After the reign of King Solomon, the nation of Israel was split into the Northern Kingdom called Israel, and the Southern Kingdom known as Judah. It came to pass that there was a King in Judah known as Jehoshaphat. He was a mighty king and under his reign, Judah won many wars and gained much wealth. Jehoshaphat also tore down the hill shrines and the sacred poles where the people worshipped Baal. King Jehoshaphat was well-liked by the right-wing religious establishment. He was considered by the conservative Chronicler of Judah to be a good king. Not too many of the kings earned that honor.

However, the king did have a problem. Many of the court decisions were going against his program. He was not pleased with the way that justice was carried out in the kingdom, so he appointed judges in the land in all the fortified cities of Judah, city by city. Of course, as with any ruler, if he appointed the judges, they were beholden to him. But he was not content with controlling just the federal judges. He wanted to make sure they did the RIGHT thing. So he set up a Supreme Court to rule on disputed cases. Of course the Jehoshaphat Court was always on the RIGHT side. He appointed every last one of them.

What the people didn't know was that all this was engineered by his personal advisor, Karlisha Rovekiah. Rovekiah was the man who helped Jehoshaphat into power. Rovekiah and the king's assistant, Chenikiah, and the General of the Army Rumsfeldaphat, formed an inner circle of power. For all practical purposes, they ran the kingdom. Actually, they had poor Jehoshaphat jumping through hoops. This gave rise to an inside joke among the inner circle. They liked to refer to the king as Jumping Jehoshaphat. This is where the well-known expression arose. Even today when people hear of some shocking event, they will exclaim, "Jumping Jehoshaphat."

But like all kings who jump too high, Jehoshaphat got his comeuppance. He allied himself with the wicked King Ahaziah of Israel and built ships to sail to Tarshish. God was not pleased with his joining forces with the wicked Ahaziah. The ships were wrecked and never got to sail to Tarshish. And so, Jumping Jehoshaphat jumped through his last hoop and slept with his forefathers. By the way, did you know that the name Jehoshaphat really means "little bush?"