1 Kings 12-14

Day 108

Grrrrr! Kids who don't sleep!!! Grrrrrrr!  If I sound grumpy while reading....I am. sorry. :)  

Chapter 12  So Solomon's dead and Israel rebels against Rehoboam....the one thing that has held the nation together with unity was worshipping the one God.  Without the religious tie, the king and people would go down together.....Samuel and Saul knew this would happen.The kingdom has been reduced because Solomon broke the covenant and disobeyed the commands of the Lord.  With Rehoboam as king the people complain and he just strong arms the people even more.  The rebel tribes declare independence and set Jeroboam up as king is Israel....the northern kingdom.  Jeroboam breaks with the temple in Jerusalem (southern kingdom, Judah) because he is afraid the people will defect by them having to go there for pilgrim-feasts.  he creates two sanctuaries and an unlawful priesthood.  He creates bull calves as idolatry like Aaron did and has been set on the downward path of sin against God.

Chapter 13  the man from God was the voice of a prophet...the point of the prophet....is that God must be obeyed.  The prophet's death is a sign to Jeroboam and Israel of the severity with which God deals with disobedience.  So....Jeroboam brings ruin and destruction on his dynasty through his deliberate waywardness.

Chapter 14 Jeroboam, king of Judah in the south, (gotta keep these straight now...the kingdom has split....one will fall to the other eventually....keep these straight....Israel/north; Judah/south).  Jeroboam wants to know what the prophet Ahijah can tell him about his son's illness, but he is reluctant to go and see for himself.  So he send his wife to do his dirty work and even tells her to disguise herself.  But to no avail.  She receives devastating news from the prophet:  her son will die.  And the irony (there is always irony isn't there?!) the irony is that it is out of honor....he is the only "good" thing or person in that family...yet he will die.  

While Jeroboam was king in Israel.......3 kings reigned in the south.....Rehoboam, Abijah and Asa.  Here too, in the south, pagan religion flourishes under Rehoboam (son of one of Solomon's foreign wives). The loose the Temple and the treasures to the invading Egyptian pharaoh, and the north and south are constantly at war.  

The lesson can't be learned enough.....obey the Lord.  Obey the Lord.  Obey.  :)  

tomorrow:  15-17