A HOUSE DIVIDED
1 Kings 12
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1 Kings 1-11 |
1 Kings 12-ff |
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Two
Kingdoms: |
For the rest of the books of
Kings, we will see
THE MEETING AT SHECHEM
Then Rehoboam went to Shechem,
for all
The fact that the planned
coronation of the king was to take place at Shechem is significant.
The name “Shechem” describes
“the space between the shoulder blades.”
The town lay exactly between the two mountains of Gerazim
and Ebal. It
was here that
Shechem lay in the
geographical center of the
The fact that Shechem was to
be the site of the inaugural ceremonies was evidence that there was already a
schism of spirit between Judah and the other tribes.
THE TRIBAL PETITION
2 Now when Jeroboam the son
of Nebat heard of it, he was living in
3 Then they sent and called
him, and Jeroboam and all the assembly of Israel came and spoke to Rehoboam,
saying, 4 “Your father made our yoke hard; now therefore
lighten the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke which he put on us,
and we will serve you.” (1 Kings 12:2-4).
The tribal leaders call
Jeroboam from where he had been banished to
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Rehoboam |
Jeroboam |
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Son of Solomon and heir
apparent of the kingdom |
Former appointee over the
forced labor projects of Solomon |
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A young man? |
A mature man |
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From the tribe of |
From the tribe of Ephraim |
The request which was made of
Rehoboam was for a lightening of the “hard service” and the “heavy yoke” which
had been imposed by Solomon.
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It was fitting that Jeroboam be the one who requested relief from the
heavy burdens, since he had been Solomon’s principal task-master. |
Solomon’s building projects
had not been cheap. They had been great
and they had been wondrous, but they had also placed a heavy burden upon the
people of
The bad news was that taxes
were higher than ever before. The good
news was that the economy was good so that people had been able to pay the
demands. But now they come asking for
relief.
COUNSEL FOR THE KING
5 Then he said to them,
“Depart for three days, then return to me.”
So the people departed.
6 King Rehoboam consulted
with the elders who had served his father Solomon while he was still alive,
saying, “How do you counsel me to answer this people?”
7 Then they spoke to him,
saying, “If you will be a servant to this people today, and will serve them and
grant them their petition, and speak good words to them, then they will be your
servants forever.”
8 But he forsook the counsel of the elders which they had
given him, and consulted with the young men who grew up with him and served
him.
9 So he said to them, “What
counsel do you give that we may answer this people who have spoken to me,
saying, ‘Lighten the yoke which your father put on us’?”
10 The young men who grew up
with him spoke to him, saying, “Thus you shall say to this people who spoke to
you, saying, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, now you
make it lighter for us!’ But you shall
speak to them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins!
11 “‘Whereas
my father loaded you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke; my father
disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.’” (1
Kings 12:5-11).
Rehoboam takes the petition
of the tribes under advisement and asks three days to study the matter. During this time, he solicits the counsel of
his advisors. They are polarized into
two groups.
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The Elders |
The Young Men |
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They had served as advisors
to Solomon |
They had grown up with
Rehoboam |
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“Be a servant to the
people, grant them their petition, and speak good words to them” |
“Threaten the people with
even greater burdens” |
Notice the chiastic formula
of the advice of the Elders in verse 7.
It is presented in a cause and effect motif.
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If you will be a servant to
this people today and serve them |
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Then they will be your
servants forever. |
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↓ |
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And answer them |
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And speak to them good
words |
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There is a lesson here. It is a lesson of leadership. He who would learn to be a leader must first
learn to be a servant.
REHOBOAM’S EDICT
12 Then Jeroboam and all the
people came to Rehoboam on the third day as the king had directed, saying, “Return to me on the third day.”
13 The king answered the
people harshly, for he forsook the advice of the elders which they had given
him, 14 and he spoke to them according to the advice of the
young men, saying, “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your
yoke; my father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with
scorpions.”
15 So the king did not listen
to the people; for it was a turn of events from the Lord,
that He might establish His word, which the Lord spoke through Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam
the son of Nebat. (1 Kings 12:12-15).
Rehoboam followed the advise of his younger peers, couching his threats in the
strongest possible terms.
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“What my Father did” |
“What I will do” |
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Made your yoke heavy |
Add to your yoke |
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Disciplined you with whips |
Discipline you with
scorpions |
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The king’s heart is like
channels of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever He wishes.
(Proverbs 21:1). |
Rehoboam’s decision was not mere happenstance. It was a turn of events from the Lord
(12:15). Although both Rehoboam and his
advisors all had “free will,” it was the Lord who brought this decision
about. This was not merely a case of
God’s foreknowledge. The author tells us
that these events came from the Lord.
REBELLION
16 When
all
17 But as for the sons of Israel who lived in the cities of
Judah, Rehoboam reigned over them. (1 Kings 12:16-17).
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Government only works when
it is with the consent of the people.
This is true of both nations as well as
churches and families. It is also the
basis of Presbyterianism. |
The response of
Although the intent of
rebellion was now present, the actual occasion for this rebellion came about
when the next call for forced labor arose.
18 Then King Rehoboam sent Adoram, who was over the forced labor, and all
19 So
20 It came about when all
Rehoboam attempted to test
the resolve of the northern tribes by sending his taskmaster with a call to
forced labor. The man was taken and
executed in an act of overt rebellion.
This apparently took place
while King Rehoboam was still in the area.
When his royal taskmaster was executed, he fled the area. The rest of the tribes now took this
opportunity to acclaim Jeroboam as their new king.
This rebellion did not take
place in a vacuum. There were other
factors which were already at work in bringing it about. Ephraim, the tribe of Jeroboam, was
particularly known for its pride and desire for ascendancy.
(1) Ephraim
had complained to Joshua (who was also from Ephraim) about the relatively small
size of its inheritance (Joshua 17:14).
(2) The
Tabernacle was initially set up at Shiloh within the
(3) When
Gideon defeated the Midianites, Ephraim complained
that they had not been invited to participate in the victory (Judges 8:1).
(4) Ephraim
complained against Jephthah for not including them
when he fought against the Ammonites (Judges 12:1). The truth was that they had been asked and
had refused.
CALL TO ARMS
Now when Rehoboam had come to
Rehoboam set out to restore
the union of
This brings up a
question. Why did Benjamin side with
Israelite would fight
Israelite. Cousins and uncles would soon
be at war.
CALL TO PEACE
22 But the word of God came to
Shemaiah the man of God, saying, 23 “Speak
to Rehoboam the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all the house of Judah
and Benjamin and to the rest of the people, saying, 24 ‘Thus
says the Lord, “You must not go up and fight against your relatives the sons of
Israel; return every man to his house, for this thing has come from Me.”’” So they listened to the word of the Lord, and
returned and went their way according to the word of the Lord. (1 Kings
12:22-24).
This is the first an only
mention of Shemaiah in the book of Kings, although
there are others with the same name. He
is also mentioned in 2 Chronicles where he prophesied to Rehoboam of judgment
upon
Shemaiah’s message was simple:
Don’t go to war against your relatives because it is the Lord who
brought about the divided nation.
Because of his message, war was averted.
THE NORTHERN KINGDOM
Then Jeroboam built Shechem in
the hill country of Ephraim, and lived there.
And he went out from there and built Penuel.
(1 Kings 12:25).
Shechem was already an
ancient city, nearly a thousand years old dating back before the days of Jacob.
Jeroboam built up this city
and made it his initial capital. Later
he built a secondary palace at Penuel, the place
where Jacob had wrestled with the angel on the
JEROBOAM’S RELIGIOUS
“REFORM”
26 Jeroboam said in his heart,
“Now the kingdom will return to the house of David.
27 “If this people go up to
offer sacrifices in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, then the heart of this
people will return to their lord, even to Rehoboam king of Judah; and they will
kill me and return to Rehoboam king of Judah.”
28 So the king consulted, and
made two golden calves, and he said to them, “It is too much for you to go up
to Jerusalem; behold your gods, O Israel, that brought you up from the land of
Egypt.”
29 He set one in
Jeroboam was now the king of
the
This state of affairs would
give Rehoboam ample opportunity to wage a propaganda campaign which could
ultimately result in Jeroboam being removed and the Kingdom being
reunited. And so, Jeroboam came up with
an alternative plan of worship. It was a
plan which appealed to convenience. The
plan was for two centers of worship to be set up within the
1.
This
was the place where Jacob had his vision of a ladder reaching to heaven
(Genesis 28:11-19). It was located a
mere 12 miles north of
2. Dan.
The
tribe of Dan had originally been given an allotment of land between Judah, Ephraim
and Benjamin. This had proven to be
uncomfortably close to the Philistines and in the days of the judges they
migrated northward to the area north of the Sea of Galilee on the slopes of
Convenience is the byword of
popular
THE SINS BROUGHT ABOUT BY
JEROBOAM
30 Now this thing became a
sin, for the people went to worship before the one as far as Dan.
31 And he made houses on high
places, and made priests from among all the people who were not of the sons of
Levi.
32 Jeroboam instituted a feast
in the eighth month on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast which is
in Judah, and he went up to the altar; thus he did in Bethel, sacrificing to
the calves which he had made. And he
stationed in
33 Then he went up to the
altar which he had made in Bethel on the fifteenth day in the eighth month,
even in the month which he had devised in his own heart; and he instituted a
feast for the sons of Israel and went up to the altar to burn incense. (1 Kings
12:30-33).
The writer of Kings now
outlines the various sins which Jeroboam’s religious reforms brought about.
1. The
Sin of Worshiping in the Wrong Places.
But you shall seek the Lord at
the place which the Lord your God shall choose from all your tribes, to
establish His name there for His dwelling, and there you shall come.
(Deuteronomy 12:5).
The
Lord had ordained that He was to be worshiped in the
2. The
Sin of Ordaining an Alternate Priesthood.
The Lord
had instituted the Levitical Priesthood. Since they were committed to the continuing
program of worship at the
3. The
Sin of Alternate Feast Days.
The
Lord had dictated certain feasts which His people were to observe. Jeroboam established alternate days of
worship and feasting.
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The Lord’s Mandate |
Jeroboam’s Compromise |
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The Feast of Tabernacles on
the 15th day of the 7th month. |
A feast like the one in |
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The 15th day of the month
was the day of the full moon. |
It
is perhaps only coincidental that Jeroboam’s feast day falls on or around our
modern Halloween. One possible reason
for the later feast was to accommodate a later harvest for those who lived
further north.
4. The
Sin of Idolatry.
Verse
32 says that Jeroboam caused to have made several graven calves. He likely sold this idea to his fellow
Israelites by suggesting that they were following in the example of Aaron who
had molded a similar calf when the Israelites were in the Sinai wilderness. Another possibility is that these calves were
fashioned to replace the great cherubim in the
There
is a lesson here. It is that God is the
One who determines how He is to be worshiped.
We are not at liberty to set up our own theology, our own churches or
our own forms of worship.
One
of the most insightful movies to come out of
This
naturally brings us to another question.
If we are not free to leave on our own and to worship God in any way we
desire, what shall we say to the Protestant Reformers who departed from the
Roman Catholic Church?
In
answer, let me point out that the Reformers did not leave the Roman Church as a
matter of convenience, but rather as a matter of principle due to their correct
perception that the Roman Church had long since departed from some of the major
principles of true faith.
The same should be true of
us. We ought not to leave a local church
for some small reason. Rather we should
commit ourselves to the church wherein the Lord has placed us.
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