Who wrote this Book of Kings and whose religious-political agenda feeds this narrative?
The Talmudic rabbis suggested that it was the Prophet Jeremiah who wrote Kings, a few generations after the events, as well as the book of his own prophecy, and the Scroll of Lamentations - which he wrote weeping for the destruction of Solomon’s temple and empire collapse, as a witness of the end of Judah.
In Kings: Torn in Two, Alex Israel reflects on Jeremiah’s historical response to the calamity - and how his experience created this book and the dramatic chapters of the civil war we are now hurling into:
“For an entire generation, Jeremiah campaigned desperately to avert the catastrophe of the Temple’s destruction. He failed – the great prophet was forced to endure the painful tragedy of the destruction and Israel’s subsequent exile. In the aftermath of any disaster, people respond by posing the question: What went wrong?
The book of Kings seeks to survey and examine the First Temple period in response to that very question, hoping to learn the lessons of the past and avoid its recurrence. “
Jeremiah may or may not have written this text but it was clearly written in the aftermath of the North-South split, and it is not objective. As we read it carefully we must remember again: Whoever wrote this text pays attention to the needs of the North but much prefers the priorities of the South. And also - there is also extra attention to the role of religious leaders even as the kings lose their way. The political posturing in the name of the divine will play a big role throughout this book and this chapter sets that tone.
There are several prophets and local faith leaders, all anonymous, who show up in today’s poetic, perplexing and prophetic chapter. There is also a lion, and a donkey, both of them guarding the corpse of a courageous man of God who dies far away from his home.
What this chapter sketches is the danger of combining religious and political leadership. It’s almost as though whoever wrote this warns us - then, and now, to make sure we separate religion and state. It also seems to be a direct Southern attack on the North, where religious heresy is supposedly occuring, from the top down.
The chapter begins with the new King of the North, Jeroboam, offering incense on the altar in the new temple just erected in Samaria. It may be the public occasion of the holiday of Sukkot - that he just moved to be a month later than what’s been celebrated in Jerusalem.
This is not a typical king’s role - as part of his reforms breaking off from the Judean monopoly he seems to offer old-new formulas and rules for rulers, including religious rituals thus far reserved for priests.
Some guy who is described as a ‘Man of YHWH’ travels from the south to speak truth to power. He approaches the king at the altar, presumably in the sight of the public, and warns him against this sacrilege.
He does not address the king, however. He talks to the altar, warning the stone structure that one day in the future, a new king will rise in the South and he will break this altar up, and smash it into pieces, not before sacrificing the bones of these fake prophets upon it.
The king scoffs. But then - the altar breaks in two, just as the man had said, and everybody panics.
The king tries to apologize and invites the prophet to the palace for a meal, but the protestor, vindicated, refuses, claiming a vow he took not to eat or drink while on this mission in a sinful land. He leaves right away back to Judah.
But that’s when this story gets even weirder.
There’s another local prophet, old, in the Bethel Shrine, a long time beloved sacred spot where it’s said Jacob dreamed his famous dream. The old man hears about the other prophet, grabs a donkey, and goes out to find him on the road. He finds him exhausted under a large oak tree and for reasons we don’t quite understand, he asks him to come home with him, to eat and rest. The man refuses - still that oath, but the old man replies, not quite truthful:
וַיֹּ֣אמֶר ל֗וֹ גַּם־אֲנִ֣י נָבִיא֮ כָּמ֒וֹךָ֒ וּמַלְאָ֡ךְ דִּבֶּ֣ר אֵלַי֩ בִּדְבַ֨ר יְהֹוָ֜ה לֵאמֹ֗ר הֲשִׁבֵ֤הוּ אִתְּךָ֙ אֶל־בֵּיתֶ֔ךָ וְיֹ֥אכַל לֶ֖חֶם וְיֵ֣שְׁתְּ מָ֑יִם כִּחֵ֖שׁ לֽוֹ׃
“I am a prophet, too,” said the other, “and an angel said to me by command of YHWH: Bring him back with you to your house, so that he may eat bread and drink water.” He was lying to him.”
Kings 1 13:18
Why is he lying? It’s unclear. But the visiting prophet trusts the other man, and yields, and the two men ride the donkey back to Bethel, sit in the Northern prophet’s home, and eat and drink. And suddenly the host receives a revelation and tells the visitor - because you broke your vow, you will not die at home, but on the road, deserted.
And so it is. The prophet, probably quite confused, rides a donkey back to Judah but never makes it home - a lion attacks him and he dies.
The news spreads fast. A lion and a donkey stand by the corpse of the man, neither of them moving, standing guard.
When the old prophet of Bethel hears that his prophecy came true he brings the body to his home, delivers a eulogy, and arranges for the dead man to be buried in his own grave. One day in the future, he tells his sons, bury me along with this man from Judah.
The basic reading of this baffling tale is that it is a criticism of the pagan north and its wanton ways. In the name of the most high prophecies and warnings flow freely and stranger things occur such as lions that kill for show but not for food, and then stand guard over human corpses , or donkeys that keep showing up (eight times in this chapter) and then join the lion in the vigil.
The image of the two old men buried together - bones are all that’s left of their opposing ideologies - is also endearing. But the message here seems to be quite harsh. The north is guilty of idolatry and the future will be fierce, no matter how vague the truth may feel and how hard it is to know who’s lying or which prophecy is real, or not.
The lion is a symbol of Judah. Remember Solomon’s lions and the crest of the tribe that includes this royal beast. And the donkey? Remember Saul and his original search for his father’s donkeys? Some say the donkey is the totem of the North.
The lion and the donkey guard together the body of the Judean prophet, whose death was appreciated by the Israelite prophet, and whose prophecy to the king will one day, many chapters in the future, will indeed come true. Between the lines of this terrible story of a growing political and religious war between the tribes there are perhaps these winks of wistful co-existence?
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winks of wistful co-existence, wishful winks of co-existence, whistling winks of ...co-persistence...