1 Kings 8: How Did We Get Here?

Introduction

“How did we get here?” It is the question you ask when a church closes its doors after years of revival, or when a man sits alone at the bar, divorce papers ready to sign, remembering his wedding day. For Tom Foord, this is exactly the tone and the purpose of the whole book of 1 Kings.

Tom Foord preaches this message at Hope Reformed Baptist Church, in Australia, as part of a series that walks through the Old Testament book by book, in chronological order rather than canonical order. After the Psalms, largely written by David, he takes one evening to survey 1 Kings. The reference passage for the video is 1 Kings 8:12-21, Solomon’s words at the dedication of the temple.

As he does every week, he asks four questions: what happens in this book, what is its message, how does it point to Jesus, and what wisdom can a Christian draw from it for life? That evening, he begins with the message of the book.

Outline of the message

1. “How did we get here?”

The book was probably compiled in the early years of the exile in Babylon. Much of the people lived in chains, in labor camps or in shacks around the Babylonian cities. The last king, Jehoiachin, was languishing in prison, where he would spend 37 years (2 Kings 25:27).
Solomon’s temple had been dismantled stone by stone and burned. And yet Israel was the one nation chosen by God, delivered from slavery, fed in the wilderness, settled in Canaan, with the Law given through Moses, prophets, and the promise of a king from the line of David (2 Samuel 7).
We would rather avoid this kind of question because it is discouraging. But if you dodge it, you miss vital lessons, even when they come from other people’s lives.
The preacher thinks of Australia: when the federation was born, more than nine out of ten people called themselves Christians and nearly half the country went to church regularly. Today the nation is secularized. Nominal Christianity seems enough when the census looks good, but it collapses like a landslide when persecution rises.
1 Kings and 2 Kings were originally a single book, split in two because the scroll was too long. It is the backbone of Israel’s history under its kings: you can hang every major event, prophet and war of the Old Testament on it.

2. Three common threads: one God, one place, one line

The exclusive worship of the Lord. The first two commandments say it: “You shall have no other gods before me,” and you shall not worship me through images (Exodus 20:3-5). Worshiping another god means breaking the covenant. The first king to do it is not David, but his son Solomon. After him, the trickle becomes an avalanche.
God presents himself as Israel’s husband: he lifted her out of her misery, covered her with jewels and made her a queen, and she runs off after others. His jealousy is kindled.
Worship centralized in Jerusalem. In the time of the patriarchs, people could build an altar wherever they were. But Deuteronomy 12 calls for sacrifices to be centralized, and then the temple receives them: “I have made this house holy, which you have built, to put my name there forever; and my eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually” (1 Kings 9:3). People could pray, read and sing anywhere, but sacrifices were offered at the temple. Hence the sin of the “high places,” those altars set up on hilltops, most often for foreign gods.
The primacy of the house of David. God chose a people, a city and a temple, and also a king and a line. This is not “putting God in a box,” Tom Foord explains: “He has spoken,” and we hold to his revelation.
The book keeps you in suspense: will the line of David survive while the north secedes?

3. Solomon’s golden age (chapters 1 to 10)

Another son of David tries to seize the throne. Bathsheba reminds David of his promise, and Solomon is anointed and established as king, a fulfillment of 2 Samuel 7.
In chapter 3, God invites him to ask for whatever he wants. Solomon calls himself “a little child” and asks for wisdom rather than wealth or power. God gives him wisdom, and on top of that gold, authority and territory. The story of the two women fighting over a child shows the whole kingdom that this son of David is full of wisdom (1 Kings 3:16-28).
He builds the temple in seven years, then his palace in thirteen. At the dedication, the sacrifices are so many they cannot be counted. Then the cloud fills the house, “so that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud; for Yahweh’s glory filled Yahweh’s house” (1 Kings 8:11). God, whom the heavens cannot contain, chooses to dwell there.
Solomon prays: “Yahweh has established his word that he spoke” (1 Kings 8:20). The people go home “joyful and glad in their hearts” (1 Kings 8:66).
The queen of Sheba comes to see for herself and admits she had not been told the half of it (1 Kings 10:7). The kingdom stretches to the borders promised to Abraham (1 Kings 4:21). The book insists: God has not failed in a single one of his promises.

4. Solomon’s fall and the divided kingdom (chapters 11 and 12)

“Now king Solomon loved many foreign women,” despite the Lord’s command not to join with those nations, “for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods” (1 Kings 11:1-2). He has 700 princesses as wives and 300 concubines.
The commandment was not about skin color or tribe, but about purity: God had chosen Israel to worship him and to preserve the line from which the Messiah would come. Solomon falls exactly into the trap that had been foretold and builds altars to Chemosh, to Molech and to other gods.
God judges him: “I will surely tear the kingdom from you” (1 Kings 11:11). But by grace, not in his lifetime, and one tribe will remain to his son, for the sake of David and Jerusalem (1 Kings 11:12-13). God applies the curse of the covenant while keeping his mercy.
Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, makes the people’s yoke even heavier and loses the kingdom within days. The northern tribes answer: “What portion have we in David?” (1 Kings 12:16). Only Judah and Benjamin remain with him.
Jeroboam becomes king of the ten northern tribes. To keep his people from going down to the temple in Jerusalem, he makes two golden calves, appoints priests who are not Levites and invents his own feast (1 Kings 12:28-33). In word, he claims to be the true Israel. In fact, he cuts the people off from God in everything but name.

5. Ahab, Jezebel and Elijah on Carmel (chapters 16 to 22)

Ahab, son of Omri, is the great wicked king of the book: he “did more yet to provoke Yahweh, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him” (1 Kings 16:33). He marries Jezebel, a Phoenician princess, who dominates him and drives him all the way to murder over a vineyard.
Jezebel has the prophets of the Lord hunted down and killed. They hide in cellars and barns, until a man of God shelters them in caves.
Into this climate, God sends Elijah the Tishbite, dressed in skins with a leather belt. Ahab accuses him of troubling Israel. Elijah answers that it is Ahab who troubles it by his sins (1 Kings 18:17-18).
On Mount Carmel, the prophets of Baal shout and cut themselves for half a day: nothing. Elijah mocks them: perhaps their god is busy or away on a journey (1 Kings 18:27). He has his altar drenched three times, prays, and the fire of God falls and consumes everything, even the water. The false prophets are put to death (1 Kings 18:40).
Israel’s heart turns back to God for a while, but it does not last. The north is already on its ninth king and everything is deteriorating. In the south, a descendant of David still reigns: his promises hold, “of course, because he is God.”

6. Jesus, greater than Solomon

Jesus did not overlook this dark corner of history when speaking about himself: “The Queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation, and will condemn them: for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, one greater than Solomon is here” (Luke 11:31). If a pagan queen traveled all that way, how much more should we listen to the one who came from heaven.
In earthly terms, Jesus seems to have less: no wives, no political kingdom in Israel, an itinerant preacher who grew up poor in Galilee. But “Jesus doesn’t have less, he has the best.” He does not have more of the inferior things, he has what is better in quality.
He has greater wisdom, as Son of David and Son of God: God, who spoke long ago through the prophets, has spoken to us by the Son, appointed heir of all things (Hebrews 1:1-2).
He never gave in to idolatry. In the wilderness, Satan offered him everything if he would bow down to him (Matthew 4:8-10). He was hungry, alone and without a wife, and he stayed devoted to his mission. “If your child asks you whether they should be like Solomon,” the preacher says, the answer is mixed; Jesus, on the other hand, we can imitate in everything.
To Solomon, God had said: not in your lifetime, but in the time of your son. Jesus comes as that Son and bears the punishment others had deserved. Where Solomon deserved punishment, Jesus deserved righteousness and the kingdom, and he gives them to his people. The true temple is made of people: “you are a temple of the living God” (2 Corinthians 6:16). Jesus has made us his temple by dwelling in us and founding his Church.

7. Never think you are safe

“Never overestimate yourself”: that is what the preacher wrote in his margin all through his reading, thinking especially of leaders and the ambitious. Paul says it: “I say [...] to every man who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think” (Romans 12:3).
We reassure ourselves too quickly: I’m not rich, I’m not a king, I would never commit murder, I’m not like Ahab, my name has been written in my first Bible since I was six. Never think a sin in the Bible is far from you.
“You are made of the same clay.” When you see someone fall, when you read one of these stories, take care that you do not fall too.
Instead, take up the prayer of young Solomon: “I am just a little child [...] Give your servant therefore an understanding heart [...] that I may discern between good and evil” (1 Kings 3:7-9). And the promise of James: “if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him” (James 1:5).
To anyone who does not yet believe, the preacher says: Solomon and other figures in this book are in heaven, not because they were good, but because we have a perfect Savior. Jesus died not for his own sins, but for ours. Believe in him, trust him for your salvation.

Key takeaways

1 Kings answers the question of a people in exile: “How did we get here?” The answer begins with a richly blessed king who turns away from his God.
The book follows three common threads: the Lord alone must be worshiped, in the place he has chosen, and his kingdom comes through the line of David.
Even in judgment, God keeps his promise: a descendant of David remains on the throne.
Jesus is greater than Solomon: he does not have more of the inferior things, he has the best, and he bore the punishment others deserved.
No one is safe from Solomon’s sins. Wisdom is asked of God, in humility.

Personal application

Looking at your life, your marriage or your church, is there a place where you should dare to ask yourself: “How did we get here?”
What “other gods” or “high places” are competing today for God’s place in your heart?
Which sin in the Bible do you think you could never commit? What would change if you knew you were “made of the same clay”?
This week, can you take up Solomon’s prayer and ask God for wisdom for a specific decision?
What difference does this make for you?

Verses cited

Frequently asked questions

What is the book of 1 Kings about?

For Tom Foord, 1 Kings answers the question Israel was asking in exile in Babylon: “How did we get here?” Chapters 1 to 11 tell of Solomon’s golden age and then his fall. Chapters 12 to 22 describe the divided kingdom, sliding into idolatry, false worship and war between the kings.

Why is Jesus greater than Solomon?

By earthly standards, Jesus seems to have less than Solomon: no wives, no great possessions, no political kingdom. But he does not have more of the inferior things, he has what is better: greater wisdom, as Son of David and Son of God. Tempted by Satan, he never gave in to idolatry. Where Solomon deserved punishment, Jesus deserved righteousness and the kingdom, and he gives them to his people.

What lesson can we draw from Solomon’s fall?

Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought (Romans 12:3). Tom Foord urges us never to think that a sin recorded in the Bible is beyond our reach: we are made of the same clay. Instead, take up the prayer of young Solomon and ask God for wisdom, for he gives it to all liberally and without reproach (James 1:5).