The Book That God Wrote, 1 Kings Part 2

Hello there, March is almost over, I'm just barely getting two entries in this month, which is my average rate I suppose. Today we get to learn about all of the chaos born from the death of Solomon. We also learn about a great character I never really knew about before, he's this nutty prophet named Ahijah ... okay well he's only nutty because I indulged and made him that way, but there's gotta be a reason I was inspired to lean that way don't you think? Anyway, read on, read on.

Manic Men of God:

If you remember back to the last entry, Solomon had pissed off God pretty fierce by worshiping those godless ... um gods ... the likes of Moloch and Baal. God said that he'd punish Solomon later, like way later, like after he dies. Oh that's cool right? So before Solomon dies he notices this cat named Jeroboam, he's building a fence or something, and Solomon's so damn impressed with his work that he puts him in charge of all the forced labor. That's right folks, Jeroboam was a slave drivin man, and apparently a damn good one. Anyway, one day Jeroboam is strolling around the wilderness and he comes across a prophet named Ahijah wearing a brand new cloak. "Hail prophet," Jeroboam calls, and to prove that most men of God are completely batshit crazy, Ahijah's response is tearing his beautiful new cloak into twelve pieces, which I suppose can be considered as a greeting, then he throws some of the pieces at Jeroboam and screams, "Take ten pieces for yourself, for that is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says (11:31)."
Jeroboam cautiously picks up the strips of cloth from his feet, "I see, is there anything else the Lord says?"
"Yes!" Ahijah screams, he does a few cartwheels and then continues while trying to stand on his head. "The God of Israel says: 'See, I am going to tear the kingdom out of Solomon's hand and give you ten tribes. But for the sake of my servant David and the city of Jerusalem ... he will have one tribe (11:31-32)." He crashes to the ground getting dirt all over his now uncloaked body, "Get it?"
"Indeed," Jeroboam says, "well if that's all, then I'll be on my way, those slaves aren't gonna drive themselves you know." And so he takes off, leaving the prophet of the lord doing jumping jacks and singing the Song of of Moses (See Deut Ch 32).

Hey God, hi it's Zach, I have a question for you: What about the twelfth tribe? See, you say often in this section that you will give Jeroboam ten tribes and you'll leave one tribe for the House of David ... I mean, I hate to imply that the creator of all things can't do simple arithmetic ... but um, that only adds up to eleven tribes. Are you excluding the Levites perhaps? I know they didn't get any land allocated to them since they're the priestly types, trust me you went into enough detail about that in Exodus through Joshua, but does that mean the Levites are split between these two partitions? Anyway, just curious, hit me up in the comments if you have time, thanks. Anywho, when Solomon hears that Jeroboam is going to take 5/6 of his kingdom away from him, he freaks and decides to have the slave master killed. Well it being God's will and everything, it doesn't really stick, and Jeroboam is able to escape to Egypt where he stays until after Solomon's death.

Now as we know (provided you've read the Bible, or my last entry), after Solomon dies his son Rehoboam takes over as the king of Israel, and apparently he's a total douche. See, Jeroboam bombs out of Egypt to see Rehoboam--man, what is it with these names? I wonder what 'boam' means? Anyway, to save me some sanity and make it easier on all of us to read, let's just drop that 'boam' nonsense shall we? So Jero bombs down to see King Reho to make nice with him, and to pick his mind a little on politics. Specifically, he wants to know if Solomon's intolerance of Jeho and his people (the slaves I guess, it doesn't really specify) will carry over to the new regime. "Good question," Reho muses, "let me think on it, come back in three days." So Reho consults with his advisers, the elders of the court basically, they tell him to let Jeho alone, that if he's nice to them that they'll happily serve him as the new King. Reho doesn't like this, make nice with the douche that's been prophesied to take away ten tribes? Fuck that. So then he asks his drinking buddies, the people the Bible describes as "the young men who had grown up with him (12:10)," and they say that he should tell them, and I quote: "My little finger is thicker than my father's waist. My father laid on you a heavy yoke; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips, I will scourge you with scorpions (12:10)." Really, your little finger is thicker than Solomon's waist? Dude you must be one huge mother fucker, that's like, man Goliath's got nothing on you. And let me just tell you, whips are pretty convenient for keeping slave labor in check, it's the tried and true method that's worked for centuries. Switching over to scorpions now is going to be a managerial nightmare, trust me. Seriously, just trying to figure out the mechanics of that makes my head spin.

And so that's what Reho tells Jero and his people, he decides to side with his douche friends rather than the wise and humble elders. First mistake asshole, you should read your fucking history. Do you know how Israel even became a country? Yeah, slaves in Egypt, and all it took to get them out was a leader with God on his side ... and that's exactly what Jero has, a mass of slaves and God on his side. And King Reho's snarky bullshit about the scorpions is enough to send Jero over the edge. This starts this gigantic chain reaction (that I have yet to see the end of), leading to a seemingly unending civil war between Jero leading the majority of Israel against those loyal to the House of David. Can you believe that douche Reho is a descendant of David? It boggles the mind it does. Anyway, the long and short of it is that two countries form: ten tribes continue to be the Kingdom of Israel, while Reho and the House of David hold the state of Judah as their own. So there you go, the promised land is splintered into two countries: Israel and Judah. I guess the dream is over, I suppose it was inevitable, but still, I can't help but feel a little bummed about that.

The Golden Calves and the Man of God:

In order to make his side feel a little more unique, I guess, Jero gets the bright idea that he'll make some golden calves for his people to worship. Because that went over so well in Exodus, what with the whole Moses forcing ash water down people's throats and killing thousands of Israelites. Not only that, but Jero decides that, hey, anybody can be a priest, why do Levites have all the fun? Anybody who wants to be a priest should be able to be a priest. This sounds reasonable right? That is until you realize that by "anybody" Jero basically just means his friends. The only other authority in Israel besides the king are the priests, those who have a direct connection to God, and if he can stack that deck in his favor, well then he's set right? Sure except for the fact that this pisses God right the fuck off. He's breaking the first two commandments right there and then breaking a bunch of God's other OCD laws. Even worse, Jero's making sacrifices on any ole day he wants ... that's just fucking unacceptable, God is all about following impossibly asinine rules with zero room for interpretation or personal expression right? Something had to be done about this.

So a man of God shows up one random Thursday when Jero happened to be sacrificing a ram to his golden calf ... which just plain sounds wrong. The man of God calls out to the altar, that's right Jero is not even considered good enough to talk to, the altar is rebuked instead. "O altar, altar!" he cries, "This is what the Lord says: 'A son named Josiah will be born to the house of David. On you he will sacrifice the priests of the high places who now make offerings here, and human bones will be burned on you (13:2).'" That's pretty hardcore, but Jero isn't too happy being rebuked-er, I mean, having his altar rebuked by some crazy man, so he calls out to his guards for them to seize this man of God. Ugh, I hate it when the Bible doesn't give important people names. You'd think this awesome firebrand of God would have a name, but no. I'm gonna call him Max, okay, so Jero calls out for Max to be captured, but as he points to him his hand shrivels up like a raisin and the altar he's standing at explodes into ashes. That changes the king's tune considerably, he goes from "Seize that asshole" to "Oh Max, please forgive me, pray to God to fix my hand, pleease?" in like two seconds flat. And you know what? Max is cool enough to do it, he prays for Jero's hand and like magic it unshrinkifies. "Dude you are awesome," Jero beams and pats Max on the back with his brand new hand, "you've got to come back to my palace, my concubines will cook you a bomb ass feast and I'll give you a present."
"No," Max says, breaking free from Jero's uncomfortable invasion of his personal space, "even if you gave me half of your stuff I wouldn't go home with you. Er, nothing personal, just commands from God you understand."
"Of course," Jero says, trying to hide his obvious disappointment, "well, take care then." And so they parted ways.

Max wasn't bullshitting King Jero though, God really did tell him not to eat or drink anything while he was there, and that he had to choose a different route on his way back. Now here's where the story gets even crazier ... I know right? So while Max is on his way back home, taking a different route of course, an old prophet hears about Max and what he said to the king. So this old man, who I'll call grandpa Prophy from now on, jumps on his donkey and heads off to intercept Max. Prophy finds Max resting under a tree, "Hey there, are you the man of God that rebuked the king?"
"I am."
"Come home with me, my concubines will make a bomb ass feast for you."
"Sorry I can't, nothing personal, but God's orders you know. I can't turn back nor can I eat or drink anything."
"Oh," Prophy says, "you know I'm a prophet as well. An angel of the Lord visited me and told me to bring you home and feed you."
"Really? Word, in that case I'm starving," and so Max went home with grampa Prophy and ate at his table.

So if you're wondering why I didn't mention this angel visitation earlier ... well it's because it didn't happen. Prophy was completely full of shit. According to the Bible he actually was a prophet, but he wasn't visited by an angel. Why in the hell would he do this? Why would a prophet of God intentionally and blatantly fuck over another man of God. Was it because Max was prophesying in his territory? I didn't know prophets were so viscous. Anyway, if this old asshole had any motivation, good or bad, the Bible doesn't say what it is, but it does describe the consequences. Hey, here's a fun game we can play, who do you think God will punish for this? Will he punish Max for disobeying his command? Or will he punish Prophy for lying to a man of God and in turn manipulating him into breaking God's command? If you guessed that he'd punish Max, with extreme prejudice, then you guessed right. In fact, God speaks through Prophy to let Max know it. Seriously in the middle of dinner Prophy is all like "Oh shit, God just spoke to me, he just said you're fucked for not following his commands."
"But you told me that an angel visited you and cleared that up for me."
"Oh look at the time," Prophy yawns stretching, "looks like it's bedtime for me. Have a good trip back home." And so Prophy loads Max on a donkey and sends him on his way, "Goodbye!"

I know, this is fucked up right? It gets worse, while Max is traveling back home he's attacked by a lion and killed. Man, biblical times were crazy, can you imagine walking home from work and being attacked by a fucking lion? So hardcore, anyway, the lion doesn't eat him, nor does the donkey run away. No, the animals just stand next to Max's body, just watching over it I guess. Eventually word travels back to the old prophet that there's a body in the road and a donkey and a lion standing by it, and the man has a feeling that it's Max. So, he saddles up his own donkey and heads out to see for himself, and so he comes upon the body of Max, the man of God from Judah, and he sees that the lion had not eaten the body nor killed the donkey. The lion just sat there, watching Prophy as he placed Max's body on the waiting donkey and took him back to be buried. There is something extremely chilling about this to me, there's something far scarier about a lion that will coldly kill a prophet and just wait. A lion that kills a man and eats him is just an animal acting through instinct. A lion that kills a man and then just sits there waiting for the dude that lied to his victim? It's like this lion is one of God's ninja assassins, he wasn't given clearance to kill the old man, but he sure wasn't going to let him feel like he got off scot free. Does anyone know the symbolic significance of the lion here? I'd be interested to hear what others think about this one.

Chaos in the Old World:

Hey guess what, here's another story about Ahijah, yay! King Jero's son is sick and so he decides that he should ask God what's what, and to do that he'll have to ask a prophet, like Ahijah. Thus he has his wife disguise herself and go ask Ahijah about their son. I guess he thinks that Ahijah wont help them because they have forsaken God. He seems to forget that God is fucking God, and you can't pull a fast one on him. The disguise was also completely unnecessary because Ahijah was blind ... crazy and blind, that's an awesome combination. But it also didn't matter because, even though he was blind, he had God to give him the skinny. So God comes to him and says, "Jeroboam's wife is coming to ask you about her son, for he is ill, and you are to give her such and such an answer (14:5)." Wait, are you serious? Of all the completely OCD asinine details God lays down to his followers he chooses now to not give a fuck? "Yeah just tell her something, I don't really care." I cannot believe the God just said "such and such," my world is askew. Where was this lazy writer in the previous books?

Anywho, the second Jero's wife walks into Ahijah's tent he drops from the ceiling with a yelp, "Hey, why are you wearing a disguise Jero's wifey?"
"I uh..."
"So," Abijah muses, while unsuccessfully trying to balance on one foot, "what can I do for the queen of Israel, hmm? You want to know about your son yes?"
"I ... Yes, how did you-"
"Yeah, he's going to die," Ahijah collapses on the ground, and starts scooting around in circles, "sorry. If you actually worshiped the one true God of Israel you'd know exactly how I know what I know ... and you'd also have a not dead son."
"He's already dead?" she gasps.
"Oh no, not yet," he flips over laying flat on his back, "but he will be. The second you cross the threshold of your home he'll die, so it's contingent on you really. I guess if you never went back home he'd live forever, but you wont do that will you? You'll want to say goodbye to him, but you see how that's impossible don't you?"
"You're a monster," she sobs and runs from Ahijah's tent with her hands over her face. He lays on the floor until he can no longer hear her footsteps and then starts screeching out car alarm noises at the ceiling. He does this a few hours before falling asleep to dreams of carrots. See God, this is why you have to be specific, this is what telling your addle brained prophets "to just wing it" gets you.

As Ahijah prophesied, Reho's son died the second his mother crossed the threshold. This was Reho's only heir meaning that his family line was no longer royalty. What follows from this point for quite some time is complete and utter chaos. Remember that civil war I mentioned before? Yeah, I don't think it ever ended, and here the Bible just starts listing all the different kings of Israel and Judah, how long the reined, if they were wicked (most of them were) or good (like one or two of them were) and anything else they accomplished. I finally see why this book is called Kings now, it's because this book lists about every damn king that Israel and Judah ever had. One weird thing, instead of just having some standard system of dates (Which I know there's a Jewish calendar, but it may not have existed all the way back then), what they'll say instead is put years in terms of another king. For example, "In the twentieth year of Jeroboam king of Israel, Asa became king of Judah (15:9)," or "Nadab son of Jeroboam become king of Israel in the second year of Asa king of Judah (15:25)." Aren't you glad we number are fucking years the way we do? Otherwise we'd be in the second year of Obama, president of the United States of America, actually that has a pretty nice ring to it.

The book goes through a number of kings before they get to anything really worth sharing again, but there are a few things that caught my eye, i.e. some things I thought were funny. In the entry for Rehoboam, it started listing all of the detestable things he did during his reign, one of which was that "There were even male shrine prostitutes in the land (14:24)." Oh my God, male prostitutes. You know shit is bad when this dude shows up.

So I guess female prostitutes are okay then? No male prostitutes though, that's too much. Let's see what else, in the entry about Asa it says "In his old age, however, his feet became diseased (15:23)." Oh really? And that's it, the next sentence says he died. So his feet got grody and then he died, that's cool I guess. One king, Zimri, only reigned for seven days. Like I said, it was complete chaos back then, what with gigolos, rampant athlete's foot, and weekly king switch ups, it's a wonder the people of God survived past 1 Kings.

One final thing I feel I have to say before I go, every single entry about a king says something along the lines of "As for the other events of Asa's reign, all his achievements, all he did and the cities he built, are they not written in the annals of the kings of Judah (15:23)?" I don't know, are they? Stop asking me that. I know, I made this joke last time, but I swear I couldn't help myself, every time I read this I would say "I don't know, are they?" I know, I'm fucking hilarious aren't I? Yeah I get it, it's a rhetorical question but still. Do these annals refer to 1 and 2 Chronicles perhaps? I guess I'll find out. After this first listing of kings we finally get to talk about one of my favorite cats from the Bible, Elijah. As for the events of Elijah's life, all of his achievements, all he did and the badassery he practiced, are they not written in the blog post The Book That God Wrote, 1 Kings Part 3?
Why yes, yes they are.