The United Kingdom Divides

Introduction
Saul
David
Solomon
Rehoboam
Divided Kingdom
Slow Fade

Introduction

Following the 300 year period of the Judges, for the next 500 years of Israel’s history (1050 B.C. - 586 B.C.) the kings ruled.

The last Judge of Israel was Samuel. He was a good judge and at the end of his life he appointed his two sons to be Israel’s next Judges, but the elders of Israel didn’t want his sons to lead.

1 Samuel 8:1-5, “When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as judges for Israel. The name of his firstborn was Joel and the name of his second was Abijah, and they served at Beersheba. But his sons did not walk in his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice. So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.”

And so, Israel got a king. His name was Saul. He began ruling when he was 30 years old and he ruled for 40 years. Saul was the first of 40 kings who would lead this nation.

The period of the Kings is covered in the books of 1&2 Samuel, 1&2 Kings, 1&2 Chronicles.

Saul	Back to Top

Israel’s first king, Saul, was not a good king. He had some deep and glaring character flaws that were hidden behind is impressive physical appearance. He looked great on the outside, but had a flawed heart. The one that got him into the most trouble was jealousy. It showed up initially just after a young man by the name of David killed a giant by the name of Goliath and became a national hero.

That story of David killing Goliath is in 1 Samuel 17. The jealousy shows up in chapter 18.

1 Samuel 18:6-9, “When the men were returning home after David had killed the Philistine, the women came out from all the towns of Israel to meet King Saul with singing and dancing, with joyful songs and with tambourines and lutes. As they danced, they sang:”Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands.” Saul was very angry; this refrain galled him. “They have credited David with tens of thousands,” he thought, “but me with only thousands. What more can he get but the kingdom?” And from that time on Saul kept a jealous eye on David.”

1,000 was good. Had the singers stopped with that or given David a little smaller number, like maybe 100, all would have been well and Saul’s character weakness would have continued unnoticed. But they attributed David with 10,000 and Saul with only 1,000 the comparison ate him up!

The last half of Saul’s reign, that jealousy drove Saul to focus on killing David. Killing David became the king’s top priority, over the economy, over military conquest, over his people’s needs. At all costs, Saul wanted to kill David. He never did kill David, but he did end up killing himself. Saul’s life ends on the battle field where after being severely wounded he killed himself by falling on his own sword.

Comparison is so hard to control; trust me, I know. Whether it is comparing homes, vehicles, church size, number of kids, accomplishments of our kids, salaries, spouses, career advancements, toys, popularity, body parts, comparison almost always leads to either pride or envy. And the only antidote that I know to envy is to bless those, pray for those, encourage those, be nice to those you tend to envy! It’s hard, but it works!

David

David is the next king and he was the best king Israel had. Like Saul, he was 30 when he became king and like Saul, he led the nation for 40 years. Under David, the nation reached its zenith as a military power and in their spiritual life. He truly had a heart for God. But when David was in his mid-40’s, disaster struck and he, his family and his nation paid dearly for David’s sin.

It is recorded in 2 Samuel 11-12.

2 Samuel 11:1-5, “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem. (He was now at a point in his career when he could coast. Life was good, it was easy and he was floating along.) One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. Then she went back home. The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”

The rest of the story is of David’s attempt to cover up his sin. It included the murder of Bathsheba’s husband. There was eventual forgiveness, but some very sobering consequences: death of the baby and turmoil in his family for the rest of his life. David never fully recovered from this incident. As a display of God’s grace, a son born to David and Bathsheba became the 3rd king of Israel. His name was Solomon.

David was the author of most of the book of Psalms.

Solomon

Solomon was not a warrior like his father or Saul the king before him. He didn’t need to be. The kingdom was secure. He was a builder and an architect. Solomon ruled for 40 years, like Saul and David before him.

1 Kings 10:23, “King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth.”

Solomon was exceedingly wealthy but he was also exceedingly stupid!

1 Kings 11:1-6, “King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter-Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. They were from nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.” Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been. He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites. So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the LORD; he did not follow the LORD completely, as David his father had done.”

Sadly, Israel never recovered from the decisions of Solomon.

Solomon was the author of most of the book of Proverbs, and the books of Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes.

Rehoboam

The fourth king of Israel was Rehoboam, Solomon’s son.

1 Kings 11:41-12:11, “As for the other events of Solomon’s reign-all he did and the wisdom he displayed-are they not written in the book of the annals of Solomon? Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel forty years. Then he rested with his fathers and was buried in the city of David his father. And Rehoboam his son succeeded him as king. Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all the Israelites had gone there to make him king. When Jeroboam son of Nebat heard this (he was still in Egypt, where he had fled from King Solomon), he returned from Egypt. So they sent for Jeroboam, and he and the whole assembly of Israel went to Rehoboam and said to him: “Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but now lighten the harsh labor and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you.” Rehoboam answered, “Go away for three days and then come back to me.” So the people went away. Then King Rehoboam consulted the elders who had served his father Solomon during his lifetime. “How would you advise me to answer these people?” he asked. They replied, “If today you will be a servant to these people and serve them and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your servants.” But Rehoboam rejected the advice the elders gave him and consulted the young men who had grown up with him and were serving him. He asked them, “What is your advice? How should we answer these people who say to me, ‘Lighten the yoke your father put on us’?” The young men who had grown up with him replied, “Tell these people who have said to you, ‘Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but make our yoke lighter’-tell them, ‘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.’”

The net result of that decision was that the nation of Israel split into 2 nations.

Divided Kingdom

The ten Northern Tribes under Jeroboam broke away and formed their own nation called, “Israel”. The two Southern Tribes (Benjamin and Judah) stayed with Rehoboam and took the name, “Judah”. Israel, to the north, was a separate nation for 200 years, had 19 kings and all of them were evil. Judah, to the south, was a separate nation for 330 years, had 18 kings; eight were good and ten were evil. Both were eventually conquered by foreign powers and in both cases, it was God’s judgment on them for willful and sustained sins.

Slow Fade

One of the sad realities of the first four kings of Israel, Saul, David, Solomon and Rehoboam, is that none of them finished well. Some began better than others; but none finished as strongly as they could have. To one degree or another they all faded into the finish!

Saul ended up killing himself on the battlefield totally estranged from God. David ended up with such strife in his family that one of his sons tried to kill him and Israel suffered from some very poor choices David made! Solomon ended up writing a book about how not to end up miserable like he did. Rehoboam didn’t start well and didn’t end well either. 2 Chronicles 12:1 says, “After Rehoboam’s position as king was established and he had become strong, he and all Israel with him abandoned the law of the Lord.”

I am sobered by this. I am sobered that so many men in the Bible end up badly -Morally, spiritually, relationally! I am sobered that in the past few months Gloria and I have been shocked to learn of a marriage that appeared to be so strong and stable on the outside but rotting away on the inside. The revelation of it has taken our breath away!

Ask yourself this question: “If I keep doing what I am doing, will I like how I will end up?”
Take stock of your inner life and your walk with the Lord.
Take stock of your private life and what you do when no one else is around.
Take stock of your marriage. Do you like the direction it is headed?
Take stock of your character traits; are there flaws that need to be repaired?
Take stock of how you are taking care of your body! How you are taking care of it now, will show later.
If you keep going in the direction you are going, will you like where you end up?

If you don’t like the direction, then get some time alone with God and figure out what needs to happen.
Do you need some accountability from another Christian to help you stay on course?
Do you need to be more intentional with your time alone with God in his word and prayer?
Do you need to work at rekindling your marriage?
Do you need to stop flirting with the secretary, or worse?
Do you need to start exercising?

None of these king’s lives crumbled in a day. It took years and in some cases decades. Often, it’s a ’slow fade’.