Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had come to Shechem to make him king. When Jeroboam the son of Nebat heard of it (for he was yet in Egypt, where he had fled from the presence of king Solomon, and Jeroboam lived in Egypt, and they sent and called him), Jeroboam and all the assembly of Israel came, and spoke to Rehoboam, saying, “Your father made our yoke difficult. Now therefore make the hard service of your father, and his heavy yoke which he put on us, lighter, and we will serve you.”
He said to them, “Depart for three days, then come back to me.” So the people departed.
King Rehoboam took counsel with the old men, who had stood before Solomon his father while he yet lived, saying, “What counsel do you give me to answer these people?”
They replied, “If you will be a servant to this people today, and will serve them, and answer them with good words, then they will be your servants forever.”
But he abandoned the counsel of the old men which they had given him, and took counsel with the young men who had grown up with him, who stood before him. He said to them, “What counsel do you give, that we may answer these people, who have spoken to me, saying, ‘Make the yoke that your father put on us lighter?’ ”
The young men who had grown up with him said to him, “Tell these people who spoke to you, saying, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, but make it lighter to us;’ tell them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist. Now my father burdened you with a heavy yoke, but I will add to your yoke. My father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.’ ”
So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third day, as the king asked, saying, “Come to me again the third day.” The king answered the people roughly, and abandoned the counsel of the old men which they had given him, and spoke to them according to the counsel of the young men, saying, “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke. My father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.”
So the king didn’t listen to the people; for it was a thing brought about from Yahweh, that he might establish his word, which Yahweh spoke by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat. When all Israel saw that the king didn’t listen to them, the people answered the king, saying, “What portion have we in David? We don’t have an inheritance in the son of Jesse. To your tents, Israel! Now see to your own house, David.” So Israel departed to their tents.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16 Or, return from Egypt.
Or, return from Egypt.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–16 1Ki 12:1 And Rehoboam went to Shechem: for all…
1Ki 12:1 And Rehoboam went to Shechem: for all Israel were come to Shechem to make him king.
Ver. 1. And Rehoboam went to Shechem.] It was an oversight in Solomon, that he had not before his death made his son king - as David had done him, for preventing of troubles; as also in Rehoboam, that he being the undoubted heir of the kingdom - settled by God upon Solomon and his heirs {2Sa 7:12-13} - expected the consent of the people, whom he knew to be seditiously inclined, and yielded to meet them at Shechem, a city of Ephraim, that turbulent tribe, where Jeroboam was so powerful. But God, who infatuateth those he meaneth to punish, had a holy hand in all.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 15, 16 Rehoboam did not call them thither, but went thither,…
Rehoboam did not call them thither, but went thither, because the Israelites prevented him, and had generally pitched upon that place rather than upon Jerusalem; partly, because it was most convenient for all, as being in the centre of the whole kingdom; partly, because that being in the potent tribe of Ephraim, they supposed there they might use that freedom of speech which they resolved to use to get their grievances redressed; and partly, by the secret direction of Jeroboam, or his friends, who would not trust themselves in Jerusalem, and thought Shechem a fitter place to execute their design. To make him king; to confirm him in the kingdom, which they generally-intended to do; he being the undoubted heir of the crown, and the only son which Solomon had from so vast a number of wives.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 16 Solomon had 1000 wives and concubines, yet we read…
Solomon had 1000 wives and concubines, yet we read but of one son he had to bear up his name, and he a fool. It is said (Hos 4:10), They shall commit whoredom, and shall not increase. Sin is a bad way of building up a family. Rehoboam was the son of the wisest of men, yet did not inherit his father's wisdom, and then it stood him in little stead to inherit his father's throne. Neither wisdom nor grace runs in the blood. Solomon came to the crown very young, yet he was then a wise man. Rehoboam came to the crown at forty years old, when men will be wise if ever they will, yet he was then foolish. Wisdom does not go by age, nor is it the multitude of years nor the advantage of education that reaches it. Solomon's court was a mart of wisdom and the rendezvous of learned men, and Rehoboam was the darling of the court; and yet all was not sufficient to make him a wise man. The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. No dispute is made of Rehoboam's succession; upon the death of his father, he was immediately proclaimed. But,
I. The people desired a treaty with him at Shechem, and he condescended to meet them there. 1. Their pretence was to make him king, but the design was to unmake him. They would give him a public inauguration in another place than the city of David, that he might not seem to be king of Judah only. They had ten parts in him, and would have him among themselves for once, that they might recognize his title. 2. The place was ominous: at Shechem, where Abimelech set up himself (Jdg. 9); yet it had been famous for the convention of the states there, Jos 24:1. Rehoboam, we may suppose, knew of the threatening, that the kingdom should be rent from him, and hoped by going to Shechem, and treating there with the ten tribes, to prevent it: yet it proved the most impolitic thing he could do, and hastened the rupture.
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II. The representatives of the tribes addressed him, praying to be eased of the taxes they were burdened with. The meeting being appointed, they sent for Jeroboam out of Egypt to come and be their speaker. This they needed not to have done: he knew what God had designed him for, and would have come though he had not been sent for, for now was his time to expect the possession of the promised crown. In their address, 1. They complain of the last reign: Thy father made our yoke grievous, Kg1 12:4. They complain not of his father's idolatry and revolt from God; that which was the greatest grievance of all was none to them, so careless and indifferent were they in the matters of religion, as if God or Moloch were all one, so they might but live at ease and pay no taxes. Yet the complaint was groundless and unjust. Never did people live more at ease than they did, nor in great plenty. Did they pay taxes? It was to advance the strength and magnificence of their kingdom. If Solomon's buildings cost them money, they cost them no blood, as war would do. Were many servile hands employed about them? They were not the hands of the Israelites. Were the taxes a burden? How could that be, when Solomon imported bullion in such plenty that silver was, in a manner, as common as the stones? So that they did but render to Solomon the things that were Solomon's. Nay, suppose there was some hardship put upon them, were they not told before that this would be the manner of the king and yet they would have one? The best government cannot secure itself from reproach and censure, no, not Solomon's. Factious spirits will never want something to complain of. I know nothing in Solomon's administration that could make the people's yoke grievous, unless perhaps the women whom in his latter days he doted on were connived at in oppressing them. 2. They demand relief from him, and on this condition will continue in their allegiance to the house of David. They asked not to be wholly free from paying taxes, but to have the burden made lighter; this was all their care, to save their money, whether their religion was supported and the government protected or no. All seek their own.
III. Rehoboam consulted with those about him concerning the answer he should give to this address. It was prudent to take advice, especially having so weak a head of his own; yet, upon this occasion, it was impolitic to take time himself to consider, for thereby he gave time to the disaffected people to ripen things for a revolt, and his deliberating in so plain a case would be improved as an indication of the little concern he had for the people's ease. They saw what they must expect, and prepared accordingly. Now, 1. The grave experienced men of his council advised him by all means to give the petitioners a kind answer, to give them good words, to promise them fair, and this day, this critical day, to serve them, that is, to tell them that he was their servant, and that he would redress all their grievances and make it his business to please them and make them easy. "Deny thyself (say they) so far as to do this for this once, and they will be thy servants for ever. When the present heat is allayed with a soft answer, and the assembly dismissed, their cooler thoughts will reconcile and fix them to Solomon's family still." Note, The way to rule is to serve, to do good, and stoop to do it, to become all things to all men and so win their hearts. Those who are in power really sit highest, and easiest, and safest, when they take this method. 2. The young men of his council were hot and haughty, and they advised him to return a severe and threatening answer to the people's demands. It was an instance of Rehoboam's weakness, (1.) That he did not prefer aged counsellors, but had a better opinion of the young men that had grown up with him and with whom he was familiar, Kg1 12:8. Days should speak. It was a folly for him to think that, because they had been his agreeable companions in the sports and pleasures of his youth, they were therefore fit to have the management of the affairs of his kingdom. Great wits have not always the most wisdom; nor are those to be relied on as our best friends that know how to make us merry, for that will not make us happy. It is of great consequence to young people, that are setting out in the world, whom they associate with, accommodate themselves to, and depend upon for advice. If they reckon those that feed their pride, gratify their vanity, and further them in their pleasures, their best friends, they are already marked for ruin. (2.) That he did not prefer moderate counsels, but was pleased with those that put him upon harsh and rigorous methods, and advised him to double the taxes, whether there was occasion for so doing or no, and to tell them in plain terms that he would do so, Kg1 12:10, Kg1 12:11. These young counsellors thought the old men expressed themselves but dully, Kg1 12:7. They affect to be witty in their advice, and value themselves on that. The old men did not undertake to put words into Rehoboam's mouth, only counselled him to speak good words; but the young men will furnish him with very quaint and pretty phrases, with pointed and pert similitudes: My little finger shall be thicker than my father's loins, etc. That is not always the best sense that is best worded.
IV. He answered the people according to the counsel of the young men, Kg1 12:14, Kg1 12:15. He affected to be haughty and imperious, and fancied he could carry all before him with a high hand, and therefore would rather run the risk of losing them than deny himself so far as to give them good words. Note, Many ruin themselves by consulting their humour more than their interest. See,
1. How Rehoboam was infatuated in his counsels. He could not have acted more foolishly and impoliticly. (1.) He owned their reflections upon his father's government to be true: My father made your yoke heavy; and therein he was unjust to his father's memory, which he might easily have vindicated from the imputation. (2.) He fancied himself better able to manage them, and impose upon them, than his father was, not considering that he was vastly inferior to him in capacity. Could he think to support the blemishes of his father's reign who could never pretend to come near the glories of it? (3.) He threatened not only to squeeze them by taxes, but to chastise them by cruel laws and severe executions of them, which should be not as whips only, but as scorpions, whips with rowels in them, that will fetch blood at every lash. In short, he would use them as brute beasts, load them and beat them at his pleasure: not caring whether they loved him or no, he would make them fear him. (4.) He gave this provocation to a people that by long ease and prosperity were made wealthy, and strong, and proud, and would not be trampled upon (as a poor cowed dispirited people may), to a people that were now disposed to revolt, and had one ready to head them. Never, surely, was man so blinded by pride and affectation of arbitrary power, than which nothing is more fatal.
2. How God's counsels were hereby fulfilled. It was from the Lord, Kg1 12:15. He left Rehoboam to his own folly, and hid from his eyes the things which belonged to his peace, that the kingdom might be rent from him. Note, God serves his own wise and righteous purposes by the imprudences and iniquities of men, and snares sinners in the work of their own hands. Those that lose the kingdom of heaven throw it away, as Rehoboam did his, by their own wilfulness and folly.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–16 And Rehoboam went to Shechem,.... After the death and…
And Rehoboam went to Shechem,.... After the death and internment of his father:
for all Israel were come to Shechem to make him king: as was pretended, though in reality it was to seek occasion against him, and make Jeroboam king; it is very probable they knew of the prophecy of Ahijah, and therefore would not go to Jerusalem, but to Shechem, a city in the tribe of Ephraim, of which Jeroboam was, and where he had sowed the seeds of sedition when ruler there; and this place they chose, partly because they could more freely speak what they had in their minds, and partly for the safety of Jeroboam they had sent for on this occasion; so that Rehoboam went thither not of choice, but of necessity. The Jews (c) observe that this place was very ominous; here Dinah was ravished, Joseph was sold, Abimelech exercised tyranny, and here now the kingdom was divided.
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(c) T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 102. 1.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 10, 15, 16 Rehoboam succeeds and Jeroboam returns out of Egypt, ver.…
Rehoboam succeeds and Jeroboam returns out of Egypt, ver. 1, 2. The peoples petition to Rehoboam, and his answer, ver. 3-15. Ten tribes revolt and make Jeroboam king, ver. 16-20. God forbids Rehoboam to make war upon them, ver. 21-24. Jeroboam sets up two golden calves, ver. 25-33.
Were come - Rehoboam did not call them thither, but went thither, because the Israelites prevented him, and had pitched upon that place, rather than upon Jerusalem, because it was most convenient for all, being in the center of the kingdom; and because that being in the potent tribe of Ephraim, they supposed there they might use that freedom of speech, which they resolved to use, to get there grievances redressed. So out of a thousand wives and concubines, he had but one son to bear his name, and he a fool! Is not sin an ill way of building up a family?
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 7, 10, 11, 15, 16 The people go to Shechem to make Rehoboam king,…
CHAPTER XII
The people go to Shechem to make Rehoboam king, and send for
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Jeroboam out of Egypt, who with the heads of the tribes,
requests relief from the heavy burdens laid on them by Solomon,
14.
He requires three days to consider their petition, 5.
He rejects the counsel of the elders, who served his father,
and follows that of young men, and returns the people a
provoking answer, 6-15.
The people therefore renounce the family of David, stone to
death Adoram, who came to receive their tribute, and make
Jeroboam king; none cleaving to Rehoboam but the tribes of
Judah and Benjamin, 16-20.
Rehoboam comes to Jerusalem, and assembles all the fighting men
of Judah and Benjamin, and finds the number to be one hundred
and eighty thousand; and with these he purposes to reduce the
men of Israel to his allegiance, but is forbidden by the
Prophet Shemaiah, 21-24.
Jeroboam builds Shechem in Mount Ephraim and Penuel, 25.
And lest the people should be drawn away from their allegiance
to him by going up to Jerusalem to worship, he makes two golden
calves, and sets them up, one in Dan, the other in Beth-el, and
the people worship them, 26-30.
He makes priests of the lowest of the people, and establishes
the fifteenth day of the eighth month as a feast to his new
gods; makes offerings, and burns incense, 31-33.
NOTES ON CHAP. XII
Verse 1. Rehoboam went to Shechem] Rehoboam was probably the only son of Solomon; for although he had a thousand wives, he had not the blessing of a numerous offspring; and although he was the wisest of men himself, his son was a poor, unprincipled fool. Had Solomon kept himself within reasonable bounds in matrimonial affairs, he would probably have had more children; and such as would have had common sense enough to discern the delicacy of their situation, and rule according to reason and religion.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 13, 16 1Ki 12:1. Rehoboam went to Shechem — With a…
1Ki 12:1. Rehoboam went to Shechem — With a view to be there declared Solomon’s successor by the people, and made king. It does not appear that he called the people thither, but went thither because they had prevented him, and pitched upon that place rather than upon Jerusalem, because it was most convenient for all, being in the centre of the kingdom; and because, as it was in the potent tribe of Ephraim, they supposed they might there more securely propose their grievances, which they were resolved to do, and use a greater freedom of speech than they could at Jerusalem, where the family of David was more powerful, more numerous, and better supported. And it is not improbable but Jeroboam had a hand in this, and that it was partly at least by his management, or that of some of his friends, who durst not, perhaps, venture themselves at Jerusalem, that this city was made choice of as a place of general convention. The glory of the kingdom of Israel was in its height and perfection in Solomon’s reign. It was long in coming to it, but it soon declined and began to sink and wither under Rehoboam his successor, as we find in this chapter, in which we see the kingdom divided, and thereby weakened, and made little in comparison of what it had been. Solomon probably supposed that by taking to himself seven hundred wives that were princesses, he should greatly strengthen his power, and enlarge his kingdom; and that from them and his three hundred concubines he should have a numerous progeny to perpetuate that power and dominion, in all its extent, to the latest generations. But if so, he was sadly disappointed: of these thousand women, it appears, he had but one son, and he a fool! and two daughters, mentioned 1Ki 4:11; 1Ki 4:15, to bear up his name, and continue his race. “Sin,” says Henry, “is an ill way of building up a family.”
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 15, 16 The first step taken by the new king was…
The first step taken by the new king was a most judicious one. If anything could have removed the disaffection of the Ephraimites, and caused them to submit to the ascendancy of Judah, it would have been the honor done to their capital by its selection as the scene of the coronation. Shechem (now Nablous) lay on the flank of Mount Gerizim, directly opposite to Mount Ebal, in a position second to none in all Palestine. Though Abimelech had destroyed the place Jdg 9:45, it had probably soon risen again, and was once more a chief city, or perhaps “the” chief city, of Ephraim. Its central position made it a convenient place for the general assembly of the tribes, as it had been in the days of Joshua Jos 8:30-35; 24:1-28; and this would furnish an additional reason for its selection.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 15, 16 King, or to acknowledge his right, provided he would…
King, or to acknowledge his right, provided he would grant their request. The discontented assembled at Sichem, rather than at Jerusalem, as they would be under less restraint. (Calmet) --- They appointed Jeroboam to prefer their petition. (Menochius) --- Roboam was probably the only son whom Solomon had by his wives. (Calmet) --- We read of two daughters, Japheth and Basemath, chap. iv. 11., and 15. (Haydock) --- Naama, the Ammonite, was the mother of Robaom, who, though 40 years old, was devoid of good sense, 2 Paralipomenon xiii. 7., Ecclesiastes ii. 18., and Ecclesiasticus xlvii. 27. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1
SECOND PERIOD. (975 TO 722 B.C.)
THE DIVIDED MONARCHY IN JUDAH AND ISRAEL
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(1Ki_12:1-17)
FIRST EPOCH
From The Division Of The Kingdom Until The Reign Of Ahab
(1Ki_12:1 to 1Ki_16:34)
FIRST SECTION
The Division Of The Kingdom
(1 Kings 12)
A.—The renunciation of the house of David by the ten tribes
1Ki_12:1-24 (2Ch_10:1 to 2Ch_11:4.)
1And Rehoboam went to Shechem: for all Israel were come to Shechem tomake him king. 2And it came to pass, when Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who was yet in Egypt, heard of it,1 (for he was fled from the presence of kingSolomon, and Jeroboam dwelt in Egypt;2) 3that they sent and called him. And Jeroboam and all the congregation of Israel came, and spake unto Rehoboam,saying, 4Thy father made our yoke grievous: now therefore make thou the grievous service of thy father, and his heavy yoke which he put upon us,lighter, and we will serve thee. 5And he said unto them, Depart yet for three days, then come again to me. And the people departed.
6And king Rehoboam consulted with the old men that stood before Solomon his father while he yet lived, and said, How do ye advise that I may answerthis people? 7And they spake unto him, saying, If thou wilt be a servant unto this people this day, and wilt serve them, and answer them, and speak goodwords to them, then they will be thy servants for e1 Kings 1Ki_12:8 But he forsook the counsel of the old men, which they had given him, and consulted with theyoung men that were grown up with him, and which stood before him: 9and he said unto them, What counsel give ye that we may answer this people, who have spoken to me, saying, Make the yoke which thy father did put upon us lighter? 10And the young men that were grown up with him spake unto him, saying, Thus shalt thou speak unto this people that spake unto thee, saying, Thy father made our yoke heavy, but make thou it lighter unto us; thus shalt thousay unto them, My little finger shall be thicker than my father’s loins. 11And now whereas my father did lade you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke: my father hath chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.3
12So Jeroboam4 and all the people came to Rehoboam the third day, as theking had appointed, saying, Come to me again the third day. 13And the king answered the people roughly, and forsook the old men’s counsel that they gavehim; 14and spake to them after the counsel of the young men, saying, My father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke: my father also chastisedyou with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions. 15Wherefore the king hearkened not unto the people; for the cause was from the Lord [Jehovah], that he might perform his saying, which the Lord [Jehovah] spake by Ahijah the Shiloniteunto Jeroboam the son of Nebat. 16So when all Israel saw that the king hearkened not unto them, the people answered the king, saying, What portion have we in David? neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse: to your5 tents, O Israel: now see to thine own house, David. So Israel departed unto their17tents. But as for the children of Israel which dwelt in the cities of Judah,Rehoboam reigned over them. 18Then king Rehoboam sent Adoram,6 who was over the tribute; and all Israel stoned him with stones, that he died. Therefore king Rehoboam made speed to get him up to his chariot, to flee to Jerusalem.19So Israel rebelled against the house of David unto this day.
20And it came to pass, when all Israel heard that Jeroboam was come again, that they sent and called him unto the congregation, and made him king over all Israel: there was none that followed the house of David, but the tribe of Judah7only. 21And when Rehoboam was come to Jerusalem, he assembled all the house of Judah, with the tribe of Benjamin, a hundred and fourscore8 thousand chosen men, which were warriors, to fight against the house of Israel, to bring the kingdomagain to Rehoboam the son of Solomon. 22But the word of God9 cameunto Shemaiah the man of God, saying, 23Speak unto Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and unto all the house of Judah and Benjamin, and tothe remnant of the people, saying, 24Thus saith the Lord [Jehovah], Ye shall not go up, nor fight against your brethren the children of Israel: return every man to his house; for this thing is from me. They hearkened therefore to the word of the Lord [Jehovah], and returned to depart, according to the word of the Lord [Jehovah].10
Exegetical and Critical
1Ki_12:1. And Rehoboam went to Shechem. The city of Shechem was about eighteen hours’ distance north of Jerusalem, and lay at the foot of Mount Gerizim, in the mountain range of Ephraim (Jdg_9:7). It is often mentioned in the history of the Patriarchs (Gen_12:6; Gen_33:18; Gen_34:2; Gen_37:12), and Joshua had intended it to be a free Levite city. He likewise gathered all the tribes together there, and held that important diet in which all the people pledged themselves to the observance of Jehovah’s covenant (Jos_20:7; Jos_24:1; Jos_24:25). In the time of the Judges, Abimelech made Shechem the capital of his kingdom (Judges 9.); he destroyed it, indeed, but it was soon rebuilt, and continued to be one of the chief cities of the northern part. 1Ki_12:1 gives us the reason why Rehoboam left Jerusalem, where he had been made king, and went to Shechem; for all Israel were come to Shechem. By כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל we are not to understand all the twelve tribes (Ewald), but only ten, as 1Ki_12:12; 1Ki_12:18; 1Ki_12:20 clearly show; under David even those tribes had claimed the name of the entire people (2Sa_2:9-10; 2Sa_2:17; 2Sa_2:28). בַּא is not the imperfect but the pluperfect, for the ten tribes did not go to Shechem because the king was there but just the reverse: because (כִּי) they had gone to Shechem, the king went thither. He therefore did not call them together there, but they, i. e., their elders, judges, and representatives, had assembled in this old Ephraimitic capital, as they had once done in Joshua’s time (Jos_24:1; cf. 2Sa_5:1; 1Ki_5:3), and this induced the king to journey to Shechem. Their design in meeting was to make him king, i. e., to recognize him as king, as Judah had done, though he had already ascended the throne; to pay him homage, on the condition, however, that he would agree to their wishes and demands. This was why they did not assemble in Jerusalem, as they were in reality bound to do, and as they had done to David when they went to Hebron, the place of David’s residence, to do him homage (2Sa_5:1 sq.), but in Shechem. It was a “a significant hint, if Rehoboam had properly understood it” (Ewald). It is very improbable that they summoned him to their assembly, as they did Jeroboam; he seems to have gone unsummoned with his whole retinue (1Ki_12:6; 1Ki_12:8). That the 10 tribes had assembled “to assert their ancient right of choice” (Gramberg) is an entire mistake. For there is no mention anywhere of such a right; and the text does not say they went to Shechem to choose a king, but to make him—Rehoboam—king, i. e., to confirm him as such.
1Ki_12:2-3. And it came to pass, when Jeroboam … heard of it, &c. 1Ki_12:2. If we retain the reading וַיֵּשֶׁב יָרָבְעָם בְּמִצְרָיִם we must, like Maurer, take 1Ki_12:2 to be properly the antecedent sentence, and begin the conclusion with וַיּבֹאוּ, 1Ki_12:3, and translate like De Wette: “When Jeroboam heard of it (he was still in Egypt, whither he had fled from Solomon the king, and Jeroboam dwelt in Egypt, and they sent and called him), then Jeroboam and the whole assembly came, and they spake to Rehoboam.” Apart from the crude form of this sentence, the words following “he was still in Egypt,” namely, “and Jeroboam dwelt in Egypt,” appear to be quite superfluous; we must in this case supply, after he had returned from Egypt, before “then Jeroboam came;” and, finally, it would follow that the people assembled at Shechem sent messengers thence to Egypt to bring back Jeroboam, which is not to be supposed, because the journey there and back required several weeks, and “all Israel” would have been compelled to wait during this time, without accomplishing anything, in Shechem, for Jeroboam’s arrival. But all these difficulties fall away if we read, like 2Ch_10:2, וַיָּשָׁב יָרָבְעָם מִמִּצְרָיִם, i. e., and Jeroboam returned from Egypt. According to this, the case was simply so: On the news of Solomon’s death Jeroboam returned from Egypt to his tribe-land Ephraim, and, we are to imply, to his native place Zereda (1Ki_11:26), or, as the Sept. says, Sarira, which could not have been very far distant from Shechem. They sent thither for him; he came, and took the lead in the negotiations which those assembled at Shechem made with Rehoboam. The Vulgate also translates 1Ki_12:2 : At vero Jeroboam, cum adhuc esset in Ægypto profugus a facie regis Salomonis, audita morte ejus reversus est de Ægypto. Miseruntque et vocaverunt eum; venit ergo Jeroboam et, etc. The [Vatican] Sept., which places this verse in 1Ki_11:43, translates: κατευθύνει καὶ ἔρχεται εἰς τὴν πόλιν αὐτοῦ εἰς τὴν γῆν Σαριρὰ τὴν ἐν ὄρει ’ΕΦραΐμ. It is easy to see what thoughts those who composed this Assembly were revolving when, before Rehoboam’s arrival, they called the man who had lifted up his hand against Solomon, and was just returned from Egypt, and made him their leader and speech-maker to Rehoboam. Rehoboam having come to them, instead of they to him at Jerusalem, only made them bolder. From the long sentence which the Sept. places after 1Ki_12:24 we can glean nothing certain regarding Jeroboam and his conduct after he returned from Egypt; everything is mixed together and the different personages confused; for instance, Jeroboam is confounded with Hadad the Edomite, and the prophet Ahijah with the prophet Semaiah; Jeroboam’s mother is called γυνὴ πόρνη, &c. Keil is right in denying all historical value to this sentence, out of which Thenius strives to complete the story.
1Ki_12:4-5. Thy father made our yoke grievous, &c. 1Ki_12:4. The word עֹל does not mean every kind of heavy load, but the yoke laid on the neck of beasts designed for labor (Num_19:2; Deu_21:3; 1Sa_6:7); it is the yoke of labor, and, as such, the symbol of servile work (Deu_28:48; Lev_26:13; Jer_27:8; Jer_27:11); it is, for this reason, parallel with עֲבֹדָה here. The grievance, therefore, is nothing—it is well to notice this—but the levy-work for Solomon’s public buildings, and we see this plainly enough by 1Ki_12:11; 1Ki_12:14, where Rehoboam’s answer is recorded. That the complaint was well founded, that Solomon had really exacted too heavy servile work from his people, as the Egyptian king once did in Moses’ time (Ex. 11:1, 23), is generally taken for granted, although the complaint comes from the mouths of a number of people who were excited with thoughts of secession, and who were jealous of Judah. At their head stood a man, too, who had already tried to raise an insurrection, and had not renounced his ambitious plans in exile. Complaint from the mouths of such cannot be taken as testimony, nor can it ever weigh under such circumstances, except joined to other and purely historical evidence. We have none such, however. Solomon was not the first to adopt the measure of a conscription for working at the public buildings as well as for war-service. This was customary throughout the ancient East. Everywhere, from Egypt to Babylon, the immense buildings were raised, not by paid workmen, but by conscriptions. There were, for instance, the 360,000 men who worked twenty years at one pyramid (see above on 1Ki_5:13). Even David had, among his five chief officers, one who was specially “over the tribute” (2Sa_20:24), which was then a standing regulation. We find the tribute brought into system in Solomon’s time, and the people were, as contrasted with conquered foreigners, treated with gentle consideration (chaps. 1Ki_5:13 sq.;1Ki_9:20 sq.). Nowhere is the voice of complaint heard about it, and our author is far from representing Solomon’s conduct as hard and blameworthy, but rather relates it to his praise. As the tribute-work was distributed by turns amongst “all Israel,” Ephraim or the ten tribes received no more proportionately than the two remaining tribes, and there is not the most indirect allusion anywhere that Solomon exacted more from the Ephraimites than from the others. For this reason, the complaint of the “yoke” being “grievous,” which they alone make, seems to be only a welcome excuse suggested to them by their former superintendent Jeroboam. The real motive came to light later (1Ki_12:16). If we cannot admit the complaint of too hard tribute-work to be well founded, still less have we any right to add other things to the complaint of which it makes no mention. The grievous yoke and heavy service are not generally taken to mean, as the plain expressions do, the tribute-work alone, but all burdens laid on the people, i. e., the taxes and produce which they had to pay and deliver; not their powers of labor alone, but their “capacity of paying taxes,” are thought to have been too much tested by Solomon (De Wette, Ewald, Eisenlohr). “Discontent grew with the oppression of the people by ever new burdens and tributes, that were quite contrary to the original freedom of the community” (Diestel); the monarchy had become “a despotism, a sultanate” (Duncker), and the speakers for the people had therefore laid before Rehoboam “the terms of capitulation, which were to lighten the universal oppression under which Israel had sighed since Solomon’s reign began” (Winer, R.-W.-B. II. s. 311). This view, almost universally current, stands in direct contradiction with the historical evidence. As to the taxes and deliveries, they are not once mentioned in the complaint, as we have already said; neither is the poverty or other misery resulting from them once named anywhere. It is difficult to conceive how any one can appeal to such places as 1Ki_10:25 (De Wette), for there is no mention there of what the people brought, but of the presents which strangers brought the king. Ewald himself admits that there is no evidence that there was an income tax, and it by no means appears, as Winer supposes, from 1Ki_10:15, that “custom duties” had been introduced. There is still less historical proof of the universal oppression of the people under Solomon. All that our author relates, from chap. 2. to 10., is to show the unwonted prosperity and splendor of Solomon’s kingdom; its immense wealth, its peaceful condition, and its thriving commerce are described in the strongest terms, and just by those passages which have been quoted to prove the heaviness of the taxation and the supposed oppression, is it specially manifest how happy and peaceful the people were under Solomon’s reign (1Ki_4:20; 1Ki_4:25; cf. 1Ki_8:66), so that the prophets took the kingdom of Solomon as a type of the Messiah’s (see above). Even after chap. 11, in which Solomon’s fall is recorded, there is nothing to show that Israel “sighed” under universal oppression; and when the people as well as king became degenerate in the latter part of his reign, it was rather in consequence of too great prosperity and luxury than of great burdens and poverty. Finally, Solomon is threatened, in both addresses of the prophet Ahijah (1Ki_11:11; 1Ki_11:31 sq.), with the partition of his kingdom, not because he had oppressed the people with servile labor and heavy taxations, but solely because he had suffered his strange wives to persuade him to introduce idolatrous forms of worship. It would have been a just and well-founded complaint had they alleged that Solomon had broken the supreme command in the fundamental law of Israel by the toleration of idol-worship, and had thus undermined the strength of the kingdom. But the complainants are wholly silent on this, and the sequel shows how little they or their speaker Jeroboam cared for the observance of that fundamental law.
1Ki_12:6-14. Rehoboam consulted, &c. 1Ki_12:6. The זְקֵנִים are not old people, but the elders (senators) who constituted the administration-college of Solomon [or council] (1Ki_4:2-6). Rehoboam had retained them as such, but had not, as Thenius thinks, “placed them on the retired list,” for in that case he would not have taken them with him to Shechem, and he certainly would not have heard their counsel before that of the young men. The expression, that stood before Solomon, shows that they were in immediate attendance on the king. In their advice, 1Ki_12:7, הַיּוֹם stands next to כָּל־הַיָּמִים, and עֶבֶד at the beginning, over against עֲבָדִים at the conclusion; and as עֶבֶד is strengthened by the immediately following וַעֲבֵדְתָּם, we have no right to weaken it, and to take it in another sense from עֲבָדִים that stands opposite to it at the conclusion; this is generally done, and עֶבֶד is translated “complaisant,” but עֲבָדִים, on the contrary, is translated “subject.” The elders not only advised the king to compromise, but that he should “serve” the people at least “this day,” and assured him that the people would then be his “servants” “for ever;” they proposed that he should for the present moment reverse the existing relation: the king was to be “servant” and yield to the will of the people, in the expectation that the people would afterwards be his “servants.” We can easily imagine that such a proposal (which would not perhaps have succeeded) was not very agreeable to the rash and imperious young king, in whose veins Ammonite blood flowed (1Ki_14:21). The word יֶלֶד, 1Ki_12:8, is used for a child at any age from its birth (Exo_2:3; Exo_2:6-7) to youth; יְלָדִים are not, therefore, real counsellors, like the זְקֵנִים, but young people who were in attendance upon the king (“stood before him”). The words, that were grown up with him, show that Rehoboam was himself still יֶלֶד (cf. 2Ch_13:7). The proverbial expression 1Ki_12:10, my little finger, &c., means, I am much mightier than Solomon; his power was as the little finger to the body, compared with mine; if my father had power to compel you, I have still more. From this general way of speaking they proceed in 1Ki_12:11 to allude to the particular grievance of the forced labor. The yoke and whips belong together, and are the signs of laboring servants (Ecclesiasticus 30:26 or Sir_33:27). The king was to use instead of the whips for servants the thorn-whip used for criminals alone, and which was called scorpio by the Romans (Isidor. Origg. v. 27, 1 Kings 18 : Virga. si est aculeata, scorpio vocatur, quia arcuato vulnere in corpus infigitur). The meaning is, my father used ordinary means to keep you at work, but I will do it with extraordinary and severer means. The answer says as little of taxes as the complaint itself; it only refers to the enforced work, and it does not even admit that Solomon exacted too much, but it is only now proposed to do so. The pleasure with which Rehoboam accepted this advice is very indicative of his disposition.
1Ki_12:15-17. The cause was from the Lord. 1Ki_12:15. Inasmuch as the inconceivably foolish and perverse resolve of Rehoboam carried with it the irremediable division of the people and kingdom, the verse asserts it to be a course of things (סִבָּה from סבב) from Jehovah; not that Rehoboam was forced unwillingly to speak so, but in the same sense in which it is said of Pharaoh (Exo_14:4; Rom_9:17) and of Judas (Mat_26:25). Witsius (Decaphyl. i. 3) says: Ipsa Rehabeami stolida imprudentia consilio Dei inservivit, ut quod accidit etiam merito accidisse videtur. We find here an application of the proverb: Quem Deus vult perdere, prius dementat. Every case of a hardened heart is a righteous judgment of God.
1Ki_12:16-17. What portion have we, &c. 1Ki_12:16. This was the old Ephraimite watchword of rebellion, of which Sheba availed himself against the house of David (2Sa_20:1). The first member of the sentence means this, What concern have we about David and his house, when the question is who shall be king over us? We have no fellowship with each other (Deu_10:9). Neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse is not equal to we can hope for and expect nothing from him; but, we do not belong to him, as Judah, by race-derivation. In the “son of Jesse” there is an allusion to David’s humbler descent, just as in the New Testament to one “carpenter’s son” (Mat_13:55). To your tents, O Israel! is a proverbial call which originated in the time of the march through the wilderness, where the camp was arranged according to the tribes. Let every one return to his tribe and his home, without acknowledging Rehoboam. Now see to thine own house, i.e., see how you can reign over your own tribe in the future; you have no right to us any more. In this whole cry “the deeply rooted dislike to David’s royal house is strongly expressed, and we can perceive a more potent cause for the partition than the alleged oppression of Solomon” (Keil). 1Ki_12:17 means that only those individuals belonging to the ten tribes remained under Rehoboam who were settled in Judah or had gone to settle there (2Ch_11:3). The verse does not mean, then: “the tribe of Judah chose Rehoboam, who was one of them, to be king” (Ewald); for Judah had already acknowledged him such before he went to Shechem.
1Ki_12:18-19. Adoram, who was over the tribute, &c. 1Ki_12:18. No doubt the same who is called Adoniram in the list of Solomon’s chief officers (chap 1Ki_4:6), as also the Sept., Syr., and Arab. call him in this passage. Thenius thinks he was the son of Adoram, the chief of the tribute officers, who is mentioned in the lists of David’s officials (2Sa_20:24). If he was identical with this person he must certainly have been about eighty years of age, since David could not have given the office in question to quite a young man, and Solomon reigned forty years. It is evident that Rehoboam sent him to treat with the rebels, and to appease them, as Josephus expressly says. As the question was about lightening the tribute work, the chief officer over the tribute seems to have been selected by Rehoboam as the fittest person to mediate; probably Adoram was one of the “elders” who gave the advice to yield. But the people were highly incensed at the sight of this officer, and instead of listening to him, in their rage they stoned him. Bertheau has no grounds for his supposition that he came with an armed force (however small) to force the rebels to submission. For: unto this day, see on 1Ki_8:8; 1Ki_9:21.
1Ki_12:20-21. And it came to pass when all Israel heard, &c. 1Ki_12:20 closes the narrative, 1Ki_12:1-19, and is also the connecting link with the following 1Ki_12:21-24. The independence of the ten tribes had been achieved by their representatives in Shechem, who now returned to their different tribe-territories (end of 1Ki_12:16), and announced to “all Israel” what had happened, especially also the part that Jeroboam, just arrived from Egypt, had acted there. The latter, no doubt, also returned to his native place after the event. But when a king was to be chosen for the rebels he was called back and made king. This exasperated Rehoboam to make war on Israel. We cannot be surprised at the number he brought into the field, as the tribe of Judah alone had 500,000 men of war in the census that David took (2Sa_24:9).
1Ki_12:22-24. But the word of the Lord came, &c. 1Ki_12:22. The prophet Shemaiah did not belong to the tribe of Ephraim, like Ahijah (1Ki_11:29), but doubtless to Judah, and from the present passage as well as from 2Ch_12:5, it seems that he must have lived in Jerusalem. As here, so also he had great influence through his preaching, when king Shishak came from Egypt to war against Rehoboam; he also wrote a history of Rehoboam (2Ch_12:5-8; 2Ch_12:15). The thing is from me, 1Ki_12:24. This prophet of Judah, as well as the Ephraimite prophet, declares the separation of the ten tribes to be a divine dispensation, which, humiliating and painful as it was to the house of David and Judah, might not be opposed by force of arms; for the separated tribes were still “brethren.” Thus he recognizes a higher bond of union in spite of all separation, and wishes that union held intact. The king and army follow his advice; they probably saw that a war with the numerically greater and just now bitterly excited ten tribes would bring them into a worse condition still.
Historical and Ethical
1. The rebellion of the ten tribes against David’s house, and the consequent partition of the kingdom, was the most important and pregnant event in the history of Israel since it became an independent State. The divisions that took place in the time of the judges were only temporary, but this lasted for hundreds of years, and only terminated with the fall of both the separated kingdoms. An event that formed such an epoch, and had such a marked influence on sacred history, cannot possibly be traced to one fact alone, or to the defiant and thoughtless answer of Rehoboam; it must have been produced by deeper and more general causes, lying in the character of the people and in the mutual relation of the tribes. The tribe of Judah and the double one of Joseph (Ephraim and Manasseh, Jos_17:17), whose progenitors were especially favored in the blessing (Gen_49:8-12; Gen_49:22-25), were from the beginning the most numerous, and therefore the most powerful, of all the twelve tribes. Judah numbered seventy-six thousand and five hundred before the entrance into Canaan; the double tribe of Joseph numbered eighty-five thousand and two hundred men (Num_26:22; Num_26:28; Num_26:34; Num_26:37); this tribe claimed the largest territory at the division of the land (Jos_17:14 sq.; 1Ch_5:1) on account of its number, and because it had inherited Reuben’s birth-right. But the “sceptre” was promised to Judah, and the leaders in the march through the desert as well as in the conquest of Canaan headed that tribe (1Ch_5:2; Num_2:3; Num_10:14; Jdg_1:2; Jdg_20:18); both tribes were warlike (Jdg_1:4; Jdg_1:10; Jdg_8:1 sq.; 1Ki_12:1 sq.; Psa_78:9). In consequence of these relations, each tribe regarded itself as equal in powers with the other tribes, but also as evenly matched with each other. But added to this there was a difference in the character and pursuits of the tribes; whilst Judah was the leader and head of the theocracy and the covenant, therefore of higher religious life (Gen_49:10; Psa_60:9; Psa_78:67 sq.; Psa_114:1-2), Ephraim represented the nature-side of the people’s life; and the consciousness of natural, material strength and earthly abundance appears with it in the foreground (Gen_49:22 sq.; Deu_33:13; Psa_78:9 sq.). There was, therefore, in the latter more receptivity for nature-religion, and a tendency to independence of any other tribe, and especially of one not entirely its equal. There was, then, the germ of a dualism very early in the nation, and this germ grew more and more in the distracted times of the Judges, asserting itself sometimes with more, sometimes with less energy. After Saul’s death the two chief tribes formally separated under different kings (2Sa_2:4-11); this, however, only lasted seven years and a half, after which the revolted tribes went over to the king of Judah, i.e., David (2Sa_5:1 sq.). But the more the power and authority of Judah increased under David and Solomon, so much the more did the old jealousy and love of independence grow in Ephraim; the tribute-labors, and especially the structures which served to strengthen the dominant authority of Judah which Solomon had achieved by Ephraimites, were calculated especially to increase those feelings. Jeroboam’s attempt to raise an insurrection miscarried, but the desire for independence was not extinguished thereby. It broke out again the more violently after Solomon’s death, as there was hope of getting rid of Rebohoam more easily, who did not in the least resemble his father. The great event of the partition of the kingdom had its roots in a primitive characteristic of the tribe, which characteristic had existed over four hundred years, and now broke out at last with violence, creating a double State. Rehoboam’s answer was only the spark which fell into the powder magazine. The recent historical criticism admits the agency of the Ephraimite character in the revolt, but finds the especial and chief cause in the essential nature of the kingdom. Ewald is of this opinion (Gesch. des V. Isr. III. s. 393 sq.). The monarchy had, in its very nature, a tendency to extend its power further and further, and to restrict every other power in the nation more and more, or else to absorb it. It reached a very high stage in Solomon’s time, but it was ever growing, and it made more and more severe exactions upon the people in labor and taxation. A further strengthening and one-sided growth of the monarchy was held by the best men in Israel to be ruinous and dangerous to the ancient freedom of the people. There might have been, indeed, a way of reconciling the claims of the monarchy and of the nation without a revolution, i.e., “having what is now called a constitution drawn up, which, when well devised, is the safe-guard of the best modern Christian nations.” But there was no such remedy at hand; the heads of the tribes only assembled when a new king was to be declared. All the best of the people, and particularly the prophets, had agreed that the government could not continue as it was at the close of Solomon’s life. As the prophets had founded the kingdom, and advanced it so much by the elevation of David’s house over that of Saul, they now expected furtherance by another change of dynasty; impressed by their counsel, it was forthwith achieved in consequence of the voice of the people and the folly of Rehoboam, &c., &c. This whole mode of explanation, already adopted here and there, rests on the utterly unproved supposition that Solomon’s government constantly grew more absolute and despotic, till, at last, it seriously threatened the liberty of the people. We have not the slightest historical proof of this. Where is it said that Soloman oppressed his people, in every way, by taxation and tribute-labor? Where is it said that the prophets believed the liberties of the people to be threatened, and that they announced this publicly? How happens it that Solomon, who advanced his realm to a degree of prosperity it never before and never again enjoyed, is made to be a despot and oppressor? Just when the text has been treating exclusively of the tribute to the splendid court, it says: “Judah and Israel were many, as the sand which is by the sea in multitude, eating and drinking, and making merry,” &c.; “Judah dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig-tree, from Dan to Beer-Sheba, all the days of Solomon” (1Ki_4:20; 1Ki_4:25). That he demanded too much of this tribute-labor, which was customary among all ancient nations, and had been exacted before his time, there is no other evidence than the complaint of the angry revolutionary assembly of Ephraimites at Shechem, and this cannot be regarded as impartial and historical testimony. So little did Solomon interfere with the liberty of his people, that there was an unprecedented commerce with all the neighboring nations in his reign; he even allowed freedom of worship—allowed too much rather than too little liberty. This and not despotism was what the prophets apprehended danger from. There is not in the whole history of Solomon a single act that can be called despotic or tyrannical, like those of later kings, for instance, Ahab or Jehu; and yet the former is said to have ruled with such intolerable severity that the prophets and the best among the people were compelled to think of a change of government. Of all kingdoms, that of Israel should be the last to be judged from a modern political point of view. The theocratic constitution was not revoked when the human monarchy began: Jehovah continued to be the true king of Israel, and the human king was the “servant of Jehovah;” as such he had to do Jehovah’s will, not his own. There was, therefore, no such thing as absolutism, which we are told clung to this monarchy by virtue of its nature. But we cannot comprehend how any should think that the best remedy against the supposed despotism of Solomon would have been a representative government, after the pattern of the constitutions of our nineteenth century.
2. The revolt of the ten tribes from the house of David (1Ki_12:19) is often represented as justifiable. J. D. Michaelis (Mos. Recht I. § 55) saw nothing more in it than a new capitulation of a people still free; De Wette (Beiträge I. s. 129) went further, and asserted that, “according to 1 Kings 12. these tribes were fully justified in what they did; they demanded fair concessions, and there is only Rehoboam’s folly to be blamed.” Duncker says (Gesch. des Alt. s. 402), “the Israelites remembered their right to choose and anoint the king.” But we find nothing said anywhere of such a national right: the law for kings (Deu_17:14 sq.) says nothing of it; it recognizes no conditions of election; and the history mentions no king except Jeroboam (1Ki_12:20), either in Judah or Israel, who was elected by the free choice of the people. The monarchy was hereditary in Judah, and continued in David’s house till the dissolution of the kingdom; in Israel, also, the son succeeded the father, or usurpers arose who gained the throne by force; but the people never once chose the king. In the present instance, Ephraim with its confederates had no right, certainly, to reject a king who was such by birth, and to choose another by themselves alone, without Judah. Ephraim had solemnly acknowledged the brotherhood of all the twelve tribes, and had willingly submitted to David (2Sa_5:1 sq.); and all the tribes had acknowledged Solomon to be, in right of being David’s son, the true king of “Judah and Israel” (1Ki_4:20; 1Ki_5:5). At the great festival of the dedication they had all gathered around Solomon, who announced to them the divine promise that David’s house should never want a man to sit upon the throne of David (1Ki_8:1; 1Ki_8:24-25); they united together in a solemn bond, by a common thanksgiving sacrifice to Jehovah at the temple, which was the central point, as it were, of the kingdom, and this bond joined them all together as well as with David’s house; as the king blessed them, so, also, they blessed him (1 Kings 6:62–68). Solomon’s son was therefore the rightful heir of the throne for all the tribes, and none had a right to revolt from him. Even granted that Solomon had given his subjects cause of complaint, by exacting too much tribute-labor in the latter part of his reign, yet this did not justify any one of the tribes in breaking the bond of national union, and severing themselves from the hereditary dynasty, especially, too, as Rehoboam had not as yet shown in acts what his government would be. The revolt of the ten tribes was not brought about first by his foolish wilful answer, but the latter “only offered them a wished for opportunity to carry out their already purposed, revolt” (Keil). Hence they did not want to treat, but gave free vent to their hatred, and murdered the innocent ambassador of the king. The division can therefore be regarded as nothing else than a revolutionary act, which cannot by any means be excused, much less justified. A right of resistance lies only in cases where the chief ruler arbitrarily violates the fundamental law upon which the material and also the spiritual and moral existence of a people rests. But the rebellion is then the act of the government itself, and not of the subjects. But single grievances, even if real, can never justify revolt from lawful authority (especially when only brought forward by a part of the nation) or form sufficient ground for rebellion and deeds of violence (cf. Rothe, Theol. Ethik III. s. 977 sq.). Solomon had certainly attacked and undermined the fundamental law of Israel, by permitting and favoring idolatry, but the ten tribes made no complaint of this, but solely of the alleged excess of tribute-labor, which Judah and Benjamin shared with them, but which they did not bring forward as a grievance.
3. That Rehoboam returned an answer to the people, with which the storm that had threatened the house of David burst forth, is emphatically said (1Ki_12:15) to have been from the Lord; and the prophecy of Ahijah (1Ki_11:11; 1Ki_11:31) was thereby fulfilled. At the same time the prophet Shemaiah warns them not to make war on the seceders, saying, “this thing is from the Lord.” This does not justify the conduct of the ten tribes any more than that of Rehoboam, but intimates indeed that the partition of the kingdom determined on in the counsels of God happened in such a way as to make it evident that it was the fault of Rehoboam. According to the word of Ahijah the partition appeared to have a double design: to “afflict the seed of David, but not forever” (1Ki_11:39), to be as such a chastisement (2Sa_7:14); and also to afford to the inborn instinct of Ephraim for independence the opportunity of free development, yet on the indispensable condition of unchanging fidelity to the fundamental law that David had held; the express restriction was added, that David’s seed was not to be afflicted forever. We already remarked above (Hist. and Ethic. 5, on 1Ki_11:14-43) that such a temporary division of the kingdom was not inconsistent with the higher unity of the divine monarchy. But as neither of the kingdoms adhered to that higher unity, Ephraim forsaking the law continually from the beginning, and Judah only sometimes faithful, the division became, through the guilt of both kingdoms, the germ of their destruction (Mat_12:25). Because the higher unity was forsaken, the history of the divided kingdom is nothing but a slow process of dissolution of the human monarchy in Israel, and with it of the outward, earthly kingdom, limited by natural race and to a given land. That unity was designed, in the divine counsels, to be an eternal heavenly kingdom, an inward kingdom of God, to embrace all nations, a βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν in which “Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim” (Isa_11:13); in which “they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all,” but shall be “one nation,” and “one king shall be king to them all” (Eze_37:15-22). The fact that the partition of the kingdom, this beginning of its end, immediately followed its culmination of earthly dominion under David and Solomon, shows how frail and perishable it was; the more it approached its dissolution, the more ardent became the longing for an enduring and eternal kingdom, the more definite and significant prophecy became. Well may Witsius exclaim, referring to the above-mentioned sentence in 1Ki_12:15 : O sapientia et occulti miranda potentia fati! quœ res omnes ita dirigit et flectit, ut tamen ipsi illuc ivisse videamur, et consiliis fatisque nostris gradum nobis struamus ad fatalem illum lapsum sive adscensum. The apostle’s exclamation about the ways and judgments of God, though universally applicable, is so especially here (Rom_11:33).
4. In the conduct of the various important personages concerned in bringing about the partition of the kingdom, all the sins and weaknesses appear which lie at the bottom of all such events; so that we behold, in this history, a reflection of every revolution in its nature and course, and it may serve as a picture of future ones in every age (cf. especially the striking treatise of Vilmar, Die Theilung des Davidsreichs. Pastoral-theol. Blätter, 1861, s. 177 bis 193), which we cited above on 1Ki_11:4. A complete lack of religious feeling and manner is first observable in these two opposite parties; both move upon a purely outward, secular, and political-worldly soil, though in Israel the national and religious consciousness coincide principally. There had been hitherto no assembly of the whole people or of their representatives, for weighty affairs, in which the religious element had failed. When Joshua called the elders together in Shechem, before his end, “they presented themselves before God” (Jos_24:1 sq.). When Samuel did the same at Mizpeh, he said to them, “present yourselves before the Lord” (1Sa_10:19). When all the tribes came to David in Hebron, after Ish-bosheth’s death, and acknowledged him as king over all Israel, they call to mind Jehovah’s word, and David “made a league with them before the Lord” (2Sa_5:1-3). When Solomon assembled all the heads of the tribes and the elders at the dedication, the ceremony not only began with divine worship, but ended by the “king and all Israel with him offering sacrifice before the Lord” (1Ki_8:1; 1Ki_8:5; 1Ki_8:62). In the present instance, however, nothing was done “before the Lord,” but everything was done without Him. No one, neither one of the tribe-heads nor Jeroboam nor Rehoboam nor his counsellors and companions, inquire after Him. No one names Him. That He is their true sovereign before whom they must all bow does not occur to them. They think only which of the two parties should rule the other. This conduct reveals a state of things which always and everywhere precedes revolutions; which are made ready inevitably when, in a nation and kingdom, high and low alike ask no longer for the holy and living God, and where infidelity and indifference have entered. The breaking of religious ties brings with it, sooner or later, that of the State also; hence we generally find, in the present day, that those who plan the overthrow of the government, as a rule, seek also to undermine the church foundations.—When we look particularly at the conduct of the people of the ten tribes we see that they had all forgotten the great benefits and blessing they had received through the house of David, especially during the forty years of Solomon’s prosperous reign; they forgot that each had dwelt securely under his vine and fig-tree as long as Solomon lived, that they had eaten and drunken and been merry; they only thought of the dispute about tribute-labor, hence ingratitude and discontent. They agreed to go to Shechem instead of Jerusalem, and only to do homage under certain conditions; this was already mutiny and rebellion. Hereupon they called a man who had lifted his hand against Solomon, and proved himself a foe of David’s house, to be their speaker and leader; with him at their head, they went to the king in the consciousness that they formed the majority of the nation, and laid before him their complaint of excessive labor and want of freedom. When their stormy petition was rejected, there arose wild and scornful cries, and a regular rebellion broke out; they rushed in blind rage at the innocent mediator for the king, and murder him, whereupon the king has to flee in great haste; and they conclude by making their leader and spokesman king. If, on the other hand, we contemplate the conduct of the government, we find everything here, too, that was calculated to call forth rebellion and insurrection instead of avoiding or appeasing it. First, utter ignorance of the feeling among the people, and therefore no sort of precaution for the threatened danger; the king goes thoughtlessly to the discontented people, thus falling into the snare set for him. When surprised in Shechem with the demand made, he is irresolute, asks time for reflection, and keeps the people in suspense, which must only have increased their excitement. He then consults his immediate attendants; the elders advise him to descend from the throne, for the time being, and to humor the people; the young men advise him to the opposite course. Thus there was want of unity in the higher circles, and views in direct antagonism one over against the other. The high-sounding advice of the courtiers pleased the weak and headstrong monarch best, and he delivered an answer which supposes a power which no longer existed, and shows equal folly, arrogance, and contempt of the people. Thereupon the storm broke loose, and Rehoboam then wished to make concessions, and to treat with them. But instead of going himself courageously to face the excited throng, this arrogant and imperious man sent an old and faithful servant to be exposed to their rage. It was “too late;” Adoram was killed, and he himself had to flee in haste. When such perverted ways, faults, and sins are found in the government, the way for revolution is already formed, and when it has once begun, soldiers are as useless as concessions; what is lost by a person’s own fault is lost forever.
5. The appearance of the prophet Shemaiah after the partition seems like the rising of the sun after a dark, stormy night. Whilst sin and wickedness reign in both parties, and none of them cares about the living God, “the man of God” appears with undaunted courage; armed only with the sword of the Spirit, the word of God, he confronts the blinded, wilful king and an army of 180,000 men. He commands them in the name of the Lord to lay down their arms, and to go home; standing on the rock of his strength (Psa_62:8), he calls to the surging waves, Thus far and no farther! and no one dares to offer opposition. Thus the prophets again come forth in majesty, as the admonishing and avenging conscience of Israel, as the divine corrective of all human actions; and this shows, too, how erroneous the assertion is that the partition of the kingdom was the result of a series of conflicts that went on, especially under Solomon, between the two powers of the monarchy and of the prophets, which existed side by side in Israel. It was not monarchy and the prophets which were in conflict, but Ephraim and the house of David. Both these took purely secular and political ground, and they had no other aim than to lord it over each other. The prophets take a stand-point above both; and the prophet speaks and contends for the divine monarchy in Judah as well as in Israel. As for the rest, Judah appears here in a much more favorable light than Ephraim; it faithfully adheres to David’s house, and knows nothing of complaint of tribute-labor, which had borne as heavily on it as on Ephraim; while Ephraim, which well knew the promise given to David’s house, disregards that promise completely. Judah, knowing the word of the Lord by the prophet, rises against his brethren at the call of his king; but Ephraim listens to a Jeroboam, and if a prophet in Shechem had warned them against insurrection he would doubtless have fared no better than Adoram.
Homiletical and Practical
1Ki_12:1-20. The departure of Israel from the house of David: 1. The grievances. 2. The decision. 3. The rebellion.—The division of the kingdom. 1. A consequence of manifold sins (of Solomon, Jeroboam, Rehoboam). 2. A divine dispensation (for their humiliation and chastisement, and for a direction toward the heavenly eternal kingdom, v. Ethical).—The sources and causes of the rebellion. 1. In general (estrangement from God, indifferentism, and unbelief). 2. In particular, these sins on the part of the people (Pro_14:34), and on the part of the princes (Pro_20:28). Where prince and people fear God, there will be no rebellion; but where no covenant with God exists, all human considerations fall in pieces.
1Ki_12:1-5. The assemblage of the people at Shechem. 1. Who were present (the ten tribes with Jeroboam, returned from Egypt, at their head, ostensibly to do homage, but really to stir up revolt; the assembling together was unlawful, unbidden, and arbitrary. Warning from such courses. Pro_24:21-22). What the people sought. (Murmurs and complaints against the pretended oppression of Solomon, instead of gratitude for great benefits, and the well-being of the State. These complaints were rather a pretext than the truth, and were an exaggeration of the grievances; they demanded not the maintenance of the law and the covenant; but merely material elevation, less labor, and more outward freedom and independence. Admonition of 1Pe_2:17-19).—Preiswerk (in the periodical, Morgenland, 1839): The assembling together of great idle crowds in a small space is a device of all demagogues; these crowds mutually excite each other, masses of men, like-minded, inspire each other with confidence, peaceful councils vanish, men become accustomed to the shouts of the insurgents, imbibe their principles, venture no contradiction against the outburst of passion, especially when swelled by numbers, and, thus inflamed, are dragged onwards in paths from which later repentance can never bring them back.
1Ki_12:1. It is never advisable to go where men are assembling themselves together, who testify by their choice of a meeting-place that they have no good end in view. (Shechem recalls the story in Judges 9.)
1Ki_12:2-3. Experience teaches that those who have once set up an opposition to legitimate authority will ever persist in their resolve, even if their design fail or is pardoned; they only await another opportunity to carry out their plans; therefore they should never be trusted.
1Ki_12:3-4. Rebellious people easily seek and find in public circumstances means which they amplify and exaggerate in order to give an appearance of justice to their wickedness, and to have some pretext for their criminal designs.—Cramer: It is an universal fact that men exclaim more concerning oppression than concerning godlessness and other sins; are more careful for the body than for the soul; and, so they are free in action, give little heed to the soul’s nurture (Exo_16:3).—A people which prescribes to its lawful sovereign the conditions of its obedience to him, and directs him how to govern, assumes to itself royal authority, and overturns the appointed order of God, thus rushing surely on to its own destruction.
1Ki_12:5. A prince who, upon his accession to the throne, requires time to decide if his rule shall be mild and merciful or harsh and despotic, cannot have assumed his high responsible post in the fear and love of God; therefore he must expect no divine blessing. It is well and good, indeed, in all weighty matters to take time for reflection, but in time of sudden danger, rapid, firm decision is equally necessary. One accustomed to walk in God’s ways will at such times take no step which will afterward cause him bitter repentance.
1Ki_12:6-11. Rehoboam holds a council. 1. With whom? (With his own servants, old and young, but not with the Lord his God, and with his servants. In difficult and grave matters we should not neglect to take counsel with men, but chiefly should we go to Him for counsel of whom it may be said: He has the way of all ways, and never fails in counsel, and “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, &c. (Jam_1:5). For, saith the Lord, Woe to the rebellious children who take counsel, but not of me, &c. (Isa_30:1). if He sit not in the council, in vain do young and old advise. Had Jeroboam sought light from above in those three days, and prayed as once his father did (1Ki_3:9), or as Jeremiah (Jer_32:19), or entreated like Jehoshaphat (2Ki_3:11), then he would not have been like a reed shaken by the wind, but his heart would have been strong.) 2. The advice given him. (Neither counsel was divine, but both merely human (Mat_16:23). The old men, out of their fear and apprehension, advised: renounce for the present thy royal prerogative, and bow before the will of the people; later thou canst act quite differently. This advice ran counter to his pride and despotism, so he refused the counsel of the old men. Through flattery and insolence combined, the young men counselled a course actually inhuman, viz.: to abuse his royal prerogative, to care nothing for his people and their wishes, but simply to treat them with violence. This advice suited him well, because it corresponded with his rough, harsh, selfish and violent character. But this produced the exact reverse of what he wished and hoped. When you receive conflicting counsels from men, apply to both the test of God’s word, for: Psa_19:8; Psa_119:104 sq.) 1Ki_12:6. It is the first privilege and duty of a king to seek to surround himself with men, who, fearing no man, either high or low, and regardless of their own profit or advantage, shall advise him as befits men responsible before a just and holy God. One such man alone outweighs whole hosts of soldiers, for: Pro_20:28. 1Ki_12:7. A king who refuses to be a “servant of God” readily finds himself in a situation where he is compelled to be a servant of the people. The splendor of majesty is enhanced by benevolence, goodness, and mercy, but never by timid yielding and submission to the popular will. 1Ki_12:8. Where the counsels of the aged are rejected, be it in a kingdom or in a house, and those only of the youthful followed, there men pursue an unhallowed path. For to a true wisdom of life experience is necessary, and this youth cannot have (Lev_19:32; Sir_8:11). Those who grow up with us have, unconsciously and involuntarily, a vast influence over our modes of thought and views of life, therefore parents must have a watchful eye over the intimacies of their children. 1Ki_12:10-11. A vaunting speech is by no means a proof of courage; the more boastful a man’s speech the less resolute he will be in peril and temptation; a truly strong, firm, and calm man is silent. Time-serving and flattery are most dangerous for a prince; they wear the garb of fidelity and devotion, and in reality are the greatest treachery. Chiefly distrust those who counsel thee to do what gratifies thy vanity, thy selfishness, and thine own desires, and costs thee no sacrifice.—Osiander: One should rather distrust all harsh judgments, because they accord chiefly with the disposition of the flesh, and not of the spirit, which inclines to mercy.
1Ki_12:12-15. The answer of the king to the people. (a) It is hard—not merely a refusal, but imperious, tyrannical, unbecoming in any sovereign, but especially one who ought to be the servant of the compassionate and merciful God, with whom is great truth and loving-kindness (Exo_34:6). Authority is the handmaid of God, to thee for good (Rom_13:4), and not a terror. Government is not built upon whips and scourges, but upon justice, love, and confidence; that rule alone is thoroughly right where “mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other” (Psa_85:11). How entirely different is David’s example of sovereignty (Psalms 101.). (b) A rash and inconsiderate counsel, that of the young men, throwing oil on the flames instead of quenching them, and exciting uproar and revolt instead of disposing to submission and obedience. Passion always blinds. When the heart is perverted the head is likewise dulled, and those who are generally shrewd become unwise and unreasonable; for it is not the head which rules the heart, but, on the contrary, the inclinations and desires of the heart are stronger than the thoughts of the head (Prov. 15:1: 30:33; Jam_1:19-20; Eph_5:15-17). “He that liveth many days, let him keep his tongue from evil,” &c. (Psa_34:13). 1Ki_12:14. Midway between weak concessions and timid neutrality on the one hand, and selfish persistence in presumptive rights on the other, lies a course always pointed out by the Lord to those who bow before Him, pray to Him for wisdom, and long earnestly to do what pleases Him alone. Not only do great lords give harsh answers, but likewise petty rulers; those who moan and complain most bitterly against the tyranny of the great are frequently the greatest tyrants in a small way; they perceive the mote in their neighbor’s eye, but not the beam in their own.—Starke: The voice of the King of kings comes to us utterly unlike that of Rehoboam; therefore should we listen the more submissively and obediently to it.—Würt. Summ: The Most High is ever at hand to change the darkest prospects of the children of men to a happy termination, and the accomplishment of His all holy will, even as Joseph said to his brethren (Gen_1:20). God disposes not the thoughts of man to folly and sin, but brings them to judgment by their very perverseness, and thus makes it serve to carry out His own designs.
1Ki_12:16-19. The rebellion, (a) Its causes, sin, and folly, in high and low places: amongst the people, ingratitude, jealousy, envy, hatred, and thirst for independence: with the king, tyranny, violence, and folly. (b) Its consequences. (Disunion, which was in no wise advantageous, but the beginning of every species of ill-fortune, and of the final dissolution of the kingdom, followed deeds of violence. murder, and death-struggles. A people in rebellion is like a fierce dog unchained. The evil consequences of rebellion are often felt for a century.)
1Ki_12:16. As is the question. so is the answer. He who makes an unprincipled speech must not wonder if he receive a like reply. The same people who once came to David and said: See, we are thy bone and thy flesh, thou hast led us, thou shalt be our king (2Sa_5:1-2), now said: We have no part in David; what is the shepherd’s son to us? This is the way of the multitude. To-day they cry: Hosanna, blessed be he who cometh in the name of the Lord! To-morrow it is, “Crucify him, we will not that he reign over us!” To-day, if fortune smile, they are fawning and bland, to-morrow, if misfortune threaten, they cry: “Look to thyself.” Their cry is: We will be free, and servants of no man—not seeing that they are the blind tools of one or more leaders, who seek to reign over them. With the house of David, Israel flung aside the great promise (2Sa_7:10-16; 2Sa_23:5), which depended on that house. For us has come that Son of David, whose kingdom shall have no end (Luk_1:32 sq.). Let us hold steadfastly by Him, and not be led astray by the uproar of the world: “We will have no part in him.” He will finally destroy all enemies under his feet. Thus went Israel to his tents, but not as formerly, blest by the king and blessing him, rejoicing over the goodness of the Lord to David, and to his people Israel (1Ki_8:66). He who has not a good conscience cannot return in peace.
1Ki_12:18. The people desired freedom, but a tree of liberty, watered with innocent blood, can only bear poison fruit. He who asks nothing of God can only lead others to folly,—he who cannot stand in the gap can never protect others. It is a judgment of God when a monarch, instead of being able to repose in the bosom of any one of his subjects, must needs fly before him to save his life. To yield to superior force is no disgrace, but shameful is the flight which is the result of arrogance and overbearing pride.
1Ki_12:19-20. The great majority fell away, and the small minority remained faithful; the first was ruined and had no future; from the latter came forth the One before whom every knee bowed down, and whom every tongue acknowledged to be the Lord (Mat_2:6; Php_2:11). In the kingdom of God there is no question of majorities and minorities, but it is simply, are we steadfast and faithful unto death? The pretended deliverers of the masses well know how to manage, so that they will become rulers of the people; they allow themselves to be summoned, and apparently persuaded to the very object which was the sole aim of their efforts.
1Ki_12:21. What Rehoboam had lost through insolence and weakness, through wickedness and folly, he now sought to regain by violence and battle; instead of humbling himself beneath the All-powerful hand of God, he is haughty and depends upon his own arm of flesh. The natural heart of man is a froward and timorous thing (Jer_17:9), without safe resting-place or firm support, now buoyed up, now cast down, the football of every storm of fortune. But blessed is the man whose trust and confidence are in the Lord. It is a precious thing, &c. (Heb_13:9). Faith is the victory, &c. (1Jn_5:4.) In the renewed heart is no pride and no fear.
1Ki_12:22-24. The word of the Lord to the king and to the host; (a) the command: Ye shall not, &c.; (b) the cause of the commandment: For this thing is from me; (c) the obedience to the command: And they hearkened, &c. The lives and property of subjects are not to be used to compensate for the sins and follies of their rulers. Civil wars are the most unnatural, and likewise the fiercest and bitterest; he who stirs up strife between brethren commits a crime which never goes unpunished.—Shemaiah, a type of the Lord’s servants. He is a man of God, and as such he brings good tidings of peace (Isa_52:7); he has no other arms than the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God (Eph_6:17); with His word he comes, strong and fearless, before the king and his whole host (Act_4:20; Act_9:15). It is said here of hundreds of thousands: “They hearkened to the word of the Lord, and returned, &c.” How many thousands to-day hear this word, but, burying it beneath cares, riches, and the pride of life, live on without obedience and without repentance, bringing forth no fruit (Luk_8:14).—Würt. Summ.: We see here with what great might the God of Truth maintains his word. By the prophet Ahijah he announced to Jeroboam that he should rule over ten tribes of Israel: that is accomplished here. He has promised to leave one tribe to the house of David: that is accomplished here. He promised to Ephraim or to his father Joseph, that kings should proceed from them (Genesis 49; Deuteronomy 33.), and that is fulfilled here, since Jeroboam becomes king through Ephraim. Thus nothing remains unfulfilled of all that God has spoken, promised, or threatened. Solomon and Rehoboam strove to prevent the fulfilment of God’s word in Jeroboam, for which purpose Solomon planned to kill Jeroboam, and Rehoboam assembled a great army against him, but all in vain. Therefore let all men believe and seek after the word of God, and not strive to resist it (Luk_21:33).
[F. D. Maurice: “He (Jeroboam)did not trust the living God. He thought not that his kingdom stood upon a divine foundation, but that it was to be upheld by certain divine props and sanctions. The two doctrines seem closely akin; many regard them as identical; in truth there is a whole heaven between them. The king who believes that his kingdom has a divine foundation confesses his own subjection and responsibility to an actual living ruler. The king who desires to surround himself with divine sanctions, would fain make himself supreme, knows that he cannot, and therefore seeks help from the fear men have of an invisible power, in which they have ceased to believe. He wants a God as the support of his authority; what God, he cares very little.”—E. H.]
Footnotes:
[1]1Ki_12:2.—[It is better to omit the italicized words of it, which are not in the Heb. and which must refer to the Assembly at Shechem, whereas what Jeroboam heard of was the death of Solomon, as is expressed in the Vulg. See the Exeg. Com. The Vat. Sept. omits here the whole of 1Ki_12:2 and the greater part of 1Ki_12:3, having given the substance of them (with some addition) at 1Ki_11:43. The Alex. Sept. follows the Heb. Our anthor, in his translation, has omitted the part of 1Ki_12:2 enclosed in brackets, evidently by an inadvertence.
[2]1Ki_12:2.—Instead of וַיֵּשֶׁב בְּמִצְרָיִם must be read, with 2Ch_10:2, וַיָּשָׁב מִמִּצְרָיִם See the comment. [The text may be preserved without change (for which the Vulg. is the only authority) by considering the statement that Jeroboam dwelt in Egypt as merely the completion of the statement of his flight: he had fled to Egypt and remained there. The change was proposed by Dathe, but is rejected by Maurer and by Keil.
[3]1Ki_12:11.—עַקְרַבִּים, scorpions, flagelli genus globulis plumbeis cum aculeis incurvis munitum, a scorpii similitudine dictum (Gesen. Thes. 11, 1062).
[4]1Ki_12:12.—[The Sept. omits here the significant mention of Jeroboam.
[5]1Ki_12:16.—[The Heb., Sept., Chald. and Syr. have the pronoun in the singular, thy tents. In the next clanse the Sept. translates νῦν βόσκε τὸν οἶκόν σου, Δαυίδ.]
[6]1Ki_12:18.—[The Sept., Syr., and Arab. read Adoniram.
[7]1Ki_12:20.—[The Sept. here inserts “and Benjamin.”
[8]1Ki_12:21.—[The Vat. (not Alex.) Sept. reduces this number to 120,000.
[9]1Ki_12:22.—[Many MSS. followed by the Sept., Vulg., Chald., and Syr. read here יְהוָֹה instead of אֱלֹהִים.]
[10]1Ki_12:24.—[The Vat. (not Alex.) Sept. here inserts a passage quite equal in length to the whole chapter, containing many particulars whose utterly unhistorical character may be seen from the opening statement that Rehoboam was sixteen years old at his accession and reigned twelve years. Cf. 1Ki_14:21.—F. G.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv4, 5, 11, 15 Thy father made our yoke grievous--The splendor of Solomon's…
Thy father made our yoke grievous--The splendor of Solomon's court and the magnitude of his undertakings being such, that neither the tribute of dependent states, nor the presents of foreign princes, nor the profits of his commercial enterprises, were adequate to carry them on, he had been obliged, for obtaining the necessary revenue, to begin a system of heavy taxation. The people looked only to the burdens, not to the benefits they derived from Solomon's peaceful and prosperous reign--and the evils from which they demanded deliverance were civil oppressions, not idolatry, to which they appear to have been indifferent or approving.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 15, 16 REVOLT OF THE TEN TRIBES, 1Ki_12:1-19.
REVOLT OF THE TEN TRIBES, 1Ki_12:1-19.
Feelings of jealous rivalry had long prevailed between the tribe of Judah and the rest of Israel. The unwise action of the tribe of Judah in making David king without the concurrent action of the other tribes (2Sa_2:4, note) was perhaps still remembered, and the fierce contention between Judah and the ten tribes about bringing David back to Jerusalem, (2Sa_19:41-43,) and the rebellion of Sheba that sprang from that feud, all intensified the previous bitterness. The strong governments of David and Solomon made it impossible for sedition or revolt to be successful in their day; but the old feeling of bitterness and jealousy was only slumbering, and ready at any moment of fair opportunity to burst out, and in defiance of the throne assert its power. The continual levies of men which Solomon demanded for his public works, and the burdens imposed on them, seemed to grow more oppressive as he advanced in years; and his adversaries Hadad, Rezon, and Jeroboam, who so greatly troubled his last days, received, probably, no small encouragement and support from the large number of disaffected Israelites among the northern tribes. So when Rehoboam succeeded to the throne the opportune moment had come for the disaffected tribes to make their demands and seek redress. It is likely, too, that Ahijah’s prophecy that Jeroboam should become king of ten tribes (1Ki_11:29-39) had not been kept a secret thing, but had rather led the elders of the people to take some measures for its accomplishment.
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The prominence of Ephraim, too, in this revolt, deserves particular notice. “To the house of Joseph — that is, to Ephraim and Manasseh, with its adjacent tribe of Benjamin — had belonged, down to the time of David, all the chief rulers of Israel; Joshua the conqueror; Deborah, the one prophetic, Gideon, the one regal, spirit of the judges; Abimelech and Saul, the first kings; Samuel, the restorer of the state after the fall of Shiloh. It was natural that, with such an inheritance of glory, Ephraim always chafed under any rival supremacy. Even against the impartial sway of its own Joshua, or of its kindred heroes, Gideon or Jephthah, its proud spirit was always in revolt; how much more when the blessing of Joseph seemed to be altogether merged in the blessing of the rival Judah; when the Lord ‘refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim, but chose the tribe of Judah, the Mount Zion which he loved.’ Psa_78:67. All these embers of disaffection, which had well nigh burst into a general conflagration in the revolt of Sheba, were still glowing; it needed but a breath to blow them into a flame.” — Stanley.
1. To Shechem — A central place for the northern tribes to meet, and consecrated by many hallowed associations. Compare Gen_12:6; Gen_33:18; Gen_37:12; Deu_11:29; Deu_27:12-13; Jos_8:33; Jos_20:7; Jos_24:1-25.
For all Israel were come… to make him king — The verb בא, were come, should here be rendered by the pluperfect had come. It seems that this coming together of the ten tribes was an action preconcerted among themselves. They had their demands all ready, and their plans and purposes fixed for revolt in case the king would not yield to them. The for (כי) introduces the reason of Rehoboam’s going to Shechem. He went thither to receive the oath of allegiance from the representatives of the northern tribes, who had already assembled there ostensibly for the purpose of acknowledging him king.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16 Ch. 1Ki_12:1-15. Rehoboam’s accession. Request of his subjects and…
Ch. 1Ki_12:1-15. Rehoboam’s accession. Request of his subjects and the king’s Answer (2Ch_10:1-15)
1. And Rehoboam went to Shechem] The parallel passage in 2Ch_11:1-15 is almost identical with what is given here. It is clear from the narrative that, though Rehoboam was acknowledged as the rightful successor to his father, there was a desire among the people to modify the character of the government. David had ruled as a conqueror, and the fame and wealth and great undertakings of Solomon had gratified the people and made them submit to many severities in his reign. Rehoboam had none of the recommendations of his father or grandfather, and the influential persons in the nation availed themselves of the solemn enthronization at Shechem to put forward their desires. It may well be that they had arranged for the ceremony to take place at a distance from Jerusalem, and in one of the principal towns of the north that their proposals might be strongly supported, and that the king might feel how important it was for him to conciliate such a party as they were. If Rehoboam had already been acknowledged as king in Jerusalem, the southern tribes would be less powerfully represented in this meeting at Shechem, and prestige of the grand buildings of Jerusalem and all the splendour which spake of Rehoboam’s house would be absent.
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Shechem, first mentioned as Sichem in Gen_12:6, was a city of considerable antiquity, in the hill country of Ephraim, and of such strength and importance that Jeroboam (see 1Ki_12:25 below) fortified and strengthened it to be the royal city of the ten tribes, immediately after the revolt. Its name, which signifies shoulder or ridge, indicates its position among the hills, and Josephus tells us that it was between Mt. Ebal and Mt. Gerizim. It has been identified with the modern Nablous (formerly Neapolis), and there seems no reason to question the identification.
for all Israel were come to Shechem] We have seen before that there was a distinction, even while the kingdom was all one, between ‘the men of Israel’ and ‘the men of Judah’ (see 2Sa_19:40-43). It seems not improbable that the arrangement for this gathering at Shechem was a sort of protest by the men of the north against the southern tribes who, because Jerusalem, with the temple and the royal dwellings, was in their part of the land, may have claimed to be the ruling portion of the nation. Hence a solemn ceremonial held elsewhere in connexion with the accession of the new king would be thought a good means of checking this assumption, even if there had been no further motive for the choice of Shechem. And Rehoboam was obliged to go there, if he would not at once provoke a civil war.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 7, 10, 11, 15, 16 (1) All Israel were come to Shechem to make…
(1) All Israel were come to Shechem to make him king.—In the case of David, we find that, when he was made king over Israel, “he made a league” with the elders of Israel (2Sa_5:3), apparently implying a less absolute royalty than that to which he had been anointed, without conditions, over the house of Judah (2Sa_2:4); and in his restoration after the death of Absalom, there appears to be some recognition of a right of distinct action on the part of the men of Israel in relation to the kingdom (2Sa_19:9-10; 2Sa_19:41-43; 2Sa_20:1-2). Even in the coronation of Solomon, we find distinction made between royalty “over all Israel and over Judah.” (See 1Ki_1:35; and comp. 1Ki_4:1.) Accordingly, Rehoboam seems to succeed without question to the throne of Judah, but to need to be “made king” by the rest of Israel, with apparently some right on their part to require conditions before acceptance. It is significant, however, that this ceremonial is fixed, not at Jerusalem, but at Shechem, the chief city of Ephraim, of ancient dignity, even from patriarchal times, as of singular beauty and fertility of position, which became, as a matter of course, the capital of the northern kingdom after the disruption. Perhaps, in this arrangement, which seems to have had no precedent, there was some omen of revolution.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–16 THE REVOLT OF THE TEN TRIBES. With the reign…
THE REVOLT OF THE TEN TRIBES. With the reign of Rehoboam, on which our historian now enters, we begin the second great period in the history of the Hebrew monarchy, so far as it is related in these Books of KINGS. The first, which comprises the Augustan age of Israel, the short-lived maturity of the race in the reign of Solomon, has extended over forty years, from B.C. 1015 to B.C. 975. The second, which is the period of the existence of the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah side by side that is to say, from the disruption to the carrying away of Israel into captivity extends over two centuries and a half, viz., from B.C. 975 to B.C. 722, and is, with few exceptions, a period of steady and shameful decline.
And in giving his account of the division of the kingdom, our historian, more suo, confines himself to the recital of actual facts, and hardly speaks of their hidden causes. Yet the sixteenth verse of this chapter reveals to us very clearly one of the secret springs of the dissatisfaction which existed at the date of Rehoboam"s accession, one of the influences which ultimately led to the disruption of Israel. Jealousy on the part of Ephraim of the powerful tribe of Judah had undoubtedly something to do with the revolution of which we now read. The discontent occasioned by Solomon"s levies and the headstrong folly of Rehoboam were the immediate causes, but influences much deeper and of longer standing were also at work. The tribe of Ephraim had clearly never thoroughly acquiesced in the superiority which its rival, the tribe of Judah, by furnishing to the nation its sovereigns, its seat of government, and its sanctuary, had attained. During the two former reigns the envy of Ephraim had been held in check, but it was there, and it only needed an occasion, such as Rehoboam afforded it, to blaze forth. That proud tribe could not forget the glowing words in which both (Gen_49:22-26, "the strength of my head" and Moses Deu 33:18-17) had foretold their future eminence. They remembered, too, that their position in the very centre of the land was also the richest in all natural advantages. Compared with their picturesque and fertile possessions, the territory of Judah was as a stony wilderness. And for a long time they had enjoyed a certain superiority in the nation. In the time of Joshua we find them fully conscious of their strength and numbers, (Jos_17:14) and the leader himself admits their power (ver. 17). When the tabernacle was first set up, it was at Shiloh, in the territory of Ephraim, (Jos_18:1) and there the ark remained for more than three hundred years. And the pre-eminence of Ephraim amongst the northern tribes is curiously evidenced by the way in which it twice resented (Jud_1:8:1 12:1) campaigns undertaken without its sanction and cooperation. It and its sister tribe of Manasseh had furnished, down to the time of David, the leaders and commanders of the people Joshua, Deborah, Gideon, Abimelech, and Samuel and when the kingdom was established it was from the allied tribe of Benjamin that the first monarch was selected. "It was natural that, with such an inheritance of glory, Ephraim always chafed under any rival supremacy" (Stanley, "Jew. Ch." 2. p. 272). It was natural, too, that for seven years it should refuse allegianceto a prince of the rival house of Judah. Even when, at the end of that time, the elders of Israel recognized David as "king over Israel", (2Sa_5:8) the fires of jealousy, as the revolt of Sheba and the curses of Shimei alike show, were not wholly extinguished. And the transference of the sanctuary, as well as the sceptre, to Judah for Jerusalem, whilst mainly in the territory of Benjamin, was also on the border of Judah would occasion fresh heart burnings. It has been supposed by some that Psalm 78, was penned as a warning to Ephraim against rebellion, and to reconcile them to their loss of place and power; that, if so, it was not effectual, and that the jealousy endured at a much later date Isa_11:13 shows. There had probably been an attempt on the part of Jeroboam the Ephraimite to stir up his and the neighbouring tribes against the ascendancy of Judah in the person of Solomon. That first attempt proved abortive. But now that their magnificent king was dead, now that the reins of government were held by his weak and foolish son, the men of Ephraim resolved unless they could wrest from him very great concessions, to brook the rule of Judah no longer and to have a king of their own house. (The reader will find a very suggestive chapter on this subject in Prof. Blunt"s "Undesigned Coincidences," pp. 162-174.)
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And Rehoboam see ondhmov. 1Ki_11:26, and compare the name Eujru The name possibly indicates Solomon"s ambitious hopes respecting him. The irony of history alone emphasizes it. Ecc_2:18, 19 would seem to show that Solomon himself had misgivings as to his son"s abilities. "As the greatest persons cannot give themselves children, so the wisest cannot give their children wisdom" (Hall) His mother was Naamah, an Ammonitess. (1Ki_14:31) It would appear from 1Ki_14:21, and 2Ch_12:13, that he was 41 years of age at his accession. But this is, to say the least, doubtful. For
(1) he is described in 2Ch_13:7 as being "young (r"n") and tender hearted.
(2) The LXX addition toein 1Ki_12:24 says he was sixteen; uiJodeka ejtwn ejn tw basileu aujton.
(3) It is hardly probable that Solomon, who was himself "young and tender" at his father"s death, should then have had a son a year old.
(4) Rehoboam"s counsellors, who had "grown up with him," and were therefore of the same age as himself, are called "lads" ( y, LXX paisaria). To these reasons Rawlinson adds a fifth, viz. "that it is hardly likely that David would have permitted his son to marry an Ammonitess, which of course he must have done, if Rehoboam was born in his lifetime. But it should be remembered that David had himself married a foreign princess, Maachah, daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur. (1Ch_3:2) There is greater force in the remark that Solomon"s marriages with Ammonite and Moabite women belong apparently to a later period of his. (1Ki_11:1) Altogether the evidence seems to point to a corruption of the text of 1Ki_14:21, etc., and it has been suggested that "forty-one" is there an error of transcription for "twenty-one," a mistake easily made, if, as is extremely probable, the ancient Hebrews, like the later, used the letters of the alphabet as numerals. Twenty-one would then be ak; forty-one am went to This journey was probably made soon after a prior coronation at Jerusalem. According to the LXX addition, it was at least a year after his accession Shechem An old gathering place of the northern tribes. (Jos_24:1) Its position, in the very centre of Palestine, fitted it for this purpose. ("Shechem may be considered the natural capital of Palestine," Conder, p. 16.) But it was perhaps primarily selected because it was the capital of Ephraim, not because it was a "national sanctuary of Israel" (Wordsworth), a title to which it has but little claim. It had once before furnished Ephraim with a king. (Jud_1:9:2) We learn from Jos_20:7 that it was "in Mount Ephraim;" from Jud_1:9:7 that it was under Mount Gerizim. To its position the place was, no doubt, indebted for its name. It is often said to be doubtful whether the place was named after Shechem, the son of Hamor, (Gen_33:18) or whether this prince took his name from the place. The latter is, no doubt, the correct view. For Shechem means strictly, not, as it is often translated, the "shoulder," but dorsi pars superior, or perhaps the space between the shoulder blades (as is proved byVim). Job_31:22, "Let my shoulder fall," hmk. Hence the word is found only in the singular (see Gesen., Thessalonians 3. p. 1407). Now any one who has seen the vale of Shechem (Nablus) will hardly doubt that its name is due to its resemblance to this part of the body (compare "Ezion-geber,". (1Ki_9:26) The town lies in a valley between the two ridges of Ebal and Gerizim; cf. Jos., Ant. 4:8. 44. "The feet of these mountains where they rise from the town to the height of 1000 feet are not more than 500 yards apart." It is consequently one of the most striking and beautiful spots in Palestine, and the more so as its perennial supply of water clothes it with perpetual verdure. For its history see Gen_12:6 Gen_33:18 Gen 34:48:22; Deu_27:4-12; Jos_20:7 Jos_21:20 Jos_24:1, Jos_24:25, 32 Jud_1:9.; etc. In the New Testament it has been supposed to appear under the form Sychar, (Joh_4:5) and this variation has been universally accounted for as a paronomasia, rq, meaning "a lie." But the recent survey has given us good reasons for identifying the place last named with "Askar, a little village on the slope of Ebal, half a mile from Jacob"s well and a little over a mile from Nablus (Condor, pp. 40, 41): for This word suggests that Rehoboam had not selected the capital of Ephraim to be the scene" of his coronation (Rawl.) but that he went thither because the northern tribes claimed this concession. They demanded apparently that he should meet them to receive their homage in the territory of Ephraim. It was a recognition of the importance of the tribe, and there they could the better urge their demands all Israel That is, not the twelve tribes (Ewald), but the ten, or their representatives. The name of Israel was already identified with the ten, or rather eleven, tribes. (see 2Sa_2:9, 2Sa_2:10, 2Sa_2:17, 2Sa_2:28) It is highly probable that the comparative isolation of Judah from the rest of the tribes (see Dict. Bib. vol. 1. p. 1157) had led to this result. Indeed, this fact that the term "Israel" was used of the whole nation, exclusive of the tribe of Judah shows in a very significant way the alienation of Judah from the rest were come to Shoehorn to make him king. It would certainly seem from these words as if the ten tribes had then no settled idea of revolting. Kimchi sees in the very selection of Shechem a proof that they were only "seeking an opportunity for transferring the government to Jeroboam." Similarly Keil. But the glories of Solomon"s reign and the traditions of the house of David would surely make them hesitate, even if they had heard of the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, (1Ki_11:29) before they wantonly broke away from Rehoboam. And the text says expressly that they had assembled to "make him king," i.e., to accept him as such, to anoint him (1Ch_12:38 compared withhi 2Sa_2:4 2Sa_5:8 shows that is synonymous with Keil), after the example of Saul, (1Sa_2:15) David, (2Sa_2:4 2Sa_5:3) and Solomon (1Ki_1:39; 1Ch_29:22) No doubt, as the context shows, they intended to stipulate for an alleviation of burdens, etc., and their selection of Shechem as the place where they would render their allegiance was a "significant hint" (Ewald. "The very place puts Israel in mind of a rebellion," Bp. Hall) to Rehoboam. Their putting forward Jeroboam as their spokesman presuming for the present that the received text of ver. 3 is to be retained, as to which, however, see below was a further hint, or rather a plain indication, that they did not mean to be trifled with. It is not a proof, however, as Keil maintains, that they had already determined to make the latter king, for they distinctly said to Rehoboam (ver. 4), "Grant our petition and we will serve thee." (Ewald, who says "they had the fullest intentions of confirming his power as king if their wishes were granted," points out how this fact makes against the received text, according to which they had already summoned Jeroboam from Egypt.) It is clear from this and the passages cited above that the Jewish people at this period of their history were accustomed, not indeed to choose their king, but to confirm him in his office by public acclamation.
HOMILIES BY J.A. MACDONALD. Vers. 1-5.
The Dead and the Living.
king is dead; long live the king!" This paradox expresses an important truth. Bathsheba recognized it when David on his deathbed promised her that Solomon, her son, should succeed him on the throne, and she said, "Let my lord king David live forever". (1Ki_1:31)
I SOLOMON IS DEAD.
1. His active form is no longer seen.
(1) He "slept with his fathers". (1Ki_11:43) He has stiffened into a corpse. Perfectly passive now! What a moral! The doom of all Work while it is day.
(2) He was "buried in the city of David his father." He had a royal funeral. But all this state was simply to bury him to put him out of sight. Much wisdom is buried alive in state display.
(3) Jeroboam may now return from Egypt. The protection of Shishak is no longer needed. Human wrath has its limitations. Not so Divine wrath. (see Mat_10:28)
2. Where is the disembodied spirit?
(1) Not extinct. Not in stupor. The term "sleep" relates to the body. It anticipates for it an awaking a resurrection.
(2) Stirring in the world of spirits as it stirred when embodied in this world of matter.
(3) What a world is that! How populous! How darkly veiled! yet how interesting to us who are on our way thither!
II BUT HE SURVIVES IN REHOBOAM. This fact is the ground of
1. Rehoboam"s claim to the throne.
(1) He is Solomon"s representative. This is more than a law phrase. Had he not been the son of Solomon he would not have been invited to Shechem. We inherit responsibilities.
(2) Solomon lives in Rehoboam with a potency to move "all Israel." See the nation from Dan to Beersheba, under this influence, streaming down to Shechem.
2. The nation"s suit to the claimant.
(1) In this they recognise the claim of Solomon"s representative to the crown.
(2) Also that he may likewise oppress them as Solomon had done. (see 1Ki_4:7, 22 9:15) From Solomon"s oppressions they seek of Solomon, in Rehoboam, relief.
(3) How history verifies prophecy. (see 1Sa_8:10-18)
III SO SURVIVING, HIS INFLUENCE IS MODIFIED.
1. A new individual appears.
(1) Rehoboam is not the facsimile of Solomon. He is indeed the son of a wise man; but the son, not of his wisdom, but of his folly. His mother was an Ammonitess. This fact is emphasised, according to the Hebrew style, by being stated and restated. (1Ki_14:21, 1Ki_14:31)
(2) His character is the resultant of the influences of Solomon, of Naamah, and of those which also flowed into the current of his life during the apostasy of his father. He became the impersonation of these various moral forces.
(3) The influence of Solomon in Rehoboam, therefore, is considerably modified. Parents are to a large extent responsible not only for their own direct influence upon the character of their children, but also for the contemporary influences to which they allow them to be exposed.
2. New relationships have therefore to be formed.
(1) The people suffered the imposts of Solomon while he lived. They grew upon them by degrees, and brought with them a system of vested interests. The whole system became so crystallized around the person of the king that it was difficult to obtain relief.
(2) Now Solomon is dead all this is loosened, and the opportunity is given for the nation to remonstrate. They are prompt to improve it.
(3) Jeroboam is not only present now, which he would not have been had Solomon lived, but is made the spokesman of the people.
(4) Rehoboam confesses the force of these altered circumstances in listening to the suit, and taking time to deliberate upon the nature of his reply. The value of influences is a most profitable subject for Christian consideration; present posthumous M. (see 2Pe_1:15)
HOMILIES BY J. URQUHART Vers. 1-20.
The accomplishment of the predicted judgment.
I DANGERS OFTEN COME DISGUISED.
1. It was a time of joyous expectation. Nothing betokened the nearness of rebellion and disaster. All Israel had come to Shechem to make him king. There was no dispute about the succession, and no unwillingness to own the sway of the house of David. All was hopeful. Danger may lurk in joy like a venomous insect in a flower.
2. The people"s request was reasonable. Rehoboam could shield himself under no plea of Divine right. David was appointed to shepherd Israel, and the people had a right to protest against their burdens.
3. Their demand seems to have been urged with moderation. There was as yet no determination to rebel. The issue lay with the king. It was to bear the stamp of his mind as well as theirs. There are moments that face us with a sudden demand to manifest the spirit that is in us and to make or mar our future. Should the demand come to thee today, what mark would be left, what work would be done?
II A DANGER WISELY MET.
1. The importance of the juncture was felt and owned. He took time for consideration. A good decision is nothing the worse of a calm review: a bad one needs it.
2. He sought counsel. We are helped by the light of others" judgment, but above all we need the direction of God.
III THE BEGINNING OF DISASTER.
1. A grave defect. Among all that is said of these three days there is no mention of his inquiring of the Lord, or lifting up one cry for guidance. There is pride and passion in us which only God can subdue: these retained are worse than all our foes; they can only harm us through the enemies we harbour within our breast.
1. The counsels of wisdom are rejected (vers. 7, 8).
2. The counsels of folly accepted (vers. 8-11). He was seeking for the reflection of his own proud, vengeful thought, and he now found it in the advice of those who were like minded. What we need is not the strengthening of our own judgment, but its correction by the utterance of love and righteousness and truth.
IV FOLLY"S HARVEST.
1. The shame of rejection and desertion (ver. 16).
2. His last attempt to assert his authority defeated (ver. 18).
3. His ignominious flight. He who might have won a kingdom has to flee for his life.
4. The separation of the ten tribes completed (vers. 19, 20). If Rehoboam had fled from the evil which was in himself, he would not have required to flee from his people. We give birth to the terrors which pursue us. There is but one flight possible from loss and death the flight from sin. U.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv2, 7, 10 When Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who was in…
1Ki_12:2-20
When Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who was in Egypt heard of it . . . they sent and called him.
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The kingdom divided
1. This chapter reveals one of the turning-points in Israels history, for it is as true in the history of Israel as in that of any other people that there are periods comparatively insignificant, and hours as well, that are full of great events.
2. It had seemed to be one of the chief purposes of God to make Israel a great nation. That is the promise made to Abram. The nation seems to have been essential to the carrying out of Gods purpose in giving a revelation and establishing His kingdom in the world. Truth does not gather momentum while it is propagated by an occasional teacher or prophet. Great institutions, educational, civil, and religious, such as can be developed only in a great nation, are necessary to make truth mighty, to give it power among the masses, and that volume which sets it moving over wide areas. The revelation, which had been sporadic in Israel throughout patriarchal times, now by means of the great civil and religious institutions of Israel as a nation--prophecy and the school of the prophets, the priesthood and the great religious festivals--gathers momentum and moves grandly on toward the fulfilment of the promise made to Abram.
3. But by this Scripture we are introduced to a condition of things that is startling. The very chosen instrument essential to the carrying out of Gods purpose to bless and save the world--the Israelitish nation--is threatened with destruction. There is something violent in the very tones of the cry, To your tents, O Israel. Where now is the nation through which God is to bless the world? Can His purpose be accomplished by these fragments?
4. A study of the actual course of history among these tribes would show that there were many natural causes leading to this division of the kingdom. Rehoboam was weak and wicked. He who will rule others must first learn to rule himself. The young men, probably sons of Solomons chief officers, who had been trained at the royal court and were designed to be the officers of the succeeding king, had inherited the bitter hostility that had long existed, especially between the tribes of Judah and Ephraim; thinking themselves strong under the new king, they were ready to advise and help to carry out rash measures. There was no lack of occasion for dissension on the side of Rehoboam. On the other hand there can be little doubt that the taxes exacted of Israel were oppressive. Ephraim had always been jealous of and restive under Judahs rule. To the house of Joseph--that is to Ephraim, with its adjacent tribes of Benjamin and Manasseh--had belonged all the chief rulers of Israel, down to the time of David: Joshua, the conqueror; Deborah, the prophetess; Gideon, the one regal spirit of the judges; Abimelech and Saul, the first kings; Samuel, the restorer of the people after the fall of Shiloh. It was natural with such an inheritance of glory that Ephraim always chafed under any rival supremacy. And when the Lord refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim, but chose the tribe of Judah, the old jealousy was intensified and ready to burst forth on any pretext. Jeroboam had once lifted up his hand against King Solomon, and Solomon had attempted to kill him, and had driven him into Egypt. Weakness, wilfulness, and impetuosity on the part of the king and his advisers, all of which served to intensify an inherited jealousy of prerogative, were the influences at work on the one side. On the other a powerful people fired with a sense of injustice, with a powerful, ambitious, and unscrupulous leader--these certainly afforded causes for a disruption deep and irremediable.
5. But the prophet expressly tells us that this division is of God.
6. What was the real cause? The record makes it plain, and reveals at the same time God, the long suffering and the holy One. It was not that the king had fleeced them, as Samuel a century earlier had told them he would (1Sa_8:11-17). It was that they had rejected God, as God told Samuel they had, when they asked a king (1Sa_8:6-8).
What are the lessons to be learned?
1. God gives opportunities to individuals and to nations even though He knows that they will not improve them. Jeroboam was justified in taking possession of the Ten Tribes. It was part of the Divine plan. He had been so instructed. But Jeroboam departed from God, and he has gone down in the sacred history as the man that made Israel to sin. Rehoboam had his opportunity also both before and after the division of the kingdom. He wasted it wickedly. Whether we use or abuse our opportunities they come to us, and God with and in them all, to work out His righteous will through us if we will, and, if not, to abandon us and to find a way for His will and purposes through others.
2. We may learn also that, however essential an institution may seem to be for carrying forward the purposes of God, if it fail it is doomed. The Israelitish nation, in order to express the Divine will and be a revelation of Jehovah, must be conscious of its dependence on Him. But this Israel had lost. There is no trace of the confidence or of the sense of dependence that appears in the song of.Moses at the Red Sea. The spiritual hold on Jehovah has relaxed.
3. God works in the actual condition of things. It is a mistake to suppose that God must wait for either the ideal man or the ideal nation. The ambitious Jeroboam and the weak Rehoboam are alike His agents. The revelation which shapes the conditions under which the kingdom of God cannot flourish may be as important as that which shows the conditions of its prosperity. To your tents, O Israel: see to thine own house, David, is violent language. Jehovah will find other means for propagating and perpetuating His truth. The Arabian traditions relate that in the staff on which Solomon leaned, and which supported him long after his death, there was a worm which was secretly gnawing it asunder. The worm--idolatry--has done its work. (B. P. Raymond.)
The kingdom divided
God was in Israels history, but he is equally in all history. He guided Israel with a very special purpose, yet no more truly or constantly than He guides us. If from the study of this ancient record we learn to interpret our own lives and the lives of all men and all nations in the spirit in which the sacred historian wrote of Israel and Judah, we shall have learned its main lesson: God rules in this world of ours. He exalts one, casts down another, and makes the very wrath of man to praise Him.
1. Israels secession was from the Lord. From terrible, relentless, persistent tyranny, after due but vain remonstrance, subjects have a Divine right to free themselves by revolution. The powers that be are ordained of God, but no particular form of polity is so. Rulers exist for subjects, not subjects for rulers. The government of a nation at any time presumably deserves respect and support; but it may forfeit all claim to both by ceasing to fulfil its function as a blessing to the people.
2. Observe the pusillanimity of pride. Pride seems a source of strength: it is rather a source of weakness; it prevents one from acting according to his best light. Rehoboam must in his first calm moment have felt convinced of the superior wisdom of the course urged by the older counsellors. But the words of the younger men appealed to his pride and momentarily blinded him to their folly.
3. Consider how expensive such senseless pride may become. It cost Rehoboam far the best part of his dominions. Israel rather than Judah fills the chief place in the history of the next few centuries. Henceforth until the fall of Samaria Israel is ever upon the historians page. Judah occupying a subordinate place. The history of Israel is that of a nation--Judah consisted of but a single great and splendid city. Rehoboams pride was an expensive luxury--it cost him the richest jewels in his crown.
4. Mark the peril of disregarding the wisdom of age. Had Rehoboam consulted only his seniors, he would have taken the right course. This his pride forbade. Was he not king? Old men, fogies, the Bismarcks and the Gladstones, had carried on the State long enough. Like William of Germany, he would show what wonders fresh blood and brain could do. Besides, was he not getting all the light he could inquiring of all rather than of few? Many a youth has thus cheated himself into the belief that he was proceeding with great prudence, when in fact he merely wished an excuse for some darling folly.
5. Notice, that serving is the only way to win true fortunes. How numerous are the applications of this principle in the household in the workshop, in society, in government! If employers only treated their employees in this spirit, how it would assuage the friction between the two, to the advantage of both! If labourers always acted in this temper of love, what added strength it would assure to labouring mens organisations! How perfectly did the course of our Divine Lord and Saviour illustrate this! He came to win the world. How was it to be done? Had He been a mere man, He would never have sought to attain His end in the way He did. Instead of appearing as a grand monarch, ministered unto, courted, and flattered, He came as a servant, ministering ever unto others. Instead of being rich, He had not where to lay His head. Instead of courting the great and wise, He sought the poor and lowly. And He has in this world a Name which is above every name, at whose mention millions of hearts rise and millions of heads bow in loving adoration. (J. B. G. Pidge, D. D.)
Revolt of the Ten Tribes
The son of Solomon began his reign with a blunder, assuming that the throne was his by Divine right of succession and ignoring the ratification of the people. In this particular he is a good type of many young men at the present day, who think they see in the wealth and social position of their parents the claim to societys unquestioning homage to themselves. Real kinghood is personal. The true king, as Carlyle put it, is the canning--the man who can. The endorsement of a wealthy parent may carry a sons cheque; it will not carry him. Society recognises drafts on personal deposits only. Rehoboam fancied that the son of Solomon could pass to the throne unchallenged. Not so thought the proud and jealous Ephraimites; not so thought nine other tribes: and the young aspirants self-complacency was, rudely checked by the refusal of these tribes to come to Jerusalem and pay him homage, by their summoning him to Shechem, the tribe-centre of Ephraim, and by their meeting him there, not with submission, but with a bill of rights. This very check was an opportunity for Rehoboam to show whether he was made of true kingly stuff. The crisis which exposes a mans mistake often develops his wisdom, if he has any. The crisis proved him to be lacking in one of the prime qualifications of a king. He lived, as one has remarked, in a fools paradise, blind and deaf to what would have arrested the attention of a sensible ruler. At any rate, the emergency was one which he could not meet alone, and therefore he sought counsel. There are, however, different motives for asking advice. That a man consults with others does not disprove his self-conceit. Men often seek advice only to have their own opinion or their own course confirmed, and consequently choose their advisers from among their sympathisers; and a sympathiser is not, usually, the best adviser. Decency required that Rehoboam should advise with the old counsellors of his father, but he evidently did so merely for proprietys sake. In the first place, the old counsellors clearly discerned the issue in Rehoboams mind. It was between two ideals of sovereignty, the despotic and the paternal. Should sovereignty mean being served or serving? Evidently, as the result showed, Rehoboams ideal was the former. Christ rules more than Caesar because He put Himself at the worlds service. The worlds real rulers are invariably those who have served it. The worlds thought is that power absolves from obligation; Christs thought is that power emphasises obligation. One of the most impressive pictures of history is that of the young Edward the Black Prince of England, after the victory of Poitiers, serving the captive king of France at table and soothing the mortification of defeat with praises of his bravery and with kindly assurances; and the spirit of that scene is condensed into his favourite motto interwoven with the faded ostrich-plumes about his tomb at Canterbury, Hen mout; Ich dien: High spirit; I serve. Well says Dean Stanley, To unite in our lives the two qualities expressed in this motto--high spirit and reverent service--is to be indeed not only a true gentleman and a true soldier, but a true Christian also. Liberty is essentially a social principle, and every social principle imposes limitations on the individual. Love brings the two ideas of liberty and service into their true relation. Love uses its free choice to choose service, and so makes service the very highest expression of liberty. The young king could not appreciate this lofty ideal of sovereignty. He could not read in service any higher meaning than servility. This advice appealed to a packed jury. He wanted encouragement rather than counsel, and therefore, having satisfied the proprieties of the occasion, he turned to another and more congenial class of advisers, the young men that were grown up with him--young men as proud, as shallow and as hot-headed as himself. There is nothing uncommon in chat. It is a fact of our time no less than of Rehoboams--a fact that carries with it a strange inconsistency, for one does not always nor often reject what is ripe. Crudeness, in most eases, is a reproach. One wants ripe fruit on his table and seasoned timber for his house or his carriage. One does not trust a law student with the management of a fortune, nor put his childs life into the hands of yesterdays graduate in medicine. Youth seems to prefer the route through the shoals and rocks to that through the open sea to which ripened wisdom stands ready to direct it. Those shoals are strewn with wrecks. How few escape! The Bible, it is to be noticed, will not let the old past entirely lose its hold upon us. Enoch and Abraham and Moses appear as counsellors of the nineteenth century, which in so many respects is far in advance of them; and for the reason that they represent principles of life and character which are eternal. The consequences of Rehoboams decision are familiar. We are indeed told that the cause was from the Lord, and that the catastrophe came about in fulfilment of his promise to rend the kingdom from Solomons house; but it was in Rehoboams power to have escaped all responsibility for that terrible result. Gods decrees never relieve us of the duty of obedience. And this is a fair ground of appeal. The popular proverb is profoundly true: A man is known by the company he keeps. Only let us be sure and emphasise the last word, the company he keeps. We keep only what we like. The man is not truthfully indexed by the company in which he happens to be found at any particular time, not by the accidental contact of society, not by the circle into which he may have dropped in order to satisfy some conventional demand or to win some social prestige. That kind of company he does not keep; he only touches it. (M. R. Vincent, D. D.)
Revolt of the Ten Tribes
The fault of the prince lay not in consulting younger men--for they are often most favourable to progress--the error was in allowing his action, as a ruler, to be governed by private considerations. The young mans failing was a kingly one, but also a very common one. The great landowner cannot see the advantage of yielding his game-preserve to the uses of hard-worked tenants. The manufacturer does not frequently pay the sowing-women he employs more than the market price for their labour. Power and wealth men are as slow to give up as Pharaoh was the Israelite slaves.
I. An early illustration of an attempt to adjust difficulties by conference. Though the people might not have remained for a long period loyal to the house of David, they made an attempt to adjust the difficulties between them and their hereditary prince. They did not go into open rebellion. They asked that their rights and their complaints might be considered Kings who exercise despotic power, and their defenders, are wont to base their claims on the authority of the Bible. As Englishmen, we point with pride to the Barons at Runnymede as they demand the Great Charter from King John. This right of petition, exercised by Israelites and Englishmen, is not one that has always been conceded. Charles II. endeavoured to secure the passage of a bill limiting this right of his subjects so late as 1680. In early Bible times we find free speech, free petition, and methods of arbitration. This right of petition must be conceded before any adjustments can he made between sovereigns and their subjects, or between men and their fellows. We must be willing to hear mens causes and defence, before any result can be obtained that will be satisfactory. Before conference can begin, there must be this openness of discussion. There is one phase of this matter that is very practical. Do we not often condemn persons before giving them any opportunity to explain their action? We nurse fancied wrongs and bear ill-will toward those who ought to be dear to us. Have we ever told them of our grievances? Are we sure they are aware of fault or sin? We say too often, Let them find out for themselves. Thus friends are alienated and homes made unhappy. Christ emphasised the adjustments of wrongs between men as individuals. In the Old Testament, we have the same duty enforced by example and precept. We have, also, an illustration of a proper method of righting public wrongs. This lesson is for labourers and capitalists, for servants and masters, as well as for kinsfolk and friends.
II. The inevitable transfer of power from him who serveth not, to him who will, serve the interests of others. The power of the house of the beloved David must be diminished when his descendants no longer served the people. Jeroboam, the rival claimant for the throne, was a man of few good qualities, but he professed to be willing to serve the people. He certainly attempted to please them, though he finally degraded them, as is seen in the subsequent chapter. Even into the hands of demagogues, power will often pass, with Gods permission, from selfish and despotic princes. God calls the world to witness the humiliation of greatness that is supported by injustice. There is continually a redistribution of power and wealth that goes on in the world with the Divine sanction. Where men may gamble and become suddenly rich, they may as suddenly lose their wealth. A house or family founded on unrighteousness has in it the elements of its own destruction. Drink may ruin the son of the millionaire. His wealth goes to strangers. Often the transfer of power is sudden, and proud men in their own lifetime behold their sceptre wrenched by an unlineal hand, no son of theirs succeeding. Power that has not lifted the worlds burdens will pass.
III. Great revolutions may take place under Gods guidance without violence. We are told that this revolt was of the Lord. The people failed in their conference, but they succeeded in accomplishing a great change quietly. They had begun right to end well. Thenceforth the cause was in Gods hands. Prayer is one of the means by which great changes are accomplished silently. God is always on the side of the earnest prayer, and any good that results is from Him. The history of the revolutions wrought by prayer must remain unwritten till the great day of revelation. (Monday Club Sermons.)
Tribal causes of schism
The first cause of the schism to be noted, from the human point of view, was the deep cleft between the northern and southern tribes. It arose from geographical and economical differences, accentuated probably by longstanding tribal jealousies. From the days of Deborah, at latest, the cleft had been visible, and the unity which had been achieved, largely under the pressure of the Philistine wars, that crushed the loose organisation into a more compact whole for self-preservation, and held the kingdom together under Saul and David, would have been hard to keep up, even with skilful and beneficent kingship. Both America and England know how deep the gulf between North and South may be, and how hard it is to cast the encircling bond of a common nationality round them. England and Scotland are not perfectly fused together even now, and there are other broad lines of separation than the colour line on the other side of the Atlantic. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 6 "A foolish son is the calamity of his father."
A NEW REIGN
1Ki_12:1-5
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"A foolish son is the calamity of his father."
- Pro_19:13.
"He left behind him Roboam, even the foolishness of the people, and one that had no understanding."
- ECCLUS. 47:23.
REHOBOAM, who was Solomons only son, succeeded in Jerusalem without opposition, B.C. 937. But the northern tribes were in no mood to regard as final the prerogative acceptance of the son of Solomon by the rival tribe of Judah. David had won them by his vivid personality; Solomon had dazzled them by his royal magnificence. It did not follow that they were blindly to accept a king who emerged for the first time from the shadow of the harem, and was the son of an Ammonitess, who worshipped Chemosh. Instead of going to Rehoboam at Jerusalem as the tribes had gone to David at Hebron, they summoned an assembly at their ancient city of Shechem, on the site of the modern Nablus, between Mount Ebal and Gerizim. In this fortress-sanctuary they determined, as "men of Israel," to bring their grievances under the notice of the new sovereign before they formally ratified his succession. According to one view they summoned Jeroboam, who had already returned to Zeredah, to be their spokesman. When the assembly met they told the king that they would accept him if he would lighten their grievous service which his father had put upon them. Rehoboam, taken by surprise, said that they should receive his answer in "three days." In the interval he consulted the aged counselors of his father. Their answer was astute in its insight into human nature. It resembled the "long promises, short performance" which Guido da Montefeltro recommended to Pope Boniface VIII in the case of the town-of Penestrino. They well understood the maxim of "omnia serviliter pro imperio," which has paved the way to power of many a usurper front Otho to Bolingbroke. "Give the people a civil answer," they said; "tell them that you are their servant. Content with this they will be scattered to their homes, and you will bind them to your yoke forever." In an answer so deceptive, but so immoral, the corrupting influence of the Solomonian autocracy is as conspicuous as in that of the malapert youths who make their appeal to the kings conceit.
"Who knoweth whether his son will be a wise man or a fool?" asks Solomon in the Book of Proverbs. Apparently he had done little or nothing to save his only son from being the latter. Despots in polygamous households, whether in Palestine or Zululand, live in perpetual dread of their own sons, and generally keep them in absolute subordination. If Rehoboam had received the least political training, or had been possessed of the smallest common sense, he would have been able to read the signs of the times sufficiently well to know that everything might be lost by blustering arrogance, and everything gained by temporizing plausibility. Had Rehoboam been a man like David, or even like Saul in his better day, he might have grappled to himself the affections of his people as with hooks of steel by seizing the opportunity of abating their burdens, and offering them a sincere assurance that he would study their peace and welfare above all. Had he been a man of ordinary intelligence, he would have seen that the present was not the moment to exacerbate a discontent which was already dangerous. But the worldly-wise counsel of the elders of Solomon was utterly distasteful to a man who, after long insignificance, had just begun to feel the vertigo of autocracy. His sense of his right was strong in exact proportion to his own worthlessness. He turned to the young men who had grown up with him, and who stood before him-the jeunesse doree of a luxurious and hypocritical epoch, the aristocratic idlers in whom the insolent self-indulgence of an enervated society had expelled the old spirit of simple faithfulness. Their answer was the sort of answer which Buckingham and Sedley might have suggested to Charles II in face of the demands of the Puritans; and it was founded on notions of inherent prerogative, and "the right Divine of kings to govern wrong," such as the Bishops might have instilled into James I at the Hampton Court Conference, or Archbishop Laud into Charles I in the days of "Thorough."
"Threaten this insolent canaille," they said, "with your royal severity. Tell them that you do not intend to give up your sacred right to enforced labor, such as your brother of Egypt has always enjoyed. Tell them that your little finger shall be thicker than your fathers loins, and that instead of his whips you will chastise them with leaded thongs. That is the way to show yourself every inch a king."
The insensate advice of these youths proved itself attractive to the empty and infatuated prince. He accepted it in the dementation which is a presage of ruin; for, as the pious historian says, "the cause was from the Lord."
The announcement of this incredibly foolish reply woke in the men of Israel an answering shout of rebellion. In the rhythmic war-cry of Sheba, the son of Bichri, which had become proverbial, {2Sa_20:1} they cried:-
"What portion have we in David? Neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse, To your tents, O Israel: Now see to thine own house, David!"
Unable to appease the wild tumult, Rehoboam again showed his want of sense by sending an officer to the people whose position and personality were most sure to be offensive to them. He sent "Adoram, who was over the tribute"-the man who stood, before the Ephraimites especially, as the representative of everything in monarchical government which was to them most entirely odious. Josephus says that he hoped to mollify the indignant people. But it was too late. They stoned the aged Al-ham-Mas with stones that he died; and when the foolish king witnessed or heard of the fate of a man who had grown grey as the chief agent of depotism he felt that it was high time to look after his own safety. Apparently be had come with no other escort than that of the men of Judah who formed a part of the national militia. Of Cherethites, Pelethites, and Gittites we hear no more. The princeling of a despoiled and humiliated kingdom was perhaps in no condition to provide the pay of these foreign mercenaries. The king found that the name of David was no longer potent, and that royalty had lost its awful glamour. He made an effort to reach his chariot, and, barely succeeding, fled with headlong speed to Jerusalem. From that day forever the unity of Israel was broken, and "the twelve tribes" became a name for two mutually antagonistic powers. The men of Israel at once chose Jeroboam for their king, and an event was accomplished which had its effect on the history of all succeeding times. The only Israelites over whom the House of David continued to rule were those who, like the shattered remnant of Simeon, dwelt in the cities of Judah. {1Ki_12:17}
Thus Davids grandson found that his kingdom over a people had shrunk to the headship of a tribe, with a sort of nominal suzerainty over Edom and part of Philistia. He was reduced to the comparative insignificance of Davids own position during the first seven years, when he was only king in Hebron. This disruption was the beginning of endless material disasters to both kingdoms; but it was the necessary condition of high spiritual blessings for "it was of the Lord."
Politically it is easy to see that one cause of the revolt lay in the too great rapidity in which kings, who, as it was assumed, were to be elective, or at least to depend on the willing obedience of the people, had transformed themselves into hereditary despots. Judah might still accept the sway of a king of her own tribe; but the powerful and jealous Ephraimites, at the head of the Northern Confederation, refused to regard themselves as the destined footstool for a single family. As in the case of Saul and of David, they determined once more to accept no king who did not owe his sovereignty to their own free choice.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 1Ki_12:1. Rehoboam went to Shechem—Instead of remaining in Jerusalem,…
THE DISRUPTION OF THE KINGDOM
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.—
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1Ki_12:1. Rehoboam went to Shechem—Instead of remaining in Jerusalem, whither Israel should have come to him, as they did to David (2Sa_5:1), and sworn allegiance to their king. To make him king—They had no right to “make.” a king, since Jehovah was the Maker of their kings, and had assigned perpetual sovereignty to David’s posterity. By summoning Rehoboam to Shechem, Israel showed the intention to depart from loyalty to authorized usages; and in the avowal that they determined to “make” a king, instead of submitting homage to the rightful heir, the spirit of rebellion is plainly indicated.
1Ki_12:2. When Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who was yet in Egypt, heard—Heard, not “of it,”—i.e., the convocation at Shechem—but of Solomon’s death. The Vulgate inserts “heard that Solomon was dead.” This act of Israel in recalling a rebel against Solomon, and placing him at their head, shows their determination to revolt, it must be evident that they sent for Jeroboam before they assembled at Shechem, since it would have required considerable time for them to send, and for him to return. It was all prearranged. Accordingly, the Sept. and Vulg. add to 1Ki_12:2 these words:—“He returned from Egypt and came on to his city, unto the land of Zerira, which is in the hill country of Ephraim. And they sent and called him.”
1Ki_12:4. Thy father made our yoke grievous—In order to make his cities majestic, and to maintain the splendours of his court. But his peaceful and prosperous reign gave wealth and civic benefits to his people, which more than repaid the heavy taxation. The offence was this: Solomon laid on them a “yoke.” עֹל is a yoke laid on beasts of burden, and suggests their indignation at having been compelled to do what they regarded as servile work (comp. Notes on 1Ki_11:27).
1Ki_12:7. If thou wilt be a servant … they will be thy servants for ever—Conciliate and concede to them for “this day,” thus turning aside their discontent, and they will be won to loyalty. Had he for the time become עֶבֶד of the people, he would have removed from the malcontents every pretext for revolt But he heeded the “young men”—יְלָדִים—who knew his haughty and ambitious nature, and flattered him by recommending an attitude of despotic tyranny.
1Ki_12:15. The cause was from the LORD—lit., a turn from; it was brought about by the Lord.
1Ki_12:16. Sept. renders the verse thus:—“And the whole people as one man said each one to his neighbour, and all cried out, We have no part in David, nor any inheritance in the son of Jesse! Every man to thy tents, O Israel! For this man is not (fit) to be a ruler nor to be a prince.” Now see to thine own house, David—Keil remarks that in this cry “the rooted dislike to David’s royal house is strongly expressed, and we can perceive a more potent cause for the partition than the alleged oppression of Solomon.”
1Ki_12:18. Adoram, who was over the tribute—A flagrant blunder to send this chief of the socagers (chap. 1Ki_4:6) to negotiate with them. It incensed them the more, and his fate opened the king’s eyes to the furious antagonism of the tribes of Israel.
1Ki_12:20. Made him (Jeroboam) king over all Israel—This exasperated Rehoboam to prepare war, from which God restrained him.
HOMILETICS OF 1Ki_12:1-24
REVOLT: ITS CAUSE AND CONSEQUENCE
THERE is an intimate and necessary connection between sin and its punishment; and we may trace the political and moral causes of the disruption of the kingdom in the excessive luxury of Solomon and the sins of his latter days. The rebellion of the ten tribes was an event of supreme importance in its bearing on the future history of Israel. It was not a temporary division like those which occasionally took place under the Judges, but was sullenly permanent, and defied the power of all subsequent monarchs to reconcile. The breach was healed, like many other long-standing enmities, only by the fall and extinction of the contending factions. The whole history is another illustration of the cause and consequence of revolt so frequently repeated in the development of all national life.
I. That the cause of revolt is manifold, and lies far back in the history of a nation.
1. In the existence of tribal jealousy and ambition. The supercilious and reckless conduct of Rehoboam was not the immediate cause of rebellion. The loyalty of a people is not destroyed by a single act of imperiousness, or even wrong, on the part of the sovereign: it is a patient, long-suffering, forgiving principle; and only after long continued and exaggerated wrong does it assume an attitude of determined opposition (vide the Netherlands under Philip II., France and Spain under the Bourbons, England under Charles I). The answer of Rehoboam (1Ki_12:13-14) was as a lighted match falling on a powder magazine whose stores had been accumulating for years. The supremacy of the tribes of Judah over the powerful tribe of Ephraim was a cause of perpetual jealousy and heartburning. “There was a difference in the character and pursuits of the tribes; whilst Judah was the leader and head of the theocracy and the covenant, therefore of higher religious life (Gen_49:10; Psa_60:9; Psa_78:67; Psa_114:1-2), Ephraim represented the nature-side of the people’s life; and the consciousness of natural material strength and earthly abundance appears with it (Gen_49:22; Deu_33:13; Psa_78:9).” So, in the moral world, there are two antagonistic forces continually warring with each other—the carnal and the spiritual, the sensuous and the supersensuous, the world-principle and the lofty moral aims of church life. But the time is coming when the strife shall end, when “Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim” (Isa_11:13).
2. In oppressive exactions. The monarchy, as it grew in power and magnificence, imposed still heavier taxations upon the people, both in labour and in money. The king became a despot; and the people, who had no means of obtaining redress, groaned under ever accumulating burdens. But, all the time, the national feeling was ripening for revolt. The prophets and the chief leaders of the people saw, now that Solomon was dead, that a change must take place in the government; and they were ready to take part in the movement. The revolution might have been effected peacefully and without division; but the youthful monarch was blinded by self-confidence and flattery, and was swept away before the storm of national indignation he was too powerless to arrest. Tyranny is short-lived, and will, sooner or latter, meet with its deserved punishment. The whips and scorpions it has twisted for the chastisement of others will be used to flagellate itself.
3. In the idolatry of king and people. This was the head and front of offence. When Jehovah is insulted and forsaken, the way is open for every folly and enormity, and retribution will inevitably ensue. Idolatry is the germ of many other sins. The king erred as much in the licence and sanction he gave to heathenish religions as in the severity of his imperial exactions. Sin is a great disintegrating force—it loosens the loyalty of a people, it shakes the foundations of a throne, it breaks up the cohesion of a nation.
II. That revolt is baneful in its results.
1. It produces disunion. The work of Saul, David, and Solomon in consolidating the kingdom—a work of time and infinite pains—was undone in a single day. Rebellion stirs up the worst passions, animosities are created which are not forgotten in a lifetime, the nearest relationships are despised, and the tenderest ties unbound. It is a political earthquake producing social disorder and confusion. The revolt of man from the authority of heaven has filled the earth with the elements of moral discord and disunion.
2. It is attended with violence and suffering (1Ki_12:18). On this occasion an officer of the crown was stoned to death, and the king himself obliged to fly. It is rare for a national revolution to be bloodless: thousands have fallen victims to its lawless fury. A people in rebellion is like a fierce dog unchained. “Nothing is more untractable and violent than an enraged multitude. It was time for Rehoboam to betake himself to his chariot: he saw those stones were thrown at him in his Adoram. As the messenger suffers for his master, so the master suffers in his messenger. Had Rehoboam been in Adoram’s clothes, this death had been his; only flight can deliver him from those that might have been subjects.” The evil consequences of rebellion are often felt for a century. The blood of rebellion makes a dark stain which it is difficult to wash out.
III. That revolt may be Divinely overruled for good (1Ki_12:24). This thing was from the Lord. Without violating the exercise of moral freedom, Jehovah used the disasters of the kingdom in carrying out His great purpose of Mercy towards the race. A word from the prophet dismissed the armies which had met to plunge into a fratricidal war; and both sides obeyed the authoritative word of the Lord. To fight against God may aggravate, but can never redress human miseries. “While the disruption of the Hebrew people into two nations was, in one point of view a chastisement upon sin, we can see from another point of view that God made this very calamity instrumental to the maintenance of Jewish isolation, and the preservation of His revealed truth. The national life was concentrated into an intenser form among the two chosen tribes than when diffused among the ten. Their circumstances, as brought into closer local proximity with the Temple of Jerusalem, and with all its services and associations, were favourable in the highest degree to the maintenance of true religion among them, and the deepening of all the ties of Jewish life. Within the narrower area the circle of idolatrous temptation was correspondingly narrowed. The very rivalry between the two kindred nations, and their common possession of the same Scriptures, drove the Jew back more intensely on his peculiar privileges, and guarded him thus from the contamination of the idolatrous apostasy established by Jeroboam. As regards the sacred writings themselves, it quickened the jealousy with which they were preserved, and has provided two independent lines of evidence instead of one; and lastly, in conjunction with these varied results, it narrowed the line of Messiah’s descent, and drew into definite shape the proofs of His personal identity. The separation retarded, but did not avert, the final catastrophe.”—Garbett. The history affords another example of how God can make the sins and follies of men subservient to His higher purposes.
LESSONS:—
1. Jehovah is the Righteous Governor of the nations.
2. A nation is strong only while it is faithful to Him.
3. It is He who redresses national wrongs while He promotes the welfare of the while race.
THE RENDING OF THE KINGDOM
1Ki_12:21-25
THE thing which the prophet declared to be from the Lord was the separation of the tribes of Israel—the revolt of Jeroboam from the house of David—the establishment of a new kingdom. Yet these events, to all appearance, contradicted the very purpose for which the chosen people existed, and confused their history. And this conclusion appears to be strengthened by all subsequent experience of the effects of this revolt. Jeroboam, the author of it, is represented throughout Scripture as the man who made Israel to sin. The history of the ten tribes is a record of continually deepening degeneracy. From this time, too, all the brilliancy passes away from the house of David. His grand anticipations of what should come to pass in after times, if they had a partial accomplishment in the days of his son, seemed to be belied by the history of his son’s sons. Prophets mourn over a land devoured by strangers, “whose princes were rebellious and companions of thieves, loving gifts and following after rewards; who judged not the fatherless, neither did the cause of the widow come before them.” The noblest specimens of the royal race were men, the main business of whose reigns was to remove the corruptions of their predecessors. The last and most zealous of all was unable, by his reforms, to avert the downfall and captivity of his people. All these evils are evidently connected in the minds of the prophets with the schism of the tribes. They look upon their division as containing the principle, and illustrating the effects, of all divisions which should happen in all nations in times to come. Their belief that some day unity would be restored to their land is identified with the hope of peace and righteousness for the whole earth.
I. We must not suppose that the sentence which affirms that this great calamity was from the Lord is an isolated one, or that it can be explained into some general notion that all mens’ doings good or evil, may be attributed to an omnipotent ruler. We shall find presently how little that general notion accords with the language or teaching of Scripture (read chap. 1Ki_11:26-39). In this passage we are distinctly told that a prophet stirred up those thoughts in the mind of Jeroboam which led him to rise against Solomon. This prophet is not represented as a deceiver, who spoke words out of his own heart; he is a true witness for the Lord God of Israel. He announces an eternal, unchangeable law. It had been declared that idolatry must produce degradation and division in the land. The very ground of the unity of the nation had been taken away—its acknowledgment of a one Lord. What would follow if the semblance remained when the reality was gone? This would follow: a perpetual growth of internal corruption—of internal division; falsehood spreading in the vitals of the people, with nothing to remind them that it was falsehood, with nothing to prove that their kingdom had another foundation than that which they were trying to rest it upon. Such a state of things is inconceivable if we suppose that human beings are as much under a Divine order as natural things are. That order must vindicate itself—must show what it is: the punishment of the transgression must be the way of proclaiming the principle which has been transgressed.
II. But moral laws, though they are as powerful defenders of themselves as natural laws, do not defend themselves in the same way. Human beings, voluntary creatures, are the instruments of carrying out the one, as the hidden powers in sea, or earth, or fire, are of fulfilling the other. A personal God dealing with men will employ men as the agents and executors of His purpose. Jeroboam has risen by his industry in the service of Solomon. He appoints the charges or burdens for the house of Joseph. He is thus acquainted with the discontents of the people; apparently he sympathises with them. The tyranny grew out of the idolatry. Though Jeroboam might not perceive the root, he could perceive the evil fruit, which deserved to be hated for its own sake; he was, therefore, qualified to execute Ahijah’s prophecy, not merely as a dull instrument, but as one who had, to a certain extent, a righteous purpose. A promise is given him, not of immediate, but of ultimate, success. At the same time, it is clearly declared to him that the Divine purpose has not been altered by the sin of the Jewish king. The tribe of Judah, the house of David, the city of Jerusalem, had a sacredness attached to them which would not be lost. The tribe had been chosen, the kingdom had been established, the Temple had been built in the capital, as assurances for the past, the present, and the future, which nothing could set aside. That which seemed to destroy the harmony, even the existence, of the nation, would, in fact, bring out the secret of its harmony, the ground of its existence, more fully than they had ever been brought out yet.
III. This part of the narrative will seem mysterious and supernatural. Such assuredly it is; and it explains to us how supernatural and mysterious every event or series of events must be which concerns the life of nations and the sins of rulers and subjects. But we soon find ourselves in the region of ordinary human life. (Read chap. 1Ki_12:3-11). How rapidly the interval of three thousand years and all the difference between a small Syrian province of the old world, and a nation of Europe in the nineteenth century, seems to disappear as we read this story! Have we not, in one sphere or other, among the patriarchs of a village, or the statesmen of a kingdom, met and conversed with some of these grave old men, who did not, perhaps, set before themselves the highest standard of moral excellence, who did not at once pronounce upon the right or wrong of an action, but whom long experience had taught the might which lies in gentle words, and the real desire there is in human beings to obey, if there be but sense and somewhat of sympathy in those who rule? Have we not also—and, alas! far more frequently—encountered those young men flushed with insolence and wine, who talked loudly of putting down the pretensions of inferiors, and of maintaining their own position and dignity, who had never yet learnt in what superiority or dignity consists, who had never begun to reverence their fellow-men because they did not reverence themselves; who thought they could meet the demands of suffering and wronged men by boasting words and a frantic determination to maintain privileges which they ought never to have possessed, because they were not privileges based upon any real relations, upon any law, human or Divine, but merely upon accident or assumption, which must perish as rapidly as they have grown up. And yet these, as the story teaches, and as all subsequent history has proved, are the favourite and triumphant advisers of those whom their own vanity and folly have doomed, and who want parasites to put into words the doctrines which they have already received into their cold, empty hearts. “My father chastised you with rods; I will chastise you with scorpions.” This in all ages has been the childish bluster of men who have made themselves blind to the future by refusing to use their eyes in judging of that which is before them, who fancy that the power will be their own for ever, at the very moment when the handwriting on the wall is declaring that it has been taken from them and given to another.
IV. “Wherefore,” the historian goes on, “the king hearkened not unto the people. For the cause was from the Lord, &c. (1Ki_12:15-20). Here again we are on the mysterious and Divine ground; yet there is no sudden or violent transition from that common homely earth upon which we were standing a moment ago. The prophecy of Ahijah, the Shilonite, is not brought to pass by any strange combination of events. The folly of Rehoboam and his gay counsellors, their utter incapacity for estimating their own weakness or the force of indignation and conviction in the minds of other men—these are the ways by which the Divine counsels are brought forth into act; these are the messengers of God’s wrath, as much as the volcano. Deep and unfathomable mystery, worthy to be meditated on by those who are fighting with evil upon earth, and by those who have won the victory; the key to all the puzzles of history, the comfort and consolation amid the overwhelming evils which we see around us and feel within us; the deliverance at once from the debasing Pantheism which teaches that sin is only another form of righteousness—wrong only an aspect of right—and from the Manichæism which would lead us to think that evil may at last triumph, or hold a divided empire with God. The wrath of man has praised Him, and will always praise Him. Sin, and death, and hell, must do Him continual homage now, and will be led as His victims and grace His triumph when His glory is fully revealed. But neither now or then will they ever blend with His works, or be shown to have their origin in Him, or be known as anything but the contradictions of His nature.
V. Jeroboam then was established on the throne of Israel. The heir of the house of David tried to crush the revolt, and to recover the tribes; but tried in vain. The thing was from the Lord. Rehoboam could no more put down the rebellious servant of Solomon, than Saul could put down David. The decree which had said that the ten tribes should remain distinct was as Divine a decree as that which established an everlasting covenant with the man after God’s own heart. And yet this is the sequel of the story (read 1Ki_12:26-32). As this passage receives great light from those which precede it, so also it throws back a light upon them. We see now more clearly than ever why the separation of the kingdoms was a thing from the Lord. It asserted the real dignity of Jerusalem as the place in which it has pleased God so put his Name, not merely or chiefly as the place in which David or Solomon chanced to reign. It asserted the real unity of a nation to be not in a king, but in the King. It showed that the only basis of any political fellowship among the tribes lay in that name which was revealed to the first father of them. The revolt of Jeroboam would have done this, if he had continued faithful; his unfaithful ness discovered the same principle through another and a sterner discipline. The miseries to which it led, justified all the groans of the prophets; the light which broke through those miseries, showing the cause of them and the deliverance from them, justified all their hopes.
VI. All Christians have felt that the principle of separations and schisms in different lands and ages must be contained in this schism of the tribes. The great schism of the Latin and Greek Churches strikes the student of ecclesiastical records as a most startling contradiction in the history of a body which was to include all nations and races. Yet surely it was from the Lord. Idolatrous habits and feelings had been spreading in both divisions of the church. The sense of union in an invisible Head, though not lost, was foarfully weakened. A seeming union must have been preserved by the loss of all witness for real union; the division remains a standing witness against the possibility of a visible Head ever holding the Catholic body together. The schism of rival popes in the Western Church during the fifteenth century was as great a scandal to Christendom as can be conceived. Yet it was surely from the Lord. It led men to perceive that there was corruption in the head, and in the members of the ecclesiastical polity; it led to those disputes respecting the relative power of popes and councils which showed that neither could heal the wounds of the Church, or preserve its unity. It led to that movement in the sixteenth century which we all believe to have been from the Lord, and which was really a declaration of faith in a living God, against a system of idolatry that was rapidly passing into a system of organized unbelief. In each of these cases there were chances of reconciliation, such as were offered to Rehoboam when the people besought him to lessen their burdens. In each case there were grave counsellors advising reconciliation, and noisy fanatics preaching uncompromising resistance. In each case the infatuation of princes and rulers, ecclesiastical and civil, was carrying out a Divine and eternal principle, even when they were defying it. They could not restore unity by declamations, by concessions, or by persecution. Facts spoke louder than the Prophet spoke to Rehoboam: “It cannot be. The thing is from the Lord.”
Reflections:—Oh, brethren! how intolerable would be these facts and recollections which show every party in Church and State to have been the cause of shameful scandals, which forbid us to cast stones at others because we are in the same sin, if we might not recur again and again to the words which I have quoted so often. But if “the thing is of the Lord,” there must be an end of all those strifes by which He has ordained that our idolatries against Him and cruelties to our brethren should punish themselves. There must be a day when all things in heaven and earth, which consist only by Christ, shall be gathered manifestly together in Him, when it shall be known and confessed that there is one king, one priest, one sacrifice; that we have been at war with each other because we have not done homage to that one king, drawn nigh to God through that one priest, omitted to present that one perfect sacrifice. And those who are willing before God’s altar to own that their self-seeking and self-will have been rending asunder their families the nation, the Church, the world, may hope that God’s Spirit will work in them henceforth to do all such acts as shall not retard, but hasten forward, the blessed consummation for which they look. They may ask to be taught the mystery of daily self-sacrifice—how to give up their own tastes, opinions, wishes. They may ask that they may never be tempted to give up one atom of God’s truth, or to dally for one moment with the falsehoods of themselves or of their brethren; because truth is the one ground of universal peace and fellowship, because falsehood and division are ever increasing and reproducing each other.—(Condensed from F. D. Maurice).
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
1Ki_12:1-24. The rebellion and its lessons.
1. Many a base design lurks under the most specious appearances.
2. The best government will not be without factious spirits, ready to blow the coals of sedition among the populace.
3. The avarice of a kept mistress is insatiable.
4. Most men are more concerned how to save their money than their souls.
5. That government which subsists only by severity is in a tottering condition: no throne is sure where a king reigns not in the heart of his subjects.
6. They are our best friends who dissuade us from rash designs; and they are our greatest enemies who soothe our folly and flatter our pride.
7. At court, too commonly, not the profit of the kingdom, but the pleasing of the king, is the object most in view.
8. They who know the great sin of rebellion will suffer much rather than rise to vindicate themselves by so dangerous a measure.
9. When God’s will contradicts our designs, we must patiently submit.
10. Love to our brethren should make us put up with many injuries, rather than seek a redress which may be ruinous to both.
11. If we fight against God there can be no hope of success: it is wise, therefore, betimes to leave off meddling.
1Ki_12:1-20. The departure of Israel from the House of David. I. The grievances. II. The decision. III. The rebellion.
—The division of the kingdom. I. A consequence of manifold sins—of Solomon, Jeroboam, Rehoboam. II. A Divine dispensation—for their humiliation and chastisement, and for a direction towards the heavenly eternal Kingdom.
—The sources and causes of the rebellion. I. In general estrangement from God, indifferentism, and unbelief. II. In particular—these sins on the part of the people (Pro_14:34), and on the part of the princes (Pro_20:28). Where prince and people fear God there will be no rebellion; but where no covenant with God exists, all human considerations fall in pieces.—Lange.
1Ki_12:1. It should seem to be in the course of nature that sons brought up under the nurture of wise fathers should be themselves wise. But it is not always seen, perhaps not often seen, that wise fathers have wise sons. How is this? It may be that the wisdom of the son, the formation of his character, depends more on the mother than the father, and that a wise mother is even more essential than a wise father to the formation of a wise son. We may hear of foolish sons having wise fathers, and of foolish fathers having wise sons, but rarely of a wise son having had a foolish mother. Several young men, who were associated in preparing for the Christian ministry, felt interested in ascertaining what proportion of their Lumber had pious mothers. They were greatly surprised and delighted in finding that, out of 120 students, more than 100 had been blessed by a mother’s prayers, and directed by a mother’s counsels to the Saviour.—Kitto.
—Many a poor man hath a houseful of children by one wife, while this great king has but one son by many housefuls of wives. How often doth God deny this heritage of heirs where He gives the largest heritage of lands, and gives most of these living possessions where He gives least of the dead, that His blessings may be acknowledged free unto both, entailed upon neither. All Israel found that Solomon’s wit was not propagated. Many a fool hath had a wiser son than this wisest father. Amongst many sons it is no news to find some one defective. Solomon hath but one son, and he no miracle of wisdom. God gives purposely so eminent an instance to teach men to look up to heaven both for heirs and graces.—Bp. Hall.
—The first step taken by the new king was a most judicious one; and we may probably trace in it the advice of those wise heads whose counsels he soon after rejected. If anything could have removed the disaffection of the Ephraimites and caused them to submit a little longer to the ascendency of Judah, it would have been the honour done to their capital by its selection to be the scene of the new monarch’s coronation. Shechem (now Nablûs) lay on the flank of Mount Gerizim, directly opposite to Mount Ebal, in a position second to none in all Palestine. It possessed the bones of Joseph (Jos_24:32), and had been the place of general meeting in the days of Joshua (Jos_8:30-35; Jos_24:1-28). Abimelech had also reigned there (Jdg_9:1-23); and though he had destroyed the place, it had probably soon risen again, and was once more a chief city, or perhaps the chief city of Ephraim. There was Joseph sold by his brethren—as if the very soil had been stained with perfidiousness.
1Ki_12:2-3. Experience teaches that those who have once set up an opposition to legitimate authority will ever persist in their resolve, even if their design fail or is pardoned; they only await another opportunity to carry out their plans, therefore they should never be trusted.
1Ki_12:2. Had not Israel been somewhat predisposed to a mutiny, they had never sent into Egypt for such a spokesman as Jeroboam, a fugitive, a traitor to Solomon; long had that crafty conspirator lurked in a foreign court. The alliances of princes are not ever necessary bonds of friendship; the brother-in-law of Solomon harbours this snake in his bosom, and gives that heat, which is repaid with a sting to the posterity of so near an ally. That Israel would entertain a rebel was an ill sign; worse yet, that would countenance him; worst of all, that they would employ him. Nothing doth more bewray evil intentions than the choice of vicious agents. Those that mean well will not hazard either the success or credit of their actions upon offensive instruments; none but the sluttish will wipe their faces with foul cloths. Jeroboam’s head had been a fit present to have been tendered unto their new king; and now, instead thereof, they tender themselves to Jeroboam as the head of their faction.—Bp. Hall.
1Ki_12:3-4. Rebellious people easily seek and find in public circumstances means which they amplify and exaggerate in order to give an appearance of justice to their wickedness, and to have some pretext for their criminal designs. It is a universal fact that men exclaimed more concerning oppression than concerning godlessness and other sins; are more careful for the body than for the soul; and, so that they are free in action, give little heed to the soul’s nurture (Exo_16:3). A people which prescribes to its lawful sovereign the conditions of its obedience to him, and directs him how to govern, assumes to itself royal authority, and overturns the appointed order of God, thus rushing surely on to its own destruction.—Lange.
1Ki_12:4. The cry of the oppressed.
1. Will one day make itself heard.
2. Will not fail to rehearse all the injuries of the past.
3. Is an appeal for justice and mercy.
4. Is not uttered in vain in the ears of the prudent ruler.
5. Cannot be disregarded with impunity.
—The complaint was probably twofold. The Israelites no doubt complained in part of the heavy weight of taxation laid upon them for the maintenance of the monarch and his court. But their chief grievance was the forced labour to which they had been subjected. Forced labour has been among the causes leading to insurrection in many ages and countries. It alienated the people of Rome from the last Tarquin; it helped to bring about the French revolution; and it was for many years one of the principal grievances of the Russian serfs. It is a reasonable conjecture that Jeroboam’s position as superintendent of the forced labours of the tribe of Ephraim revealed to him the large amount of dissatisfaction which Solomon’s system had produced, and that his contemplated rebellion in Solomon’s reign was to have been connected with this standing grievance.—Speaker’s Comm.
—Doubtless the crafty head of Jeroboam was in this suit which his mouth uttered in the name of Israel. Nothing could have been more subtle: it seemed a promise, but it was a threat; that which seemed a supplication was a complaint: humility was but a vail for discontentment—one hand held a paper, the other a sword. If Rehoboam yield, he blemishes his father; if he deny, he endangers his kingdom. His wilfulness shall seem worthily to abandon his sceptre, if he stick at so unreasonable a suit. Surely Israel came with a purpose to cavil; Jeroboam had secretly troubled these waters, that he might fish more gainfully.—Bp. Hall.
1Ki_12:5. A prince who, upon his accession to the throne, requires time to decide if his rule shall be mild and merciful, or harsh and despotic, cannot have assumed his high responsible post in the fear and love of God; therefore he must expect no Divine blessing. It is well and good, indeed, in all weighty matters, to take time for reflection, but in time of sudden danger, rapid, firm decision is equally necessary. One accustomed to walk in God’s ways will at such times take no step which will afterwards cause him bitter repentance.—Lange.
—The supreme value of a pause in the midst of a national crisis. How pregnant with importance were those three days!
1. Affording opportunity for the rectifying of wrongs.
2. Deepening the gravity of the situation to the opposing factions.
3. Suspending the destiny of the nation on the next step taken.
4. Requiring the most consummate wisdom in counsel and action.
—To hesitate in such a crisis is ruin. Even a prompt refusal had been less dangerous than delay. But Rehoboam could not trust his own understanding. He asked three days for deliberation. Even consent after such delay would lose the generous aspect of spontaneous grace, and would have the appearance to the people of having been extorted from his fears. And it rendered refusal doubly ruinous. The indication of reluctance gave warning of the result that might be expected, and afforded time for the disaffected to mature their plans and preparations for revolt. We cannot doubt that these three days were among the busiest of Jeroboam’s life.—Kitto.
1Ki_12:6-11. Rehoboam holds a council. I. With whom? With his own servants, old and young, but not with the Lord his God and His servants. In difficult and grave matters we should not neglect to take counsel with men, but chiefly should we go to Him for counsel of whom it may be said: “He has the way of all ways, and never fails in counsel (Jas_1:5; Isa_30:1). If He sit not in the council, in vain do young and old advise. Had Rehoboam sought light from above in those three days, and prayed as once his father did (1Ki_3:9), or as Jeremiah (Jer_32:19), or entreated like Jehoshaphat (2Ki_3:11), then he would hot have been like a reed shaken by the wind, but his heart would have been strong. II. The advice given him. Neither counsel was Divine, but both merely human (Mat_16:23). The old men, out of their fear and apprehension, advised: renounce for the present thy royal prerogative, and bow before the will of the people; later thou canst act differently. This advice ran counter to his pride and despotism, so he refused the counsel of the old men. Through flattery and insolence combined, the young men counselled a course actually inhuman—to abuse his royal prerogative—to care nothing for his people and their wishes, but simply to treat them with violence. This advice suited him well, because it corresponded with his rough, harsh, selfish, and violent character. But this produced the exact reverse of what he wished and hoped. When you receive conflicting counsels from men, apply to both the test of God’s Word (Psa_19:8; Psa_119:104).—Lange.
1Ki_12:6-7. The sedate caution of age.
1. The result of manifold experience.
2. Is valuable in counsel.
3. Sees the best time to make concessions.
4. Merits respectful consideration.
1Ki_12:6. It is the first privilege and duty of a king to seek to surround himself with men who, fearing no man, either high or low, and regardless of their own profit or advantage, shall advise him as befits men responsible before a just and holy God. One such man alone outweighs whole hosts of soldiers (Pro_20:28).
1Ki_12:7. The ruler that would hold the affections of his people must first learn to be their servant. He must consult their wishes and interests so as not to seem unmindful of his most humble subject. But it is easy to see, as Bähr remarks, that such a proposition might not be very agreeable to a rash and imperious young king in whose veins Ammonite blood flowed.
—A king who refuses to be a “servant of God” readily finds himself in a situation where he is compelled to be a servant of the people. The splendour of majesty is enhanced by benevolence, goodness, and mercy, but never by timid yielding and submission to the popular will.
1Ki_12:8-11. The reckless frivolity of youth.
1. Is blind to surrounding dangers.
2. Is defiant of consequences.
3. Is not to be trusted in grave emergencies.
4. May goad a nation into rebellion.
—The young heads are consulted. This very change argues weakness. Some reason might be pleaded for passing from the younger council to the aged; none for the contrary. Age brings experience; and it is a shame if with the ancient be not wisdom. Youth is commonly rash, heady, insolent, ungoverned, wedded to will, led by humour, a rebel to reason, a subject to passion, fitter to execute than advise. Green wood is ever shrinking and warping, whereas the well-seasoned holds aconstant firmness. Many a life, many a soul, many a flourishing state, hath been ruined by undisciplined monitors. Such were those of Rehoboam, whose great stomach tells us that this conditionating of subjects was no other than an affront to their new master, and suggests to them how unfit it is for majesty to brook so saucy a treaty; how requisite and princely to crush this presumption in the egg. There can be no good use of an indefinite profession of rigour and severity. Fear is an unsafe guardian of any state, much less of an unsettled: which was yet worse—not the sins of Israel were threatened, nor their purses—but their persons; neither had they desired a remission of justice, but of exactions; and now they hear of nothing but burdens and scourges and scorpions.—Bp. Hall.
—Where the counsels of the aged are rejected, be it in a kingdom or in a house, and those only of the youthful followed, there men pursue an unhallowed path. For to a true wisdom of life experience is necessary, and this youth cannot have. Those who grow up with us have, unconsciously and involuntarily, a vast influence over our modes of thought and views of life, therefore parents must have a watchful eye over the intimacies of their children.
1Ki_12:10-11. A vaunting speech is by no means a proof of courage. The more boastful a man’s speech the less resolute he will be in peril and temptation; a truly strong, firm, and calm man is silent. Time serving and flattery are most dangerous for a prince; they wear the garb of fidelity and devotion, and in reality are the greatest treachery. Chiefly distrust those who counsel thee to do what gratifies thy vanity, thy selfishness, and thine own desires, and costs thee no sacrifice.—Lange.
1Ki_12:11. Gesenius understands by scorpions, whips having leaden balls at the ends of their lashes with hooks projecting from them. And the latter Romans seem certainly to have called by this name a certain kind of whip or rod. Others have supposed the thorny stem of the egg plant, called from the irritating wounds which it inflicted “the scorpion plant,” to be intended. But it seems best to regard the expression as a mere figure of speech.—Speaker’s Comm.
1Ki_12:12-15. The answer of the king to the people. I. It is hard—not merely a refusal, but imperious, tyrannical, unbecoming in any sovereign, but especially one who ought to be servant of the compassionate and merciful God, with whom is great truth and loving kindness (Exo_34:6). Authority is the handmaid of God to thee for good (Rom_13:4), and not a terror. Government is not built upon whips and scourges, but upon justice, love, and confidence. That rule alone is thoroughly right where “mercy and truth are met together” (Psa_85:11). How entirely different is David’s example of sovereignty (Psalms 101).
II. A rash and inconsiderate counsel, that of the young men throwing oil on the flames instead of quenching them, and exciting uproar and revolt instead of disposing to submission and obedience. Passion always blinds. When the heart is perverted the head is likewise dulled, and those who are generally shrewd become unwise and unreasonable; for it is not the head which rules the heart, but, on the contrary, the inclinations and desires of the heart are stronger than the thoughts of the head. (Pro_15:1; Pro_30:33; Jas_1:19-20; Eph_5:15-17).—Lange.
—The almost insane fatuity of the man who could expect any good effect from an answer like this to an aggrieved and exasperated people, whom the mere fact of Jeroboam’s presence must, to an ordinary understanding, have shown to be ripe for any ulterior consequences, can scarcely be explained, but on the interpretation that the king was subjected to judicial blindness, that wisdom and common sense had been withheld from him in order that the doom which had already gone forth against the house of David might be accomplished.—Kitto.
1Ki_12:14. The voice of the King of kings comes to us utterly unlike that of Rehoboam; therefore should we listen the more submissively and obediently to it. The Most High is ever at hand to change the darkest prospects of the children of men to a happy termination, and the accomplishment of His all-holy will, even as Joseph said to his brethren (Gen_50:20). God disposes not the thoughts of man to folly and sin, but brings them to judgment by their very perverseness, and thus makes it serve to carry out His own designs.
1Ki_12:15. “The cause was from the Lord.” Better, for it was a change from Jehovah. The meaning is, this great change or revolution in the Hebrew state was brought about in the providence of God as a judgment on the nation for the sins of Solomon. He decreed it and foretold it by the prophet Ahijah (chap. 1Ki_11:30-33). But neither Solomon’s sins nor Rehoboam’s blind folly and rash imprudence were from the Lord. For them their human authors were solely responsible. But He whose Omniscience takes in all future events as foreseen certainties (not as decreed necessities) may well, in respect to events affected by human agency, determine and decree His own future judgments or mercies according to what he foresees men will freely do. So, too, in infinite holiness His determinate counsel and foreknowledge even delivers up Jesus of Nazareth to death, but this decree influences not causatively the action of those wicked hands that crucify and slay Him (Act_2:23).—Whedon.
—The Divine purpose.
1. Does not interfere with individual freedom of action.
2. Is accomplished by human instrumentality.
3. Is often openly and distinctly declared.
4. Is steadily prosecuted amid confusion and disaster.
5. Is ever in harmony with the best interests of mankind.
1Ki_12:16. As is the question, so is the answer. He who makes an unprincipled speech must not wonder if he receive a like reply. The same people who once came to David and said: “See, we are thy bone and thy flesh, thou hast led us, thou shalt be our king” (2Sa_5:1-2), now said: “We have no part in David; what is the shepherd’s son to us?” This is the way of the multitude. To-day they cry, “Hosanna, blessed be who cometh in the name of the Lord!” Tomorrow it is, “Crucify him! we will not that he reign over us!” To-day, if fortune smile, they are fawning and bland: to-morrow, if misfortune threaten, they cry, “Look to thyself.” Their cry is: “We will be free, and servants of no man”—not seeing that they are the blind tools of one or more leaders, who seek to reign over them. With the house of David, Israel flung aside the great promise (2Sa_7:10-16; 2Sa_23:5) which depended on that house. For us has come that Son of David whose kingdom shall have no end (Luk_1:32). Let us hold stedfastly by Him, and not be led astray by the uproar of the world—“We will have no part in Him.” He will finally destroy all enemies under His feet. Thus went Israel to his tent, but not as formerly, blest by the king, and blessing him, rejoicing over the goodness of the Lord to David and to His people Israel (chap. 1Ki_8:66). He who has not a good conscience cannot return in peace.
1Ki_12:18. The people desired freedom; but a tree of liberty watered with innocent blood can only bear poison fruit. He who asks nothing of God can only lead others to folly: he who cannot stand in the gap can never protect others. It is a judgment of God when a monarch, instead of being able to repose in the bosom of any one of his subjects, must needs fly before him to save his life. To yield to superior force is no disgrace, but shameful is the flight which is the result of arrogance and overbearing pride.
1Ki_12:19-20. The great majority fell away, and the small minority remained faithful: the first was ruined and had no future; from the latter came forth the One before whom every knee bowed, and whom every tongue acknowledged to be the Lord (Mat_2:6; Php_2:11). In the Kingdom of God there is no question of majorities and minorities, but it is simply, are we steadfast and faithful unto death. The pretended deliverers of the masses well know how to manage so that they will become rulers of the people: they allow themselves to be summoned, and apparently persuaded, to the very object which was the sole aim of their efforts.—Lange.
1Ki_12:19. Sin a revolt.
1. Against God.
2. Has introduced anarchy and disorder in the moral world.
3. Will be subdued by the triumph of moral goodness.
1Ki_12:20. Blessed be God for lawful government; even a mutinous body cannot want a head. If the rebellions Israelities have cast off their true sovereign, they must choose a false. Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, must be the man. He had need be skilful and sit sure that shall back the horse which hath cast his rider. Israel could not have anywhere met with more craft and courage than they found in this leader. Rehoboam returns to Jerusalem lighter by a crown than he went forth: Judah and Benjamin still stick fast to their loyalty. God will ever reserve a remnant free from the common contagion.—Bp. Hall.
1Ki_12:21-24. The authority of the Divine Word.
1. Is superior to the power of the sword and of the throne.
2. Is sufficient to prevent the most terrible wars.
3. Should be acknowledged by all nations.
4. Will disconcert the cleverest plottings of the wicked.
1Ki_12:21. What Rehoboam had lost through insolence and weakness, through wickedness and folly, he now sought to regain by violence and battle: instead of humbling himself before the All-powerful hand of God, he is haughty, and depends upon his own arm of flesh. The natural heart of man is a froward and timorous thing (Jer_17:9), without safe resting place or firm support, now buoyed up, now cast down, the football of every storm of fortune. But blessed is the man whose trust and confidence are in the Lord. In the renewed heart is no pride and no fear.
1Ki_12:22-24. The Word of the Lord to the king and to the host. I. The command—Ye shall not go up, nor fight II. The cause of the commandment—For this thing is from me. III. The obedience to the command—They hearkened. Civil wars are the most unnatural and likewise the fiercest and bitterest. He who stirs up strife between brethren commits a crime which never goes unpunished.
—Shemaiah, a type of the Lord’s servants.
1. He is a man of God, and as such he brings good tidings of peace (Isa_52:7).
2. He has no other arms than the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God (Eph_6:17).
3. With His word he comes, strong and fearless, before the king and his whole host (Act_4:20; Act_9:15).
—With this man of God we have met for the first time, and though our knowledge of him is limited to a few scattered notices, we see in them how vast a moral power the prophets of this age wielded over the king and the nation. They, and the converts of their ministry, were the salt that preserved the nation through many a long year of idolatrous rebellion. Shemaiah seems to have been, during Rehoboam’s reign, pre-eminently the prophet of Judah. His word on this occasion, though doubtless much against the royal will, awed the king into submission. Again, in the time of Shishak’s invasion, he appeared, and his ministry was instrumental in averting the possible consequences of that invasion—the destruction of Jerusalem (2Ch_12:5-7).—Whedon.
—We see here with what great might the God of truth maintains His word. By the prophet Ahijah He announced to Jeroboam that he should rule over ten tribes of Israel: that is accomplished here. He had promised to leave one tribe to the house of David: that is accomplished here. He promised to Ephraim, or to his father Joseph, that kings should proceed from them (Genesis 49; Deuteronomy 33), and that is fulfilled here, since Jeroboam becomes king through Ephraim. Thus nothing remains unfulfilled of all that God has spoken, promised, or threatened. Solomon and Rehoboam strove to prevent the fulfilment of God’s word in Jeroboam, for which purpose Solomon planned to kill Jeroboam, and Rehoboam assembled a great army against him; but all in vain. Therefore let all men believe and seek after the Word of God, and not strive to resist it (Luk_21:33).—Wurt. Summ.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 1Ki 12:21-24
1Ki 12:21-24
I. We must not suppose that the sentence which affirms that this great calamity of the rending of the kingdom was from the Lord is an isolated one, or that it can be explained into some general notion that all men’s doings, good or evil, may be attributed to an omnipotent Ruler. In chap. xi. we are distinctly told that a prophet stirred up those thoughts in the mind of Jeroboam which led him to rise against Solomon. The prophet is a true witness for the Lord God of Israel. He announces an eternal, unchangeable law. It had been declared that idolatry must produce degradation and division in the land. Solomon had introduced the worship of visible things. The very ground of the unity of the nation had been taken away, its acknowledgment of one Lord. A perpetual growth of internal corruption, of internal division, would follow, falsehood spreading in the vitals of the people, with nothing to remind them that it was falsehood. Such a state of things is incon ceivable if we suppose that human beings are as much under a Divine order as natural things are. That order must vindicate itself, must show what it is; the punishment of the transgression must be the way of proclaiming the principle which has been transgressed.
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II. The charge which is brought against Jeroboam of making Israel to sin is scarcely intelligible if we forget that his kingdom stood like that which was in Jerusalem: upon the promise and covenant of God. He had a right to believe that the God of Abraham and of Isaac, of David and of Solomon, would be with him, and would establish for him a sure house. He had a right to live and act upon this conviction. His sin was that he did not act upon it. He did not trust the living God. He thought, not that his kingdom stood on a Divine foundation, but that it was to be upheld by certain Divine props and sanctions. He wanted a god as the support of his authority; what god he cared very little. His thoughts were very natural and very sagacious. Jerusalem was not merely the capital of Rehoboam; it was the seat of God’s temple. If the people had the bond of a common worship, they might desire the bond of a common kingdom. To prevent the second wish, you must extinguish the first.
III. The setting up of the calves shows us why the separation of the kingdoms was a thing from the Lord. It asserted the real dignity of Jerusalem as the place in which it had pleased God to put His name; it asserted the real unity of the nation to be, not in a king, but in the King; it showed that the only basis of any political fellowship of the tribes lay in that name which was revealed to the first father of them.
F. D. Maurice, The Prophets and Kings of the Old Testament, p. 89.
References: 1Ki 12:25-33.—W. G. Horder, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xi., p. 62; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xi., p. 62; Parker, Fountain, Jan. nth, 1877. 1Ki 12:28.—J. D. Kelly, Contemporary Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 375; Bishop Temple, Rugby Sermons, 2nd series, p. 79. 1Ki 12—Parker, vol. vii., pp. 349, 354. 1Ki 13:1-10.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iv., p. 63.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v1 1 Kings
1 Kings
HOW TO SPLIT A KINGDOM
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1Ki 12:1 - 1Ki 12:17.
The separation of the kingdom of Solomon into two weak and hostile states is, in one aspect, a wretched story of folly and selfishness wrecking a nation, and, in another, a solemn instance of divine retribution working its designs by men’s sins. The greater part of this account deals with it in the former aspect, and shows the despicable motives of the men in whose hands was the nation’s fate; but one sentence {1Ki 12:15} draws back the curtain for a moment, and shows us the true cause. There is something very striking in that one flash, which reveals the enthroned God, working through the ignoble strife which makes up the rest of the story. This double aspect of the disruption of the kingdom is the main truth about it which the narrative impresses on us.
As to the mere details of the incident, as a political revolution, they are in four stages. First come the terms of allegiance offered to the new king. Rehoboam goes to Shechem, because ‘Israel was gone’ there. The choice of the place is suspicious; for it was in the tribe of Ephraim, and had been for a time the centre of national life; and its selection at once indicated discontent with the preponderance of Jerusalem, and a wish to assert the importance of the central tribes. No doubt, the choice of the latter city for the capital had caused heart-burning, even during David’s time.
Adopting the reading of the Revised Version, we see another suspicious sign in the recall of Jeroboam, and his selection as spokesman; for he had been in rebellion against Solomon {1Ki 11:26}, and therefore an exile. Probably he had now been the instigator of the discontent of which he became the mouthpiece; and, in any case, his appearance as the leader was all but a declaration of war. His former occupation as superintendent of the forced labour exacted from his own tribe taught him where the shoe pinched, and the weight of the yoke would not be lessened in his representations.
No doubt, the luxury and splendour of Solomon’s brilliant reign had an under side of oppression, even though forced labour was not exacted from Israelites {1Ki 9:22}; but probably the severity was exaggerated in these complaints, which were plainly the pretext for a revolt of which tribal jealousy was the main cause, and Jeroboam’s ambition the spark that set light to the train. Certainly there was ignoring of the benefits of the peaceful reign, which had brought security and commerce. But there was enough truth in the complaint to make it plausible and effective for catching the people. Had they a right to suspend their allegiance on compliance with their terms?
Israel was neither a despotism, nor simply a constitutional monarchy. God appointed the kings, and had ordained the Davidic house to the throne; and therefore this making terms was, in effect, asserting independence of God’s will. Jeroboam was scheming for a crown. The people were shaking off their submission to God. It is very doubtful if concession would have conciliated them. There is nothing elevated, not to say religious, in their motives or acts.
Then comes Rehoboam on the scene. The one sensible thing that he did was to take three days to think. Whether or no his little finger was thicker than his father’s loins, his head was not half so wise. Ecclesiastes, speaking in Solomon’s name, reckons it a great evil that he must leave his labour to his successor; ‘and who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool?’ Certainly Rehoboam had little ‘wisdom’ either of the higher or lower kind. It was the lower kind which the old counsellors of his father gave him,-that wisdom which is mere cunning directed to selfish ends, and careless of honour or truth. ‘Flatter them to-day, speak them fair, promise what you do not mean to keep, and then, when you are firm in the saddle, let them feel bit and spur.’ That was all these grey-headed men had learned. If that was what passed for ‘wisdom’ in Solomon’s later days, we need not wonder at revolt.
To act on such motives is bad enough, but to put them into plain words, and offer them as the rule of a king’s conduct, is a depth of cynical contempt for truth and kingly honour that indicates only too clearly how rotten the state of Israel was. Have we never seen candidates for Parliament and the like on one side of the water, and for Congress, Senate, or Presidency on the other, who have gone to school to the old men at Shechem? The prizes of politicians are often still won by this stale device. The young counsellors differ only in the means of gaining the object. Neither set has the least glimmer of the responsibility of the office, nor ever thinks that God has any say in choosing the king. Naked, undisguised selfishness animates both; only, as becomes their several ages, the one set recommends crawling and the other bluster. Think of Saul hiding among the staff, David going back to his sheep after he was anointed, Solomon praying for wisdom to guide this people, and measure the depth of descent to this ignoble scramble for the sweets of royalty!
According to 1Ki 14:21, Rehoboam was forty-one at this time, so his contemporaries could not have been very young. But possibly the number in the present text is an error for twenty-one, which would agree better with the tone of the reference to age here, and with the rash counsel. Note the recurrence, both in Rehoboam’s question in 1Ki 12:9 and in the young advisers’ answer in 1Ki 12:10, of the obnoxious speech of the people. That may be accidental, but it sounds as if both he and they were keeping their anger warm by repeating the offensive complaint.
The Revised Version reads, ‘My little finger is thicker,’ etc., and so makes the sentence not a threat, but the foundation of the following threat in an arrogant and empty assertion of greater power. The fool always thinks himself wiser than the wise dead; the ‘living dog’ fancies that his yelp is louder than the roar of ‘the dead lion.’ What can be done with a Rehoboam who brags that he is better than Solomon?
The threat which follows is inconceivably foolish; and all the more so because it probably did not represent any definite intention, and certainly was backed by no force adequate to carry it out. Passion and offended dignity are the worst guides for conduct. Threats are always mistakes. A sieve of oats, not a whip, attracts a horse to the halter. If Rehoboam had wished to split the kingdom, he could have found no better wedge than this blustering promise of tyranny.
Next in this miserable story of imbecility and arrogance comes the answer to the assembly. Shechem had seen many an eventful hour, but never one heavier with important issues than that on which the united Israel met for the last time, and there, in the rich valley with Ebal and Gerizim towering above them, heard the fateful answer of this braggart. A dozen rash words brought about four hundred years of strife, weakness, and final destruction. And neither the foolish speaker nor any man in that crowd dreamed of the unnumbered evils to flow from that hour. Since issues are so far beyond our sight, how careful it becomes us to be of motives! Angry counsels are always blunders. No nation can prosper when moderate complaints are met by threats, and ‘spirited conduct,’ asserting dignity, is a sign of weakness, not of strength. For nations and individuals that is true.
Here the historian draws back the curtain. On earth stand the insolent king and the now mutinous people, each driving at their ends, and neither free of sin in their selfishness. A stormy scene of passion, without thought of God, rages below, and above sits the Lord, working His great purpose by men’s sin. That divine control does not in the least affect the freedom or the guilt of the actors. Rehoboam’s disregard of the people’s terms was ‘a thing brought about of the Lord,’ but it was Rehoboam’s sin none the less. That which, looked at from the mere human side, is the sinful result of the free play of wrong motives, is, when regarded from the divine side, the determinate counsel of God. The greatest crime in the world’s history was at the same time the accomplishment of God’s most merciful purpose. Calvary is the highest example of the truth, which embraces all lesser instances of the wrath of man, which He makes to praise Him and effect His deep designs.
Again, the rending of the kingdom was the punishment of sin, especially Solomon’s sin of idolatry, which was closely connected with the extravagant expenditure that occasioned the separation. So the so-called natural consequences of transgression constitute its temporal punishment in part, and behind all these our eyes should be clear-sighted enough to behold the operative will of God. This one piercing beam of light, cast on that scene of insolence and rebellion, lights up all history, and gives the principle on which it must be interpreted, if it is not to be misread.
Again, the punishment of sin, whether that of a community or of a single person, is sin. The separation was sin, on both sides; it led to much more. It was the consequence of previous departure. So ever the worst result of any sin is that it opens the door, like a thief who has crept in through a window, to a band of brethren.
Lastly, we have the fierce rejoinder to the empty boast of Rehoboam, and the definitive disruption of the nation. Jeroboam must have fanned the flame skilfully, or it would not have burst out so quickly. There is no hesitation, nor any regret. The ominous cry, which had been heard before, in Sheba’s abortive revolt, answers Rehoboam with instantaneous and full-throated defiance. Rancorous tribal hatred is audible in it. Long pent up jealousy and dislike of the dynasty of David has got breath at last: ‘To your tents, O Israel! now see to thine own house, David!’
That roar from a thousand voices meant a good deal more than the cowed king’s vain threats did. The angry men who raised it, and were the tools of a crafty conspirator, the frightened courtiers and king who heard it, were alike in their entire oblivion of their true Lord and Monarch. ‘God was not in all their thoughts.’ An enterprise begun in disregard of Him is fated to failure. The only sure foundations of a nation are the fear of the Lord and obedience to His will. If politics have not a religious basis, the Lord will blow upon them, and they will be as stubble.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Revolt of the Ten Tribes. Rehoboam and Jeroboam
The Revolt of the Ten Tribes. Rehoboam and Jeroboam
The revolt of the Ten Tribes against the rule of Rehoboam had its origin partly in the discontent which the burdens laid on the people by Solomon had created and which Jeroboam (who knew of it, see 1Ki_11:28) had perhaps stimulated, and partly in the jealousy subsisting between the northern tribes and Judah, which had manifested itself previously in the separate kingdoms of Ish-bosheth and David, and the insurrections that disturbed David's reign over the whole people (2Sa_20:1); whilst the bond of union constituted by a common religious faith must have been weakened by Solomon's idolatry.
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1. Shechem] The principal town of Ephraim (the modern Nâblûs): it had manifestly been restored after its destruction as related in Jdg_9:45. The choice of this city as the place of assembly was due partly to the importance of Ephraim as a tribe, and partly to its nearness to a sanctuary (that on Mt. Ebal, Jos_8:30). It was a gathering place for the tribes in Joshua's days (Jos_24:1). For all Israel.. king] The tribal spirit of independence was still sufficiently strong to make it necessary for the Judæan Rehoboam to receive separately the homage of the other tribes.
2. Dwelt in Egypt] LXX has creturned from Egypt.'
3. Called him] This implies that Jeroboam was known to sympathise with the grievances under which the people laboured.
4. Made our yoke grievous] i.e. by the forced labour imposed upon them (1Ki_5:13).
7. If thou wilt be a servant] i.e. by making timely concessions to his people.
10. My little finger] a figurative expression, explained by what follows.
11. Scorpions] a rod or lash used in scourging.
15. The cause.. Lord] i.e. the turn of events was the means appointed by God's providence to bring about the punishment merited by Solomon's sin (1Ki_11:11-13).
16. What portion] for this signal of revolt cp. 2Sa_20:1. Now see.. house] a declaration of independence and a warning against further interference.
17. Children of Israel.. Judah] probably, in the main, members of the tribe of Simeon: cp. 1Ki_19:3 with Jos_15:28.
18. Adoram] cp. 2Sa_20:24. He is called Adoniram in
46. Tribute] RV 'levy.' Stoned him] Stones were the usual weapons in outbreaks of popular fury: cp. Exo_17:4; 1Sa_30:6.
19. Unto this day] This passage must originally have been written not only before the destruction of Jerusalem but of Samaria: cp. 1Sa_8:8.
20. The tribe of Judah only] This accords with the words of Ahijah in 1Ki_11:32 and if the remaining tribes that fell to Jeroboam are reckoned as ten (1Ki_11:31) and not eleven, the explanation is to be found in the omission of Levi (as the priestly tribe) and in regarding Ephraim and Manasseh as constituting the single tribe of Joseph: cp. 1Ki_11:28. But in 1Ki_11:21, 1Ki_11:23, Benjamin is joined with Judah as belonging to Rehoboam; and this, in large measure, was really the case, the frontier between the two kingdoms lying within that tribe. Simeon, too, by its position must have been practically absorbed by Judah.
22. Shemaiah] mentioned again in 2Ch_12:5, 2Ch_12:7, 2Ch_12:15.
23. The remnant of the people] i.e. those belonging by lineage to the other tribes: cp. 1Ki_12:17.
25. Built] i.e. fortified: cp. 1Ki_9:17. Penuel] in Gilead, E. of Jordan: cp. Jdg_8:8.
26. Now shall.. David] Jeroboam feared that if his people still went to Jerusalem three times a year to keep the feasts, they would be tempted to return to their allegiance to Rehoboam. He had not sufficient faith in God's power to bring about His promises (1Ki_11:38), and so adopted measures to safeguard his newlywon throne which branded his name for ever with infamy (cp. 1Ki_14:16), and brought calamity both on his house and his people.
28. Two calves of gold] The calves were not intended as substitutes for the Lord (Jehovah) but as symbols of Him, as appears from the king's words to the people. It has been thought by some that such symbols were derived from Egypt where the living bull Apis was worshipped, and where Jeroboam had lived in exile. But the calves which he set up were probably imitations of the calf made in the wilderness by Aaron; and it is scarcely likely that the Israelites, when escaping from Egypt, would, to represent their own God, borrow an emblem from their task-masters. It is more probable that a calf or young bull was chosen as a religious symbol because to an agricultural people the bull was a natural emblem of force and vigour. But though Jeroboam, in setting up the calves, did not break the first commandment of the Decalogue, he yet violated the second, and from motives of state policy (1Ki_12:26-27) corrupted the religious worship of his people, not only by making it sensuous instead of spiritual, but by employing symbols which represented merely Jehovah's power (whether displayed in creation or destruction) and altogether failed to suggest His highest attributes—those of righteousness, holiness, and love. That these coarse symbols long continued to be worshipped appears from Hos_8:5-6; Hos_10:5. Thy gods] The plural is used because there was more than one image, but the same God was represented by both.
29. Beth-el.. Dan] on the S. border of Ephraim and in the N. of Naphtali respectively, and so at the two extremities of the kingdom to meet the convenience of the people. Both places had previously been the seats of religious worship: see, for Bethel, Gen_28:1-22; Gen_35:1, Gen_35:7; Jdg_20:26; 1Sa_10:3 and for Dan, Jdg_18:30. Jeroboam hoped to revive their ancient popularity.
30. Before the one] The text is incomplete: RM 'before each of them.'
31. An house of high places] LXX 'made houses (i.e. sanctuaries) upon high places': see on 1Ki_3:2. Of the lowest of the people] better, 'from all the people indiscriminately.' In Dt the priesthood is restricted to the Levites (see on 1Ki_8:4), and the narrator judges Jeroboam's conduct from the standpoint of the Deuteronomic law.
32. The feast] i.e. the Feast of Tabernacles or Ingathering, on the 15th day of the 7th month. The new feast instituted by Jeroboam was placed a month later, probably on account of the later date of the vintage in N. Palestine.
He placed in Beth-el] Bethel appears to have been, at least in later times, the royal sanctuary (Amo_7:13).
33. Of his own heart] For political and self-regarding reasons he disturbed the hallowed associations which had gathered round the month previously set apart for the Festival of Ingathering. He offered upon the altar] The king himself officiated as priest. The v. is closely connected with 1Ki_13:1.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv1, 16 called Roboam. Mat 1:7.
Rehoboam
called Roboam. Mat 1:7.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 1. Rehoboam and the Revolt of the Ten Tribes
III. THE DIVIDED KINGDOM
1. Rehoboam and the Revolt of the Ten Tribes
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CHAPTER 12
1. The revolt of the northern tribes (1Ki 12:1-20)
2. The threatening war averted (1Ki 12:21-24)
3. Jeroboam’s wicked schemes (1Ki 12:25-33)
Rehoboam (enlarger of the people) is the only son of Solomon mentioned in the Bible (1Ch 3:10). Ecc 2:18-19; Ecc 4:13-16 seem to give a hint that his father was fearful about his reign in his stead. In 2Ch 10:13 we find the history of Rehoboam more fully, which we follow in the annotations of that book. He was the son of the Ammonitess Naamah. During the first three years he was outwardly faithful, but after that he drifted like his father into idolatry and its moral evils (1Ki 14:23-24; 2Ch 11:13-17). He forsook the law of the Lord and the people followed him (2Ch 12:1). The polygamous tendency of his father and grandfather were also indulged by him (2Ch 11:21). Jeroboam who had fled into Egypt (11:40) was recalled and the history of the revolt follows. Jeroboam was made king over the ten tribes, while Rehoboam reigned over Judah. What took place was from the Lord “that He might perform His saying, which the LORD spake by Ahijah the Shilonite unto Jeroboam the son of Nebat” (12:15). The disruption of the kingdom had taken place. Up to the deportation of the ten tribes under Shalmaneser (722 B.C.) covers 253 years. During that time thirteen kings reigned over Judah and twenty over the ten tribes; there were also two periods of lawlessness. The apostasy of the ten-tribe kingdom was complete; none of their kings served the Lord. Under Ahab and his two sons Ahaziah and Joram the Baal worship became universal. It was different with the kings of Judah. A number of them were God-fearing (Asa, Jehoshaphat, Uzziah, Jotham, Hezekiah and Josiah). Others were wicked blasphemers as we shall see from their history. It is also noteworthy that the reign of the wicked kings was shorter than the reign of those who feared the Lord.
After the stoning of Adoram, Rehoboam’s collector, Rehoboam fled to Jerusalem and gathered an army from Judah and Benjamin to fight against Israel to bring back the kingdom to the son of Solomon. Shemaiah (heard of Jehovah), a man of God, brought the message from the Lord not to fight against Israel. They were obedient and the war was averted. Many Israelites, who were true to Jehovah, as well as all the priests and Levites remained in the Kingdom of Judah. (As failure had come in, prophecy at once reappears. Shemaiah must have been a very courageous man to stand in face of a gathered army of 180,000 men, an angry king and an angry people and declare a message which must have been decidedly unwelcome. And one cannot but admire the gracious submission of king and people.)
Jeroboam made Shechem his capital. He also built the ancient Penuel (the face of God, Gen 32:30; Jdg 8:8), but he did not meet the Lord there like Jacob. Then the step was done which precipitated idolatry. To protect his kingdom and keep the people back from the true worship of Jehovah, he placed, with the consent of the people, in Dan and Beth-el on the northern and southern boundaries of his kingdom, two calves of gold. Thus with an unspeakable blasphemy he said: “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem; behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.” The lowest class of the people were chosen as priests. Then he also offered sacrifices unto the calves that he had made. All was devised of his own heart and God’s Word was completely set aside. It corresponds to the great apostasy of Romanism with its wicked, blasphemous rites.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 16 Rehoboam’s Foolish Answer
Rehoboam’s Foolish Answer
v. 1. And Rehoboam went to Shechem, in the northern part of Ephraim’s territory, and even then a center of the northern tribes; for all Israel, the ten tribes outside of Judah and Benjamin, were come to Shechem to make him king, to consider the question of recognizing him as king.
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v. 2. And it came to pass, when Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who was yet in Egypt, 1Ki 11:40, heard of it, (for he was fled from the presence of King Solomon, and Jeroboam dwelt in Egypt,)
v. 3. that they sent and called him. It appears, from 2Ch 10:2, that Jeroboam had returned to hie native country after the news of Solomon’s death reached Egypt, and it was therefore an easy matter to call him. And Jeroboam, who promptly took the lead in the negotiations, and all the congregation of Israel came and spake unto Rehoboam, saying,
v. 4. Thy father made our yoke grievous, namely, the yoke of labor, the burden of servile work, the heavy taxation for the many public buildings and improvements; now, therefore, make thou the grievous service of thy father and his heavy yoke which he put upon us lighter, by omitting the customary work by conscription, which, however, they had not found burdensome before, and we will serve thee, acknowledging him as king.
v. 5. And he said unto them, Depart yet for three days, then come again to me. He wanted time to deliberate, to discuss the situation from every angle. And the people departed, readily granting him the desired time.
v. 6. And King Rehoboam consulted with the old men that stood before Solomon, his father, while he yet lived, the members of his council, or cabinet, who had always been in immediate attendance upon the king, and said, How do ye advise that I may answer this people?
v. 7. And they spake unto him, saying, giving to the king the advice based upon sound experience, If thou wilt be a servant unto this people this day, for this one day only, and wilt serve them, yielding to their will for the present moment, and answer them, heeding their demand, and speak good words to them, tactful and kind, then they will be thy servants forever, that would be the probable outcome of the negotiations.
v. 8. But he forsook the counsel of the old men which they had given him, his rash and imperious character refused to accept the proposal, and consulted with the young men that were grown up with him and which stood before him, courtiers in attendance upon the king who were anxious to obtain his favor.
v. 9. And he said unto them, What counsel give ye that we may answer this people who have spoken to me, saying, Make the yoke which thy father did put upon us lighter?
v. 10. And the young men that were grown up with him spake unto him, noting the trend of his thought and ready to flatter his ambition, saying, Thus shalt thou speak unto this people that spake unto thee, saying, Thy father made our yoke heavy, but make thou it lighter unto us; thus shalt thou say unto them, My little finger shall be thicker than my father’s loins, that is, As the size of the little finger is to that of the loin, so was the power of Solomon to that of Rehoboam, the latter feeling able to compel the people to do his will and to carry out his ambitious plans.
v. 11. And now, whereas my father did lade you with a heavy load, I will add to your yoke, he would carry out the conscription with greater severity; my father hath chastised you with whips, using only ordinary means to enforce obedience, but I will chastise you with scorpions, with the thorn-whips used for criminals; he would use the most extraordinary and severe means.
v. 12. So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third day, as the king had appointed, saying, Come to me again the third day.
v. 13. And the king answered the people roughly, he gave them a hard and harsh answer, that of a tyrant, and forsook the old men’s counsel that they gave him,
v. 14. and spake to them after the counsel of the young men, the advice which his tyrannical mind had received with such pleasure, saying, My father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke; my father also chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions. The answer was foolish from every point of view and was bound to stimulate rebellious inclinations.
v. 15. Wherefore the king hearkened not unto the people, gave no heed to their demand for the reduction of their burdens; for the cause was from the Lord, He so shaped events that the foolishness of Rehoboam resulted in his ruin, that He might perform His saying, which the Lord spake by Ahijah the Shilonite unto Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, 1Ki 11:11-31. Whatever is done in the counsel of princes and statesmen, in the history of nations, is done by God’s will or permission, for it is He who rules the universe.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16 all Israel was coming
all Israel was coming
Here "Israel" represents all the men of Israel capable of fighting. Here "all Israel" is a generalization which means almost all the men of Israel. AT: "all the men of Israel were coming" (See: Synecdoche and Hyperbole and Generalization)
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It happened that
This phrase is used here to mark where the action starts. If your language has a way for doing this, you could consider using it here.
Jeroboam ... Nebat
These are the names of men. (See: How to Translate Names)
translationWords
Rehoboam
Shechem
Israel
king
Jeroboam
Egypt
Solomon
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 11, 12 12:1 Shechem, located in the heart of territory belonging…
12:1 Shechem, located in the heart of territory belonging to the northern tribes, had been a strategic site and religious center since the pre-Israelite occupation of Canaan (Gen 12:6-7; 33:18-20), and it became important in Israel as a Levitical city and a city of refuge (Josh 20:7; 21:20; 24:1). Rehoboam knew that if he wanted to be king over a united kingdom, he would need the approval and support of the politically and religiously strong northern tribes. Shechem later became the provisional capital of the northern kingdom (1 Kgs 12:25). • Rehoboam reigned from 931 to 913 BC.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.