28:1-4 – Ahaz is basically the worst of the worst.
29:5-11 – King Hezekiah was faithful and brought the Levites back to faithfulness as well.
29:24 – Israel had strayed for a long time from faithfulness. The Levites were cleansing everything completely so it could return to use in the worship of the Lord.
29:25-30 – This seems like a pretty spectacular worship service.
30:1-9 – It’s comforting that even when we fail to do what we’re supposed to do, when we choose to return to God, he accepts us.
30:18-20 – God’s extreme kindness shows here as people come and eat Passover without cleansing themselves. This harkens to the way Jesus handled the law. He always rewarded faith and always showed love even if the law had to be bent a little.
30:26-27 – It had been a long time since Solomon. Hezekiah’s commitment to restoring Passover, even though imperfect, was pleasing to God.
31:9-10 – Like when it was time to build the tabernacle in Exodus, the faithful Israelites bring more than enough offering.
25:14 – The Israelites were often temped into worshipping other gods, but normally not as quickly and blatantly as Amaziah. God had just blessed Amaziah with a war victory, which to the people of that time, was a sign that the God of the victorious army was more powerful. It seems odd that he would immediately turn to a lesser god.
26:3-15 – This section chronicles the faithful days of Uzziah.
26:16-21 – Like the chronicler tends to do (i.e. Joash) he splits the account of the faithful days of a king from the unfaithful days of a king. This section chronicles Uzziah’s unfaithful days.
26:19 – Having leprosy meant that King Uzziah was unclean and would need to be separated from the rest of the Israelites.
26:23 – He was buried in a field owned by kings instead of in the burial tombs where the rest of the kings were buried.
27:2 – The chronicler here is commending Jotham for not entering the temple. That was the sin Uzziah committed. He entered the parts he was not allowed.
21:6 – The “ways of the kings of Israel” were not good. There were next to no faithful kings of Israel after David.
21:15 – This sounds like an unpleasant punishment.
22:9 – Even though Ahaziah was unfaithful and was punished and killed because of it, he was given a proper burial to honor the faithfulness of his grandfather.
22:10-11 – It is extremely significant that Jehoshabeath hides and saves Joash. God had promised to sustain King David’s line. Athaliah nearly destroys this by killing off all of the royal family, but Joash is saved, which saves David’s line.
23:16 – Jehoiada became a mentor figure for Joash since Joash was just a child when he started his reign as king.
24:5 – The temple had fallen into disrepair after a number of unfaithful kings. Joash wanted to raise money to repair the temple.
24:7 – Just like the Israelites were set apart for God, the temple and all its contents were set apart for worshipping God. It must have grieved God greatly when these items were used for worshipping other gods.
24:10 – People don’t normally rejoice when paying taxes, but this tax was to restore them with their God. This seems worthy of celebration.
24:15-22 – Jehoiada’s death is a major turning point for Joash. He switches from being faithful to totally abandoning faithfulness. He listens to the wicked princes of Judah and kills Jehoiada’s son Zechariah.
18:1-3 – It was unusual for Israel and Judah to work together during their split. There were reasons they split.
18:16 – This phrase “sheep without a shepherd” is used often when people don’t have anyone to follow. Jesus called the Jews that when he started his ministry. The Israelites were often called this when they were not following God.
18:11-22 – Ahab’s prophets guaranteed he would have victory at Ramoth-gilead, but Micaiah explains that they all have a lying spirit and that, due to Ahab’s unfaithfulness, God intends for Ahab to fail. Ahab didn’t really believe Micaiah because he hadn’t liked previous prophesies he’d given.
18:29-34 – Ahab did everything he could to avoid his fate, but what God speaks is true.
19:1-2 – It was not good that Jehoshaphat made a pact with Ahab, who was not faithful to God.
20:5-12 – Jehoshaphat, here, is the model for trusting God in a terrifying time. He remembers the faithfulness of God in the past and uses that as assurance that God will be faithful again, and he sought help from the Lord instead of others.
20:21 – Memorize the sentence beginning “Give thanks to the Lord…”. It is repeated throughout Scripture and should be one you have on the ready when in need.
13:4-12 – Abijah, the new king of Judah, from the line of David, is at war with Jeroboam. At this time, Abijah makes it clear that he and the people of Judah are actually following God’s commands while the people still known as Israel are not.
14:1-8 – Faithful kings like Abijah make faithfulness look so easy and rewarding. It makes you wonder why other kings chose not to be faithful.
15:1-7 – Azariah gives Judah a pep talk encouraging them to continue to be faithful to the Lord.
15:8-15 – Asa heeds Azaraiah’s prophecy and turns the people of Judah to God.
16:2-9 – Though Asa had tried to remain faithful to God, he still wanted to hedge his bets.
17:6 – Taking down the high places, where false god worship often occurred, seemed to be the final act of faithfulness that even most of the faithful kings failed to complete.
17:7-10 – Throughout 1&2 Kings we see the faithfulness of the people closely follow the faithfulness of the king. Hear King Jehoshaphat takes it a step further and has his officials teach those in the surrounding lands about God.
9:1-9 – The queen of Sheba’s visit both affirmed Solomon’s wealth and wisdom, and was most likely a strategic move on her part to get in on the trade route action.
10:1-15 – This story, also found in 2 Kings, is the sinful decision to not listen to wise counsel, which led to the ultimate split of Judah and Israel, which led to the exile of both parts of the Israelites. Our decisions have consequences.
11:1-12 – Like we learned in 2 Kings, Rehoboam, Solomon’s son split off and took only the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. This is the portion of Israel that the line of David still possessed.
12:1-5 – Once Rehoboam allowed the Lord to bless and establish him, he abandoned God and his law. Though this sometimes works for a while,
5:2-10 – The Ark of the Covenant moving into the temple signified God arriving in the temple.
5:13 – This sounds like a pretty cool job.
6:3-11 – It’s important for us as individuals, but also as the body, to publicly recognize God’s answers to prayer.
6:18-21 – Solomon’s humility and awe of God’s willingness to dwell among people is eye opening. It truly is incredible that God has offered to dwell in this house made by humans among them.
6:22-42 – Solomon pleas with God to hear his people’s various prayers. This seems to be a type of dedicating prayer for the temple.
6:32-33 – These verses aren’t familiar to our cultural point of view. We have always been taught to welcome the outsider into church because we want more people to know Jesus. God’s people, the Israelites, had a much more exclusive mind set. The temple was built by them for them to connect with and worship their God.
7:11-22 – God confirms his pleasure in the temple and Solomon’s having built it. He assures Solomon of his loyalty to him, but also explains the consequences if Solomon is not faithful.
8:8-9 – This is an interesting delineation. Solomon is ok with having slaves from other people groups but refuses to have Israelite slaves. They, instead, become soldiers.
8:17-18 – Solomon and Hiram worked together to control the trade routes through the Mediterranean. This was highly lucrative.
1:7-13 – Solomon could have asked for anything from the Lord, but chose to think first of God’s people and what would benefit them. The Lord blesses this by also giving Solomon riches and honor.
4:1-22 – Though it seems like a lot of tedious details to have to read, isn’t it incredible how much time, effort, and detail the Israelites went to to make the temple incredible for the Lord. This takes great faithfulness to care this much.
25:1-31 – Like the priests, David divided the musicians to all have a certain role.
26:29-31 – Some of the Levites were given jobs outside of the temple.
26:31 – David’s 40th year of reigning was his last.
27:23-24 – David was not asked to run this census of the people and God was not pleased that he did. These verses seem to attempt to absolve him of his wrongdoing because the census was never completed.
27:33 – It is funny that right in the middle of all the official positions and responsibilities is listed Hushai, the king’s friend, as if that is an official position too.
28:2-8 – In David’s final year as king, he explains that he was chosen for a specific purpose. He was a king of war, but his family, from his line was chosen to be on the throne forever. This is culminated with Jesus coming from David’s line. Interestingly, there are things he wasn’t called to do. God has a specific purpose for each of us.
28:20 – These words David speaks to Solomon are familiar. We hear them in parts when Moses hands over leadership of Israel to Moses and we hear them throughout the Psalms.
29:3-5 – Leaders have to put their money where their mouth is.
29:14 – This should be our attitude with our resources. We are simply giving from what God has given us.
22:1-5 – Though God did not want David to build the temple, he knew Solomon was supposed to so he helped make preparations for it.
22:6-10 – God had different purposes for David and Solomon. David was King of Israel during a time of war and he established Israel as a major power. God granted Solomon peace during his reign so he could build the temple.
22:11-13 – The Ancient Israelites were always sure to speak specific blessings over their children, particularly before they died. We would be wise to take on this practice.
23:5 – It’s pretty cool that a specific job was just to offer praise to the Lord all the time. Seems like a pretty sweet gig.
23:26-32 – The Levites’ job was to be the priests who fulfilled the rituals required by God.
24:1-19 – This is a way of organizing the priests so their duties can be split up. “Sons of Aaron” is always referring to priests.
