The Skeptics Annotated Bible (322 page)

(14.12-17) Jeroboam’s wife was worried about her sick son, so she went to see God’s prophet, Ahijah. He told her that God would kill her son to punish her husband. By the time she returned home, her son had died.

12 Arise thou therefore, get thee to thine own house: and
when thy feet enter into the city, the child shall die.

(14.12)
“When thy feet enter into the city, the child shall die.”

13 And all Israel shall mourn for him, and bury him: for he only of Jeroboam shall come to the grave, because in him there is found some good thing toward the LORD God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam.

14 Moreover the LORD shall raise him up a king over Israel, who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam that day: but what? even now.

15 For
the LORD shall smite Israe
l, as a reed is shaken in the water, and he shall root up Israel out of this good land, which he gave to their fathers, and shall scatter them beyond the river,
because they have made their groves, provoking the LORD to anger
.

(14.15)
“The LORD shall smite Israel … because they have made their groves, provoking the LORD to anger.”

16 And he shall give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, who did sin, and who made Israel to sin.

17 And Jeroboam’s wife arose, and departed, and came to Tirzah: and
when she came to the threshold of the door, the child died;

(14.17)
“When she came to the threshold of the door, the child died.”
To punish Jeroboam, God killed his son.
God’s 88th Killing

18 And they buried him; and all Israel mourned for him, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake by the hand of his servant Ahijah the prophet.

19 And the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, how he warred, and how he reigned, behold, they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel.

20 And the days which Jeroboam reigned were two and twenty years: and he slept with his fathers, and Nadab his son reigned in his stead.

21 And Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty and one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the LORD did choose out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there. And his mother’s name was Naamah an Ammonitess.

22 And Judah did evil in the sight of the LORD, and they provoked him to jealousy with their sins which they had committed, above all that their fathers had done.

23 For
they also built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree.

(14.23)
“They also built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree.”
During Rehoboam’s reign, there were images on every hill and under every tree.

24 And
there were also sodomites in the land: and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD cast out before the children of Israel.

(14.24)
“There were also sodomites in the land: and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD cast out before the children of Israel.”
God shows his homophobia by calling gay people “sodomites” and their sexual relations “abominations.”

25 And it came to pass in the fifth year of king Rehoboam, that Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem:

26 And he took away the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king’s house; he even took away all: and he took away all the shields of gold which Solomon had made.

27 And king Rehoboam made in their stead brasen shields, and committed them unto the hands of the chief of the guard, which kept the door of the king’s house.

28 And it was so, when the king went into the house of the LORD, that the guard bare them, and brought them back into the guard chamber.

29 Now the rest of the acts of Rehoboam, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?

30 And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days.

31 And Rehoboam slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David. And his mother’s name was Naamah an Ammonitess. And Abijam his son reigned in his stead.

15
Now in the eighteenth year of king Jeroboam the son of Nebat reigned Abijam over Judah.

2 Three years reigned he in Jerusalem. And
his mother’s name was Maachah, the daughter of Abishalom.

(15.2) “His mother’s name was Maachah, the daughter of Abishalom.”
232 Who was Abijam’s mother?
233 How were Abijam and Asa related?

3 And he walked in all the sins of his father, which he had done before him: and
his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father.

(15.3)
“His heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.”