1 Kings

No. 61 1 Kings 1:42-48
King David is old and failing, and the succession is unsettled. His son Adonijah has declared himself king without asking his father, gathering supporters at a feast outside the city, with the army commander...
No. 75 1 Kings 9:15-23
Kings mostly presents Solomon as the peak of Israel's power, and this passage is a piece of administrative record inside that account. It explains the forced labor Solomon conscripted, and lists what it built:...
No. 143 1 Kings 8:22-30
The temple is finished, the ark has been brought in, and Solomon stands before the altar in front of the whole assembly and spreads out his hands. This passage is the opening of his dedication prayer, and its...
No. 156 1 Kings 12:1-5
Solomon is dead, and his son Rehoboam goes to Shechem, where all Israel has gathered to make him king. That he has to go north to be confirmed says something already: the northern tribes are not assuming it....
No. 175 1 Kings 4:1-6
After the drama of Solomon's accession, Kings gives this: a cabinet list. Azariah son of Zadok as priest, two brothers as secretaries, Jehoshaphat as recorder, Benaiah over the army, Zadok and Abiathar as...
No. 190 1 Kings 7:23-38
This passage is the bronze work for Solomon's temple, and an earlier reading in this series stood over the wreckage of these same objects when Babylon broke them up. Here they are being cast.
No. 218 1 Kings 12:25-33
Solomon's kingdom has just torn in two. The northern ten tribes have made Jeroboam their king, while Rehoboam keeps Judah and the temple in Jerusalem. Jeroboam has a throne, but the problem in these verses is...
No. 228 1 Kings 17:13-18
There is a drought across Israel, and God has sent Elijah out of the country entirely, north to Zarephath in the territory of Sidon, which is the homeland of Queen Jezebel. He is lodging with a widow he met...
No. 247 1 Kings 16:7-14
This is deep in the bloody middle of the northern kingdom's history, a stretch where kings take the throne by murder and lose it the same way, each new dynasty erasing the one before. Elah, son of Baasha, is...
No. 254 1 Kings 15:25-34
This passage is another turn of the same grim wheel in the northern kingdom, one dynasty earlier than the palace murders that follow. Nadab, the son of Jeroboam, is king, and like his father he does evil in...
No. 459 1 Kings 20:18-22
King Ahab has just won a great and unlikely victory. The Syrian king Ben-hadad, arrogant and drunk, had marched against Israel with a massive coalition, so confident that he ordered his men to take the...
No. 497 1 Kings 1:28-35
David is very old and near death, and his son Adonijah has just tried to seize the throne, throwing himself a coronation feast and declaring himself king while the old king lay weak in his bed. Into that...
No. 589 1 Kings 13:18-22
This is a strange and sobering story. A man of God had been sent with a very clear command from the LORD: deliver his message, and then eat no bread, drink no water, and do not return by the way you came. He...
No. 754 1 Kings 12:6-11
Solomon is dead, and his son Rehoboam has gone to Shechem to be made king, where the people meet him with one request: your father laid a heavy yoke on us; lighten it, and we will serve you. Rehoboam asks for...
No. 755 1 Kings 8:54-60
Solomon has finished the long prayer of dedication for the new temple, kneeling with his hands spread toward heaven, and now he stands and blesses the whole assembly in a loud voice. The first thing out of his...
No. 772 1 Kings 15:9-15
Asa becomes king of Judah and sets about a cleanup, and the writer approves: he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, like David his father. He drives out the cult prostitutes and removes the idols his...
No. 828 1 Kings 8:44-53
Solomon is dedicating the temple, the crowning achievement of his reign, the house he built for God's name, and in the middle of his long prayer he does something you would not expect at such a triumphant...
No. 848 1 Kings 13:23-34
This is the grim end of a strange story. A man of God had been sent to Bethel to prophesy against Jeroboam's idolatrous altar, and God had given him one strict, personal instruction: do not eat or drink there,...
No. 868 1 Kings 10:23-29
Solomon is at his height. The whole earth seeks his presence to hear the wisdom God put in his heart, tribute flows in year after year, and silver becomes as common as stones in Jerusalem. The passage lists...
No. 881 1 Kings 5:1-6
Solomon is preparing to build the temple, and this passage is the opening move: a message to Hiram, king of Tyre, who had loved David and now sends greetings to his son. Solomon explains why David could not...
No. 927 1 Kings 10:1-10
The queen of Sheba, having heard of Solomon's fame in connection with the name of the LORD, travels a great distance with a caravan of spices and gold to test him with hard questions. Solomon answers...
No. 946 1 Kings 1:15-21
David is very old and failing, and while he lingers, his son Adonijah has quietly declared himself king, throwing a feast with the army commander and the priest, but pointedly not inviting Solomon. The prophet...
No. 948 1 Kings 2:8-12
These are among David's last words, his deathbed instructions to Solomon, and they are troubling. David reminds Solomon of Shimei, the man who cursed him bitterly during Absalom's revolt. David had sworn to...
No. 951 1 Kings 22:23-27
King Ahab has assembled four hundred prophets who all tell him to go to war and win. Only Micaiah tells the truth: the army will be scattered, and the LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouths of these...
No. 1048 1 Kings 16:15-20
This is a snapshot of Israel's political chaos. Zimri, an army officer, murders the king and seizes the throne, but he reigns only seven days. When the army, camped in the field, hears that Zimri has...
No. 1050 1 Kings 6:29-38
The building of Solomon's temple is described in loving detail. He carved all the walls, inside and out, with cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, and overlaid the whole thing with gold, even the floor. The...
No. 1069 1 Kings 12:12-16
Solomon is dead, and his son Rehoboam holds the future of the kingdom in his hands. The people ask him to lighten the heavy burden his father laid on them. The older advisors counsel him to speak kindly and...
No. 1140 1 Kings 8:12-16
The temple is finished, the ark brought in, and Solomon stands to dedicate it. He begins with a paradox: the LORD has said he would dwell in thick darkness. I have built you an exalted house, a place for you...
No. 1179 1 Kings 17:19-24
The widow of Zarephath, who had sheltered Elijah and seen her flour and oil miraculously sustained, is suddenly struck by the worst grief: her son sickens and dies. Elijah takes the boy from her arms, carries...
No. 1256 1 Kings 22:45-53
The account of Jehoshaphat's reign closes on a mixed note. He was a good king, who removed the last of the male shrine-prostitutes his father had missed and generally did right. But there is a shadow: his...
No. 1280 1 Kings 2:18-24
Adonijah, who had tried to seize the throne before Solomon, comes to Bathsheba with a request: ask King Solomon to give me Abishag, the young woman who had attended the aged David, as my wife. It sounds like a...
No. 1311 1 Kings 4:7-19
This passage is a list, easy to skip: the names of Solomon's twelve district officers, each responsible for provisioning the king and his household for one month of the year. Ben Hur in the hill country of...
No. 1323 1 Kings 18:25-29
On Mount Carmel, Elijah has challenged the prophets of Baal to a contest: each will prepare a bull, and the god who answers with fire is the true God. The prophets of Baal go first. They prepare their bull and...
No. 1348 1 Kings 6:1-10
In the four hundred and eightieth year after the exodus, in the fourth year of his reign, Solomon begins to build the temple of the LORD. The passage gives its dimensions, its porch, its windows of fixed...
No. 1427 1 Kings 14:1-5
Jeroboam's son has fallen sick, and the king wants to know what will become of him. But Jeroboam, who has led Israel into idolatry, cannot simply come to God's prophet openly. So he tells his wife to disguise...
No. 1450 1 Kings 21:6-10
King Ahab wants Naboth's vineyard, and Naboth has refused to sell his ancestral land. Ahab sulks, refusing to eat, and his wife Jezebel takes the matter in hand. Do you not govern Israel? she says; get up and...
No. 1495 1 Kings 8:61-66
The dedication of the temple comes to its close. Solomon charges the people, let your heart be wholly true to the LORD our God, to walk in his statutes. Then the king and all Israel offer an immense sacrifice,...
No. 1520 1 Kings 21:1-5
King Ahab covets a vineyard that borders his palace, belonging to a man named Naboth. He offers to buy it or trade for a better one, but Naboth refuses, because the land is his ancestral inheritance, which the...
No. 1536 1 Kings 7:39-51
The making of the temple furnishings is complete: the bronze pillars, the great sea and its oxen, the basins and pots, the golden altar and table, the lampstands and cups and snuffers, all finished by the...
No. 1627 1 Kings 3:15-21
Solomon wakes from the dream in which God granted him wisdom, and he worships, offering sacrifices before the ark and making a feast. And then, immediately, wisdom is put to the test. Two women who are...
No. 1637 1 Kings 15:16-24
Asa, a generally faithful king of Judah, is under pressure from Baasha, king of Israel, who is fortifying a city to blockade him. In the crisis, Asa reaches for a solution: he takes the silver and gold left in...
No. 1706 1 Kings 20:29-33
After Israel defeats the army of Ben-hadad of Syria, the Syrian king takes refuge in an inner room. His servants come to him with a plan: they have heard that the kings of Israel are merciful; perhaps if they...
No. 1742 1 Kings 2:36-41
Solomon summons Shimei, who had once cursed David, and gives him a clear condition for his life: build a house in Jerusalem and live there, and never leave the city. On the day you cross the brook Kidron,...
No. 1744 1 Kings 18:30-35
On Mount Carmel, before the contest with the prophets of Baal, Elijah calls the people near and repairs the altar of the LORD that had been thrown down, building it with twelve stones for the twelve tribes. He...
No. 1750 1 Kings 2:30-35
Joab, who had backed the failed bid of Adonijah, flees to the tabernacle and grasps the horns of the altar, refusing to leave. Solomon orders Benaiah to execute him there, for the innocent blood Joab had shed...
No. 1876 1 Kings 8:37-43
In his prayer at the temple's dedication, Solomon asks God to hear the prayers of his people in every kind of trouble, famine, plague, blight, siege, sickness. And he describes the one who prays in a striking...
No. 1882 1 Kings 5:7-12
Solomon, preparing to build the temple, makes an agreement with Hiram, king of Tyre. Hiram, a foreign king, rejoices at Solomon's request and blesses the LORD for giving David a wise son. The two make a fair...
No. 1893 1 Kings 21:21-29
Through Elijah, God pronounces a terrible judgment on Ahab, who had sold himself to do evil, stirred up by his wife Jezebel: disaster on his house, his line cut off, dogs to eat Jezebel. There was no king who...
No. 1902 1 Kings 5:13-18
To build the temple, Solomon raised a vast labor force: thirty thousand men sent in shifts to Lebanon, seventy thousand who carried burdens, eighty thousand who quarried stone in the mountains, with thousands...
No. 1914 1 Kings 3:1-5
Solomon, newly established as king, loves the LORD and walks in the ways of his father David, though he still sacrifices at the high places, for the temple is not yet built. He goes to Gibeon, the great high...
No. 1977 1 Kings 22:1-5
After three years of peace, Ahab, king of Israel, wants to reclaim Ramoth-Gilead from Syria, and asks Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, to join him in the campaign. Jehoshaphat agrees readily, pledging his people...
No. 2010 1 Kings 14:6-16
The prophet Ahijah pronounces judgment on the house of Jeroboam, who had led Israel into idolatry. The word is heavy: disaster on his house, his line cut off, swept away. But amid the sentence comes an...
No. 2019 1 Kings 9:10-14
After Solomon had finished building the temple and his own house, with cedar and gold supplied by Hiram king of Tyre, Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in Galilee in return. But when Hiram came to see the...
No. 2077 1 Kings 18:20-24
On Mount Carmel, Elijah confronts a people who have not fully abandoned the LORD but have not fully committed to him either, hedging their devotion between the LORD and Baal. He puts the question directly to...
No. 2083 1 Kings 2:1-7
As David's death approaches, he gives a final charge to his son Solomon. Amid some practical instructions, his central word is not about power or wealth or the securing of the throne, but about God. I am going...
No. 2145 1 Kings 16:1-6
The word of the LORD comes against Baasha, king of Israel, with a reminder of where he came from. Because I exalted you out of the dust and made you prince over my people Israel, God says, and you have walked...
No. 2167 1 Kings 18:41-46
After the long drought, Elijah tells Ahab that rain is coming, and then he goes up to the top of Carmel to pray. He bows to the ground with his face between his knees, and sends his servant to look toward the...
No. 2186 1 Kings 22:13-17
King Ahab has gathered his prophets, and they all tell him what he wants to hear: go up to battle and prosper. Only Micaiah is left, and the messenger sent to fetch him urges him to fall in line: the prophets...
No. 2197 1 Kings 17:8-12
During a severe drought, God sends the prophet Elijah to be sustained, and the means of provision is surprising. Go to Zarephath, God says, for I have commanded a widow there to sustain you. When Elijah...
No. 2226 1 Kings 6:23-28
In the inner sanctuary of the temple Solomon built, two great cherubim of olive wood stood, each ten cubits high, overlaid with gold. Their wings were outstretched, so that the wing of one touched one wall and...
No. 2248 1 Kings 19:6-10
After his great victory on Mount Carmel, Elijah flees in fear and exhaustion, sits under a broom tree, and asks to die. He is spent, depleted, at the end of himself. And God's first response to his despairing...
No. 2255 1 Kings 16:29-34
The account of Ahab, the worst of Israel's kings, includes a telling phrase about how his evil grew. It was as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, the text says; and so he...
No. 2284 1 Kings 8:31-36
In his prayer at the temple's dedication, Solomon anticipates the times when Israel will sin and suffer the consequences, and he asks God's mercy for those times. When your people are defeated by an enemy...
No. 2320 1 Kings 3:22-28
Two women come before King Solomon, each claiming to be the mother of a living child, the other's child having died. There is no way to tell who is telling the truth, and they argue before the king. Solomon...
No. 2356 1 Kings 1:36-41
First Kings reaches the moment David's succession is settled. On the aging king's order, Zadok the priest anoints Solomon at Gihon, the trumpet sounds, and the people shout, Long live King Solomon. They pipe...
No. 2399 1 Kings 2:25-29
Solomon is securing his throne, and the narrator pauses on one detail. When he removes Abiathar from the priesthood, the text notes that this fulfilled the word the LORD had spoken against the house of Eli at...
No. 2430 1 Kings 11:1-13
The reign that began with a request for wisdom ends in slow ruin. Solomon, for all his wisdom, loved many foreign wives from the nations God had warned against, and over years they turned his heart. When he...
No. 2459 1 Kings 21:16-20
Ahab has gotten what he wanted. Naboth, who refused to sell his vineyard, has been framed and killed, and the king goes down to take possession of the land at last. There God's word meets him through Elijah:...
No. 2490 1 Kings 15:1-8
Abijam becomes king of Judah and is no improvement: he walked in all the sins of his father, and his heart was not wholly the LORD's. And yet, the writer adds, for David's sake the LORD gave him a lamp in...
No. 2527 1 Kings 20:1-6
Ben-Hadad of Syria besieges Samaria and sends Ahab a demand: your silver and gold are mine, and your wives and children too. Ahab caves at once: as you say, my lord; I am yours, and all that I have. But the...
No. 2532 1 Kings 1:49-53
Adonijah, who had tried to seize the throne, learns that Solomon has been made king and is terrified. He runs to the tabernacle and grabs the horns of the altar, refusing to leave until Solomon swears not to...
No. 2597 1 Kings 22:6-12
King Ahab, considering war, gathers four hundred prophets, and they tell him exactly what he wants to hear: go up, and the Lord will hand the enemy over to you. But Jehoshaphat is uneasy: is there not a...
No. 2694 1 Kings 20:34-43
After a victory the Lord had given him, King Ahab spares the defeated Ben Hadad and strikes a trade deal instead of carrying out God's judgment. To confront him, a member of the prophets' guild stages a trap....
No. 2802 1 Kings 20:12-17
Ben-Hadad of Syria besieges Samaria while he drinks himself senseless in his tents with the thirty-two allied kings who have come to help him. A prophet comes to Ahab with a promise: do you see all this vast...
No. 2864 1 Kings 6:11-22
In the middle of describing Solomon's temple, all cedar and pure gold, the account pauses for a word from the LORD. Concerning this house you are building, God says, if you will walk in my statutes and keep my...
No. 2918 1 Kings 1:9-14
While David lies old and dying, his son Adonijah throws a lavish feast and has himself proclaimed king, carefully inviting his supporters but pointedly leaving out Nathan the prophet, Solomon, and the men...
No. 2941 1 Kings 18:15-19
Elijah, ready to end the long drought, comes out to meet King Ahab, who greets him with contempt: is that you, you troubler of Israel? Elijah throws the charge straight back. I have not troubled Israel, but...
No. 2948 1 Kings 21:11-15
Jezebel's plot against Naboth is carried out to the letter. The elders and nobles of his own city do exactly as her letters instruct: they proclaim a fast, seat Naboth prominently before the people, and pay...
No. 2976 1 Kings 7:13-22
For the bronze work of the temple, Solomon brings in Hiram of Tyre, the son of a widow of Naphtali, a craftsman filled with wisdom, understanding, and skill in bronze. Among his works are two great pillars for...
No. 2992 1 Kings 18:1-5
After a long and severe drought, God tells Elijah to show himself to Ahab, promising to send rain. Ahab summons Obadiah, the steward over his household, and the text pauses to tell us something remarkable...
No. 3043 1 Kings 2:13-17
Adonijah, whose bid for the throne had failed, comes to Bathsheba, Solomon's mother. She asks warily, do you come in peace? He assures her he does, and then makes what sounds like a modest request: you know...
No. 3081 1 Kings 13:7-11
A man of God has just prophesied against King Jeroboam's altar. The king, impressed, invites him home to eat and be rewarded. But the man refuses: even if you gave me half your house, I would not go in with...
No. 3141 1 Kings 22:28-36
Micaiah has prophesied that King Ahab will not return alive from battle. So Ahab disguises himself, sending Jehoshaphat into the fight in royal robes, hoping to escape notice. The Syrians, ordered to attack...
No. 3244 1 Kings 1:22-27
While Bathsheba is still speaking to the aged King David, Nathan the prophet comes in and bows before him. He reports what Adonijah has done: gone down and thrown a feast, slain animals in abundance, gathered...
No. 3256 1 Kings 14:25-31
In the fifth year of Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt marches up and plunders Jerusalem, carrying off the treasures of the LORD's house and the palace, including the gold shields Solomon had made. Rehoboam...
No. 3269 1 Kings 18:6-14
As Ahab and his steward Obadiah search the land for grass during the famine, Elijah suddenly meets Obadiah, who falls on his face in recognition. Elijah tells him to go announce his return to Ahab. But Obadiah...
No. 3282 1 Kings 16:21-28
Omri comes to power after a civil war, founds the city of Samaria as a lasting capital, and by the world's measure is a capable and consequential king. Yet Scripture's verdict is stark: Omri did what was evil...
No. 3320 1 Kings 11:22-33
The great reign of Solomon begins to unravel, and the text is clear about why. God raises up adversaries against him, Rezon and then Jeroboam, and the prophet Ahijah meets Jeroboam on the road, tears a new...
No. 3332 1 Kings 22:37-44
Ahab dies as the prophet had foretold, and the grim detail confirms it: they wash his chariot at the pool of Samaria, and the dogs lick up his blood, according to the word of the LORD. Then the account turns...
No. 3354 1 Kings 2:42-46
Solomon had confined Shimei, who once cursed his father David, to the city of Jerusalem under a solemn oath: leave the city, and you will surely die. Shimei agreed, saying the terms were good. But years later...
No. 3427 1 Kings 20:23-28
The defeated Syrians reason among themselves that Israel's God must be a god of the hills, so they resolve to fight the next battle on the plains, where they suppose he has no power. It is a common pagan idea,...
No. 3472 1 Kings 10:11-22
This passage piles up the sheer scale of Solomon's wealth: gold pouring in year after year, shields of beaten gold, a great throne of ivory overlaid with gold, all his drinking vessels of pure gold, and silver...
No. 3583 1 Kings 3:6-14
God appears to young Solomon and offers him anything he asks. Solomon, keenly aware of his own inadequacy, I am but a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in, asks for one thing: an understanding...
No. 3628 1 Kings 9:1-9
After Solomon finishes the temple, God appears to him a second time with both a promise and a warning. The promise: if you walk before me as David walked, in integrity of heart and uprightness, I will...
No. 3644 1 Kings 19:11-21
Elijah, exhausted and despairing, hiding in a cave, is told to stand on the mountain before the LORD. A great wind, an earthquake, and a fire pass by, but the LORD is not in any of them. And then comes a...
No. 3680 1 Kings 20:7-11
Ben-hadad, the arrogant king of Syria, besieges Samaria and sends boastful, escalating demands, and finally threatens to grind the whole city to dust with his vast army. Ahab's reply is a proverb worth...
No. 3724 1 Kings 14:17-24
This passage records the sad state of both kingdoms after Solomon. In the north, Jeroboam's son dies as the prophet had foretold, judgment on a dynasty founded on idolatry. And in the south, Judah, which had...
No. 3754 1 Kings 9:24-28
This passage summarizes Solomon at the height of his reign: he completes his building projects, offers sacrifices three times a year, and sends out a fleet that returns from Ophir laden with gold. Everything...
No. 3767 1 Kings 11:34-43
As judgment falls on Solomon for his idolatry, God tempers it with mercy for the sake of his covenant with David. He will tear most of the kingdom away, but he will leave one tribe to Solomon's son, so that...
No. 3771 1 Kings 7:1-12
After the account of Solomon building the temple in seven years, we read that Solomon was building his own house thirteen years, nearly twice as long. The text simply reports it, but the numbers speak. The...
No. 3837 1 Kings 8:1-11
The great moment has come: the ark of the covenant is carried into the newly built temple and placed in the inner sanctuary, and as the priests withdraw, the cloud of God's presence fills the house so thickly...
No. 3965 1 Kings 8:17-21
As Solomon dedicates the temple, he recalls a tender exchange. His father David had longed to build a house for the LORD, and had set his heart on it. But God told David he would not be the one to build it;...
No. 4010 1 Kings 22:18-22
King Ahab did not want to hear the truth. He kept prophets who told him what he wanted to hear, and he despised the one prophet, Micaiah, who told him the truth, complaining, he never prophesies good...
No. 4013 1 Kings 17:1-7
After Elijah announces a drought, God sends him to hide by the brook Cherith, where he is provided for in an unlikely way: ravens bring him bread and meat morning and evening, and he drinks from the brook. God...
No. 4017 1 Kings 18:36-40
On Mount Carmel, after the prophets of Baal have failed all day to call down fire, Elijah prays a simple, God-centered prayer: LORD, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your...
No. 4072 1 Kings 13:1-6
A man of God comes from Judah to denounce King Jeroboam's false altar, and when Jeroboam stretches out his hand and orders him seized, the king's hand withers and freezes, and the altar splits apart as the...
No. 4079 1 Kings 4:20-34
This passage describes the height of Solomon's reign: a kingdom at peace, its people numerous, safe, and content, every man under his own vine and fig tree. And at the center of it stands the gift that made it...
No. 4165 1 Kings 19:1-5
Just after his great triumph on Mount Carmel, Elijah collapses. Threatened by Jezebel, he runs for his life into the wilderness, and there, exhausted and despairing, he sits down under a tree and asks to die:...
No. 4175 1 Kings 12:17-24
When the kingdom of Israel splits after Solomon, and the northern tribes reject Rehoboam, Solomon's son, Rehoboam gathers a great army to fight and reclaim the lost kingdom by force. But God intervenes through...
No. 4283 1 Kings 11:14-21
After Solomon's heart had turned away from the LORD to other gods, the narrative notes something sobering: the LORD raised up an adversary against Solomon. Where once his reign had been peaceful, now enemies...
No. 4284 1 Kings 13:12-17
A man of God from Judah had been given clear instructions by the LORD: deliver his message, eat no bread and drink no water there, and return by a different road. When an old prophet catches up with him and...
No. 4303 1 Kings 1:1-8
As David grows old and feeble, his son Adonijah decides to seize the throne. He exalts himself, saying, I will be king, and gathers chariots, horsemen, and runners to make a show of royalty, winning over some...