Ancient Israel: Israel and Judah: The Period of Two Kingdoms

today I'm actually reusing the session that I had prepared before and it really lined up with what I had set up for today which was to talk about the two kingdoms so finally moving past David and Solomon and so one way that you'll be able to tell that I'm not using a fresh set of notes is that I don't have a class goal which is something that I just did by accident the first couple of classes but then everybody took it so seriously and they wanted me to repeat it so you could write it down so so I've been working on making sure I have a class goal for every every session and I thought maybe I should have come up with something for for today even just so it would fit but this is a sign of how desperately I was working on that article that I didn't try to do it so so there you have it right so no class goal for today but but where we are in terms of the course is that we're moving from this first introduction of kingship into Israel which I told you is this major change if you wanted to take the whole history of ancient Israel and divide it into two pieces and at least this is if we're counting this sort of end of Israel and Judah as as a separate phase you know as you go into the world of the beginning of Judaism and Jewish communities and then I'm defining that as its own world but if we're talking ancient Israel then it's really the time before kings and the time after kings because everything changes when you have kings now historically though another major divide is between this period that the Bible sets up as kind of Saul David Solomon so so it's really the kind of Saul David story first which is the books of Samuel and then Solomon as David's special heir who gets to build the temple and who's portrayed as ruling over the glory days of Israel and one thing you can tell about the different nature of the David Solomon stuff from everything that follows is you remember how long David and Solomon ruled I think I mentioned this some point forty years both of them right isn't that funny like it just happened exactly that way that they ruled exactly forty years each of them if you went through all of the kings of Israel and Judah that are listed remember I told you there's this detailed chronology as you go through the rest of the books of Kings I'm pretty sure it's true that not one of those kings rules forty years maybe forty two you know maybe fifty two but not forty so you know surely what we've got is a round number and so aside from what you do with that historically it seems like even the people who left us this stuff had the sense that here were these great figures they came from before the time of the two kingdoms they were associated with Israel not Judah and they ruled a long time because they were really successful and they just don't have any number for it they don't have records they don't have a number for the length of these reigns when you turn the corner into the the next period then suddenly you have numbers you have precise numbers for the lengths of their reins you have this whole scheme of the different Kings north and south and it seems like we have records now it doesn't mean that everything you're reading comes from records but at least this framework this grid of the lengths of Kings reigns and their names this seems to reflect historical record of some kind and so the whole relationship of the Bible to history shifts a bit in the books of Kings when suddenly it looks like we're dealing with records and then it turns out that when you look at wider evidence from the Near East or evidence from the wider and Near East that you also have that that's where we get our first reappearance of Israel in the ninth century in this period of having two kingdoms so that also gives a sense that we've shifted ground a bit in terms of the connection of all this stuff in the Bible to history and our ability to evaluate it right so this is the first class where we're going to look at this new period and rather than starting with say first Kings chapter 12 which is the story of how there got to be these two kingdoms instead I'm going to dive right into the into a couple of texts that are from the books of Kings and it described the actual kingdoms themselves and sort of the way they work and so in a minute what I'm going to do is I'm going to put these stories up on the screen first one I told you to prepare these if you if you remember I hope right so one is the the story of the reign of King Omri not exactly a super famous guy but a really important part of the books of Kings and clearly historically a major major figure because he's portrayed as the guy who made the city of Samaria the capital of this separate northern of the two kingdoms and then the other character that I'm going to have us look at is a kid named Joe Ash who at the time is just seven years old and between these two stories that are both a little bit obscure when it comes to the Bible you'll get a feel for what these two kingdoms were like and what I proposed you is that they were quite different from each other and that even though these are just stories and they're in the Bible and they're in the same book of the Bible you can you can tell by the assumptions of the storytellers how different these kingdoms were that they worked in different ways and I want you to help me explore that and figure it out okay so so we're going to start with that we're going to spend a block of time on it and then I'll kind of back up and run through just some basic information basic Bible history first then what I call basic world history second for context and then a little to tie it all up yeah yeah good question yeah so when I so the question was whether if I say that David and Solomon were associated with Israel not dude Judah does that mean Judah didn't exist um this is all wrapped up with is one of the issues addressed in this book that I just finished and one of the things that's really interesting about people's response to the book it hasn't come out yet but I've had a number of scholars reading it and Mauri read it over the summer it's it's a good question so what Judah would have been before the two separate kingdoms and how sure we can be so to some extent I'll say we don't know the answer we don't know what Judah would have been before it was associated with this southern of the two kingdoms the one centered at Jerusalem the other thing we don't know for sure is when that southern kingdom first became called Judah came to be called Judah because that's a separate question we don't know if it had a kind of tribal character or you know like the the way it is now it maybe you know is is that if you say so in Hebrew it would be Hari who da which is the Highlands of Judah and so it doesn't mean just everything that was this kingdom it means in particular that so modern Israel's built along this Ridge of kind of high country and then off to the east toward Jordan is this deep deep valley that the Dead Sea is in the deepest piece of land in the world like it's farther below sea level than any other place in the world so even though the ridge that occupies truth that Jerusalem occupies is not that high it goes off so far on the east slope that it's you know whatever it is 3,000 feet down and then meanwhile it kind of slopes gradually down to the sea in the other direction so it's possible that Judah was originally just an old old old name for this kind of southern Highland like from Jerusalem South without it being a king or the name of the kingdom or necessarily even a tribe per se but we don't know right that the Bible says that it was a tribe but of course this tribal scheme is sort of a way of explaining all the different regions and groups and saying everybody's in and we don't know but the point for David and Solomon is that that what David and Solomon ruled is defined as Israel and that's interesting right so that if you have you get to the period of the two kingdoms in the books of Kings and it says there are these two kingdoms one of them is called Israel one of them is called Judah and so if you notice it's there's this weird kind of Criss crossing where the family of David becomes the ruling family of Judah the one in the south base at Jerusalem but David and Solomon themselves are said to rule a kingdom that has the name of the other one you know the one in the north and so I'm just pointing that out right so that that's where the basic connection is so a little bit gets ahead of things right but so well after we look at these texts and I'll kind of walk through basics of the Bible's layout basics of what you need to know about where we are in world history and see how that answers your question I'm going to close this just for quiet okay so the text we're going to start with the story of king Omri now the thing about this guy Omri and the way he's portrayed in this story is that the story is partly about how he became king the reason I've chosen these two texts one of them is in first Kings chapter 16 that's the one we're looking at now and the next one is in second Kings chapter 11 and the thing about each one is that they are really stories about how the person became king so one of the things that I want you to think about is what what was kingship like in the each Kingdom and how did someone become king in each Kingdom so I'm going to start with verse 8 so this is chapter 16 verse 8 and we won't even get to Alma yet but in a way the way the way the story works in order to understand how all maury became king yeah I'd understand what happened right before him because it's turmoil and so you got to describe the turmoil the other thing just to notice about this again I've talked about we did this with judges how you get individual stories that are then built into a larger story and you can see sometimes the the hand of the editor the voice of the person who's organizing things and you can really see this in the books of Kings that there there's the the chorus almost you know saying bad guy bad guy bad guy good guy good guy or you know there's the basic comments that you get that are a little bit separate from the actual story and you can really feel this as we get to the Omri stuff but we'll read straight through you can see them both alright so in the 26th year of King ASA of Judah Ella son of Baja began to reign over Israel in tearsa he reigned two years now for one I mean that when I said that it looks like there's a record that everything is based on there's just a framework then whenever you get this stuff you can we're working with that right that is giving you exact names and numbers so this is even interesting right so also whoever this guy's been ruling Judah for Allah time apparently things are going fine turns out he's one of the good guys if you read other parts but then you have this guy Ellis on a Bosch Basha was the I knew he was the ruler of a new royal house himself and what I mean by that is that you had the house of David you could say house of Saul Saul's son doesn't manage to rule David takes over house of David Solomon rules then you have his son ray of balm and there's a split that's when they get the two kingdoms so really in effect you have another new royal house Jeroboam Jeroboam son doesn't make it and it's this guy Basha who takes over a totally unrelated guy so now his son reigns two years and this is what happens his servant Zimri commander of half his chariots conspired against him when he was at tearsa drinking himself silly in the house of Arzo who was in charge of the palace that tiered sides Imrie came in and struck him down and killed him in the 27th year of King ASSA of Judah and succeeded him when he began to reign as soon as he had seated himself on his throne he killed all the house of Basha which was generally a good idea when you've just assassinated the previous king he did not leave him a single male of his kindred or his friends thus Zimri destroyed all the house of Basha according to the word of the Lord which he spoke against Basha by the prophet Jaggu that's commentary right if you can kind of feel that got it got to know that he's a bad guy because of all the sins of Basha and the sins of his son Ella they had committed and that they caused Israel to commit provoking the Lord of God to anger with their idols there are lines like that that are tucked in to various you know little statements about Kings a little bit of a separate commentary so now we get back into the main story well not quite now the rest of the acts of Ella and all that he did are they not written in the books of book of the annals of the kings of Israel that's also commentary like at the end of every king of Israel you got to say that oh yeah we had a lot more stuff but we didn't include it all it would be great go read the books that we don't have in the 27th year of king ASSA of judah Zimri reigned 7 days in piazza okay so this is a little bit strange now the troops were encamped against gibbet own which belonged to the philistines and this is the part where we get to omni and the troops who were encamped heard it and who were encamped heard it said zimri has conspired and he has killed the king therefore all israel made all Murray the commander of the army king over Israel that day in the camp so Omri went up from gibbet own and all israel with him and they besieged tearsa when Zimri saw that the city was taken he went into the citadel of the king's house he burned down the king's house over himself with fire which tends to be the good way to burn things and died which also tends to happen when you do that in the 27th year of king asif judah zimri reign seven year okay that's where we were so where are we the dying part okay because of the sins that he committed during evil in the sight of the Lord walking in the way of Jeroboam and for the sin that he committed causing Israel to sin hear the voice of the commentator right so there's the chorus summary was not a good guy like he in seven days like he only have king for seven days but he managed to commit all the same sins as as his predecessor I guess so what now the rest of the acts of Zimri in all his seven days of rule and the conspiracy that he made are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel gotta say it like if the guy ruled even if it was for seven days you have to say it then the people of Israel were divided into two parts half of the people followed tib me son of ghena to make him King and half followed Omri he's the guy that was introduced but the people who followed Omri overcame the people who followed kidney son of kena so him need ID how her that happened and only became king you like that is called laconic when he did leave a lot of things out in the 31st year of king ASSA of judah sky still ruling down err Omri be game to began to reign over Israel he reigned for twelve years six of them in tearsa he bought the hill of Samaria from Shemer for two talents of silver he fortified the hill and called the city that he built Samaria after the name of Shemer the owner of the hill in Hebrews Shem rone only did what was evil in the sight of the Lord he did more evil than all who were before him for he walked in all the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat that's the first king of the separate domain and in the sins that he caused Israel to commit provoking the Lord the God of Israel to anger by their idols you get the feeling of a refrain now the rest of the acts of Omri that he did and the power that he showed are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel all Murray slept with his ancestors and was buried in cement Samaria his son a hab who's a little more famous succeeded him that's it for all me okay so here's the story of on me the whole the whole thing with more space given to how he became Kingdom than anything else what do you learn about Israel from this what do you learn about Israel and being King in Israel yeah okay so it has a lot to do with our me so that's that's actually important and interesting which I could pull you on in a couple ways maybe we can talk a little more about that Army at some point but yeah yeah not a very stable occupation being king of Israel well I mean there are there are kings we managed to stick for longer and of course there's the old tradition that David and Solomon managed to rule 40 years each but you know let's file this away so it's not a very stable occupation how do you see spin king of Israel yeah less yes that's good and it's normal I suppose the worth noticing like you don't get to retire there's no use having a retirement plan if you're a king but the question of course is how you die right and so at least in this story how many of them died of old age Omri as you watched right Oh Murray died of old age and did you see who succeeded him his son hey AB okay so when you I'm at see it's not like you're voted King and so you you can be the son of the king and be the next king but of course in the other two cases Ella reigned two years and got assassinated by his own right-hand man and Zimri reigned seven days and decided he better kill himself because he wasn't long for this world anyway so violent deaths for two of the three so what is this telling you about kingship so I have an idea so so we I could keep sort of pulling on you but this what I'm going to do well so you want to go ahead and put two cents in but what I was going to do is go to the other text and then if you compare because part of what I think will help you see that what's going on is to compare yeah good yeah okay that's a good thing to put together so that which is I mean that's a nice observation because because in theory you could have the other way right I mean you could you could have somebody get assassinated and yet their son would be put on the throne and the Bible does have examples of that but not for Israel in fact yeah go ahead yeah okay yeah nice line of thought that yeah that there's a powerful people competing I remind you of judges and not in a way I'd take this back to the first observation about all the armies right so so that that's part of the picture too right that the armies in play and I could pull some more on that you know so what goes on with that but let's go to the other text so as we read this second text then don't forget this one we'll go back to it if we have to and I watch for comparisons and contract contrast right so for one if I say comparison we are talking about Kings in both of these right so we are talking about the same institution both Judah and Israel have them but then the question is just because we have Kings does that mean we have the same institution and it's a good question so we start at the beginning of chapter 11 and go down about two-thirds of the way now it all starts with what would have been right before but we don't need the text so a certain king of Judah dies regular death right no problem but here's the funny thing so when a falaya ASI as mother saw that her son was dead and totally normal like anybody could be in this position she said about to destroy all the royal family that's not so normal so you think okay my mom sees her son is dead what is the natural thing to do if your son is a king grab the power for yourself right it is the only time that this is portrayed is happening in the Bible so Athol I was evidently a woman of capacity and drive so she figures also you remember we just saw this in the other story right so who was the one it was Zimmer II right who had said that he killed all of the family of Bashan Ella because the only way you make sure that you're going to stick on the throne is to get rid of all the competition so she's going to do the same thing except for in a weird way if it's her own family now does this mean that she's going to kill all of her who she killing you can almost tell her my sentence was going like who she yeah yeah who are related to her in what way well some grandchildren potentially right could it be children could she be killing her own children she'd series she could be and any other there is a way out of that actually I mean one thing to realize is that especially in general like polygamy was not so much the norm but Kings tended to have multiple wives partly because if it was political you know that you'd make alliances by marriage and so Kings would have multiple wives and what happens then is you get these situations where the the potential heirs of the throne actually have different mothers and so it could be that you know so her son had had a chance to be to be king so rather than give up her kind of personal family connection to the throne and claim to the throne to somebody who's you know not actually related to her in any way who's just the son or grandson of the King through another wife then she is going to just take power herself but it doesn't give you pause like is she killing her own grandchildren and it's possible that this is part of the picture that she's killing her own grandchildren so it's a pretty gruesome picture so but jeho Sheba King joram z-- daughter summoned the captains of the carrots and of the guards and have them come to him in the house of the Lord he made a covenant with them and put them under oath in the house of the Lord then he showed them the king's son he commanded them this is what you are to do one-third of you those who go off duty on the Sabbath and guard the King's house another third being at the gate sewer and a third at the gate behind the guards shall guard the palace and your two divisions that come on duty in force on the Sabbath and guard the house of the Lord shall surround the King each with weapons in hand and whoever approaches the ranks is to be killed be with the King in his comings and goings the captains did according to all that the priest Joetta commanded each brought his men who were to go off duty on the Sabbath with those who were to come on duty on the Sabbath and came to the priests Joetta the priests delivered to the captains the spears and shields that had been King David's which were in the house of Lord the guard stood every man with his weapons in his hand from the south side of the house of the north side of the house around the altar and the house to guard the King on every side then he brought out the king's son put the crown on him and gave him the Covenant they proclaimed him King and anointed him they clapped their hands and shouted long live the king and then hath Alya hears something and realizes that there's some something wrong and you know the next thing you know she's killed 4:16 and the one other thing I want you to know which might be of the next page horses cuz sorry I know that's good enough there you go joash or Jehoash here was seven years old when he began to rain so what does that tell you do the math he was 1 or 0 depending on now you're counting right because it says in the seventh year for when all this happens so he was a baby when jehoiada well when what was it a aziah the King's sister sort of spirits and weight but puts him in the temple which of course is what the priest joy it is in charge of right so he's in on this but that it's important to know that this kid who ends up reigning over Judah for a long time like 40 years or something for you not 40 exactly mind you round number ah that he's only 7 years old when he becomes king so when you're trying to figure out how this worked remember that he's a baby when the whole thing starts ok so if we can go back right so now we've got these two pictures of how it works to become king so let's not forget the Omri Israel one but remember these are two different kingdoms what do you learn about how you become king in this story how do you become king in this story and what do you learn about kingship are there any violent deaths is it a safe occupation what do you think go ahead yeah and when you mean when you say Outsiders what do you mean if there's no out yeah it's in the yeah yeah well when you save the rest of the community so so let's pull this about apart now so a little bit and if you don't have to necessarily be the one-day answer this but you can if you want like so so there actually is an outsider you can say in this who's the outsider think about it there's an outsider a potential king you could almost say I'm stretching a little bit who's the outsider you see it I mean this is the problem with reading the Bible it's so icky wait whether or not you've ever read the story you get used to expecting things to go in a certain way and they make everything sound like it's okay except for apple i killing everybody yeah and go ahead and do some back ok so say that again that okay so you have the chiefs of the carrots you're on the right track but who calls on the Chiefs of of carrots this ya jehoiada say so who is Joe ADA he's a priest so I don't know how you meant outsider but actually this guy's the outsider right he's not um he's like Zimri was in a sense right zim real is no outsider you could say I mean he was some high officer who served the previous king but he turns her out in a fascinates you know the guy and said I'm taking over so if there's any Zimri like guy or only like guy who's also the head of the army right or at least he commands them in the field so these are insiders in a way but they're not related to the current king so if you think well who's the power broker here the guy who's not related to the current king it's this priest so is Joetta here's the question then is jehoiada trying to become king what do you think yeah yeah good luck good line of thought yeah no I think you're right on target right so when you set up for this seven year old kid to become king then that puts you in pretty good shape to call the shots for a while but then the next question would be like how long do you get to do that at what age yeah so I mean this is a nice model at least we don't know what they did here but it that's the sort of thing you have to imagine at least that at but but here's the interesting thing like in the Roman example and in this example what is what is assumed here again this may seem so obvious but one of the reasons I want you to I want to rub your noses in it is that it's not what's going on in Israel this is only Judas scheme of thinking so what is assumed it like enjoy it as future like this is the priest and he's got a great arrangement seven-year-old king he gets to call all the shots or at least you know run things so what is joy at his future he's going to have to turn over power right and at least as the story goes he seems to accept it right there's no no sense whatsoever when I said this joy yet I want to become king in a way I'm in simple answer which is probably what you're looking at me thinking there's a simple answer you know no there's no sign that he wants to become king he's just going to hand it over yeah yeah yeah yep the bloodlines so-so absolutely for one when I'm asking you to start separating in your minds being the whole institution of kingship over Israel which is the northern of these two kingdoms and and over Judah which is the southern one then right off this would be one really big example which is that there's a sort of loyalty to what you call bloodline and we can talk more about that that that's not evidently present in in Israel now of course a lot of the stories if you just read the whole book of Kings won't tell you all of this the reason I chose these two stories is that of all the stories about kings of Israel and kings of Judah these are the two that best show you that contrast yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah Simon this is a another good line of thought another good part of the picture and okay yeah I mean so for sure I mean again probably the Roman situation would be also similar where even after someone takes on the formal responsibilities of being King there still is this question of what is the relationship between that person and the senior advisors or especially if there's some single figure who stood behind that power earlier what does that person really maintain that kind of influence and is there some magical and moment of crisis when a king might have to confront it there might be a power struggle between that person who stood behind the throne and the king himself and on one hand the person the jehoiada type figure has enormous power and history of power and yet well I mean this is I could almost make this a question like why can't joe hoya that just take power like if if joe ash comes to a point in his life where he says look i simply disagree and what I say goes not you you know what it what is in plot it appears Joetta can't become king right so in a way I'm fishing for the notion of going back to the bloodlines right so the limit on jehovah's power or anybody like him is that he can grab and grab and grab for all the power that he thinks he can manipulate in a sense but he cannot become king why like why can't he it's not heritage just think about that then but what what does that mean that he can't become king like what is that telling you about Judah as a place as a as a nation like what do you know what I'm saying somehow it goes to the people right that that if it's just a matter of power jehoiada has it right he has the power although even as the story goes he kind of does and he doesn't right I mean the very thing that gives July had a power is that he controls this this commodity which is you know a kid from the royal bloodline so the very thing that gives them the power is that but it also limits his power because as that kid grows older Joetta always has to acknowledge that that kid has what everybody in the people accepts as making a king go ahead yes well so which we haven't talked about yet so when we talked about bloodline this is the interesting thing is that all these people are actually part of this house of David that they're descendants of David or at least have been able to argue that they were now so just to complicate things further let's go back to who joash is and to who took to what joe hoiiday does now what exactly was told us about Josh and how he was saved I remember the sister whatever it says took him and then he's kept in this temple somewhere connected to the temple for six years so how do you how do you think we're supposed to know that this kid is really from is really a son of a aziah people recognize him he's been hidden away for pretty much his whole life and you start with this baby now I mean I certainly according to the logic of the story I think the picture is that I mean it even accounts for who the kid is and he's got this aunt and and she's part of the plot but if you think about it this guy doing it not not only has he raised this young kid from or been responsible for him at least since he was a baby but at another level you could say I don't know like this 7 year old or 6 year old or whatever he is shows up Johanna says oh look I have somebody who's the son of the king long live the king y'all recognize him didn't you know it was alive I know like nobody knew he was alive nobody recognizes him but jehoiada says no this is the kid this is it easily he's the son of the you know the previous king in the line of David and it's just to realize that you could if you are feeling skeptical ask whether this is a story about a struggle for power where this guy who can't be king but who wants to hold the power sets himself up by presenting someone as king who may or may not be from the royal line and it's kind of hard to check yeah yeah yeah yeah so I don't know if you can all hear right that it's just questioning the logic of this you know how do you especially give him the way I kind of painted the picture and underlining that nobody knows who the kid is and he just comes out of nowhere and he conveniently turns out to be exactly the age that would have made him a baby at the moment maybe an infant even at the moment when now all the other family members were killed you know why does everybody buy into this and so you know you're saying well is it possible that the child was somehow insert into this really there was a king that was jehoiada now there's a couple ways to get at this one would be the historical way and the other one is just the story itself as a story from the historical point of view the thing that would prevent me from saying oh really there was a kind of King Joetta and then somebody came along and inserted this as a way of explaining the line of David or something but the problem is that so far as there may be a record of actual kings of Israel and Judah with all these precise numbers and connections across the two kingdoms that there is no actual record evidently for King Joetta that he's he's the outlier even in that chronology that joash is the king who's got the record and he became king when he was seven and you know ruled until he was whatever 50 something and so in a funny way it may almost go the other way that you you have this kid who is in the record as having become King when he's seven and some story teller comes along and says how do you get that you know ah you know let's tell the story of this guy but from the other side you know from the storytelling side and that's really what I'm after the story teller wants us to understand the way the kingdom of Judah worked in a certain way and from that point of view the child is absolutely central that Joetta doesn't have a leg to stand on in his own bid for power unless he has the actual possession of a you know a child from the line of David or at least can convince people that he does but you're totally right to question that you know the the likelihood of such a scenario it's a but the only way in the storytellers logic what he's proposing is that this kind of thing is imaginable because in Judah if you could claim that you are from the bloodline of David that was your one claim and Athol ayat is not from that bloodline so front from if you look at all the book of Kings and how it explains how you got from David to Solomon - then everything down to the end of Judah what they portray is that every single King from of Judah for like four hundred years and then if you add on Israel before that in a little more I would have come from David's line every single last one and the one exception would be at the lie of the Queen actually for these six years and so what it's portraying is that she had no claim and that even a kid was the obvious you know replacement for her and and the the priest was in the position of strength here because no one would back atholea because she had no claim so but again I mean in terms of history it's hard to know but in terms of the logic of the story it gives you this very particular notion of what what it takes to be king of Judah which is to be from the family of David yeah by Alliance yeah yeah yeah yeah so you may you know you'll respond different ones of you in different ways to the scenario that's presented here but again I would emphasize that that in terms of the records that almost certainly lie behind the the entire construction of the books of Kings that it's very likely not only that that joash is the figure from the oldest records but that his age both of birth and taking well the age at which he became King and then his age when he died are part of that record the the logic for that being that when you calculate a chronology for Israel and Judah at least pretty closely it seems to work out when compared to outside inscriptions where they're available so it appears that these are actual numbers however exactly accurate they may be and so however we imagine the construction of this whole story the child himself is probably unavoidable right that that's actually a character whose they are the start and so to some extent the story is about how you got that like if you only have the record of the dates and stuff like that you have this kid who became king and you'd think oh well I mean I guess his father died young or something that although I mean so far is it a Phileas also on that list which it appears that she would be then I don't know I mean for one it's possible that it's possible that something like this actually happened but that the scheme of course is a story yeah later the way it seems to highlight like the yeah for sure yeah yeah yes I mean I think that's on the right track too and that that's right that it is and as you read I mean it's these questions of the relationship between history and story are really they're so interesting to tease out as but you should always keep them both out there and you may have more of an interest in one or the other depending on who you are and what you're working on or how you're reading but uh but for sure you can't get at history from the Bible without thinking story because that's what you've actually got and so it's not as if you have some kind of neutral rendition of the facts whatever they are you're always getting someone with a you know with a bias with an agenda but a bias in a positive sense even right something they want to tell you and so in this case then that's right as you work your way through the books of Kings overall one of the things that the overall scheme wants to tell you is that that the house of David was the only royal the only family that had any right to rule this kingdom of Judah was the family of David and in a way this is then the one story of all those that is most extreme in in emphasizing it has to be somebody from David see even in this case it had to be okay so just to sort of stop so if you look at where we are in terms of Judah you've got this sense of one dynasty you have to be from this one family it may still be a little bit dangerous to be related to the family of David you don't have some sort of automatic pass that nobody can lay a hand on you but at the same time if you know there still may be turmoil there are a couple of stories of assassinations but interestingly if I go back to this observation that you've made over on the other side over here early on there there's at least one case I can think of where they assassinate the king and they go find his son to put him on the throne like so instead of this being an occasion to put a new royal house in power they stick with the house of David because that's the way it's got to be so notice also the way the power plays out I mean at least in this story it's associated with the temple so there's a combination of sort of sacred authority through the temple of Yahweh at Jerusalem and a political authority in the palace even physically right if you notice when they crown him King where is he right he is crowned king in the temple of Yahweh at Jerusalem and what happens there's a loud roar atholea hears it from the palace what does that tell you about where the palace is right next door remember all those pictures of the temple mount with the Dome of the rock and stuff like that right you have to imagine probably that both of those you know buildings the actual temple perhaps a little further than north and maybe the palace farther south below it but close enough so that you could hear from one to the other so talk about you know religious power and you know or sacred power and political power being joined in Judah in this other Kingdom they're physically put side-by-side in this story and so you know what are the what is the army involved because you had said that you could see the army kind of fall over the other story well there's not really an army there's temple guards right and who are the people that declare him king just whoever happens to be worshiping that day at the temple so the whole thing revolves around Jerusalem and the temple and the combination of temple and Palace together everything is combined there the the fact that you're from this one house of David is essential that's the only thing that gives you the right to be king the expectation is that a son of the previous King will be the next king and one of the things Howie notice for the first time at some point this summer was that that's always how it plays out that it's not just you have to be from the family of David but that the normal way descent would work is that a son of the current king would be the next king it's not your brother or something like that which is often true another royal dynasties so you know if you're just the brother of the current king doesn't get you anywhere you know it's supposed to go father to son all the way down and you can count the generations as you go through all the stories almost inadvertently like they never give you a list they just tell you this kind of king by king but it's always the son okay so that's Judah flip side though and you go back to the Israel story the home race story there's none of this stuff there right like you get no special credibility for being in a given row house in fact at least in the eventual editors version if you are from the house of Jeroboam which was the first you know royal house of a separate king of Israel at least after Judas split off then you get blamed for all the sins of every King after you you know because you made certain religious choices that the editors later don't like um but so yep you don't have to have that so then you think okay if you don't necessarily get to be king just by inheriting it then what else can you tell you just take another minute what else can you tell about how you get to be king in Israel what if you go back to the army right did you catch who that army is you want can you will go back Thanks so yeah this will do it now that you've had it um so if you go to let's see well save verse 15 Zimri reign seven days now the troops now it's interesting as a translation actually the word that it's translating his troops is the word for people which is um in Hebrew and so really it says the people were encamped against givethe own which belonged to the Philistines and the people they've set the troops again who are encamped heard it who heard it said Zimri as conspired and killed the king therefore then it says all Israel in case you didn't get that all Israel the people being the troops made only the commander of the army king over Israel that day in camp so Omri weds up from gibbet Onan all Israel with him and they besieged here'sa which had been the capital right they go back from from battle so notice that it's not kind of a separate professional army at least as its told in the story and again you have story not history per se but the story presents the army as representing Israel as a whole and so there's a kind of fine line between being the army and being almost like the voting public right that so the interesting thing is they hear that there has been an assassination that's you know not necessarily illegal but for whatever reason they do not accept that Zimri was legit so they say no we're not backing Zimri we don't think he's legitimate ruler we're backing Omri who's our military commander in the field we've already kind of voted for him by having him be our commander when we're out fighting and so in fact it's interesting if you stop and think about it right where was Zimri when they were out fighting you only rule seven days right so in effect Zimri waited to kill to kill the previous king who was not out fighting when everybody's out right so that they're out and out--all deceiving some Philistine city and neither Ella the King nor Zimri one of his you know assistants or whatever is out there they're both sitting down on the job drinking and so you know it's no wonder that they didn't like this choice and so they go with the guy who's the real leader of their own people who's Omri and they say okay he's King but of course how do you make it happen you got to go back and remove the guy who's actually declared himself King back in the capital so all of this absolutely plays it it gives this military a role right the army a role but the army is the people at least in concept and so there's this whole mix of in effect the people getting to decide in some collective terms but you know they decide to fight or at least they're all out there together fighting they decide who will be their king they mass as an army back to the Capitol in order to change Kings and and they just follow it up that way so what one of the things and you can see is that along with the difference in terms of the legitimacy of one royal house versus you know the other you can see that there's a much there's a kind of collect a real power for the people as a whole in Israel that's not so clearly therefore Judah that that at some level you can say that the people of Israel in this armory story decide who their new Kings going to be and they don't care that this guy set himself up you know that he killed the previous king and he set himself up they've got their man and they're putting him in power and in fact there's even then this really interesting one-line story that follows that where even though the army out there you know whoever you had made this guy only King that there's some component of Israel the people it doesn't like that and so they have this other guy named kidney if you caught that you know this is verse where is Tiffany 22 right so the people who follow okay this is over there half of the people followed Sydney sign of qiamat to make him King in half followed Omri and the people who followed home Rey won but of course even though you get this split notice that the whole thing plays out by the people right there they fight it out and they voted out in effect right you know that it depends on what the people want and that entire picture is impossible to imagine in Judah yeah he says they'll give ten pieces to sit to the north or Jeroboam and what one Torreya bones it's true that that even if that's a totally separate story which it probably is it reflects a similar kind of sense that the other the northern kingdom was made up of all these parts yeah so that's a good connection to make alright so yeah go ahead yeah there's no sense I mean I'm trying to remember in fact I don't think it says I mean he this is really the first introduction of him and what does it say I mean it just says that he's the commander of the army that's all it tells you about him he's not related to any previous king of Israel either so yeah I'm it's quite clear he's not got any connection David in fact the lat once the split occurs the the family of David withdraws to Jerusalem which is the capital it's almost on the border between Israel and Judah these two kingdoms so when they'd split Jerusalem as capital ends up being at the very northern end of this southern kingdom and and that's it I mean the house of David's associated with the south and there's never any connection with the north so yeah yeah yeah now I mean so that's a good observation I mean the the larger context I don't know if your your thinking a little bit more of what else is in the book but here we saw like two or three examples of everybody from Israel being blamed as being bad but if you looked at the larger passage what you'd find is that every single king of Israel even this guy named Jack ooh who's portrayed is wiping out Bale worship if in spite of all of that he finally gets a line that says well but he also sinned along with you know the sins of jeroboam and you know wasn't the good king and so every single king of that Northern Kingdom is is decided to be bad and in Judah it's a mix actually there's some that are good and some that are bad and it's kind of supposed to be depending on how they go with worship but if you look at this pattern you could say well then who wrote these stories anyway or at least who compiled them fine finally and one logical answer would be someone someone from Judah right that if in the end it's somebody who shares the religious ideals of Judah that felt that the other kingdom was permanently astray you know that there were certain things they did religiously that were illegal and yeah so you end up with this pattern it looks like the the stories have been collected finally by someone from Judah which also fits the fact that the Kingdom of Israel comes to an end in 720 and yet the story continues and and as you learned what happened to Judah which continued to exist till 586 and so of course last one standing they get to tell the story the one other thing just to note is for I take the last few minutes and just add a little bit of orientation is that when I talked about the centralization of power both in terms of politics and religion at Jerusalem that there's no nothing corresponds to that in the only story in fact you'll notice that he's said to build a new capital so even in this one chapter you can see the Capitol switch so you know yet a new royal house they can decide to build a new Capitol in fact David was portrayed as doing just that right he takes over from the family of Saul and he makes Jerusalem his capital so in Israel you can if you take over as the new royal house you can build your new capital one of the parts of the story of the kings of Judah is that Jerusalem not only is the house of David always there but Jerusalem is always the capital you cannot change capitals and part of that's because the temple of Yahweh is there you know like side by side with the palace and in fact while I'm sure they had shrines and whatnot at and a shrine to Yahweh at Samaria there's even indirect evidence for that outside the Bible there's no sense that Samaria became the sacred center of Israel in fact according to the Bible it was more likely that a place called Bethel would have been associated with especially associated with the religious life of Israel during the time of Kings so it's also not got that combination in Israel so okay I've taken most of our time to go through this and this reflects a change in the way I kind of have run the classes here from the last two years I've really wanted to work more from primary evidence and have that be at the forefront of your thought when you come away from today's session you I hope what will stick in your mind is these two obscure stories about a king from Israel and a king from Judah and how different the pictures are of the way kingship works in these so anything else you learn about Israel on one side as an actual Kingdom after you know Solomon and Judah on the other side as a separate Kingdom based at Jerusalem you should build into this framework where they're such different ideas where in Israel it it was much more collective collaborative decentralized in its mode of government but of course possibly you could call that unstable uh dangerous for being any particular King because the people or individual leaders of the people could turn against you and you just lose your power get slaughtered whereas if you're from Judah then there's this very structured institution that's built around kingship that includes Jerusalem as the capital the combination of the palace and the temple based there the assumption that the people seem to share that in order to have authority you've got to come from this one royal line so this is what's going to frame everything that follows now just a couple of little bits of information to give you the story of Solomon goes from first Kings chapter 1 to chapter 11 so in first Kings chapter 12 which I'm not going to talk about you have the story of the split where you get two kingdoms and so so really the period we're talking about in biblical terms is from that point in the book of kings first Kings chapter 12 to the end of the books of Kings there are two books of Kings so it's about you know 40 chapters more of stuff and and these books tell stories about both kingdoms as you can see from this the final editors may have been from Judah which we talked about but the book includes stuff from both which is interesting that they even though they had a kind of Judah point of view they wanted to know about Israel and they did not want to forget about Israel and part of this may go back to David who and David and Solomon who were identified with Israel so that even if you were from Judah there's some sense you didn't give up this sense of a connection to Israel now you know we'll get to this in larger historical terms what do you need to know when Israel would have gotten started whenever that was if you go back to Marin taw and all that the big power was Egypt and Egypt controlled the Land of Israel or at least everything around it they had an empire that kind of reached into what became the land of Israel so in order for Israel to get started and in order for the Philistines also to get established it a tried to pull out which they did so over the course of the 12th century that's the 1100s Egypt leaves so from then on and it's interesting you read the book of Judges which for all its this is collection of stories and you know different dates but one thing that is true about the book of Judges is there's no big power like all the enemies of Israel are the different individual peeps of peoples of Israel come from different places other little neighbors there's no big power running things and so this does seem to fit everything we know about history from outside the Bible as well that from about you know 11 something Thrun 8 something maybe the ninth century Israel is a pretty free territory there are other small kingdoms around it but there's room for Israel to run its own show and so Kings arrived in Israel as part of that world where it's their own show there's no big world power Egypt is back in Egypt doing its own thing and nobody else has shown up to impinge on Israel's existence in the ninth century somebody else shows up and that somebody is Assyria a ssy are high a Assyria right and we'll see but that when Assyria shows up everything changes because they are pushing to become a kind of world power and so interestingly the first reference to Israel like the last reference to Israel in other writing outside the Bible came from Egypt the other power and the first reference to Israel from outside the Bible after that comes from Assyria like when we get this new power so you know great thing for Israel to run its own show for those years in between but what happens is you get these two kingdoms they get themselves established but before long there ends up being this global situation that changes everything and eventually brings an end to both Israel and Judah because these outside powers from Mesopotamia become so big that they just take over everything so this is the kind of framework for all this and right now we're just switching into this new world order you might say with the Assyrians

Channel: New York University

Views: 48,630

Rating: 4.271605 out of 5

Keywords: Daniel Fleming, Ancient Israel, New York University, NYU, Open Ed, Open Education, judah, kingdoms, Bible

Id: eCejdSQctSc

Length: 69min 43sec (4183 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 01 2012