lord.

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 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.

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.