Buckle your seatbelt because we are about to join the wild parade of Israel and Judah’s kings and prophets. It’s hard to keep track of the players in this part of Israel’s history, but you can find great charts to use as visual aids by googling “Israel’s Kings and Prophets.”

Here are a few facts to get us started:

King Solomon died around 931 BC and with his death began the parade of kings and prophets in Israel and Judah.

• Between 930 and 722 BC Israel had twenty kings.
• Between 930 and 586 BC Judah had nineteen kings and one queen.

Israel had more “bad” kings than Judah. They were classified as “good” or “bad” according to how faithful they were to God. Idolatrous kings tended to have shorter reigns, although one of the worst, Manasseh, was on the throne of Judah longer than any other king.

God also sent many prophets to deliver messages and warnings. Sixteen of these prophets are called the Writing Prophets because their prophecies are recorded as books in the Bible.

Four of the Writing Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel are called the Major Prophets and the rest are Minor Prophets, based on the length of their books.

Until now the narrative of the Bible has only given us a few characters to think about at a time. Now the story is going to move faster and weave back and forth between kings and kingdoms.

Jeroboam Establishes Worship in Israel

The ten northern tribes were cut off from worship in Jerusalem when Israel and Judah divided. The priests and Levites promptly left Israel and migrated back to Judah so they could remain part of worship at the temple. King Jeroboam realized that his new realm might soon desert him.

“Jeroboam thought to himself, ‘The kingdom will now likely revert to the house of David. If these people go up to offer sacrifices at the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, they will again give their allegiance to their lord, Rehoboam of Judah. They will kill me and return to King Rehoboam.” 1 Kings 12:26-27

King Jeroboam decided to build two new places of worship for the northern tribes. He set up two golden calves, one in Bethel, near the border with Judah, and the second in Dan, in the northernmost part of Israel.

“He said to the people, ‘It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’ . . . And this thing became a sin; the people came to worship the one at Bethel and went as far as Dan to worship the other.” 1 Kings 12:30

The Sin of Jeroboam

Recent archeological studies indicate that Jeroboam may have had the worship of Yahweh in mind when he started. A golden calf in the ancient world was regarded as a pedestal on which God could stand, so the golden calves might have represented footstools God could use to stand over Israel. The ruins found in the area of Dan reveal a temple-like structure and an altar like the one in Jerusalem.

But the sin of Jeroboam, which is mentioned over twenty times in Scripture, was that he diverted his people from worship in the temple in Jerusalem, set up an alternate priesthood and calendar of worship in Israel, and made metal gods for himself. Idolatry crept into Israel as a result and it led to their downfall.

A Prophet Denounces Jeroboam

1 Kings 13 tells the sad story of a faithful prophet who was deceived by another prophet. We don’t know his name, but he was one of many prophets God sent to Israel to warn against idolatry and its consequences.

This prophet crossed the border from Judah into Israel to prophesy against the altar Jeroboam had set up in Bethel.

“Altar, altar! This is what the Lord says: ‘A son named Josiah will be born to the house of David. On you he will sacrifice the priests of the high places who make offerings here, and human bones will be burned on you.’” 1 Kings 13:2

The prophet announced that the altar was going to split in two and spill its ashes as proof that his prophecy was true. Jeroboam objected to the prophet who interrupted his worship and made dire threats. He tried to have him seized, but God shriveled Jeroboam’s hand when he gestured toward the prophet. In the same moment the altar split and its ashes were scattered.

Remarkably, the king the prophet mentioned, King Josiah, wasn’t born until three hundred years later. God was so concerned about Israel falling into idolatry that he sent this unnamed prophet to warn them about something that would happen hundreds of years later. God gave a heads up to whoever was willing to listen.

The prophet did his job of delivering the prophecy, but then he was tricked into disobeying God’s orders and lost his life. He was buried near Bethel. When we read the story of Josiah later this prophet will be mentioned again.

Ahijah Prophesies Against Jeroboam

King Jeroboam had a son who became deathly ill. He sent his wife in disguise to the prophet Ahijah to ask what would become of the boy. This son must have been special because God told Ahijah this boy was the only one in Jeroboam’s family with anything good about him (1 Kings 14:13).

Ahijah was the prophet who told Jeroboam that God would make him king of the ten northern tribes. God promised to make a great dynasty of Jeroboam’s family if he was faithful to him, but Jeroboam wasn’t faithful.

Now Ahijah had bad news for Jeroboam. God was going to take down the house of Jeroboam and because Israel had followed him he would “strike Israel, so that it will be like a reed swaying in the water. He will uproot Israel from this good land that he gave to their ancestors and scatter them beyond the Euphrates River because they aroused the Lord’s anger by making Asherah poles. And he will give Israel up because of the sins Jeroboam has committed and has caused Israel to commit.” 1 Kings 14:15-16

This was an early warning of what lay ahead for Israel. The ten tribes that God had planted so firmly in Canaan were going to sway like a plant in the water for the next two hundred years as their good and (mostly) bad kings led them this way and that, until they were finally uprooted.

Unfaithful King Rehoboam

Rehoboam inherited a glorious kingdom from his father Solomon, but promptly lost the ten northern tribes and most of his income. Sadly, “[Rehoboam] did evil because he had not set his heart on seeking the Lord.” 2 Chronicles 12:14

And the people of Judah followed King Rehoboam in his unfaithfulness.

“They also set up for themselves high places, sacred stones and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree . . . the people engaged in all the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.” 1 Kings 14:23-24

Five years into Rehoboam’s reign God allowed Shishek of Egypt to invade and capture the fortified cities of Judah. When the terrified people of Judah crowded into Jerusalem for refuge, God sent Shemaiah the prophet to tell Rehoboam,

“This is what the Lord says, ‘You have abandoned me; therefore, I now abandon you to Shishek.’” 2 Chronicles 12:5

When Rehoboam and Judah’s leaders humbled themselves and acknowledged that God was right to punish them, God relented and stopped Shishek from destroying Jerusalem. But he let Shishek invade Jerusalem and subjugate Judah to teach them a lesson.

“My wrath will not be poured out on Jerusalem through Shishek. They will, however, become subject to him, so that they may learn the difference between serving me and serving the kings of other lands.” 2 Chronicles 12:7-8

King Solomon’s glorious nation was broken and Judah was subject to Egypt, all because Israel and Judah’s kings and people were unfaithful to God.

Abijah and Asa

Rehoboam named his son Abijah to succeed him on Judah’s throne and Abijah tried to reunite Israel with Judah. He went to war with Jeroboam and regained some territory along Israel’s southern border, including Bethel. Because Abijah was more faithful to God than his father Rehoboam had been, God blessed him. However, he only reigned two years before he died and his son Asa succeeded him as king of Judah.

King Asa was a reformer who listened carefully when the prophet Azariah told him,

“The Lord is with you when you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you.” 2 Chronicles 15:2

As we will see, these words were key to understanding the fate of every king who led Israel and Judah.