The Divided Kingdom

After David died, his son Solomon began to rule. Solomon was a young man when he became king. God spoke to Solomon and promised him that if he was faithful, God would allow him to live to be an old man. God also blessed Solomon by making him very wealthy and giving him great wisdom so that he was the wisest man in the world.

Solomon built the Temple that his father David had planned and gathered materials for. It was a place where everybody could come and worship God and offer sacrifices to Him. God put His presence in the Temple so that He could dwell with His people.

Even though God had warned him not to, Solomon married many wives, almost 1,000 of them! These wives were from many countries. They brought their gods with them and Solomon began to worship those gods.

God was angry and as a punishment for Solomon's unfaithfulness divided the nation of Israel in two.

After Solomon died, his son - Rehoboam - became king. Rehoboam was a foolish man. All the people of Israel came together to make him king. They also complained that Solomon had made them do a lot of hard work and pay a lot of taxes.

Rehoboam answered foolishly and told them, "My little finger is bigger than my father's waist. He whipped you with whips, I will whip you with scorpions!"

So, ten of the tribes of Israel rebelled against Rehoboam. Only two tribes remained faithful to him. These two tribes were called the Kingdom of Judah.

The other 10 tribes that rebelled against Rehoboam made Jeroboam their king. This was called the Kingdom of Israel.

Jeroboam rebelled against God and caused the people to sin. He built two idols so that his people could worship them instead of worshiping God at the Temple, which was located in Jerusalem in the Kingdom of Judah.

Judah and Israel were competing and often fighting against each other.

In Israel, all the kings were evil. Some of them followed God for part of their life, but then worshiped idols for the rest of their life. Many of these kings were killed by other Israelites who wanted to become king in their place.

In Israel, almost all of the people worshiped idols. Frequently idol worship included adultery and sometimes these people would even sacrifice their children to their gods. Many of the people who worshiped the true God left Israel and moved to Judah where they could worship God at the Temple.

The kings of Judah were descendants of David. Some of these kings were good, ruled justly and worshiped God. Most of the kings were evil, corrupt and idol-worshippers. Even though the Temple was located in Jerusalem, the capital city of Judah, many of the kings of Judah did not worship God, some of them even sacrificed their children to their gods. The people of Judah also rebelled against God and worshipped other gods.