An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 62: Wherein the Israelites say “Yahweh who?”, and… er… champagne bottles… have a fight? No, sorry, I feel there ought to be a better joke in there somewhere.(1 Kings 11-15)

1 Kings 11-15
Wherein the Israelites say “Yahweh who?”, and… er… champagne bottles… have a fight? No, sorry, I feel there ought to be a better joke in there somewhere.

Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version).

In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.

For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT

For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP

And now:

1 Kings 11

“But king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites;”

Solomon has, according to this chapter, 700 wives and 300 concubines. A busy man. And because all, or most, of these women come from outside the Israelites they bring with them their gods, in contravention to the covenant. Solomon raises up temples to Chemosh of the Moabites, Ashtaroth of the Zodonians and Molech of the Ammonites (also called Milcom here). Molech, as I recall from earlier, was associated with child sacrifice. Ashtaroth is Ishtar/Astarte, moon and fertility goddess, Chemosh doesn’t have any particular focus known.

Because of this, God raises up enemies against him. One of them is Hadad, an Edomite who had escaped some kind of purge by Joab and David when he was a child, and is sheltered by Egypt. Another is Rezon who rules in Syria, and the last is Jeroboam who was made a ruler of a city by Solomon, but is turned against his ruler by a prophet Ahijah the Shilonite. Ahijah symbolically offers Rezon conquest of ten tribes of Israel, as God has promised Solomon that he will lose his kingdom, apart from one part for the sake of David and another for the city of Jerusalem.

Jeroboam wars with Solomon and is eventually driven off to Egypt (perhaps meeting with Hadad?) but Solomon dies, leaving his kingsdom to Rehoboam. So two sizes of champagne bottle are ready to fight it out.

1 Kings 12

“And Rehoboam went to Shechem: for all Israel were come to Shechem to make him king.”

Rehoboam is made king, whereupon Jeroboam leads the people to request that their “yoke” be lessened. Presumably we are talking about taxes and/or physical labour. Rehoboam takes counsel from his older advisors, who tell him to be merciful and the people will love him. Then he asks his contemporaries and they advise him to work the people harder still. Unwisely, Rehoboam choses the second option, and the people turn away from him and follow Jeroboam, apart from the tribe of Judah and some Benjaminites.

Although Jeroboam seems to be wanting peace, and although a prophet Shemaiah advises peace, Jeroboam sets up some idols – golden bulls again – and also raises up non-Levites as priests, which is probably not going to go down well.

1 Kings 13

“And, behold, there came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the LORD unto Bethel: and Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense.”

There’s another one of those biblical punishments that doesn’t seem entirely fair in this chapter. A wandering prophet from Judah warns that one will come from the line of David to destroy the priests and altars of false gods. Jeroboam hears of this and offers him rewards, but the prophet from Judah has been tasked to take no food and drink, and to keep moving forwards.

An older prophet also hears of this younger prophet from Judah (both remain nameless) and also invites him to dine with him, lying that he had a vision that it would be okay for the young prophet to forsake his vows for this time. Unfortunately, when the young prophet sets off again, God sets a lion on him and kills him. The lion stands guard over the body but the older prophet is able to gather his body, and buries it in the family grave out of remorse. Too late now, pal.

1 Kings 14

“And Jeroboam said to his wife, Arise, I pray thee, and disguise thyself, that thou be not known to be the wife of Jeroboam; and get thee to Shiloh: behold, there is Ahijah the prophet, which told me that I should be king over this people.”

Abijah is Solomon’s son who gets sick, Ahijah is the name of the prophet that he sends his wife to visit. Ahijah is not very complimentary, promising curses on Jeroboam for worshipping strange gods, including dogs and birds feeding on the dead. As soon as Jeroboam’s wife returns to the city, his son dies. Jeroboam rules for 22 years before he dies, and another son Nadab rules.

Meanwhile, Rehoboam is also having trouble because he too is worshipping strange gods. It has to be said, after all the glory of David, and Solomon’s early rule, people seem to backslide from Yahweh very easily, I guess Ishtar and the others have fewer onerous rules to follow.

Anyway, Rehoboam’s realsma re invaded by Shishak, king of Egypt before he too dies, and his son Abijam takes the crown.

This chapter does gloss over events, saying that the details are given elsewhere (in the book of the chronicles of kings).

1 Kings 15

“And he walked in all the sins of his father, which he had done before him: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father.”

The strife between Jeroboam and Rehoboam continues down through several generations in this chapter, and because both sides are not very devout Yahweh worshippers they are both pretty much doomed to keep fighting.

Rehoboam’s son Abijam continues the fight, and then Asa. Asa makes some attempts to get rid of the idols, and uses gold and silver from the temple to bribe the followers of Jeroboam’s side to join him instead. Meanwhile on the other side Jeroboam’s son Nadab continues the fight for a couple of years until he is overthrown by Baasha, a disgruntled subject ruler. But Baasha and Asa continue fighting. Again we get referred to the book of the chronicles of kings (which will be the Book of Chronicles?) to get more information. This development is a bit sad after all the construction work of David and Solomon. Once again the squabbles of petty men cause everything to descend into constant war. Dullards.