Kings II: Chapters 12 to 17

Previously, Jehu kicked a bunch of butt.  Now let's get to the end of the northern kingdom:

CHAPTER 12

We stay in Judea, and now Josah is king.  The Bible says he became king in the 17^th year that Jehu ruled in Israel, but by my tracking, it should be Jehu’s seventh year.  That’s far off and I have no idea what’s wrong – me or the Bible’s narrative awkwardness, or both. I’ll blame the kings with the same names at around the same time.

Well, Josah is just seven years old when he becomes king (so he was just one when his aunt killed all his siblings) and he’s a good king.  Sure – he was saved and raised by priests, so naturally he’ll do good in their eyes.  The only knock on him is he lets the altars in the high places stand and people still do sacrifices there.  But he’s a godly king.

There is one problem.  Josah wants money to be given to for temple repairs, but the money keeps getting used for other purposes.  Sounds like there is some embezzling going in by the priests.  For 23 years, no repairs are made, though money has been coming in.  Yeah, someone helping themselves to it.  This is solved with a safe box.  The silver is taken directly to the workmen when repairs are needed, and the temple is in good shape.

The moneybox has a secondary benefit.  King Hazael of Aram, the guy Elisha actually anointed earlier on, is coming with a war party to raid Jerusalem.  Well, Josah opens up the strong box, gives Hazael all the silver, and Hazael goes home, happy with the easily gained loot.

CHAPTER 13

The next several chapters are just marking time until Israel is defeated by Assyria.  There are a bunch of kings mentioned, but pretty much none of them are memorable. 

We start off with Jehoahaz of Israel.  Under him, Israel becomes basically a vassal state of King Hazael of Aram.  Bummer.  Then a mysterious savior comes up and saves Israel.  No name is given, not is any detail.  The Bible writer clearly doesn’t have much idea beyond a very hazy one of what went on. 

He dies and his son Josah becomes king of Israel (not to be confused of Josah of Judea, also reigning around this time).  Under Josah, Elisha finally dies.  Wait – Elisah is still around?  We last saw him telling a flunky to anoint Jehu the new king of Israel.  Jehu reigned from 94-122 (with year 0 become the division between Israel and Judea).  Josah takes up in year 139.  So 45 years have gone by without anything from Elisha and just now he shows up again?  Boy, talk about taking a low profile. 

Oh, he prophases that Israel will be freed.  Then he dies. Oh, and there’s a great coda.  We’re told that “some people” are burying “a man” and happen to but the man in Elisha’s tomb.  The corpse touches Elisha’s bones and returns to life.  The lack of detail makes the story even shakier.

Ultimately, it feels like a bunch of stories/myths have been built up about a guy, who took two nearly identical names – Elisha and Elijah.  The stories of them spread out over nearly a century, making it necessary to make them two people.  But much of them are mythic and there are rarely many details.  The writer of the Bible has had to jam them in as he could, but the main focus remains the stories of the kings and their kingdoms.

CHAPTER 14

There is more litany-of-dead-kings stuff.  We don’t learn enough about any of them to really get an attachment.  The main story here is that King Amaziah of Judah beats the Edomites in battle, and then takes on Israel.  The Israeli king tells him not to do it, but he loses and is taken capture himself. 

Actually, there is a weird little item just before this.  Amaziah’s dad was Joash, the long reigning king who came to power after surviving his Aunt Athaliah.  Well, here we’re told that Amaziah “struck down the officials who had struck down the king, his father.”  Wait – what?  Unless I missed something, we were never told that anyone killed Joash, not until write now, in this weird throwaway line.  Huh?  Kings II is a book where the writer doesn’t fully know what’s going on.

In fact, he never really says how long Joash reigns.  He just notes that he died in the second year of Josalm of Israel.  So I guesstimate that Joash dies in Year 141.  So at Year 141 at least I have both royal chronologies synched up. (Keep that in mind when we see just how comically off they get in less than a century).

CHAPTER 15

More dead kings. Judea has a good king named Azariah.  Like most good kings of Judea, he does most everything right – except he leaves the altars up in the high places and lets people sacrifice there.  Yeah, the Bible writer will always say that’s bad, so his praise of good kings of Judea (and most seem to be good) is always with that qualifier.

Israeli kings are entirely bad.  Seriously – every single Israeli king, without exception, is bad.  Even the guys we root for as rebels, the ones who initially have God’s support – like Jeroboam and Jehu – turn away from God as rules.  Its just degrees of bad, with at least guys like Jehu opposing Baal worship. 

Here, Israel goes throw a bunch of kings.  Most of them die violently, with the murderer becoming the new king.  When one king, Shallum, kings power, in order to assert himself he commits so atrocities on his opponents, including ripping open pregnant ladies.  Yikes. 

Oh, and Assyria shows up.  Israel has to pay them off with silver to avoid being destroyed.  The Bible will make the point that Israel falls for moving away from God, but it looks like their real sin will be geographic – they’re further to the north, and hence more in the line of Assyria’s fire. 

Later on, Assyria comes back (again) and deports the land of Naphtali’s residents – all of them.

CHAPTER 16

Now Judah gets a really, really bad king: Ahaz.  He practices other religious rites, even throwing his own child on the fire.  Jeepers that’s bad.  The King of Aram – hey, they’re still around!  I’d have figured them all gone after the rise of Assyria.  Anyhow, the Aramean king puts Jerusalem under siege, but it survives.  But it survives by appealing to Assyria of help and giving it all the silver from the holy temple. 

Hmmm – I get the feeling I just discovered why the Bible considers Ahaz to be evil.  He does religious practices of other people – because he relies on a foreign nation for his kingdom’s survival.  Practicing their rites helps get in good with his protector. But from the point of view of the priests, it’s unholy. To be sure, burning children is evil.  But I wonder if that’s hyperbole by the Bible writer.  At the very least, I can’t imagine he burnt up his own child. 

CHAPTER 17

Here we are – the end of Israel.  The last king of Israel is Hoshea, and under his reign it all comes to an end.  Hoshea came to power by violence.  As near as I can tell, eight times an Israeli king was killed, ending a royal line.  (Meanwhile, Judea has consistently had just the House of David).

I’ve been tracking the chronologies as we’ve gone along, and as best as I can tell, Hosea comes to power 229 years after the Israel/Judea split.  EXCEPT – we’re also told he comes to power in the 12^th year of King Ahoz of Judea.  Yeah, but the Judean chronology, Hosea should come to power 250 years after the split.  That’s a gap of 21 years; and please recall I had them synced up at the year 141.  In either 88 years or 109 years, they’ve gone 21 years apart. Clearly, the writer of this part of the Bible wasn’t really sure what went on.

The point is, Israel is taken over by Assyria.  The kingdom has the Israelis depart and brings other in.  Those others first have problems with lions, but overcome them by worshipping the Lord.  That’s nice, but what’s less nice is they still worship all their other gods.  (Not false gods in the Bible, just other gods, as if they actually exist).  We’re told that situation exists in Israel “to this very day.”

Mostly, though, this chapter moralizes about why the northern kingdom fails.  Not surprisingly, it failed because it refused to heed the ways of the Lord and the laws of Moses. The engaged in false practices, were stiff-necked, rejected God’s laws, built and worshipped two golden calves, and even immolated their children in fires.  That’s why they lost their kingdom. 

The non-believer in me is skeptical, looking more towards hard politics to explain their failure.  Assyria was strong and they were closer in the way.

However, I will say this much for the Bible’s interpretation.  By moving away from their Lord and moving more in line with other religions of the era, the Israeli ensured they wouldn’t survive as a people.  Losing their kingdom doesn’t mean they’ll lose their identity.  The people of Judea proved that when they survived the Babylonian Captivity.  But if the Israelites are already moving toward other gods, then losing their kingdom will completely uproot their old attachment to their old God.  After all, he couldn’t actually save him after all, so who cares? 

The 10 lost tribes of Israel aren’t actually lost them.  Or rather, they lost themselves.  They just melted into the tapestry of the rest of the region, ceasing to be an different and distinct people.  The Judeans won’t melt away, but retain their separateness, which is why they are still around.  Thus the Judeans become the Jews.  Yeah, that’s where that word comes from.  I intentionally haven’t used the word Jew yet, because it would be ahistorical.  It only makes sense to speak of the faithful as Jews if there is only a kingdom of Judea. Now there is, so I can stop calling them Hebrew.  (I can still keep calling them Israelites, however). 

Losing their faith didn’t cause them to lose their kingdom, then, but losing their faith did cause them to lose their identity after losing their kingdom, so moving from God is why they fall out of history. 

Oh, and if you’re curious, the Book of Mormon argues that the 10 lost tribes of Israel became the native Americans in the New World.  Yeah, I’m not buying that; not at all.

Click here for the end of Kings II.