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1 Kings 12 β Commentary
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Expositor's Bible Commentary 1 Kings 12:1 And Rehoboam went to Shechem: for all Israel were come to Shechem to make him king. A NEW REIGN 1 Kings 12:1-5 "A foolish son is the calamity of his father." - Proverbs 19:13 . "He left behind him Roboam, even the foolishness of the people, and one that had no understanding." - Sir 47:23 . REHOBOAM, who was Solomonβs 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 kingβs 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 fatherβs 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 Davidβs 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 Davidβs 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. 1 Kings 12:6 And 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 answer this people? THE DISRUPTION 1 Kings 12:6-20 "It was of the Lord." It is no small proof of the insight and courageous faithfulness of the historian that he accepts without question the verdict of ancient prophecy that the disruption was Godβs doing; for everything which happened in the four subsequent centuries, alike in Judah and in Israel, seemed to belie this pious conviction. We, in the light of later history, are now able to see that the disseverance of Israelβs unity worked out results of eternal advantage to mankind; but in the sixth century before Christ no event could have seemed to be so absolutely disastrous. It must have worn the aspect of an extinction of the glory of the House of Jacob. It involved the obliteration of the great majority of the descendants of the patriarchs, and the reduction of the rest to national insignificance and apparently hopeless servitude. Throughout those centuries of troubled history, in the struggle for existence which was the lot of both kingdoms alike, it was difficult to say whether their antagonism or their friendship, their open wars or their matrimonial alliances, were productive of the greater ruin. Each section of the nation fatally hampered and counterpoised the other with a perpetual rivalry and menace. Ephraim envied Judah, and Judah vexed Ephraim. In extreme cases the south was ready to purchase the intervention of Syria, or even of Assyria, to check and overwhelm its northern rival, while the north could raise up Egypt or Edom to harass the southern kingdom with intolerable raids. To us the Southern Kingdom, the kingdom of Judah, seems the more important and the more interesting division of the people. It became the heir of all the promises, the nurse of the Messianic hope, the mother of the four greater prophets, the continuer of all the subsequent history after the glory of Israel had been stamped out by Assyria forever. 1. But such was not the aspect presented by the kingdom of Judah, to contemporary observers. On the contrary, Judah seemed to be a paltry and accidental fragment-one tribe, dissevered from the magnificent unity of Israel. Nothing redeemed it from impotence and obliteration but the splendid possessions of Jerusalem and the Temple, which guaranteed the often threatened perpetuity of the House of David. The future seemed to be wholly with Israel when men compared the relative size and population of the disunited tribes. Judah comprised little more than the environs of Jerusalem. Except Jerusalem, Mizpeh, Gibeon, and Hebron, it had no famous shrines and centers of national traditions. It could not even claim the southern town of Beersheba as a secure possession. The tribe of Simeon had melted away into a shadow, if not into non-existence, amid the surrounding populations, and its territory was under the kings of Judah; but they did not even possess the whole of Benjamin, and if that little tribe was nominally reckoned with them, it was only because part of their capital city was in Benjamite territory, to which belonged the valley of Hinnom. To Israel, on the other hand, pertained all the old local sanctuaries and scenes of great events. On the east of Jordan they held Mahanaim; on the west Jericho, near as it was to Jerusalem, and Bethel with its sacred stone of Jacob, and Gilgal with its memorial of the conquest, and Shechem the national place of assembly, and Accho and Joppa on the sea shore. Israel, too, inherited all the predominance over Moab and Ammon, and the Philistines, which had been secured by conquest in the reign of David. {1Ki 16:34; 2Ki 2:4} 2. Then, again, the greatest heroes of tradition had been sons of the northern tribes. The fame of Joshua was theirs, of Deborah and Barak, of fierce Jephthah, of kingly Gideon, and of bold Abimelech. Holy Samuel, the leader of the prophets, and heroic Saul, the first of the kings, had been of their kith and kin. Judah could only claim the bright personality of David, and the already tarnished glories of Solomon, which men did not yet see through the mirage of legend but in the prosaic light of every day. 3. Again, the Northern Kingdom was unhampered by the bad example and erroneous development of the preceding royalty. Jeroboam had not stained his career with crimes like David; nor had he sunk, as Solomon had done, into polygamy and idolatry. It seemed unlikely that he, with so fatal an example before his eyes, could be tempted into oppressive tyranny, futile commerce, or luxurious ostentation. He could found a new dynasty, free from the trammels of a bad commencement, and as fully built on Divine command as that of the House of Jesse. 4. Nor was it a small advantage that the new kingdom had an immense superiority over its southern compeer in richness of soil and beauty of scenery. To it belonged the fertile plain of Jezreel, rolling with harvests of golden grain. Its command of Accho gave it access to the treasures of the shore and of the sea. To it belonged the purple heights of Carmel, of which the very name meant "a garden of God"; and the silver Lake of Galilee, with its inexhaustible swarms of fish; and the fields of Gennesareth, which were a wonder of the world for their tropical luxuriance. Theirs also were the lilied waters and paper-reeds of Merom, and the soft, green, park-like scenery of Gerizim, and the roses of Sharon, and the cedars of Lebanon, and the vines and fig trees and ancient terebinths of all the land of Ephraim, and the forest glades of Zebulon and Naphtali, and the wild uplands beyond the Jordan-which were all far different from the "awful barrenness" of Judah, with its monotony of rounded hills. 3. Under these favorable conditions three great advantages were exceptionally developed in the Northern Kingdom. (1) It evidently enjoyed a larger freedom as well as a greater prosperity. How gay and bright, how festive and musical, how worldly and luxurious, was the life of the wealthy and the noble in the ivory palaces and on the gorgeous divans of Samaria and Jezreel, as we read of it in the pages of the contemporary prophets! {Amo 5:11; Amo 6:4-6} Naboth and Shemer show themselves as independent of tyranny as any sturdy dalesman or feudal noble, and "the great lady of Shunem, on the slopes of Esdraelon, in her well-known home, is a sample of Israelite life in the north as true as that of the reaper Boaz in the south. She leaves her home under the pressure of famine, and goes down to the plains of Philistia. When she returns and finds a stranger in her corn-fields, she insists on restitution, even at the hand of the king himself." (2) The Ten Tribes also developed a more brilliant literature. Some of the most glowing psalms are probably of northern origin, as well as the Song of Deborah, and the work of the writer who is now generally recognized by critics under the name of the Deuteronomist. The loveliest poem produced by Jewish literature-the Song of Songs-bears on every page the impress of the beautiful and imaginative north. The fair girl of Shunem loves her leopard-haunted hills, and the vernal freshness of her northern home, more than the perfumed chambers of Solomonβs seraglio; and her poet is more charmed with the luster and loveliness of Tirzah than with the palaces and Temple of Jerusalem. The Book of Job may have originated in the Northern Kingdom, from which also sprang the best historians of the Jewish race. (3) But the main endowment of the new kingdom consisted in the magnificent development and independence of the prophets. It was not till after the overthrow of the Ten Tribes that the glory of prophecy migrated southwards and Jerusalem produced the mighty triad of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. For the two and a half centuries that the Northern Kingdom lasted scarcely one prophet is heard of in Judah except the scarcely known Hanani, the Eliezer, the son of Mareshah, {2Ch 20:37} who is little more than a nominis umbra . To the north belongs the great herald-prophet of the Old Dispensation, the mighty Elijah; the softer spirit of the statesman-prophet Elisha; the undaunted Micaiah, son of Imlah; the picturesque Micah; the historic Jonah; the plaintive Hosea; and that bold and burning patriot, a fragment of whose prophecy now forms part of the Book of Zechariah. Amos, indeed, belonged by birth to Tekoa, which was in Judah, but his prophetic activity was confined to Bethel and Jezreel. The Schools of the Prophets at Ramah, Bethel, Jericho, and Gilgal were all in Israel. The passages in the third section of the Book of Zechariah are alone sufficient to show how vast was the influence in the affairs of the nation of the prophets of the north, and how fearless their intervention. Even when they were most fiercely persecuted, they were not afraid to beard the most powerful kings-an Ahab and a Jeroboam II-in all their pride. {Zec 11:4-17; Zec 13:7-9} Samaria and Galilee were rich in prophetic lives; and they, too were the destined scene of the life of Him of whom all the prophets prophesied, and from whose inspiration they drew their heavenly fire. Against these advantages, however, must be set two serious and ultimately fatal drawbacks-germs of disease which lay in the very constitution of the kingdom, and from the first doomed it to death. One of these was the image-worship, of which I shall speak in a later section; the other was the lack of one predominant and continuous dynasty. The royalty of the north did not spring up through long years of gradual ascendency, and could not originally appeal to splendid services and heroic memories. Jeroboam was a man of humble, and, if tradition says truly, of tainted origin. He was not a usurper, for he was called to the throne by the voice of prophecy and the free spontaneous choice of his people; but in Solomonβs days he had been a potential if not an actual rebel. He set the example of successful revolt, and it was eagerly followed by many a soldier and general of similar antecedents. In the short space of two hundred and forty-five years there were no less than nine changes of dynasty, of which those of Jeroboam, Baasha, Kobolam, Menahem, consisted only of a father and son. There were at least four isolated or partial kings: Zimri, Tibni, Pekah, and Hosea. Only two dynasties, those of Omri and Jehu, succeeded in maintaining themselves for even four or five generations, and they, like the others, were at last quenched in blood. The close of the kingdom in its usurpations, massacres, and catastrophes reminds us of nothing so much as the disastrous later days of the Roman Empire, when the purple was so often rent by the dagger-thrust, and it was rare for emperors to die a natural death. The kingdom which had risen from a sea of blood set in the same red waves. On the other hand, whatever may have been the drawback of the small and hampered Southern Kingdom, it had several conspicuous advantages. It had a settled and incomparable capital, which could be rendered impregnable against all ordinary assaults; while the capital of the Northern Kingdom shifted from Shechem to Penuel and Tirzah, and from Tirzah to Samaria and Jezreel. It had the blessing of a loyal people, and of the all-but-unbroken continuity of one loved and cherished dynasty for nearly four centuries. It had the yet greater blessing of producing not a few kings who more or less fully attained to the purity of the theocratic ideal. Asa, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, Josiah, were good and high-minded kings, and the two latter were religious reformers. Whatever may have been the sins and shortcomings of Judah-and they were often very heinous-still the prophets bear witness that her transgressions were less incurable than those of her sister Samaria. All good men began to look to Jerusalem as the nursing mother of the Promised Deliverer. "Out of Judah," said the later Zechariah, "shall come forth the corner stone, out of him the nail, out of him the battle bow, out of him every governor together." Amos was horn in Judah; Hosea took refuge there; the later Zechariah labored (9, 11, Zechariah 13:7-9 ) for the fusion of the two kingdoms. From the unknown, or little known, seers who endeavored to watch over the infant destinies of Judah, to the mighty prophets who inspired her early resistance to Assyria, or menaced her apostasy with ruin at the hands of Babylon, she rarely lacked for any long period the inspired guidance of moral teachers. Judah was for many years behind-hand in power, in civilization, in literature, even in the splendor of prophetic inspiration, she still managed on the whole to uplift to the nations the standard of righteousness. That standard was often fiercely assaulted, but the standard-bearers did not faint. The torn remnants of the old ideal were still upheld by faithful hands. Neither the heathen tendencies of princes nor the vapid ceremonialism of priests were allowed unchallenged to usurp the place of religion pure and undefiled. The later Judaean prophets, and especially the greatest of them, rose to a spirituality which had never yet been attained, and was never again equaled till the rise of the Sun of Righteousness with healing in His wings. How clearly, then, do we see the truth of the prophetic announcement that thy disruption of the kingdom was of the Lord out of apparent catastrophe was evolved infinite reparation. The abandonment of the Davidic dynasty of the Ten Tribes looked like earthly ruin. It did indeed hasten the final overthrow of all national autonomy; but that would have come in any case, humanly speaking, from Assyria, or Babylonia, or Persia, or the Seleucids, or the Ptolemies, or Rome. On the other hand, it fostered a religious power and concentration which were of more value to the world than any other blessings. "On all the past greatness and glory of Israel," says Ewald, "Judah cast its free and cheerful gaze. Before its kings floated the vision of great ancestors; before its prophets examples like those of Nathan and Gad; before the whole people the memory of its lofty days. And so it affords us no unworthy example of the honorable part which may be played for many centuries in the history of the world, and the rich blessings which may be imparted, even by a little kingdom, provided it adheres faithfully to the eternal truth. The gain to the higher life of humanity acquired under the earthly protection of this petty monarchy far outweighs all that has been attempted or accomplished for the permanent good of man by many much larger states." "The people of Israel goes under," Says Stade, "but the religion of Israel triumphs over the powers of the world, while it changes its character from the religion of a people into a religion of the world." This development of religion, as he proceeds to point out, was mainly due to the long, slow enfeeblement of the people through many centuries, until at last it had acquired a force which enabled it to survive the political annihilation of the nationality from which it sprang. In reality both kingdoms gained under the appearance of total loss. "Every people called to high destinies," says Renan, "ought to be a small complete world, enclosing opposed poles within its bosom. Greece had at a few leagues from each other, Sparta and Athens, two antipodes to a superficial observer, but in reality rival sisters, necessary the one to the other. It was the same in Palestine." The high merit of the historian of the two kingdoms appears in this, that, without entangling himself in details, and while he contents himself with sweeping and summary judgments, he established a moral view of history which has been ratified by the experience of the world. He shows us how the tottering and insignificant kingdom of Judah, secured by Godβs promise, and rising through many backslidings into higher spirituality and faithfulness, not only out-lasted for a century the overthrow of its far more powerful rival, but kept alive the torch of faith, and handed it on to the nations of many centuries across the dust and, darkness of intervening generations. And in drawing this picture he helped to secure the fulfillment of his own ideal, for he inspired into many a patriot and many a reformer the indomitable faith in God which has enabled men, in age after age, to defy obloquy and opposition, to face the prison and the sword, secure in the ultimate victory of Godβs truth and Godβs righteousness amidst the most seemingly absolute failure, and against the most apparently overwhelming odds. 1 Kings 12:21 And when Rehoboam was come to Jerusalem, he assembled all the house of Judah, with the tribe of Benjamin, an hundred and fourscore thousand chosen men, which were warriors, to fight against the house of Israel, to bring the kingdom again to Rehoboam the son of Solomon. "JEROBOAM THE SON OF NEBAT, WHO MADE ISRAEL TO SIN" 1 Kings 12:21-23 . "For from Israel is even this; the workman made it and it is no god: yea, the calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces." - Hosea 8:6 THE condemnation of the first king of Israel sounds like a melancholy and menacing refrain through the whole history of the Northern Kingdom. Let us consider the extent and nature of his crime; for though the condemnation is most true if we judge merely by the issue of Jeroboamβs acts a manβs guilt cannot always be measured by the immensity of its unforeseen consequences, nor can his actions and intentions be always fairly judged after the lapse of centuries. The moral judgments recorded in the Book of Kings concerning legal and ritual offences are measured by the standard of menβs consciences nearly a century after Josiahβs Reformation in B.C. 623, not by that which prevailed in B.C. 937, when Jeroboam came to the throne. It seems clear that, even in the opinion of his contemporaries, Jeroboam was unfaithful to the duties of the call which he had received from God; but it would be an error to suppose that his sin was, in itself, so heinous as those of which both Solomon and Rehoboam and other kings of Judah were guilty. "Calf-worship," as it was contemptuously called in later days, did not present itself as "calf-worship" to Jeroboam or his people. To them it was only the more definite adoration of Jehovah under the guise of the cherubic emblem which Solomon had himself enshrined in the Temple and Moses himself had sanctioned in the Tabernacle. There is not a word to show that they were cognizant of the book which had narrated the fierce reprobation by Moses of Aaronβs "golden calf" in the wilderness. Jeroboamβs chief sin was not that as a king he tolerated, or even set up, a sort of idolatry, but that he induced the whole body of his subjects to share in his evil innovations. The charge brought against him was threefold. First, he set up the golden calves at Dan and Bethel. Secondly, he "made priests from among all the people, which were not of the sons of Levi." Thirdly, he established his "harvest feast" not on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, which was the Feast of Tabernacles, but on the fifteenth day of the eighth month. In estimating these sins let us endeavor-for it is a sacred duty-to be just. 1. We read in the Authorized Version that "he made priests of the lowest of the people," and this tends to increase the prejudice against him. But to have done this willfully would have been entirely against his own interests. The more honorable his priests were, the more was his new worship likely to succeed. The Hebrew only says that "he made priests of all classes of the people," or, as the Revised Version renders it, "from among all the people." No doubt this would appear to have been a heinous innovation, judged from the practice of later ages; it is not clear that it was equally so in the days of Jeroboam. If David, unrebuked, made his sons priests; if Ira the Ithrite was a priest; if Solomon, by his own fiat, altered the succession of the priesthood; if Solomon (no less than Jeroboam) arrogated to himself priestly functions on public occasions, the opinion as to priestly rights may not have existed in the days of Jeroboam, or may only have existed in an infinitely weaker form than in the days of the post-exilic chronicler. An incidental notice in another book shows us that in Dan, at any rate, he did not disturb the Levitic ministry. There the descendants of Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the grandson of Moses, continued their priestly functions from the day when that unworthy descendant of the mighty lawgiver was seduced to conduct a grossly irregular cult for a few shillings a year, down to the day when the golden calf at Dan was carried away by Tiglath-Pileser, King of Assyria. If the Levites preferred to abide by the ministrations of Jerusalem, and migrated in large numbers to the south, Jeroboam may have held that necessity compelled him to appoint priests who were not of the House of Levi. Neither for this, nor for his new feast of Tabernacles, nor for the calf-worship, were the kings of Israel condemned (so far as is recorded) even by such mighty prophets as Elijah and Elisha. In choosing Dan and Bethel as the seats for his new altars, the king was not actuated by purely arbitrary considerations. They were ancient and venerated shrines of pilgrimage and worship {Jdg 18:30; Jdg 20:18; Jdg 20:26 1Sa 10:3} He did not create any sacredness which was not already attached to them in the popular imagination. In point of fact he would have served the ends of a worldly policy much better if he had chosen Shechem; for Dan and Bethel were the two farthest parts of his kingdom. Dan was in constant danger from the Syrians, and Bethel, which is only twelve miles from Jerusalem, more than once fell into the hands of the kings of Judah, though they neither retained possession of it, nor disturbed the shrines, nor threw down the "calf" of the new worship. Jeroboam could not have created the "calf-worship" if he had not found everything prepared for its acceptance. Dan had been, since the earliest days, the seat of a chapelry and ephod served by the lineal descendants of Moses in unbroken succession; Bethel was associated with some of the nationβs holiest memories since the days of their forefather Israel. 2. Again, if in Jeroboamβs day the Priestly Code was in existence, he was clearly guilty of unjustifiable willfulness in altering the time for observing the Feast of Tabernacles from the seventh to the eighth month. But if there be little or no contemporary trace of any observation of the Feast of Tabernacles-if, as Nehemiah tells us, it had not once been properly observed from the days of Joshua to his own, or if Jeroboam was unaware of any sacred legislation on the subject-the writers of the tenth century may have judged too severely the fixing of a date for the Feast of Ingathering, which may have seemed more suitable to the conditions of the northern and western tribes. For in parts of that region the harvest ripens a month earlier than in Judah, and the festival was meant to be kept at the season of harvest. 3. These, however, were but incidental and subordinate matters compared with the setting up of the golden calves. Jeroboam felt that if his people flocked to do sacrifice at the new and gorgeous Temple in Jerusalem they would return to their old monarchy and put him to death. He wished to avoid the fate of Ishbosheth {2Sa 4:7} He believed that he should be doing both a popular and a politic act if he saved them from the burden of this long journey and again decentralized the cult which Solomon had so recently centralized. He determined, therefore, to furnish the Ten Tribes with high places, and temples of high places, and objects of worship which might rival the golden cherubim of Zion, and be honored with festal music and royal pomp. He never dreamed either of apostatizing from Jehovah, or of establishing the worship of idols. He broke the Second Commandment under pretence of helping the people to keep the first. The images which he set up were not meant to be substitutes for the one God, the God of their fathers, the God who had brought them from the land of Egypt; they were regarded as figures of Jehovah under the well understood and universally adopted emblem of a young bull, the symbol of fertility and strength. Some have fancied that he was influenced by his Egyptian reminiscences, and perhaps by Ano, his traditional Egyptian bride. This is an obvious error. In Egypt living bulls were worshipped under the names of Apis and Mnevis, not idol-fi
Illustrator
When Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who was in Egypt heard of it... they sent and called him. 1 Kings 12:2-20 The kingdom divided B. P. Raymond. 1. This chapter reveals one of the turning-points in Israel's 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 God's 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 β prophecy and the school of the prophets, the priesthood and the great religious festivals β 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 God's purpose to bless and save the world β the Israelitish nation β 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 Solomon's 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 Judah's rule. "To the house of Joseph β that is to Ephraim, with its adjacent tribes of Benjamin and Manasseh β 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 β 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 ( 1 Samuel 8:11-17 ). It was that they had rejected God, as God told Samuel they had, when they asked a king ( 1 Samuel 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 β idolatry β has done its work. ( B. P. Raymond. ) The kingdom divided J. B. G. Pidge, D. D. God was in Israel's 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. Israel's 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 historian's page. Judah occupying a subordinate place. The history of Israel is that of a nation β Judah consisted of but a single great and splendid city. Rehoboam's pride was an expensive luxury β 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 men's 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 M. R. Vincent, D. D. 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 society's unquestioning homage to themselves. Real kinghood is personal. The true king, as Carlyle put it, is the canning β the man who can. The endorsement of a wealthy parent may carry a son's 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 aspirant's 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 man's 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 fool's 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 propriety's sake. In the first place, the old counsellors clearly discerned the issue in Rehoboam's 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, Rehoboam's ideal was the former. Christ rules more than Caesar because He put Himself at the world's service. The world's real rulers are invariably those who have served it. The world's thought is that power absolves from obligation; Christ's 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 β high spirit and reverent service β 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 β 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 Rehoboam's β a fact that carries with it a strange inconsistency, for one does not always nor often reject what is ripe. Crudeness, in most cases, 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 child's life into the hands of yesterday's 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 Rehoboam's 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 Solomon's house; but it was in Rehoboam's power to have escaped all responsibility for that terrible result. God's 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 Monday Club Sermons. The fault of the prince lay not in consulting younger men β for they are often most favourable to progress β the error was in allowing his action, as a ruler, to be governed by private considerations. The young man's 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 men's 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 God's 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 world's burdens will pass. III. GREAT REVOLUTIONS MAY TAKE PLACE UNDER GOD'S 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 God's 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 A. Maclaren, D. D. 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 long. standing 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. ) If thou wilt be a servant unto this people this day... then they will be thy servants for ever. 1 Kings 12:7 A royal servant W. Thomson, M. A. , B. D. These words are of deep-reaching import, and contain a principle of universal application. They especially apply to starts in life. When the son leaves the parental home for his new calling, for foreign land, to make his way in the world, our text contains a sentence which the father may, at the last moment of departure, whisper in his ear as an expression of the deepest thoughts in his heart for the guidance of the young beginner. To fulfil these words beautifies life, to have fulfilled them softens death. They contain a prescription which one can never repent of following. I. THE FOLLY OF REHOBOAM. In the ancient, town of Shechem, a town that recalls to the Israelite memories of patriarchal limes, a king is about to be crowned. Solomon the Great has gone the way of all his fathers, and by right of succession the crown falls to Rehoboam his son. All Israel assembled at Shechem to make him king. For ages that old city had retained traces of its ancient dignity, just as Rheims, the old capital of France, continued to be the scene of coronations long after it had ceased to be the national capital. There was a time when Amsterdam was threatened to be deprived of its right of Royal Coronation, but since the severance of Belgium and Holland, the New Church here holds that honour undisputed. Shechem was full of representatives from all parts of the country. The king came down in royal state from Jerusalem. No opposition was offered to Rehoboam's succession. He was the only son of Solomon, and the people were prepared. to receive him as such. They had, however, many grievances which they wished to have redressed. Solomon had not been everything that a king should be. II. THE PREROGATIVE OF SERVICE. A wise king would have at once acceded to such a request. But Rehoboam, although the son of a wise father, had not the common sense to do so. Wisdom is not inherited. "Who knoweth whether his son will be a wise man or a fool?" He was the king. The people had no rights but what he chose to give them. They were his servants, not he their servant. His will was their law. He knew nothing and would hear nothing of the rights of the individual. According to the mind of Jesus, he is the greatest who renders the greatest service to others. "They assert that the strength of a monarch's throne is service for and sympathy with his people." A throne built on such a foundation will last unshaken for ever. Oh, happy king to have such counsellors! Oh, foolish man to turn aside from them! The consequence of this incredibly foolish reply was such as might have been expected. "The work of two generations was undone in a moment." Under the leadership of Jeroboam, who promised them the reforms they wanted, the Ten Tribes revolted. III. SELFISH AUTOCRACY. It is the old story of the consequence of selfish and inconsiderate autocracy. It is a lesson which makes but slow progress in the minds of men. The old heathen idea of forcible dominion is still largely the governing one of politics β that to be great is to receive much service, not to render it. Politics has too often been a game of ambition rather than a sphere of service. ( W. Thomson, M. A. , B. D. ) The king as a servant Christian Commonwealth. The honour of service is emphasised by Solomon in the title he gives to his father. He speaks of him by a more honourable name than that of king β "Thy servant David." Solomon recognised that he owed his exalted .position entirely to God. The most universal function in nature is that of service. Nothing in creation is serving itself, but every element is intended to serve some other. The flowers bloom in beauty, but soon serve us by transformation into seed. The winds purify the earth. The clouds carry moisture across all regions. The sun is regal in majestic splendour, but this monarch of the planets is, in reality, far more their servant, as their light and heat bearer. Above all, the idea of service is ennobled by Jesus, who as minister to His disciples was "servant of all." So are we to seek to serve God and man. ( Christian Commonwealth. ) My little finger shall be thicker than my father's loins. 1 Kings 12:10-14 Rehoboam's foolish answer Homilist. These were the words of an infatuated fool β a fool led on to his own destruction by the "irony of destiny." I. WISDOM IS NOT HEREDITARY. The question is often asked, as this kind of phenomenon comes under notice, how does it happen that great men seldom have great children? Does genius wear itself out? We incline to think that the gross neglect which geniuses manifest towards their children has much to do with it. Still, it cannot be denied that the descendants of many of our greatest men have been little better than "drivelling idiots." II. CURSE OF EVIL COMPANY. We could not find a more painful instance than the one under consideration, either in profane or sacred history. It was fraught with terrible consequences. 1. It is a curse to the man himself. Do evil, unholy, foolish companions make a person happy? Does it not rather bring trouble, sorrow, regrets, and present inconvenience? It is expensive, humiliating, degrading. 2. It is a curse to the man's influence. Character is assimilated with those with whom we associate. And even if the evil influence does not produce evil results, the name of the evil clings to him who mixes with it. 3. It is a curse to his future. It will ultimately bring him ruin. No person was ever yet strong enough in his integrity to resist the united influence of boon cornpardons. Their influence sows a seed which will ultimately produce an abundant harvest. III. STUPIDITY OF DESPOTISM. A despot uses his power for the mere sake of using it, and not to effect any good purpose, or to bring about any desirable end. There are many minor despots in the world β persons put into little offices, who love to manifest and to parade their brief authority. IV. THE OVERRULING POWER OF GOD. He maketh even the wrath and the folly of man to praise Him. Had Rehoboam acted wisely, we do not know whether the Judgment might not have been still further postponed; but as it was, this act precipitated God's wrath and effected His purposes. ( Homilist. ) The character of Rehoboam J. Young, M. A. I. THE CIRCUMSTANCES IN WHICH REHOBOAM COMMENCED HIS REIGN WERE UNUSUALLY HAZARDOUS. II. THE MANNER IN WHICH THIS DEMAND ON THE PART OF THE PEOPLE WAS MET BY THE KING. III. THE FINAL REPLY OF REHOBOAM TO THE DEMAND OF HIS PEOPLE. It was nothing else, we cannot but say, than downright infatuation. IV. THE CAUSE WAS FROM THE LORD. And this is one among many proofs of God's absolute predestination, and of the perfect freedom of human actions. The division of the kingdom from Rehoboam was absolutely certain; it was determined by God; it was positively predicted by a prophet of God. V. THOSE POINTS IN THE CHARACTER AND HISTORY OF REHOBOAM, WHICH MAY BE CALCULATED TO CONVEY SUITABLE INSTRUCTION. And let me remark: 1. Talent and piety are not inherited by birth. No part of Solomons far-famed wisdom descended to his son. He was even more than usually deficient in common prudence, and in the capacity for government. A father may convey to his heirs the riches he has accumulated; but there is a nobler wealth, which cannot be bequeathed, and which cannot be transferred. Knowledge, mental opulence, talent β these are the result of individual application, of laborious industry, and of perseverance. Without these, no fancied gifts of nature can avail; and with these there is scarcely any extent of acquisition, which it is not possible to secure. But it is yet far more important to notice, that true piety does not descend by birth: Religion is a personal and individual thing; it is not transferred like property, it does not descend like any civil privilege. Religion is an individual matter; it is a change wrought upon the individual's mind; it is a living principle and energy within the individual heart and the individual nature. Talent and piety are not inherited by birth. 2. The king's rejection of wise counsel. The aged are not always wise, and they are often too cold and too calculating to be safe guides; and sometimes also their manner is unfortunate and repulsing; they are unamiable, they are irmpatient of the habits and feelings of youth, and they pronounce too magisterially to be very easily borne. But these are exceptions, and beyond all doubt, a multitude of years should teach wisdom. It was one of the laws of ancient Sparta (a heathen State), that whenever an old man appeared, the young in the assembly should rise up in token of their reverence. Reverence for age lies at the foundation of a sound moral character; it is not only becoming, it is not only beautiful, but it is essential; and where it is wanting in measure, it shows there is something utterly wrong, utterly unsound, in the moral constitution. 3. His arbitrary disposition. Instead of soothing, and gradually quenching the spirit of revolt, Rehoboam sought to cut down the clamours of his subjects, by arbitrary measures. The saying of the wise man cannot be too often repeated, "A soft answer turneth away wrath." 4. Rehoboam's imprudent choice of his associates. We cannot question that the ruin of this prince is to be ascribed to those whom he selected as his companions. Had it not been for the young men who grew up along with him, the kingdoms of Israel and Judah bad been undivided, and he had retained the crown. And, in connection with this, "Evil communications corrupt good manners." There is nothing, so far as personal piety is concerned, so far as the salvation of the soul is concerned, of so much importance as the choice of your associates. ( J. Young, M. A. ) Dangerous counsellors of James II Macaulay's England. But there was at the court a small knot of Roman Catholics whose hearts had been ulcerated by old injuries, whose heads had been turned by recent elevation, who were impatient to climb to the highest honours of the State, and who, having little to lose, were not troubled by thoughts of the day of reckoning. These men called with one voice for war on the constitution of the Church and the State. They told their master that he owed it to his religion and to the dignity of his crown to stand firm against the outcry of heretical demagogues, and to let the Parliament see from the first that he would be master in spite of opposition, and that the only effect of opposition would be to make him a hard master. ( Macaulay's England. ) This thing is from me. 1 Kings 12:24 This thing is from me I. SOME EVENTS ARE SPECIALLY FROM GOD. God is in events which are produced by the sin and the stupidity of men. This breaking up of the kingdom of Solomon into two parts was the result of Solomon's sin and Rehoboam's folly; yet God was in it. God had nothing to do with the sin or the folly, but in some way, which we can never explain, God was in it alL The most notable instance of this truth is the death of our Lord Jesus Christ; that was the greatest of human crimes, yet it was fore. ordained and predetermined of the Most High, to whom there can be no such thing as crime, nor any sort of compact with sire How, then, was "this thing" from God? 1. First, it was so as a matter of prophecy. 2. And, secondly, "this thing" was from God as a matter of punishment. God setteth evil against evil that He may destroy evil, and He uses that which cometh of human folly that He may manifest His own wisdom. II. WHEN EVEN
Matthew Henry
12:1-15 The tribes complained not to Rehoboam of his father's idolatry, and revolt from God. That which was the greatest grievance, was none to them; so careless were they in matters of religion, if they might live at case, and pay no taxes. Factious spirits will never want something to complain of. And when we see the Scripture account of Solomon's reign; the peace, wealth, and prosperity Israel then enjoyed; we cannot doubt but that their charges were false, or far beyond the truth. Rehoboam answered the people according to the counsel of the young men. Never was man more blinded by pride, and desire of arbitrary power, than which nothing is more fatal. God's counsels were hereby fulfilled. 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. God serves his own wise and righteous purposes by the imprudences and sins of men. Those that lose the kingdom of heaven, throw it away, as Rehoboam, by wilfulness and folly. 12:16-24 The people speak unbecomingly of David. How soon are good men, and their good services to the public, forgotten ! These considerations should reconcile us to our losses and troubles, that God is the Author of them, and our brethren the instruments: let us not meditate revenge. Rehoboam and his people hearkened to the word of the Lord. When we know God's mind, we must submit, how much soever it crosses our own mind. If we secure the favour of God, not all the universe can hurt us. 12:25-33 Jeroboam distrusted the providence of God; he would contrive ways and means, and sinful ones too, for his own safety. A practical disbelief of God's all-sufficiency is at the bottom of all our departures from him. Though it is probable he meant his worship for Jehovah the God of Israel, it was contrary to the Divine law, and dishonourable to the Divine majesty to be thus represented. The people might be less shocked at worshipping the God of Israel under an image, than if they had at once been asked to worship Baal; but it made way for that idolatry. Blessed Lord, give us grace to reverence thy temple, thine ordinances, thine house of prayer, thy sabbaths, and never more, like Jeroboam, to set up in our hearts any idol of abomination. Be thou to us every thing precious; do thou reign and rule in our hearts, the hope of glory.
Benson