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Old Testament Basics - Lesson 06.
Old Testament Basics.
Dr. Sid Buzzell.

Lesson Six.
This lesson is about the kingdom era. After the people of Israel went through their long time with the judges, over 300 years of, I guess, really frustration in the sense of failure, they came to the last of the judges, a man named Samuel. And they said, "We're tired of being led by judges, you know, we want a king. Every time we go into battle with one of these other nations, they have a king and we don't. We're led by priests. They're nice people, and some of them have been great heroes, but we've never rallied all of our tribes together into one nation with a king. And that's what we want."

And Samuel resisted, but eventually he gave them a king. And so we find this next long period of time where Israel was being led by kings. There are a number of books that we have to look at as we consider the kingdom period. The chronology books, the books that carry the story forward, are 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings. So read those two books and that gives you the flow of the history.

Then there are three color books. First and 2 Chronicles give us a different version of the kings. They're the same kings, but they look at them from God's perspective, while the books of Kings look at them from the human perspective. And then the book of Lamentations shows us the heartbroken prophet Jeremiah sitting at the end of this kingdom period, sitting in the rubble of Jerusalem weeping over the destroyed city of Jerusalem and over the destroyed temple.

Also during this period of time, which was the pinnacle of Israel's Old Testament history, we have the books of poetry and wisdom. We're going to spend a whole session on Old Testament poetry and a whole session on Old Testament wisdom literature. But when we look at those books, the books of Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon, you have to impose those on this period of time because it was the kings David and Solomon who were primarily responsible for those books of Psalms and Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon.
So it gets a little bit complicated, and you may want to actually view this portion of the tape twice to get this fixed in your mind because it's a crucial period but it is a bit complicated. This kingdom era covers a period of 460 years, a long, long, time. We divide it into three periods.

The first period in this kingdom era is the preparation for the kingdom. It's the period of Samuel's life. Samuel was the last of the judges, but he was also the kingmaker. He anointed Saul the first king of Israel; he also anointed David the second king of Israel. The period of Samuel's life that's recorded in the book of 1 Samuel covers a period of about 55 years. It's a long time.

Israel was transitioning from the period under the judges to the period under the kings. And the great hero, magnificent man, this man Samuel, if you read his life in these early chapters of 1 Samuel, it's astounding that in this era called the Judges that this one man could rise up and be such a man of God. A true hero is this man Samuel.

And God came to Samuel and said, "If the people want a king and they refuse to be led by Me, then let's give them a human king. And I have appointed the man I want to be the first king, go anoint this man Saul." And so Saul was the first of Israel's kings, and he ruled during this period called the united kingdom.
Now the time frame for the kingdom era is about 460 years. And we divide that kingdom era into three phases. The first is the preparation for the kingdom, and that's the period of Samuel's life. Samuel was the great kingmaker, the one who anointed the first two kings of Israel.

The second phase of the kingdom era is called "the united kingdom." For a number of years, actually for 120 years, Israel was united under three kings as one nation. But then after Solomon we move to the third era, which is called "the divided kingdom." We're going to look at that in a bit of detail, but as you think about the kingdom era think about the preparation for the kingdom under Samuel.

Think of Israel as one nation under three kings: Saul, David, and Solomon. And then recognize that after Solomon died, his son came to the throne and the people rebelled against his son. And actually then for the rest of the kingdom era we have two nations, not one. So as you read about the latter part of this kingdom era, you'll be reading about Israel, but then you'll also be reading about Judah.

And many people say, "What is this? What is Judah? What is Israel?" Just remember that after Solomon died, his son split the kingdom and now you have the kingdom of Israel and you have the kingdom of Judah. And it's almost like in the United States where we had a period of a civil war where there was the Union and the Confederacy. That's similar to what we read about in the latter part of Israel's kingdom era.

The first period under Samuel was a period that lasted about 55 years. You read about that in 1 Samuel 1–10. Remember now, the kingdom hasn't been initiated yet but Samuel in those first years (chapters 1–10), a 55-year period of time, was transitioning Israel from its period under the judges to the first of the kings.

The second era, the united kingdom, covers a period of 120 years. Interestingly, there were three kings: King Saul, King David, King Solomon. Each of them reigned for about 40 years. So for 120 years, Israel was at its glory days. These were the high-point times for Israel, the time when their greatest literature was written, the period of the Psalms, most of the Psalms.

The period of Solomon gathering and writing the Proverbs, it's when he wrote the book of Ecclesiastes. The book of Song of Solomon, this great period of Israel's literature was during this period of the united kingdom.
Let's look at each of these kings during this united kingdom period. The first king was King Saul. Now Saul never brought all the tribes together, but they were thinking of themselves as one nation. Saul's story is a tragic story. Physically, he was ideal. The Scriptures tell us that he stood head and shoulders above any other man in Israel. He was sort of his own giant, and he rallied the people together. And there was a good time, but not a great time, because although King Saul was qualified physically, we understand that there was something about him that made him not qualified mentally, emotionally, and most of all spiritually.

An interesting note that we read in 1 Samuel about King Saul that really characterizes his reign: he was actually doing pretty well up until that story of David and Goliath. Do you remember that, David and Goliath? Goliath was the giant who came and challenged Israel's army, actually saying, "We don't have to see a lot of people die in battle, just send one man out to fight me; and if your man beats me, you win. If I defeat him, we win."

Well, everybody including Saul, Israel's giant, was in their tent hiding under their sleeping bags. Nobody wanted to go out and take on this giant. And then this young kid came down. He brought some sandwiches down to his brothers who were in the army. David wasn't even in the army. But David was the one who said, "Who is this giant challenging God? Don't you people believe in our God?" And David said, "I'll go out and take him on."
Well, you know the story, and David did take him on. He defeated the giant. Right after that, as the armies were marching back home, verse 6 of chapter 18 of 1 Samuel says, "It happened as they were coming . . . ", "they" being the armies of Israel, "when David returned from killing the Philistine, that the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul with tambourines, with joy, and with musical instruments." The women sang as they played, and here's what they sang: " 'Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.' Then Saul became very angry, for this saying displeased him. And he said, 'They have ascribed to David ten thousand, but to me they've only ascribed thousands. Now what more can he have but the kingdom?' Saul looked at David with suspicion from that day on."

From that moment, Saul stopped leading Israel and started protecting his turf. That was the tragic end of Saul. Saul died on the battlefield, and the next king was David. David was the great uniter. David did in fact rally all 12 tribes of Israel, and they became welded together into one nation. Militarily, they expanded their borders. Spiritually, they came together. David was not only a great general, a great leader of armies, but David was a man who worshipped God with his whole heart.

David's story is a story of great success. Tragically, as many people know, David is also a man who failed God. In fact, when you think about David, there are two ways of thinking about David. We think about David and Goliath, but we also think about David and Bathsheba,  David's great moments, David's tragic moments. But even after his moral failure with Bathsheba, God didn't give up on David.

In fact, we read after David's death, when God was talking to his son Solomon, we read over and over again, "David was a man who followed Me with his whole heart." David failed God, but God never failed David. David was God's man. In fact, in 2 Samuel 7 we have the Davidic covenant given, where God said to David, "There will always be one of your descendants sitting on the throne of Israel, and someday one of your descendants will be a man who will bless the whole world. He will be the ruler of the world."

And that's the great messianic promise that was given to David and that was fulfilled in Jesus in the New Testament. David was the great poet. We'll read about him more. We'll hear more about him when we talk about the Psalms and the wisdom literature.

David's son Solomon was also a great, kind, brilliant man, gatherer and writer of proverbs. He wrote music. He was just a marvelous man, very gifted. I sometimes wonder if, as we read Proverbs 3:5-6 though, that we don't read some of his own struggle. The advice he gave was: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge God."

Solomon did that in the early years of his life, but I believe at the end of his life he lost that struggle. In fact, the Scriptures tell us that he did. So, like David, Solomon was a man of great gifts, the man who did marvelous things. He built the temple in Jerusalem for God. But his life ended tragically. He followed God, but unlike his father, David, he did not follow God with his whole heart.

In fact, after Solomon died, his son Rehoboam came to the throne and he continued in the ways of his father, Solomon. The people rebelled. They had been heavily taxed by Solomon. And they came and asked Rehoboam for some relief from the taxes, and Rehoboam said, "I'm only going to tax you more heavily. I'm the king, and I can do what I want."
Well, the 10 northern tribes said, "We've had enough." So they selected their own king, a man named Jeroboam. And so the 10 northern tribes kept the name Israel and actually became a separate nation. The two tribes in the south, the tribe of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin, then became their own nation. Actually, these two nations, Judah and Israel, at times were even in civil war against each other. Sometimes they fought together against the common enemy, but far more often they didn't.

King Jeroboam in the north set up his own temple, his own idols, appointed his own priesthood. And so for all of the years that Israel existed separated from Judah, they were led by evil kings, kings who just led them further and further away from God.

Israel existed for 210 more years. After Solomon died and the nations divided and split, the nation Israel, those 10 northern tribes, continued on for 210 years. And then God brought the Assyrians to totally destroy and annihilate that northern nation called Israel.

The southern nation of Judah lasted for an additional 135 years. And in 586 [bc], God raised up the Babylonians to come and destroy the southern nation of Judah. And that leads us to this next period of time, which is a heartbreaking tragic period called the exile.

Israel came out of Egypt under Moses; they had every opportunity to live in a land flowing with milk and honey. They had God as their King. They had God-given rules and regulations to help them live their lives in ways that would honor God and make them wildly successful. They refused; they had a better way to live. And finally, in 722 [bc], the northern nation was destroyed. In 586, the southern nation was destroyed and the people of Judah were carried off into captivity. And once again, now in 586, they're living in a foreign land, slaves under a foreign power. Can we begin to estimate the tragic results of people who want to live their lives as they see fit? People who, as amazing as it sounds say, "You know, I really am smarter than God. God says I should live this way, but I've got a better way."

Israel tried it. They tried it generation after generation, failure after failure, until finally now they're back in slavery. That's not the end of the story. We'll pick it up in the next lesson and see how God allowed them to go back to their land and rebuild it.