When Solomon follows “other gods” and his “heart had turned away from the LORD,” the Lord promised to “tear the kingdom” from him, but not without this qualification: “Nevertheless, for the sake of David your father, I will not do it during your lifetime. I will tear it out of the hand of your son . . . I will give one tribe to his son so that David my servant may always have a lamp before me in Jerusalem, the city where I chose to put my Name” (1 Kings 11:9–12, 36). Likewise, when Abijah reigned over Judah and “committed all the sins his father had done before him” because “his heart was not
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