Week 18 1 Kings 11-14
Out of the nineteen kings of Israel there’s only four that had actual stories told about them (not just summaries). I wasn’t sure why that was but I decided to slow down for a couple of days to see if I could find out why the Big Four – Jeroboam Ahab Joram & Jehu – were treated big.
Jeroboam was the first king of Israel. He began his career as a hard-working official of Solomon until the relationship broke down (Solomon tried to kill him).
After Solomon died Jeroboam led the anti-Rehoboam faction that split away ten tribes from the southern kingdom of Judah-Benjamin.
One of the first things Jeroboam did was to create a new state-religion for the north: good practical decision…bad religious decision. An unnamed prophet gave Jeroboam a pretty solid negative-prophecy about that. A bit later another prophet (Ahijah) gave him another dire warning. Jeroboam disregarded both.
The Jeroboam story covers about 80-verses (way more than the 7-verse average of the 15 “obituary-column” kings). I think there’s two reasons Jeroboam got the coverage he did: a) because he was the very first king of Israel and b) because he re-invented religious practices in the north and reoriented everyone away from the Lord.
There isn’t much doubt that Jeroboam was a bad king. Ahijah told him: you have done more evil than all who lived before you…Since you have turned your back on me (the Lord), I will bring disaster on your dynasty.
Note: quote from 1 Kings 14:9-10 (NLT)