A Visual Guide to Bible Events

Solomon chose to turn away from the Lord. Consequently the kingdom David so recently united would be torn apart (1 Kings 11:11–13) during the period referred to in Israel’s history as the Divided Kingdom.

After the days of Solomon, the northern tribes declared their independence from David’s family and retained the name “Israel,” while the southern tribal territories of Benjamin, Judah, and Simeon controlled by David’s heirs adopted the name “Judah.” Israel and Judah each had their own king, capital city, army, and way of responding to the Lord.

The Lord had told Solomon that his kingdom would be taken away because he had turned to the worship of idols. Nevertheless, Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, made a bid to keep the union intact. The location of his coronation was the first sign that this plan was in trouble. We would expect the venue to be Jerusalem, but it happened in Shechem for a reason.

When the northern tribes of Israel declared their independence from Rehoboam, Jeroboam became king of the newly formed Northern Kingdom of Israel, and a civil war began. Aware that his new kingdom was less than secure, Jeroboam established worship sites designed to bypass and compete with God’s Temple in Jerusalem (1 Kings 12:26–33). Jeroboam’s worship sites introduced perversion that tainted each succeeding king and dynasty that ruled the Northern Kingdom. King Ahab and Queen Jezebel were among the most corrupt of those leaders.

Through the prophet Elijah, the Lord called for the subjects of the Northern Kingdom to make a choice. Either they would follow Jezebel and the prophets of Baal or they would return to the Lord. In that light, the prophet Elijah summoned the false prophets to demonstrate the power of God in an event that takes on new meaning when we see that it happened on Mount Carmel.

Despite the efforts of prophets like Elijah, the call to repentance did not lead to a broad and sustained reformation in the north. The result was that the Northern Kingdom was taken into exile more than one hundred years before the Southern Kingdom fell. We will see how geography expedited Assyria’s defeat of Israel and their corresponding deportation from the land.

The Lord had originally called Abraham and his descendants so that all nations would be blessed through them. But their special calling was misunderstood by many, as evidenced by Jonah, the prophet. His response to the Lord’s instructions and particularly his response in choice of travel itinerary provide an illustrative and corrective message as to the purpose of Abraham’s descendants.

The Southern Kingdom withstood the first Assyrian invasion of the Promised Land that brought on the demise of the Northern Kingdom. Yet a few decades later the Assyrians returned with a lesson for Judah. Although King Hezekiah held out in Jerusalem, the invaders besieged and captured all other fortified cities of Judah, including Lachish. And finally, we will see why Lachish was the second most important city in Judah and trace the series of events that led to its fall to the Assyrians.

Tel Dan (view looking northeast).

Phoenician ivories. Assyrian spoils taken from places such as Ahab’s palace at Samaria.
© Dr. James C. Martin. The British Museum.

Samaria palace. Excavated remains of Ahab’s palace in the city of Samaria.

Bethel region. Jeroboam I built an idolatrous worship site at Bethel.

Aerial view of Lachish (view looking northeast). The Assyrian army fought the Israelites of Lachish and then moved against King Hezekiah at Jerusalem.