Unlocking the Bible. David Pawson

questions about their relationship with God. Where is he? Why has he allowed all this to happen? What about his promises?

      The book of Kings provides the answers to these questions. It explains that the fault for the exile lies squarely with the people. God kept his promises: he promised that if the people misbehaved they would lose the land, but in spite of repeated warnings they did not listen. The history of Kings is thus a profound lesson to these people in exile.

      Yet even in this dark book there is hope, because God promises never to break his part of the covenant. God says that although the people may break the covenant, he never will. He promises to bring his children back from exile. The punishment will be for a limited time only.

      In fact, the people remained in the land of Babylon for 70 years. The number was not arbitrary. God had told them to let the land rest every seventh year, but they had ignored this law for 500 years, from the time of Solomon onwards. During that time, therefore, the land had missed 70 years of rest, so in one sense the 70-year exile provided the land with a chance to catch up on its holidays!

      The book of Kings is saying that the exile was a disastrous time, but it was not hopeless. God had promised to keep the royal line of David going and he would do so.

      Content

      Solomon

      As we look at the book in more detail we begin with the king who dominates the early chapters. Solomon’s name means ‘peace’, which was appropriate since his reign benefited from the peace David had secured when building the empire. He was a good man who began well.

      At the start of his reign God appeared to him in a dream and offered to give him anything he asked for. Solomon, knowing that he lacked experience, asked for wisdom. God promised Solomon not just wisdom, but many things he did not ask for besides: wealth, fame and power.

      Solomon’s gift of wisdom was demonstrated in the famous story of the two prostitutes who argued about a baby. Both had babies, but during the night one of the babies died, so its mother stole the other’s baby and placed the dead one in its place. Solomon had to adjudicate on this most awkward situation. To whom did the live baby belong? Solomon asked for wisdom from God, and then told the women to cut the baby in half and keep half each. As soon as Solomon said this, the real mother pleaded that the baby be allowed to live and be given to the other woman. Solomon thus knew who was the true mother.

      Perhaps Solomon’s most memorable act was his building of the temple with the materials and the plans provided by his father David. God had promised David that he would allow his son to build the first permanent place for centralized worship, predicted in the book of Deuteronomy centuries before. It was a magnificent temple, and took seven years to build (it took 12 years to build Solomon’s own palace, however).

      We read that although the temple was built out of cut stone, the sound of hammer and chisel was never heard. This was a mystery for many years until someone discovered a gigantic cave the size of a large theatre at Mount Moriah near Calvary outside Jerusalem. The floor is covered with millions of little chips where the rock has been cut. The rock is so soft that it can be cut with a penknife, but when it is brought out into the open air it oxidizes and goes quite hard. All the stone for the temple came from this cave, where they cut the blocks to the exact shape needed to fit into the temple above ground.