the book of kings essay question?

Question

according to 1-2Kings, how would you characterize the rise and fall of the northern kingdom of israel? what are its weaknesses? strengths? what led to her downfall?

any help would be great.. thanks

Answer 1

It is an outside source, but Isaiah's call gives a preview of the history related to your question.
Isaiah 6:9 So he said, “Go and speak to these people. Tell them,
“‘You will hear but never understand.
You will see but never know what you are seeing.’
10 Make the hearts of these people stubborn.
Plug up their ears.
Close their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes.
They might hear with their ears.
They might understand with their hearts.
And they might turn to me and be healed.”
11 Then I said, “Lord, how long will it be like that?”
He answered,
“It will last until the cities of Israel are destroyed
and no one is living in them.
It will last until the houses are deserted.
The fields will be completely destroyed.
12 It will last until I have sent everyone far away.
The land will be totally deserted.
13 Even if a tenth of the people remain there,
the land will be completely destroyed again.
But when oak trees and terebinth trees
are cut down, stumps are left.
And my holy people will be like stumps
that begin to grow again.”

Answer 2

That sounds like an essay question and I'm not going to do all of the work for you. But I will tell you that if you download the e-Sword software from the Free ware section of the Free Stuff page @ http://web.express56.com/~bromar/ along with some of the commentaries like Albert Barnes notes on the Bible you can probably copy his work and edit it to get an accurate answer.

The basic answer is that Israel didn't have any good Kings and they put up idols in two of their towns for people to worship instead of going to the temple in Jerusalem and so the Lord was against them most of the time.