The books of 1–2 Kings can be organized in five major movements:

1. Solomon’s Wise Humility (1 Kings 1–3)
2. Solomon’s Exaltation and Compromise (1 Kings 4–10)
3. Solomon & Jeroboam Turn the Kingdom towards Exile (1 Kings 11–12)
4. Jeroboam’s Golden Calf Flood (1 Kings 13–2 Kings 23)
5. Exile: Darkness and a Lamp of Hope (2 Kings 24–25)
   

These books are difficult to read because they include so many tragic stories. Bright spots are scattered throughout (Elijah, Hezekiah, Josiah, et al.), but tragedy dominates. The author organizes most of this material with a set of Jeroboam-Josiah bookends, which you’ll see featured below in movement 4.

The next step in grasping how the material in 1–2 Kings fits together would be to take movement 4 and break it down in to the various sub-movements includes within it, but that’s the topic of another post. For now, let’s focus on the five major movement and the setting. It’s important to understand the place of Kings at the end of Old Testament story. Samuel sets the stage.

Samuel as the Climactic Setting

The Old Testament story reaches its climax in with the portrait of David provided by Samuel. 1–2 Samuel is framed by the poems of Hannah (1 Samuel 2) and David (2 Samuel 22). Samuel tells the story of God’s anointed king, David. The portrait of Saul is the dark backdrop that makes the portrait of David shine bright.

The mountain peak moment is 2 Samuel 7, where all the promises of God and the hopes of his people are funneled into and through David. As God promises David an eternal kingdom, he points the way forward to the story of Kings. David’s son will build God a house, and when he commits iniquity, God will discipline him like a father does a son. Both parts of that sentence are critical for setting the context of Kings. Solomon will be exalted as he builds Yahweh a house, and he and his descendants will set the trajectory for exile, even as Yahweh preserves a faithful remnant from Judah/David.

This is the story of the book of Kings. It’s largely a tragic story, but 2 Samuel 7:12–16 helps make clear the redemptive hope that brings 2 Kings to a close, with a king from the line of David alive and eating well in Babylon. Between 2 Samuel 7 and lamp of hope at the end of 2 Kings, Israel will sink to the bottom, like Jonah, engulfed by a flood of darkness and exile.

Movement 1: Solomon’s Wise Humility (1 Kings 1–3)

1 Kings begins with David’s death and Solomon’s wisdom. Even before he is given unprecedented wisdom from God, Solomon wisely models the humility of Hannah’s song: “for not by might shall a man prevail” (1 Samuel 2:9). Instead of taking wisdom on his own terms, Solomon recognizes his need and asks Yahweh to help him.

Movement 2: Solomon’s Exaltation and Compromise (1 Kings 4–10)

The next major movement recounts Solomon’s unprecedented exaltation. His wisdom is a light to the nations, accomplishing in part the Israel’s purpose, as stated in Deuteronomy 4:6–8. Solomon’s wisdom leads the nations to come to Israel and marvel over the name of Yahweh. The Queen of Sheba doesn’t just come because the fame of a man. What she heard about that drew her to visit Israel was “the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the LORD” (1 Kings 10:1). Solomon’s wisdom expands the kingdom so that its borders reach the boundaries promised to Abraham. Nations come to behold the glory of the LORD and his anointed king.

In some sense it would be easy to think of Solomon, rather than David, as the peak of the Old Testament story. I don’t see it that way because peppered throughout the last portion of this movement are ominous flash cuts to the warnings of Deuteronomy 17, foreshadowing the coming exile. Solomon’s wealth is counted in the number of his horses, he multiplies silver and gold, he makes marriage alliances with the surrounding nations, and this leads to his downfall in 1 Kings 11.

Movement 3: Solomon & Jeroboam Turn the Kingdom towards Exile (1 Kings 11–12)

Chapter 11 starts with an active sentence, and Solomon is the subject: “Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh” (1 Kings 11:1). Solomon’s seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines lead his heart astray. He fills the land with their idols. Solomon is culpable: “Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and did not wholly follow the LORD, as David his father had done” (1 Kings 11:6).

As a result, three adversaries arise, the last of which is Solomon’s servant Jeroboam. Solomon turns the nation towards idolatry with his desire for wealth, power, and sex, and Jeroboam amplifies the distortion. Jeroboam makes two golden calves and says the exact same thing Aaron said at Sinai, “Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt” (1 Kings 12:28).

Movement 4: Jeroboam’s Gold Calf Flood (1 Kings 13–2 Kings 23)

It’s hard to know which act of judgment to pick: Is the bulk of 1–2 Kings like the flood generation or is it more like the era of the Judges, where the nation turns and eats itself?¹ It’s a disaster, either way. Once Jeroboam arises, the book of Kings frames the rest of the story around his sin.

Bookend 1

The first Jeroboam-Josiah bookend is found in 1 Kings 13, right after the story of Jeroboam’s golden calves.

And behold, a man of God came out of Judah by the word of the LORD to Bethel. Jeroboam was standing by the altar to make offerings. And the man cried against the altar by the word of the LORD and said, “O altar, altar, thus says the LORD: Behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name, and he shall sacrifice on you the priests of the high places who make offerings on you, and human bones shall be burned on you.” (1 Kings 13:2)

The flood of destruction that fills the rest of Kings has many other sub-movements and moments of hope. God keeps his promises to David, but the trajectory of exile is set.

The northern kingdom of Israel is taken by Assyria (2 Kings 17), and in 2 Kings 23 the prophets words to Jeroboam are fulfilled.

Bookend 2

In 2 Kings 23, Josiah arises and brings about one final reformation, delaying the inevitable exile:

Moreover, the altar at Bethel, the high place erected by Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, that altar with the high place he pulled down and burned, reducing it to dust. He also burned the Asherah. And as Josiah turned, he saw the tombs there on the mount. And he sent and took the bones out of the tombs and burned them on the altar and defiled it, according to the word of the LORD that the man of God proclaimed, who had predicted these things. (2 Kings 23:15–16)

Movement 5: Darkness and a Lamp of Hope (2 Kings 24–25)

2 Kings comes to a close with the Babylonian exile. Nebuchadnezzar captures Jerusalem, and he “cut in pieces all the vessels of gold in the temple of the LORD, which Solomon king of Israel had made, as the LORD had foretold” (2 Kings 24:13). The mention of Solomon here at the end of 2 Kings is noteworthy. Solomon turned the kingdom towards this moment of exile with his choice of wealth, sex, and his subsequent idolatry. His servant Jeroboam amplified that distortion by replaying the darkest moment of Israel’s history, Aaron’s golden calf at Sinai.

The land is covered with the darkness once again, except for the final paragraph of the book. 2 Kings comes to a close with a king from the line of David being released from prison, spoken kindly to by the king of Babylon, and seated at a royal table. The lamp of David has not gone out completely (1 Kings 11:36; 15:4; 2 Kings 8:19).

Conclusion

These five movements hold up Solomon as a wonderful and tragic figure. It would be easy to think of him and his era as the peak moment in the Old Testament story, but I think the rest of Scripture points more clearly to David and 2 Samuel 7 as the climax. Solomon is the one through whom the kingdom reaches its greatest size and renown, but it’s he that brings in the idolatry from which the kingdom never recovers. Hannah made clear in her song that the most important thing is character. Humility and dependence upon Yahweh is far more important than human might. David’s character is what Samuel displays, imperfect and deeply flawed character but “wholehearted,” nonetheless (1 Kings 11:4). When the Messiah comes, he’s explicitly stated to be “greater than Solomon” (Matthew 12:42), but “son of David” (Matthew 1:1; 22:41–46) is the primary frame.

1. For more on the Judges era, see this post: A Journey of Understanding: “In those days there was no king” One More Time. ↩