When King David was very old, he could not keep warm even when they put covers over him. So his attendants said to him, "Let us look for a young virgin to serve the king and take care of him. She can lie beside him so that our lord the king may keep warm."
Then they searched throughout Israel for a beautiful young woman and found Abishag, a Shunammite, and brought her to the king. The woman was very beautiful; she took care of the king and waited on him, but the king had no sexual relations with her.
Now Adonijah, whose mother was Haggith, put himself forward and said, "I will be king." So he got chariots and horses ready, with fifty men to run ahead of him. His father had never rebuked him by asking, "Why do you behave as you do?" He was also very handsome and was born next after Absalom.
Adonijah conferred with Joab, son of Zeruiah, and with Abiathar the priest, and they gave him their support. But Zadok the priest, Benaiah, son of Jehoiada, Nathan the prophet, Shimei, Rei, and David's special guard of "mighty warriors" did not join Adonijah.
Adonijah then sacrificed sheep, cattle and fattened calves at the Stone of Zoheleth near En Rogel. He invited all his brothers, the king's sons, and all the royal officials of Judah, but he did not invite Nathan the prophet or Benaiah or the special guard or his brother Solomon.
Then Nathan asked Bathsheba, Solomon's mother, "Have you not heard that Adonijah, the son of Haggith, has become king, and our lord David knows nothing about it? Now then, let me advise you how you can save your own life and the life of your son Solomon. Go in to King David and say to him, 'My lord the king, did you not swear to me your handmaid: "Surely Solomon your son shall be king after me, and he will sit on my throne"? Why then has Adonijah become king?' While you are still there talking to the king, I will come in and add my word to what you have said."
So Bathsheba went to see the aged king in his room, where Abishag the Shunammite was attending him. Bathsheba bowed down, prostrating herself before the king. "What is it you want?" the king asked.
She said to him, "My lord, you yourself swore to me your servant by Yahweh your Elohim: 'Solomon your son shall be king after me, and he will sit on my throne.' But now Adonijah has become king, and you, my lord the king, do not know about it. He has sacrificed great numbers of cattle, fattened calves, and sheep, and has invited all the king's sons, Abiathar the priest and Joab the commander of the army, but he has not invited Solomon your servant. My lord the king, the eyes of all Israel are on you, to learn from you who will sit on the throne of my lord the king after him. Otherwise, as soon as my lord the king is laid to rest with his ancestors, I and my son Solomon will be treated as criminals."
While she was still speaking with the king, Nathan the prophet arrived. And the king was told, "Nathan the prophet is here." So he went before the king and bowed with his face to the ground.
Nathan said, "Have you, my lord the king, declared that Adonijah shall be king after you, and that he will sit on your throne? Today he has gone down and sacrificed great numbers of cattle, fattened calves, and sheep. He has invited all the king's sons, the captains of the army and Abiathar the priest. Right now they are eating and drinking with him and saying, 'Long live King Adonijah!' But me your servant, and Zadok the priest, and Benaiah, son of Jehoiada, and your servant Solomon he did not invite. Is this something my lord the king has done without letting his servants know who should sit on the throne of my lord the king after him?"
Then King David said, "Call in Bathsheba." So she came into the king's presence and stood before him.
The king then took an oath: "As surely as Yahweh lives, who has delivered me out of every trouble, I will surely carry out this very day what I swore to you by Yahweh, the Elohim of Israel: Solomon your son shall be king after me, and he will sit on my throne in my place."
Then Bathsheba bowed down with her face to the ground, prostrating herself before the king, and said, "May my lord King David live forever!"
King David said, "Call in Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet and Benaiah, son of Jehoiada." When they came before the king, he said to them: "Take your lord's servants with you and have Solomon my son mount my own mule and take him down to Gihon. There have Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anoint him king over Israel. Blow the ram's horn and shout, 'Long live King Solomon!' Then you are to go up with him, and he is to come and sit on my throne and reign in my place. I have appointed him ruler over Israel and Judah."
Benaiah, son of Jehoiada, answered the king, "Amen! May Yahweh, the Elohim of my lord the king, so declare it. As Yahweh was with my lord the king, so may he be with Solomon to make his throne even greater than the throne of my lord King David!"
So Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, Benaiah, son of Jehoiada, the Kerethites and the Pelethites went down and had Solomon mount King David's mule, and they escorted him to Gihon. Zadok the priest took a horn of oil from the sacred tent and anointed Solomon. Then they sounded the ram's horn and all the people shouted, "Long live King Solomon!"
And all the people went up after him, playing pipes and rejoicing greatly, so that the ground shook with the sound.
Adonijah and all the guests who were with him heard it as they were finishing their feast. On hearing the sound of the ram's horn, Joab asked, "What's the meaning of all the noise in the city?"
Even as he was speaking, Jonathan, son of Abiathar the priest, arrived. Adonijah said, "Come in. A worthy man like you must be bringing good news."
"Not at all!" Jonathan answered. "Our lord King David has made Solomon king. The king has sent with him Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, Benaiah, son of Jehoiada, the Kerethites and the Pelethites, and they have put him on the king's mule, and Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet have anointed him king at Gihon. From there they have gone up cheering, and the city resounds with it. That's the noise you hear. Moreover, Solomon has taken his seat on the royal throne. Also, the royal officials have come to congratulate our lord King David, saying, 'May your Elohim make Solomon's name more famous than yours and his throne greater than yours!' And the king bowed in worship on his bed and said, 'Praise be to Yahweh, the Elohim of Israel, who has allowed my eyes to see a successor on my throne today.' "
At this, all Adonijah's guests rose in alarm and dispersed. But Adonijah, in fear of Solomon, went and took hold of the horns of the altar.
Then Solomon was told, "Adonijah is afraid of King Solomon and is clinging to the horns of the altar. He says, 'Let King Solomon swear to me today that he will not put his servant to death with the sword.' "
Solomon replied, "If he shows himself to be worthy, not a hair of his head will fall to the ground; but if evil is found in him, he will die."
Then King Solomon sent men, and they brought him down from the altar. And Adonijah came and bowed down to King Solomon, and Solomon said, "Go to your home."
When the time drew near for David to die, he gave a charge to Solomon his son. "I am about to go the way of all the earth," he said. "So be strong, act like a man, and observe what Yahweh your Elohim requires: Walk in obedience to him, and keep his decrees and commands, his laws and regulations, as written in the Law of Moses. Do this so that you may prosper in all you do and wherever you go and that Yahweh may keep his promise to me: 'If your descendants watch how they live, and if they walk faithfully before me with all their heart and soul, you will never fail to have a successor on the throne of Israel.' "
David continued: "Now you yourself know what Joab, son of Zeruiah, did to me - what he did to the two commanders of Israel's armies, Abner, son of Ner, and Amasa, son of Jether. He killed them, shedding their blood in peacetime as if in battle, and with that blood he stained the belt around his waist and the sandals on his feet. Deal with him according to your wisdom, but do not let his gray head go down to the grave in peace. But show kindness to the sons of Barzillai of Gilead and let them be among those who eat at your table. They stood by me when I fled from your brother Absalom. And remember, you have with you Shimei, son of Gera, the Benjamite from Bahurim, who called down bitter curses on me the day I went to Mahanaim. When he came down to meet me at the Jordan, I swore to him by Yahweh: 'I will not put you to death by the sword.' But now, do not consider him innocent. You are a man of wisdom; you will know what to do to him. Bring his gray head down to the grave in blood."
Then David rested with his ancestors and was buried in the City of David. He had reigned for forty years over Israel; seven years in Hebron and thirty-three in Jerusalem.
So Solomon sat on the throne of his father David, and his rule was firmly established.
Now Adonijah, the son of Haggith, went to Bathsheba, Solomon's mother. Bathsheba asked him, "Do you come peacefully?" He answered, "Yes, peacefully."
Then he added, "I have something to say to you." "You may say it," she replied.
"As you know," he said, "the kingdom was mine. All Israel looked to me as their king. But things changed, and the kingdom has gone to my brother; for it has come to him from Yahweh. Now I have one request to make of you. Do not refuse me." "You may make it," she said.
So he continued, "Please ask King Solomon; he will not refuse you, to give me Abishag the Shunammite as my wife."
"Very well," Bathsheba replied, "I will speak to the king for you."
When Bathsheba went to King Solomon to speak to him for Adonijah, the king stood up to meet her, bowed down to her and sat down on his throne. He had a throne brought for the king's mother, and she sat down at his right hand.
"I have one small request to make of you," she said. "Do not refuse me." The king replied, "Make it, my mother; I will not refuse you."
So she said, "Let Abishag the Shunammite be given in marriage to your brother Adonijah."
King Solomon answered his mother, "Why do you request Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? You might as well request the kingdom for him; after all, he is my older brother. Yes, for him and for Abiathar the priest and Joab, son of Zeruiah!"
Then King Solomon swore by Yahweh: "May Elohim deal with me, be it ever so severely, if Adonijah does not pay with his life for this request! And now, as surely as Yahweh lives, he who has established me securely on the throne of my father David and has founded a dynasty for me as he promised, Adonijah shall be put to death today!"
So King Solomon gave orders to Benaiah, son of Jehoiada, and he struck down Adonijah and he died.
To Abiathar the priest the king said, "Go back to your fields in Anathoth. You deserve to die, but I will not put you to death now, because you carried the Ark of Adonai Yahweh before my father David and shared all my father's hardships."
So Solomon removed Abiathar from the priesthood of Yahweh, fulfilling the word Yahweh had spoken at Shiloh about the house of Eli.
When the news reached Joab, who had conspired with Adonijah though not with Absalom, he fled to the tent of Yahweh and took hold of the horns of the altar.
King Solomon was told that Joab had fled to the tent of Yahweh and was beside the altar. Then Solomon gave another order to Benaiah, son of Jehoiada, saying, "Go, strike him down!"
So Benaiah entered the tent of Yahweh and said to Joab, "The king says, 'Come out!' " But he answered, "No, I will die here."
Benaiah reported the details to the king, saying, "This is how Joab answered me."
Then the king commanded Benaiah, "Do as he says. Strike him down and bury him, and so clear me and my whole family of the guilt of the innocent blood that Joab shed. Yahweh will repay him for the blood he shed, because without my father David knowing it he attacked two men and killed them with the sword. Both of them; Abner, son of Ner, commander of Israel's army, and Amasa, son of Jether, commander of Judah's army, were better men and more upright than he. May the guilt of their blood rest on the head of Joab and his descendants forever. But on David and his descendants, his house and his throne, may there be Yahweh's peace forever."
So Benaiah, son of Jehoiada, went up and struck down Joab and killed him, and he was buried at his home out in the country.
The king put Benaiah, son of Jehoiada, over the army in Joab's position, and replaced Abiathar with Zadok the priest.
Then the king sent for Shimei and said to him, "Build yourself a house in Jerusalem and live there, but do not go anywhere else. The day you leave and cross the Kidron Valley, you can be sure you will die; your blood will be on your own head."
Shimei answered the king, "What you say is good. Your servant will do as my lord the king has said." And Shimei stayed in Jerusalem for a long time.
But three years later, two of Shimei's servants ran away to Achish, son of Maakah, king of Gath, and Shimei was told, "Your slaves are in Gath." At this, he saddled his donkey and went to Achish at Gath in search of his slaves. So Shimei went away and brought the slaves back from Gath.
When Solomon was told that Shimei had gone from Jerusalem to Gath and had returned, the king summoned Shimei and said to him, "Did I not make you swear by Yahweh and warn you, 'On the day you leave to go anywhere else, you can be sure you will die'? At that time you said to me, 'What you say is good. I will obey.' Why then did you not keep your oath to Yahweh and obey the command I gave you?"
The king also said to Shimei, "You know in your heart all the wrong you did to my father David. Now Yahweh will repay you for your wrongdoing. But King Solomon will be blessed, and David's throne will remain secure before Yahweh forever."
Then the king gave the order to Benaiah, son of Jehoiada, and he went out and struck Shimei down and he died. The kingdom was now established in Solomon's hands.
Solomon made an alliance with Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and married his daughter. He brought her to the City of David until he finished building his palace and the temple of Yahweh, and the wall around Jerusalem. But the people were still sacrificing at the high places, because a temple had not yet been built for the Name of Yahweh. Solomon showed his love for Yahweh - or rather, his lack of wisdom, by walking according to the instructions given him by his father David, except that he offered sacrifices and burned incense on the high places.
The king went to Gibeon to offer sacrifices, for that was the most important high place, and Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on that altar.
At Gibeon, Yahweh appeared to Solomon during the night in a dream, and Elohim said, "Ask for whatever you want me to give you." He was using his dream transmitter, from a drone, to probe Solomon's motivations.
Solomon answered, "You have shown great kindness to your servant, my father David, because he was faithful to you and righteous and upright in heart. You have continued this great kindness to him and have given him a son to sit on his throne this very day. Now, Yahweh my Elohim, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a young youth and do not know how to conduct my duties. Your servant is here in the midst of your people whom you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?"
Yahweh was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. So Elohim said to him, "Since you have asked for this and not for long life or riches for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice, I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for - both wealth and honor, so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings. And if you walk in obedience to me and keep my decrees and commands as David your father did, I will give you a long life."
Then Solomon awoke, and he realized it had been a dream. He returned to Jerusalem, stood before the Ark of Yahweh's Covenant, and sacrificed burnt offerings and peace offerings. Then he gave a feast for all his court.
Then two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. One of them said, "Pardon me, my lord. This woman and I live in the same house, and I had a baby while she was there with me. The third day after my child was born, this woman also had a baby. We were alone; there was no one in the house but the two of us. During the night this woman's son died because she had lain on him. So she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while I your handmaid was asleep. She put him by her breast and put her dead son by my breast. The next morning, I got up to nurse my son, and he was dead! But when I looked at him closely in the morning light, I saw that it wasn't the son I had borne."
The other woman said, "No! The living one is my son; the dead one is yours." But the first one insisted, "No! The dead one is yours; the living one is mine." And so they argued before the king.
2,884 years later, it would come to pass that a fraudster, a jailbird, a woman who became a princess by marrying a prince, would try to convince immigration officials that she was not the fraudster, because she had a "double" who had the exact same name, the exact same previous name, also married a prince, also married a man with another particular name, and also had a son who was killed on the same battlefield. And she said the "double" was the fraudster, not her, and the reason there was no evidence of a "double" was because the "double" was dead. This fraudster would go on to promote a conspiracy theory in which it had been not Yahweists who authored a racist tract about how they saw themselves as the wolves, and everyone else as their sheep - it was "anti-Yahweists", aiming to make Yahweists look bad.
Now if Solomon, or indeed, anyone with reasonably more than two brain cells to rub together, had that particular fraudster in front of them, the sheer incredibility of the fraudster's story would soon become indisputable. The case of the two prostitutes with one living and one dead baby was an interesting variation, in which it was not immediately apparent which of them was the fraudster, yet there was a way of judging the dispute.
The king said, "This one says, 'My son is alive and your son is dead,' while that one says, 'No! Your son is dead and mine is alive.' "
Then the king said, "Bring me a sword." So they brought a sword for the king.
He then gave an order: "Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other."
The woman whose son was alive was deeply moved out of love for her son and said to the king, "Please, my lord, give her the living baby! Don't kill him!" But the other said, "Neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!"
Then the king gave his ruling: "Give the living baby to the first woman. Do not kill him; she is his mother."
When all Israel heard the verdict the king had given, they held the king in awe, because they saw that he had wisdom from Elohim to administer justice.
And so King Solomon ruled over all Israel.
And these were his chief officials: Azariah, son of Zadok, the priest; Elihoreph and Ahijah, sons of Shisha, scribes; Jehoshaphat, son of Ahilud, recorder; Benaiah, son of Jehoiada, army commander in chief; Zadok and Abiathar, priests; Azariah, son of Nathan, in charge of the district governors; Zabud, son of Nathan, a priest and adviser to the king; Ahishar, palace administrator; and Adoniram, son of Abda, in charge of forced labor.
Solomon had twelve district governors over all Israel, who supplied provisions for the king and the royal household. Each one had to provide supplies for one month in the year.
These are their names: Ben-Hur, in the hill country of Ephraim; Ben-Deker, in Makaz, Shaalbim, Beth Shemesh and Elon Bethhanan; Ben-Hesed, in Arubboth (Sokoh and all the land of Hepher were his); Ben-Abinadab, in Naphoth Dor (he was married to Taphath, daughter of Solomon); Baana, son of Ahilud, in Taanach and Megiddo, and in all of Beth Shan next to Zarethan below Jezreel, from Beth Shan to Abel Meholah across to Jokmeam; Ben-Geber, in Ramoth Gilead (the settlements of Jair, son of Manasseh, in Gilead were his, as well as the region of Argob in Bashan and its sixty large walled cities with bronze gate bars); Ahinadab, son of Iddo, in Mahanaim; Ahimaaz, in Naphtali (he had married Basemath, daughter of Solomon); Baana, son of Hushai, in Asher and in Aloth; Jehoshaphat, son of Paruah, in Issachar; Shimei, son of Ela, in Benjamin; and Geber, son of Uri, in Gilead (the country of Sihon, king of the Amorites and the country of Og, king of Bashan). Geber was the only governor over the land of Bashan.
The people of Judah and Israel were believed to be as numerous as the sand on the seashore, although in the last census the number of fighting men was 1.3 million. They ate, drank and were happy.
And Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates River to the land of the Philistines, as far as the border of Egypt. These countries brought tribute and were Solomon's subjects all his life.
Solomon's daily provisions were thirty cors of the finest flour and sixty cors of meal, ten fat oxen, twenty pasture-fed oxen and a hundred sheep, as well as deer, goats, gazelles, roebucks and choice fowl. For he ruled over all the kingdoms west of the Euphrates River, from Tiphsah to Gaza, and had peace on all sides.
During Solomon's lifetime Judah and Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, lived in safety, everyone under their own vine and under their own fig tree.
Solomon had four thousand stalls for chariot horses, and twelve thousand horses. The district governors, each in his month, supplied provisions for King Solomon and all who came to the king's table. They saw to it that nothing was lacking. They also brought to the proper place their quotas of barley and straw for the chariot horses and the other horses.
Elohim gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight, and a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore. Solomon's wisdom was reputedly greater than the wisdom of all the people of the East, and greater than all the wisdom of Egypt. He was wiser than anyone else, including Ethan the Ezrahite; wiser than Heman, Kalkol and Darda, the sons of Mahol. And his fame spread to all the surrounding nations.
He spoke three thousand proverbs and his songs numbered a thousand and five. He spoke about plant life, from the cedar tree of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of walls. He also spoke about animals and birds, reptiles and fish.
From all nations people came to listen to Solomon's wisdom, sent by all the kings of the world, who had heard of his wisdom.
In the time of King David, Yahweh had not been happy with all the in-fighting amongst his chosen people, and his main priority at the moment was to unite them and let them grow and prosper. And he wanted to set up conditions whereby Solomon would be able to build a temple. Sometimes Yahweh would use his dream transmitter to provide Solomon with insight on some particular matter, but he would also use it to train Solomon and let him develop his own independent wisdom.
When Hiram, king of Tyre, heard that Solomon had been anointed king to
succeed his father David, he sent his envoys to Solomon, because he had always
been on friendly terms with David. Solomon sent back this message to Hiram:
"You know that because of the wars waged against my father David from all sides,
he could not build a temple for the Name of Yahweh his Elohim until Yahweh put
his enemies under his feet. But now Yahweh my Elohim has given me rest on every
side, and there is no adversary or disaster. I intend, therefore, to build a
temple for the Name of Yahweh my Elohim, as Yahweh told my father David, when he
said, 'Your son whom I will put on the throne in your place will build the
temple for my Name.' So give orders that cedars of Lebanon be cut for me. My men
will work with yours, and I will pay you for your men whatever wages you set.
You know that we have no one so skilled in felling timber as the Sidonians."
When Hiram heard Solomon's message, he was greatly pleased and said, "Praise be
to Yahweh today, for he has given David a wise son to rule over this great
nation."
So Hiram sent word to Solomon, saying, "I have received the message you sent me and will do all you want in providing the cedar and juniper logs. My men will haul them down from Lebanon to the Mediterranean Sea, and I will float them as rafts by sea to the place you specify. There I will separate them and you can take them away. And you are to grant my wish by providing food for my royal household."
In this way Hiram kept Solomon supplied with all the cedar and juniper logs he wanted, and Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand cors of wheat as food for his household, in addition to twenty thousand baths of pressed olive oil. Solomon continued to do this for Hiram, year after year.
And so Yahweh gave Solomon wisdom, just as he had promised him. There were peaceful relations between Hiram and Solomon, and the two of them made a treaty.
King Solomon conscripted laborers from all Israel, 30,000 men. He sent them off to Lebanon in shifts of 10,000 a month, so that they spent one month in Lebanon and two months at home. Adoniram was in charge of the forced labor.
Solomon had 70,000 carriers and 80,000 stonecutters in the hills, as well as 3,300 foremen who supervised the project and directed the workers. At the king's command they removed from the quarry large blocks of high-grade stone to provide a foundation of dressed stone for the temple. The craftsmen of Solomon and Hiram and workers from Byblos cut and prepared the timber and stone for the building of the temple.
In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites came out of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, the second month, he began to build the temple of Yahweh.
The temple that King Solomon built for Yahweh was sixty cubits long, twenty wide and thirty high. The porch at the front of the main hall of the temple extended the width of the temple, that is twenty cubits, and projected ten cubits from the front of the temple.
He made narrow windows high up in the temple walls. Against the walls of the main hall and inner sanctuary he built a structure around the building, in which there were side rooms. The lowest floor was five cubits wide, the middle floor six cubits and the third floor seven. He made offset ledges around the outside of the temple so that nothing would be inserted into the temple walls.
In building the temple, only blocks dressed at the quarry were used, and no hammer, axe, chisel or any other iron tool was heard at the temple site while it was being built.
The entrance to the lowest floor was on the south side of the temple; a winding stairway led up to the middle level, and from there to the third.
So he built the temple and completed it, roofing it with beams and cedar planks. And he built the side rooms all along the temple. The height of each was five cubits, and they were attached to the temple by beams of cedar.
The word of Yahweh came to Solomon: "As for this temple you are building, if you follow my decrees, observe my laws and keep all my commands and obey them, I will fulfill through you the promise I gave to David your father. And I will live among the Israelites and will not abandon my people Israel."
So Solomon built the temple and completed it.
He lined its interior walls with cedar boards, paneling them from the floor of the temple to the ceiling, and covered the floor of the temple with planks of juniper. He partitioned off twenty cubits at the rear of the temple with cedar boards from floor to ceiling to form within the temple an inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place. The main hall in front of this room was forty cubits long.
The inside of the temple was cedar, carved with gourds and open flowers. Everything was cedar; no stone was to be seen.
He prepared the inner sanctuary within the temple, to set the Ark of the Covenant of Yahweh there. The inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty wide and twenty high. He overlaid the inside with pure gold, and he also overlaid the altar of cedar.
Solomon covered the inside of the temple with pure gold, and he extended gold chains across the front of the inner sanctuary, which was overlaid with gold. So he overlaid the whole interior with gold. He also overlaid with gold the altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary.
For the inner sanctuary he made a pair of cherubim (or keruvim) out of olive wood, each ten cubits high. One wing of the first cherub was five cubits long, and the other wing five cubits; ten cubits from wing tip to wing tip. The second cherub also measured ten cubits, for the two cherubim were identical in size and shape. The height of each cherub was ten cubits.
He placed the cherubim inside the innermost room of the temple, with their wings spread out. The wing of one cherub touched one wall, while the wing of the other touched the other wall, and their wings touched each other in the middle of the room. He overlaid the cherubim with gold.
On the walls all around the temple, in both the inner and outer rooms, he carved cherubim, palm trees and open flowers. He also covered the floors of both the inner and outer rooms of the temple with gold.
For the entrance to the inner sanctuary he made doors out of olive wood that were one fifth of the width of the sanctuary. And on the two olive-wood doors he carved cherubim, palm trees and open flowers, and overlaid the cherubim and palm trees with hammered gold.
In the same way, for the entrance to the main hall he made doorframes out of olive wood that were one quarter of the width of the hall. He also made two doors out of juniper wood, each having two leaves that turned in sockets. He carved cherubim, palm trees and open flowers on them and overlaid them with gold hammered evenly over the carvings.
And he built the inner courtyard of three courses of dressed stone and one course of trimmed cedar beams.
The foundation of the temple of Yahweh was laid in the fourth year, in the month of Ziv. In the eleventh year in the month of Bul, the eighth month, the temple was finished in all its details, according to its specifications. He had spent seven years building it.
It took Solomon thirteen years, however, to complete the construction of his palace, known as the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon.
He built it a hundred cubits long, fifty wide and thirty high, with four rows of cedar columns supporting trimmed cedar beams. It was roofed with cedar above the beams that rested on the columns; forty-five beams, fifteen to a row. Its windows were placed high in sets of three, facing each other. All the doorways had rectangular frames; they were in the front part in sets of three, facing each other.
He made a colonnade fifty cubits long and thirty wide. In front of it was a porch, and in front of that were pillars and an overhanging roof. He built the throne hall, the Hall of Justice, where he was to judge, and he covered it with cedar from floor to ceiling.
And the palace in which he was to live, set farther back, was similar in design. Solomon also made a palace like this hall for Pharaoh's daughter, whom he had married.
All these structures, from the outside to the great courtyard and from foundation to eaves, were made of blocks of high-grade stone cut to size and smoothed on their inner and outer faces. The foundations were laid with large stones of good quality, some measuring ten cubits and some eight. Above were high-grade stones, cut to size, and cedar beams.
The great courtyard was surrounded by a wall of three courses of dressed stone and one course of trimmed cedar beams, as was the inner courtyard of the temple of Yahweh with its portico.
King Solomon sent to Tyre and brought Huram, whose mother was a widow from the tribe of Naphtali and whose father was from Tyre and a skilled craftsman in bronze. Huram was filled with wisdom, with understanding and with knowledge to do all kinds of bronze work. He came to King Solomon and did all the work assigned to him.
He cast two bronze pillars, each eighteen cubits high and twelve cubits in circumference. He also made two capitals of cast bronze to set on the tops of the pillars; each capital was five cubits high. A network of interwoven chains adorned the crowns or capitals on top of the pillars, seven for each capital. He made pomegranates in two rows encircling each network to decorate the capitals on top of the pillars. He did the same for each capital. The capitals on top of the pillars in the portico were in the shape of lilies, four cubits high. On the capitals of both pillars, above the bowl-shaped part next to the network, were the two hundred pomegranates in rows all around.
He erected the pillars at the porch of the temple. The pillar to the south he named Jakin and the one to the north Boaz. The capitals on top were in the shape of lilies. And so the work on the pillars was completed.
He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. Its circumference was about 31.42 cubits.
Below the rim, gourds - or ornamental buds, encircled it; ten to a cubit. The gourds were cast in two rows in one piece with the Sea. The Sea stood on twelve bulls, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south and three facing east. The Sea rested on top of them, and their hindquarters were toward the center. It was a handbreadth in thickness, and its rim was like the rim of a cup, like a lily blossom. It held two thousand baths.
He also made ten movable stands of bronze; each was four cubits long, four wide and three high. This is how the stands were made: They had side panels attached to uprights. On the panels between the uprights were lions, bulls and cherubim - and on the uprights as well. Above and below the lions and bulls were wreaths of hammered work. Each stand had four bronze wheels with bronze axles, and each had a basin resting on four supports, cast with wreaths on each side. On the inside of the stand there was an opening that had a circular frame one cubit deep. This opening was round, and with its base it measured a cubit and a half. Around its opening there was engraving. The panels of the stands were square, not round.
The four wheels were under the panels, and the axles of the wheels were attached to the stand. The diameter of each wheel was a cubit and a half. The wheels were made like chariot wheels; the axles, rims, spokes and hubs were all of cast metal. Each stand had four handles, one on each corner, projecting from the stand. At the top of the stand there was a circular band half a cubit deep. The supports and panels were attached to the top of the stand.
He engraved cherubim, lions and palm trees in the surfaces of the supports and on the panels, in every available space, with wreaths all around. This is the way he made the ten stands. They were all cast in the same molds and were identical in size and shape.
He then made ten bronze basins, each holding forty baths and measuring four cubits across, one basin to go on each of the ten stands. He placed five of the stands on the south side of the temple and five on the north. He placed the Sea on the south side, at the southeast corner of the temple. He also made the pots and shovels and sprinkling bowls.
So Huram finished all the work he had undertaken for King Solomon in the temple of Yahweh: the two pillars; the two bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars; the two sets of network decorating the two bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars; the four hundred pomegranates for the two sets of network (two rows of pomegranates for each network decorating the bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars); the ten stands with their ten basins; the Sea and the twelve bulls under it; the pots, shovels and sprinkling bowls. All these objects that Huram made for King Solomon for the temple of Yahweh were of burnished bronze. The king had them cast in clay molds in the plain of the Jordan between Sukkoth and Zarethan.
Solomon left all these things unweighed, because there were so many; the weight of the bronze was not determined.
Solomon also made all the furnishings that were in Yahweh's temple: the golden altar; the golden table on which was the showbread or bread of the Presence; the lampstands of pure gold (five on the right and five on the left, in front of the inner sanctuary); the gold floral work and lamps and tongs; the pure gold basins, wick trimmers, sprinkling bowls, dishes and censers; and the gold sockets for the doors of the innermost room, the Most Holy Place, and also for the doors of the main hall of the temple.
When all the work King Solomon had done for the temple of Yahweh was finished, he brought in the things his father David had dedicated; the silver and gold and the furnishings, and he placed them in the treasuries of Yahweh's temple.
Then King Solomon summoned into his presence at Jerusalem the elders of Israel, all the heads of the tribes and the chiefs of the Israelite families, to bring up the Ark of Yahweh's Covenant from Zion, the City of David. All the Israelites came together to King Solomon at the time of the festival in the month of Ethanim, the seventh month.
When all the elders of Israel had arrived, the priests took up the Ark, and they brought up the Ark of Yahweh and the tent of meeting and all the sacred furnishings in it. The priests and Levites carried them up, and King Solomon and the entire assembly of Israel that had gathered about him were before the Ark, sacrificing so many sheep and cattle that they could not be recorded or counted. Yahweh's craving for blood was certainly satisfied on that day.
The priests then brought the Ark of Yahweh's Covenant to its place in the inner sanctuary of the temple, the Most Holy Place, and put it beneath the wings of the cherubim. The Ark was in its Assisted Carry mode when it was being carried with poles over ground. However, if it was being taken over the wooden planks of a temple's floor, the painter beam would soon switch off, and with only some 0.00866 Coulombs of negative charge in the Ark robot's vacuum chamber, there would be barely any reduction in the force required to lift it.
The cherubim spread their wings over the place of the Ark and overshadowed the Ark and its carrying poles. These poles were so long that their ends could be seen from the Holy Place in front of the inner sanctuary, but not from outside the Holy Place. The people believed, as Yahweh wanted them to believe, that there was nothing in the Ark except the two stone tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb, where Yahweh made a covenant with the Israelites after they came out of Egypt. However, one of Yahweh's smaller robots had climbed into it before the Mercy Seat was fixed down, so that the Ark was endowed with powers that seemed 'supernatural' to those who were unaware how it worked.
When the priests withdrew from the Holy Place, the cloud filled the temple of Yahweh. And the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the "magnificent splendor" of Yahweh filled his temple. Yahweh had taken his place, but the cloud was a disguise, since he did not want his servants to see his ugly Terminator-style robot body.
Then Solomon said, "Yahweh has said that he would dwell in a dark cloud; I have indeed built a magnificent temple for you, a place for you to dwell forever."
While the whole assembly of Israel was standing there, the king turned around and blessed them. Then he said: "Praise be to Yahweh, Elohim of Israel, who with his own hand has fulfilled what he promised with his own mouth to my father David. For he said, 'Since the day I brought my people Israel out of Egypt, I have not chosen a city in any tribe of Israel to have a temple built so that my Name might be there, but I have chosen David to rule my people Israel.' "
Solomon continued, "My father David had it in his heart to build a temple for the Name of Yahweh, Elohim of Israel. But Yahweh said to my father David, 'You did well to have it in your heart to build a temple for my Name. Nevertheless, you are not the one to build the temple, but your son, your own flesh and blood; he is the one who will build the temple for my Name.' Yahweh has kept the promise he made: I have succeeded David my father and now I sit on the throne of Israel, just as Yahweh promised, and I have built the temple for the Name of Yahweh, Elohim of Israel. I have provided a place there for the Ark, in which is the covenant of Yahweh that he made with our ancestors when he brought them out of Egypt."
Then Solomon stood before the altar of Yahweh in front of the whole assembly of Israel, spread out his hands toward the heavens and said: "Yahweh, Elohim of Israel, there is no Elohim like you in heaven above or on earth below; you who keep your covenant of love with your servants who continue wholeheartedly in your way. You have kept your promise to your servant David my father; with your mouth you have promised and with your hand you have fulfilled it, as it is today. Now Yahweh, Elohim of Israel, keep for your servant David my father the promises you made to him when you said, 'You shall never fail to have a successor to sit before me on the throne of Israel, if only your descendants are careful in all they do to walk before me faithfully as you have done.' And now, Elohim of Israel, let your word that you promised your servant David my father come true."
He continued, "But will Elohim really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built! Yet give attention to your servant's prayer and his plea for mercy, oh Yahweh my Elohim. Hear the cry and the prayer that your servant is praying in your presence this day. May your eyes be open toward this temple night and day, this place of which you said, 'My Name shall be there,' so that you will hear the prayer your servant prays toward this place. Hear the supplication of your servant and of your people Israel when they pray toward this place. Hear from heaven, your dwelling place, and when you hear, forgive."
Solomon continued his prayer at length, with a multitude of gullible nonsense about how Yahweh was supposedly a good judge and would teach his people about right and wrong. The falsity of Solomon's assumptions would be comprehensively proven over the coming millennia, as Yahweh's chosen people became such a blight on humanity that they got themselves kicked out of just about anywhere where the native population had initially welcomed them in. And then these chosen people would have the nerve to complain that, no, it was not because of their atrocious, parasitic, disloyal, treacherous, psychopathic, degenerate, destructive, murderous behavior that they were expelled from so many dozens of places; it was everyone else's fault because of some irrational bias that people had for no reason at all, and by an extraordinary bizarre coincidence, the bias was always against the very same group of people who objectively were a plague and a tumor on humanity.
Then the king and all Israel with him offered sacrifices before Yahweh. Once again, Yahweh's addiction to the smell of blood and burning meat was satiated, with the sacrifice of 22,000 innocent cattle and 120,000 innocent sheep and goats, whose only 'crime' was to have been born at the wrong place and time.
About 2,970 years hence, Yahweists would be conducting a "War on Terror" that was in reality a war of terror. Yahweh lackeys and their sycophants would invade countries where they wanted to do a "regime change", and innocent people, whose only 'crime' was to have been born at the 'wrong' place and time, would be abducted and flown off to prisons around the world, where Yahweist forces would torture them. It was all to prop up a false narrative, in which it had been not Yahweists who perpetrated terror attacks that killed around three thousand people, it was allegedly the innocent people who had been put on "extraordinary rendition" flights - people who in reality were not terrorists or even combatants.
The sacrifices before Yahweh continued for fourteen days in all. Then on the following day, Solomon sent the people away. They blessed the king and then went home, joyful and glad in heart for all the good things they believed Yahweh had done for his servant David and his people Israel.
When Solomon had finished building the temple of Yahweh and the royal palace, and had achieved all he had desired to do, Yahweh appeared to him a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon.
Yahweh said to him: "I have heard the prayer and plea you have made before me; I have consecrated this temple, which you have built, by putting my Name there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there. As for you, if you walk before me faithfully with integrity of heart and uprightness, as David your father did, and do all I command and observe my decrees and laws, I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father when I said, 'You shall never fail to have a successor on the throne of Israel.' "
That was the carrot, or bribery part of Yahweh's spiel. How unfortunate for mankind, that weak men should be taken in by a mentally derailed Type II being, who was effectively a devil, but posing as a 'god'! The part about Yahweh's eyes and heart always being there was a particularly brazen lie. Then Yahweh continued with his stick, or threats:
"But if you or your descendants turn away from me and do not observe the commands and decrees I have given you and go off to serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land I have given them and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name. Israel will then become a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples. This temple will become a heap of rubble. All who pass by will be appalled and will scoff and say, 'Why has Yahweh done such a thing to this land and to this temple?' People will answer, 'Because they have forsaken Yahweh their Elohim, who brought their ancestors out of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them; that is why Yahweh brought all this disaster on them.' "
At least, for now, Yahweh was sparing Solomon any menacing talk about terror, consumption, fevers that caused blindness, enemies eating the Israelites' own crops and killing them or ruling over them, famine, and cannibalism in which they would be forced to eat the flesh of their children.
At the end of twenty years, during which Solomon built these two buildings; the temple of Yahweh and the royal palace, King Solomon gave twenty towns in Galilee to Hiram, king of Tyre, because Hiram had supplied him with all the cedar and juniper and gold he wanted. But when Hiram went from Tyre to see the towns that Solomon had given him, he was not pleased with them. "What kind of towns are these you have given me, my brother?" he asked. And he called them the Land of Kabul.
Now Hiram had sent to the king 120 talents of gold. Here is the account of the labor force King Solomon conscripted to build Yahweh's temple, his own palace, the terraces, the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer.
As for Gezer, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, had attacked and captured it and set it on fire. He killed its Canaanite inhabitants and then gave it as a wedding gift to his daughter, Solomon's wife. And Solomon rebuilt Gezer.
He built up Lower Beth Horon, Baalath, and Tadmor in the desert, within his land, as well as all his store cities and the towns for his chariots and for his horses; whatever he desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon and throughout all the territory he ruled. There were still people, who were not Israelites, left from the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. Solomon conscripted the descendants of all these peoples remaining in the land; whom the Israelites could not exterminate, to serve as slave labor. Over the coming millennia, the Israelites would mete out treatment that was far harsher than any forced labor.
But Solomon did not make slaves of any of the Israelites; they were his fighting men, his government officials, his officers, his captains, and the commanders of his chariots and charioteers. More importantly, they were Yahweh's "chosen". They were also the chief officials in charge of Solomon's projects; 550 officials organizing the building work and supervising the thousands of foremen, to whom tens of thousands of carriers and stonecutters would report.
After Pharaoh's daughter had come up from the City of David to the palace Solomon had built for her, he constructed the terraces.
Three times a year Solomon sacrificed burnt offerings and peace offerings on the altar he had built for Yahweh, burning incense before Yahweh along with them, and so fulfilled the temple obligations.
King Solomon also built a fleet of ships at Ezion Geber, which is near Elath in Edom, on the shore of the Red Sea. And Hiram sent his men; seasoned sailors, to serve in the fleet with Solomon's men. They sailed to Ophir and brought back 420 talents of gold, which they delivered to King Solomon. Also from Ophir they brought great cargoes of almugwood and precious stones. The almugwood was used to make supports for the temple of Yahweh and for the royal palace, and to make harps and lyres for the musicians.
When the queen of Sheba kept hearing about the fame of Solomon and his relationship to Yahweh, she came to test Solomon with hard questions. She arrived at Jerusalem with a very great caravan, with camels carrying spices, large quantities of gold, and precious stones, and came to Solomon and talked with him about all that she had on her mind.
Solomon answered all her questions; nothing was too hard for the king to explain to her. When the queen of Sheba saw all the wisdom of Solomon and the palace he had built, the food on his table, the seating of his officials, the attending servants in their robes, his cupbearers, and the burnt offerings he made at the temple of Yahweh, she was overwhelmed.
She said to the king, "The report I heard in my own country about your achievements and your wisdom is true. But I did not believe these things until I came and saw with my own eyes. Indeed, not even half was told me; in wisdom and wealth you have far exceeded the report I heard. How happy your people must be! How happy your officials, who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom! Praise be to Yahweh your Elohim, who has delighted in you and placed you on the throne of Israel. Because of Yahweh's eternal love for Israel, he has made you king to maintain justice and righteousness."
And she gave the king 120 talents of gold, large quantities of spices, and precious stones. Never again were so many spices brought in as those the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.
King Solomon gave the queen of Sheba all she desired and asked for, besides what he had given her out of his royal bounty. Then she left and returned with her retinue to her own country.
The weight of the gold that Solomon received yearly was 666 talents, not including the revenues from merchants and traders and from all the Arabian kings and the governors of the territories. King Solomon made two hundred large shields of hammered gold; six hundred shekels of gold went into each shield. He also made three hundred small shields of hammered gold, with three minas of gold in each shield. The king put them in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon.
Then the king made a great throne covered with ivory and overlaid with fine gold. The throne had six steps, and its back had a rounded top. On both sides of the seat were armrests, with a lion standing beside each of them. Twelve lions stood on the six steps, one at either end of each step. Nothing like it had ever been made for any other kingdom.
All King Solomon's goblets were gold, and all the household articles in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon were pure gold. Nothing was made of silver, because silver was considered of little value in Solomon's days.
The king had a fleet of trading ships at sea along with the ships of Hiram. Once every three years it returned, carrying gold, silver and ivory, and apes and baboons.
King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth. None of those other kings had received any assistance from a Type II being. But because they were not part of a project to sabotage mankind, they had treasures of a type that King Solomon could never have dreamed of.
The whole world sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom that his Elohim had put in his heart. Year after year, everyone who came brought a gift, such as articles of silver and gold, robes, weapons and spices, and horses and mules. Solomon accumulated chariots and horses; he had fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand horses, which he kept in the chariot cities and also with him in Jerusalem. The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar as plentiful as sycamore-fig trees in the foothills.
Solomon's horses were imported from Egypt and from Kue; the royal merchants purchased them from Kue at the going rate. A chariot imported from Egypt would cost six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse a hundred and fifty. They also exported them to all the kings of the Hittites and of the Arameans.
King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh's daughter; Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. They were from nations about which Yahweh had told the Israelites, "You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods." Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray.
As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to Yahweh his Elohim, as the heart of David his father had been. For Solomon followed Ashtoreth, goddess of the Sidonians, and Molek, god of the Ammonites.
So Solomon did evil in the eyes of Yahweh; he did not follow Yahweh completely, as David his father had done. On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh, god of Moab, and for Molek, god of the Ammonites. He did the same for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and offered sacrifices to their gods.
Yahweh became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from Yahweh, the Elohim of Israel, who had appeared to him twice. Although he had forbidden Solomon to follow other gods, Solomon did not keep Yahweh's command.
So Yahweh said to Solomon, "Since this is your attitude and you have not kept my covenant and my decrees, which I commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your servants. Nevertheless, for the sake of David your father, I will not do it during your lifetime. I will tear it out of the hand of your son. Yet I will not tear the whole kingdom from him, but will give him one tribe for the sake of David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen."
Then Yahweh raised up against Solomon an adversary, Hadad the Edomite, from the royal line of Edom.
Earlier when David was fighting with Edom, Joab, the army commander, who had gone up to bury the dead, had struck down all the men in Edom. Joab and all the Israelites stayed there for six months, until they had destroyed all the men in Edom. But Hadad, still only a boy, fled to Egypt with some Edomite officials who had served his father.
They set out from Midian and went to Paran. Then taking people from Paran with them, they went to Egypt, to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who gave Hadad a house and land and provided him with food. Pharaoh was so pleased with Hadad that he gave him as a wife a sister of his own wife, Queen Tahpenes. The sister of Tahpenes bore him a son named Genubath, whom Tahpenes brought up in the royal palace. There Genubath lived with Pharaoh's own children.
While he was in Egypt, Hadad heard that David rested with his ancestors and that Joab the army commander was also dead. Then Hadad said to Pharaoh, "Let me go, that I may return to my own country."
"What have you lacked here that you want to go back to your own country?" Pharaoh asked. "Nothing," Hadad replied, "but do let me go!"
And Elohim raised up against Solomon another adversary, Rezon, son of Eliada, who had fled from his master, Hadadezer, king of Zobah. When David destroyed Zobah's army, Rezon gathered a band of men around him and became their leader. They went to Damascus, where they settled and took control.
Rezon was Israel's adversary as long as Solomon lived, adding to the trouble caused by Hadad. So Rezon ruled in Aram and was hostile toward Israel.
Also, Jeroboam, son of Nebat, rebelled against the king. He was one of Solomon's officials, an Ephraimite from Zeredah, and his mother was a widow named Zeruah.
Here is how he rebelled against the king: Solomon had built the terraces and had filled in the gap in the wall of the city of David his father. Now Jeroboam was a man of standing, and when Solomon saw how well the young man did his work, he put him in charge of the whole labor force of the tribes of Joseph.
About that time Jeroboam was going out of Jerusalem, and Ahijah, prophet of Shiloh, met him on the way, wearing a new cloak. The two of them were alone out in the country, and Ahijah took hold of the new cloak he was wearing and tore it into twelve pieces. Then he said to Jeroboam, "Take ten pieces for yourself, for this is what Yahweh, the Elohim of Israel, says: 'See, I am going to tear the kingdom out of Solomon's hand and give you ten tribes. But for the sake of my servant David and the city of Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, he will have one tribe. I will do this because they have forsaken me and worshiped Ashtoreth, goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh, god of the Moabites, and Molek, god of the Ammonites, and have not walked in obedience to me, nor done what is right in my eyes, nor kept my decrees and laws as David, Solomon's father, did."
Ahijah continued to quote Yahweh: " 'But I will not take the whole kingdom out of Solomon's hand; I have made him ruler all the days of his life for the sake of David my servant, whom I chose and who obeyed my commands and decrees. I will take the kingdom from his son's hands and give you ten tribes. I will give one tribe to his son so that David my servant may always have a lamp before me in Jerusalem, the city where I chose to put my Name. However, as for you, I will take you, and you will rule over all that your heart desires; you will be king over Israel. If you do whatever I command you and walk in obedience to me and do what is right in my eyes by obeying my decrees and commands, as David my servant did, I will be with you. I will build you a dynasty as enduring as the one I built for David and will give Israel to you. I will humble David's descendants because of this, but not forever.' "
Solomon tried to kill Jeroboam, but Jeroboam fled to Egypt, to Shishak the king, and stayed there until Solomon's death.
Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel for forty years. Then he rested with his ancestors and was buried in the city of David his father. And his son Rehoboam succeeded him as king.
Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had gone there to make him king. Jeroboam, son of Nebat, was still in Egypt, where he had fled from King Solomon, but when he heard Rehoboam had become king, he returned from Egypt.
So they sent for Jeroboam, and he and the whole assembly of Israel went to Rehoboam and said to him: "Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but now lighten the harsh labor and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you."
Rehoboam answered, "Go away for three days and then come back to me." So the people went away.
Then King Rehoboam consulted the elders who had served his father Solomon during his lifetime. "How would you advise me to answer these people?" he asked.
They replied, "If today you will be a servant to these people and serve them and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your servants."
But Rehoboam rejected the advice the elders gave him and consulted the young men who had grown up with him and were serving him. He asked them, "What is your advice? How should we answer these people who say to me, 'Lighten the yoke your father put on us'?"
The young men who had grown up with him replied, "These people have said to you, 'Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but make our yoke lighter.' Now tell them, 'My little finger shall be thicker than my father's waist. Whereas my father laid on you a heavy yoke; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.' "
Three days later Jeroboam and all the people returned to Rehoboam, as the king had said, "Come back to me in three days." The king answered the people harshly. Rejecting the advice given him by the elders, he followed the advice of the young men and said, "My father made your yoke heavy; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions."
So the king did not listen to the people, for this turn of events was from Yahweh, to fulfill the word Yahweh had spoken to Jeroboam, son of Nebat through Ahijah the Shilonite.
Solomon, although useful to Yahweh in building his temple, had been the greediest man in the world. He received in excess of 666 talents of gold annually, and he had 1,000 wives or concubines at his service. A shekel was ~11.5 grams at the time of King Solomon; there were 3,000 shekels to the talent, and so 666 talents was around 23 tonnes. And his son Rehoboam was a chip off the old block, except he lacked the wisdom imparted to Solomon via Yahweh's dream transmitters. And Yahweh, knowing Rehoboam's character, was able to predict how he would react.
When all Israel saw that the king refused to listen to them, they answered the king: "What share do we have in David, what part in Jesse's son? To your tents, Israel! Look after your own house, David!" So the Israelites went home.
But as for the Israelites who were living in the towns of Judah, Rehoboam still ruled over them.
King Rehoboam sent out Adoniram, who was in charge of taxes, but all Israel stoned him to death, quite rightly. King Rehoboam, however, managed to get into his chariot and escape to Jerusalem. So Israel was in rebellion against the house of David.
When all the Israelites heard that Jeroboam had returned, they sent and called him to the assembly and made him king over all Israel. Only the tribe of Judah remained loyal to the house of David.
When Rehoboam arrived in Jerusalem, he mustered all Judah and the tribe of Benjamin; 180,000 able young men, to go to war against Israel and to regain the kingdom for Rehoboam, son of Solomon. Now at the time of King David and Joab's census, they had counted 500,000 able-bodied men who could handle a sword in Judah, excluding the 800,000 they found in Israel.
Far from a "golden" age, Solomon's rule demonstrated how excessive taxation will lower revenue, sometimes by literally killing the serfs, and almost literally killing the goose that lays the golden egg. He may have got 666 talents of gold at the start, but his income would have decreased considerably.
Then this word of Elohim came to Shemaiah, a man of Elohim, saying: "Say to Rehoboam, son of Solomon, king of Judah, to all Judah and Benjamin, and to the rest of the people, 'This is what Yahweh says: "Do not go up to fight against your brothers, the Israelites. Go home, every one of you, for this is my doing." ' "
So they obeyed the word of Yahweh and went home again, as Yahweh had ordered, sensibly on this occasion.
Then Jeroboam fortified Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim and lived there. From there he went out and built up Peniel.
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 Yahweh in Jerusalem, they will again give their allegiance to their lord, to Rehoboam, king of Judah. They will kill me and return to King Rehoboam."
After seeking advice, the king made two golden calves. 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."
One he set up in Bethel, and the other in Dan.
And this thing became a sin in the eyes of Yahweh; the people came to worship the one at Bethel and went as far as Dan to worship the other. Jeroboam built shrines on high places, and appointed priests from all sorts of people, even though they were not Levites.
He instituted a festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, like the festival held in Judah, and offered sacrifices on the altar. This he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves he had made. And at Bethel he also installed priests at the high places he had made. So on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, a month of his own choosing, he offered sacrifices on the altar he had built at Bethel, and he initiated the festival for the Israelites and went up to the altar to make offerings and burn incense.
By the word of Yahweh a man of Elohim came from Judah to Bethel, as Jeroboam was standing by the altar to make an offering. And by the word of Yahweh he cried out against the altar: "Altar, altar! This is what Yahweh 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.' "
That same day the man of Elohim gave a sign: "This is the sign Yahweh has declared: The altar will be split apart and the ashes on it will be poured out."
When King Jeroboam heard what the man of Elohim cried out against the altar at Bethel, he stretched out his hand from the altar and said, "Seize him!"
But the hand he stretched out toward the man shriveled up, so that he could not pull it back. Also, the altar was split apart and its ashes poured out according to the sign given by the man of Elohim by the word of Yahweh.
One of Yahweh's overhead drones used its directed energy beam to split the altar asunder, and a holographic projection made the king's hand appear to have withered. This was similar to a trick that Yahweh had performed on Moses, when his hand appeared to be leprous like snow after he took it out from his pocket. No matter how the king moved his hand at the wrist or moved his fingers, all he saw was the hologram of a withered hand that failed to respond to his voluntary muscle movements.
Then the king said to the man of Elohim, "Intercede with Yahweh your Elohim and pray for me that my hand may be restored." So the man of Elohim interceded with Yahweh, and the king's hand was restored and became as it was before.
The king said to the man of Elohim, "Come home with me for a meal, and I will give you a gift."
But the man of Elohim answered the king, "Even if you were to give me half your possessions, I would not go with you, nor would I eat bread or drink water here. For I was commanded by the word of Yahweh: 'You must not eat bread, nor drink water, nor return by the way you came.' "
So he took another road and did not return by the way he had come to Bethel.
Now there was a certain old prophet living in Bethel, whose sons came and told him all that the man of Elohim had done there that day. They also told their father what he had said to the king. Their father asked them, "Which way did he go?" And his sons showed him which road the man of Elohim from Judah had taken.
So he said to his sons, "Saddle the donkey for me." And when they had saddled the donkey for him, he mounted it and rode after the man of Elohim.
He found him sitting under an oak tree and asked, "Are you the man of Elohim who came from Judah?" "I am," he replied.
So the prophet said to him, "Come home with me and eat."
The man of Elohim said, "I cannot turn back and go with you, nor can I eat bread or drink water with you in this place. I have been told by the word of Yahweh: 'You must not eat bread or drink water there or return by the way you came.' "
The old prophet answered, "I too am a prophet, as you are. And an angel said to me by the word of Yahweh: 'Bring him back with you to your house so that he may eat bread and drink water.' " But the old prophet was lying to him.
So the man of Elohim returned with him and ate and drank in his house. While they were sitting at the table, the word of Yahweh came to the old prophet who had brought him back.
He called out to the man of Elohim who had come from Judah, "This is what Yahweh says: 'You have defied the word of Yahweh and have not kept the command Yahweh your Elohim gave you. You came back and ate bread and drank water in the place where he told you not to eat or drink. Therefore your body will not be buried in the tomb of your ancestors.' "
When the man of Elohim had finished eating and drinking, the prophet who had brought him back saddled his donkey for him. As he went on his way, a lion met him on the road and killed him, and his body was left lying on the road, with both the donkey and the lion standing beside it. Some people who passed by saw the body lying there, with the lion standing beside the body, and they went and reported it in the city where the old prophet lived.
What actually happened was that a team of Yahweh's robots had found a lion as they were flying around, stunned it with a graphene supercapacitor gun set to a non-lethal high-voltage pulse, and secured it to a sling hanging from a drone. The lion's brainwaves were modulated with focused electromagnetic waves to make it ferocious, but not to feel hungry.
The lion's amygdala - the fear/aggression center, was stimulated just as it was returning to consciousness, triggering a rage response, shortly before the drone arrived near the man of Elohim. At the same time, a specific pulse pattern modulated the ventromedial hypothalamus to inhibit hunger. The lion was rather disoriented as it awoke, but felt no desire to eat, only to attack.
When the robots spotted the man of Elohim, the drone descended to very low altitude some distance away, and the lion was released. The drone's directed energy beam targeted the man of Elohim, knocking him to the ground, just as the lion was charging towards the man and the donkey. The lion attacked the weaker target, the man lying on the ground, dealing a death blow, but did not devour him. Then the amygdala returned to normal, the urge to attack dissipated, the lion was still not feeling hungry but was a little confused, and went away to rest without attacking the donkey.
The donkey remained standing by its stricken master, and Yahweh's drone projected a hologram of a 'lion' that appeared to be standing by the dead man and the donkey. Men who passed by saw the scene of the 'trio', and went to the city to report it.
When the prophet who had brought him back from his journey heard of it, he said, "It is the man of Elohim who defied the word of Yahweh. Yahweh has given him over to the lion, which has mauled him and killed him, as the word of Yahweh had warned him."
The prophet said to his sons, "Saddle the donkey for me," and they did so. Then he went out and found the body lying on the road, with the donkey and the 'lion' standing beside it. The lion had neither eaten the body nor mauled the donkey. Yahweh's drone had temporarily turned off the hologram, but when the prophet was seen to be on his journey, it was briefly switched on again to create the required spectacle,
So the prophet picked up the body of the man of Elohim, laid it on the donkey, and brought it back to his own city to mourn for him and bury him. Then he laid the body in his own tomb, and they mourned over him and said, "Alas, my brother!"
After burying him, he said to his sons, "When I die, bury me in the grave where the man of Elohim is buried; lay my bones beside his bones. For the message he declared by the word of Yahweh against the altar in Bethel and against all the shrines on the high places in the towns of Samaria will certainly come true."
Even after this, Jeroboam did not change his ways, but once more appointed priests for the high places from all sorts of people. Anyone who wanted to become a priest he consecrated for the high places. This was, in Yahweh's eyes, the "sin" of the house of Jeroboam that led to its downfall and to its destruction from the face of the earth.
At that time Abijah, son of Jeroboam, became ill, and Jeroboam said to his wife, "Go, disguise yourself, so you won't be recognized as the wife of Jeroboam. Then go to Shiloh. Ahijah the prophet is there, the one who told me I would be king over this people. Take ten loaves of bread with you, some cakes and a jar of honey, and go to him. He will tell you what will happen to the boy."
So Jeroboam's wife did what he said and went to Ahijah's house in Shiloh. Now Ahijah could not see; his sight was gone because of his age. But Yahweh had told Ahijah, "Jeroboam's wife is coming to ask you about her son, for he is ill, and you are to give her such and such an answer. When she arrives, she will pretend to be someone else."
So when Ahijah heard the sound of her footsteps at the door, he said, "Come in, wife of Jeroboam. Why this pretense? I have been sent to you with bad news. Go, tell Jeroboam that this is what Yahweh, Elohim of Israel, says: 'I raised you up from among the people and appointed you ruler over my people Israel. I tore the kingdom away from the house of David and gave it to you, but you have not been like my servant David, who kept my commands and followed me with all his heart, doing only what was right in my eyes. You have done more evil than all who lived before you. You have made for yourself other gods, molten idols; you have aroused my anger and turned your back on me. Because of this, I am going to bring disaster on the house of Jeroboam. I will cut off from Jeroboam every last male in Israel, slave or free. I will burn up the house of Jeroboam as one burns dung, until it is all gone. Dogs will eat those belonging to Jeroboam who die in the city, and the birds will feed on those who die in the country. Yahweh has spoken!' "
Ahijah continued: "As for you, go back home. When you set foot in your city, the boy will die. All Israel will mourn for him and bury him. He is the only one belonging to Jeroboam who will be buried, because he is the only one in the house of Jeroboam in whom Yahweh, Elohim of Israel, has found anything good. Yahweh will raise up for himself a king over Israel who will cut off the family of Jeroboam. Even now this is beginning to happen. And Yahweh will 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 Yahweh's anger by making Asherah poles. And he will forsake Israel because of the sins Jeroboam has committed, and has caused Israel to commit."
Yahweh's narcissism was so great that worship of other gods was, to him, the ultimate evil. He was well aware that he had to suppress the competition, if he was to retain his cult of deluded, vacuous servants.
Then Jeroboam's wife got up and left and went to Tirzah. As soon as she stepped over the threshold of the house, the boy died. They buried him, and all Israel mourned for him, as Yahweh had said through his servant the prophet Ahijah.
Jeroboam reigned for twenty-two years and then rested with his ancestors. And Nadab his son succeeded him as king.
Now Rehoboam, son of Solomon, was king in Judah. He was forty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned for seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city Yahweh had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel in which to put his Name. His mother's name was Naamah; she was an Ammonite.
Judah committed evil in the eyes of Yahweh. They stirred up his jealous anger more than those who were before them had done. They also set up for themselves high places, sacred stones and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree. There were even male prostitutes - sodomites, in the land; the people engaged in all the degenerate practices of the nations Yahweh had driven out before the Israelites.
In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak, king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem. He carried off the treasures of the temple of Yahweh and the treasures of the royal palace. He took everything, including all the gold shields Solomon had made. So King Rehoboam made bronze shields to replace them and assigned these to the commanders of the guard on duty at the entrance to the royal palace.
Whenever the king went to Yahweh's temple, the guards bore the shields, and afterward they returned them to the guardroom.
There was continual warfare between Rehoboam and Jeroboam. And then Rehoboam rested with his ancestors, and was buried with them in the City of David. And Abijah his son succeeded him as king.
In the eighteenth year of the reign of Jeroboam, son of Nebat, Abijah became king of Judah, and he reigned in Jerusalem for nearly three years. His mother's name was Maakah, daughter of Abishalom. He committed all the 'sins' his father had done before him; he was not a total Yahweh lackey, as David his forefather had been. Nevertheless, for David's sake, Yahweh his Elohim gave him a lamp in Jerusalem by raising up a son to succeed him and by making Jerusalem strong.
For David had done what was right in the eyes of Yahweh and had not failed to keep any of Yahweh's commands all the days of his life, except in the case of Uriah the Hittite.
There was war between Abijah and Jeroboam throughout Abijah's lifetime. And Abijah rested with his ancestors and was buried in the City of David. And Asa his son succeeded him as king.
In the twentieth year of Jeroboam, king of Israel, Asa became king of Judah, and he reigned in Jerusalem for forty-one years. His grandmother's name was Maakah, daughter of Abishalom.
Asa did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh, as his father David had done. He expelled the sodomites from the land and got rid of all the idols his ancestors had made. He even deposed his mother Maakah from her position as queen mother, because she had made an image for the worship of Asherah. Asa destroyed it and burned it in the Kidron Valley. Although he did not remove the high places, he brought into the temple of Yahweh the silver and gold and the articles that he and his father had dedicated, and his heart was fully committed to Yahweh all his life. In other words, he was more retarded than most of his tribe.
There was war between Asa, king of Judah, and Baasha, who would seize power to become king of Israel, throughout their reigns. Baasha went up against Judah and fortified Ramah to prevent anyone from leaving or entering the territory of Asa.
Asa then took all the silver and gold that was left in the treasuries of Yahweh's temple and of his own palace. He entrusted it to his officials and sent them to Ben-Hadad, son of Tabrimmon, the son of Hezion, the king of Aram, who was ruling in Damascus.
"Let there be a treaty between me and you," he said, "as there was between my father and your father. See, I am sending you a gift of silver and gold. Now break your treaty with Baasha, king of Israel so he will withdraw from me."
Ben-Hadad agreed with King Asa and sent the commanders of his forces against the towns of Israel. He conquered Ijon, Dan, Abel Beth Maakah and all Kinnereth in addition to Naphtali. When Baasha heard this, he stopped building Ramah and withdrew to Tirzah.
Then King Asa issued an order to all Judah; no one was exempt. And they carried away from Ramah the stones and timber Baasha had been using there. With them King Asa built up Geba in Benjamin, and also Mizpah.
In his old age, his feet became diseased. Then Asa rested with his ancestors and was buried with them in the city of his father David. And Jehoshaphat his son succeeded him as king.
Nadab, son of Jeroboam, became king of Israel in the second year of Asa, king of Judah, and he reigned over Israel for two years. He did evil in the eyes of Yahweh, following the ways of his father and committing the same sin his father had caused Israel to commit.
Baasha, one of Yahweh's useful idiots and son of Ahijah from the tribe of Issachar, plotted against him, and he struck him down at Gibbethon, a Philistine town, while Nadab and all Israel were besieging it. Baasha killed Nadab in the third year of Asa, king of Judah and succeeded him as king.
As soon as he began to reign, he killed Jeroboam's whole family. He did not leave Jeroboam anyone that breathed, but destroyed them all, according to the word of Yahweh given through his servant Ahijah the Shilonite.
How appropriate and predictable that Yahweh's band of chosen people would have so many bloodthirsty maniacs, but they would never follow the exact path that the monstrous Yahweh desired! It was good that two of the cultists - Baasha and Asa, were at war with each other, but unfortunate for mankind that the spark of Yahweism was never completely extinguished.
Yahweh deployed his drones and directed energy beams to favor Baasha over Jeroboam, because of the 'sins' Jeroboam had committed and had caused Israel to commit, in the eyes of Yahweh, Elohim of Israel.
It was the third year of Asa, king of Judah, when Baasha, son of Ahijah, became king of all Israel in Tirzah, and he reigned for twenty-four years. However, he did evil in the eyes of Yahweh, following the ways of Jeroboam and committing the same sin Jeroboam had caused Israel to commit.
Then the word of Yahweh came to Jehu, son of Hanani, concerning Baasha: "I lifted you up from the dust and appointed you ruler over my people Israel, but you followed the ways of Jeroboam and caused my people Israel to sin and to arouse my anger by their sins. So I am about to wipe out Baasha and his house, and I will make your house like that of Jeroboam, son of Nebat. Dogs will eat those belonging to Baasha who die in the city, and birds will feed on those who die in the country."
And eventually Baasha rested with his ancestors and was buried in Tirzah. And Elah his son succeeded him as king.
Moreover, the word of Yahweh came through the prophet Jehu, son of Hanani, to Baasha and his house, because of all the evil he had done in the eyes of Yahweh, arousing his anger by the things he did, becoming like the house of Jeroboam, and also because he destroyed it.
Baasha had served as Yahweh's attack dog and destroyed the house of Jeroboam, as Yahweh had wanted. However, Yahweh became jealous that Baasha, not Yahweh, had been the destroyer, and so held it against Baasha. Of course, under his 'ethics', Yahweh was allowed to kill thousands of people if he felt like it, and it was not a sin. He didn't want others to deny him of his 'pleasure'.
In the twenty-sixth year of Asa, king of Judah, Elah, son of Baasha, became king of Israel, and he reigned in Tirzah for two years. Zimri, one of his officials, who had command of half his chariots, plotted against him. Elah was in Tirzah at the time, getting drunk in the home of Arza, the palace administrator at Tirzah. Zimri came in, struck him down and killed him in the twenty-seventh year of Asa, king of Judah. Then he succeeded him as king.
As soon as he began to reign and was seated on the throne, he killed off Baasha's whole family. He did not spare a single male, whether relative or friend. So Zimri became the new 'Baasha', doing Yahweh's bidding in destroying the whole family of Baasha, in accordance with the word of Yahweh spoken against Baasha through the prophet Jehu. And this was because of all the 'sins' Baasha and his son Elah had committed and had caused Israel to commit, in worshipping other gods. Such acts always aroused the anger of Yahweh, who wanted a monopoly in the provision of 'supernatural' services.
In the twenty-seventh year of Asa, king of Judah, Zimri reigned in Tirzah for seven days. The army was encamped near Gibbethon, a Philistine town. When the Israelites in the camp heard that Zimri had plotted against the king and murdered him, they proclaimed Omri, the commander of the army, king over Israel that very day there in the camp.
Then Omri and all the Israelites with him withdrew from Gibbethon and laid siege to Tirzah. When Zimri saw that the city was taken, he decided he would not be taken alive, and went into the citadel of the royal palace and set the palace on fire around him. And he died, because of the sins he had committed, doing evil in the eyes of Yahweh and following the ways of Jeroboam and committing the same sin Jeroboam had caused Israel to commit.
This was yet another member of Yahweh's cult that failed to live up to Yahweh's expectations. Yahweh was pleased that Baasha's whole family had been destroyed, and also pleased that the person who did it was also destroyed within such a short time.
Then the people of Israel were split into two factions; half supported Tibni, son of Ginath, for king, and the other half supported Omri. But Omri's followers prevailed against those of Tibni, son of Ginath. So Tibni died, and Omri became king.
In the thirty-first year of Asa, king of Judah, Omri became king of Israel, and he reigned for twelve years, six of them in Tirzah.
He bought the hill of Samaria from Shemer for two talents of silver and built a city on the hill, calling it Samaria, after Shemer, the name of the former owner of the hill.
But Omri did evil in the eyes of Yahweh and sinned more than all those before him. He followed completely the ways of Jeroboam, son of Nebat, committing the same sin Jeroboam had caused Israel to commit, so that they aroused the anger of Yahweh, Elohim of Israel, by their idols.
Omri rested with his ancestors and was buried in Samaria. And Ahab his son succeeded him as king.
In the thirty-eighth year of Asa, king of Judah, Ahab, son of Omri, became king of Israel, and he reigned in Samaria over Israel for twenty-two years.
Ahab, son of Omri, did more evil in the eyes of Yahweh than any of those before him. In the eyes of Yahweh, each successive 'evildoer' was setting a new record for 'evil'. Much of the reason was that Yahweh's narcissism was reaching new heights, and he was in despair after it proved so hard to find compliant, gullible characters such as David or Moses.
Ahab not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam, son of Nebat, but he also married Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him. He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria. Ahab also made an Asherah pole.
For a member of Yahweh's tribes, Ahab was relatively laudable. And so he did more to arouse the anger of Yahweh, Elohim of Israel, than did all the kings of Israel before him.
In Ahab's time, Hiel of Bethel rebuilt Jericho. He laid its foundations at the cost of his firstborn son Abiram, and he set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son Segub, in accordance with the word of Yahweh spoken by Joshua, son of Nun.
Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, "As Yahweh, Elohim of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word."
Then the word of Yahweh came to Elijah: "Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. You will drink from the brook, and I have directed the ravens to supply you with food there."
So he did what Yahweh had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.
Yahweh had developed a small fleet of 'raven' drones, with his 3D printer in the mothership producing the wings, fuselage and many of the parts. The food containers had a small release mechanism to drop the payload at the appropriate point.
The wingspan was 1.5m, the length 0.7m, the basic unladen mass was 2kg, and then to take it to 3kg there was 1kg of graphene supercapacitors, which at 1 MJ/kg provided 1 MJ of storage. The frontal cross-section was π(0.1m)2 = 0.0314 m2 for the fuselage, and 0.65m x 0.05m = 0.0325 m2 for each wing, making a total of 0.0964 m2. Yahweh conservatively assumed 0.7 for the drag coefficient, although in practice it was lower than that.
The wings were fixed, with each wing containing 0.52m x 0.26m of solar panels, for a total of 0.2704 m2. At 29.5 MJ/m2 of sunlight available for harvesting in a typical 12-hour day, and at 85% efficiency, the energy harvested per hour was 0.85 x 0.2704 m2 x 29.5 MJ/m2 / 12 = ~565 kJ/hour. Thus, the supercapacitors could generally reach a full charge in less than two hours. A small electric fan in the tail propelled the drone forwards.
So as the 'raven' passed the target and dropped its payload of food, it would appear to be gliding and the fixed wings would not seem strange to the recipient.
With no payload at sea level (with air density ρ = 1.225 kg/m3), the optimal cruising speed was 8.337 m/s, where the induced drag equaled the parasitic drag, and the total drag was 5.744 N. Excluding the gravitational potential, which was a tiny fraction of 1 MJ, and with no payload, and assuming no incoming solar energy, the maximum flight distance would be 1 MJ / 5.744 N = ~174 km (which would take ~5.8 hours).
However, a 20m radius drone would take 'raven' drones to within a few tens of kilometers, generally within a few kilometers, of a target. So with a payload in one direction, and even if having to gain height to clear a hill, there was ample energy to power the return flight.
Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land. Yahweh had been deploying his mothership's directed energy beam again, to meddle with the weather, producing easterly winds that blew towards the sea. Then the word of Yahweh came to Elijah: "Go at once to Zarephath in the region of Sidon and stay there. I have directed a widow there to supply you with food."
So he went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, "Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?"
As she was going to get it, he called, "And bring me, please, a piece of bread."
"As surely as Yahweh your Elohim lives," she replied, "I don't have any bread; only a handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die."
Elijah said to her, "Don't be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small loaf of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. For this is what Yahweh, Elohim of Israel, says: 'The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day Yahweh sends rain on the land.' "
She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of Yahweh spoken by Elijah.
Each day the 'ravens' would bring Elijah a packet of flour and a small container of oil, so that he could top up the jar and jug when the family were outside or asleep.
Some time later the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. He grew worse and worse, and finally stopped breathing. She said to Elijah, "What do you have against me, man of Elohim? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?"
"Give me your son," Elijah replied. He took him from her arms, carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his bed.
Then he cried out to Yahweh, "Oh Yahweh my Elohim, have you brought tragedy even on this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?" Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried out to Yahweh, "Yahweh my Elohim, let this boy's life return to him!"
Yahweh heard Elijah's cry, and the boy's life returned to him, and he lived. Elijah picked up the child and carried him down from the room into the house. He gave him to his mother and said, "Look, your son is alive!"
Then the woman said to Elijah, "Now I know that you are a man of Elohim and that the word of Yahweh from your mouth is the truth."
What actually happened was that the boy had a respiratory infection that he likely would have survived. A cloaked 20m drone was hovering above the house, and released a cloud of invisible nanobots that entered the bedroom through a window. Over a period of several hours the boy's condition gradually improved. The nanobots targeted pathogens, cleared mucus and repaired damaged tissue. And they delivered anti-inflammatory agents.
But then the drone's directed energy beam focused an ultrasonic pulse to suppress the boy's respiratory center in the medulla oblongata. There was a brief apnoea; breathing ceased for 1 or 2 minutes. As soon as Elijah cried out to Yahweh, which was relayed via 'locust' drones, a second pulse restored normal respiratory drive. By the time Elijah had brought the boy down to the mother, he was fully back to health.
After a long time, in the third year, the word of Yahweh came to Elijah: "Go and present yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the land."
So Elijah went to present himself to Ahab. Now the famine was severe in Samaria, and Ahab had summoned Obadiah, his palace administrator, who, being a couple of planks short of a pallet, was a devout believer in Yahweh.
While Jezebel was killing off Yahweh's prophets, Obadiah had taken a hundred prophets and hidden them in two caves, fifty in each, and had supplied them with food and water. Ahab had said to Obadiah, "Go through the land to all the springs and valleys. Maybe we can find some grass to keep the horses and mules alive so we will not have to kill any of our animals."
So they divided the land they were to cover, Ahab going in one direction and Obadiah in another. As Obadiah was walking along, Elijah met him. Obadiah recognized him, bowed down to the ground, and said, "Is it really you, my lord Elijah?"
"Yes," he replied. "Go tell your master, 'Elijah is here.' "
"What have I done wrong," asked Obadiah, "that you are handing your servant over to Ahab to be put to death? As surely as Yahweh your Elohim lives, there is not a nation or kingdom where my master has not sent someone to look for you. And whenever a nation or kingdom claimed you were not there, he made them swear they could not find you. But now you tell me to go to my master and say, 'Elijah is here.' I don't know where the Spirit of Yahweh may carry you when I leave you. If I go and tell Ahab and he doesn't find you, he will kill me. Yet I your servant have worshiped Yahweh since my youth. Haven't you heard, my lord, what I did while Jezebel was killing the prophets of Yahweh? I hid a hundred of Yahweh's prophets in two caves, fifty in each, and supplied them with food and water. And now you tell me to go to my master and say, 'Elijah is here.' He will kill me!"
Elijah said, "As Yahweh Sabaioth lives, whom I serve, I will surely present myself to Ahab today."
So Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him, and Ahab went to meet Elijah.
When he saw Elijah, he said to him, "Is that you, you troubler of Israel?"
"I have not made trouble for Israel," Elijah replied. "But you and your father's family have abandoned Yahweh's commands, and have followed the Baals. Now summon the people from all over Israel to meet me on Mount Carmel. And bring the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel's table."
So Ahab sent word throughout all Israel and assembled the prophets on Mount Carmel. Elijah went before the people and said, "How long will you waver between two opinions? If Yahweh is Elohim, follow him; but if Baal is, follow him." But the people said nothing.
Then Elijah said to them, "I am the only one of Yahweh's prophets left, but Baal has four hundred and fifty prophets. Get two bulls for us. Let Baal's prophets choose one for themselves, and let them cut it into pieces and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of Yahweh Elohim who answers by fire, he is Elohim." Then all the people said, "What you say is good."
Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, "Choose one of the bulls and prepare it first, since there are so many of you. Call on the name of your god, but do not light the fire."
So they took the bull given them and prepared it. Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. "Baal, answer us!" they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made.
At noon Elijah began to taunt them. "Shout louder!" he said. "Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is meditating, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened."
So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed.
Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention.
Then Elijah said to all the people, "Come here to me." They came to him, and he repaired the altar of Yahweh, which had been torn down.
Elijah took twelve stones, one for each of the tribes descended from Jacob, to whom the word of Yahweh had come, saying, "Your name shall be Israel."
With the stones he built an altar in the name of Yahweh, and he dug a trench around it large enough to hold two seahs of seed. He arranged the wood, cut the bull into pieces and laid it on the wood. Then he said to them, "Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood."
"Do it again," he said, and they did it again. "Do it a third time," he ordered, and they did it the third time. The water ran down around the altar and even filled the trench.
At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: "Yahweh, Elohim of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are Elohim in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. Answer me, Yahweh, answer me, so these people will know that you are Yahweh Elohim, and that you are turning their hearts back again."
Then the fire of Yahweh fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.
Each large jar of water was about 2 liters, so three times four large jars was 24 liters. Let's assume 1 kg/liter, although at 25° C it's nearly 1% less than that. It takes ~2.4417 MJ/kg to vaporize water at 25° C, and so to vaporize 24 liters requires 58.6 MJ.
First a cloaked overhead drone targeted the water, the bullock and the wood. The drone had 18.8 GJ of storage, and its directed energy beam could produce a power output of several MW. Thus, the water was vaporized or "licked up" in some 20 to 30 seconds, and the bullock and wood ignited within a few seconds.
Then a tightly focused beam from the mothership supplemented the drone's beam, and delivered a terawatt-power pulse to a small spot. Stones shattered and dust turned into plasma, to spectacular effect. The mothership's beam was tuned to near infra-red, to penetrate rock. Yahweh was the only Type II being around, at that time on Earth. There was no one to answer the call for Baal, or Asherah.
When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, "Yahweh; he is Elohim! Yahweh; he is Elohim!"
Then Elijah commanded them, "Seize the prophets of Baal. Don't let anyone get away!" They seized them, and Elijah had them brought down to the Kishon Valley and slaughtered there. Elijah was as wicked as they come.
And Elijah said to Ahab, "Go, eat and drink, for there is the sound of a heavy rain."
So Ahab went off to eat and drink, but Elijah climbed to the top of Carmel, bent down to the ground and put his face between his knees. "Go and look toward the sea," he told his servant. And he went up and looked. "There is nothing there," he said. Seven times Elijah said, "Go back."
The seventh time the servant reported, "A cloud as small as a man's hand is rising from the sea." So Elijah said, "Go and tell Ahab, 'Hitch up your chariot and go down before the rain stops you.' "
Meanwhile, the sky grew black with clouds, the wind rose, a heavy rain started falling and Ahab rode off to Jezreel. Yahweh had reversed the wind direction by heating another part of the atmosphere.
The power of Yahweh came on Elijah and, tucking his cloak into his belt, he ran ahead of Ahab all the way to Jezreel.
Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, "May Elohim deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them."
Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. "I have had enough, Yahweh," he said. "Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors."
Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep. All at once an 'angel', i.e., a robot, touched him and said, "Get up and eat." He looked around, and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again.
The angel of Yahweh came back a second time and touched him and said, "Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you." So he got up and ate and drank.
Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of Elohim. There he went into a cave and spent the night.
And the word of Yahweh came to him: "What are you doing here, Elijah?"
He replied, "I have been very zealous for Yahweh Elohim Sabaioth. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too."
Yahweh said, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of Yahweh, for Yahweh is about to pass by." Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before Yahweh, but Yahweh was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but Yahweh was not in the earthquake.
After the earthquake came a fire, but Yahweh was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.
Yahweh's mothership's DE beam shattered some rocks, but the 'wind' was merely a sound from parametric speakers that appeared to come from the mountain. The 'earthquake' was infrasound from the parametric speakers that targeted the ground. The fire was produced by the DE beam setting a tree alight.
When Elijah heard the whisper, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"
He replied, "I have been very zealous for Yahweh Elohim Sabaioth. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too."
Yahweh said to him, "Go back the way you came, and go to the Wilderness of Damascus. When you get there, anoint Hazael as king over Aram. Also, anoint Jehu, son of Nimshi, king over Israel, and anoint Elisha, son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah, to succeed you as prophet. Jehu will put to death any who escape the sword of Hazael, and Elisha will put to death any who escape the sword of Jehu. Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel; all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him."
So Elijah went from there and found Elisha, son of Shaphat. He was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen, and he himself was driving the twelfth pair. Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak around him.
Elisha then left his oxen and ran after Elijah. "Let me kiss my father and mother goodbye," he said, "and then I will come with you."
"Go back," Elijah replied. "What have I done to you?"
So Elisha left him and went back. He took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them. He burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he foolishly set out to follow Elijah and became his servant.
Now Ben-Hadad, king of Aram, mustered his entire army. Accompanied by thirty-two kings with their horses and chariots, he went up and besieged Samaria and attacked it.
He sent messengers into the city to Ahab, king of Israel, saying, "This is what Ben-Hadad says: 'Your silver and gold are mine, and the best of your wives and children are mine.' "
The king of Israel answered, "Just as you say, my lord the king. I and all I have are yours."
The messengers came again and said, "This is what Ben-Hadad says: 'I sent to demand your silver and gold, your wives and your children. But about this time tomorrow I am going to send my officials to search your palace and the houses of your officials. They will seize everything you value and carry it away.' "
The king of Israel summoned all the elders of the land and said to them, "See how this man is looking for trouble! When he sent for my wives and my children, my silver and my gold, I did not refuse him."
The elders and the people all answered, "Don't listen to him or agree to his demands."
So he replied to Ben-Hadad's messengers, "Tell my lord the king, 'Your servant will do all you demanded the first time, but this demand I cannot meet.' " They left and took the answer back to Ben-Hadad.
Then Ben-Hadad sent another message to Ahab: "May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if enough dust remains in Samaria to give each of my men a handful."
The king of Israel answered, "Tell him: 'Do not let him who puts on body armor boast like he who takes it off.' "
Ben-Hadad heard this message while he and the kings were drinking in their tents, and he ordered his men: "Prepare to attack." So they prepared to attack the city.
Meanwhile a prophet came to Ahab, king of Israel, and announced, "This is what Yahweh says: 'Do you see this vast army? I will give it into your hand today, and then you will know that I am Yahweh.' "
"But who will do this?" asked Ahab. The prophet replied, "This is what Yahweh says: 'The junior officers under the provincial commanders will do it.' "
"And who will start the battle?" he asked. The prophet answered, "You will."
So Ahab summoned the junior officers under the provincial commanders and numbered them, finding that there were 232. Then he assembled the rest of the Israelites, and counted 7,000 in all.
They set out at noon, but Ben-Hadad and the 32 kings allied with him were in their tents getting drunk.
The junior officers under the provincial commanders went out first, and Ben-Hadad dispatched scouts, who reported, "Men are advancing from Samaria."
He said, "If they have come out for peace, take them alive; if they have come out for war, take them alive."
The junior officers under the provincial commanders marched out of the city with the army behind them and each one struck down his opponent. At that, the Arameans fled, with the Israelites in pursuit. But Ben-Hadad, king of Aram, escaped on horseback with some of his horsemen.
The king of Israel advanced and overpowered the horses and chariots, and inflicted heavy losses on the Arameans.
Afterward, the prophet came to the king of Israel and said, "Strengthen your position and see what must be done, because next spring the king of Aram will attack you again."
Yahweh had long been furious with Ahab, who was far from the type of compliant 'leader' Yahweh favored; a subservient 'leader' who would sell out his own people so that they could never prosper unless they reached an impossibly high standard of never worshipping other gods. And Yahweh had already taken some revenge by inflicting them with the drought.
But he had made a tremendous investment in these people over the centuries, and could not afford to reduce their number significantly. He reserved his right to take further 'vengeance', and would surely do so against Ahab, but for now was using his drones and mothership with their beam weapons to fight against those such as Ben Hadad.
Meanwhile, the officials of the king of Aram advised him, "Their gods are gods of the hills. That is why they were too strong for us. But if we fight them on the plains, surely we will be stronger than they. Do this: Remove all the kings from their commands and replace them with other officers. You must also raise an army like the one you lost; horse for horse and chariot for chariot, so we can fight Israel on the plains. Then surely we will be stronger than they." He agreed with them and acted accordingly.
The next spring Ben-Hadad mustered the Arameans, and went up to Aphek to fight against Israel.
When the Israelites were also mustered and given provisions, they marched out to meet them. The Israelites camped opposite them like two small flocks of goats, while the Arameans covered the countryside.
The man of Elohim came up and told the king of Israel, "This is what Yahweh says: 'Because the Arameans think Yahweh is a god of the hills and not a god of the valleys, I will deliver this vast army into your hands, and you will know that I am Yahweh.' "
For seven days they camped opposite each other, and on the seventh day the battle was joined. The Israelites inflicted 100,000 casualties on the Aramean foot soldiers in one day.
The rest of them escaped to the city of Aphek, where the wall collapsed on twenty-seven thousand of them. And Ben-Hadad fled to the city and hid in an inner room.
Yahweh had done a similar trick when he let his people take Jericho. His mothership's directed energy beam had used nearly 100 TJ to destroy the city walls, and he also had a drone with a fusion-powered DE weapon that could produce a power output of ~100GW. In this case, as with the taking of Jericho, he chose to use the mothership, using tens of TJ to collapse Aphek's city wall.
His officials said to him, "Look, we have heard that the kings of Israel are merciful. Let us go to the king of Israel with sackcloth around our waists and ropes around our heads. Perhaps he will spare your life."
They knew nothing about the Israelites, and were gambling with their lives. "Perhaps" was the operative word. However, Ahab was more sensible than most Israelite kings or leaders, not being a narcissistic, bloodthirsty monster. Ahab was certainly not like Moses, a Yahweh sycophant who cheerfully ordered the burning by fire of 32 virgins to appease his 'god'.
Wearing sackcloth around their waists and ropes around their heads, they went to the king of Israel and said, "Your servant Ben-Hadad says: 'Please let me live.' " The king answered, "Is he still alive? He is my brother."
The men took this as a good sign and were quick to pick up his word. "Yes, your brother Ben-Hadad!" they said. "Go and get him," the king said. When Ben-Hadad came out, Ahab had him come up into his chariot.
"I will return the cities my father took from your father," Ben-Hadad offered. "You may set up your own market areas in Damascus, as my father did in Samaria."
Ahab said, "On the basis of a treaty I will set you free." So he made a treaty with him, and let him go.
By the word of Yahweh one of the company of the prophets said to his companion, "Strike me with your weapon," but he refused.
So the prophet said, "Because you have not obeyed Yahweh, as soon as you leave me a lion will kill you." And after the man went away, a lion found him and killed him.
This was a much simpler operation for Yahweh compared to the previous event, where he had one of his prophets killed by a lion for the 'crime' of drinking water and eating bread. As with that time, the lion was captured by a team of Yahweh's robots ('angels'), stunned, secured to a sling attached to a drone, and the lion's brainwaves were modulated to make it ferocious. Then it was released in the vicinity of the target.
However, there was no need to suppress its appetite, or to project a hologram of a 'lion' standing by a donkey. In this case, the lion mauled and killed the man, and devoured some of the flesh before leaving.
The prophet found another man and said, "Strike me, please." So the man struck him and wounded him.
Then the prophet went and stood by the road waiting for the king. He disguised himself with his headband down over his eyes. As the king passed by, the prophet called out to him, "Your servant went into the thick of the battle, and someone came to me with a captive and said, 'Guard this man. If he is missing, it will be your life for his life, or you must pay a talent of silver.' While your servant was busy here and there, the man disappeared."
"That is your sentence," the king of Israel said. "You have pronounced it yourself."
Then the prophet quickly removed the headband from his eyes, and the king of Israel recognized him as one of the prophets.
He said to the king, "This is what Yahweh says: 'You have set free a man I had determined should die. Therefore it is your life for his life, your people for his people.' "
Sullen and angry, the king of Israel went to his palace in Samaria.
Some time later there was an incident involving a vineyard belonging to Naboth the Jezreelite. The vineyard was in Jezreel, close to the palace of Ahab, king of Samaria.
Ahab said to Naboth, "Let me have your vineyard to use for a vegetable garden, since it is close to my palace. In exchange I will give you a better vineyard or, if you prefer, I will pay you whatever it is worth."
But Naboth replied, "Yahweh forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my ancestors."
So Ahab went home, sullen and angry because Naboth the Jezreelite had said, "I will not give you the inheritance of my ancestors." He lay on his bed sulking and refused to eat.
His wife Jezebel came in and asked him, "Why are you so sullen? Why won't you eat?"
He answered her, "Because I said to Naboth the Jezreelite, 'Sell me your vineyard; or if you prefer, I will give you another vineyard in its place.' But he said, 'I will not give you my vineyard.' "
Jezebel his wife said, "Is this how you act as king over Israel? Get up and eat! Cheer up. I'll get you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite."
So she wrote letters in Ahab's name, placed his seal on them, and sent them to the elders and nobles who lived in Naboth's city with him. In those letters she wrote: "Proclaim a day of fasting and seat Naboth in a prominent place among the people. But seat two scoundrels opposite him and have them bring charges that he has cursed both Elohim and the king. Then take him out and stone him to death."
So the elders and nobles who lived in Naboth's city did as Jezebel directed in the letters she had written to them. They proclaimed a fast and seated Naboth in a prominent place among the people. Then two scoundrels came and sat opposite him and brought charges against Naboth before the people, saying, "Naboth has cursed both God and the king." So they took him outside the city and stoned him to death.
Then they sent word to Jezebel: "Naboth has been stoned to death."
As soon as Jezebel heard that Naboth had been stoned to death, she said to Ahab, "Get up and take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite that he refused to sell you. He is no longer alive, but dead."
When Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, he got up and went down to take possession of Naboth's vineyard.
Then the word of Yahweh came to Elijah the Tishbite: "Go down to meet Ahab, king of Israel, who rules in Samaria. He is now in Naboth's vineyard, where he has gone to take possession of it. Say to him, 'This is what Yahweh says: "Have you not murdered a man and seized his property? In the place where dogs licked up Naboth's blood, dogs will lick up your blood; yes, yours!" ' "
Ahab said to Elijah, "So you have found me, my enemy!"
"I have found you," he answered, "because you have sold yourself to do evil in the eyes of Yahweh. He says, 'I am going to bring disaster on you. I will wipe out your descendants and cut off from Ahab every last male in Israel, slave or free. I will make your house like that of Jeroboam, son of Nebat, and that of Baasha, son of Ahijah, because you have aroused my anger and have caused Israel to sin.' And also concerning Jezebel, Yahweh says: 'Dogs will devour Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel. Dogs will eat those belonging to Ahab who die in the city, and the birds will feed on those who die in the country.' "
Ahab was far from perfect, and had an evil wife, but his crimes were small compared to those who sold themselves to do 'good' in the eyes of Yahweh, whose moral compass had turned 180°. And of course, Yahweh had long been enraged by Ahab's endorsing of 'idol' worshipping, as the Amorites had done. Yahweh didn't give a fig about Naboth, but he was happy to cite Naboth's death as his reason for getting revenge on Ahab.
When Ahab heard these words, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and fasted. He lay in sackcloth and went around meekly.
Then the word of Yahweh came to Elijah the Tishbite: "Have you noticed how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself, I will not bring this disaster in his day, but I will bring it on his house in the days of his son."
For three years there was no war between Aram and Israel.
And then in the third year Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, went down to see the king of Israel, who had said to his officials, "Don't you know that Ramoth Gilead belongs to us, and yet we are doing nothing to retake it from the king of Aram?"
So he asked Jehoshaphat, "Will you go with me to fight against Ramoth Gilead?" Jehoshaphat replied to the king of Israel, "I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses."
But Jehoshaphat also said to the king of Israel, "First seek the counsel of Yahweh."
So the king of Israel brought together the prophets, about four hundred men, and asked them, "Shall I go to war against Ramoth Gilead, or shall I refrain?" "Go," they answered, "for Yahweh will give it into the king's hand."
But Jehoshaphat asked, "Is there no longer a prophet of Yahweh here whom we can inquire of?"
The king of Israel answered Jehoshaphat, "There is still one prophet through whom we can inquire of Yahweh, but I hate him because he never prophesies anything good about me, but always bad. He is Micaiah, son of Imlah."
"The king should not say such a thing," Jehoshaphat replied.
So the king of Israel called one of his officials and said, "Bring Micaiah, son of Imlah, at once."
Dressed in their royal robes, the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, were sitting on their thrones at the threshing floor by the entrance of the gate of Samaria, with all the prophets prophesying before them.
Now Zedekiah, son of Kenaanah, had made iron horns and he declared, "This is what Yahweh says: 'With these you will gore the Arameans until they are destroyed.' "
All the other prophets were prophesying the same thing. "Attack Ramoth Gilead and be victorious," they said, "for Yahweh will give it into the king's hand."
The messenger who had gone to summon Micaiah said to him, "Look, the other prophets without exception are predicting success for the king. Let your word agree with theirs, and speak favorably."
But Micaiah said, "As surely as Yahweh lives, I can tell him only what Yahweh tells me."
When he arrived, the king asked him, "Micaiah, shall we go to war against Ramoth Gilead, or not?"
"Attack and be victorious," he answered, "for Yahweh will give it into the king's hand."
The king said to him, "How many times must I make you swear to tell me nothing but the truth in the name of Yahweh?"
Then Micaiah answered, "I saw all Israel scattered on the hills like sheep without a shepherd, and Yahweh said, 'These people have no master. Let each one go home in peace.' "
The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, "Didn't I tell you that he never prophesies anything good about me, but only bad?"
Micaiah continued, "Therefore hear the word of Yahweh: I saw Yahweh sitting on his throne with all the multitudes of heaven standing around him on his right and on his left. And Yahweh said, 'Who will entice Ahab into attacking Ramoth Gilead and going to his death there?' One suggested this, and another that. Finally, a spirit came forward, stood before Yahweh and said, 'I will entice him.'
" 'By what means?' Yahweh asked. And he replied, 'I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all his prophets.' Yahweh said, 'You will succeed in enticing him. Go and do it.' So now Yahweh has put a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours. Yahweh has decreed disaster for you."
Then Zedekiah, son of Kenaanah, went up and slapped Micaiah in the face. "Which way did the spirit from Yahweh go when he went from me to speak to you?" he asked.
Micaiah replied, "You will find out on the day you go to hide in an inner room."
The king of Israel then ordered, "Take Micaiah and send him back to Amon, the ruler of the city, and to Joash, the king's son, and say, 'This is what the king says: "Put this fellow in prison and give him nothing but bread and water until I return safely." ' "
Micaiah declared, "If you ever return safely, Yahweh has not spoken through me." Then he added, "Mark my words, all you people!"
So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, went up to Ramoth Gilead.
The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, "I will enter the battle in disguise, but you wear your royal robes." So the king of Israel disguised himself and went into battle.
Now the king of Aram had ordered his thirty-two chariot commanders, "Do not fight with anyone, small or great, except the king of Israel." When the chariot commanders saw Jehoshaphat, they thought, "Surely this is the king of Israel." So they turned to attack him, but when Jehoshaphat cried out, the chariot commanders saw that he was not the king of Israel and stopped pursuing him.
But someone drew his bow and hit the king of Israel between the sections of his armor. In fact, the arrow had been fired from one of Yahweh's drones, not by one of the Arameans at random. The king told his chariot driver, "Wheel around and get me out of the fighting. I've been wounded."
All day long the battle raged, and the king was propped up in his chariot facing the Arameans. The blood from his wound ran onto the floor of the chariot, and that evening he died. Yahweh had got rid of Ahab, whom he hated, although he still had not fully taken his revenge.
As the sun was setting, a cry spread through the army: "Every man to his town. Every man to his land!"
So the king died and was brought to Samaria, and they buried him there. They washed the chariot at a pool in Samaria, where the prostitutes bathed, and the dogs licked up his blood, as the word of Yahweh had declared.
So Ahab rested with his ancestors, and Ahaziah his son succeeded him as king.
Jehoshaphat, son of Asa, became king of Judah in the fourth year of Ahab, king of Israel. Jehoshaphat was thirty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem for twenty-five years. His mother's name was Azubah, daughter of Shilhi.
In everything he followed the ways of his father Asa and did not stray from them; he did much of what was right in the eyes of Yahweh. The high places, however, were not removed, and the people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there. Jehoshaphat was also at peace with the king of Israel.
He rid the land of the rest of the sodomite prostitutes who remained there, even after the reign of his father Asa.
There was then no king in Edom; a provincial governor ruled.
Now Jehoshaphat built a fleet of trading ships to go to Ophir for gold, but they never went because they were wrecked at Ezion Geber. At that time Ahaziah, son of Ahab, said to Jehoshaphat, "Let my men sail with yours," but Jehoshaphat refused.
Then Jehoshaphat rested with his ancestors and was buried with them in the city of David his father. And Jehoram his son succeeded him as king.
Ahaziah, son of Ahab, became king of Israel in Samaria in the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, and he reigned over Israel for two years.
He did evil in the eyes of Yahweh, because he followed the ways of his father and mother and of Jeroboam, son of Nebat, who caused Israel to 'sin'. He served and worshiped Baal and aroused the anger of Yahweh Elohim of Israel, just as his father had done.