2 Chronicles (Solomon-Zedekiah)

As we mentioned before, 1st and 2nd Chronicles in the retelling of David through Jehoichin and today we start at the beginning of Solomon. 

Solomon started his kingship with a surplus left after David died and he decided to really hustle Israel to be a super power. At some point early on god came down to him and asked him what he wanted more than anything else and his reply was “Wisdom to be a good ruler.” God was so impressed by this that he promised Solomon endless amounts of fucking gold. To the point where Mr T and Little John would both be like, “What the fuck?” He also gave Solomon a seemingly endless amount of ladies. But given how consent worked back then, I think Solomon just did that for himself. He had so many wives and sex slaves that if he had sex three times a day, it would take him almost a year before he’d fuck the same person twice. 

Solomon ruled with an iron fist, forcing long work days in that brutally hot part of the world, building a giant temple, a palace for himself, building a navy, and opening up trade with all the surrounding peoples. He decked the fuck out of the castle with gold. It kind of turned into some sort of King Midas-esque fantasy. When he finished all of that he put the Ark of the Covenant into the new rap-video temple and god followed it right in in the form of a dark cloud. “Oh shit,” Said everyone, “We can’t go worship god in the new temple because he’s hanging out in there.” 

Solomon was super pumped about this and said to god, “I built you a place to live. I hope you live there forever!” Apparently god needed housing back then and only the fanciest gold plated everything housing would suffice. So Solomon dedicated the temple to god and everyone celebrated by slaughtering a shitload of animals and setting their flesh on fire because god loves that shit. God came down to Solomon and said, “I like this temple. I will live here. But occasionally for no reason, I will fuck with you guys. i’ll make it not rain for a while and sometimes I’ll make it rain to much. I’ll kill you with disease and fuck with you, but only sometimes. Whenever I do this, come on into the temple and cover your face and ask me nicely to stop. Then I probably will. If I don’t, it’s because you guys are pissing me off and praying wrong. So it’s really on you.”

So Solomon got to ruling Israel and took back a lot of fallen cities via diplomacy and took a lot more land. Israel was doing well, the people were pretty overworked and miserable, but Israel as a whole was starting to gain a lot of respect in the region. Solomon also was very wise for his time. This is kind of a fun thing to think about. As society keeps on continuing, we take all of the knowledge built up by people in the so-rare peace times in History as just basic common knowledge. But back then, knowing shit was pretty rare, so people would come to Jerusalem from all over the place to see what he had to say about birds and shit. Even the queen of Sheba came out and traded musical instruments and spices for knowledge. It doesn’t say if her and Solomon hooked up through the course of this, but I’m pretty sure they did. 

Solomon was on the receiving end of 25 tons of gold a fucking year. That’s just under a billion dollars worth of gold a year. That’s a fucking lot of gold. He didn’t even know how to fucking manage it. He just started making shit out of gold that really shouldn’t be; like shields and goblets and whatnot. He apparently hid them in the forest of Lebanon. But no one’s been able to find them since. He also got a lot of apes and baboons traded to him for some reason. Then he died and Rehaboam replaced him as king.

Rehaboam was shitbag. When pretty much everyone in the country marched on him asking if he was going to cut down the work day and be a little easier on their work torn bodies he just laughed in their faces and said, “If you didn’t like my dad, you’re gonna fucking hate me! Cuz I’ll make you work way harder for even less money! Fuck you! You think my dad’s whips were bad? I’ll fucking whip you with scorpions!” This was against the advice of pretty much everyone whose advice he asked.

As what should be a surprise to nobody whatsoever, the people rebelled. When he sent out his main man Adoniram, the people fucking killed him with rocks. They just tied him up in the street and threw rocks at him until he died. It’s easy to read this fucking book and forget that this is what “getting stoned” actually means. Imagine walking through your neighborhood and seeing a bunch of people just tying someone up to a pole and hurling fucking rocks at them until they die. That’s fucking brutal. 

So anyways, Rehaboam was able to escape and decided to declare war on his own people like an asshole. He gathered 180,000 still somehow loyal men and began his assault on his own people. God, apparently, came down to each soldier individually and said, “Don’t follow this douche-bag. Don’t kill your own race. I’m only happy when you kill other races.” Everyone listened and just fucking abandoned Rehaboam. Who was now a shitty king with no army. 

Rehaboam was pretty bitter that god wouldn’t let him wage war on the people who rightfully stood against him as king, so he decided to start worshipping statues and what not again. This pissed god off so god let Shishak, the current king of Egypt, attack Jerusalem and kill a bunch of people that weren’t Rehaboam and weren’t even big fans of his. That’s just how god works apparently. Right before Shishak attacked, a bunch of people who weren’t Rehaboam decided to apologize to god for Rehaboam being an asshole. So god said, “Okay. I won’t let him completely level this city and kill all of you. But I will let him sack the shit out of it for a while. Just so you know your place, people who aren’t even the guy I’m mad at.” 

Sure enough, the Egyptians sacked the shit out of Jerusalem and took all the gold they could find. Which as we know from earlier, is a goddamn lot of gold. Rehaboam seized control again, replaced all the gold shit with bronze shit, and finally apologized to god for cheating on him. Then Rehaboam died and Abijah became the new king. 

Under Rehaboam, Judah and Israel split into two countries. So Jeroboam in charge of Israel and Abijah was now in charge of Judah. Judah had the benefit of having the flagship city Jerusalem, but both were kind of equally fucked without the other one. This constant war between them kinda fucked everything up. Abijah attacked Israel with 400,000 troops and Jeroboam’s Israel welcomed them with 800,000 troops. Abijah made a big long speech on the mountain top that went something like, “You guys! I’m in charge! I’m David’s great grandson and therefor you have to listen to me!” Nobody cared and Abijah’s army swept through killing 500,000 Israelites. This was the end of Jeroboam, but not from Abijah. God just decided to kill him for some reason. Apparently the rest of Abijah’s life is chronicled in the book of Iddo. Which no longer exists. So that sucks. He made a bunch of kids and died. Asa succeeded him as king.

Asa tried to get everyone back on track worshiping god instead of random statues and shit. This was a peace-era, so he spent his time fortifying all his cities and training 300,000 men for war. Because Judah wasn’t used to not being at war, and didn’t really know how to deal with it. Eventually they found a war. Asa was so happy he literally thanked god for letting him slaughter an entire army. They brutally slaughtered the Cushites at Gerar where, and I quote, “There was much booty there” lol. Anyways, they also took all their animals. Because people need to eat and god needs animals slaughtered and burned needlessly. Some random guy said he was on the right track, so Asa went and destroyed more idols, took over Ephraim, and slaughtered 7000 goats and sheep, excommunicated his grandmother for worshipping a pole instead of his invisible god, and put all the silver and gold that he took from the Cushites into the temple. Because god is apparently a hoarder. Unfortunately for Asa, and fortunately for the people actually doing the fighting, there was no more war for a while. 

Once again, though, near the end of his life, he made a pact with Ben Hadad, the king of Aram, to fuck up Israel. After winning a bunch, god got upset that he asked a fellow king for help instead of asking him (god is super jealous) so he made Asa sick. Asa kept on the same track, going to doctors instead of asking god to fix him. So god killed him. This is the basis for the Christian Scientist religion, who are fucking nut jobs.

His son, Jehosaphat took over. Jehosaphat and god got along pretty well for a while. He tore down more of those weird poles that people were worshipping and made sure everyone in the areas feared the shit out of him. This opened trade with the Arabs and the Philistines. Actually, this just led to the Arabs and the Philistines giving him a bunch of stuff in hoped he wouldn’t slaughter the shit out of them. He built his army to be 1,160,000 men strong. 

Jehosaphat also was connected via marriage to the new king of Israel, Ahab. So there was a small time of peace. But as we remember from past installments. Ahab hated the shit out of prophets, and Jehosaphat was kind of a fan. Apparently, Ahab had sought council with this one prophet, Micaiah and Micaiah swore up and down that god was telling him to attack the Arameans at Ramoth Gilead. Ahab had a bad feeling about this, so Jehosaphat asked Micaiah what was up. Micaiah said, “God told me to tell him that, so he’ll die there in battle.” Ahab found out and had him thrown in prison and Micaiah was just like, “Do whatever you want. You’ll be dead soon, asshole.” 

Sure enough, Ahab and Jehosaphat attacked the Arameans anyways. Ahab convinced Jehosaphat to wear his robes and then disguised himself as a common soldier. The order was given to the Aramean troops. Don’t kill anyone but the king of Israel. They thought Jehosaphat was the israeli king and mistakenly attacked him, but he got away because god liked him. Ahab died by someone shooting an arrow into him by accident. Then he rode away as he bled out and died later on that day. 

Jehosaphat got back to Judah and appointed a bunch of judges. Then he slaughtered a bunch of Moabites and Ammonites. He was doing well keeping all the crazy laws that god had handed down and whatnot, but eventually he made a ship building deal with the new king of Israel named Ahaziah. And god hated Ahaziah, so he cursed all the boats and they all sank. Jehosaphat died and Jehoram took over. 

Jehoram’s first act as king was to slaughter all of his brothers and nephews. Because he was an asshole. He married one of Ahab’s daughters and this pissed god off. But god didn’t wanna kill him, cuz he made a promise to David that he wouldn’t let his bloodline stop ruling in Jerusalem. Kind of a brilliant strategy, actually. Kill all your bloodline, so that god has to keep you alive to keep his promise to someone who’s been dead for over a hundred years. Oh wait. That’s a horrible strategy. A bunch of different sects seceded from him and eventually he died of a hernia. Nobody mourned him. They didn’t even bury him in the tomb of kings. His son Ahaziah took over. A different Ahaziah than the one that was king of Israel. Ahaziah died like right away.

So then there was a power struggle. Athalia, Ahaziah’s mom, decided to kill her entire family, but Jehosheba took her little brother Joash and hid him with his nurse. Athalia ruled for six years (this is the second time ever they’d been ruled by a woman and she was a fucking nut) until Jehoida, this military guy, decided to appoint Joash the new king at age 7. Athalia freaked out about this and yelled, “Treason! Treason!” Jehoida decided to murder her and all of her followers. Joash got right to it at age seven, repaired the temple and trying to get things right with his invisible murderous god. But eventually got bored of that and started worshipping poles and shit. One of the priests asked what the fuck he was doing, so Joash had him murdered by trying him up in the street and having people throw rocks at him until he died. This pissed god off so he allowed the Arameans to fuck up Jerusalem and savagely beat Joash. Then when he was in bed recovering, a bunch of his own officials killed him. 

His son Amaziah became king, and Amaziah’s first act was to kill all the officials who killed his dad. He, heroically, did not kill their sons because it says in the book of law “Don’t kill peoples kids for their own misdeeds.” I don’t know when they implemented this. But that’s good advice. So Amaziah. Built his army up and got things back on track with god, he even hired 100,000 Israelite soldiers but some unnamed prophet told him not to, because god was still mad at Israel. Amaziah got all mad and was like, “What about the money I paid them?” The unnamed prophet just said, “Don’t worry about it. You’ll get a bunch more from pillaging and shit.” Amaziah wandered around conquering shit, but decided to cheat on god, so god let Jehoash the king of Israel sack the shit out of Jerusalem, then Jehoash died, Amaziah lived 15 more years and got murdered by angry citizens. 

Then his son Uzziah took charge at age 16. God liked him so he let him kill a bunch of Philistines. He built epic war machines and killed anyone who fucked with him. But one day he burned incense in the temple and apparently only priests are supposed to do that. When one of them called him out, he got upset and god gave him leprosy. He had to go live as a leper the rest of his life, but still ruled as king somehow. When he died everyone said, “RIP Uzziah. You had leprosy.” 

Then Jotham came and went accomplishing pretty much nothing. Then came Ahaz. Ahaz super pissed off god by sacrificing his own sons too a different god. So god let Israel kill a bunch of his citizens. Because that’s how god punishes people. Ahaz asked the king of Assyria for help, which is never a good idea, andhe king of Assyria showed up and stole a bunch of stuff. Ahaz died and Hezekiah took over. 

Hezekiah fucked up all the statues and poles people were worshipping, killed and set fire to a shitload of animals, and decided to celebrate passover for the first time in what must’ve been a while if it’s even written about.  Everything went well for a while until the new king of Assyria came by and fucked with Jerusalem. Since god liked Hezekiah he sent an angel to kill all the Assyrians and their king was eventually murdered by his own sons. 

Hezekiah died and Manessah and Amon respectively came and went while accomplishing nothing but pissing god off. Then Josiah became the king at age 8. He wanted to get back on track with god. So he found the book of law that had apparently been lost, celebrated passover, and tore down all the poles and statues that pissed god off. Everything was going well until god told Neco, the king of Egypt, to go fuck with them. Josiah confronted Neco on this and Neco was like, “I don’t got any problem with you, but your god told me to fuck this place up.” Josiah wasn’t even having it, so he fought against Neco dressed as a plain clothed soldier and totally got shot with an arrow. Apparently being dressed as a plain clothed soldier when you’re the king will totally get you shot.

A few more kings came and went pissing off god the whole time and eventually this guy Zedekiah came around. He pissed god off too and god just said, “Fuck this shit.” and had the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar fucking destroy Jerusalem and exile all of it’s inhabitants. They stayed in Exile until Cyrus the Persian conquerer fucked up Nebuchadnezzar and told them all to return.