1 Kings 12

1 Kings 12:1 Then Rehoboam went to Shechem, because all Israel had gone to Shechem to make him king.

1 Kings 12:2 When Jeroboam son of Nebat heard about it, he stayed in Egypt, where he had fled from King Solomon’s presence. Jeroboam stayed in Egypt.

1 Kings 12:3 But they summoned him, and Jeroboam and the whole assembly of Israel came and spoke to Rehoboam:

1 Kings 12:4 “Your father made our yoke heavy. You, therefore, lighten your father’s harsh service and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you.”

1 Kings 12:5 Rehoboam replied, “Go away for three days and then return to me.” So, the people left.

1 Kings 12:6 Then King Rehoboam consulted with the elders who had served his father Solomon when he was alive, asking, “How do you advise me to respond to this people?”

1 Kings 12:7 They replied, “Today if you will be a servant to this people and serve them, and if you respond to them by speaking kind words to them, they will be your servants forever.”

1 Kings 12:8 But he rejected the advice of the elders who had advised him and consulted with the young men who had grown up with him and attended him.

1 Kings 12:9 He asked them, “What message do you advise that we send back to this people who said to me, ‘Lighten the yoke your father put on us’?”

1 Kings 12:10 Then the young men who had grown up with him told him, “This is what you should say to this people who said to you, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, but you, make it lighter on us! ‘ This is what you should tell them: ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist!

1 Kings 12:11 Although my father burdened you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke; my father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with barbed whips.'”

1 Kings 12:12 So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day, as the king had ordered: “Return to me on the third day.”

1 Kings 12:13 Then the king answered the people harshly. He rejected the advice the elders had given him

1 Kings 12:14 and spoke to them according to the young men’s advice: “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke; my father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with barbed whips.”

1 Kings 12:15 The king did not listen to the people, because this turn of events came from Yahveh to carry out his word, which Yahveh had spoken through Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam son of Nebat.

1 Kings 12:16 When all Israel saw that the king had not listened to them, the people answered him: What future do we have in David? We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse. Israel, return to your tents; David, now look after your own house! So, Israel went to their tents,

1 Kings 12:17 but Rehoboam reigned over the Israelites living in the cities of Judah.

1 Kings 12:18 Then King Rehoboam sent Adoram, who oversaw forced labor, but all Israel stoned him to death. King Rehoboam managed to get into the chariot and flee to Jerusalem.

1 Kings 12:19 Israel is still in rebellion against the house of David today.

1 Kings 12:20 When all Israel heard that Jeroboam had come back, they summoned him to the assembly and made him king over all Israel. No one followed the house of David except the tribe of Judah alone.

1 Kings 12:21 When Rehoboam arrived in Jerusalem, he mobilized one hundred eighty thousand fit young soldiers from the entire house of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin to fight against the house of Israel to restore the kingdom to Rehoboam son of Solomon.

1 Kings 12:22 But the word of God came to Shemaiah, the man of God:

1 Kings 12:23 “Say to Rehoboam son of Solomon, king of Judah, to the whole house of Judah and Benjamin, and to the rest of the people,

1 Kings 12:24 ‘This is what Yahveh says: You are not to march up and fight against your brothers, the Israelites. Each of you return home, because this thing is from me.'” So they listened to the word of Yahveh and went back according to the word of Yahveh.

1 Kings 12:25 Jeroboam built Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim and lived there. From there he went out and built Penuel.

1 Kings 12:26 Jeroboam said to himself, “The kingdom might now return to the house of David.

1 Kings 12:27 If these people regularly go to offer sacrifices in Yahveh ‘s temple in Jerusalem, the heart of these people will return to their lord, King Rehoboam of Judah. They will kill me and go back to the king of Judah.”

1 Kings 12:28 So the king sought advice. Then he made two golden calves, and he said to the people, “Going to Jerusalem is too difficult for you. Israel, here are your gods who brought you up from the land of Egypt.”

1 Kings 12:29 He set up one in Bethel, and put the other in Dan.

1 Kings 12:30 This led to sin; the people walked in procession before one of the calves all the way to Dan.

1 Kings 12:31 Jeroboam also made shrines on the high places and made priests from the ranks of the people who were not Levites.

1 Kings 12:32 Jeroboam made a festival in the eighth month on the fifteenth day of the month, like the festival in Judah. He offered sacrifices on the altar; he made this offering in Bethel to sacrifice to the calves he had made. He also stationed the priests in Bethel for the high places he had made.

1 Kings 12:33 He offered sacrifices on the altar he had set up in Bethel on the fifteenth day of the eighth month. He chose this month on his own. He made a festival for the Israelites, offered sacrifices on the altar, and burned incense.

links:

ACST 2 The Promise
bad call – Devotions
Maranatha Daily Devotional – Friday, October 6, 2023
Maranatha Daily Devotional – Tuesday, October 8, 2019
the price of popularity

The 1 KINGS shelf in Jeff’s library

1 Kings 11

1 Kings 11:1 King Solomon loved many foreign women in addition to Pharaoh’s daughter: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women

1 Kings 11:2 from the nations about which Yahveh had told the Israelites, “You must not marry them, and they must not marry you, because they will turn your heart away to follow their gods.” To these women Solomon was deeply attached in love.

1 Kings 11:3 He had seven hundred wives who were princesses and three hundred who were concubines, and they turned his heart away.

1 Kings 11:4 When Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away to follow other gods. He was not wholeheartedly devoted to Yahveh his God, as his father David had been.

1 Kings 11:5 Solomon followed Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and Milcom, the abhorrent idol of the Ammonites.

1 Kings 11:6 Solomon did what was evil in Yahveh’s sight, and unlike his father David, he did not remain loyal to Yahveh.

1 Kings 11:7 At that time, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh, the abhorrent idol of Moab, and for Milcom, the abhorrent idol of the Ammonites, on the hill across from Jerusalem.

1 Kings 11:8 He did the same for all his foreign wives, who were burning incense and offering sacrifices to their gods.

1 Kings 11:9 Yahveh was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from Yahveh, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice.

1 Kings 11:10 He had commanded him about this, so that he would not follow other gods, but Solomon did not do what Yahveh had commanded.

1 Kings 11:11 Then Yahveh said to Solomon, “Since you have done this and did not keep my covenant and my statutes, which I commanded you, I will tear the kingdom away from you and give it to your servant.

1 Kings 11:12 However, I will not do it during your lifetime for the sake of your father David; I will tear it out of your son’s hand.

1 Kings 11:13 Yet I will not tear the entire kingdom away from him. I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem that I chose.”

1 Kings 11:14 So Yahveh raised up Hadad the Edomite as an enemy against Solomon. He was of the royal family in Edom.

1 Kings 11:15 Earlier, when David was in Edom, Joab, the commander of the army, had gone to bury the dead and had struck down every male in Edom.

1 Kings 11:16 For Joab and all Israel had remained there six months, until he had killed every male in Edom.

1 Kings 11:17 Hadad fled to Egypt, along with some Edomites from his father’s servants. At the time Hadad was a small boy.

1 Kings 11:18 Hadad and his men set out from Midian and went to Paran. They took men with them from Paran and went to Egypt, to Pharaoh king of Egypt, who gave Hadad a house, ordered that he be given food, and gave him land.

1 Kings 11:19 Pharaoh liked Hadad so much that he gave him a wife, the sister of his own wife, Queen Tahpenes.

1 Kings 11:20 Tahpenes’s sister gave birth to Hadad’s son Genubath. Tahpenes herself weaned him in Pharaoh’s palace, and Genubath lived there along with Pharaoh’s sons.

1 Kings 11:21 When Hadad heard in Egypt that David rested with his fathers and that Joab, the commander of the army, was dead, Hadad said to Pharaoh, “Let me leave, so I may go to my own land.”

1 Kings 11:22 But Pharaoh asked him, “What do you lack here with me for you to want to go back to your own land?” “Nothing,” he replied, “but please let me leave.”

1 Kings 11:23 God raised up Rezon son of Eliada as an enemy against Solomon. Rezon had fled from his master King Hadadezer of Zobah

1 Kings 11:24 and gathered men to himself. He became leader of a raiding party when David killed the Zobaites. He went to Damascus, lived there, and became king in Damascus.

1 Kings 11:25 Rezon was Israel’s enemy throughout Solomon’s reign, adding to the trouble Hadad had caused. He reigned over Aram and loathed Israel.

1 Kings 11:26 Now Solomon’s servant, Jeroboam son of Nebat, was an Ephraimite from Zeredah. His widowed mother’s name was Zeruah. Jeroboam rebelled against Solomon,

1 Kings 11:27 and this is the reason he rebelled against the king: Solomon had built the supporting terraces and repaired the opening in the wall of the city of his father David.

1 Kings 11:28 Now the man Jeroboam was capable, and Solomon noticed the boy because he was getting things done. So he appointed him over the entire labor force of the house of Joseph.

1 Kings 11:29 During that time, the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite met Jeroboam on the road as Jeroboam came out of Jerusalem. Now Ahijah had wrapped himself with a new cloak, and the two of them were alone in the open field.

1 Kings 11:30 Then Ahijah took hold of the new cloak he had on, tore it into twelve pieces,

1 Kings 11:31 and said to Jeroboam, “Take ten pieces for yourself, for this is what Yahveh God of Israel says: ‘I am about to tear the kingdom out of Solomon’s hand. I will give you ten tribes,

1 Kings 11:32 but one tribe will remain his for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, the city I chose out of all the tribes of Israel.

1 Kings 11:33 For they have abandoned me; they have bowed down to Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, to Chemosh, the god of Moab, and to Milcom, the god of the Ammonites. They have not walked in my ways to do what is right in my sight and to carry out my statutes and my judgments as his father David did.

1 Kings 11:34 ” ‘However, I will not take the whole kingdom from him but will let him be ruler all the days of his life for the sake of my servant David, whom I chose and who kept my commands and my statutes.

1 Kings 11:35 I will take ten tribes of the kingdom from his son and give them to you.

1 Kings 11:36 I will give one tribe to his son, so that my servant David will always have a lamp before me in Jerusalem, the city I chose for myself to put my name there.

1 Kings 11:37 I will appoint you, and you will reign as king over all you want, and you will be king over Israel.

1 Kings 11:38 ” ‘After that, if you obey all I command you, walk in my ways, and do what is right in my sight in order to keep my statutes and my commands as my servant David did, I will be with you. I will build you a lasting dynasty just as I built for David, and I will give you Israel.

1 Kings 11:39 I will humble David’s descendants, because of their unfaithfulness, but not forever.'”

1 Kings 11:40 Therefore, Solomon tried to kill Jeroboam, but he fled to Egypt, to King Shishak of Egypt, where he remained until Solomon’s death.

1 Kings 11:41 The rest of the events of Solomon’s reign, along with all his accomplishments and his wisdom, are written in the Book of Solomon’s Events.

1 Kings 11:42 The length of Solomon’s reign in Jerusalem over all Israel totaled forty years.

1 Kings 11:43 Solomon rested with his fathers and was buried in the city of his father David. His son Rehoboam became king in his place.

links:

adversaries
Maranatha Daily Devotional – Tuesday, November 8, 2016
not wholeheartedly devoted – Devotions
Sheol in the Bible- The Old Testament Consensus
the collector reflects on human nature

The 1 KINGS shelf in Jeff’s library

1 Kings 10

1 Kings 10:1 The queen of Sheba heard about Solomon’s fame connected with the name of Yahveh and came to test him with riddles.

1 Kings 10:2 She came to Jerusalem with a very large show of wealth, with camels bearing spices, gold in great abundance, and precious stones. She came to Solomon and spoke to him about everything that was on her mind.

1 Kings 10:3 So Solomon answered all her questions; nothing was too difficult for the king to explain to her.

1 Kings 10:4 When the queen of Sheba observed all of Solomon’s wisdom, the palace he had built,

1 Kings 10:5 the food at his table, his servants’ residence, his attendants’ service and their attire, his cupbearers, and the burnt offerings he offered at Yahveh ‘s temple, there was no more breath[1] in her.

1 Kings 10:6 She said to the king, “The report I heard in my own land about your words and about your wisdom is true.

1 Kings 10:7 But I didn’t believe the reports until I came and saw with my own eyes. Indeed, I was not even told half. Your wisdom and prosperity far exceed the report I heard.

1 Kings 10:8 How happy are your men. How happy are these servants of yours, who always stand in your presence hearing your wisdom.

1 Kings 10:9 Blessed be Yahveh your God! He delighted in you and put you on the throne of Israel, because of Yahveh ‘s eternal love for Israel. He has made you king to carry out justice and righteousness.”

1 Kings 10:10 Then she gave the king four and a half tons of gold, a great quantity of spices, and precious stones. Never again did such a quantity of spices arrive as those the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.

1 Kings 10:11 In addition, Hiram’s fleet that carried gold from Ophir brought from Ophir a large quantity of almug wood and precious stones.

1 Kings 10:12 The king made the almug wood into steps for Yahveh ‘s temple and the king’s palace and into lyres and harps for the singers. Never before did such almug wood arrive, and the like has not been seen again.

1 Kings 10:13 King Solomon gave the queen of Sheba her every desire– whatever she asked — besides what he had given her out of his royal bounty. Then she, along with her servants, returned to her own land.

1 Kings 10:14 The weight of gold that came to Solomon annually was twenty-five tons,

1 Kings 10:15 besides what came from merchants, traders’ merchandise, and all the Arabian kings and governors of the land.

1 Kings 10:16 King Solomon made two hundred large shields of hammered gold; fifteen pounds of gold went into each shield.

1 Kings 10:17 He made three hundred small shields of hammered gold; nearly four pounds of gold went into each shield. The king put them in the House of the Forest of Lebanon.

1 Kings 10:18 The king also made a large ivory throne and overlaid it with fine gold.

1 Kings 10:19 The throne had six steps; there was a rounded top at the back of the throne, armrests on either side of the seat, and two lions standing beside the armrests.

1 Kings 10:20 Twelve lions were standing there on the six steps, one at each end. Nothing like it had ever been made in any other kingdom.

1 Kings 10:21 All of King Solomon’s drinking cups were gold, and all the utensils of the House of the Forest of Lebanon were pure gold. There was no silver, since it was considered as nothing in Solomon’s time,

1 Kings 10:22 for the king had ships of Tarshish at sea with Hiram’s fleet, and once every three years the ships of Tarshish would arrive bearing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks.

1 Kings 10:23 King Solomon surpassed all the kings of the land in riches and in wisdom.

1 Kings 10:24 The whole land wanted an audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom that God had put in his heart.

1 Kings 10:25 Every man would bring his annual tribute: items of silver and gold, clothing, weapons, spices, and horses and mules.

1 Kings 10:26 Solomon accumulated 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horsemen and stationed them in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem.

1 Kings 10:27 The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and he made cedar as abundant as sycamore in the Judean foothills.

1 Kings 10:28 Solomon’s horses were imported from Egypt and Kue. The king’s traders bought them from Kue at the going price.

1 Kings 10:29 A chariot was imported from Egypt for fifteen pounds of silver, and a horse for nearly four pounds. In the same way, they exported them to all the kings of the Hittites and to the kings of Aram through their agents.

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[1] רוּחַ = breath, wind. 1 Kings 10:5; 18:12, 45; 19:11; 21:5; 22:21, 22, 23, 24.

links:

Maranatha Daily Devotional – Monday, November 7, 2016
Maranatha Daily Devotional -Sunday, November 6, 2016
taking her breath away
truly blessed – Devotions

The 1 KINGS shelf in Jeff’s library

1 Kings 9

1 Kings 9:1 When Solomon finished building the temple of Yahveh, the royal palace, and all that Solomon desired to do,

1 Kings 9:2 Yahveh appeared to Solomon a second time just as he had appeared to him at Gibeon.

1 Kings 9:3 Yahveh said to him: I have heard your prayer and petition you have made before me. I have consecrated this temple you have built, to put my name there forever; my eyes and my heart will be always there.

1 Kings 9:4 As for you, if you walk before me as your father David walked, with a heart of integrity and in what is right, doing everything I have commanded you, and if you keep my statutes and ordinances,

1 Kings 9:5 I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised your father David: You will never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.

1 Kings 9:6 If you or your sons turn away from following me and do not keep my commands — my statutes that I have set before you — and if you go and serve other gods and bow in worship to them,

1 Kings 9:7 I will cut off Israel from the land I gave them, and I will reject the temple I have sanctified for my name. Israel will become an object of scorn and ridicule among all the peoples.

1 Kings 9:8 Though this temple is now exalted, everyone who passes by will be appalled and will scoff. They will say: Why did Yahveh do this to this land and this temple?

1 Kings 9:9 Then they will say: Because they abandoned Yahveh their God who brought their ancestors out of the land of Egypt. They held strongly to other gods and bowed in worship to them and served them. Because of this, Yahveh brought all this ruin on them.

1 Kings 9:10 At the end of twenty years during which Solomon had built the two houses, Yahveh ‘s temple and the royal palace —

1 Kings 9:11 King Hiram of Tyre having supplied him with cedar and cypress logs and gold for his every wish — King Solomon gave Hiram twenty towns in the land of Galilee.

1 Kings 9:12 So Hiram went out from Tyre to look over the towns that Solomon had given him, but he was not pleased with them.

1 Kings 9:13 So he said, “What are these towns you’ve given me, my brother?” So, he called them the Land of Cabul, as they are still called today.

1 Kings 9:14 Now Hiram had sent the king nine thousand pounds of gold.

1 Kings 9:15 This is the account of the forced labor that King Solomon had imposed to build Yahveh ‘s temple, his own palace, the supporting terraces, the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.

1 Kings 9:16 Pharaoh king of Egypt had attacked and captured Gezer. He then burned it, killed the Canaanites who lived in the city, and gave it as a dowry to his daughter, Solomon’s wife.

1 Kings 9:17 Then Solomon rebuilt Gezer, Lower Beth-horon,

1 Kings 9:18 Baalath, Tamar in the Wilderness of the land,

1 Kings 9:19 all the storage cities that belonged to Solomon, the chariot cities, the cavalry cities, and whatever Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, Lebanon, or anywhere else in the land of his dominion.

1 Kings 9:20 As for all the peoples who remained of the Amorites, Hethites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, who were not Israelites —

1 Kings 9:21 their descendants who remained in the land after them, those whom the Israelites were unable to set apart for destruction[1] — Solomon imposed forced labor on them; it is still this way today.

1 Kings 9:22 But Solomon did not consign the Israelites to slavery; they were soldiers, his servants, his commanders, his captains, and commanders of his chariots and his cavalry.

1 Kings 9:23 These were the deputies who were over Solomon’s work: 550 who supervised the people doing the work.

1 Kings 9:24 Pharaoh’s daughter moved from the city of David to the house that Solomon had built for her; he then built the terraces.

1 Kings 9:25 Three times a year Solomon offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings on the altar he had built for Yahveh, and he burned incense with them in Yahveh ‘s presence. So, he completed the temple.

1 Kings 9:26 King Solomon put together a fleet of ships at Ezion-geber, which is near Eloth on the shore of the Red Sea in the land of Edom.

1 Kings 9:27 With the fleet, Hiram sent his servants, experienced seamen, along with Solomon’s servants.

1 Kings 9:28 They went to Ophir and acquired gold there — sixteen tons — and delivered it to Solomon.

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[1] חָרָם = set apart for destruction. 1 Kings 9:21.

links:

his standard of integrity – Devotions
Maranatha Daily Devotional -Saturday, November 5, 2016
no carte blanche
taking her breath away

The 1 KINGS shelf in Jeff’s library