1st Kings chapters 12-17

It has been four hundred and eighty years since the Israelites left Egypt (although a footnote says it’s been four hundred and forty years, so I’m confused).

1st Kings chapters 12-17

Solomon has died, and been replaced by his son Rehoboam. The people ask him to “lighten their load.” (kind of spurred on by this man Jeroboam) The elders advise Rehoboam to do so, but he decides to listen to his contemporaries instead, who are all “you should totally be stricter” and “you people better do what this guy says, he’s even worse than his father”.

The king tries to crack down on them but they stone his official in charge of forced labor. He is forced to flee the country with a force from Judah and Benjamin (it always seems to be Judah and Benjamin allied against everyone else) but God’s prophet tells everyone to stop fighting and come back. But Jeroboam already thinks of himself as the new king. He builds two idols , on in Bethel and one in Dan and convinces the people to worship them, so Rehoboam will not be able to control them anymore.

Ch 13: 2
“A son named Josiah will be born to the house of David. On you (the altars) he will sacrifice the priests of the high places who now make offerings here and human bones will burned on you.”

Because the way to deal with this is more human sacrifice.

Ch14: 23-24
they had also set up for themselves high places, sacred stones, and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree. There were even male shrine prostitutes in the land, the people engaged in all of the detestable practices of the nations the LORD had driven out before Israel

Judah and Israel have split again, and this infighting continues through two more kings, ostensibly over whether the Hebrews should be allowed to worship pagan gods or not. But it’s really because they didn’t want to be one country, because uniting under one king and having to change the way you do things is kinda scary. You can compare it to the US Civil War, which wasn’t really about slaves but about whether we were or were not gonna take this “let’s be a united country” thing seriously and do it and one half of the country was jealous over the other half having more power.