WBS.232
FUNDAMENTALS OF DISCIPLESHIP
OLD
TESTAMENT SURVEY – 12
THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL
DIVIDED
I Kings 12:16 And when all Israel saw that the king
hearkened not unto them, the people answered the king, saying, What portion
have we in David? neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse: to your
tents, O Israel: now see to thine own house, David. So Israel departed unto
their tents.
The book of I Samuel begins with the introduction
of Samuel, the end of the service of Eli, the high priest, and the anointing of
Saul as the first king of Israel. The book ends with the death of King
Saul, circa 1025 BC.
Up to this point in our study, the books we
have reviewed have been focused on a united Hebrew people. Now, we begin
to look at books of history which are very involved, historically condensed,
and whose time-periods incorporate the majority of the remaining books of the
Old Testament. We will pick up the highlights; but for the details, you
will have to read them yourself (which, of course, is the objective).
II Samuel begins where I Samuel ends. David, a
man of about 30 years of age, becomes the second king of Israel. He
served seven years and six months in Hebron as the king over Judah (II Samuel
2:1-4) before he entered Jerusalem, where he was anointed as king over all Israel
(II Samuel 5:3-5), serving another 33 years.
Many people have become confused when
reading the next several books because of the apparent repetition. Let’s
examine this repetition.
II Samuel and I Chronicles cover essentially the same history...the rule of David the King. I
Chronicles ends with the death of David (I Chron 29:26-28), circa 985 BC.
II Chronicles,
chapters 1-9, records the rule of Solomon, the son of David; as does I Kings,
chapters 1-11. Solomon ruled, as did his father, for forty
years, and was succeeded by his son Rehoboam.
Rehoboam was not wise like his father.
Instead of listening to the counsel of his elders, he heeded the counsel of the
young men. Rehoboam raised taxes upon the people and lead an oppressive
rule over his kingdom. This gave rise to a revolt in Israel lead by a man
named, Jeroboam.
Israel understood through prophetic promise
that the Messiah would come through the bloodline of David; and that the kingdom
would be ruled by successors of the house of David until the time that the
Davidic bloodline produced the Messiah who would assume the throne and rule the
world and the enemies of Israel would be no more. The Hebrews, however,
did not have a good track record of maintaining a consistent faithfulness to IAUE
and to His laws. In response to the oppressive rule of Rehoboam we hear
one of the saddest declarations in all of Scripture.
I Kings 12:16 And when
all Israel saw that the king hearkened not unto them, the people answered the
king, saying, What portion have we in David? neither have we
inheritance in the son of Jesse: to your tents, O Israel: now see to thine own
house, David. So Israel departed unto their tents.
Ten tribes out of twelve rejected the
Messianic promise. They rejected the reign of the house of David.
They rejected the Law of IAUE. They consolidated their tribes to the
north under the reign of Jeroboam. They initiated golden calf worship, setting
up idols in the cities of Dan and Samaria (their Capitol cities); and thus
began the divided kingdom of Israel. The tribes of Judah and Benjamin
remained in Jerusalem under the rule of the House of David and became known as
the kingdom of Judah.
This event was foretold by IAUE unto Moses.
Deuteronomy 31:16 And IAUE said unto Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep
with thy fathers; and this people will rise up, and go a whoring after
the gods of the strangers of the land, whither they go to be among them, and
will
forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them.
17 Then
my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them,
and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils
and troubles shall befall them; so that they will say in that day, Are not
these evils come upon us, because our Elohim is not among us?
18 And
I will surely hide my face in that day for all the evils which they shall have
wrought, in that they are turned unto other gods.
Several times in the Book of Deuteronomy, it is prophesied that once
Israel settled the land of their inheritance, they would not be faithful to
keep the laws of IAUE or to obey His covenant.
This divided kingdom and ultimately the destruction of the faithless
kingdom and their being scattered among the nations of the world was
inevitable.
Deuteronomy 4:25 When thou shalt beget children, and children's children,
and ye shall have remained long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and
make a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, and shall do evil in the
sight of IAUE thy Elohim, to provoke him to anger:
26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day
that ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto ye go over Jordan
to possess it; ye shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly be
destroyed.
27 And
IAUE shall scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be left few in number
among the heathen, whither IAUE shall lead you.
28 And
there ye shall serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which
neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
The disobedience of the Hebrews to annihilate the nations before them
as recorded in the Book of Joshua, lead to the inevitable corruption of the hearts
of the people, just as Moses said it would. The oppressive rule of Rehoboam
provided them with the excuse to depart entirely from IAUE to justify setting up
their own kingdom under golden calf worship.
The books of I & II Chronicles record the history of the southern kingdom of Judah. They are the record of the house of David, following the bloodline of the promised Messiah.
I & II
Kings records the history of the northern kingdom
of Israel. This parallel
recording of history accounts for the repetition found in these books of the
Old Testament. The following is a summary of these books:
I Samuel - The time of
transition from the time of the judges to the beginning of the kingdom of
Israel under King Saul.
II Samuel/I Chronicles - The reign of David
II Chronicles 1-9/I Kings 1-11 - The reign of Solomon
II Chronicles 10-27/1 Kings 12-II Kings 17 - The division of the Kingdom until the destruction of the northern Kingdom of Israel at the hands of Assyria in 722 BC.
II Samuel/I Chronicles - The reign of David
II Chronicles 1-9/I Kings 1-11 - The reign of Solomon
II Chronicles 10-27/1 Kings 12-II Kings 17 - The division of the Kingdom until the destruction of the northern Kingdom of Israel at the hands of Assyria in 722 BC.
II Chronicles 28-36/II
Kings 16-25 - The kingdom of Judah
from the time of the fall of Israel until the fall of the Kingdom of Judah and
the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians in 586 BC.
It is keenly important to recognize that the
northern kingdom was destroyed by Assyria and the southern kingdom was
destroyed by Babylon. Nimrod
(Genesis 10:8-11) was the one who built the city of Babel (the Capitol
of Babylon) and the city of Ninevah (the Capitol of Assyria). This is no accident. It betrays an effort by Satan that extends
from the fall of Adam in the Garden to the present day, to utterly destroy the “seed
of the woman.”
Genesis 3:15 And I
will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed;
it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
(We will discuss Nimrod and this war against
the seed of the woman after we have concluded our Old Testament survey.)
Into this period of kings and kingdoms, IAUE
sent His servants the prophets. In our next lesson we will see how their
"books" merge within the timeline of these history books.
Kingdom heart: a heart that offers
no resistance to the performance of the will of IAUE.
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