First let's get something clear about erroneous notions of Paul and his founding a new religion, which he didn't. True, the halakhah of his Judaism switched from the Pharisaic oral law to the Ruach Hakodesh, but his religion was still one of the Judaisms of the time, not a new non-Judaism Gentile religion.

MELACHIM ALEF (I KINGS)

With Jerusalem in ruins and the Dovidic throne seemingly

destroyed forever, the prophetic author of I-II Kings sets out to

vindicate the Word of G-d to the faithful. There's a reason why

this has happened. Prophecy has been fulfilled. Curses have

overtaken the covenant-breakers. And G-d's word is still true,

and the Son of Dovid, the King Moshiach, will yet come. Dovid's

throne will rise again. This is the message of faith from the

midst of the Exile.

Two key passages are II Kings 25:27-30 and I Kings 9:6-9. The

Messianic hope is still alive in the Exile in Babylon. A

descendent of Dovid (Jehoiachin) is alive and being favored by

the King of Babylon as the book reaches its hopeful conclusion at

the end of II Kings 25. This means the Messianic promise is

still realizable and is in fact in the process of being worked

out, that is, in the fullness of time. The reason for the

destruction of all the other thrones, other than that of the

Moshiach, is given in I Kings 9:6-9, where Shlomo is given this

solemn divine warning (which the book shows by exhaustive

historical documentation was no idle threat): if you turn aside

from following me, you or your sons, and do not keep my

commandments and my statutes that I have set before you, but go

and serve other g-ds and worship them, then I will cut Israel off

from the land that I have given them; and the house that I have

consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight; and Israel

will become a proverb and a taunt among all peoples. This house

will become a heap of ruins; everyone passing by it will be

astonished, and will hiss; and they will say, 'Why has the L-rd

done such a thing to this land and to this house?' They will

say, 'Because they have forsaken the L-rd their G-d who brought

their ancestors out of the land of Egypt and embraced other g-ds

worshiping them and serving them; therefore the L-rd ham brought

this disaster on them.'"

In chapter II of I Kings we see Shlomo himself turn aside from

following G-d, and his backsliding is described in 11:4, "For

when Shlomo was old, his (foreign) wives turned away his heart

after other g-ds; and his heart was not true to the L-rd his G-d

as was the heart of his father Dovid." This turning point in

Shlomo's life (begun in 3:1) presaged the downfall of all the

kings and kingdom in I-II Kings. Doomed is the usurper's throne

of the Northern tribes of Israel, an apostate throne that both

detracts from the Messianic hope of Dovid's throne in Judah and

also divides G-d's kingdom. In 733 B.C.E. we will see the demise

of this kingdom of the Northern tribes in the Assyrian dispersion

(II Kings 17:5-23). The ten tribes of Israel were destroyed

because they raised up rival g-ds and sacrificed to them on rival

altars in rival sanctuaries (preferring Dan and Bethel to

Jerusalem--see 12:28-29) with a rival kohenhood (12:31) and their

kings sat on rival thrones at Shechem, Penuel, Tirzah, and

Samaria. Generally speaking, the kings of the Northern tribes

continue the sins of apostasy of their first king Jeroboem (931-

910 B.C.E.), and even Jehu (841-814 B.C.E.), who ruled in Samaria

for 28 years and fathered a 100 year-old dynasty, was no

exception, even though G-d used him as a bloody nemesis against

evil tyranical rulers inthe Holy Land. With the exceptions of

Asa (22:33), Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and Josiah, the kings of

Sudah also generally amount to a sorry lot.

At the beginning of I Kings we find the throne of Dovid, with his

choice of successor Shlomo, threatened by certain enemies. These

receive G-d's vengeance: Adonijah (who plotted to seize the

throne), Joab (who supported Adonijah's treachery), and Shimei

(who cursed Dovid and disobeyed his son Shlomo), as well as

Abiathar the kohen (of the accursed house of Eli--see I Sm.

2:27-36). Like Moses speaking to Joshua, so Dovid, from his

deathbed, speaks to Shlomo (2:1-9) and gives him his solemn

charge. The Beis Hamikdash must be built; so must the king's

palace and throne room and the walls around the royal city of

Jerusalem. By this time Zadok is wearing the high kohen's

vestment, confirming the prophesy against Eli calling for a new

line in the kehunah (see I Kings 2:35). At Gibeon, we see a

divine wisdom that rules and reign in life which all believers

should pray for. King Solomon goes to Gibeon to sacrifice and to

beseech such wisdom from G-d. The L-rd gives it to him "to

execute justice" (3:28). Like the Son of David we see in the

Brit Chadasha, Shlomo also wisely appoints 12 officials over all

Israel (4:7,27) and with great wisdom administers the kingdom.

I Kings 4:20-21 summarizes this period in the life of Solomon.

And just as the Beis Hamikdash became one of the wonders of

world-wide pilgrimage, so people came from all the nations to

hear the wisdom of Solomon" (4:34), divine wisdom which is still

wondered at in the wisdom literature of the Bible like

Ecclesiastes and Proverbs. In this, although she was initally a

"doubting Thomas" (10:7), even the Queen of Sheba becomes a

believer and Messianic Gentile pilgrim (10:6) symbolic of the

Brit Chadasha kehillah.

The Beis Hamikdash of Solomon (which took seven years to build

and stood less than 400 years) was extensively decorated and

overlaid with gold, that "the whole house might be perfect"

(6:22). Of course we know that the perfect Beis Hamikdash of the

Spirit was yet to come in the Moshiach's body (see Yochanan

2:19-21; 20:22), and that the Beis Hamikdash of this Son of David

(Solomon), having begun in 960 B.C.E., would be torn down in 586

B.C.E. Nevertheless, its dimensions and furnishings preach

through architecture, sculptor, painting, and other arts of the

perfection that was to come in the Moshiach. For example, its

Holy of Holies was designed as a perfect cube, approximately 30

feet by 30 feet by 30 feet. It was divided into (Oolahm)

portico, main (Haychal) hall, inner (duh veer) sanctuary. In the

portico were the ornate cast bronze pillars supporting the

entrance; in the main hallwere the golden tables for (Lechem

HaPannim) the bread of the Presence, the gold lampstands, and the

altar of incense; in the inner sanctuary was the Aron Brit (ark

of the covenant). The hayom mutzak (molten sea [a hugh bowl or

tank for the ablutions of the kohanim]) and the altar of the

burnt offering were in front of the steps leading up to the

portico. The Beis Hamikdash was adjacent to the palace of the Son

of Dovid (see the great judgment throne of ivory 10:18), and the

total symbolism of the complex of the house of the Lord/house of

His Anointed King of Kings (10:23) says that G-d, the sovereign

master of the universe and the head of Israel, can only be

approached through a kapparah blood sacrifice acceptably

interposed for G-d's covenant people by Moshiach's kehunah and

its mediation.

In the synagogue today, the Ner Tamid (eternal lamp) suspended

above the ark is a symbol of the Moshiach, for I Kings 11:36 says

"Yet to his son I will give one tribe, so that my servant David

may always have a lamp before me in Jerusalem," the lamp being a

symbol of the permanence of the Davidic dynasty through the

coming Moshiach.

In I Kings 5, unfortunately, Solomon becomes like Pharaoh to his

own people, resorting to forced labor to build the house of the

L-rd, his own house, the Millo (fortification), and the walls of

Jerusalem. He did not enslave the Jews (see I Kgs. 9:22) but

there was apparently enough oppression that the Northern Tribes

could say to Shlomo's son, Rehoboam, "Your father made our yoke

heavy. Now therefore lighten the hard service of your father and

his heavy yoke that he placed on us, and we will serve you"

(12:4). This became one of the causes of the division of the

kingdom into the kingdom of Judah and the kingdom of Israel after

Solomon's death. As Solomon succombs to the idolatry of the

foreign g-ds of his foreign wives and as he abuses his G-d-given

wisdom to entangle himself with ties with Egypt (note the

accummulation of horses and women--see the warning of Deut. 17:16

-17), we see that he is no perfect king. Only the Moshiach will

bring the perfect king with the perfect house and the perfect

kingdom. But we are co-laborers with G-d and we, like Solomon's

Beis Hamikdash builders, must work reverently (see I Kines 6:7).

Notice that the Son of David needed an artist for Israel (I Kings

7:13-14) and He still does today.

Notice that Solomon dedicated the Beis Hamikdash during the

(Succot) Feast of Tabernacles (8:2). Look at 8:10-11 where we see

the first Azuza Street experience among the (K'hal Yisroel)

assembly of Israel. Notice the Beis Hamikdash was the place

where G-d's Spirit and Presence and Name might dwell and the

place where the Word of G-d in the ark of the covenant was to

"incarnate" itself, in a sense, for I Kings 8:21 says, "There I

have provided a place for the ark, in which is the covenant of

the L-rd that he made with our ancestors, when he brought them

out of the land of Egypt." As such, the Beis Hamikdash points

toward "your son who shall be born to you (Dovid)." He will

"build the house for my name." (see I Kings 8:19.). The Moshiach

would be the eternal successor of Dovid (see I Kings 8:25; 9:5).

The "Lord's Servant" is the Davidic king (I Kings 8:59; Isa.

52:13-53:12), for it says that the L-rd "maintains the cause of

his servant and the cause of his people Israel." Dovid's throne

chair, ironically, becomes a cruel Aitz, however, because the

monarchy itself is destroyed by the Exile. Indeed, Pilate sits

where the Son of David should reign, but does so only in the

Millennium. After Rehoboam loses the kingdom about 926 B.C.E.,

never again does a descendant of Dovid (other than Moshiach

Yehoshua the Moshiach) rule over Israel.

When Solomon backslides (mainly in his old age), G-d raises up

adversaries against him (see ch. 11). The conquered peoples

rebel and the Northern tribes rebel also. Hadad the Edomite,

Rezon of Syria (Aram), and Seraboam are all instruments of

Solomon's punishment. Ahijah of Shiloh prophesies the division

of the kingdom and the ascendency of Jeroboam to the throne of

the Northern tribes (see 11:35). This comes to a climax when

(R'chev'am) Rehoboam (930-913 B.C.E.) tries to be a tougher

"Pharaoh" than Solomon.

Note carefully the prophecy concerning the coming righteous king

(Yo'shiyahu) Josiah (610-609 B.C.E.) in 13:3, who is named by

name (as Moshiach Yehoshua is in Zech. 6:11-12 and as Cyrus is in

Isa. 44:28f) and who will destroy this pagan altar later during

the time of Jeremiah's revival preaching. In chapter 13 we hear

about "the man of G-d who disobeyed the word of the Lord"

(13:26), a major theme of the whole of the book of Kings. Ahijah

of Shiloh is an important prophet. He prophesies the Assyrian

dispersion of the Northern tribes (14:15-16) and the kind of

dynastic destruction that will characterize the kings of the

Nothern tribes. In what transpires we see that Ba'sha (Baasha)

(908-886 B.C.E.) kills off (fulfilling the prophesy of 15:27-30)

the dynasty of Yerovaam (Jeroboam) (930-909 B.C.E.), Zimri

(885-874 B.C.E.) the house of Zimri, and (Yehu) Jehu (841-814

B.C.E.) the house of Omri, each a nemesis of G-d, and each

pointing to the assassinations and coups and countercoups that

lead to the demise of this apostate throne of Israel in 722

B.C.E.

The apostate people of the Northern tribes are worshiping the

fertility gods Baal and his consort Asherah because Omri, after

he establishes Samaria as his capital, marries his son Ahab to a

foreign Phoenician wife named Jezebel (princess of Sidon), who

had converted Ahab to this pagan faith of Baal worship and then

initiated a persecution of the true prophets of G-d on a vast

scale. G-d confronts the people by bringing an a tribulation

drought and forcing Ahab to search for terms with Elijah, who,

after being miraclously sustained in the wilderness and through a

widow in Zarephath, demands a contest on Mount Carmel in which

the true G-d and the true prophet alone will live, the others,

losing the contest, will forfeit their lives along with their

worthless altar. When the prophets of Bael are slaughtered

because their G-d cannot light his own sacrificial fire, the

divinely imposed three and half year drought concludes in a

mighty torrent of rain (proving the L-rd, not Baal sends the

blessing of rain, fertility and life), Elijah runs ahead of Ahab

to his second place of residence (not Samaria but Jezreel near

Mount Gilboa). There the wrath of Jezebel drives Elijah back

into the wilderness to hide once again and to come like Moses

redivivus to Mount Sinai (Horeb) where G-d commands that a purge

of idolatry be set in motion as Elijah anoints Hazed of Syria,

Jehu of Israel and Elisha as prophetic successor to Elijah (19:15

-16), all called to be the divine nemesis of idolatry and

apostasy. See the prophecy (21:20-24) that Jehu will fulfill.

After Naboth's ancestral property is seized and his life is

taken, Elijah announces the L-rd's word against both Ahab and

Jezebel (21:17-24). As the book concludes, Ahab and Jehoshaphat

are going to war against Syria, and the godly king Jehoshaphat

wants a prophecy from a prophet of G-d. Micaiah foresees (22:17)

the coming devastation and defeat and, as prophesied (21:19),

Ahab is killed in spite of all his precautions in the ensuing

battle.

Notice that those who try to use their holy office to

commercialize and profiteer off of G-d's holy things will not

find true prosperity (22:48).

The kohen Azariah in I Kings 4:1 is the son of Zadok.

The miracle that happened for Elijah at Mt. Carmel points back to

Lev. 9:23-24.

I and II Kings tell how an entrepreneur (any of the "dreamers who

do") named Shlomo built a Beis Hamikdash, which unfortunately, as

we see at the end of this two-part book, is destroyed by sin, as

the author of I-II Kings writing in the Exile to Jewish people in

the Exile, explains to them the reason for the Exile and its

devastation. The Beis Hamikdash of the body of Moshiach Yehoshua

was also destroyed by sin, but His Beis Hamikdash was destroyed

for sin. But sin led to the destruction of Solomon's Beis

Hamikdash and the Exile. Nevertheless, we see how Solomon was

given divine wisdom (see 1:5:13...the Bible is not

anti-scientific) and also prosperity in order to accomplish his

assigned task.

We should notice that King Shlomo was given many artists and

co-laborers. Indeed, even the kingship itself belonged to G-d

but was entrusted provisionally to Shlomo (II Sm. 7:14) and was

not the perogative of self-promoting men (1:1:37; 2:15). He

prayed for and received from G-d the wisdom (1:3:9) most of the

other kings in this story lack. Shlomo is a type of the Chochma

Elohim (Wisdom of G-d), who became the Moshiach (1:10:24). G-d

surrounded Shlomo with people of quality to help him carry a

heavy burden with expertise. He with the twelve mentioned in

1:4:7 is a type of the peaceful Mashiakh Ben Dovid who will reign

in peace on earth during the Millenium, just as his warrior/king

father Dovid is a type of the Warrior Word (Revelation 19:13)

who will come to destroy the wicked at the end of history. In

1:7:7 we see Shlomo as the anointed King/Judge typological

Moshiach figure (1:10:18), along with Hiram as the artist for

Israel (1:7:14), and in this pairing we see something similar to

what Moses and Bezalel (Exodus 31:3) had been in the Torah.

The Beis Hamikdash is that meeting place between G-d and where

the Ruach Hakodesh comes down when the Word of G-d tabernacles

with G-d's people (1:8:10) and G-d's people can approach his

presence. Without a vision for this communion of G-d and man,

the people perish. But G-d is faithful, even if men are not

(1:9:4-9), and we see in 1:7:51-8:16 the milestone the whole

first quarter of the Bible has been driving toward: the

completion of the Beis Hamikdash with the glory of G-d filling

it. What was lost in Gen. 3:19-24 (the hope of the glory of G-d

which is Chayyei Olam (Eternal Life)) is now beginning to be

regained--do a concordance study of the word "glory" in the book

of Romans to get a fix on the Besuras Hageulah as the Besuras

Hageulah of Glory) is starting to be regained. The Beis

Hamikdash being filled with glory is a picture of the coming

Incarnation and outpouring of the Ruach Hakodesh on the people of

G-d. Of course the promise in 1:8:25 remained unfulfilled until

the line of Dovid is raised to reign forever in resurrection

glory on Passover 30 C.E. Whenever a foreigner looks toward His

torn down but gloriously raised up Beis Hamikdash (I:8:4lf--see

also Amos 9:11) the Brit Chadasha blessing goes forth to that

foreigner. This is why we have been set apart (1:8:53) as a

tabernacle on the Great Commission march and we offer our

sufferings and levitical sacrifices as the House of our Suffering

L-rd to carry the Good News to the ends of the earth. The

itinerate prophetic bands of Elijah and Elisha and Shliach Sha'ul

and modern kiruv outreach workers for Moshiach and emissaries of

Moshiach's shlichut are just as much "the Brit Chadasha kehillah"

as stationary congregational preaching points. The true Brit

Chadasha kehillah is wherever the elect are rightly disciplined

by the proper hearing and sharing of the Word.

Dovid's great son had wisdom. G-d's greater Son was Wisdom, as

Proverbs 30:4 makes clear. It will not do to try to bring Israel

into Proverbs 30:4 as the Son, since the context reflects back to

Proverbs 8 and especially 8:30. Israel is scarcely mentioned in

Proverbs. The figure of a son toiling by the side of his father

was a familiar one, and is an arresting metaphor for G-d's

primordial Wisdom toiling creatively in the beginning with G-d.

Likewise, Psalm 2:7, Psalm 89:27-28, and Isaiah 9:5-6 are

passages where the Moshiach is pictured as G-d's Son, G-d's

B'chor (firstborn) in the sense of his, heir coming in divine

glory as in Daniel 7:13-14, that is, on the clouds with G-d to

"divide the spoil with the strong (Isaiah 53:12) and to govern,

eternally (Isaiah 9:6-7).

In chapter 11:4 we see that Shlomo's G-d-given wisdom was

foolishly seduced by a muddle-headed ecumenicalism just as the

prostitute religious community apostatizes in II Thes. 2:3; Heb.

10:26; II Tim 4:4; I Tim 4:1. If we join this apostasy we can be

sure G-d will always raise up a way to judge us (1:11:15-17).

This is a dominant theme in Kings--that "You only have I known:

therefore, I will punish you for all your sins..." since

"judgment begins at the household of G-d." G-d is a just G-d and

he will remove the guilt of His House from the blood of the

innocent by punishing the culpable, for G-d is a great King

(1:2:31). Solomon, Elisha, Jehu, Joash, Josiah, Nebuchadnezzar

all represent G-d's prophesied holy nemesis against sinners.

Rehoboam is a warning against an authoritarian style that tries

to L-rd it over the sheep and splits the Brit Chadasha kehillah.

You should be able to insert the prophets and their approximate

dates into the dates of the rulers of Israel and Judah so as to

get a fix on who is preaching to whom.

The life-or-death struggle with Rabbinic Judaism's Baalism

(Kabbalah occultism, Talmudic gnosticism, Rabbinic clericalism,

etc.) that Elijah fought is still going on.

In the Elijah cycle G-d gives his guerrilla warrior-prophet a

free room (I Kings 17) and his office was in Zarephath so that he

could have a one-man show to pull down the strongholds of Satanic

lies destroying the house of Israel. This was near the Jordan

where Elijah had once hid to begin his Mount Carmel fight for the

true Jewish faith which Yochanan of the tevilah of teshuva would

continue.

Ya'akov 5:17 tells us that this time of tribulation in I Kings

17-19 lasted 3 and a half years. It was then that Jezebel and

her husband King Ahab tried to shut the door of revival on the

prophet Elijah. But what happened? G-d rained down tribulation

on Queen Jezebel and King Ahab. G-d rained down a life-quenching

drought an their evil, G-d-rejecting world, a real tribulation

that went on far three and a half years. But did Elijah get

raptured before the trouble started? No. Did Elijah escape

being persecuted by the spirit of Anti-Moshiach in Ahab and

Jezebel? No. Was rapturing Elijah before this time of trouble

the only way G-d had of keeping the prophet from that hour of

trial G-d was bringing on the world (Revelation 3:10)? No.

Not at all. How we like to limit G-d with our neat little

prophecy charts! G-d didn't rapture Elijah before that three and

a half year tribulation! G-d hid Elijah in the desert for

"times, time and half a time"--three and a half years! (See also

Rev. 12:6.) And the earth helped Elijah (See also Rev. 12:16.)

The brook quenched his thirst and he ate meals catered by

ravens!) Then when the tribulation had served its purpose and

the false prophets had came to their Anti-Moshiach destruction,

then G-d raptured Elijah! The true Brit Chadasha kehillah was

hidden "underground" during the time of trouble. The true Brit

Chadasha kehillah of "7000 who had not bowed their knee to Baal"

gave their witness and risked martyrdom for G-d during Elijah's

three and a half year tribulation. The true Brit Chadasha

kehillah was a guerrilla group of refugees pursued by an evil

world yet bravely serving the L-rd at all costs, whether that

involved a sacrificial life-style or martyrdom.

I Kings 3:28

And all Israel heard of the judgment which the King had judged;

and they feared the King: for they saw that the wisdom of G-d was

in him to do judgment.

I KINGS 8:43

Hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and do according to all

that the foreigner asks of thee: that all people of the earth may

know thy name and fear thee, as do thy people Israel; and that

they may know that this house, which I (Solomon) have built, is

called by thy name.

I KINGS 17:3

Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the

Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan.