Learning from Kings: How Insecurity Ended a Dynasty

Let The Kinsman Plead

Perhaps if you are one of the 60% of people who opened my last email, you reached the end of the story and wondered what happened. Surely 83% of the provinces in a kingdom couldn’t simply resign from serving a king without a fight. Good instincts. Let us continue the story.

When the people went home after telling Beloved’s house to mind its own business, King The People Is Enlarged sends the head of forced labor to speak to them. The name of this slave master’s name was The Lord Is Exalted.

Now when we hear “The Lord” in Scripture, often we think of God; but there is nothing in the meaning of this name that assumes this use of “lord” refers to a deity. Just like in feudal England, the same word also referred to any human lord including this slave master. Whoever it referred to when he was given the name, it’s hard to imagine the people he bossed enjoyed using it.

You see, the people didn’t like The Lord Is Exalted. When he came to reason with them on behalf of the king, they stoned him to death.

King The People Is Enlarged reacts by mustering 180,000 soldiers from the tribes of Praise (Judah) and Son Of The Right Hand (Benjamin). Scripture says he did this to go to war to restore the kingdom to The People Is Enlarged, son of Peaceful.

He went to war to restore the kingdom to the son of Peaceful, who coincidentally was himself. He doesn’t sound like an offspring of peace to me.

Then the prophet Yahweh Heard comes to The People Is Enlarged and tells him to go home because the kingdom splitting is an act of the Giver of Life. The People Is Enlarged makes his second good decision in the story. He obeys, and there is no war.

Then it’s Let The Kinsman Plead’s turn to begin making mistakes. He’s been promised that his dynasty will be as lasting as Beloved’s if only he will obey the Giver of Life and do what is right.

But he doesn’t. He starts to think too much, reasoning that if his subjects go up to worship the Giver of Life in the City Of Peace (Jerusalem), they will kill him and return to serving The People Is Enlarged. The new king doesn’t trust the promises of the Giver of Life or his new subjects.

Instead Let The Kinsman Plead seeks advice but apparently receives it from fools. He builds idols in two cities, House of God and A Judge. The story of the two prophets that I told a few months ago follows. Remember the young prophet curses the altar, the king orders him to be arrested, the king’s outstretched arm pointing at the prophet becomes paralyzed, the altar falls apart, and the king begs the prophet to pray for him.

These events don’t phase the king. He doesn’t “change his evil ways” but consecrates anyone who wants to be priests at his new high places. Scripture declares it became sin for the house of Let The Kinsman Plead, cutting it off and destroying it from off the face of the Adamah (Earth).

Then, Yahweh Is My Father, one of the princes falls ill. The king sends his wife in disguise to a village called Peace to visit Yahweh Is My Brother, the prophet who anointed him to be king. Perhaps guilt prevented the new king from wanting to face the now-blind prophet himself.

The aged prophet may be physically blind, but he can still spiritually see. Without being told who his visitor is, he greets her by her relationship. “Come in, wife of Jeroboam” (I Kings 14:6).

The prophet’s words to the unnamed woman cover a half a page of Scripture. Because of the king’s sins his family will meet with disaster. Whether they are slave or free, the males will be exterminated, and the physical house will be burned. The now dying prince is the only male who will be buried; the flesh of the others will be eaten by dogs and birds. Yahweh Is My Father will be buried because he is the only one in the family in whom the Giver of Life has found anything good. This mother learns her precious son will die when she sets foot in the city.

Can you imagine the turmoil in her heart as she makes her way home? Did she run, trying to trick time? Did she shuffle her feet, taking as long as possible to give her precious one a few more moments to breathe? Did she have the driver whip the horses? Did she ask that they linger? How could a mother decide?

She enters Delight, the city in which they were living; but her son still lives. He continues to breathe until she steps over the threshold of their house. I wonder if the discrepancy between the prophecy and what happens means she ran like the wind. I wonder if the horses were whipped.

The whole country mourns the death of Yahweh Is My Father.

In addition to these stories about Let The Kinsman Plead, Scripture records that he fortified two cities, Shoulder and Face of God. Then when he had reigned 22 years, he died; and his son Generous reigned in his stead.

Archeology gives us some things about some ancient kings, clues that such a person actually lived, little proof that the surviving tales contain only truth. Archeology gives us nothing about this Let The Kinsman Plead. If I continue following the stories of the ancient Hebrew kings, archeology will give us something about another Let The Kinsman Plead who reigned over the same kingdom 140 years later.

His story ends while leaving me with questions. I wonder if he ever realized or admitted his mistakes. I wonder about his unnamed wife. Was she his only wife? Is she unnamed because the story is androcentric or because she wasn’t complicit in the sin of her husband? Other queens will be named in the stories that follow. Why isn’t she?

King Let The Kinsman Plead had the opportunity to save his family or destroy it, to live in faith or fear, to build up his country or tear it down. Decisions not much different than our own. For while the effects of our actions are not as extreme as his were, which of us doesn’t daily choose whether to walk in faith or fear?

The message of the life of Let The Kinsman Plead seems to exist to remind us to believe that God is capable of fulfilling God’s promises to us. Also we shouldn’t stand between people and their worship of God because we are scared people will have no use for us if they also love God.

Insecurity is not a good decision maker. It doesn’t lead to healthy relationships. It’s not a good giver of life.

Let us be secure in God’s life.