Title: 13
Author: JOEG
Last saved by: Matt Lawson
Company: Auth Co

© 2003 Joe Griffin		03-05-11-B.CC02-125 /

Divided Kingdoms of Israel & Judah; Influence of the Baal Cult: Satanic Counterfeits of the Life of Christ; KER: King Evaluation Report; Duties of Kings
	The Divided Kingdom occurred following the death of Solomon.  Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, became king but public demands for him to reform some of Solomon’s harsh policies were answered with an arrogant denial.  This fomented a revolution which Rehoboam met with an army of 180,000, intent on restoring order.  However, Shemaiah the prophet forbid the action and the kingdom was divined in two.
	Rehobam became king of the Southern Kingdom called Judah which consisted of the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin with its capital at Jerusalem.
	Jeroboam, sometimes referred to by the shortened form of Joram, an Ephraimite, became king of the Northern Kingdom called Israel which consisted of the other ten tribes—Asher, Dan, Ephraim \ē' fra-im\, Gad, Issachar, Manasseh, Naphtali \naph' ta-lī\, Reuben, Simeon, and Zebulun—with its capital at Samaria.  The Northern Kingdom is occasionally referred to in Scripture as Ephraim.
	In our passage the king of Judah is Ahaziah and the king of Israel is Jehoram.
	Ahaziah joined with Jehoram to confront the Syrian army led by its king, Hazael \haz' a-el\.  In the conflict Jehoram is injured and retires to Jezreel at the head of the Valley of Esdraelon to recuperate and Ahaziah later goes there to check on him.  It is here that the Lord intervenes and brings the reign of both men to a halt.
(49)	Human government is a divine institution.  It is God’s intent that government function as an organizational structure for the human race.  In a client nation the laws of divine establishment are designed to maintain this order so that prosperity can develop in conjunction with the spiritual advance of its citizens who are positive to doctrine.
(50)	When both the Northern Kingdom (Israel) and the Southern Kingdom (Judah) became involved in idolatry and their kings were complicit in this, then Jesus Christ who controls history stepped in to make changes.  Even this followed an organized process.  The Lord instructed the prophet Elisha to anoint a new king over Israel.  The one chosen was Jehu, the General of the Israelite army.  We move to the parallel passage in:
2 Kings 9:1 -	Now Elisha the prophet called one of the sons of the prophets, and said to him, “Gird up your loins, and take this flask of oil in your hand and go to Ramoth-gilead.
v. 2 - “When you arrive there, search out Jehu the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi, and go in and bid him arise from among this brothers, and bring him to an inner room.
v. 3 - “Then take the flask of oil and pour it on his head and say, ‘Thus says the Lord, “I have anointed you king over Israel.”’  Then open the door and flee and do not wait.”
(51)	After the appointed protégé  fulfilled his mission by anointing Jehu, he then gave him the following message:
2 Kings 9:6 - “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘I have anointed you king over the people of the Lord, even over Israel.
v. 7 - ‘And you shall strike the house of Ahab, your master, that I may avenge the blood of My servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the Lord at the hand of Jezebel.
v. 8 - ‘For the whole house of Ahab shall perish, and I will cut off from Ahab every male person both bond and free in Israel.’”
(52)	Before continuing it is necessary to pause and contemplate the Lord’s reasoning for having all the people killed.  Beginning with Solomon, the religion of the Canaanites started to infiltrate the Israelite community.  This was promoted to a greater degree during the divined monarchies.  It reached its peak in the Northern Kingdom under King Ahab and his queen Jezebel.  The apogee occurred in the Southern Kingdom under the reign of King Jehoram.  The religion was the Baal cult and the extent of its practices are quite disturbing but not surprising considering the satanic influence involved.
(53)	Background on the Baal cult is provided by:
Albright, William Foxwell.  Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan: A Historical Analysis of Two Contrasting Faiths.  (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1968.  Reprint.  Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2001), 119-21; 124-26:
In the Baal epic [an ancient Syro-Palestinian myth], the head of the epic pantheon is the god El.  (p. 119)  In the epic, El appears as the father of mankind and as creator.  (p. 120)  Just as El was called ‘Begetter of Creatures,’ so his consort Asherah also has the appellation, ‘She Who Gives Birth to the Gods.’  (p. 121)
But the most important active figure of the Canaanite pantheon was Baal.  Baal is called ‘son of Dagan.’  Dagan was originally a God of fertility who was worshipped from the earliest times in the Euphrates Valley.
Baal’s personal name was usually Haddad, which appears in many different spellings and in various shortened forms.  Just when the appellation ‘lord’, which is the proper meaning of Baal, became applied to Hadad as a personal name we do not know.  (p. 124)
Baal is king of heaven and earth.  He is thus the Canaanite equivalent of Greek Zeus and also of Babylonian Marduk.  His territorial home was on Mount Casius or Saphon and, because of this association, he was called Baal-zephon (English transcription).  (pp. 124 -25)
Baal also had a struggle with the god of death, which ended when Mot, ‘Death,’ conquered him and took him down to the underworld, from which his sister and sometime consort Anath freed him by destroying Mot after a violent conflict.  In the Baal epic it is recorded that at the beginning there was a victory of Death over Baal, which was later followed by a triumph of Baal over Death.  (pp. 125-26)
(54)	The satanic influence in religion is again demonstrated by the Baal cult of Canaan.  The plagiarism by Lucifer of the biblical account of the Jewish Messiah is evident throughout.  “El,” a common designation of deity among many ancient religions, is the representation by the Canaanites as the Israelite Elohim.  Asherah is the Canaanite equivalent of the Virgin Mary and Baal is the fulfillment of the prophecy in Genesis 3:15 of the “seed of the woman.”  The name assigned to Baal actually means “lord” which is title of Jesus Christ.  Our Lord is documented in Scripture as King of kings and Lord of lords who will ultimately rule both earth and heaven during His millennial kingdom.  The Lord will rule from Jerusalem which is situated on Mount Zion.  He is referred to in Scripture as King of Zion in Psalm 2:6 and Zechariah 9:9.  Baal is identified with his so-called earthly home of Mount Saphon and thus referred to as Baal-saphon.  Before Jesus Christ can assume the rulership of the earth within His kingdom he must first die for the sins of mankind.  This is duplicated in the Baal myth by the struggle of Baal with Mot the god of Death.  Mot defeats Baal and kills him, an attempt to copy the events of the cross.  Baal’s transfer to the “underworld” is designed to imitate the Lord’s decent to the Paradise compartment of Hades during the time His body was in the tomb.  Later, Baal’s sister destroys Mot and Baal is resurrected, an obvious counterfeit of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

(55)	Now let’s take a look at the kings of the divided monarchies following Solomon:
Scofield, C. I. (ed.).  The New Scofield Reference Bible.  (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), 1 Kings 12:19 n.:
Reigns of the Kings of Israel and Judah
Israel		Reign			Judah		Reign
_____________________________________________________________
Jeroboam I	931-910 b.c.		Rehoboam	931-913 b.c.
Nadab		910-909		Abijah		913-911
Baasha		909-886		Asa		911-870
Elah		886-885		Jehoshaphat	870-848
Zimri		885			Jehoram	848-841
Omri		885-874		Ahaziah	841
Ahab		874-853		Athaliah	841-835
Ahaziah	853-852		Joash		835-796
Joram		852-841						
Jehu		841-814

(56)	In the United States a military officer receives a periodic assessment which is called an OER: Officer Evaluation Report: a description of the specific functions, duties, and tasks that the officer is required to perform during the assignment covered by the OER.  Each report provides an appraisal of the officer's professional attributes, quality of performance, and potential demonstrated during a specific period while in a particular duty assignment.
(57)	The OER is similar to the evaluation given by the Lord to each of Judah’s and Israel’s kings.  We will refer to this as a KER: King Evaluation Report.  The appraisal assesses each king’s professional attributes, quality of performance, and potential during the time of his reign.  A brief summary of a king’s duties before the Lord is provided by:
Orr, James (ed.).  The International Standard Biblical Encyclopaedia.  (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1956), 3:1733:
The king of Israel was responsible to Jehovah, who had chosen him and whose vicegerent [administrative deputy] and servant he was.  Rightly conceived, his kingship in relation to Jehovah, who was Israel’s true king, implied that he was Jehovah’s servant and His earthly substitute.
The king was held responsible for all Israel as the Lord’s people.  His very kingship was of an entirely religious character and implied a unity of the heavenly and earthly rule over Israel through him who, as Jehovah’s substitute, sat “upon the throne of the kingdom of Jehovah over Israel (1 Chronicles 28:5).
The priesthood was under the king’s supervision to such an extent that he might concern himself about its organization and duties, and that he was responsible for the purity of the cult [the ritual plan of God for the dispensation] and the maintenance of the order of worship.  In general he was to watch over the religious life and conduct of his people, to eradicate the high places and every form of idolatry in the land.

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