Episode 508 The Division of the Kingdom (1 Kings 12:1-17, 25-29)

This week BibleWorm reads I Kings 12:1-17 and 25-29. We are just a couple of generations after King David, and boy howdy, kingship in Israel is not going great. As David’s grandson Reheboam steps to the throne, we see parallels with the stories of Pharaoh in Egypt: a king who uses forced labor to control people, and who seeks power and dominance above all else, even when that is politically impractical. And then we meet Jeroboam, who seems to smartly identify a real vulnerability for his community, but then tries to patch it with a sort of quick fix borrowed from another religious culture - definitely a no-no. Both kings consult advisors, but neither consult God. This is pretty much exactly what the deuteronomistic history warned about.