I think we need a ‘Previously on…’ to catch you up.  King David was happily married to his 7 wives when he goes and commits adultery with the wife of one of his friends – she’s also the daughter of his closest advisor.  As a result, God tells David that although he is forgiven, his family will suffer because of his sin.

And then we saw that David’s son Amnon raped his half-sister Tamar.  Although Tamar was David’s daughter, he did nothing about it – boys will be boys!  But he had lost his moral authority hadn’t he!

Unlike Absalom, Tamar’s brother!  He didn’t get mad, he got even!  Two years later.

The story is told in 2 Samuel 13: 23-34.

Absalom throws a sheep-shearing party and invites all his stepbrothers and other family members.  Cousin Jonadab doesn’t go.  Jonadab was the cousin who advised Amnon about how to get Tamar alone.  He seems like the kind of cousin you could do without.

So Absalom gets his revenge – the rumour is that he’s killed all his stepbrothers, but they all come home crying and verse 37 tells us David mourned for his son everyday .  The problem is that we don’t know which son he’s mourning for.  Was it Amnon, the unrepentant rapist who has gone to hell for his sins?  Not likely as they didn’t have a developed understanding of hell in the Old Testament.  Was it Amnon ‘cos he liked him best?  Was it Absalom who had run away because, although David didn’t punish Amnon for raping his sister, he might punish Absalom for killing his brother?

David was probably confused as well!

Joab, David’s nephew, the son of his sister, Zeruiah, worked hard at reconciling David and Absalom.  He always had mixed motives did Joab.  Cousin Absalom was heir to the throne now, so it would be good to keep in with him.

And we get this interesting story that shows Joab was listening when the prophet Nathan became story-teller to get a point across.  He hired a ‘wise woman’ as they were called, to tell David a story that would show him how he should forgive his son (2 Samuel 14: 1-11).

David gives his verdict and then the woman applies the punch line: (2 Samuel 14: 12-20).

And so David tells Joab to bring Absalom home, but (2 Samuel 14: 24).

And so a quick look at Absalom’s short life.  He was pretty good looking apparently (2 Samuel 14: 25).  That just gets mentioned, because David was supposed to be good looking.  There’s no mention about what the rest of the sons looked like, except Adonijah, who was also good-looking.  Then there was his hair: v26 .  So he had a lot of hair!!

And then Absalom had four children of his own: v27.  It seems that his sons must have died when they were children, because some time later Absalom builds a monument to himself, to carry on the memory of his name, as he had no sons (2 Samuel 18: 18).  So he had some sadness in his lifetime.  Three sons lost!  But there does appear to have been a granddaughter.  Some translations call this his daughter, but we've seen that he only had one daughter, so granddaughter is probably more accurate.  It's all to do with translating from the Hebrew language!  In 2 Chronicles 12: 21 it says of Rehoboam (Absalom's nephew) that he loved Maacah, Absalom's granddaughter, more than his other 17 wives and sixty concubines.  Must be the daughter of one of his sons!

And on top of everything, Absalom's sister is raped, his dad does nothing about it and when he takes the law into his own hands his dad won’t talk to him.  For two years!

While he was living in Jerusalem in isolation it seems that Absalom lived next door to cousin Joab.  He tried to arrange a visit with his cousin so that he could talk to David about settling this issue that David was trying to avoid.  When Joab ignored two invitations Absalom set fire to Joab’s field of barley.  That got his attention!  And so the meeting with David was arranged and all was resolved.  As far as David was concerned.  He apologised and so that was it settled.

Absalom had a different temperament.  He brooded.  As far as he was concerned nothing had been settled. And so we get the big political rebellion as Absalom takes over Jerusalem and David has to leave.

Bathsheba’s granddad joins Absalom, indicating that David was not the best at solving disputes.  Even all those years later he hadn’t made peace with his 8^th set of in-laws.  And Ahithophel, Bathsheba’s granddad, advises Absalom to do something that fulfils God’s threat to David (2 Samuel 16: 20-22).  They had no television in those days!

They still liked to keep everything in the family, and when Absalom set up his army he put another cousin in charge (2 Samuel 17: 25).

Meanwhile Ahithophel had killed himself because Absalom wouldn’t take his next bit of advice.  It probably wasn’t as much fun!  They were a bit self-absorbed some of these people!

Anyway, there’s a big battle and Absalom, riding on his donkey, gets his head caught in the trees and is left hanging there.  David had told his men that Absalom was to be unharmed, but cousin Joab was a bit of a rebel himself, and so Absalom came to a sticky end (2 Samuel 18: 14-15).

And he had a quiet funeral (v17).

And then David cries for Absalom – and that upsets everyone!   So David gets reinstated, then there’s another minor rebellion.  As a punishment for killing Absalom, David removes Joab from his position in charge of the army and puts Amasa in charge.  Amasa, David’s sister Abigail’s son, had led Absalom’s rebel army, but just because David had sacked him that didn’t mean Joab was finished, so he murdered Amasa (2 Samuel 20: 9).

Anyway, this rebellion gets quashed and very little else is said about David.  His family continue on into the next episode, but we go to 1 Kings to finish off David’s life.  He got old.  From my reckoning he was only about 60-70 years old, but he is described as old (1 Kings 1: 1).

No hot water bottle for King David!  He couldn’t get warm at night, so what was the solution?  Read on – 1 Kings 1: 2-4.

You couldn’t invent a name like that could you?  What a way to go!

There are a few more family problems that David had to face and we’ll look at them next time.  In fact, David’s last words to his son are fascinating for a man after God’s own heart.  But that’s for next time!

For now we’ll finish him off and then go back a bit next time – 1 Kings 2: 10-11.

David died, but the influence – the good example of his relationship with God and the bad relationships with his family carry on for a long time to come.

And that is something we all need to keep in mind.  The rest of the Old Testament is not messed up by David’s relationship with God.  It’s his family and his inability to relate on the horizontal level that causes all the problems.

And so, it doesn’t matter how well you pray or how much of the Bible you read and memorise.  If you can’t deal with relationship problems that will determine the outcome of your life.

I’m not saying your relationship with God is not important, but remember when Jesus was asked what the most important commandment was, and he said there were two that couldn’t be separated (Matthew 22: 37-40.)

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 Episode 23

Wise Guys

Solomon is probably the most famous of King David’s sons.  He was born not long after David’s fall from grace.  David had had his affair with Bathsheba (that’s 20th/21^st century language for adultery!) and their baby had died.  David then ‘comforted’ Bathsheba – wonderful euphemism – and she had another child who they called Solomon (2 Samuel 12: 24).  God decided to gave him an extra name (2 Samuel 12: 25) but he was known as Solomon.

He had an unsettled childhood!  That’s an understatement.  It was while he was learning to toddle around that his half brother Amnon raped his half sister Tamar and then when he was on solids and walking around getting potty trained, Absalom murdered Amnon and soon after that, just as Solomon was starting school, there was that big rebellion when David had to run for his life.  This time we are seeing it from Solomon’s viewpoint. 

Solomon went with David, so his early schooldays were interrupted (2 Samuel 15: 16).

Somewhere along the line David decided that Solomon was going to succeed him as king (1 Kings 1: 13) although we don’t actually hear why he decided this.  It is suggested in 1 Chronicles 22: 6-10 that God had told David that Solomon was to succeed him.

We do know that before he becomes king Solomon gets married to an Ammonite called Naamah and has a son called Rehoboam (1 Kings 11: 42 = 1 Kings 14: 21).

Now this is interesting for all those of you who know anything about Solomon, because what we usually hear about him is wrong.  The way the story usually goes is that Solomon was this king who was given the gift of wisdom by God – this wisdom involved knowing when it was right to chop babies in half and when it was wrong.  Most people know the story.  Then after some years Solomon marries a lot of wives, and when I say a lot, I mean a lot.  And these wives drive him away from God because he starts worshipping their gods and loses this great wisdom that God gave him.

Well, this lets us know how it really started.  He married Naamah before he became king!  She was an Ammonite.  I know!  It seems so harmless.  Who wouldn’t marry an Ammonite woman after all?

Well, one person who shouldn’t is any Israelite man.  Let me tell you their history: If you go back to Bible soap episode 7 called ‘Finding Neverland’ then you will see how I ignored how Abraham’s nephew, Lot had sex with both his daughters and the youngest had a son who became the father of the Ammonites.  So they were distant cousins, and that’s OK.  But they joined with the Moabites, after the exodus, to destroy Israel and so they were forbidden to enter the congregation of Israel to the 10^th generation (Deuteronomy 23: 3-6). 

But, count the generations and maybe we’re OK.  But would you take the chance?  When I’m in London getting the train back to Eastbourne and there are 12 carriages, the first 4 going to Eastbourne, the second 4 going to Brighton and the rest going nowhere in particular, I don’t get on the 4th carriage, I get on the 3^rd.  I take no chances.  And maybe Solomon should have been the same!

Not only that, but they had caused trouble in more recent history.  Episode 14 of Bible soap tells the story of Jephthah who ended up sacrificing his daughter.  He was fighting the Ammonites because they had invaded Israel.  King Saul fought against the Ammonites, driving them out of Israel again; King David made friends with one Ammonite king, but then went to war against his son because he turned against Israel.  So they weren’t a reliable people.  And wise Solomon marries one!

And right through to the end of Old Testament history the Ammonites are causing trouble for Israel.

We don’t hear too much about Solomon’s kids.  There is mention of two daughters, but we don’t hear who their mums are: 1 Kings 4: 11 & 15.

Anyway, as King David was dying, his oldest living son, Adonijah decided he should become king (1 Kings 1: 11).  So Bathsheba, Solomon’s mum complains to David, who declares Solomon to be his heir (1 Kings 1: 28-30).

Adonijah got a little worried when he heard the news, but Solomon forgave him – for now.

Then we get David’s last words to Solomon, which I said last time were worth hearing.  (1 Kings 2: 1-10).

So all David’s troublemakers get dealt with by Solomon.  Not the best inheritance to leave your children – getting them to do your dirty work, but these were different times.  Although you still shouldn’t do it today.

To finish Adonijah off: he makes a really dumb request.  Remember Abishag from last time?  The young woman they put in King David’s bed to keep him warm at night?  Well Adonijah decides he’d like to have her for his wife.  It gets really cold in Israel in the winter!

Solomon didn’t take the request too well (1 Kings 2: 21-25).

And then Solomon marries his second wife, the daughter of the Egyptian Pharaoh.  He showed a little more wisdom than his predecessors and built a separate house for this wife.

And in spite of this clear case of bigamy God offers to give him whatever he asks for.  God is a gracious God, working with us sometimes in spite of ourselves.  (1 Kings 3: 5-14).

He was a wise king, as it says in 1 Kings 4: 29-34. 

And the first instance we have of Solomon’s wisdom is in chapter 3 of 1 Kings, when the two prostitutes ask him to settle a dispute.

A lot of things happen during Solomon’s reign.  He builds the first Temple to God: a 13 year project. 

And then he gets that visit from the Queen of Sheba.  This was a famous royal queen.  She is famous because she visited Solomon!  But it was obviously headline news at the time.

It was a time of prosperity – a time so unlike today!  This is a good description: 1 Kings 10: 21.

But, and there’s always a but.  This is Adam’s family.  Everyone is a member of Adam’s family, and so no matter how well things are going there is always going to be a but.  There was the fact that, like his dad before him, Solomon was not content with two wives.

You may know about Solomon, but then you may not.  If you don’t, this will be a surprise to you.  Look how many wives he had: 1 Kings 11: 1-3.

Stick with just the 700 wives for now.  He obviously married more than one a year, because he didn’t live for more than 700 years.  In fact, we have already seen that he reigned for 40 years, and it was during that period that he married 700 royal wives.

These were princesses so he didn’t just nip down to the Register Office.  It would have been a decent wedding.  So, 40 years and 700 weddings averages out to 17.5 weddings a year.  In a 12 month year that works out at about 1.5 weddings a month.  I have seen the amount of preparation that goes into a regular wedding and these were royal weddings!  How did he find the time to do anything else?

But then add on the 300 concubines.  Supposing he went through some kind of civil ceremony with them.  Add the total up and it averages out at 25 a year.  That’s just over 2 a month for the entire length of his reign.

Do you see where the idea came from that the bride’s family pay for the wedding?  He would have been bankrupt if he had tried to pay for 1,000 weddings!

But they led to his downfall (1 Kings 11: 4-6).

And so God brought judgment on Solomon.  He tells him that his kingdom will be divided after his death and then trouble flares up among the neighbouring countries.

Solomon dies and his son, Rehoboam, succeeds him as king, and he didn’t inherit his dad’s wisdom.  With all those weddings I suppose he rarely saw his dad!  But he followed his example.  He had 18 wives, 60 concubine, 28 sons and 60 daughters.  Daughters are now being mentioned a bit more.

He upset the people and a rebellion began that lasted throughout most of the rest of the Old Testament.

All that great treasure that Solomon had built up was lost in a raid by the Egyptians and so Rehoboam replaced all the gold things in the Temple with bronze replicas.  And he fades away into insignificance; dies after a mere 17 years on the throne and is succeeded by his son, Abijah, who managed to survive as king for 3 years and then he apparently died in the civil war that was continually playing out in the background. It’s worth noting though that Abijah is the one of the few who is recorded as having daughters.  In 2 Chronicles 12: 21 it says that he had 14 wives, 22 sons and 16 daughters.  2 Chronicles 11: 21.

Wise Solomon produces an idiot son, who produces a worthless son, who has a son called Asa.  And he was good.  He was one of the best.  He reigned for 41 years and he returned Judah to God.

And that is pretty much how it continues for the rest of the history books.  There are a couple of kings’ families that we will look at, but it is dissolving into a mess at this point.

Family life is taking a back seat as politics and corruption take priority.

Again, though, the story behind it all is that children learn what they live.  And if parents don’t put the interests of their children first, disaster follows.

There was a girl on Deal or No Deal last week who had a disastrous game.  She said at the start that she wanted to do some training and become a Teaching Assistant and then possibly a teacher.  In the first round she took out 3 big boxes and her story changed and now she wanted to give her 16 month old daughter a good start in life.  The good start apparently included leaving her with a childminder while she did her training and went to work.

As the game really took a nose dive the story changed again and she said the reason she was on the programme was her mum who had brought her up alone and she wanted to reward her mum by taking her to Graceland.

Unfortunately, she took the banker’s gamble at the end and won £15,000.  She was delighted because her mum could now go to Graceland.  Her daughter was forgotten!

That is the kind of parenting we have just been looking at in this episode of Bible soap.  That is the kind of parenting that is so common today.  And as all these things in the OT were written for our instruction, don’t just spiritualise them.  Learn the lessons and take care of your kids.  Put them before your own interests. Remember you have 18 years to make a difference!

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Episode 24

Faith of the fathers

Bible Soap is nearly coming to its conclusion!  There are very few families left to look at now.  In the Old Testament there is just one more family and one family situation to look at and in the New Testament there is only one family to look at.  I’ll be sorry to see it end.

For now, we are looking at two families that overlap.  This is another dark period in Israel's history.  We have had King Solomon and his 1,000 wives, followed by his son who divided the kingdom between the 10 northern tribes and the two southern tribes.  We are now several generations later.  The 10 northern tribes have just been taken away into exile by the Assyrian empire, never to be seen again, and so the kingdom of Judah, from where we get Jews, is all that is left.  But the Babylonian empire is taking over the world stage and is moving towards Judah.

And Hezekiah is born to King Ahaz of Judah.  Ahaz wasn’t much of a king and he wasn’t much of a dad.  He is introduced like this – 2 Kings 16: 2-4.

Making his son ‘pass through the fire’ means sacrificing him.  Hezekiah was the fortunate son – he survived!

Somehow Hezekiah turned out to be OK.  He is introduced like this – 2 Kings 18: 1-8.

He was a good king.  He was married to Hephzibah – there is no mention of any other wife.  The kings were the rock stars of their day: they didn’t live very long!  (Rock stars generally don’t live long!)  If you take a look at their ages: Ahaz lived to be 36.  Hezekiah lived to be 54.  They didn’t live too long and for Hezekiah that was a bit of a problem.

But that comes later.  In the meantime there is a big problem.  The Assyrians don’t like the fact that Hezekiah has rebelled against them, so they send an army to attack Jerusalem and Hezekiah is in a bit of a panic.  He calls for the prophet Isaiah to find out what God is going to do.  It all works out well and the Assyrians back off.

But Isaiah is interesting because he is a full-time prophet.  It was bad enough being a son of a king in those days – the bad influences from your dad and the risk of assassination from anyone who wanted to be king.  But to be the son of a prophet!

Isaiah was married.  He had been prophesying for the previous 3 kings and now he was prophesying for Hezekiah.  In Ahaz’s day Isaiah had a son with a prophetic name: ‘Shear-Jashub’.  The name referred to God’s promise that even though Judah may be taken into captivity, at least ‘a remnant will return’.  Just before Hezekiah became king God told Isaiah that he was to name his newborn son.  And what a name he had!  Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.

The poor kid!  In schools they want the children to be able to recognise their own name before they start, so that they can identify their coats and their places and everything else with their name on it.  Could you imagine what that was like for little Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz?  How could he not recognise his name!  It probably took up more than one coat peg and his desk would be full of just his name label!

The name had a meaning.  Naturally!  When we name our children we have a variety of reasons for doing it.  It can be because we want them to have our name, or it can be after someone famous.  When I was in my first church in Belfast the number of baby girls who were called Kylie was phenomenal.  Made all the more amusing when I discovered that Kylie, in Aborigine means ‘boomerang’.  Sometimes we give our children names because we just like the name.

But not if you were a prophet.  Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz means, ‘quick to the plunder, swift to the spoil’.  It was a reference to the fact that the 10 northern tribes were going to be taken into exile.  And later on Isaiah mentions that these names are significant – Isaiah 8: 18.

It was a full-time job for these prophets.  And we don’t hear any more about the family.  All the other heroes of the faith have turned out to be useless as fathers.  Their children have either followed their sins, or they have gone bad because of apparent neglect.  The implication is there that Isaiah’s children turned out OK because they were warning signs and hope signs from God.

But that’s it for Isaiah.  One of his contemporaries, Hosea, will be the subject of the next episode of Bible soap and his family was something else – he married a prostitute and he didn’t know which of the children were his – but that’s next time.

Meanwhile, we go back to Hezekiah who gets a bit sick.  These kings didn’t live long like I said (2 Kings 20: 1).

He was 39 years old when he got sick.  So he wasn’t too old and he took the news, that he was going to die, like a man (2 Kings 20: 2-3).

I don’t want to die!  I’ve been a good boy!  This is the first person you read about in the Bible who cries about having to die!  And it’s the first time that God allows someone an extension.  He gives him another 15 years of life (2 Kings 20: 6).

So he gets to live to be 54.  It’s still not too long, but it’s better than 39 I suppose.  But was he right to complain?

He had done a lot of good.  He had been the best king since David even though his dad was a bad role model.  But would it have been better if he had just accepted that this was it?

That’s a question to ask when it comes to healing from God: why do you want to be healed?  Why do you want to live longer?  If you had the chance to add another 15 years to your life what would you do with them?

Well Hezekiah didn’t do much good with his extra 15 years.  If you look at the book of Chronicles, which is the theological version of the history, you’ll see he didn’t do too well: (2 Chronicles 32: 25-26).

And then he decided to show off all his possessions.  The Babylonian emperor, Merodach-Baladan, sent Hezekiah a ‘Get Well’ card and a gift, so he invited him round for tea, and so he showed the Babylonians everything he owned, and then Isaiah heard about the visit and he wasn’t happy: (2 Kings 20: 14-19).  I love the concern Hezekiah has for his children and grandchildren!  Once again we see someone who is a parent looking out for themselves and not concerned about anyone else in his family.

So if he hadn’t been given the extra 15 years that wouldn’t have happened.  But there was worse to come.  He had another son during this time.  We don’t know how many children he had because only this one is mentioned.  This son was called Manasseh.  He became king when Hezekiah died.  He was 12 years old when he became king (2 Kings 21: 1).

Manasseh lived a bit longer than his dad and granddad, but 67 is not too old either.  But it’s a good job he didn’t live much longer.  He did a bad job.  He was born during Hezekiah’s extra time and this was the son who shouldn’t have been born.  Most other bad kings were compared to Jeroboam – you don’t need to know about him – he was the bad standard by whom everyone else was measured.  Not Manasseh!  He was measured by the nations who had lived in Israel before the Israelites moved in: (2 Chronicles 33: 9).

And being a typical OT dad, he sacrificed his sons (2 Chronicles 33: 6).

The one factor that helped is that he repented at the end (2 Chronicles 33: 18-19).

But as is the way, his son didn’t learn from his repentance, he learnt from his sins.  And that is what these families keep showing us: children learn what they live.  You are responsible for living right so that your children learn from your good example.

But to finish the family line off, Manasseh’s surviving son, Amon was 22 when he became king and he was assassinated 2 years later by his officials.  His officials were killed and Amon’s son, Josiah became king at the age of 8.  Add that up and Amon was about 16 when Josiah was born!  Anyway, Josiah grew up without the influence of his bad dad and he turned out to be the best king they ever had.  But at the age of 39 he was killed by an arrow in a battle.  So his son, Jehoahaz became king in his place, at the age of 23.  He was dethroned 3 months later by the Egyptians and his brother, Eliakim, was made king in his place.  He lasted for 11 years and then the Babylonians took him away in exile and put his son on the throne.  He was called Jehoiachin and he was 18 when he became king.  He lasted 3 months and 10 days.  The Babylonians removed him and put his 22 year old uncle, Zedekiah, on the throne.  He lasted 11 years, but he was no good, so this happened: (2 Kings 25: 7).

And that’s it!  That’s the end of Israel and Judah.  They are in exile for 70 years until the Persians release them and they become the Jewish people of the beginning of the New Testament period.

There will be another couple of Old Testament episodes, but this mess is mainly caused by people failing to bring up their children properly.  Sin is hereditary.  We do pass it on to our children.  And as I keep saying, these things were written so that we would learn from them and not make the same mistakes.  The Message has the best translation of this that I have seen: (1 Corinthians 10: 11-12): "These are all warning markers - DANGER! - in our history books, written down so that we don't repeat their mistakes.  Our positions in the story are parallel - they at the beginning, we at the end - and we are just as capable of messing it up as they were.  don't be so naive and self-confident.  you're not exempt.  You could fall flat on your face as easily as anyone else.  forget about self-confidence; it's useless.  cultivate God-confidence."

So when you go home, take God with you!