Questions about 1 Kings

Here then Solomon was king over all Israel, and, accordingly, the honour and glory and administration of his kingdom come before us in 1 Kings 4, as well as his great wisdom, wealth, and glory.

1 Kings details the public history of the kingdom, but more especially that of Israel after the disruption of the united kingdom. The glory of Solomon's reign for forty years, and its sorrowful decline, form an instructive page of Jewish history.

The first book of the Kings contains the record of the reign of Solomon and the glory of his great kingdom of peace. But that glory soon passed away through the failure of Solomon and the great united kingdom becomes a divided kingdom. In the last six chapters we read of Elijah, the Tishbite, the great prophet of God and his activity during the reign of wicked Ahab. We make the following division:

Here we have the reign of Solomon, the establishment of Israel in peace, and the building of the temple, the figure of the great Son of David. This fails, looked at historically, in Rehoboam; and then the book of Kings is the history, not of Judah, but of Israel, with sufficient notices of Judah to carry on the history. You get the intervention of God by prophets in Elijah and Elisha, in mercy, in the midst of Israel, who had left the temple, one being a testimony to Israel on the ground of their responsibility, the other in resurrection-power.

These embrace a period of the history of Israel from B.C. 1015 to B.C. 562. They do not give the commencement of the kingdom under Saul, nor the history of David, but begin with the reign of Solomon. In the headings of these books the A.V. adds "Commonly called the 'Third Book' and 'Fourth Book' of the Kings" (copied probably from the LXX or the Vulgate, for this addition is not in the Hebrew), the two books of Samuel being the First and Second. The kingdom was at its height in the reign of Solomon, but because of his sin the kingdom was divided, and after many warnings from God through His prophets, to both Israel and Judah, both kingdoms were brought to a close, the people being carried away into captivity, and Jerusalem and the temple destroyed. See ISRAEL, JUDAH, and the various Kings The books of the Kings differ from the books of the Chronicles in that the former treat of kingly power established by God in the nation of Israel; (and, though it failed and apostatised, the will of God in its establishment will be carried out when Christ administers the government of God in power:) whereas the Chronicles are principally occupied with the house of David, and God's promises concerning it.

The Books of Kings contain the history of the establishment of the kingdom in Israel under this responsibility, that of its fall, of the longsuffering of God, of God's testimony amid the ruin which flowed from the unfaithfulness of the first king, and finally that of the execution of the judgment, a longer delay of which would but have falsified God's own character, and the testimony that should be given to the holiness of that character. Such delay would have borne a false testimony with respect to that which God is.

We shall see that, after Solomon's reign, the greater part of the narrative refers to the testimony given by the prophets Elijah and Elisha in the midst of Israel, and in general to that kingdom which had entirely departed from God. Little is said of Judah before the complete ruin of Israel. After this the ruin of Judah, brought on by the iniquity of their kings, is not long delayed, although there were moments of restoration.

In the introduction to the books of Samuel we stated that the first and second books of the Kings are called in the Greek version of the Old Testament the third and fourth books of Kingdoms and in the Latin version the third and fourth books of the Kings. The two books, which were originally undivided and formed one book, contain the history of Israel under the government of the kings.

The BOOKS OF KINGS show us the history of the Sanctuary-Throne in Israel, with Prophet, Priest and King as its interpreters among men: these, in the offices they fill, and in their own failure to fill them, pointing forward to the Three-fold Anointed One, whose glory it will be to sustain all these relationships in unbroken, perfect unity of power and blessing. Of these books — Samuel shows us the sources and beginning of human sovereignty in Israel. Kings, the progress of the kingdom: its increase then its division and internal strife to final dissolution.

The first book of Kings pursues the history of the kingdom, not only to the division under Rehoboam, but to the death of Jehoshaphat and the reign of Ahaziah. A design similar to 1 and 2 Samuel pervades it and its successor. So in the Septuagint and in the Vulgate they are together entitled the Four books of Kings. But they essentially differ from all other annals, in that prophets in this case were the historians: a character which rationalism does its utmost to doubt, darken, and destroy, but in vain. Only Christ stands, and will, in every relation in which the first man failed; and as king it will be displayed power and glory on earth as in the heavens. Who but an unbeliever cannot discern a greater than David in Him Who, delivered from the strivings of the people, is made Head of the nations?

The first part, 1 Kings 1 and 1 Kings 2, tells us of the proclamation of the throne and the principle upon which it is established: judgment executed upon those who had dishonoured God under the reign of David.