Yesterday morning our family read 1 Kings 1, a chapter that tells about the end of the reign of David, the great king of Israel. At the age of 70, David was a sad shell of the mighty man that he had been. He was reduced to needing a nurse to lie in bed with him to keep him warm, and his control of the kingdom of Israel was slipping away. Yet David’s effect on the kingdom was to continue for many generations after his death.
David, the youngest son of Jesse, was anointed to be king at an early age[1] and described by God as a man after his own heart.[2] God had compared Saul with David and chosen David to replace Saul as king.
It was not until more than ten years later that David became king, but once he became king he led his nation in a way that no other king of Israel or Judah ever could after him.
In fact, he became the yardstick by which God measured later kings, starting with his son Solomon:
“And as for you, if you will walk before me,
as David your father walked,
with integrity of heart and uprightness,
doing according to all that I have commanded you,
and keeping my statutes and my rules,
then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever,
as I promised David your father, saying,
‘You shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.’
But if you turn aside from following me,
you or your children,
and do not keep my commandments and my statutes
that I have set before you,
but go and serve other gods and worship them,
then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them,
and the house that I have consecrated for my name
I will cast out of my sight,
and Israel will become a proverb
and a byword among all peoples.”
1 Kings 9:4-7
Unfortunately, Solomon followed his many wives in serving other gods, which is summed up as follows:
“So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord
and did not wholly follow the Lord,
as David his father had done.”
1 Kings 11:6
God sent a prophet to tell Solomon that the kingdom would be torn away from him because of his unfaithfulness, but God also made two extra heart-warming points. Because of God’s love for David, he would modify the deserved punishment in two ways:
- delay it until the time of Solomon’s son, and
- not take away all of the kingdom but leave two tribes for Solomon’s son to reign over.
After Solomon died, his son Rehoboam became king. Immediately afterwards, the 12 tribes of Israel split into two: a kingdom of 10 tribes in the north called Israel, and one of two tribes in the south called Judah, with Rehoboam as its king.
Descendants of David continued to rule over Judah for another 350 years. It is quite amazing that God’s love for this one man, David, could allow the kingdom of Judah and David’s dynasty to continue for so long.
Some of David’s descendants were good kings while others were not. Often, their performance is measured against that of David, but the worst of the kings are not compared in this way: maybe it was so obvious that they didn’t measure up that it wasn’t necessary to mention it. Of the 20 rulers of Judah, the nine who are compared with David are listed below:
|
King
|
Bible Reference
|
Assessment / comments
|
|
Rehoboam
|
2 Chronicles 11:17
|
Priests and Levites helped Rehoboam to stay on the right path for 3 years
|
|
Abijah/Abijam
|
1 Kings 15:3
|
Bad
|
|
Asa
|
1 Kings 15:11-14
|
Mixed praise
|
|
Jehoshaphat
|
2 Chronicles 17:3
|
Good
|
|
Jehoram
|
2 Chronicles 21:12
|
Bad. Mostly compares with Jehoshaphat and Asa but also mentions the “God of David your father”.
|
|
Amaziah
|
2 Kings 14:3-4
|
Mixed praise
|
|
Ahaz
|
2 Kings 16:2-4;
2 Chronicles 28:1
|
Bad
|
|
Hezekiah
|
2 Kings 18:3-6;
2 Chronicles 29:2
|
Good
|
|
Josiah
|
2 Kings 22:2;
2 Chronicles 34:2-7
|
Good
|
This consistent use of David as a benchmark is important enough, but David had an even greater impact on the nation that we will look at in the newsletter in two weeks’ time.
Notes
[1] 1 Samuel 16:11-13
[2] 1 Samuel 13:14
