Oct 5, 2026 · 11 min · 7 segments
Chapter 1 gives us a conmpetition to succeed King David. Who will be king - Adoniya or Solomon?
Alex IsraelHost
What is this book about? When was it written? What's its themes? So when we look at Sefer Melachim, we are looking at a book that covers about three hundred years of history from the advent of Shlomo HaMelech, King Solomon, till the destruction of the temple.
And according to the rabbis, this was written in fact by or put together by Jeremiah, by the prophet of destruction, by Yirmiyahu HaNavi.
And one of the questions we might want to ask is, you know, what's its agenda? And I'd like to suggest the following.
Sefer Melachim is written from the perspective of the Churban, the destruction, the destruction of our lands, of our sovereignty, when our nation is dispersed in exile by, by the rivers of Babylon, and our sovereignty, our monarchy has been discontinued, the house of David, and the temple is lying burnt in ruins.
What does people do in that situation? How do they, how do they move forward? And maybe the first question they want to ask is, what went wrong? How did we get into this fine mess? Why are we in this situation of national ruin? And that is what this book comes to address.
Sefer Melachim asks the question, what led to the destruction? It actually has a very clear answer, and the answer is, it was a single sin.
And that's why we assess every single king from the king who built the temple, King Solomon, till the final king, assessing every single one of them and asking, did they do something to stop the tide of idolatry, or did they accelerate the tide of idolatry? And that's expressed in a very sort of binary m- yardstick, where if a king advanced idolaty, id- idolatry, vayaseh hara b'einei Hashem, the book tells us he did that which was evil in God's eyes.
We're going to have a, a, a sort of framework, a skeleton of the book where each king is described, how many-- how old they were when they came to the throne, how many years they ruled, whether they followed God or didn't, some basic facts about their rule.
But then we're also going to have certain characters about who we're going to expand greatly.
We're going to meet evil kings like Achav and Menasheh, and righteous kings like Chizkiyahu and Yoshiyahu.
We're going to have challenges, some of which we succeed, and then some which we fail.
We're going to have revolutions and assassinations, and then also the smooth succession of the house of David.
And as always, uh, what is going to happen with these books of Neviim Rishonim is that this is not merely a history book.
This is going to be a prophetic take on history, a prophetic lens which is somehow grafted onto historical events, where we get the spiritual vantage point of Jewish history.
What is this book about? When was it written? What's its themes? So when we look at Sefer Melachim, we are looking at a book that covers about three hundred years of history from the advent of Shlomo HaMelech, King Solomon, till the destruction of the temple.
And according to the rabbis, this was written in fact by or put together by Jeremiah, by the prophet of destruction, by Yirmiyahu HaNavi.
And one of the questions we might want to ask is, you know, what's its agenda? And I'd like to suggest the following.
Sefer Melachim is written from the perspective of the Churban, the destruction, the destruction of our lands, of our sovereignty, when our nation is dispersed in exile by, by the rivers of Babylon, and our sovereignty, our monarchy has been discontinued, the house of David, and the temple is lying burnt in ruins.
What does people do in that situation? How do they, how do they move forward? And maybe the first question they want to ask is, what went wrong? How did we get into this fine mess? Why are we in this situation of national ruin? And that is what this book comes to address.
Sefer Melachim asks the question, what led to the destruction? It actually has a very clear answer, and the answer is, it was a single sin.
And that's why we assess every single king from the king who built the temple, King Solomon, till the final king, assessing every single one of them and asking, did they do something to stop the tide of idolatry, or did they accelerate the tide of idolatry? And that's expressed in a very sort of binary m- yardstick, where if a king advanced idolaty, id- idolatry, vayaseh hara b'einei Hashem, the book tells us he did that which was evil in God's eyes.
We're going to have a, a, a sort of framework, a skeleton of the book where each king is described, how many-- how old they were when they came to the throne, how many years they ruled, whether they followed God or didn't, some basic facts about their rule.
But then we're also going to have certain characters about who we're going to expand greatly.
We're going to meet evil kings like Achav and Menasheh, and righteous kings like Chizkiyahu and Yoshiyahu.
We're going to have challenges, some of which we succeed, and then some which we fail.
We're going to have revolutions and assassinations, and then also the smooth succession of the house of David.
And as always, uh, what is going to happen with these books of Neviim Rishonim is that this is not merely a history book.
This is going to be a prophetic take on history, a prophetic lens which is somehow grafted onto historical events, where we get the spiritual vantage point of Jewish history.
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