1 Kings

1 Kings is a book filled with divisions. It opens with aged David and Adonijah’s attempt to exalt himself to the throne instead of Solomon. Family divisions and struggles for power are everywhere. Adonijah’s grasp for the kingdom is stopped, and Solomon is established as king by David just before David’s death.
In this painting, Solomon sits on the throne wearing both blue and red. In the upper left corner is David’s funeral bier. In the upper right, Adonijah is executed by Solomon’s henchman, Benaiah. Later, Benaiah also strikes down Joab for the bloodshed of earlier years and Shimei for disobeying the command that had spared his life.
After Solomon’s rule is firmly established, he marries a daughter of Pharaoh. I see yet another division there as well. Pharaoh and his daughter stand at the center left, with her head bowed.
Solomon prayed for wisdom, and God granted him not only wisdom, but also riches and honor. From his throne he rendered many wise judgments. One of the best known is the case of the two women disputing which child belonged to whom. In the painting, the two women and the child in a bassinet sit on the steps below Solomon. A servant beneath them brings the sword that would “divide” the child, until the true mother yields rather than see the child harmed. In that moment Solomon discerns rightly, and all who hear of it recognize that the wisdom of God is at work in him.
Solomon’s wealth, wisdom, and power continued to increase. He made an agreement with King Hiram for timber and materials to build the house of the Lord, the house David had long desired to build. In this picture you can see the gold-covered walls, the winding stairs, the inner holy place with the cherubim overshadowing the ark, the carvings and palm trees, the pillars, the great basin, the lampstands, and the splendor of the temple. You can also see the gifts of apes and peacocks and the abundance of riches that had been gathered and poured into the house of God. Solomon also built a palace for Pharaoh’s daughter with the same costly workmanship.
The house of the Lord was dedicated with enormous sacrifice and seven days of celebration. God told Solomon that if he would walk according to His word, all would go well and God would dwell among His people in the house Solomon had built. Even the Queen of Sheba came to witness Solomon’s wisdom, prosperity, and the glory of the house of God.
And yet Solomon loved too many women, and those women turned his heart toward other gods. If you look at the women throughout the painting, many of them carry idols. God is angered by this, brings adversity against Solomon, and tears the kingdom apart. At the bottom of the picture, Solomon looks upon a divided kingdom, shown by the blue kings on one side and the red kings on the other. I also used them to suggest the succession of many kings that followed.
Then Elijah the prophet appears. He declares that there will be no rain until he says so, and God tells him to hide. He is fed by ravens and given water from a brook until it dries up. After that, he stays with a widow and her son in a foreign city. When the son becomes gravely ill and dies, Elijah prays and stretches himself over the boy, and the child lives again. Through this, the widow comes to believe that Elijah is truly a man of God.
Elijah also proves that the Lord is God and Baal is not, through the test of fire upon the offering. Afterward, he prays seven times and the rain returns. You can see the large drops of rain, with one falling into his hand. Yet I chose to show Elijah with his hand upon the child at the bottom of the painting. Somehow that moment seemed even more important to me than the rain or the fire. Perhaps it is because it stands apart and I do not fully understand it. Why was the prophet sent to save one foreign child while Israel suffered drought and famine? What did that have to do with all the divisions of lands, gods, idols, kings, and wars that followed, even after the fire fell and the rain returned?