And here in Kings 2, we continue the rundown of the various kings of Israel and Judah, along with their rather fraught relationships with the kings of Moab, Egypt, Syria, Assyria, and Babylon, plus a note on how God is judging them (hint: mostly sinful.)

Once more, the chapters that discuss the various kings of Israel and Judah generally end with the direction that more information about that king is available in The Annals of the Kings of Judah, or The Annals of the Kings of Israel.

Also the prophet Elisha gets a lot of stories:

Chapter two: A chariot of fire comes to take the prophet Elijah bodily up to heaven. The devoted assistant/apprentice Elisha becomes an even greater prophet (and sends bears to kill 42 men who mocked his bald head. – Kings 2 2:23)

Chapter four: Elisha is a prophet and, among other miracles, raises the dead.

Chapter five: Elisha cures a leper but refuses a reward. His assistant Gehazi sneaks around in order to con the reward out of the former-leper, and Elisha curses Gehazi with the leprosy himself.

Chapter six: Elisha spies on the Syrian king via prophesy and then leads a troop of Syrian soldiers intent on kidnapping him to Samaria, has them given the food and water offered to prisoners of war and then sent on their way back to Syria.

Chapter seven: Elisha breaks a siege by scaring away the Syrian troop besieging Samaria to the extent that the troops even leave all their supplies behind and the starving Samarian residents feast, except for an unbeliever who gets trampled to death.

Chapter thirteen: Elisha dies an old man and is buried, but later some Moabite bandits went to bury one of their own dead in his tomb, but as soon as the dead bandit came in contact with Elisha’s bones, he came back to life. Wowza.

As for the rest, there’s a continuation of the various Kings, each of which have their own stories that mostly involve being invaded by various other kings.

Kings of Israel

• King Ahaziah (son of King Ahab, fell off a porch, broke his leg, and died) (sinful)
• King Jehoram* (son of King Ahab, brother of King Ahaziah) (sinful)
• King Jehu**** (son of King Jehoshaphat of Judah) (sinful)
• King Jehoahaz (son of King Jesu) (sinful)
• King Jehoash + (son of King Jeheoahaz) (sinful)
• King Jeroboam II *****(son of King Jehoash) (sinful)
• King Zechariah (son of King Jeroboam II, king for only six months before he was assassinated by Shallum) (sinful)
• King Shallum (king for only a month before he was assassinated by Menahem)
• King Menahem (sinful)
• King Pekahiah (son of King Menahem) (sinful)
• King Pekah (assassinated King Pekahiah) (sinful)
• King Hoshea (assassinated King Pekah) (sinful)

King Shalmaneser of Assyria invaded in King Hoshea’s seventh year. Three years later, Samaria is conquered and the people of Israel are taken from the land (due to their sinfulness). This happens in the sixth year of King Hezekiah of Judah.

And thus ends the Kings of Israel.

Kings of Judah

• King Jehoshaphat
• King of Joram* (son of King Jehoshaphat) (sinful)
• King Ahaziah (son of King Joram) (sinful)
• Queen Athaliah ** (mother of King Ahaziah) (unstated)
• King Joash *** + (son of King Ahaziah) (virtuous but also sinful?)
• King Amaziah (son of King Joash) (mostly virtuous)
• King Azariah (aka King Uzziah?) (son of King Amaziah) (mostly virtuous)
• King Jotham (son of King Azariah) (mostly virtuous)
• King Ahaz (son of King Jotham) (sinful)
• King Hezekiah (son of King Ahaz) (virtuous)
• King Manasseh (son of King Hezekiah) (extremely sinful)
• King Amon (son of King Manasseh) (sinful)
• King Josiah (son of King Amon) (extremely virtuous)
• King Jehoahaz (son of King Josiah) (sinful)
• King Eliakim aka King Jehoiakim (son of King Josiah, puppet to Pharoah Neco) (sinful)
• King Jehoiachin (son of King Jehoiakim) (sinful)
• King Mattaniah AKA King Zedekiah (uncle of King Jehoiachin, puppet to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon) (sinful)

Judah is essentially destroyed after King Mattaniah attempts to rebel. All the remaining population left for Egypt as refugees. Some 37 years after King Jehoiachin is dethroned and replaced by King Mattaniah, the new king of Babylon, King Evilmerodach releases Joehoiachin from prison, gives him a regular allowance and a seat at the table of kings.

And thus ends the listing of the Kings of Judah.

Summary: There are a lot of Kings of Israel and Judah, most of them were sinful, but they each get little stories of their lives and troubles. It’s kind of overwhelming as the two sets of kings are tracked in relationship to each other.

Moral: Punishment is coming. It doesn’t matter if you weren’t aware you were sinning, and apologizing might postpone the inevitable a generation or more, but punishment is definitely coming.

* The edition I was using of the Living Bible actually had several typos here and confused King Jehoram with King Joram and it made a confusing situation even more so. I cross-checked with a copy of the New English Bible to figure out who’s who.

+ The edition of the Living Bible also uses Joash for both King Joash of Judah and King Jehoash of Israel. Trying to figure out who’s doing what is incredibly frustrating.

** When she learned of her son’s death, she had all of his sons (her grandsons) killed, so that she could rule instead.

*** He was hidden in a temple as an infant and raised there in secret for seven years.

**** This was a crazy drive-by anointing. Elisha tells one of his younger prophet students to go get Jehu away from his friends, dump a bottle of holy oil over his head, tell him that he’s been chosen as the new king of Israel, and then the young prophet needs to run for his life to avoid being killed in the fallout. (chapter 9).

***** Kings 2 14:25 references the prophet Jonah (son of Amittai) the prophet from Gathhepher. Jonah apparently saw the various failures of King Jeroboam II. Was this the Jonah of Jonah and the whale? I have no idea.

Next up: Chronicles I

This book is literally a listing of the various Kings of Israel. This is clearly a summary of events and many of the chapters end with a citation: For more information about King [whatever king this chapter discussed] see The Annals of the Kings of Judah, or The Annals of the Kings of Israel. These are apparently both lost books, with no known copies still in existence.

Anyway, at the start of this book, King David is old enough that it is time (again) for his sons to fight over the succession.

King David’s son Adonijah apparently decided that it was better to ask forgiveness than permission and went ahead and arranged his own coronation. (With Joab’s support, too!) With some prompting from his wife, Bath-sheba, King David immediately arranges for the officially recognized coronation of their son Solomon.

King David dies but not before reminding Solomon of all the betrayals he (David) suffered and all the people he (David) promised not to kill, but reminded Solomon that those promises would not bind him (Solomon). Thus there’s no surprise that Solomon starts off his reign with ordering a variety of deaths (chapter 2). After that, Solomon prays for the wisdom necessary to rule the land, which God grants (chapter 3).*

After some talk about how wise King Solomon now was, there’s a lot of description of the temple he has built to hold the Ark of the Covenant. It was built with much cedar wood (as a gift from King Hiram of Tyre) and gold and brass in a very specific design (chapters 5 thru 7) and then consecrated with much worship and sacrifice** (chapters 8 and 9).

Chapter 10 is about Solomon’s wealth and Chapter 11 is about his virility with his 700 wives and 300 concubines. However, it also talks about how he let some of those wives worship gods who were not the one God and thus he sinned started a pattern of sinful behavior in the line of kings. God decides that in punishment, Solomon’s son would only rule over only one of the tribes of Israel and be king in Jerusalem, while a man named Jeroboam would rule over the remaining ten tribes as king over Israel.

The next eleven chapters (chapters 12 thru 22) list the various kings who ruled and the ways in which they variously offended God and tried to kill one another.

Kings of all Israel:

• King David
• (King Adonijah, son of King David – had himself anointed king without his father’s blessings)
• King Solomon (son of King David) (sinful)
• King Rehoboam (son of King Solomon)*** remained king of the tribe of Judah

Kings of Judah:

• King Rehoboam (sinful)
• King Abijim (son of King Rehoboam) (sinful)
• King Asa (son of King Abijim) (faithful)
• King Jehoshaphat (son of King Asa) (faithful?)
• King Jehoram (son of King Jehoshaphat) (unstated)

Kings of Israel (minus Judah):

• King Jeroboam (sinful)****
• King Nadab (son of King Jeroboam) (sinful)
• King Baasha (having assassinated King Nadab) (sinful)
• King Elah (son of King Baasha) (unstated)
• King Zimri (having assassinated King Elah) (sinful)
• King Omri (having defeated General Tibni the other claimant after King Zimri’s suicide) (even more sinful than Jeroboam!)
• King Ahab (son of King Omri) (even more sinful than King Omri!)*****
• King Ahaziah (son of King Ahab) (sinful)

While there’s all sorts of civil unrest within each of Judah and Israel as well as between them, there’s also all sorts of conflict and temporary alliances with the various kings of Syria.

And thus we are through Kings 1 and thus on to Kings 2.

Summary: There have been a lot of kings of Israel and Judah and most of them have been sinful. Most of the sins, however, have had to do with allowing the worship of idols rather than regarding their tendencies towards killing one another.

Moral: There’s a lot of sinning going on here, but punishments for those sins is largely hit or miss.

* Chapter 3 contains the famous story of Solomon’s wisdom in which two mothers are claiming an infant child is theirs. King Solomon orders the baby to be cut in half so that they can each have half. The woman who protests that decision is identified as the actual mother. Given Solomon’s recent history, it’s no surprise that the two women involved absolutely believed that King Solomon would be more than willing to cut a baby in half.

** 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep and goats were sacrificed at the temple over the course of 14 days. This comes to a bit more than 7 animals killed every minute for 14 days. Oof.

*** The people of Israel asked King Rehoboam to be a kinder taskmaster than his father, to which he responded along the lines of: you only thought you had it bad under Solomon. I’ll work you to the bone and whip you till you bleed. They decided not to accept him as their king after all.

**** King Jeroboam didn’t want his people going to Jerusalem to worship since King Rehoboam remained king of Jerusalem even after Jeroboam took over the remaining ten tribes. Thus, Jeroboam made a bunch of local temples with local priests for his people to worship at and thus horribly offended God. For a while, Jeroboam is the benchmark for the sinfulness of all other kings.

***** King Ahab was so wicked that he gets chapters 17 thru 22 to recount some of his evil deeds which include marrying Jezebel and worshiping Baal. The prophet Elijah comes in here to, first, announce the coming of a drought and, second, to demonstrate the non-existence of Baal. He also arranges the slaughter all 450 of the prophets of Baal, who had been under Jezebel’s protection. Eventually, Ahab was so terrified of a prophesy Elijah made that he rent his clothing, fasted, and wore sackcloth, such that God decided to punish Ahab’s children instead of him.

Next up: Kings 2

It’s been a while since my last Bible post, but I am determined to get through the whole thing, even if there is no way I’ll manage my original finish-it-in-a-year goal. (It seemed so easy at the time!) Anyway:

Apparently the reason why there are two-part books in the bible sometimes (Samuel 1, Samuel 2; with Kings 1, Kings 2 and Chronicles 1, Chronicles 2 to come) is because these books were too long to be written on individual scrolls as they originally were. These books are literally scroll 1 of the text and scroll 2 of the text, separated into two parts for practical convenience rather than from narrative intent. This explanation helps a lot with understanding the naming conventions because by the time we get to Samuel 2, the character Samuel is dead some chapters back.

In Samuel 1, we are introduced to David as the plucky rebel who is gets quite the reputation for defeating enemies and surviving assassination attempts by King Saul, and being generally much beloved by the populace.

In Samuel 2, David is now king and it’s maybe a lesson that plucky rebel types do not necessarily make the best kings. In particular, the king in these circumstances (intermittent civil war and periodic invasions) needs to be fairly ruthless (according to his advisers.) If he’s not willing to kill potentially traitorous friends and family, then his advisers are more than willing to do so in his stead and against his wishes.

At this point we’ve got an emotional king who will dance lasciviously in the streets when he’s happy (chapter 6), rend his clothes and refuse to eat when sad (chapter 12), and willing to send a soldier on a suicide mission so as to marry the widow (chapter 11). He’s supported by Joab, a politically practical and ruthless adviser more than willing to kill people with whom the king has already promised peace. The neighboring kingdoms are understandably wary.

Also, King David’s son Absalom tries to take over, and part of this is sleeping with all of his father’s wives. Urg. There is much conspiring by various individuals on both sides. King David, however, manages to send out his army to fight Absalom’s army while also instructing his army to be gentle with his son.

So King David’s army manages to defeat Absalom’s army and find Absalom* but then sort of wander around wondering what to do about the guy who just lead an unsuccessful rebellion but who their king wants treated gentle. Joab pulls out his daggers and kills Absalom where he hangs (chapter 18). Then Joab rides back to Jerusalem, where King David is in deep mourning for his son Absalom. Joab tells him that David is going to stop that mourning, get up and start celebrating with the returning troops or Joab is going to be leading the next rebellion. King David hops to it (chapter 19).

Anyway, civil unrest and external warfare continues, and King David sings a song of praise for the lord that is particularly questionable given the juxtaposition with actual events.

Plus, in chapter 24, David decides to hold a census, Joab argues that counting the population is an insult to God, and God is so incensed by David’s decision to go ahead that he sends a plague to kill 70, 000 men over the course of three days. David builds a special alter to the Lord and the plague finally stops.

Summary: David makes for a wishy-washy king and there is a bunch of civil unrest.

Moral: I don’t even know.

* Absalom managed to ride his mule under a tree, get his neck caught on a branch, and have his mule wander off without him. He’s just sort of swinging there trying to get down while his father’s army wonders what to do about him. Hahahaha!

Next up: Kings 1