2 Chronicles 14-20; 26; 30 Part 1 • Sister Heather Farrell • July 20-26 • Come, Follow Me

I think one of the things that we think so often in the ancient world is that women are always oppressed and they always didn't have a voice

That is a hundred percent not true in the ancient world. There are some mighty mighty women who do a lot of incredible things and a lot of influence and power

“I think we have those examples here in the kings of Tudah”

Hello my friends welcome to another episode follow him my name is Hank Smith. I'm your host. I'm here with John by the way Whose heart is tender John? That's absolutely true. No, it really is you have a tender heart in fact You weep more easily than you used to. It's embarrassing. I have been taking my a tour of a statin So my heartening of the arteries is softening just talking about hearts makes me Miss president Nelson. I hope to have a tender heart

Now, I don't know if you've ever heard that, but it's in second chronicles chapter 34 verse 27 The Lord is speaking about King Josiah. He says your heart is tender and you did humble yourself before God I thought that's John by the way John, we are privileged today to have with a sister Heather Farrell. Heather. Welcome to follow him Thank you for having me. I'm so excited. We are excited to have you

John, this is the perfect guess for this lesson is Heather and I connected She's like I love this part of the Bible, which is not an easy person to find who's like chronicles That is my favorite

“John, when you think of chronicles, what do you think of one of the first things I think of is that we didn't cover this in”

2022 Four years ago it wasn't even in the Come follow me manual. There are some things that repeat in the kings and the chronicles and some of the Old Testament books How exciting that we get at this time and we get somebody who's excited about it? I'm looking forward to this. Yeah, me, too

There are some of the most amazing stories of women in chronicles. There's a couple really amazing women that

Get their stories told in kings, but again in Chronicles, well, and it just gives you more details. I'm excited to talk about them I also am excited because the book is a story of family history It's the story of the Dividic line. We get about 20 generations of kings and their stories I love that because I think it's so applicable to when we look at our own family histories and how

Righteousness or Covenants are passed down. I'm excited to talk about the idea of Passing down Covenants to the next generation and how that works and how women are involved in that as well Like you can see that in the stories of these kings Their mothers are mentioned almost every time the women have a place and passing down those Kevinants The title is our eyes are upon the and there's some amazing stories about

People who are up against Big odds about things that are posts of armies things that they can't conquer It's all about turning to the Lord having him fight your battles for you Having him take the reins and as the Christian songs says still my show. He's still the show with all these things And I love these stories because I've had times in my life when I felt that when I felt God

Stepping in impossal situations and working miracles for me I love those stories as well. So I'm excited to talk about all that

“John it never ceases to amaze me how I think of a book of the Bible almost anything inscriptions sometimes”

I think oh, yeah, it's fine. It's great. Then we get the right person And they light it up. It happens so often on this show We must be getting some help from somewhere. Huh, but I think you did flick the right person and good job It's incredible. How many times will we walk away going? Well now I see that entirely differently

John Heather has never been on our show before so we need to know all about her. My favorite part of Heather's bio

Is that when she was 11 years old, she had such a love for the scriptures. She used to use a flashlight hide under her blankets and read the Old Testament at night Now Hank how often have you ever awake and Sarah? I'm afraid our kids or under their covers. We need the Old Testament Yeah, we've got to get down there and see we got to get down there. This is the most stop now

My dad actually feels really embarrassed about that part of my bio that I put that in because it's like it makes me sound like I didn't want you being scriptures, but the truth was is that I thought that it was weird that I was 11 I wanted to read the scriptures. I thought that's weird nobody wants to do that. So I have if I thought a little bit I got to hide it I just wanted to say it but late Anyway, I was a Tom dad. It's not because you know, let me read the scriptures

But because I knew it was weird It's like the middle ages when the Bible's in legal. She's high That is our kind of weird here. I'm following I want to read my Old Testament under the covers. Also, Heather's oldest son was born around Christmas time

And started researching other women hundreds of women in the scriptures that had very little written about them

“Then she started sharing what she had learned on her website which is women in the scriptures. Come”

She's the author of the Walking with the Women in Scripture series God comes to women and the co-author of the gift of giving life Rediscovering the Divine Nature of pregnancy and birth. She has a bachelor's degree from BYU a master's degree in Wait for this Hank the Bible and the ancient Near East from Hebrew University of Jerusalem She lived in Jerusalem for a couple years getting this done

They had a wonderful time better now from Pukutelo, Idaho Which is a lot like Jerusalem if you look just right Heather, we're glad you're back and we're glad to have you did you bring your flashlight I have one on my phone Thank you. I'm so honored to be here

Yeah, we are going to have a lot of fun Let's start with the company manual and then Heather John and I are ready to turn it over to you Learn and fill up our scriptures with notes and learn to love these books as much as you do Hank, I want you when you read the company manual today to use your movie trailer voice because this sounds like a movie trailer I've heard you do that before when you read Isaiah in the Bible dictionary one man alone

So here's another good one right here. Okay. Okay. This is beautiful. Maybe I'll I'll use this now on in my classes The kingdom of Judah was surrounded

Armies from three powerful animations were all advancing at once prepared for battle in this desperate moment of need

Jehosefac king of Judah turned to the king of heaven and earth Jehosefac gathered his people at the temple and prayed he acknowledged their human weakness and pleaded for deliverance In response the Lord promised his protection for you're not No, be dismayed

We may not have an invading army at our doorstep threatening to destroy us But sometimes we do feel surrounded by adversity and evil our path to deliverance is the same one Jehosefac sought and our prayer can be like his two oh our god We have no mind against this great company that come with against us neither know we what to do But our eyes are upon thee

In second chronicles you will read about Jehosefac and other kings of Judah

Consider how their faith driven reforms victories and challenges can apply to your own life

“Wonderful. I'm excited to do that. Okay Heather. How do you want to start?”

I thought it'd be nice to start out with a little bit of intro to Chronicles since people aren't Gonna be familiar with the book. It's not when we know a lot about Chronicles in the Hebrew Bible is actually one book It's not split into first and second chronicles the whole book was written together as one book But because it's so long in the Torah scrolls it's two Torah scrolls and different scrolls

So there's first Chronicles on one scroll and then second chronicles on another scroll It is how we get the division and it divides pretty much King David stories

is first Chronicles then his sons and grand sons and all the family history of David comes in the second scroll

The order that we have of our scriptures is a Christian ordering of it in the Hebrew Bible Chronicles is the very last book so it's seen as a Summary book. We'd stick them right next to each other like kings and then Chronicles by the time Get to Chronicles you're like wait tonight just read all these stories already because you hear a lot of the same ones At the end the author Chronicles was writing a bit of a summary of the story of David

He has two main themes or ideas that are really important because whoever wrote it He writes about the Jews going back to Jerusalem after the Persians with Cyrus when he lets them go back We know that he wrote it quite a ways after he's looking back and his main message that he really wants to get across is two things

The importance of the Davidic line the line of kings that come through David who ultimately are going to end in the Messiah That looking forward for the hope of the Messiah and the miracles and The importance of that line and everything that happened to get it to where it is and also the hope for the temple He really wants to focus the people's eyes towards the temple Maybe he was writing a time when they were going back to build the temple and he wants people to be focused on the temple

“I think that's one of the two main themes there is that theme of the Dividic line and the Messiah and then also a focus on the temple”

Heather, I have two questions one you use the term Hebrew Bible there could be a listener out there who thinks is my Bible the Hebrew Bible? What do you mean by that? Yes, so literally the Bible in Hebrew the Jews call it the Tenak It has all of the same books as the Old Testament, but they're in different orders

Bible in Hebrew that was written in Hebrew the Tenak and tried to follow along with your King James version You would get lost where your books are and where verses are because that's not the same order All the contents the same but the order is different There might be someone out there who doesn't know that Jews don't believe in Jesus and this is their Bible What we call the Old Testament is their Bible. In fact, if I was talking to one of my Jewish friends

I probably wouldn't call it the Old Testament Write you to call it the Hebrew Bible or the Tenak or his people will call it the Torah

But the Torah is only really the first five books of Moses the Tenak is all the stories that we have

So Christians call it the Old Testament

“Right and then my other question was someone who's familiar with the Book of Mormon could they think of the author of chronicles kind of like Mormon?”

Way in the future writing about the past Telling the stories of the past Yeah, I think that's a really good way to think about it because he obviously has records that he's pulling from He talks about different Records of the Kings and different records that have been kept

He's not writing from the time that they happen. He's writing from a time when he can look back and reflect kind of like Mormon puts in his own Presception of what happened the author chronicles also gives us his own guidance Our opinion on what happens why Jerusalem's destroyed why did Jews go into exile? Why? They lose the temple he's looking back and saying this is what happened Kind of a story and end of teacher like Mormon

Hank, thanks for asking that question so the Torah is the first five books

But add the rest and that's the Tenuk

“Do those words mean something or is it just a proper name?”

The Tenuk is abbreviation so you have the Torah which is the ta part and then you have the nah Which is the neveim the prophets and then you have the ke which is ketuvim Which is the writings so they divide it into three different sections the Torah which is the book of Moses Then they have the prophets All the different books of the prophets and then they have the books that are considered the writings like that

Psalms and Proverbs and lamentations Ruth and Daniel the stories of type of stories that aren't Prophets so it's divided into those three different ways and then the word Tenuk is A abbreviation of all three of those that's where they get the word Tenuk is for those three different sections of the book John maybe ours would be bibbom

Duckbop Exactly what I was just thinking We'll just stick with the choir

“We used to call it when I was on my mission we'd say do you have your sticks like stick of Joseph stick of Judah”

We just started calling it club just shortening and grab your club. I'm gonna get this to catch on you guys the big bomb That pop

Heather what do you want to do next? I wanted to share the last verse of chronicles if you go to the very end of second chronicles

Which is chapter 36 This is the story of Cyrus He's the king of Persia throughout this we have Egypt as the world power Then it moves to this Syrians are the world power and the Babylonians

Take over this Syrians and become the world power for a short time for just a little bit of time Then the Persians conquer the Babylonians So they inherit all of their Captives and their people so Iris when he becomes king he has kind of a different political philosophy than the other Civilizations so Egyptians were very much when they conquered people they would take people as

Vassal states they would extract forced labor and tribute from those areas This Syrians were pretty cruel in their conquering and their idea was to come in and to Have policies of nasty partations they knew that the tribes they're coming into were very Tribal and family-based and they wanted to break up that they didn't want people to be able to get back together So they came in not just in Israel but in other places that was their political philosophy of how to conquer people was to come in and

Cut up groups and take families and split them up so that they couldn't ever reform and get their power back The Babylonians were a little bit not as cruel. I mean, they're still not really nice, but they have a different idea Them the Syrians their ideas that they will come in and they want to break up the leadership They leave all the poor people in Wherever they conquer they're not really interested in the poor people the anybody who is

Skilled or educated or noble or hasn't type of influence they take them and they take them to Babylon So they will almost make kind of like an enclave of different nations with in Babylon to serve or to have the skills Those craftsmen and all that things to help serve the Babylonians in Babylon and so it's kind of like when some of the Jews go to Babylon It's almost like they made a Chinatown or a little Italy type place like a group where they could keep their religion preserved and their identity preserved, but they were in Babylon

They have their religion they preserved their Torah and their Tanakh He kind of has maybe more of a imperial mindset than some of the other ones did maybe something more akin to the Romans or Some of the future empires that we think about where he's okay if other people keep their gods And if they have their different ways of religion he's okay if you believe and you practice your religion He just wants you to pay him taxes

So he tells the Jews there he's like I'll send you back You can go back to Jerusalem. You can go back home. You can read the temple He's a good diplomat and he wants him to be happy. He wants to have these loyal States that are going to pay him taxes He allows them to go back and read the temple. I tell my students that King Cyrus had a time machine

He came to our time got a copy of how to win friends and influence people took it back Because he does seem different from everybody else Yeah, he's something unique The very last verse of Chronicles chapter 36 verse 23 is King Cyrus speaking to the Jews

“I just want you to remember that this is the very last”

Verse this verse has a lot of importance for Jews It deals with the temple John would you like to read that verse yeah, sure second Chronicles 36 verse 23 Thus saith Cyrus King of Persia all the kingdoms of the earth has the Lord God of heaven given me And he has charged me to build him and house in Jerusalem Which is in Judah who is there among you of all his people the Lord has God be with him and let him go up

Wow, yeah powerful that the very last line of the Bible in Hebrew is talking about going up to the temple

It's focused towards a temple and that author is ending with that hope and that belief in a Messiah and in A temple being rebuilt. I love that sums up a little bit about the message of this book is really focused towards the Messiah and a temple John, I am loving this I love that that is just a different order, but in the Hebrew Bible that's the last verse go Back to Jerusalem build the temple

“Hank, we've talked about this before Isaiah prophesized of Cyrus by name. Yeah, they saw him as a type of a Messiah. I believe”

A deliver letting him go back Heather this has been superb so far. What are we gonna do next? I mentioned before that the second chronicles is a story of David's family history Family history is rarely all nice and beautiful and Perfect and clean. It's very messy if you start to go back and read the stories in your family history

I was just thinking about my own family history and about my great-grandmother people called her dolly She was born in York, England while she was in New York her family joined the church and she met a missionary from sugar city Idaho who was serving in England and they met and he went home and they wrote and eventually she sailed across the ocean and went to sugar city Idaho and married him and was still in the temple and had five kids and was active her whole life and I thought

The chronicleer would have said she did what was right in the eyes of the Lord She was a righteous one and then I think about her mother though dolly's mom whose name was Mary Her story was not nice and clean and it's messy. It's a messy story when she was eight her mom died and her dad and her older brother went off to Australia thinking that they would make money to bring the family but they gambled all their money and lost it all. She and her siblings basically lived

on the streets and took care of themselves. She got a job as a maid by the time she's 18 she'd had two illegitimate children the family history says that they were fathered by her employer by the husband

of her employer probably not consensual children that she had and she never talked about them. It's

not till years later my grandma found out about them through different circumstances but she left them on her orphanage. She goes to London and she marries my great grandpa who was a good man until he started drinking and then he was terrible my great grandmother writes about how they used to have to hide their shoes so that he wouldn't sell them for alcohol. Eventually my great great grandmother divorces him and she meets the missionaries in England and she joins the church. Not long

after joining the church she meets another guy. His name was Walt. She gets pregnant with twins,

“not married and she gets excommunicated from the church because I guess that's what they did back then.”

She ends up marrying this guy and is out of the church for a long time but during this time her daughters are still going to church and that's how they meet the missionaries and her daughters end up doing all these good things and eventually they send for their mom and her husband and other kids and

they come to the sugar city Idaho. She goes to the temple. Her husband never joins. She's

labeled her story because there's part of her that did not do it was right in my eyes the Lord.

There's a part of her that did not have the perfect story. When I look back to the story she is the first

person sorry you call the first person in my family to join in the church because of her and her influence even though it was so messy and so imperfect and so hard and not perfect right that that covenant and that choice she made has trickled down to my life and to my children. I feel like as we read these stories about King David's sons and their families that we need to kind of keep that same perspective that the stories are so messy and people are sometimes trying to do the

best that they can in the circumstances that they're given even though chronicler might label

“somebody as they did not walk them up ways of the Lord or they did I think we can read between”

the lines a little bit and look at their stories a little differently so I just wanted to give that perspective as we jump into these stories to think about them with that human lens. That is superb. Yeah I mean that sounds like an Old Testament story doesn't it? I love Goethe you said Heather the older I get the more I think it's an easier way to live to just figure everybody's just doing the best they can and we all mess up and all mess up too but we're

just going to keep doing the best we can. Yeah even though she wasn't in the church she's still participated. Yeah she was dealt a rough hand yeah. Yeah right it's really hard and I feel really grateful she's on my wall I have the family history wall and she's on there and I think about her a lot and this is why sometimes we have to read our family histories like under a blanket with a flashlight because they're messy. Yeah I love what you said there if by chance she hears this she's

got to be very grateful and happy about her great great granddaughter and what she's doing and teaching.

Yeah you never know where some good choices will lead. I hate you never know whether I'll

love that end up. I love it. Some of our listeners might be thinking wait I'm pretty sure I already

“read some of these stories. Why do we get the exact same stories in kings and then chronicles?”

That's a good question I'm not sure if I know exactly right because we never know exactly why they're there but I think that the the main difference between chronicles and kings is that chronicles is dealing only with the kings of Judah so at this point after Solomon's son that's king of divides into the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom this book is only dealing with those kings in kings we get stories of the Israelites kings and the kings of Judah

but this book is solely about the kings of Judah. The dividec line is again what he's interested in his interested in that line of David that is pointing towards the Messiah. That is really helpful I'm guessing the author of kings and the author of chronicles didn't know they were going to be in the same book. Yeah maybe not right right they didn't know they could be back to back they would thought of differently about that. Yeah I thought how they were going to tell this story.

I think I was watching the Bible project. They said that they paint David stories in particular in a more positive light. Good lessons for the future. You'll want to read some of the ups and downs of David you can in other places. It kind of paints it into more positive light so that there's

things we can grasp on too. Yeah first chronicles makes David look awesome. He has no mistakes

in chronicles where in kings we get the very flawed David. That I think to know about kings and chronicles is that they probably were drawing from the same sources just like if we were to write a book about church history but we're all drawing from the same Joseph Smith papers or whatever we're going to have similar sources even though we're writing differently. So they're coming from the same sources which is why a lot of the things are the same. So what do we want to do next? I keep

interrupting you with questions. No it's good. The two things that are really important in the book are the temple and the Davidic line that really gets set up in the beginning of chronicles with the creation of the temple. It's interesting because we see in second chronicles verse two it says and Solomon determined to build a house for the name of the Lord the temple. We know that and a house for his kingdom. This is something I think we miss a lot of times when we're

talking about the building of temple. Solomon built two houses and they're connected. They happened at the same time. They had the same builder, the same materials. He's building a house to the Lord and a house for his kingdom which he's building a palace like the place where the Davidic kings are

“going to live. I think this is so important because we have to remember there's two sacred houses”

that are being built here. In our faith we oftentimes talk about our temple as a holy place and the

in when Solomon builds the house. The Lord is having him build two houses. Where was the verse for he built a temple and a house that was second chronicles? Yeah second chronicles chapter two verse one is where it talks that he's building a house for the name of the Lord and a house for his kingdom. But then if you jump down further in that chapter so chapter two verse 12 you'll see that the builder of the temple so the man that Solomon is hired to be the head builder of the temple

his name's Heram. He is talking to Solomon and he says this. More ever blessed be the Lord God of Israel that made heaven and earth who have given to David the king a wise son and dude with prudents

“and understanding that might build a house for the Lord and a house for his kingdom. I think in”

that verse we see that it's not that Solomon is thinking hey we have all this extra material we're building this house we might as well build me a palace while we're at it. I want a big fancy house too. We see that here that the commandment to build a temple also came with a commandment or the Lord's directive to build a house as well for the king a home for him. You know what that reminds me of both of you and we don't have to go on about this but isn't the later in the

doctrine and covenants where they're building the Navu temple and the Lord talks about building. I think it's called the Manchin house is that right John? Yeah the Manchin house and then what was across the street from the Manchin house was kind of a place people could stay right I mean if travelers are coming to see the temple it's the motel six of no in the day something. Yeah exactly what you said Heather this is a commandment this isn't hey Joseph Smith also wants a nice house.

Yeah we have a whole section in the doctrine covenants about the Manchin house it's a part of building

“the temple is also to the Lord is like you build this temple but then you also build this and I think”

that is an ancient pattern I think temples also had this idea of home along with them and I think that's

so powerful for a lot of any sense because we say that often that the home is next the temple to see

it here in the scriptures that the Lord sees that that way too. Oh Heather you have totally changed how I'm going to teach that the Manchin house Navu temples section from here on out. John don't you love it when someone does that where they show you something you've it's going to change the way you think about something and teach it. Well that'd be fun to say to people why don't you open a second chronicles too right see if those pages they can still be stuck together in some scripture.

I don't know like wow hey John you know so much like well yes we study we study that this is great yeah

“this is great Heather that's awesome okay so let's go to second chronicles seven now and this is”

after the temple has been built and after Solomon has dedicated the temple which wow that's amazing that we have that prayer and we have that preserved of an ancient temple being dedicated that's

amazing. After he does that in second chronicles seven it says they had seven days of feasting

on the eighth day they had a solemn assembly and that night when Solomon is asleep apparently that evening sometime the Lord appears to him and accepts the dedication of the temple. I don't know if that happens to all of our prophets that's really powerful that he is coming in his accepting Solomon's dedication he gives him two promises or two covenants these covenants have to do with both houses with the temple and with the palace with the house of Solomon the first

covenant is inverse twelve chapter seven verse twelve I'll go ahead and do this okay second chronicles seven twelve all the way through sixty and the Lord appeared to Solomon by night and said in him I have heard thy prayer and I've chosen this place to myself for a house of sacrifice if I shut up heaven and there be no rain or if I command the locust to devour the land or if I send pestilence among my people if my people which are called by my name shall humble themselves and

pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land now mine eyes shall be open and mine ears attend unto the prayer that is made in this place for now I have chosen and sanctified this house that my name

may be there forever and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually wow yeah powerful

promise in his dedication prayer Solomon asked the Lord he said if we have famine and the people pray towards a temple will you hear them if we are attacked by enemies and the people pray

temple is will you hear them and hear the Lord is saying yes if they pray towards my temple I will hear them I love verse 15 now mine eyes shall be open what did we say the title of the lesson is for come follow me now our eyes are upon the this is about the idea that if we are looking towards God that he is looking back towards us he is seeing the people and he's seeing their their trials and he's seeing their afflictions and he's hearing their prayers when they're directed towards a temple

when I was getting ready for this episode I discovered that there is apparently a very popular

song in Christian circles for second Chronicle 714 it was all over the place that verse could be

maybe one of the most well-known verses in Chronicles is verse 14 it is beautiful of my people which are called by my name how will the cells pray seek my face and turn I will hear from heaven that phrase I will heal their land isn't that something we all want it's you do a little googling you'll find that song it's beautiful because it's God's promise that if you see him he will be there this promise has to do with the temple he's saying I have accepted the temple and verse 14

if they humble themselves if they pray if they seek if they turn from the wicked ways my eyes will be open towards you he's giving that promise of the temple this is important for the rest because we see that that's where he wants some directing their worship and their focus he wants some turning

towards the temple we see in the stories coming up that they don't always do that they're turning

“to other things besides the temple so that's important the internet that's what God wants them to do that's”

what he's accepted the Solomon's prayer that's what he's asked them to do it some of our listeners out they're preparing to teach this to young people one of the things that I love when I find these in the scriptures and they're all over the place it's kind of an if then statement the first time I heard it was a computer programming class I took in high school in the 80s when computers were the size of the school if my people this then then this and I think the

three of us are sitting here today because of an if-then statement if any of you lack wisdom then is implied let a mask of God and they're all over the place what is King Benjamin say Hank at the end of Mosiah 2 I would desire you would consider on the blessed and happy state of those which keep the command of God for behold their blessed and all things both temporal and spiritual and if they hold out faithful to the end then they are receiving it to heaven they may

dwell with God in the state of never ending happiness it's just kind of fun to find those

“if then statements and this is a beautiful one second chronicle 714 that is you should turn it into a song”

it is one of the other you are killing this here this is fantastic let's keep going there's so much awesome stuff coming up the next part of the covenant deals with David's line with the King with his house with his family is what comes next this is that personal covenant we have our covenant with the temple and the people and this is the personal covenant of Solomon and it is inverses 17 to 20 would John read these ones since Hank read the next ones will be read 17 to 20

still in second chronicles 7 yes second chronicles 17 to 20 okay and as for thee if there's that if if that what walked before me is David I father walked and do a according to all that I have commanded thee and she'll observe my statutes and my judgments then will I establish the throne of that kingdom according as I have covenanted with David I father say there shall not fail thee a man to be ruler in Israel but if you turn away and forsake my statutes and my commandments

which I have set before you and shall go and serve other gods and worship then then will I pluck them up by the roots out of my land which I have given them and this house which I have saved to fight for my name will I cast out of my sight and it will make it to be a proverb and a byword among all nations some more if thens in there yeah he's very clear on those ones and that's what happens right Heather yeah that's exactly what happens the temple gets destroyed and it's prophetic

“there the thing that's so powerful to me about this so is that the covenant here is for I think”

scholars would call it like the Dividic kingship the Dividic covenant that gets passed on is a covenant like that God is making us all in saying that if you will walk in my ways and if you're sons and your children will all walk in my ways this is the promise that I will give them but it is all

Levites and all this up this is how they personally in their own life are living the gospel and are

“keeping his commandments and all their personal worthiness matters I think this is so beautiful”

because we see here setting up the God has these two houses he cares about how worship happens in both of them he has the temple which scholars use this as the official religion the compared to the official religion versus household religion the official religion are things that are public and sanctioned by a bigger group they usually have lots of rules they have the priest that's the religion of the temple it's a very organized we had all those chapters in

Exodus and all about organizing that whole priesthood and that whole order and there's that part of it but then there's also the household religion they're religion that happens in the home

the religion that happens in your heart with families and people and how you actually live your

religion you can go to the temple or you can go to church and you can do all the things living that part of the religion but God also cares about how we live it in the home how we live it

“in our hearts and with our families he's telling Solomon here that that's what he cares about as”

well he cares about how these kings are going to live their religion and how they're going to live it day-to-day in their own lives I feel like the thing that gets me so excited about this is that oftentimes women can fill left out of the official religion especially there might not be places for them in the officiating of different ordinances or things that happen in the official religions this isn't true just for Lattery Saints this is true for all different types of religions

sometimes official religions are more male centric but the household religion is oftentimes female centric that oftentimes that's where the women have the most influence and the most power over religion and this isn't just like Lattery Saints but this is like for religious throughout history and different things that scholars look at and that household religion is where women oftentimes have a lot of influence we see this in the stories of these divided kings we see the influence

of the mothers of the household religion determining the personal worthiness or the way that the king is walking in the ways of the Lord as I was thinking about this I was trying to think about what would this look like in our Lattery Saints lives or the way we organize seven so I thought that the official religion would include things like my temple and our sacrament and general conference things that are very official and organized where our household religion would be things like

personal and family prayer scripture study fathers blessings praying at meal time the way you decorate your house with pictures and temples and religious arts it can also be the way that you celebrate religious traditions like Christmas and Easter I was just remembering to that Elder Anderson who gave the talk a couple years ago about encouraging Lattery Saints to up their celebration of Easter to encourage us to be better about celebrating Easter and I was

at my cousin's house she has seven kids and I have seven kids so it was chaos and immediately we turned to each other like oh we're thinking traditions we're thinking food we're thinking like all this stuff about how can we do that how can we make that happen what can we do in our families to celebrate Easter better that is all the household religion the celebration of Easter happens a church for an hour the real celebration of Easter happens in the home that's where you really

feel it and that's where you really get the celebration same with Christmas we go to Christmas maybe we might go to church for a little bit of Christmas but the most of the celebration is at home and there's that way that we live it and how we can do it and women have always had a huge influence in how that household religion happens how sold religion I love it oh that is so

interesting I've never thought of them that way yeah one of the best steak second one

I went to is where the visiting general authority he spent the whole time talking about this he said some of you guys might have this invention that I think is from the devil and it's those fridges that are not magnetic the ones that you can't stick anything to the front of you so I think that was a move by the devil because he's like those are so important he's like you get yourself a magnetic fridge he's like especially if you've teenage boys you put on your fridge

everything you want them to know you'll slap it with scriptures you slap it with pictures of

“Jesus you put everything on their kisses that that's what your teenage boys are going to be”

they're going to be at the fridge at the fridge the other place you get them as of the bathroom he's like you get a little basket or you get a thing on your wall and you stick all your new areas and all your enzymes and all your friends stick them right there so when they're bored they have something to pull out and I've done that I have one and my bathroom because of this general authority my kids do I'm sure they're on their phone sometimes but I do know I can tell that

those new areas get red because they're right there in the bathroom I thought that was funny advice

how I don't I tell that would be so fun if I could remember

Heather I've said this before but this is amazing what are we going to do next

well the chapters income follow me start in chapter 14 with a story of Asan who is a grandson of Solomon we have history which is awesome his dad was a man named Abijah so we're a couple generations down now with that Davidic lineage we've had some kings who have been righteous and some who haven't and actually we kind of lost it right out the door with Solomon because at the end of his life his household religion starts to go awire he marries foreign wives

and those foreign wives introduce the worship of idols to his household and we see the consequences of that in his son but here we have Asa and it says the chapter 14 verse two is said in Asa did that which was good and right in my eyes of the Lord has God for he took away

the altars of the strange gods and the high places and break down the images and down the

groves and commanded Judah to seek the Lord God of their fathers and do the law and the commandments

“we have to remember at the time that the temple is still going strong the priest are still doing”

everything they're supposed to be doing all the sacrifices are still happening but there's these other things that are happening as well people are worshiping strange gods there's these high places there's images and there's groves so these are other things that are happening other ways that people are worshiping they're still doing the temple but they're also doing these other things and Asa is getting rid of them the interesting thing about these is that the words in Hebrew

refer a lot to Kainanite traditions so if you remember the Israelites came into the land of Kainan they didn't kill all the Kainanites the Kainanites are still there and they're living among them and they're adopting some of their traditions and their cultures and their way of doing things and this culture that they're living among one of those is that idea of a high place

and actually in the scriptures a high place is not always a bad thing in Hebrew the word is

Bama which literally means an elevation or a literally a high place you're up higher than other people at the beginning of chronicles we even see that Solomon before the temple's built we have a verse about him when he he goes and he sacrifices at a high place because that's where people before they had the temple that's where they went was to a high place a mountain or a place it was elevated

“or an altar where they would worship remember we had that whole covenant that the Lord wants his”

focus and the eyes of the people turn towards the temple right and they're still using these high places it says his attempt to get people focusing what they're supposed to be said okay we're not going to do these high places anymore he really is trying to bring the 12 tribes together to unify them as worshiping at one place as a unified people bringing them together to worship God and how they're focused on the temple the other word that is interesting here is the word

that is translated as groves is in Hebrew is the word ashoreen these referred to idols that were we don't really actually know what they were to be honest because they were made out of wood there were some sort of tree and things that are made out of wood do not last in archaeology they don't they don't exist we don't really know what these are but we know that they were planted that they could be erected and they could be carved and they could be cut down and they could be burned

the scholars think that perhaps these were living trees that were cut in the figures of women in represented goddesses like a fertility goddess or that they might have been made out of trees or that they could have been just even a little tree that people went to so they're not like sure what they were but the word ashore refers to the katonite goddess she's the mother goddess of the katonite pantheon her name is ashore she's married to the god el and their son is ball

who we hear a lot about in the otestment he's the storm god that brings rain she's the goddess that you would pray to if you wanted fertility or if you wanted prosperity we see that there's still the tradition among the israelites of adopting the canite culture into their practices and ashore is saying no we're not doing that yeah he's saying that we need to get rid of that an interesting part is to is that this goddess worship is probably a lot of women led

if there's a goddess of fertility that's going to be a goddess that women are going to want to pray

“to in the otestment it's women who sometimes are leading the worship of these goddesses i think”

that's really erroneous to equate her or her mother with ashore because it's a little bit like saying that we look at her or afterditey and saying oh we see aspects of a divine feminine in them and we see aspects of what our Heavenly Mother must look like i think that's erroneous when we look at it that way like i think that there are aspects of divine feminine in all these ancient goddesses

is why it's adopted some of it because i live in a magnet i don't think it's innately part of

this white religion you know i don't think that's a name that we could call her so yeah and i have heard that so that's very helpful it's interesting though from a laterty saint point here because we see they're oftentimes cutting down groves which would have been this ashore trees but as i already say it's we believe in high places a sacred places like temples right high places that idea and then we also believe that groves are sacred we have a sacred grove in our church

you can go to the sacred grove so we believe in sacred groves we believe Joseph Smith found answers and a grove of trees Jesus the garden because somebody is a sacred grove we have these places

that are sacred that are groves and i feel like that can get sometimes confusing for people

i don't know to be honest if i can unpack all that or understand everything about it but i do know that there is a difference here that what they're doing is not righteous it's not directed in the right way they know where that the focus should be going and it's being directed to something else then it's a tears down all these things and he tries to get the people to stop doing those things but he also fills the void by having them follow the law and he fortifies

“all the cities of Judah he builds fortifications for the cities of Judah this is important because”

pretty soon they get attacked by the by the Ethiopians they are going out to battle against and this is in chapter 14 verse 10 they're going out to battle against them verse 11 they said gives us prayer to the Lord asking for help and ace a cried unto the Lord his God and said Lord it is nothing with thee to help whether with many or with them that have no power help us oh Lord our God for we rest on thee and in thy name we go against this multitude oh Lord

thou art our God let not man prevail against thee I love that prayer especially the ones about Lord it is nothing with thee to help whether with many or them that have power that I do the God can step into our lives then if we go forward a little bit more into chapter 15 we see that their victorious and they conquer the Ethiopians then the prophet's name is Azariah he comes out and he meets Aisa and he tells them this is chapter 15 verse 2 and he says the Lord is with you while you

be with him and if you seek him he will be found but if you forsake him he will forsake you I have to admit that that really hit me like without you I was like oh I don't know if I really like that verse if I'm honest I like the part about seeking God and he'll be found but I don't really like the part about forsaking him and he forsakes you that kind of hit me a little bit because earlier this month I had a really big project I was working on I kind of needed a miracle for

things to work out like I needed people to show up in ways that they were not showing up I was praying to Heavenly Father driving my car where I was going and I was praying in my heart the thought hit me I was like I am not actually worthy at the moment to ask for miracle because I don't

“remember the last time I actually said a prayer without pulling a sleep it's been a while and”

I haven't been reading my scriptures and it's been a while since I got to the temple this is a relationship I've been really distant I've been busy in my life and I haven't been there and I thought I don't even know if I qualify for miracle there's probably all these things have to do to get a miracle and I am falling short how do you make sense of that that idea that like there's a certain point where we know that these things we do we tell ourselves like these things

will give us power these things are going to help the Lord help us but then it's also like if we don't do them to see completely abandon us you know for not doing all the things exactly right does that lessen them out of power that God can put into our life where's the verse he that

honors God God will honor I guess maybe we want to God that's always available to us whether

we really need him or not just always be at my back and call would you please but it does sound a little bit more just that he's saying if you're going to forsake me don't be surprised if I'm a little harder to find yeah maybe it's if you forsake me won't have access to the power I've designed this program to work with certain way like what is the natural result of forsaking me you don't have that say power I work with young adults who do human things sometimes they'll

say something like that to me Heather like well I just don't think the Lord I just don't live the

“way I think I'm supposed to so I don't think I think the Lord's disappointed in me or I've had”

even young people say I think the Lord finds me kind of disgusting and no no no I usually tell them be honest say yeah it's been a long time since I prayed and yeah I'd probably don't deserve this

where it's you I don't know I just can give up myself on it's been having a hard time charging lately even if there's a little bit of charge left in there like maybe at some point in your life you were really diligent and you filled up to a hundred percent on everything that battery can last you

a little way is right I don't think the Lord will always be hey just because you're not doing it right

this minute or right this second then I can't help you I feel like we get a reserve of spiritual power that can last with us at a friend that she's been through hard time and she brought the story of Joseph and Egypt and about the store houses and she said I'm so glad that I had seven years of filling up my store houses with spiritual power because she's like I'm having seven years

“of spiritual drought and while I'm at the store houses we can have that reserve I think that's a”

true idea John wouldn't you say to that I think the Lord is looking for ways to bless you I doubt the Lord is looking for reasons to penalize I just don't see that I think it's never been shared more beautifully than Elder Karen's recent talk his plan is not a plan to keep you out it's a plan to bring you home like you said humanizing God and saying he's like this really mean professor I had that's not the way he is I was even thinking as we were talking about amulet that was living

beneath his privileges I knew but I would not know I heard but I would not hear and God

snatched him anyway so when you think of his character always available I want to believe that

maybe as a riot is just in a bad mood yeah I love how much we can learn about what God is like from studying these stories that there's a certain justice there but there's also a certain mercy just when we need it he does hold us to a standard he does expect something from us it's not a world where he's like oh dude every one I'll be there for you it's like hey if you show up and either there I'll be there kind of a really good coach like if you show up to practice and you're invested I'm

going to be there with you even if you're the worst one on the team I'm going to be there just don't stop coming to practice because it's impossible for me to coach you if you're not there so maybe

“that's what it means if you don't come to practice how can he coach you yeah the next part is that”

it's then his people they really work hard to order their lives freshly and to get things in the right way so that they can have that power flow into their lives and they bring offerings to Lord and then they could covenant this is one of those hard Old Testament verses when we have chapter chronicles 15 13 all day 12 and they entered into covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their hearts and with all their souls I was thinking I knew that like as my family motto when we walk in

like here we have we're seeking him we're not perfect and we're not always doing it right but

we're we're seeking we're in that active process of finding him with all of your heart and with all of your soul but then this is the heart Old Testament verse 13 that who's so ever would not seek the Lord their God it should be put to death whether small or great mad or women and it also kind of want to put that one on my wall for my kids be like if you don't just consequences I think that's hard sometimes Old Testament was a different world they speak differently

we've got the same word in a different culture they're speaking differently John do you remember when Ross taught us about idioms he said if you don't grow up in a culture it is so hard to learn all the idioms of two birds with one stone and a piece of cake he said I'm certain with the Old Testament we are missing so many idioms and cultural references to things right I like what you're doing here Heather you read a verse

and you stop and you go it doesn't taste right to me didn't Joseph Smith teach that true doctrine tastes good I think you're wise to stop and go hmm not quite sure about that yeah sometimes we get those really hard stories in the Old Testament and we're like whoa what is this

“we have to remember that not everything in there is like you should do this this is the”

way to live this is often times like this was not a good choice this is not the way to do it or this is their culture this is what they did so when taught us a phrase these are descriptive not pro-scriptive this is just telling you what happened not telling you you should do this which yeah there's a lot of things I'm reading I would rather not do and it's messy I want to finish off a story and then skip back to a little part about his mother

chapter 16 we end with the end of his story is that there's another battle that he's going up to this time instead of turning to the Lord first he turns and he makes an alliance with the King of

Seer came to ace a king of Judah and said because that has relied on the King of Serus and that relied on the Lord that God therefore is the host the King of Serius escaped out of my hand let's go down to verse nine for the eyes the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect towards him here and now has done foolishly therefore from henceforth that shall have wars we see that those verses about eyes again

right that's a theme that we keep seeing coming through all these verses of the eyes the eyes the Lord where our eyes are pointed I don't think we can follow as a hero because that's a sense of

“an actual thing you should probably find an ally to fight somebody but the lesson here is where did he turn first”

what did he have turned first to the Lord and then make the alliance like he turned first to

alliance and I think this is so applicable to our days especially when we think about where our eyes go first especially with AI and our phones and how easy it is to get answers it's so easy to get our eyes turning first to our phones before we're turning to the Lord and I know that I'm guilty of that as much as anyone it's a good reminder for me too yeah I know John is as well I don't struggle but I know John I like to tell my students I can't keep up with the jins what are we on jins

year we starting over again jins double a or those batteries I tell my students my worry for jinsy is you want google speed answers to golden questions because if you ask google series elects a chat they'll tell you something immediately sometimes the best answers come a little more slowly

from god with little more effort don't go right for the fast answer it'll always tell you something

yeah god's answers do require effort he doesn't give things usually easily without effort

“yeah and he reminds him that he did in the past he's like don't you remember it was just on the previous”

page how'd you forget already we wanted to scroll a little bit you'll see it you did so well back then but that's one of the beautiful things about these stories is they're so human we get such human stories and the Old Testament that we're like oh I get you I understand so you can understand with these guys the first I want to skip back to is in chronicles 15 and this is about Ace's mother we have chronicles 15 16 it says also concerning maca the mother of Ace of the king he removed her from

being queen because she had made an idol in the grove and Ace cut down her idol and stamped it and burnt it in the brook kidron here if we remember the two houses we have the queen of the home who is not practicing the religion the way that it should be and it's interesting because this word that says that he removed from being queen and Hebrew is the word gebira the word gebira is from the Hebrew root which means to rule it means a woman with power it's not just a queen for

example in the different ways that it's translated the Septuagint or the Greek transition of the Old Testament translates these words a little differently so some of the ways that it translates this word gebira is the feminine strength of the kingdom the feminine ruler the elder or the great woman a female chief the woman who holds the power and I love that this is a position that she has within the household we know it's a position because he can remove her from it he can take her

away from it to get out of it and this isn't his wife this is his mother she has this position of power within the household we see this throughout the stories in the in the Old Testament the

the first time we have the word gebira used is of Sarah the make sure our Gabriel house wife

when we talk about heygar and Sarah Sarah is called the gebira she's the woman in charge she's the

“leader she's the head of the household I guess is the best way to say it which is also why we see all that”

tension between the make sure acts like Leah and Rachel all the time because there's a position within an inch at household of the head woman of the gebira of the woman that leads the household she sets a lot of the tone for what happens in the house we see here that we have an unrighteous gebira an unrighteous leader of the household the really interesting thing about the queens of Judah is that we see this idea of a gebira passed down throughout the dividend glint linship and it starts

with that she but we see Solomon his mother is Bathsheba we see her act in a way that is really unique for example when she comes when Nathan is wanting that he's the prophet and he wants to see who's going to be put on the throne he's trying to get Solomon to be on the throne and not David's other sons he comes to Bathsheba and he asks her to have influence getting her son on the throne she does and

then when she comes into Solomon's court he bows down to her and he sits a chair at his right hand

“for his mother to sit on his right hand and we see that's idea of a woman in the Judean court”

that has this position of power and influence who happens to be the mother of the king it doesn't happen so consistently in chronicles but in kings the pattern is really consistent whenever a king of Judah is introduced it has this pattern the king's name is given first followed by how old the king was when he took the throne how long he rained for the name of the king's mother the name of his mother's father or his mother's nationality and then it concludes

with the statement that either this king which was evil or that was right in the sight of the lord and in kings it doesn't miss a one in chronicles we kind of get them a little bit more spattered you'll see a couple of them here and there but we have one for every king without the same thing with his mother's name mentioned it comes to that household religion at influence that we have here a woman who has extreme influence over the house of the king of how things are being

practiced what traditions are happening who were praying to what's being said what is happening she has immense influence enough that these authors of kings and chronicles make sure that that woman's name gets in there with the statement then did he do what was right or what was wrong not that you can go back and blame them all that's looking back at her and saying well what type of influence did this woman have in the king's household I don't think that's trying to be diminishing

“to him and anything I think actually it's showing the influence that this woman had and the”

power that they had over the kingdom I think one of the things that we think so often in the

ancient world is that women are always oppressed and they always didn't have a voice that that is

a hundred percent not true in the ancient world there are some mighty mighty women who do a lot of incredible things and have a lot of influence and power I think we have those examples here in the kings of Judah the other thing that I think is really interesting from ancient perspective is that in lots of other ancient cultures the king has considered to be divine if you think about Pharaoh he's literally considered to be a god the best retaining king also was considered to be like a god

because the king is a god that means that his son will also be a god but to get a son that power has to transfer through a woman to get there if that divine power goes from the Pharaoh

“through the queen to the son that makes the queen also divine and we see an Egyptian”

drawings that the queen mother is always depicted with a voucher headress which is the headress of

a goddess because she's considered to be divine she's the divine transmitter of that power and that king ship this is so beautiful because in our own church we believe something similar when a couple is sealed in a temple their children they make that ceiling covenant that covenant has power not just for them but also for their children not covenant until power transfers through the body of a woman to her children I feel like that's something that we have not as a I would love to see

understood better to discuss more because I feel like that is such a powerful thing that there's something that happens with that covenant power that transfers down through a woman to her children I'm loving this and I'm just wondering if some of the women that we are talking about in chronicles are in you are walking with the women in the scripture series in the Old Testament edition yes I couldn't do all the women in the Old Testament because there are like 350 and

and the Old Testament actually has the most named women there's so many women that have names and the New Testament and the book one I did all the women but the Old Testament I had to choose there are some of the crackles women because their stories are so are so awesome yeah this is fantastic we're gonna get those they published by Cedar Fort but you can get them at desert book usually they have them at Costco if it's the right

season if it's the Old Testament year or the New Testament year of book one year they usually have a big

pile my dad always likes to send me a picture like look that's a Costco yeah if you're Costco

still has books yeah my wife speaks Costco they know her on a first name basis there's oh awesome let's keep going Heather the Judean king was different then other ancient kings because his divine kingship was not hereditary I mean it is right it's passed down but it also has this covenant promise that it's also dependent on his worthiness they he's the king only if he's worthy to be the king or if he has his power so this idea of this dynasty this

divid dynasty coming down is dependent on their personal worthiness that's up spot where we really see

of worshiping to her son but you could kind of track it through the Old Testament the ones that

do write versus ones that do wrong and ASA here McComb I actually have been his grandma the genealogy is a little weird there so this might actually have been his grandma that's really exciting to me to see that influence of women especially when it gets a title like the gabira I love that

“when we see these women in positions of power and influence that's really exciting now Heather I think”

after ASA comes one of John's favorite kings at John is this right well we were talking about that phrase jumping jahosephat okay well let's jump to him well played Heather is putting up with her wonderful it's okay we think is funny I thought this was a scholarly podcast come on guys yeah no it's a fact so ASA son is named jahosephat we can see in chapter 17 that he is also walking in the ways of the Lord in verse three it says and the Lord was with jahosephat because

he walked in the first ways of his father David and sat not on the balling he walked he didn't jump

“yeah that's sorry sorry I mean walked to the commandments and not after the doings of Israel”

he's walking in the ways of the Lord he's keeping Matt the vittic covenant of falling the Lord and living his religion in the correct way it says in verse six that his heart was lifted up in the ways of the Lord and he also took away the high places and the groves so even though ASA did it we still have the high places and the groves that are still there every generation kind of has to fight their own battle over again to make that commitment to the Lord you know watch my kids as much as you want

to pass on they have to make that commitment themselves to keep in the cabinets that their parents did Heather in verse four where it says he walked in the commandments not after the doings of Israel is that talking about the northern kingdom now that they've split I'm gonna say yes I'm not sure about that but I think that makes sense this would be due to as we're talking about in Israel would be there in order in kingdom Israel is a lot more wicked we've had a haban jaisable and I think we're

actually an a haban jaisable right now in Israel so right now there are a lot more in grossed in the

idol worship than due to is jahosephat it says in first eight that he sends out Levites

to the people to teach them the book of the law the same thing that we saw with ASA it's just not

“enough to get rid of things in your life you have to fill the void with something else here he's”

getting rid of things but it's also filling it with the truth I love that example of making sure that he's filling his people back up with what's right not just taking away I like that in chapter eight team there is another war that's coming again jahosephat is aligning himself with the king of Israel at this point actually because they're fighting Samaria they're trying to unite together and this is the infamous a haban jaisable before they go out in verse six jahosephat asks is our profit here

that we can acquire the Lord that we should go do I love a habs answered what one of you guys read that one chapter eighteen verse seven what the king Israel says and the king of Israel said unto jahosephat there is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the Lord but I hate him wow okay mark that one in red right coming up in part two she is wiping out that dividic line the lion through which the messiah is supposed to come a failure is trying to completely wipe that out so that she doesn't

have anything to contest her role as queen here enter jahosephat and she is my favorite woman once you hear a story I think you'll know why