Calvary Road Baptist Church
“A Survey Of Satanic & Demonic Warfare In First Kings”
First Kings
Our survey of Satanic and Demonic warfare brings us to the book of First Kings. Let me begin by reading extensively from an introduction in a conservative commentary written by Thomas L. Constable:
Title. The Books of 1 and 2 Kings were so named because they record and interpret the reigns of all the kings of Israel and Judah except Saul ... In the Hebrew Old Testament 1 and 2 Kings were one book and were regarded as a continuation of the historical narrative begun in 1 and 2 Samuel. The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, divided Kings into the two parts that constitute 1 and 2 Kings in English Bibles, though the Septuagint calls those two books “3 and 4 Kingdoms” (and calls 1 and 2 Sam. “1 and 2 Kingdoms”). The title “Kings” came from Jerome’s Latin translation (the Vulgate) which was made about six centuries after the Septuagint; Jerome called the two books “The Book of the Kings.”
Scope. First and 2 Kings provide a record of Israel’s history from the beginning of the movement to place Solomon on David’s throne through the end of the reign of Zedekiah, Judah’s last king. Zedekiah ruled until the surviving Southern Kingdom was taken captive and Babylonian governors were placed in charge of affairs in Palestine.
Three major periods of Israel’s history can be distinguished in Kings: (a) the united monarchy (during which time Israel and Judah remained united under Solomon as they had been under Saul and David); (b) the divided monarchy from the rebellion of Israel against the rulership of Judean kings until Israel was carried off into captivity by the Assyrians); and (c) the surviving kingdom (the record of Judah’s affairs from the deportation of Israel to Judah’s own defeat and exile by the Babylonians).
First and 2 Kings were not divided as they are because a natural break occurs in the narrative, but because the large scroll of 1 and 2 Kings needed to be divided into two smaller, more easily manageable units. The result was two books which are almost equal in length.
Date. The release of Jehoiachin from prison is the last event recorded in 2 Kings. This took place in the 37th year of his imprisonment (560 b.c.). Therefore 1 and 2 Kings could not have been written before that event. It seems unlikely that the return of the Jews from the Babylonian Captivity in 538 b.c. had taken place when 1 and 2 Kings were written; had it occurred, the author would probably have referred to it. Probably 1 and 2 Kings were completed in their final form between 560 and 538 b.c.
Author. Though it is obvious that the author utilized various source materials in writing 1 and 2 Kings, the book bears the marks of single rather than multiple authorship. Some of those indicators are the choice of materials recorded (e.g., the records of the deeds and evaluations of the kings, and the ministries of several prophets), the emphases which run throughout the books (e.g., the ministries of the prophets and the evaluation of the kings in relation to the Mosaic Law, and the primacy of the Davidic dynasty), the method of expressing the beginnings and endings of the kings’ reigns, and phrases and terms that recur from beginning to end (e.g., “now the rest of the acts of ... are they not written ...” “evil in the sight of the Lord”; “he reigned ... years and his mother’s name was ...” “As surely as the LORD lives”).
The identity of the author is unknown, but he may have been an exile who lived in Babylon. Some commentators have pointed to his recording Jehoiachin’s release from captivity in Babylon in support of this conclusion since this event seems to them to have been specially significant for the Jews in captivity. This line of reasoning has led students of 1 and 2 Kings to suggest such notable exilic Jews as Ezra and Ezekiel as the author. Jeremiah has also been suggested. He of course was not a Babylonian exile; he died in Egypt. Ancient scholarship and tradition favor one of these three men above others who have been considered.
Purpose. The Books of 1 and 2 Kings were written to record history but, more importantly, to teach the lessons of history.
The author’s chief historical concern was to preserve a record of the kings of both Israel and Judah. The emphasis in this record is on the royal actions and also on the actions of selected prophets that bear on the period in which they ministered.
More importantly the author sought to evaluate the monarchy by the standard of the Mosaic Law. Besides tracing the decline of the Northern and Southern Kingdoms, he pointed out the reasons for their decline in general and the fate of each king in particular. He may have intended to teach the exiles in Babylon the reasons for their plight so that they would learn from their past. In particular God’s faithfulness to His covenant (blessing the obedient and punishing the disobedient) and the evils of idolatry receive strong emphasis.
Second Chronicles, of course, records the history of almost the same period as 1 and 2 Kings. (First Chron. includes the genealogies leading up to David [chaps. 1-9], Saul’s death [chap. 10], and David’s reign and death [chaps. 11-29].) The purposes and emphases of these two histories differ significantly. The kings of Judah were of more interest to the author of Chronicles whereas both the Israelite and Judean monarchs occupied the interest of the author of 1 and 2 Kings. The Books of 1 and 2 Chronicles emphasize especially the priestly elements in the nation’s history, such as the temple and worship, while 1 and 2 Kings give attention to the royal and prophetic elements. In 2 Chronicles the kings of Judah after David are evaluated in reference to David and the worship of Yahweh; in 1 and 2 Kings the rulers of both kingdoms are evaluated in reference to the Mosiac Law...
Historical Background. When Solomon came to the throne in 971 b.c. Israel had no strong military threat among its neighbors; Egypt and Assyria were both weak. Assyria grew stronger, however, and in 722 b.c. attacked and took Samaria, the capital of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Assyria attacked Judah some time later and though it was able to take several southern cities, Jerusalem, the capital of the Southern Kingdom of Judah, did not fall. Assyria exerted control over Egypt too. In 609 b.c. Pharaoh Neco took his army north of Israel to Haran in Aram to assist Assyria in its threat from the Neo-Babylonian Empire. In 605 Babylon, under Nebuchadnezzar, defeated Egypt at Carchemish, moved south into Judah, and after three attacks (in 605, 597, and 586) completely destroyed Jerusalem, carrying all but the poorest Jews into captivity in 586 b.c.
Chronology. The major problem facing students of 1 and 2 Kings is the chronology of the rulers, especially those of Judah. In some cases the answer can be found in a coregency or vice-regency, periods during which two kings ruled. In other cases the problem can be solved after one establishes when a king began counting the years of his reign. Judah and Israel used two different methods to determine when a king’s reign began, and each nation switched methods at least once during the period of history recorded in 1 and 2 Kings.
A third factor complicates the chronological problems further. Judah and Israel began their calendar years at different times. Space prohibits further explanation of the chronological problems in 1 and 2 Kings... Though exact dates are a problem, several different chronologies, worked out by conservative scholars, harmonize the narratives. In most cases these systems vary from each other by only one or two years.
The major dates for this period are as follows: 931 b.c.-the division of the kingdom; 722 b.c.-the fall of Israel; 586 b.c.-the fall of Judah...
Theology. The Books of 1 and 2 Kings, like the other historical books of the Old Testament, were written not simply to record facts of historical significance, but to reveal and preserve spiritual lessons which have timeless value. This is evident in 1 and 2 Kings, for example, in the writer’s interest in the prophets as well as the kings. God revealed Himself and His message by communicating to and through His servants the prophets. God also revealed Himself through events of history. People’s decisions, made in faith and obedience or in unbelief and disobedience, led to inevitable consequences.
God intended that the nation Israel demonstrate to all people how glorious it can be to live under the government of God (Ex. 19:4-6). God chose Abraham to be the father of a family that would become a nation and be a blessing to the whole world (Gen. 12:1-3). This blessing would come to all mankind as Israel would allow the light of God’s presence to dwell within her, transform her, and shine out from her as a light to the nations (Isa. 42:6).
The covenant God made with Abraham (Gen. 15:12-21) guaranteed him a land, descendants, and blessing. The promises of this covenant were repeated to his descendants at various times, but on certain significant occasions God amplified and elaborated one of these promises. As Israel prepared to enter the Promised Land God repeated His promise that the Israelites would possess a perpetual lease on the land from God, but that they would occupy this territory to the extent that they were faithful to God, its Owner (Deut. 28-30). In David’s day God promised that Abraham’s seed who descended through David would be blessed in a special way (2 Sam. 7:11-16). In particular, the king of the Israelites would always be one of one of David’s descendants (2 Sam. 7:16). Later God promised Jeremiah that He would bless Israel in a specific way through the New Covenant (Jer. 31:31-34).
The Books of 1 and 2 Kings show that God is faithful to His promised word regarding Israel. Within this large purpose the writer showed how certain human activities affected God’s dealings with His people and also how God accomplished His purposes in spite of the opposition of His enemies and the failures of His people.
Whereas Israel in 1 and 2 Kings functioned as a monarchy, it was more a theocracy. The kings of Israel were vice-regents under Yahweh, Israel’s true Sovereign. To the extent that Israel’s earthly kings faithfully led the nation under her heavenly King’s direction, as revealed by God through the Mosaic Law and the prophets, the nation prospered as God intended. But when the earthly kings proved unfaithful, Israel inevitably failed to experience all God’s good pleasure for her.
So 1 and 2 Kings reveal God’s faithfulness to His Word, His ultimate sovereignty over His own and all other peoples, and His patience. These books also testify to the unbelief and disobedience of all people, even the beneficiaries of God’s election and blessing. These books demonstrate that God has not cast off His disobedient people Israel whom He chose to enjoy a privileged relationship with Himself.[1]
I am done. Would you have read that had I not read that to you? I don’t think so. So, I read it.
Interesting to note is not what the commentator wrote in his run-up to First and Second Kings but what he did not write. What I am persuaded to be typical of commentators writing about books of the Old Testament and preachers preaching in the Old Testament is their willingness to overlook and ignore some truly significant developments. He used the word “idolatry” one time in all of those words. One time.
Let take you to First Kings and begin with the Hebrew word that is frequently translated and also transliterated, the word “satan.” “Satan” is the Hebrew word for adversary.[2] Sometimes it refers to the Devil, but early on in the Bible, it seems not to refer to who we know to be the Devil, but to an adversary in general, nonspecific.
The first time the word is found in the Hebrew Scriptures is in Numbers 22.22 and 32, where the Hebrew word for “satan” is twice used to refer to the Angel of the LORD, the preincarnate Christ, blocking the path of the donkey the prophet Balaam was riding:
22 And God’s anger was kindled because he went: and the angel of the LORD stood in the way for an adversary against him. Now he was riding upon his ass, and his two servants were with him.
32 And the angel of the LORD said unto him, Wherefore hast thou smitten thine ass these three times? behold, I went out to withstand thee, because thy way is perverse before me:
In verse 22, the word is translated “adversary,” and in verse 32, the word is translated “withstand,” but it is the Hebrew word for “satan.” Kind of significant, if you ask me.
The word is used in First Samuel 29.4 by Philistines to describe David as their adversary. So, the first two times, the word is used to described the Angel of the LORD. The third time the word is found, it refers to David before he became Israel’s king. And in Second Samuel 19.22, David uses the word to describe his nephews as his adversaries.
“Satan” is not an unusual word in the Hebrew Scriptures. But the word is not used as a proper name early on in the Hebrew Scriptures. The word “satan” seems never to be directly connected to the serpent in the Garden of Eden in the Hebrew Scriptures, and never is the serpent referred to as “Satan.” By the time we get to First Kings, the word is used four times, each time to describe an adversary without the word being used as any adversary’s proper name.
With this little bit of somewhat surprising background, we tackle this book of the Bible by noticing the place of demonic warfare under two broad headings:
First, NOTICE THE RISE AND DECLINE OF KING SOLOMON
There is no doubt that God chose Solomon, the second of David’s sons, by Bathsheba. Remember, God took the first child she bore to David. But God chose Solomon to succeed him as the third king of Israel, occupying a place in Christ’s lineage through the legal line of Joseph[3] , but he is not found the bloodline of Mary.[4]
Solomon started his reign very well. Lots of things start well, don’t they? First Kings chapter two records decisive steps Solomon took to solidify his rule, so that First Kings 2.46 ends,
“And the kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon.”
But he made affinity with Egypt’s ruler, Pharaoh, and took Pharaoh’s daughter to be his wife, Second Kings 3.1. Sadly, First King’s 3.2 reports that the people worshipped in high places. High places were sites of convenience used before the construction of the Temple. The worship of God is not supposed to be convenient. In Gibeon, the LORD appeared to Solomon and granted him his wish for an understanding heart, adding to that blessing great wealth, First Kings 3.5-15.
Solomon’s displays of wisdom are well known. Let me recount a few examples. The two harlots were laying claim to one child, First Kings 3.16-28. His interaction with the Queen of Sheba, First Kings 10. And his arrangement with Hiram the king of Tyre, to send skilled workers to build the Temple is also recorded.
Solomon’s appraisal of his situation, his opinion of what his situation was, is found in First Kings 5.4:
“But now the LORD my God hath given me rest on every side, so that there is neither adversary nor evil occurrent.”
Yes, the word adversary in this verse is the Hebrew word “satan.” Solomon felt he had no adversaries, but the seeds of the destruction were already planted.
This led to the decline of Solomon’s personal life and rule. Notice the verses in which the word “satan” are found, the word translated adversary:
1Ki 11:14
“And the LORD stirred up an adversary unto Solomon, Hadad the Edomite: he was of the king’s seed in Edom.”
1Ki 11:23
“And God stirred him up another adversary, Rezon the son of Eliadah, which fled from his lord Hadadezer king of Zobah:”
1Ki 11:25
“And he was an adversary to Israel all the days of Solomon, beside the mischief that Hadad did: and he abhorred Israel, and reigned over Syria.”
Who stirred up Solomon’s adversaries? God! This follows verses 1-8 and Solomon following the spiritual inclinations of his idolatrous wives. This angered the LORD, who had appeared to Solomon twice, verse 9. Thus, God set the adversaries mentioned in verses 14, 23, and 25 upon Solomon! That is something we ought to pay attention to. Why was the kingdom of Israel divided? The reason is given in First Kings 11.33:
“Because that they have forsaken me, and have worshipped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moabites, and Milcom the god of the children of Ammon, and have not walked in my ways, to do that which is right in mine eyes, and to keep my statutes and my judgments, as did David his father.”
Recall that none of that was mentioned by the commentator’s opening remarks that I read to you. Do you see the role of idolatry in all this? Solomon did not follow his mother’s advice:
“Give not thy strength unto women, nor thy ways to that which destroyeth kings.”[5]
He married strange women, gave his strength to them, and wholesale idolatry was the result, leading to God’s judgment of the nation.
Next, THE RISE OF IDOLATRY IN THE DIVIDED KINGDOMS
After Solomon’s death and the division of the kingdom into Israel and the ten tribes to the North and the kingdom of Judah, dominated by the tribe of Judah and including Benjamin to the South, things deteriorated rapidly.
Since Nimrod’s day, despots have used idolatry to influence their subjects, using government and religion to control populations. So it was in Egypt, and so it was in the rebellious kingdom of Israel, as we see in First Kings 12.25-30:
25 Then Jeroboam built Shechem in mount Ephraim, and dwelt therein; and went out from thence, and built Penuel.
26 And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David:
27 If this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the LORD at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah, and they shall kill me, and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah.
28 Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
29 And he set the one in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan.
30 And this thing became a sin: for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan.
Both kingdoms, Israel and Judah, sinned greatly against God. First Kings 14.9 rehearses Israel’s sins:
“But hast done evil above all that were before thee: for thou hast gone and made thee other gods, and molten images, to provoke me to anger, and hast cast me behind thy back.”
When you worship an idol, you cast God behind your back. First Kings 14.23 also rehearses, in summation, Judah’s sins:
“For they also built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree.”
The ministry of Elijah, the prophet to the northern kingdom of Israel, is recorded in First Kings chapters 17, 18, and 19. Here are two verses recording Elijah’s words directed to the prophets of Baal atop Mount Carmel, showing that this was very much a spiritual warfare, First Kings 18.24-25:
24 And call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the LORD: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, It is well spoken.
25 And Elijah said unto the prophets of Baal, Choose you one bullock for yourselves, and dress it first; for ye are many; and call on the name of your gods, but put no fire under.
Even knowing the reality of this spiritual warfare and the victory he had recently participated in winning (remember, he slew 450 prophets of Baal), Elijah was overwhelmed by Jezebel’s threat:
“Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by to morrow about this time.”[6]
He had just called down fire from God from heaven to consume his sacrifice. But when he got Jezebel’s message, he quit, First Kings 19.4:
“But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.”
What did God do? God granted his request.
Of course, there is more in First Kings. But remember that this is a survey with three pertinent conclusions to come away from our consideration of First Kings with.
First, is it not alarming (and it’s the reason I read all of that at the outset) how little attention was paid to the supernatural element dealt with in First Kings? We see the whole package, do we not? We see the idolatry, with demons behind the idolatry (because there are always demons behind idolatry) and energizing it all, and the associated illicit promiscuity. Yet commentators like the one I read typically pay little serious attention to the supernatural foes who are tied up in everything that developed in those kingdoms.
Second, notice that it is whole cloth. In First Kings 12.26, Jeroboam made the same lying claim about the golden calf delivering the children of Israel from Egyptian bondage that was made back in Exodus 32.4 centuries earlier:
“And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.”
That is what was said at the foot of Mount Sinai centuries earlier. Yet, it was the demons back of the idolatry of Egypt that had enslaved the children of Israel who were using the golden calf in Exodus 32 and First Kings 12 to take credit for the Exodus. The slave masters were taking credit for setting the children of Israel free. That sounds like contemporary American politics!
Third, we see in First Kings that two spiritual giants were overwhelmed by the enemy, our spiritual adversaries. Solomon’s was a relatively slow slide into religious apostasy because he did not employ the wisdom his mother attempted to teach him about not giving his strength to women. Elijah’s was a rapid spiritual tumble from a great victory atop Mount Carmel to completely surrendering when he did not need to a day or so later. He just quit!
The lesson? This is a dangerous war we are in. The greatest among us (none of us measure up to Solomon or Elijah) can be suddenly overwhelmed and suffer ignominious defeat. The greatest among us can also surrender to the pleasures and devices used to tempt us to yield just a bit at a time until we are entirely compromised.
First Kings is yet another book of the Bible showing this spiritual war is real, is deadly, and vigilance is absolutely necessary.
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[1] John F. Walvoord & Roy B. Zuck, General Editors, The Bible Knowledge Commentary: Old Testament, (Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook, 1985), pages 483-485.
[2] Francis Brown, S. R. Driver & Charles A. Briggs, The New Brown-Driver-Briggs-Gesenius Hebrew And English Lexicon, (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1979), page 966.
[3] Matthew 1.6
[4] Luke 3.31
[5] Proverbs 31.3
[6] First Kings 19.2
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Pastor@CalvaryRoadBaptist.Church