Deja Vu

History's Patterns

There is an eerie familiarity to what is playing out now in North Korea under the gentle beneficence of Kim Jong Un.  Kim has heard the divine call from himself to execute his former uncle and round up as many of his former relatives as he could find and either imprison them or execute them.

He shows all the symptoms of a tyro beating his chest, letting his country know who is boss.  This resonates with a time in Israel's history when the young Rehoboam succeeded his father, Solomon.  We take up the narrative in I Kings 12: 3ff:

And they sent and called him, and Jeroboam and all the assembly of Israel came and said to Rehoboam,  “Your father made our yoke heavy. Now therefore lighten the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke  on us, and we will serve you.”  He said to them, “Go away for three days, then come again to me.” So the people went away.
 
Then King Rehoboam took counsel with the old men, who had stood before Solomon his father while he was yet alive, saying, “How do you advise me to answer this people?”   And they said to him, “If you will be a servant to this people today and serve them, and speak good words to them when you answer them, then they will be your servants forever.” But he abandoned the counsel that the old men gave him and took counsel with the young men who had grown up with him and stood before him.  And he said to them, “What do you advise that we answer this people who have said to me, ‘Lighten the yoke that your father put on us’?”  And the young men who had grown up with him said to him, “Thus shall you speak to this people who said to you, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, but you lighten it for us,’ thus shall you say to them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father's thighs.  And now, whereas my father laid on you a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.’”

It is said that Kim Jong Un is systematically replacing the old yoke of power with his younger mates.  And he is showing signs of being much more draconian than his father (were that possible).  It is a young man's disease.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been targeting relatives of his uncle and former advisor, Jang Song-thaek, who was executed recently. Hundreds of relatives have been imprisoned or executed. The Daily Telegraph reported that  the victims who are alive will be transported to slave labor camps, even though they are very distant relatives of Jang and possibly never met him,

The Daily NK newspaper, run by North Korean defectors, reported from a source: "At around 10 pm on the night of [December] 13, the day after Jang was executed, armed men from the Ministry of State Security arrived in the Pyongchon area of Pyongyang, where a lot of his relatives lived.”  Concurrently, Kim is being referred to in the state's official newspaper as "great leader," a title only used previously in reference to Kim's father, Kim Jong Il, according to Yonhap News Agency.

The end result for Israel was rebellion and a divided kingdom.  We will see whether the pattern repeats in the case of North Korea.  One thing is sure: in the end the Lord will take vengeance upon those who have mercilessly and cruelly persecuted His people.  

Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.