Alright, wonderful, our prayer is done, so let's begin lesson eight. It's entitled Royal Infidelity, that we're going to be looking for at Kings Rehoboam to Jehoshaphat. I should say, lesson eight, which is now in the next two lessons, nine and ten, as we conclude this Bible study, are going to be looking at the divided kingdom years. So all the good times are kind of behind us, right?
We're going to be looking at these royal infidelity is kind of this idea of the pendulum swinging from good and bad kings, and even good kings doing bad things. And even though some really bad kings like Manasseh doing some good things, so it's kind of like a, yeah, just this pendulum swinging of royal infidelity is, and we're going to be looking at chapters 10 through 20 right now. Like I said, from King Rehoboam Solomon's son, all the way to Jehoshaphat. Alright, so a couple of things I want to share with you as we begin this next section of First and Second Chronicles, really everything from First Chronicles, well remember just trip down memory lane, I guess.
First Chronicles one through nine were the genealogies, and then First Chronicles 10 all the way through Second Chronicles nine is really focusing on the David Kingdom, really with David and Solomon. Those are the golden years, the high point when things are going really well, the David Covenant was established, the temples built by Solomon, things are great. Now, this second half of the these books chapters 10 all the way to the end is going to be looking at the divided kingdom. Now the divided kingdom runs from 930 to 586 BC, so give or take 250 years more or less, something like that, almost on the top.
So 930 is when Solomon dies, and his son Rehoboam becomes king, we'll talk about him just momentarily, and 586 is when the Babylonian kingdom, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, comes into town, squishes the city like a bug, and it's really ugly stuff, we'll look at all that in lesson 10 or final lesson, because he's actually has three waves of conquest, and we'll see all that in due time. But as you can see in the notes here, I also draw down to 538 BC, because Chronicles ends on this high point, or this note of hope where the exiles come back with King Cyrus's edict, the famous edict allowing the Jews to return and rebuild. So that's what we're going to be looking at here in this lesson in the next two lessons from 930 to 586, and then just this note of hope here after the 70 years of exile took place. So the things that I want to share with you have, give or take four different points I want to share with you before we dive into King Rehoboam, and this is going to be important for all these three next three lessons.
So what are the differences here between Chronicles and Kings? Because there are differences, too many people think, oh, it's just retelling the same story, and it is kind of that remember, this is kind of a theological, the chronicler is giving a theological commentary on what happened during these years. So I want to kick this off with a quote here from the Catholic Interaction Deal Testament from Bergman-Pietri. Excuse me, I beg your pardon, I was sick all last week on recording this, so hopefully this goes really well.
So part of me if I have a sniffle here and I beg your pardon. Here's what the Catholic Interaction to the Old Testament says. After the death of Solomon, the chronicler retells the history of the Southern Kingdom from Rehoboam to Kings Edicaia. Unlike the author of Kings, the chronicler pays no attention to the Northern Kingdom.
Since it does not partake of the divided covenant, it is not theologically significant. I'm going to read that line again because that's really important, so I want to share this quote with you. Since the North does not partake of the divided covenant, it is not theologically significant. So this is a big difference here between, let me finish the quote then I'll say a couple things.
It goes on. Along similar lines, since the prophet Elijah and Alicia administered in the North, the chronicler scarcely mentions them. Honestly, Elijah's mentioned only one time, Alicia, not at all. Instead, he lengthens the accounts of the reigns of the Judean Kings often but not always with positive material about their military strength and religious reforms.
Material apparently emitted in kings, and that's the end of the quote. All right, so a couple quick things about this quotation here that I would comment on. First, I already shared with Elijah's only mentioned once, Alicia never at all, unless I'm missing something right now, but I think that's the case. And this line that I read to you twice, the North doesn't partake of the divided covenant, so it's not theologically significant.
And that's by and large true because not only do they separate like politically from the Southern Kingdom, which of course wasn't God's providence due to the sense of Solomon, but on their own, they divorced themselves, separated themselves, from God himself through the rejection of the Mosaic law and the temple liturgy and all that kind of stuff. So yes, the North is not theologically significant. However, I would just simply add, I'm going to point out a couple of different times here. There is a faithful remnant of the North that does come down to be faithful to God and they relocate their refugees.
They flee down south to Judah. So we're going to see this very hopeful, very beautiful thing. And a lot of times students will ask me, all right, well, when you look at the split of the kingdoms here, did everybody in the North followed the apostasy of King Jeroboam? Did everyone in the North follow all the sins of the Golden Cabs and all this kind of stuff?
And the answer is no. The answer is there are many people, probably a remnant from each of those 10 northern tribes that belong to the northern kingdom. They came down and relocated in order to be in communion with David and in communion with God. And that's really awesome.
So the North is significant in as much as the faithful remnant come down to Judah. And what we'll see in that respect, the Judean kings are still kings of all Judah, sorry to say all Israel. Remember that very important line we talked about in previous lessons. He's the king of all Israel, and that's still going to be the case for the faithful remnant.
So I wanted to share that. Okay, the other thing is this quote here from the introduction said to us and taught us that the chronicler is going to focus a lot of positive material. And that's true. You're going to see a lot of content here in chronicles that you're not going to find in kings.
And that's always interesting. If you have the time to read the parallel accounts and the notes I gave you in your commentary will do this as well. But in the notes I gave you when we're looking at a particular king here in chronicles, I gave you the parallel passages in second kings. So if you have the time to read them side by side, that's going to be really great.
But it says here, so okay, a lot of positive material 100% and religious reforms. And that's another element that the chronicles gives us that you don't find in kings, because in kings the two major reformers are really Hezekiah and Josiah. They're awesome. They're great kings.
But you also see here there are other kings who had some reforms of their own that you wouldn't know about. Otherwise, like King Azah will talk about here in this lesson. King Jehoshapha is our last king. We'll talk about this lesson.
And then also it's cool. Chronicles tells us that King Manasseh, who was the super ungodly wicked wicked son of Hezekiah, he was so bad, but apparently at the end of his life, Chronicles tells us, he repented. He repented and he came back to the Lord after his own personal exile when he hits rock bottom. And so that's pretty awesome, right?
Manasseh was so wicked he still came back to the Lord. And that's a very positive aspect right there. In terms of religious reform himself, the kingdom has gone too far. They really can turn the ship around that quickly.
They end up hitting Babylonian difficulties. Let's put it that way. All right. So that's the first thing I want to talk about.
Just differences between the accounts of chronicle and kings. The other thing that's important, various commentaries, will share with us that the chronicleer does assume that we know the entire story from kings. All right. We're familiar with kings.
It seems pretty evident that the books of First and Second Kings and Samuel for that matter are part of a source material in addition to many other documents that we have lost over the years, as we talked about in previous lessons. So he's very much, oh, he assumes and prisms that we know the whole historical narrative here, right? So what is he going to focus on? Remember, he's telling the story from a theological commentary.
So he's going to focus the chronicleer will focus on these various kings fidelity to three things, fidelity to God, fidelity to the Davidic Covenant and God's Covenant and also fidelity to the temple worship system. So inasmuch as the kings were faithful to God, the Covenant and the temple, they get a lot of good text, they get a lot of airtime. But also inasmuch as they break their fidelity to God, the Covenant and the temple and then of course consequences happen, that's going to be reviewed as well. But the real central emphasis here is on fidelity to God.
That's what the king is supposed to do, right? All right. So on that point here, let me read another quote from the New Bar Bible this time, which says the writer, the chronicler, can find himself to reviewing the history of the temple and of the liturgical institutions established by David and Solomon and underlining the fact that those remained in place despite often being at risk. The kings who caused disunion between north and south, for example, Raya Baum, or who favored idolatry, for example, Ahas, are painted in dark tones, whereas those who encouraged the correct united form of worship in the temple of Jerusalem are exalted and praised.
In this book, each monarch is approved or censured according to how he himself acted in accordance with the doctrine of personal retribution, so much stressed by those who returned from exile. In quotes. Now I'm going to talk about this chronicler's message here on those who were returning from exile in just a minute. But a couple of things here.
So as the the bar Bible points out, the chronicler is focusing on fidelity to God or infidelity to God, which a lot of these kings can have a little bit of both, honestly, is that pendulum swing, right? Of infidelity like I was saying before. And this other idea, which I mentioned, I believe in the introduction to these books, is idea of personal retribution. So what the king does affects the people, you know, that's important, affects himself, obviously, personally, right?
Where if you're wicked, God is going to chastise you, discipline you to turn around. But the effect of the king trickles down to the people. And that's really important, I think, for every nation, if you have good leadership, the people will thrive. If you have wicked corrupt, self-serving evil leadership, you better believe that people are going to suffer as well.
So we really need to pray for our leaders, wherever you are, whoever you are listening to this, whatever country you belong to, you got to pray for your leaders because we need holy righteous leaders who follow God's laws at minimum natural, all right, but ultimately God's law. So that's an idea that we're going to see here as well in these discussions on the kings. Another thing to keep in mind as we begin the divided kingdom is that this is another presentation of a fall from grace. So if you think back to the covenants that God made with Adam and Israel, so God needs to covenant with Adam, right?
And things are going well, but then Adam has a test and he fails. And so he falls from grace, right? He plunges humanity, all of his posterity into a state of spiritual exile, which we call original sin. And then Israel, as a nation, was a son of God and so Israel is also a son of God at the national level is God's people.
And they had a covenant with the Lord at Mount Sinai and then they had a test, golden calf to begin with, and then many tests after that leading up to Volpeor and number 25 with a second generation. And they failed, right? They failed. They fell from grace and it was pretty ugly as well.
Same thing with the kings. So I would actually start with Solomon. Solomon himself, as the son of David and the king, the king has a covenant with God, and then he fails. He fell from grace.
And we didn't talk about that here in chronicle. I mentioned it was kind of briefly. I spent a lot of time in the Bible study on First and Second Kings. I believe it's lesson four of the First and Second Kings where he talked about Solomon's fall from grace.
So he had a covenant with God, he had a test and he failed miserably and falls from grace with the people of Israel as well led by the Israelite kings, the Judean kings specifically. They are unable to be faithful to the covenant and so they fall from grace. And so all of these covenants here, whether it's Adam or Israel or even David, remember, I spent a lot of time, gosh, was it last week, I think, or last time, we talked about how these covenants have all these creation motifs, right? Because obviously Adam is the imediator with the original creation, Israel and the Mosaic covenant brings about a new creation, which of course is amplified in the David Covenant.
It's all this creation and fall from grace motif. Same thing here with these kings. And on that point here, let me just share a quick quote. It's only a one sentence from Han who says, if Solomon's reign is represented as a new creation in Second Chronicles one through nine, which we discussed over the past couple of lessons, the events that follow his death can be understood only as a new fall from grace.
So that's really interesting here. And that's a very consistent thing that you have God establishes the covenant, makes his children, his people, and new creation, and then they fall from grace. You see that with Adam, with Israel, with the David kings, even Jesus is just going to reverse all of that himself. And that's a Bible study on the temptation narrative which we just can't get into.
I believe I talked about that in the introduction of salvation history course though, if you want to check that out. Alright, last point here before we dive into Rehoboam is the chronicler's message. So just as we saw up above in that quote from the bar Bible, the chronicler's message to his contemporaries who are people who are rebuilding the city and rebuilding the temple and trying to rebuild their lives as God's people, right? His message to his contemporaries is learn the lesson of the kings that preceded the exile and don't do what they did in terms of evil, but mimic or imitate what they did in terms of good, you know, be faithful to the law, be faithful to God, be faithful to his covenant, seek the Lord with all your heart and all your soul, walk with him if you want his blessings, if you want prosperity, if you want to have peace and rest all about you, there's only one way to get it to mess to be faithful to God, right?
And then if you don't seek the Lord, if you go after the gods of all the various nations, if you break his law and you commit injustices and violence and, you know, all kinds of sexual morality into privates and so on and so forth, you're going to be exiled again and it's not going to go well. So all of this, this theological commentary of the chronicler here is going to be very, very important for his contemporaries and honestly for all of God's people, same thing is true for us in the church, right? You got Obey, God's law, Jesus says, if you love me, you'll obey my commandments, right? It's not faith alone, it just simply isn't.
It's faith, it's really obedience. I like to put the whole salvation argument in those terms. If you obey the Lord with the life of faith and righteous deeds, then it will go well for you. But if you reject the Lord, then it's not going to go so well for you.
All right. So there you go, there's about 15 minutes or so. That's probably more time than I wanted to spend, but just to kind of introduce this next major section on the Chronicles, chapters 10 and following here of 7 Chronicles, and we're just going to go through these various kings, all right? Looking at some of the highlights here, it's pretty, it's kind of a sad story.
You know, you have these moments of hope, right? All your hopes are getting up. Like, this is going really, really well. This is a good king and then just disaster happens or like I said, with Manasseh, you just want to just smack your head against the wall thinking how dumb can you be?
If in Manasseh repents, right? And God, of course, God's mercy is unfathomable. It's a it's an infinite ocean of mercy and so Manasseh repents and he's forgiven and we're going to see these stories here today right now in lesson eight, in nine and 10 as well. Okay, so it should be fun.
So with that then, let's open up to chapter 10 of Second Chronicles and look at King Rehoboam. Now in the notes, I've given you the dates for each king, kind of reproduced those from the commentaries. Rehoboam reign from 930 to 910. Remember, 930 is when Solomon dies.
That's when the divided kingdom really begins. We're going to see this in chapters 10 through 12 and I gave you the parallel passage if you want to read that side by side with Second Kings. I will give you one more little tip here. It is fun to read kings and chronicles side by side.
That's really awesome because you know, one source gives you details that the other source doesn't. But what's great is if you pick up your Catholic Bible dictionary, which I recommend for each of my Bible studies, it's again, and you open up, for example, to King Rehoboam, it's going to have a great synthesis from both sources, kings and chronicles, giving you the idea of what the king was like and what his high points and low points were. So if you do that, if you're enjoying this history, write this biblical history, not just the theological lessons we glean from it, but you just kind of are intrigued by what they're doing, have your Catholic Bible dictionary nearby and it will go very well for you as you unpack this. All right, super cool.
Now let's look at Rehoboam now in chapter 10. Hey, this is Dr. Nick. Thank you so much for listening to this course sample.
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