IRON AGE history is a bloody business, and the history of the kings of Israel and Judah is no different. This week’s Old Testament study looks at transfers of power — somewhat less than peaceful — in the generation following Ahab and Jehoshaphat.
THE DIVISION of the kingdom of Israel is the focus of our Old Testament study this week. Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, gets some bad advice from his young friends, not just rejecting the request of the northern tribes for tax relief, but doing so with a rather crude euphemism.
That didn’t work out well. And it didn’t go well for the people of the new kingdoms of Israel or Judah. Jeroboam quickly led the northern kingdom into apostasy, setting up high places to worship golden calves at Bethel and Dan and appointing priests who were not from the tribe of Levi to offer sacrifices to these pagan idols.