So, I'm making my way through Ellen White's Conflict series, and this felt much more repetitive and didactic than the first one. All I can remember from this book is the missing stuff (Deborah as judge of Israel, notably) and the way the Esther story was super-sanitized. Not a favorite. ( )

How did Israel go from building Solomon’s magnificent temple as the center of true worship to humiliating exile to celebrated restoration to eventual not being prepared for the coming of Christ? In Prophets and Kings, Ellen G. White’s commentary highlights the impact of individuals who instead of staying true to God’s law went their own way resulting in terrible consequences not only for themselves but those they governed even as God rose up honest men to confront and induce them to return to him. This 750 page book on sacred history shows the state of ‘the House of Israel’ came to be as it was at the time of Christ’s time on Earth.

The highpoint of the nation of Israel was at the beginning of Solomon’s reign with the building of the Temple, in her writing White highlights how the nation was fulfilling the covenant only for its own King to turn from God to disastrous results. Through the latter part of Solomon’s reign, the beginnings of his son Rehoboam’s reign in Judah and Jeroboam’s reign in Israel the seeds of Israel’s captivity were sown with turning away from God to idolatry. Throughout the time of the divided kingdom, White illustrated God’s continual effort to turn His people back towards him through the intercession of prophets like Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, and Jeremiah only to see a remnant remain true. As White relates, after the restoration Israel had turned away from idolatry only to added legality and tradition onto God’s law making it burdensome to those wanting to follow Him and setting the stage for culture when Christ came.

Prophets and Kings is the second in the five-book Conflict of Ages series, but it was the last written publication by Ellen White in her life. Not only did White illuminate sacred history from Solomon’s time to the restoration after the Babylonian Captivity, she also used her pen to give comfort to believers today as Christian await the Second Coming of Christ even though the world seems to grow darker just like it appeared to God’s remnant as Israel was taken into captivity. Yet after finishing this book, sacred history is still awaiting Christ’s first coming, The Desire of Ages. ( )

An inspired account of the lives of people and events of the Old Testament from the reign of Solomon until the end of that dispensation. It also includes a review of the prophetic promises of the final victory of God's people. This is the second book in the Conflict of the Ages series. ( )