1 Kings – General
Is there anything in first and Second Kings that suggests the idea of inspiration? When David is dying he tells his son Solomon to murder Joab, not to let his hoar head go down to the grave in peace. With his last breath he commands his son to bring down the hoar head of Shimei to the grave with blood. Having uttered these merciful words, the good David, the man after God's heart, slept with his fathers. Was it necessary to inspire the man who wrote the history of the building of the temple, the story of the visit of the Queen of Sheba, or to tell the number of Solomon's wives? What care we for the withering of Jeroboam's hand, the prophecy of Jehu, or the story of Elijah and the ravens? Can we believe that Elijah brought flames from heaven, or that he went at last to Paradise in a chariot of fire? Can we believe in the multiplication of the widow's oil by Elisha, that an army was smitten with blindness, or that an axe floated in the water? Does it civilize us to read about the beheading of the seventy sons of Ahab, the putting out of the eyes of Zedekiah and the murder of his sons? Is there one word in First and Second Kings calculated to make men better?
1 Kings 1:1-4, 15 - Poor old king David could get no heat. So they searched throughout Israel for a beautiful virgin. They finally found one (Abishag), and she "cherished the king, and ministered to him," but apparently he still couldn't get any heat. Shucks.
1 Kings 2:5-9 - In David's last words, he commands his son Solomon to murder Joab.
1 Kings 2:24-25 - Solomon has his brother (Adonijah) murdered.
1 Kings 2:33 - Solomon justifies the murder of Joab by saying that Joab also was a murderer, and that the blood of Joab's victims "shall therefore return upon the head of Joab, and upon the head of his seed for ever." So the wisest of all men (1 Kg.4:31) commands that all the children of Joab are to be murdered, and that the slaughter of his innocent descendants shall continue "forever."
1 Kings 2:44, 46 - But Solomon is not done murdering yet. He has Shimei murdered -- or as Solomon put it, "The Lord shall return thy wickedness upon thine own head."
1 Kings 3:12-15 - God grants Solomon's' request and makes him the wisest of all men. (He was wiser even than Jesus.) He also promises to "lengthen Solomon's days" if he will only "walk in my ways... as thy father David did walk." But alas, it was only a dream.
1 Kings 4:29 - How could Solomon be "wiser than all men" and yet have his heart "turned away ... after other gods?" (1 Kg.11:4)
1 Kings 6:2, 7:1-2 - The house that "Solomon built for the Lord" was tiny compared to the one he built for himself. According to 7:1-2, God's house had less than one-quarter the floor space of Solomon's.
1 Kings 7:23 - This verse implies that the value of is 3. (The actual value is approximately 3.14159.)
1 Kings 8:5 - When the Ark of the Covenant was brought into the temple, Solomon killed more animals than could be numbered.
1 Kings 8:63 - When dedicating the temple, Solomon kills 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. All this blood and gore must have made God very happy.
1 Kings 11:1-3 - "King Solomon loved many strange women. And he had 700 wives and 300 concubines." God didn't mind the number so much; it was their "strangeness" that he objected to. Earlier, he had commanded the Israelites not to "go in unto" such strange women, but Solomon couldn't resist. And he "clave unto these in love."
1 Kings 11:2 -Note that Solomon is told to stay away from foreign women. Why? Because they have different ("strange") religious beliefs, and God disapproves of mixed-faith marriages.
1 Kings 11:4 - The wisest man that ever lived (1 Kg.4:31) was misled by his wives into worshipping other gods. "And his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father." See 1 Sam.18:27, 27:9, 2 Sam.4:12, 5:8 13, and 11:2-17 for examples of what a man whose heart is "perfect with the Lord" can do. It was fortunate that Solomon's heart was not so perfect.
1 Kings 11:11-12 - God is angry with Solomon, but decides to punish Solomon's son rather than Solomon himself, because he liked Solomon's father (David) so darned much
1 Kings 11:15-16 – Joab (David's captain) spent six months killing every male in Edom. Yet a few years later Edom revolted. (2 Kg.8:22)
1 Kings 13:2 - King Josiah is prophesied to sacrifice the priests of the "high places" on their altars. And he does so in 2 Kg.23:20. Note that this is a guy who "did what was right in the eyes of the Lord" (2 Kg.22:2). So God must approve of at least some human sacrifices.
1 Kings 14:10-12 - God promises to "bring evil upon the house of Jerobaom" and says he will "cut off" anyone "that pisseth against the wall." God further explains that after he kills them, their dead bodies will be eaten by dogs (if they are city dwellers) or fowls (if they are country folk).
1 Kings 15:3 - "And his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father." See 1 Sam.18:27, 27:9, 2 Sam.4:12, 5:8 13, and 11:2-17 for examples of what a man whose heart is "perfect with the Lord" can do. It was fortunate that Jeroboam's heart was not so perfect.
1 Kings 15:5 - David never sinned, "save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite." But didn't David sin by numbering the people? (2 Sam.24:10)
1 Kings 15:14 - Was Asa perfect? This verse says so, but many others say that no one is or has been perfect.
1 Kings 15:29 - Baasha kills "all of the house of Jeroboam" leaving none "to breath." This slaughter was done "according to the word of the Lord."
1 Kings 16:6-8 - These verses say that Baasha died in the 26th year of Asa, yet 2 Chr.16:1 says that Baasha went to war with Judah in the 36th year of Asa's reign, which means that Baasha was still fighting 10 years after his death!
1 Kings 16:34 - When Hiel rebuilds Jericho, he lays the foundation with the body of his oldest son and sets up the gates with his youngest son's body "according to the word of the Lord."
1 Kings 17:22 - Elijah resurrects the widow's son, contrary to those verses that say that there is no resurrection from the dead.
1 Kings 20:28-30 - God delivers the Syrians into the Israelites hands, and 100,000 were killed in one day. Of those that escaped, 27,000 were crushed by a falling wall. (It was a really big wall.)
1 Kings 20:35-36 - God sends a lion to devour a man for refusing to strike another man.
1 Kings 20:42 - The prophet tells king Ahab that he, and his people, shall be punished for releasing Ben-ha'dad: "Your life shall go for his life, and your people for his people." They say that God is merciful. But when King Ahab is merciful, he is punished for it. See 1 Sam.15:2 for a similar example of God's mercy.
1 Kings 21:21 - God promises to "bring evil upon thee" and to "cut off" all those "that pisseth against the wall." God becomes furious when he sees people urinating on walls.
1 Kings 21:29 - Since Ahab humbles himself before the Lord, God decides not to bring evil on him; he'll bring it on Ahab's son instead. Well, although that sounds fair enough, it contradicts other places in the Bible that claim that sons will not be punished for their father's sins.
1 Kings 22:19 - "I saw the Lord sitting on his throne". But this contradicts the many Bible verses that say that no one has ever seen God.
1 Kings 22:22-23 - God puts a "lying spirit" in the mouth of prophets. If so, then those Bible verses saying that God doesn't lie must be lies.
1 Kings 22:43, 46 - Jehoshaphat "did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord" and "took" the homosexuals (sodomites) "out of the land," or as the RSV says, "he exterminated" them.
2 Kings – General
2 Kings 1:2-4, 17 - Ahaziah was sick and sent messengers to Baalzebub to ask if he would recover. God was jealous of the attention given to his competitor and tells Ahaziah that he will die for asking the wrong god.
2 Kings 1:10, 12 - Elijah shows that he is "a man of God" by burning 102 men to death.
2 Kings 2:11 - Did Elijah ascend into heaven in a whirlwind? Well, according to this verse he did, but Jn.3:13 deny it by saying, "No man hath ascended into heaven."
2 Kings 2:12 - Elisha calls Elijah "father." But in Mt.23:9 Jesus say, "Call not man your father."
2 Kings 2:23-24 - God sends two bears to rip up 42 little children for making fun of Elisha's bald head. And you trust your kids to this God?
2 Kings 3:19-25 - God instructs the Israelites, through the prophet Elisha, to implement a scorched earth policy on the Moabites. "Strike every fortified city and every choice city, and fell every good tree and stop all springs of water, and mar every good piece of land with stones." And they carry out their instructions. (Well, OK, they did leave a few stones in Kirharaseth.) This kind of tactic was used by many aggressors, including Adolf Hitler. I wonder if they also thought they were following God's instructions.
2 Kings 3:27 - In a desperate attempt to halt the slaughter of his people by the Israelites, the king of Moab sacrifices his oldest son as a burnt offering.
2 Kings 4:32-35 - Elisha restores the life of a dead child, but only after laying on him a couple of times, putting his mouth on the child's mouth, his eyes on the child's eyes, and his hands on the child' hands. Finally, the child responds by sneezing seven times. So I guess Jesus wasn't the first to rise from the dead.
2 Kings 5:14 - Elisha can do all the tricks of Jesus (raise the dead, heal the sick, etc.). Here he cures a leper, but only after the leper dips himself seven times in the Jordan.
2 Kings 5:27 - Elisha not only can cure leprosy, he can also dish it out. Here he makes his servant (Gehazi) and all his descendants’ lepers forever. But elsewhere the bible says that children shall not be punished for the sins of their fathers.
2 Kings 6:28-29 - "So we boiled my son, and did eat him."
2 Kings 6:33 - Women killed, boiled and ate their own children because of a plague that God sent, or as the Bible puts it: "Behold, this evil is of the Lord."
2 Kings 8:10 - Elisha, apparently with God's approval, tells a man to lie. So is lying forbidden or not?
2 Kings 8:22 - The Edomites revolt. But how could they have fought when all of their males had just recently been killed? (1 Kg.11:16)
2 Kings 10:16-17 - Jehu shows off his zeal for the Lord by murdering "all that remained unto Ahab in Samaria, till he had destroyed him according to the word of the Lord."
2 Kings 10:19 - Jehu lied to the followers of Baal so that he could trap and kill them.
2 Kings 10:30 - God is greatly pleased with all of Jehu's killings, saying "because thou hast done well in executing that which is right in mine eyes, and hast done unto the house of Ahab according to all that was in mine heart [Jehu murdered them all], thy children of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel."
2 Kings 12:20-21 - Joash was buried "with his fathers." But 2 Chr.24:24-25 denies this saying, "…they buried him not in the sepulchres of the kings."
2 Kings 13:21 - A dead body is brought to life when it accidentally touches the bones of Elisha. But elsewhere the bible says that no one will ever rise from the dead.
2 Kings 14:3, 7 - Amaziah "did that which was right in the sight of the Lord" and killed ten thousand Edomites. But in Dt.23:7 God tells the Israelites to "not abhor" the Edomites.
2 Kings 17:25-26 - God sent lions to devour the foreigners in Samaria because "they feared not the Lord," and even worse "they knew not the manner of the God of the land." Well that'll teach them about God's manners.
2 Kings 18:27 - This verse speaks of eating and drinking one's own bodily waste products. Charming.
2 Kings 20:11 - Isaiah, with a little help from God, makes the sun move backwards ten degrees. Now that's quite a trick. All at once, the earth stopped spinning and then reversed its direction of rotation. Or maybe the sun travelled around the earth in those days!
2 Kings 21:12 - God threatens to "bring such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle."
2 Kings 23:20 - Josiah, apparently with God's approval, kills "all the priests of the high places" and sacrifices them to God on their altars. Note that this is a guy who "did what was right in the eyes of the Lord" (2 Kg.22:2).
2 Kings 23:26 - Even though Josiah did all that God asked of him, God still punished him and all Jerusalem for the acts of his grandfather.
2 Kings 24:6 - In Jer.36:30 we are told that Jehoiakim had no one to succeed him, but this verse says that he was succeeded by his son.
2 Kings 25:7 - In Jeremiah 34:4 God tells Zedekiah that he will die in peace and be buried with his fathers. But this verse and Jer.52:10-11 say that he died a violent death in a foreign land.
