I read a YA novel based on this story back in grade school (High school? Middle school?), but let this be a friendly reminder that the Bible is not a book intended for young adults with modern sensibilities, and those YA books are to this as Disney fairytales are to Grimms’ fairytales.

In the story, as I originally learned it, the king’s advisor Hamann slandered the Jewish people to King Ahasuerus, who agreed that they should all be killed. Meanwhile the beautiful Jewish maiden Esther married the king, begged for her people to be spared, and revealed Hamann for a slanderer at the same time. The Jewish people were spared, Hamann was cast from favor, and King Ahasuerus and Queen Esther lived happily ever after.

So, you know, aside from King Ahasuerus’ genocidal tendencies (a rather big aside, in my opinion), a relatively benign YA plot.

Of course, then we get to the source material here, and wow were there some details that were left out.

So, first of all, King Ahasuerus had cast off his original queen, Queen Vashti, because she refused to obey him when he was drunk and wanted her to strip in a public gathering so he could show off how beautiful she was. In response to her refusal, she was cast off and he had all the beautiful young virgin girls* in the land to be brought to him so that he could sleep with one each night and then keep them isolated in his house of wives ever after and never see them again.** There were a lot of girls in the running, though, because it took more than a year for the king to get to Esther.

During that year, Esther courted the favor of the king’s chamberlain who gave her preferential treatment and told her how to seduce the king in turn, such that her night with him pleased him so much that he declared her queen in Vashti’s stead.***

Meanwhile, Hamann is the king’s advisor who’s way too full of himself and decided that Esther’s uncle Mordecai**** hadn’t bowed low enough to him when they passed on the street, and thus Mordecai and all of his people should be killed. The king is apparently too taken with his stream of wives to care about things like statescraft or genocide, so essentially tells Hamann to do whatever he wants. Hamann immediately creates a proclamation that all the Jews are to be killed and their possessions stolen on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month.+

Now, there’s a whole complicated subplot going on between Mordecai and Hamann, but honestly it fits in pretty well in a YA book because it is just that type of juvenile dispute about showing the proper deference and refusing to bow down, etc, except with threats of death and genocide.

But meanwhile, Esther risks being killed for interrupting the king in order to invite the king and Hamann to a fancy dinner. She survives and the king is delighted.++ The first dinner party goes so well, that the king asks Esther what she would like as a boon? She says a second dinner party and the king is once more delighted. The second dinner party is also wonderful and the king again asks what boon he can grant her and this time she’s like, you can save my life and the lives of my people.

The king is horrified that anyone has threatened to kill Esther, his favorite wife, and her people. She directs him to Hamann as the threat.+++ Hamann begs Esther for mercy, but the king sees Hamann near Esther and thinks he’s trying to rape her and has him immediately executed on the gallows Hamann himself had prepared for executing Mordecai. It’s all very dramatic.

However, while all of these events took place in the third month, Hamann’s proclamation about the genocide scheduled for the twelfth month have already gone out. But rather than rescind that proclamation++++, King Ahasuerus was apparently the type who would have enjoyed watching The Purge movies because he makes a second proclamation saying that on the same day that the people were supposed to kill the Jewish people, the Jewish people are granted the right to gather together and kill any of their enemies and take all of their possessions. So, essentially a free-for-all of death and theft on the thirteenth of the twelfth month.

The king asked if Esther wanted anything else and she asked for a second day for the Jews to kill their enemies, plus could all of Hamann’s ten sons also be killed specifically? The king was like, okay.

So the fourteenth of the twelfth month was also a bloodbath, while the fifteenth was feasting and celebration.

And thus the annual celebration of Purim, for surviving Hamann’s plot. And Mordecai goes on to take Hamann’s place as a high counselor and everyone is all very happy.

The End.

Summary: Hamann manipulates the king into ordering the genocide of the Jewish people, but Esther manipulates the king right back into killing Hamann and allowing the Jewish people to kill their enemies.

Moral: Kings can be super easy to manipulate but you’d better be on your guard against someone else manipulating your same king?

* I can only assume that a lot of beautiful young girls heard this proclamation and had an sudden interest in having sex, pronto, with someone in their home villages.
** It’s kind of super similar to Sheherazade’s story, except without the actual death threat to the new brides. Just a single rape-night and then eternal isolation and captivity. So, there’s that.
*** This is a triumph, in case your wondering if it’s actually a good thing or a bad thing.
**** Not that anyone knows that Mordecai is Esther’s uncle, because who would care about keeping track of the relatives of that many wives.
+ I feel like there are practical problems with making a public proclamation that whole communities of people are to be slaughtered on a specific day in the future. Like, I realize it’s important for the death squads to have time to prepare, but I feel like it’s a bit much to expect the intended victims to just accept that their fate is sealed because the king said so.
++ Maybe none of his other wives invite him to spend extra time with them just because he keeps on threatening to kill them? So he’s very flattered that this beautiful woman is interested in him.
+++ Very politically stated, in my opinion, since it was the king himself who gave Hamann the right to threaten them.
++++ I’m actually not sure if it was possible for a proclamation to be rescinded. It might have been that once it was made permanent record, that was it, to avoid confusion with knowing if an official document was valid or not. It might always be valid.

Next up: Psalms

Nehemiah (the character) is introduced (at the beginning of his book even!) as an Israelite serving as the cup bearer for the king of Persia. I’m not sure how one gets to be a cup bearer for a king, but it seems like a pretty sweet position, actually, since you’re essentially part of the king’s entourage without being an advisor with responsibilities other than making sure there’s always wine for the king. Thus, the king tends to really like the cup bearer.

So Nehemiah looks sad for a couple of days, the king (Artaxerxes, aka Ar’tax-erx’-es*) asks him what’s up, and he explains that he worries about how the Israelites are doing in Jerusalem. After some questions about how long a trip there and back would take, Artaxerxes gives Nehemiah funds and permission to go over to Jerusalem and check out the situation. He inspects Jerusalem (a la undercover boss) and then inspires the workers to do more. There was a wall around the city with many gates and many people working on those gates, and they’re all named in chapter 3.

In chapter 4, however, are the neighboring city-states who are a more than a bit suspicious of the Israelite refugees fortifying their town. After some escalation, the Israelites start guarding the half-finished wall, 24-7, until it is complete

Chapter 5 is anger over taxation and whatnot. It sounds all very modern, just with unfamiliar specifics. But why should we have to pay for someone else to eat? What about our children? Is this governor better or worse than the last governor? It’s possible that the reason why I have trouble tracking this chapter is that I’m so tired of the US election arguments.

Chapter 6: The neighbors really don’t like that fortified wall.

Chapter 7: Now that the wall is built, it must now be guarded. Also, time for a census: and you’d better be able to prove your decent, because at least some people were viewed with deep suspicion for claiming to be priests but unable to prove it.***

Chapter 8: Ezra**** lectures the people about the laws, but what’s particularly interesting here is that the chapter itself doesn’t recount the laws. (thank god: Leviticus and Deuteronomy and a whole bunch of other books already took care of that) and instead was like, he read the laws and the people understood them. And then everyone celebrated. Hurrah!

Chapter 9: all the children of Israel attend Sunday school and the highpoints of the entire previous portion of the Bible are recounted in 38 verses or less.*****

So, Nehemiah 9:38 gets us caught up to actual events happening now and is a summary of chapter 10, in which, sure enough “our princes, Levites, and priests seal unto [the covenant]”. I.e, a bunch of named people agree that there are certain rules of this town that everyone has to abide by, mostly involving observing the Sabbath and giving offerings to the church.

In chapters 11 and 12, the people cast lots to see who actually gets to live in the fortified and highly-regulated city. Because all the rules live there, but only one in ten of the regular people do. And we get a list of those one in ten. There’s just no escaping intermittent lists of begats.****** Also, there’s some more celebration in dedication of the city of Jerusalem.

And then in Chapter 13 hits like a load of bricks. It’s back into first person and the narrator (Nehemiah?) is dedicated to his religion and terrible for politics and economics. Keep in mind that most of God’s laws have been previously forgotten because all the Jews were scattered into other lands, and are only now returning to Jerusalem as refugees under the Persian king’s protection. So everyone is attending Sunday school to learn the rules, and the narrator learns that God doesn’t like the Moabites, but apparently the head priest had an alliance with the Moabites and had even prepared them some diplomatic chambers to stay in. So the narrator has those chambers stripped and all of the Moabite’s possessions cast out. And then he discovers that farmers and vintners were working on the Sabbath so he testified against them. And then there were merchants and sellers who sold their goods on the Sabbath so he testified against them too. And then he discovered that some people were still marrying outside of the Jewish religion and so he smote them and plucked off their hair (13:25). And he generally makes everything worse for everyone and expects praise from god for this cleansing.

Summary: These refugees have their new city with their fortified wall but they’re pretty plagued by outsiders being suspicious and insiders forcing them to obey strict religious law.

Moral: If you’re the friend of the King of Persia, you can get support in being an incredible busy-body.

* The King James translation uses a lot of hyphens and apostrophes in the names of various people. Artaxerxes is written as Ar’tax-erx’-es, Nehemiah, the titular character of this book, is written as Ne-he-mi’-ah. And there are plenty of other names with similar presentations: San-bal’-lat, Za’-dok, Me-ron’-o-thite, etc. I’m not sure what the apostrophe stands for, but I’m assuming at this point that the dashes are between syllables. So, it’s essentially a little pronunciation guide that also makes the names look just that much more foreign to my poor sheltered eyes. It feels very disconcerting, though, since I’d previously considered it a sci-fi/fantasy trope to make alien names using excess punctuation and random letter mash-ups. It feels very unexpected to see it happen in the Bible. From my perspective a name has a one-punctuation-mark maximum limit before it looks like it’s trying too hard.**

** If there’s any reader out there with a first name with more than one punctuation mark in it, let me know that I might learn something, but I’m going to want to know the story behind your name and its spelling.

*** They were considered “polluted” and didn’t get to eat the holy food of the priesthood unless and until they can prove they’re actually priests. (Nehemiah 7:64-5)

**** Introduced previously as the moral law scholar that the King of Persia was asshole enough to inflict upon the refugees trying to settle. Now the refugees have to try and learn and abide by all the laws of a very specific god.

***** Seriously? Yes, seriously. If you want a children’s book version of the pervious parts of the bible, just read Nehemiha 9:6-38

****** Although, kind of cool is the fact that some of the begats include professions as well as lineages (although I’m fairly sure their hereditary professions, so there’s that). The professions include, but are not limited to: those who had oversite of the outward business of the house of god (11:16), porters and keepers of the gate (11:19), singers (11:22), those given to praise and give thanks (12:24), those with the musical instruments (12:36)

Next up: Esther

One of my cousins recently graduated from divinity school and he recounted something one of his teachers told him that really stuck with him and now sticks with me: “when giving a sermon, hold the scriptures in one hand and a newspaper in the other.” Given the issues with racism and refugee problems I’ve been seeing in the news recently, this book is particularly on-topic, although not particularly helpful with its conclusions.

This book starts off with Cyrus, King of Persia, having an inspiration. In theory, the idea is god wants a house built for him in Jerusalem; in practice Cyrus bribes Israelite refugees to go over to Jerusalem rather than stay in Persia. And not even with his own funds, just telling the populace, they must give silver, gold, and other goods and livestock to any Israelite from Persia traveling to Jerusalem.

And then we get a massive list of who all the refugees were, where they were from, where they went, and how many they numbered. One thing about reading these books is a reminder of the sheer numbers being dealt with. We’re talking about people in the hundred and thousands and hundreds of thousands.

And then there was a bunch of celebration and prayer and burnt offerings.

Those were chapters 1, 2, and 3. In chapters 4, 5, and 6, however, we discover that bureaucracy is eternal and it turns out various other governing units are not particularly happy with Cyrus’ plan to shift refugees elsewhere, and did anyone actually have a copy of the authorizing letter Cyrus had sent out regarding building the temple? As it turns out, the answer to that last question is “yes,” and if you try to ignore it again King Darius of Persia will have your house torn down and you hung on the scaffold built in its place. So, you know, building that temple continued.

It isn’t until chapter 7 (out of just 10, in the Book of Ezra) that Ezra is introduced as a character. But he’s a scribe in the law of Moses, and under the ongoing patronage of Artaxerxes, kind of Persia.* He’s essentially sent to be a magistrate and enforce god’s law on the people of Jerusalem.

Now chapter 7 is also interesting for being written in the first person, due to most of it being a decree of Artaxerxes, kind of Persia. However, chapter 8 is also in first-person but I’m confused about who exactly it is. Is it safe to assume Ezra? Whoever it is, they gathered a bunch of people – listed in detail – to the river that runneth to Ahava and then contemplated the issue of all of them carrying a bunch of gold through a bandit heavy area. I really enjoyed Ezra 8:22, in which the narrator really doesn’t want to contact the King of Persia to ask for guards for the gold, after having spoken about how great and powerful their god is. Like, that’s just embarrassing. Hahahaha! Anyway, they split up and transport the gold in 12 packages and it all goes well.

In chapter 9, Ezra (I’m assuming) is deeply disturbed about how the Israelites continue to inter-marry and have children with the people who were already living in the lands.

In chapter 10, Ezra (we’re back to the more regular third-person narration) continues to be deeply disturbed by the Israelites having married foreigners, and gathers all the men to discuss the issue. Verses Ezra 10:18-43 list the various males who had taken foreign wives, and even had children by them. But they all promised to “put away their wives” in addition to offering a ram of the flock for their trespass. So… there’s that.

And thus ends the book of Ezra.

Summary: Bureaucracy, racism, and problems with refugees all have long and illustrious histories.

Moral: Yes, money can buy you out of troubles? (Especially other people’s money.) Don’t marry foreigners?

*I’m more than a bit confused by all the Kings of Persia (and/or Babylon – are they the same thing? Is one a subset of the other?), who I assume are ruling sequentially, but the book is a bit coy about the timeline for all of this, which is decidedly unusual, given how specific the books of Kings and the books of Chronicles were. But there are casual and mentions of King Cyrus of Persia and/or Babylon, King Darius of Persia and/or Babylon, and King Artaxerxes of Persia and/or Babylon.

Next up: Nehemiah

I am fast approaching the two-year anniversary of when I decided to read the bible within a year. And this is the 15th book (out of 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament). So, you know, kudos to all those amazing people who actually manage to make it through the whole thing in a year. In contrast, I (very, very slowly) trek onwards.

You know how sometimes two books will be published as a book and its sequel, but in reading them you realize that they were actually intended to be one book and the publisher just cut that book in half for reasons of their own? So, yeah, Chronicles 2, the second scroll of Chronicles. It’s the same thing as the first one, with an extremely nominal break.

King David is dead, and his son Solomon is now king of Israel. After the funeral and 1,000 burnt sacrifices, God appears to Solomon asking what he wants. Seriously. (Chronicles 2 1:7) Solomon asks for the wisdom and knowledge needed to lead the people of Israel, which is actually a pretty good answer. God says that since Solomon didn’t ask for wealth, honor, death to his enemies, or long life, God will give Solomon not only the wisdom and knowledge he asked for but all the other stuff as well. Sweet!

Now recall how, in Chronicles 1 16-22 and 28-29, there are detailed descriptions of the temple that King David really wanted to build? Well, in Chronicles 2 chapters 2-4 Solomon has the temple built, with more descriptions, and in chapters 5-7, the temple is consecrated and God enters it as fire from heaven and there’s a lot of descriptions of how the temple is to be used, mostly in the form of “If X, then Y” statements.

And then we switch over the wonderful successes of Solomon:
In chapter 8, he builds a lot of towns and was generally so religious that he built a special house for his wife, the daughter of Pharaoh because he didn’t want his own house tainted with her presence.
In the first half of chapter 9, the Queen of Sheba comes to visit and inspect the situation and is so impressed that she gives him all sorts of presents and he is so taken with her that he gives her anything she wants, and then she goes away. (Verses 1-12)
In the second half of chapter 10 (verses 13-31), a bunch of other important people give Solomon a bunch of expensive presents because he is just that amazing. And then he dies.

Chapters 10-12 follow the next king, Rehoboam, son of Solomon, generally being an ass (essentially telling the people: don’t complain to me, or I’ll give you something to complain about)

Chapter 13: King Abijah reigned for three years, and there are battles and rousing speeches, and much calling out to the Lord. Also, he took fourteen wives, and fathered twenty-two sons and sixteen daughters.*

Chapters 14-16: King Asa did what was good and right, mostly by destroying the items of any other religion, including casting out his own mother. However he still ended sinful by relying on political allies at wartime and physicians when he got sick rather than on the Lord.

At this point we’re have caught up with the timeline told in the second book of Kings and there is a lot of repetition. Do you remember the list of the Kings of Judah, as recounted in Kings 2? Well, here they are again in Chronicles 2. Enjoy:

Chapter 17-20: King Jeshoshaphat
Chapter 21: King Jehoram, who died in great agony from a bowel infection and no one mourned him. Ouch.
Chapter 22: King Ahaziah dies, his mother Athaliah tries to kill the rest of the family in order to rule herself
Chapter 23: The downfall of Athaliah: there was a mutiny, she called treason, they decided it wasn’t right to kill her in the king’s house, so had her removed in order to kill her.
Chapter 24: King Joash
Chapter 25: King Amaziah
Chapter 26: King Ussiah
Chapter 27: King Jotham
Chapter 28: King Ahaz
Chapters 29-32: King Hezekiah
Chapter 33: King Manasseh and King Amon**
Chapters 34-35: King Josiah
Chapter 36: King Jehoahaz, King Jehoiakim, King Jehoiachin, King Zedekiah, and generally the downfall of the kings of Judah, with a bit of a teaser at the end for King Cyrus of Persia building the house of Jerusalem again.

Almost all of these chapters start with something along the lines of
“_____ began to reign when he was ____ years old; he reigned _____ years in the city of (Jerusalem/David).”***
and end with something along the lines of
“____ slept with this ancestors and they buried him in the city of _____. His son ____ succeeded him.”

Summary: Oh the repetition: there are a lot of kings who got up to a lot of things, but really, there aren’t any more kings than previously mentioned.

Moral: All things come in cycles, the rise and fall of kings, the good and evil of kings, and there’s no particularly good way to tell the difference between good and evil.

* Let’s pause a minute for the math: 22 sons + 16 daughters = 38 children. 38 children / 14 wives = 2.7 children per wife. And all of this in three years? It’s possible, but the timing is certainly tight. Especially given the number of battles and ambushes, rousing speeches and sacrifices to the Lord. And apparently his other behaviors and deeds were written up in the story of Iddo. So Abijah may not have lived long, but wow did he live intensely.
** Poor King Amon got four versus as a tag at the end of his father’s chapter before his son’s chapter. On the other hand, he was apparently evil and only ruled for two years, so screw him anyway.
*** A surprising number of times, it also includes “His mother’s named was ____ daughter of ______” which is kind of cool.

Next up: Ezra

This broke me. Not the book itself, although it took an audiotape and a long drive to get through it, but the write up. I had originally planned to illustrate it with a family tree. Except that the first four verses of the first chapter are a vertical family tree through thirteen generations from Adam to Japheth. The fifth verse lists Japheth’s seven sons. Verses six and seven list the sons of two of Japheth’s seven sons, one of whom had three sons and the other four. And it just keeps going.

There are more than a hundred names (although only approximately 75 unique individuals because of course every father is listed twice, once as a “son of” and then again as a “father of”) within the first 26 verses of chapter 1, at which point we get to the sons of Abraham: Isaac and Ishmael, who at least are names I recognize. After that, there are a lot more names that I don’t recognize at all. A lot.

The first chapter has 54 verses. The book as a whole has 29 chapters. And it’s the first of two scrolls that make up Chronicles 1 and Chronicles 2 respectively.

What do you even do with this?

Although as a baby name book, it’s pretty excellent. If you can get over some of the names themselves. I do feel like no one should be named after Ham (1:4), but then there’s Tilgathpilneser (king of Assyria, listed in 5:6 and again in 5:26 because why make things easy to keep track of?), since that is a bitching name.

“I wanted to give my son a biblical name, but also a unique one.”

“So, little baby Tilgathpilneser?”

“We call him Tilgy.”

(Also, rather than just a name in a list, like so many are, we learn that God roused Tilgathpilneser’s spirit in order to punish the Israelites – even the Reubenites! – so… there’s that? 5:26)

The family trees just keep going, but we do occasionally get some few verses dotted here and there giving a few details about what’s actually happening with and to at least some of these people.

There’s also the occasional woman mentioned, such as Hammoleketh who bore three children of unspecified gender (but certainly not unspecified name!) listed in 7:18. And then there’s Sherah (7:24) who makes me grin because Shera! Princess of Power! which was a favorite cartoon that dates me horribly (and also aged horribly.)

We also get to a few parts where the people don’t always have names, but do have hereditary positions of employment such as porters of various quarters, overseers of vessels, cooks, and singers. Of course, sometimes they do have names, and those many, many names are listed. (chapter 9.)

And, sometimes there isn’t familial connections, just being in the same battle but still needing a chapter devoted to the roll call of those valiant warriors. (chapter 11).

By chapters 15, it became too much for the original writer apparently because it breaks down into numbers rather than lists of names, or at least lists of names associated with the number of children rather than lists of names associated with lists other lists of names.

Chapters 16-22 actually get back to story telling with King David and the ark of the covenant, a list of rules of behaviors, and the temple that David really wants to build and has very specific ideas about but that can’t be built within his lifetime because God says so and thus needs to be described to his son Solomon for him to do later.

After that break, chapters 23-27 are back to genealogies and employment records.

Chapters 28-29 are a rousing speech that King David gives, somewhat about the greatness of the Lord but mostly about exactly what the temple he wants built after he dies to look like, described in extremely excruciating detailed instructions. It all finally ends with a quick summary of King David’s reign (good) and his biographies (three of them)  and mention that King Solomon is the next king.

Summary: There are a lot of people and population increases geometrically over time if couple has more than two kids. They’re mostly employed being porters, priests, singers, cooks, warriors, and kings. And wow, does King David want to be in charge of building his temple even if it can’t be started until after he dies.

Moral: As time goes by, being one more name in a long list of names is not a great legacy, in my ever so humble opinion.

Next up: Chronicles 2

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