I Kings

I Kings

We need the magnificent reign of Solomon, the Prince of Peace, to complete the picture of Christ as King. The Lord said to David: “Behold, a son shall be born to thee, who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies round about; for his name shall be Peaceable, and I will give peace and quietness in Israel in his days.” Solomon’s peaceable kingdom was the result of the victories David had obtained. It is because Christ has fought and conquered our enemies that we can enjoy the peace of His glorious reign in our hearts. The Kingdom of God is “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” (1 Chronicles 22:9, margin; Romans 14:17). The Temple. The glory of Solomon’s reign was the building of the Temple. He seems to have been raised up specially for this purpose, for David says: “He hath chosen Solomon my son to sit upon the throne of the kingdom of the Lord over Israel. And He said unto me, Solomon thy son, he shall build My house and My courts…. Take heed now, for the Lord hath chosen thee to build an house for the sanctuary: be strong, and do it” (1 Chronicles 28:5-10). But for the account of the Temple we will wait till we come to the Book of Chronicles. 73

“Solomon in all his Glory.” The wisdom of Solomon is foreshadowing of the wisdom of Christ, in “whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

Psalms 72:1-20 is “a Psalm for Solomon.” It describes the glory of his kingdom, but it finds its perfect fulfillment only in the reign of One greater than Solomon, who shall indeed one day “have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.” But though the millennial fulfillment of this Psalm is yet to come, it has a fulfillment already in those hearts where the King is reigning in righteousness. Solomon said to Hiram, King of Tyre, “The Lord my God hath given me rest on every side, so that there is neither adversary nor evil occurrent” (1 Kings 5:4). The magnificence of his kingdom is described in 1 Kings 4:21-34 : “And Solomon reigned over all the kingdoms, from the river unto the land of the Philistines, and unto the border of Egypt: they brought presents, and served Solomon all the days of his life…. And he had peace on all sides round about him. And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig-tree.” The Queen of Sheba. Our Lord Himself draws the contrast between the Queen of Sheba, who “came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon,” and the men of His generation, who were so indifferent though “a Greater than Solomon” was among them. Following the same line of thought, the visit of this Queen is a beautiful picture of a soul coming to the Savior and finding full satisfaction in Him. She came from afar off, and we “who sometimes were afar off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.” She brought all her hard questions to Solomon, and communed with him of all that was in her heart. We may bring all our difficulties to the Lord, and we shall find, as she did, that “there is not anything hid from the King” which He cannot solve for us. We too shall find that He is “made unto us wisdom.” And when she had seen all his wisdom, and riches, and the appointments of his kingdom, and his marvellous buildings, there was no more spirit in her. And she said: “It was a true report that I heard in mine own land of thy acts, and of thy wisdom. Howbeit I believed not the words, until I came, and mine eyes had seen it; and, behold, the half was not told me: thy wisdom and prosperity exceedeth the fame that I heard. Happy are thy men, happy are these thy servants, which stand continually before thee, and that hear thy wisdom. Blessed be the Lord thy God, which delighted in thee, to set thee 74on the throne of Israel: because the Lord loved Israel for ever, therefore made He thee king, to do judgment and justice” (1 Kings 10:1-29).

“A True Report.” The Gospel message is the “report” which drew us from the far country of alienation to seek the King. And when we have really come near, and our eyes have seen Him in His beauty, we too can say the half “was not told me.” We find that His service is, indeed, a happy service, and that God has indeed proved His love in giving us such a King, not as the Queen of Sheba knew Solomon, in a passing visit, but to be our King for ever. “And King Solomon gave unto the Queen of Sheba all her desire, whatsoever she asked, beside that which Solomon gave her of his royal bounty.” And so our King gives to us “according to His riches in glory.”

Failure. Again we see failure written over every human life. Solomon failed in exactly those things against which the Law of God has warned the future kings of His people (Deuteronomy 17:16-17): “He shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses…. Neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.” “Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away.” Solomon did all three. And, moreover, the multitude of his wives were taken from the heathen nations, whom God had expressly commanded them not to marry, lest they should turn away the heart of His people to other gods. This is exactly what came to pass. “When Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father” (1 Kings 11:4).

Disaster. On this account God stirred up enemies to Solomon, and his reign ended in disaster, and at his death his kingdom was rent asunder, and only Judah and Benjamin were left to his son Rehoboam, while all Israel made Jeroboam, his servant, king. “And to his (Solomon’s) son will I give one tribe (that is the tribe of Benjamin, which remained steadfast to the kingdom of Judah), that David My servant may have a light alway before Me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen for Myself to put My name there” (1 Kings 11:36). “To give any one a lamp in a place came to mean to establish his house and line in that place. It must be born in mind that the city of Jerusalem, and all its northern suburbs, stood in the territory of Benjamin. Had this tribe joined the ten in their 75revolt against the throne of Solomon, the royal city could not have remained, as God had promised it should, the dwelling-place of the kings of David’s line; that is, in the highly figurative language of Bible lands, their lamp in the Holy City would have been put out.”[*] Palestine Explored. Rev. Jas. Neil. Nisbet and Co. The Kingdom Divided. Then follows the history of the divided kingdom--a picture of the divided heart and of the impossibility of serving two masters. The kings of Israel followed the example of “Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin,” by setting up the worship of the golden calves, and all their kings were given to idolatry. The history of the Kingdom of Israel is an almost unbroken story of wickedness, king after king coming to the throne through the murder of his predecessor.

2 Kings 17:1-41 gives us the account of the Captivity of Israel, and goes fully into the reason of this punishment. They had descended to the very level of the nations whom God had bade His people drive out of the land--exactly what He had predicted as the result of their disobedience had come to pass. They forsook the Lord, and served the gods of the heathen, and walked in their ways, and wrought according to their wickedness, and therefore God permitted the King of Assyria to carry Israel away captive into Assyria, according to His warning, given by Moses in Deuteronomy 29:24-28. “And the Lord rejected all the seed of Israel, and afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of spoilers, until He had cast them out of His sight” (2 Kings 17:20). The Prophets. Long before the outward semblance of royalty had disappeared, God had transferred the power from the kings to the prophets. Out of the darkness of this evil time two figures stand forth as His witnesses, showing us that through all the failure God was quietly working onwards towards His eternal Kingdom of Righteousness.

Elijah and Elisha, in the contrast of their characters and of their mission, remind us of John the Baptist and of our Savior. Our Lord Himself referred to John the Baptist as fulfilling the prophecy that Elijah must first come before the coming of the Son of Man. “Elias verily has come,” He said. Elijah, the rugged prophet of the wilderness, clad in his mantle and leathern girdle--the ordinary dress of the Fellaheen, which every prophet wore--suddenly bursts upon the scene in the 76court of Ahab, and pronounces the judgment of the Lord. “As the Lord liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be night-mist,[*] “The matar or ‘rain’ falls at all hours during winter, while the tal or ‘night-mist’ falls in the night in summer and autumn” (Neil). nor rain these years, but according to my word.” The secret of his power lay in those few words “before whom I stand.” He knew what it was to have power with God, and therefore he had power with man. He reminds us of John, clad in the same manner, at the court of Herod, denouncing as fearlessly the sins of that king. On Mount Carmel it was “at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice” that God sent the fire from heaven. We have several instances of deliverance coming at the time of the morning or evening sacrifice, reminding us of the power of the Cross which those sacrifices foreshadowed. The Forerunner. When God was about to send the rain in answer to Elijah’s prayer, Elijah sent Ahab the message, “Prepare thy chariot, and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not.” And then it appears that Elijah acted the part of sais to Ahab. The modern sais of Egypt is the “runner” attached to the household of kings and nobles. The same custom was in vogue in Israel, for Samuel warned the people that the king they so eagerly desired would exact this oppressive custom of his subjects: “He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots.” “These facts lend great force to the act of Elijah, who, in an ecstasy of joy and zeal at the triumph of Jehovah, and desirous to ‘honor the King’ who for a brief moment had honored God, when the hand of the Lord came upon him, girded up his loins, and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel--that is, for a distance of some twenty miles or more across the great plain of Esdraelon the man of God acted as the sais or runner of the King, clearing the way for his chariot and announcing his arrival!”[*] Palestine Explored, p. 28. Rev. J. Neil. Does not this office of outrunner explain the figure of Hebrews 6:20 : “whither Jesus entered for us as a forerunner”? He who, in His condescension, has said that in heaven “He will gird Himself and make (His people) sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them,” is pictured here as having entered in only a brief moment earlier to announce their arrival and to be prepared to receive them there.

Elisha. Elisha’s was a ministry of blessing and healing.77 In this he was a type of Christ. We have, moreover, in the life and miracles of Elisha a series of most beautiful lessons on Christian life and service. “Ploughing one day with his father’s oxen and servants, in the open country, he saw the outlawed prophet of Gilead coming towards him. Passing by, he cast his mantle upon him. Elisha knew what the sign meant. He was a wealthy man. The call was to follow Elijah as a servant, pour water on his hands, perhaps to die with him. There was no time to think, the decision had to be made in a moment. The call of God in his heart was at once responded to. Obtaining leave to say farewell to his parents, he kills the oxen, smashes up the implements, and shows to all his companions that he has no more to do with his former life. God is calling each one of us, let us follow at whatever cost” (W.H. Wilson).

II Kings