Day 174 (1 Kings 12-14) - Year 8

Tara-Leigh Cobble· Host0:00

[upbeat music] Hey, Bible readers. I'm Tara-Leigh Cobble, and I'm your host for The Bible Recap. Two days ago in our reading, Solomon died and his son Rehoboam, or Rei as we're calling him, took over the throne. Today we launch into the reign of the new King Rei. We've got a lot of important stuff to cover today, and it's a big day in Israel's history. So if you're listening at a speed faster than 1X, you may want to slow me down, and you may even want to listen twice to make sure you catch it all. As soon as Solomon died and his son King Rei took the throne, Jeroboam, or Jerry as we're calling him, came back from hiding in Egypt. He fled there because Solomon was trying to kill him because he had received a prophecy that he would be king over 10 of the tribes. So Jerry has come back to Israel to see the fulfillment of this prophecy. Then Jerry gathers a bunch of people to approach King Rei about a problem that had been developing over the last few years, which was Solomon had been so involved in his construction projects that he'd started to treat his workers like slaves. The people know it isn't right, and they ask King Rei to lighten their load a bit. King Rei confers with some of his counselors, and they say the people are right. But he doesn't like their advice, so he asks his buddies for a second opinion. But these guys grew up in the palace with him, and they have no idea what it's like to be a regular person who has to do manual labor. They aren't compassionate, and they have no