During the reign of Solomon, the kingdom of Israel reached its pinnacle of glory. Jerusalem shone like a rare jewel in the heart of the ancient world, radiating beauty and power. The fame of the king’s wisdom surpassed borders, attracting caravans from distant lands that brought gold, incense, and exotic animals. Entire nations paid tribute, recognizing the greatness of the kingdom and revering the temple of the Lord, a majestic construction erected with impressive precision that had become the spiritual center of the nation. Prosperity seemed eternal, but as the years advanced, something changed. The heart of Solomon, previously devoted to the God who had placed him on the throne, began to drift away. Entangled by alliances with foreign women, princesses of peoples who worshiped other gods, he yielded to their influence and allowed pagan altars to be erected on high points of the city. Idols such as Ashtoreth, Milcom, and Chemosh began to receive sacrifices, and the perplexed people saw the same king who had built the temple of the living God now tolerate and even participate in idolatry in his own land.
God became deeply indignant. He had already warned Solomon on other occasions not to follow the ways of pagan peoples, but the heart of the king had hardened. Then came the judgment: the kingdom would be divided. However, out of love for David his father, this division would not occur in the days of Solomon, but during the reign of his son. Despite the luxury in the palace, internal tensions grew. The beauty of Jerusalem hid the suffering of many. Taxes weighed like burdens upon the people, and exhausted men were forced to work on the grandiose construction projects of the king. The splendor of the holy city was being built at the cost of the sweat of the northern tribes. Among the servants of Solomon, there was a young man named Jeroboam, singled out for his competence and dedication. He soon caught the attention of the king, who appointed him to supervise the forced labor of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, the descendants of the house of Joseph. His natural talent for leadership did not go unnoticed, not even to spiritual eyes.
One day, while Jeroboam was leaving Jerusalem, he met the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite. They were alone on the road. The prophet was wearing a new cloak and, without saying a word, tore it into twelve pieces in front of him. Then he spoke.
“Take ten pieces for yourself, for thus says the Lord: I am about to tear the kingdom out of Solomon’s hand and give you ten tribes. Only one will be left for his son, for the sake of my servant David and the city I chose, Jerusalem.”
It was a clear and bold message. Jeroboam was destined to govern a large part of Israel, but not at that moment. Solomon still reigned and, upon learning of the prophecy, tried to eliminate the young man. Jeroboam fled to Egypt, where he remained exiled, awaiting the end of the king’s reign. Meanwhile, outwardly, the kingdom still displayed its stability, but inwardly, cracks were growing. Peace was only apparent. The end of an era was approaching.
When Solomon died, his son Rehoboam was crowned in Shechem, a northern city in the territory of Ephraim. Although Jerusalem was the capital, Shechem carried a deep symbolic value for the northern tribes, who wished to make themselves heard. Representatives from all of Israel gathered there to acclaim the new king. Among them was Jeroboam, who had returned from Egypt after the death of the monarch. Now he became the spokesperson for the people of the north. There was not yet a spirit of rebellion. The clamor was for relief. After years under heavy taxes, forced labor, and a centralized government in Jerusalem, the tribes wanted only one thing: justice. Now the people yearned for change, a new time, a new king, and they expected Rehoboam to mark this fresh start with wisdom.
The elders of the north approached with a simple and direct request.
“Your father put a heavy yoke on us. If you now lighten this burden and treat us with justice, we will serve you with loyalty.”
Rehoboam asked for three days to reflect. The decision he would make was not just any choice; the unity of an entire nation was at stake. It was the moment to demonstrate good sense. First, the new king sought counsel from the elders who had served Solomon, men experienced and wise in politics, laws, and dealing with the people. With pondered words, they said.
“If today you present yourself as a servant to this people, if you speak with respect and yield to what they ask, they will be your servants forever.”
It was an orientation based on humility and a vision for the future, but Rehoboam rejected it. Next, he consulted the young men who had grown up alongside him, ambitious but inexperienced men. They advised the exact opposite: show strength, respond with harshness. They told him to say to them.
“My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist. If he punished you with whips, I will scourge you with scorpions.”
Three days later, Rehoboam gathered the people and, in a harsh and authoritarian manner, repeated exactly those words. His tone carried no empathy, only arrogance, and that was the last straw. The northern tribes reacted immediately, proclaiming in a loud voice.
“What share do we have in David? We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse! To your tents, O Israel!”
It was the rupture. A cry of separation echoed among the tribes. The house of David was rejected as leadership over the north. Only Judah and Benjamin remained loyal to the throne of Jerusalem. Rehoboam, surprised and trying to contain the crisis, sent Adoniram, the official responsible for forced labor, to negotiate, but the people stoned him to death. The king had to flee in a hurry in his chariot, escaping with his life by a narrow margin. The division was sealed. Israel would never be the same again. Israel was no longer one single people. The unity had broken in an irreversible way.
With the flight of Rehoboam, the northern tribes quickly reorganized themselves. In an assembly held in Shechem, they proclaimed Jeroboam as king. Thus, the kingdom of the north was born. This new kingdom was formed by ten tribes: Reuben, Simeon, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Ephraim, and Manasseh. Meanwhile, in the south, Rehoboam retained the throne over the kingdom of Judah, composed of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, with Jerusalem as its capital. The separation now was complete, not only political but also spiritual and cultural. Two kingdoms, two governments, two thrones.
However, there was a detail that deeply worried Jeroboam: the temple of the Lord remained in Jerusalem, within the territory of Judah, and every year the Israelites had to go up there to worship. The king feared that, by doing so, the hearts of his subjects would turn again to the house of David, that the nostalgia for unity would grow, and that the people would end up rebelling and returning to Rehoboam. Therefore, Jeroboam decided to consolidate his power, but he did so through disobedience. He ordered the construction of two golden calves. One was placed in Bethel, to the south of his territory; the other in Dan, in the extreme north. He declared to the people.
“Israel, here are your gods who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. There is no more need to go up to Jerusalem.”
In addition, he instituted religious feasts parallel to those of the temple, designated priests who did not belong to the tribe of Levi, and erected shrines in the so-called high places, a practice condemned by the law of the Lord. Although he still used the name of God, Jeroboam was moving further and further away from His commandments.
It was then that God sent a prophet from Judah to Bethel, where Jeroboam was officiating at the altar in the name of the Lord. The man of God cried out against that altar and announced divine judgment: the altar would split apart and the ashes would be scattered as a sign of judgment. Jeroboam, indignant, extended his hand to order that they arrest the prophet, but at that exact instant, his arm became paralyzed. Only after the prophet prayed to God was his hand restored. Even faced with such a clear miracle, Jeroboam did not repent. He continued firm in his ways of idolatry and rebellion. Sin ended up becoming the foundation upon which the northern kingdom was built. Year after year, king after king, the rulers of Israel followed the example of Jeroboam and, with them, dragged the people even deeper into idolatry.
Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, Rehoboam reigned over Judah. Despite preserving the temple and the lineage of David, he also allowed pagan altars to be raised and tolerated practices that offended the Lord. The separation between the two kingdoms was no longer just political; it was spiritual. Both sides began to stray from the path of the God who had liberated them from Egypt. That nation that had once crossed the Red Sea as one single people now walked divided, guided by kings more interested in maintaining power than in obeying the divine will.
It did not take long for the tension between north and south to turn into a threat of war. Rehoboam, noncompliant with the loss of the ten tribes, decided to act. He gathered a powerful army of one hundred and eighty thousand chosen men from Judah and Benjamin. His plan was clear: march against Israel and restore the authority of the house of David over the entire territory. But before the war could begin, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Shemaiah. He was sent to Rehoboam with a firm and direct message.
“Do not go up to fight against your brothers, the sons of Israel. Every one of you return to your house, for this division has come from my will.”
In a surprising way, Rehoboam obeyed. He canceled the attack and dissolved the army. This obedience avoided a civil war at that moment, but the peace that followed was unstable, full of distrust. The roads between the kingdoms were interrupted and alliances were broken. The separation deepened with the passing of the years.
In the north, Jeroboam remained firm in his effort to consolidate the new government. He fortified strategic cities like Shechem and Penuel, moved his court even further from Jerusalem, and established a new center of power with new customs, priests, and rituals. But with these changes came also new difficulties. Many Levites, loyal to the true worship and to the temple in Jerusalem, began to abandon the northern kingdom. They refused to participate in the distorted religious system that Jeroboam had established. It was a silent but profound exodus. Many Levites left the northern kingdom and migrated to Judah. They did not carry only their robes and belongings; they brought with them the knowledge of the sacred service, the reverence for the temple, and the zeal for true worship. Common men and women, moved by faith, also abandoned their houses, their fields, and everything they knew, seeking to worship the Lord with loyalty in Judah.
Rehoboam initially showed himself zealous. He strengthened the walls of Jerusalem, erected fortified cities, and reorganized the army to protect his people. During the first years, there was an effort to preserve the spiritual identity of the nation, but time brought complacency. The flame of loyalty began to go out slowly. Rehoboam allowed the installation of shrines on hills, sacred poles, and pagan practices throughout the territory of Judah. Even being closer to the temple, the heart of the nation was beginning to be spiritually contaminated. The war that was being waged was not only with spears and swords; it was a battle for the soul of the people, for their worship, for their loyalty to the God who had taken them out of Egypt. Both the north and the south claimed to be the true heirs to the promise of God, but gradually both moved away from the covenant established at Sinai.
The rivalry between the two kingdoms transformed into a continuous cycle of conflicts. Wars broke out frequently, troops crossed borders, cities were plundered, and thousands of lives were lost. Those who had once marched side by side under the leadership of Moses now looked at each other as enemies. The people of God were divided, not only by territories or kings, but by pride, fear, and disobedience. The wound of the separation never healed, and every choice made by the leaders only deepened the pain. The nation that had been called to be a light among the nations now stumbled in the darkness of its own division. The decisions of the kings only deepened the division. The conflict that had begun with words and threats now gained deep roots, and its echo would resound for many generations.
With the passing of the years, Jeroboam and Rehoboam grew old on their respective thrones: Jeroboam in the northern kingdom of Israel and Rehoboam in the southern kingdom of Judah. Although they shared a common history, the same language, and the heritage of Abraham, their spiritual paths moved further apart each year. In the north, Jeroboam governed driven by insecurity, always fearing to lose control. He made decisions motivated by fear. The alternative system of worship that he had created, with altars in Bethel and Dan, golden calves, and priests who did not belong to the tribe of Levi, became a normal part of the religious life of the people. What began as a political tactic became an institutionalized false religion. The pilgrimages to Jerusalem ceased. The feasts of the Lord were replaced by distorted celebrations, adapted to the new model.
But God had not abandoned His people. He began to raise up prophets in the midst of the northern kingdom, voices that clamored against idolatry, injustice, and the departure from the covenant. Jeroboam, however, hardened his heart. He ignored the warnings and persecuted those who questioned his spiritual authority. His reign began in rebellion and ended the same way, openly defying the commandments of God. When he died, his son Nadab inherited the throne, but the political instability that Jeroboam had sown would not take long to show its consequences.
Meanwhile, in the south, Rehoboam also moved away from the ways of the Lord. After an initial period of spiritual reforms encouraged by the Levites and priests who had migrated from the north, both the king and the people began to neglect the law. Altars in high places emerged everywhere. Images of idols were erected. The worship of Ashtoreth and other foreign deities spread. In some regions, pagan rituals accompanied by impure practices took place within the very territory of Judah. The people who had been chosen to be a light among the nations were fading out, led by leaders who had traded loyalty for convenience.
It was then that the judgment of God manifested itself in a visible way. In the fifth year of the reign of Rehoboam, Pharaoh Shishak of Egypt marched against Judah with an imposing army. The fortified cities were conquered, and the threat advanced straight toward Jerusalem. Faced with the crisis, Rehoboam and his leaders prostrated themselves in fear and recognized their error. They humbled themselves before the Lord. The prophet Shemaiah then brought a word from God.
“Because you have humbled yourselves, I will not destroy you completely, but you will be delivered to Egypt as servants, so that you may learn the difference between serving me and serving foreign kings.”
Even so, the judgment was severe. Shishak entered Jerusalem and plundered the temple of the Lord and the royal palace. He took with him the treasures accumulated during the reign of Solomon, including the famous golden shields that decorated the court. In response, Rehoboam ordered the manufacturing of new shields, this time of bronze—a simpler, almost symbolic substitution that revealed a harsh reality: the glory of Judah was vanishing. Both kingdoms, Israel to the north and Judah to the south, were treading the same path. Although politically separated, they shared the same sin. They had stopped trusting fully in the Lord. The division that had begun as a power dispute now was sustained by a deep spiritual corruption. The chosen people were split on the outside and broken on the inside.
But even in the midst of political chaos and the decadence of faith, God did not remain silent. While kings failed and the people lost their way, the Lord began to raise up a new voice among the sons of Israel: the prophets. They did not come from palaces nor from priestly lineages; they did not wear crowns nor wield swords, but they were common men chosen by God to speak in His name with divine authority. In the northern kingdom, these voices began to echo with strength. The prophets emerged as a holy nuisance, denouncing idolatry, corruption, and injustice. They stood up to remind the people who the true king was and what the path back was. Although the messages of the prophets were often rejected, their presence could not be ignored.
One of these striking figures was a man of God who came from Judah to Bethel in the northern kingdom. In a bold prophetic act, he stood before the altar built by Jeroboam and proclaimed in a loud voice.
“O altar, altar! Thus says the Lord: A son named Josiah will be born to the house of David. On you he will sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn incense here!”
It was a prophecy that looked to future generations, but it made clear right then that God did not approve of the path that Israel had taken. As a sign that this word was true, the altar split apart in front of everyone and the ashes fell to the ground. Jeroboam, infuriated, extended his hand to order the arrest of the prophet, but at that instant his arm became paralyzed, immobile. Only after crying out to the prophet and asking for prayer was his arm restored. Even so, his heart remained hardened. Jeroboam did not repent, persisted in his sins, and dragged Israel even further away from the Lord.
Meanwhile, in the south, in Judah, the prophets also began to rise up. Rehoboam, who in times of war had listened to the voice of Shemaiah, now became deaf to the appeals of heaven. Even so, the prophetic tradition was being established. The prophets did not speak only of judgment; they also announced hope. They proclaimed that, even in the midst of rebellion, God had not broken His covenant, that there would be restoration for the people if there were repentance, and that the promised Messiah, the son of David, would still come at the right time. These words began to circulate discreetly from city to city, passing from mouth to mouth. Although many despised the prophets, there were those who listened to them with reverence. Pious men and women began to take refuge in the word of the Lord. Hidden from the corrupted system, they kept true worship alive and taught their children in the faith of their ancestors. God was preparing a remnant. In the midst of idolatry, chaos, and moral decadence, a small loyal group remained standing. And while the two kingdoms followed their trajectory of corruption and pride, this people, often invisible to the eyes of the world, kept the promise alive. The Lord, in His faithfulness, kept a small flame lit. Not all was lost. Although the nation was fragmenting, the word of God still remained alive. It was the beginning of a new era, the time of the prophets, who would be the voice of conscience in a divided people, but a people still deeply loved by God.
After the death of Jeroboam, the political situation in the northern kingdom plunged even further into instability. His son Nadab assumed the throne, but his reign was brief. In the second year, he was assassinated by Baasha, a military commander who took power by force. Next, Baasha exterminated the entire house of Jeroboam, thus fulfilling the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite. This pattern of assassinations, coups d’état, and short reigns became the new normal in Israel. Unlike Judah, where the dynasty of David remained firm, the throne of Israel was unstable, changing hands violently—a reflection of the moral and spiritual chaos that dominated the nation.
Baasha reigned for twenty-four years but followed the same ways of Jeroboam. He maintained the golden calves, preserved idolatry, and ignored the repeated warnings of the Lord. Then God raised up the prophet Jehu, son of Hanani, who came with a harsh message.
“Just as I did with the house of Jeroboam, I will do with yours, because you led Israel to sin. Your descendants will be exterminated.”
And so it happened. The son of Baasha, Elah, ascended the throne but reigned for only two years before being killed by Zimri, another commander of the army. In his attempt to take power, Zimri exterminated the entire house of Baasha, but his own reign lasted only seven days. The people, already tired of treasons, bloodshed, and instability, turned to Omri, a high-ranking commander, and supported him as king. When he realized that he would be defeated, Zimri locked himself in the royal palace and, in a desperate act, set fire to the building, dying in the flames.
Omri managed to stabilize the kingdom for a time. He was a strong military leader and skilled in politics. He founded a new capital, Samaria, situated on a strategic hill that provided natural protection and commercial access. However, spiritually he brought no advancement; on the contrary, he aggravated the situation even more. Omri strengthened the pagan system created since the days of Jeroboam. Idolatry grew. The nation continued its march toward judgment, even under apparent stability. After Omri, his son Ahab assumed the throne of Israel, and his reign would mark one of the darkest periods in the history of the people of God.
Ahab did not stop at the golden calves introduced by Jeroboam; he went further. He officially established the worship of Baal, a Canaanite deity associated with fertility and rain. His wife, Jezebel, daughter of the king of Tyre, was a fervent devotee of this pagan worship and became one of the most dangerous and influential figures in the kingdom. Under her influence, the prophets of the Lord were brutally persecuted. Many were killed; others hid. The name of Yahweh was silenced while altars of Baal multiplied throughout the land. The northern kingdom experienced military growth and economic prosperity, but behind this facade of stability hid a deep moral corruption, an irreversible spiritual decadence. Israel looked strong on the outside but was falling apart on the inside.
It was in this scenario that God raised up one of His greatest messengers: Elijah the Tishbite. His name carried the message that Israel had forgotten: my God is the Lord. Without prior warning, Elijah appeared before the throne of Ahab with a bold declaration.
“As surely as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next years, except at my word.”
With this word, the heavens closed. The fields dried up, rivers disappeared, and a devastating famine spread throughout the kingdom. It was as if the land were in mourning, deprived of its fertility, waiting for repentance, but it did not come. Ahab, instead of recognizing the judgment of God, turned his fury against Elijah, accusing him of being the cause of the disaster. But the prophet was hidden by God. First, God led him to the Kerith Ravine, where ravens sent from heaven brought him bread and meat every day. When the brook dried up, Elijah was guided to Zarephath, a small village outside of Israel, where a poor widow, through a continuous miracle, began to sustain him. The flour and the oil of that house never ran out.
For three and a half years, the sky remained closed. The people suffered. The idols did not respond. Baal, the supposed god of rain, remained in silence, and the silence screamed: Yahweh is the true God! It was then that the Lord spoke again to Elijah, sending him back to King Ahab after years of drought and silence. It was time for confrontation. Elijah issued a challenge to the king.
“Assemble all the people of Israel on Mount Carmel, along with the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.”
What happened there would become one of the most remarkable moments in the spiritual history of Israel. In front of a crowd gathered on the slopes of the mountain, Elijah raised his voice and asked a question that traversed the centuries.
“How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is god, follow him!”
The challenge was launched. The prophets of Baal prepared their altar, placed the sacrifice, and began to cry out from morning until evening. They shouted, danced, and cut themselves with knives, imploring that Baal send fire from heaven, but there was no response, no voice, no sign. Elijah then approached calmly. He rebuilt the altar of the Lord with twelve stones, one for each tribe of Israel, placed the wood in order, prepared the sacrifice, and gave an unusual order.
“Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood.”
And they did this three times, until everything was completely drenched and water filled the trench around it. Then Elijah raised his eyes and prayed.
“Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command.”
At that same instant, the fire of the Lord fell from heaven. It consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, the soil, and even licked up the water in the trench. It was an overwhelming demonstration of the power of the true God. The people fell with their faces to the ground and shouted in unison.
“The Lord—he is God! The Lord—he is God!”
The prophets of Baal were judged and killed that very day. Next, Elijah went up to the top of the mountain and prayed again. On the horizon, a small cloud emerged, the size of a man’s hand, and in a short time the entire sky filled with clouds. The rain finally fell. The drought that had lasted three and a half years came to an end. God had spoken. God had answered with fire. God had restored fear in the heart of the people.
But the story does not end there. When Jezebel learned of what had happened on Carmel, of the death of her prophets and the humiliation of her god, she swore to kill Elijah. The prophet who had faced kings and crowds now became a fugitive. But God had not yet finished His work. Elijah fled to the desert, exhausted and downcast. He felt completely alone after the great confrontation on Carmel. Now it was silence that surrounded him. The threat of Jezebel threw him into a deep valley of discouragement. Under a broom bush, he asked God to take his life, but the Lord in His grace sustained him with bread baked by angels and fresh water. In the middle of nowhere, guided by God, Elijah walked forty days and nights to Mount Horeb, the mountain of God. There, sheltered in a cave, he waited for a new direction.
And then the Lord manifested Himself, but He did not come in the strong wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire. He came in a gentle whisper, in the silence broken only by the breeze. God spoke to the heart of Elijah.
“You are not alone.”
There were still seven thousand in Israel whose knees had not bowed to Baal and whose mouths had not kissed him. God always preserves a remnant, even when everything seems lost.
While the northern kingdom experienced explosive spiritual confrontations, with Elijah being the prophetic voice of resistance, in the south, in Judah, the decline also advanced in a more silent but constant manner. After the death of Rehoboam, his son Abijah assumed the throne. He reigned for only three years; he had moments of military bravery, but his heart was not fully faithful to the Lord. After him came Asa, and with him Judah lived a time of spiritual renewal. Asa removed idols, destroyed pagan altars, and even had the courage to depose his own grandmother from the position of queen mother because she had made a shameful image for worship. His faithfulness was honored by God, and for many years there was peace in Judah.
But in the final years of his life, Asa began to trust more in human alliances than in divine direction. Faced with a threat from the northern kingdom, he preferred to seek help from the king of Syria instead of seeking the Lord. Because of this, the prophet Hanani confronted him with a harsh message. Instead of humbling himself, Asa became infuriated, ordered the prophet to be imprisoned, and began to oppress part of the people. His end was marked by stubbornness and pride. Upon his death, his son Jehoshaphat inherited the throne, and with him would come a new chapter in the history of Judah—of risky alliances, but also of miracles and renewed dependence.
Jehoshaphat was a king who feared God. During his reign, he strengthened the teaching of the law of the Lord throughout Judah and promoted significant spiritual reforms. He sent Levites and priests to teach in the cities, established justice as a central value, and led the people to a time of peace, stability, and respect among the neighboring nations. But even godly kings can make mistakes, and Jehoshaphat committed two that would have deep consequences.
The first was a family alliance with the house of Ahab. His son Jehoram married Athaliah, daughter of Ahab and Jezebel. This union linked the throne of Judah to the idolatrous heart of the northern kingdom. The spiritual poison that Jezebel had spread in Israel now began to infiltrate silently into Judah. The second error was military. Jehoshaphat accepted to march with Ahab in a war campaign against Ramoth-Gilead, even after a prophet of the Lord had warned that the alliance was imprudent. On the battlefield, Ahab died from an apparently random arrow, but one charged with judgment. Jehoshaphat escaped with his life by divine mercy. Upon returning to Jerusalem, he was confronted by the prophet Jehu, son of Hanani, with a harsh and direct word.
“Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord? Because of this, the wrath of the Lord is on you.”
Even so, Jehoshaphat repented and turned his efforts again to the restoration of what was right. He reinforced spiritual institutions and restructured the courts, appointing judges in all the fortified cities of Judah. To each of them, he reminded.
“Consider carefully what you do, because you are not judging for mere mortals but for the Lord.”
At the end of his life, despite his errors, Jehoshaphat left a legacy of fear of God and a solid spiritual structure. However, after his death, his son Jehoram ascended the throne, and with him came ruin. Influenced by his wife Athaliah, Jehoram broke completely the covenant of faithfulness with the Lord. To guarantee his position, he assassinated all his own brothers, eliminating any possible rival from the lineage of David. Next, he restored idolatry in Judah, following the same perverse steps of the house of Ahab. The kingdom that Jehoshaphat had strengthened spiritually now began to bow before the idols that had once been destroyed.
The judgment of God did not delay. During the reign of Jehoram, a revolt broke out among the Philistines and the Arabs. They invaded Judah, plundered the royal palace, and carried away the treasures and the sons of the king. Jehoram was left wounded physically and spiritually. A painful disease consumed him from the inside out until his death, and when he died, he was not honored; the people did not mourn him. His reign, marked by treason, idolatry, and blood, ended in shame. Judah, which had experienced moments of renewal and hope under kings like Asa and Jehoshaphat, now began to tread a dark path, poisoned by alliances with the north and by the influences of Jezebel and her house. The division that in the beginning was only political had become spiritual. Sin infiltrated the structures, the customs, and even the worship. Both Israel and Judah followed their ways, not only separated by geographical borders, but by their posture before the God of the covenant.
In the northern kingdom, the succession of kings became a vicious cycle of violence, idolatry, and corruption. Thrones were taken by force, royal families were exterminated, and with each new government, the people sank a little deeper. Even so, God did not give up. In His mercy, He raised up prophets who clamored for repentance—men like Jonah, Amos, and Hosea. They denounced injustice, spiritual adultery, the exploitation of the poor, and false religiosity, and they pointed to the judgment that would come. But the people did not want to listen. They mixed with the pagan nations around them, abandoned the law, and worshiped idols of wood and stone, trading the truth of the living God for empty rituals. They forgot who took them out of Egypt, who opened the sea, and who gave them the promised land. Divine patience was great, but it was not eternal.
One of the most tragic moments in all the history of Israel occurred during the reign of Hoshea, the last king of the northern kingdom. By this time, Israel was already only a shadow of what it had been, weakened, corrupted from within, and constantly subjugated by Assyria, a rising power on the world stage. Finally, in the year 722 BC, the Assyrian Empire, led by Shalmaneser and later by Sargon II, besieged the capital, Samaria. The siege lasted three long years. When it finally fell, it was not just a military defeat; it was the end of a nation. The northern kingdom, which had been born out of rebellion and had rejected the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, was dissolved. Thousands of Israelites were deported to distant lands, to Halah, Gozan on the Habor River, and in the towns of the Medes. In their place, the Assyrians brought foreigners to repopulate the region. From this mixture arose a new people, the Samaritans, who did not know the God of Israel and practiced a syncretistic faith, mixing pagan rituals with fragments of the law.
The cause of this judgment was clear: the people had abandoned the covenant. Hoshea, Amos, and so many other prophets had warned them, but they were ignored. The book of Kings itself records with clarity: the Lord removed Israel from His presence, as He had warned through all His servants the prophets.
In the south, in Judah, the tragedy was observed with fear, but the winds of disobedience also blew there. After Jehoram came Ahaziah, followed by Athaliah, the only woman who usurped the throne of Judah. Determined to destroy the Davidic lineage, she persecuted the royal descendants, but God preserved His promise. The little baby Joash was saved and hidden in the temple by Jehoiada the priest. When Joash grew up, he was proclaimed king and, under the influence of Jehoiada, tried to restore true worship. But even with occasional reforms, idolatry always returned. The people turned to the Lord only for a time; their hearts remained divided. God once again sent prophets, now to Judah. Men like Isaiah and Micah raised their voice, clamoring to the people.
“If you do not repent, you will suffer the same fate as Israel!”
The division that began centuries earlier with Solomon and Jeroboam had become an eternal sign: when the people of God move away from their Lord, they lose their identity, their purpose, and their destiny. But even faced with so much ruin, the land was not yet lost. God had made a promise, an eternal covenant with David: you will never fail to have a successor on the throne. The northern kingdom had disappeared. Judah soon would be taken into exile, Jerusalem would be plundered, the temple destroyed, and the people dispersed among the nations, but the lineage of David would survive, and with it, a silent hope continued to shine even in the midst of judgment, because God never forgets His promises. The silence of God is never abandonment; it is preparation. One day, from this broken lineage, a different king would be born—not one who would reign only over Judah, nor only over Israel, but over all nations. A king who would come not to divide, but to unite; not to dominate by force, but to govern with justice, mercy, and truth. His name: Jesus, the promised Messiah. He came not just to restore an earthly throne, but to establish an eternal kingdom that will never be destroyed.
