There were altogether forty-one kings in the history of Israel. The first three, Saul, David, and Solomon, reigned over the entire people of Israel. Nineteen kings, from Rehoboam to Zedekiah (not counting the illegitimate reign of Athaliah — 2 Kings 11:1-16), reigned over Judah in the south, and nineteen, from Jeroboam to Hoshea, reigned over Israel in the north. Among these forty-one kings, nine, including David, were comparatively good in the eyes of God. Thirty, including Saul, were evil in the sight of God. Two, Solomon and Jehu, were partly good and partly evil.

The root of the evil of the evil kings, like that of the evil of the people of Israel, was their forsaking the very God as the fountain of living waters and their turning away to the pagan idols as broken cisterns that hold no water (Jer. 2:13). These two evils drowned them in the death waters of idolatry, of the indulgence of lusts, and of injustice in shedding the blood of the innocent. Their evils offended their God to such an extent that He would not turn His anger from them but cast them off, first into the hands of the Assyrians ( 2 Kings 17:6) and then into the hands of the Babylonians ( 2 Kings 24:10-20; 25:1-21), who destroyed and burned the holy temple and the holy city, carried away into captivity the holy people to a pagan land of idol worship, and desolated the Holy Land for seventy years (Jer. 25:11). Thus, they, as God’s elect, lost the enjoyment of the God-given good land and, instead of remaining the citizens of God’s kingdom in the Holy Land, became captives in a heathen land.

All the kings should have had a thorough realization that they were to be kings who ruled not for their own interest and prosperity but for God’s eternal economy, that God could have a nation on the earth to keep the land of Immanuel (Isa. 8:8) for Christ’s reign and a people for a genealogy to bring Christ to the earth. For this purpose the kings had to be Nazarites, who take God as their Head, their authority, who submit themselves to Him as His servants, and who abandon all the pleasures (wines) of the world (see note Num. 6:3^1a). But all the kings failed God in this, including David, the best one among them (2 Sam. 11). Thus, they did not fulfill God’s purpose for His economy. Rather, they lost their reign in God’s kingdom, which is the top portion of the enjoyment of the good land (the all-inclusive Christ — see note Deut. 8:7¹).

The tragic result of such a pitiful history of the kings among God’s chosen and blessed elect should be a serious warning to us, God’s elect in the New Testament age, and should indicate to us how sober we should be to take heed to the particular points of each case. Just to be one who is according to God’s heart, like David, and just to be partly right and good in the eyes of God, like many honest Christians today, do not qualify us to partake of Christ in full and to enjoy all the rights in Him that we may adequately become the church as the Body of Christ and as the kingdom of God and of Christ. Conformity to Christ’s death by the power of His resurrection (Phil. 3:10) is required of us, the New Testament overcomers, that we may die to ourselves, our natural man, and live to God in resurrection. A life of living Christ, magnifying Christ, and moving and acting with Christ by the bountiful supply of the all-inclusive, life-giving Spirit, doing everything in and according to the Spirit (Phil. 1:19-21a; Gal. 5:16, 25; Rom. 8:4), is indispensable for us, God’s New Testament seekers, to be winners in the racecourse of the divine life that we may fully enjoy Christ as the God-given good land in the church age and be gloriously rewarded to partake of Christ, in the fullest sense, in the kingdom age (1 Cor. 9:24-27; Phil. 3:12-14).

Lit., his.