CHAPTER 12

(975 B.C.)

REHOBOAM MADE KING

¹And Rehoboam went to Shechem: for all Israel were come to Shechem to make him king. (The first step taken by Rehoboam was a judicious one. He, no doubt, sought to cement the dissatisfied Ephraimites to himself by being crowned in their chief city. This should have caused them to submit to the Tribe of Judah, as this was a great honor given them.

Shechem lay on the flank of Mount Gerazim, directly opposite Mount Ebal, the Mounts of curses and blessings [Deut. 11:29; 27:1-8]. It was a national sanctuary [Josh. 24:1], and the site of Abrahams first Altar [Gen. 12:6]. Isaac and Jacob had both lived here. Joseph was buried here; Jacobs well was also located here [Jn. 4:5].

Because of the unrest, Rehoboams motives, no doubt, were political. Sadly, the majority of the motives of the modern Church are too often political. Jerusalem was the city where God had chosen to place His Name. It was where the Temple was constructed, and that by the Command of the Lord. Jerusalem was the spiritual center of Israel. This should have been the place to crown Rehoboam king; however, Rehoboam, as many, if not most, chose the political way instead of the spiritual.)

²And it came to pass, when Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who was yet in Egypt, heard of it, (for he was fled from the presence of king Solomon, and Jeroboam dwelt in Egypt;)

³That they sent and called him. And Jeroboam and all the congregation of Israel came, and spoke unto Rehoboam, saying (while Rehoboam was trying to appease the northern kingdom of Israel, they were sending to Egypt to bring in Jeroboam),

⁴Your father made our yoke grievous: now therefore you make the grievous service of your father, and his heavy yoke which he put upon us, lighter, and we will serve you.

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, who stood before Solomon his father while he yet lived, and said, How do you advise that I may answer this people?

⁷And they spoke unto him, saying, If you will be a servant unto this people this day, and will serve them, and answer them, and speak good words to them, then they will be your servants for ever (their words were wise and right).

⁸But he forsook the counsel of the old men, which they had given him, and consulted with the young men who were grown up with him, and which stood before him:

⁹And he said unto them, What counsel give you that we may answer this people, who have spoken to me, saying, Make the yoke which your father did put upon us lighter?

¹⁰And the young men who were grown up with him spoke unto him, saying, Thus shall you speak unto this people who spoke unto you, saying, Your father made our yoke heavy, but you make it lighter unto us; thus shall you say unto them, My little finger shall be thicker than my fathers loins.

¹¹And now whereas my father did lade you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke: my father has chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions. (This was a scourge, and more painful than a whip. In the action of Rehoboam and of the people is exhibited the folly of the natural heart and its incurable hostility to God. In the difficulty in which they find themselves, the king consults man instead of God; and the people trust themselves into the cruel hands of Jeroboam, instead of the gracious hands of Emmanuel.)

¹²So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third day, as the king had appointed, saying, Come to me again the third day.

¹³And the king answered the people roughly, and forsook the old mens counsel that they gave him;

¹⁴And spoke 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 chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.

¹⁵Wherefore the king hearkened not unto the people; for the cause was from the LORD, that He might perform His saying, which the LORD spoke by Ahijah the Shilonite unto Jeroboam the son of Nebat. (Through foreknowledge, the Lord knew what Rehoboam would ultimately do, and, thereby, pressured him to listen to the wrong advice, which his heart was prone to do at any rate. The Lord didnt force his will, and neither did He interfere to stop the wrong decision.)

THE TEN TRIBES REVOLT

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 your tents, O Israel: now see to your own house, David. So Israel departed unto their tents. (This was the beginning of over 250 years of division and strife between the two nations of Judah and Israel. While Rehoboam was foolish, the northern kingdom of Israel, sometimes referred to as Ephraim or Samaria, didnt better themselves by their action.)

¹⁷But as for the Children of Israel which dwelt in the cities of Judah, Rehoboam reigned over them.

¹⁸Then king Rehoboam sent Adoram, 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. (Such a man as Adoram, guided by such counselors, and inflated by the sense of his own power and importance, would naturally think of force rather than of conciliation or concessions. The situation turned out very badly.)

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 who followed the house of David, but the Tribe of Judah only (as the following Verses proclaim, the Tribe of Benjamin was included with Judah, as well).

²¹And when Rehoboam was come to Jerusalem, he assembled all the house of Judah, with the Tribe of Benjamin, an hundred and fourscore thousand (180,000) chosen men, which were warriors, to fight against the house of Israel, to bring the kingdom again to Rehoboam the son of Solomon.

²²But the Word of God came unto 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 to the remnant of the people, saying,

²⁴Thus says the LORD, You 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, and returned to depart, according to the Word of the Lord. (Three times in this one sentence the Word of the Lord is referred to, showing its great significance. The Holy Spirit is telling us that if the Word of the Lord had been adhered to all along, Israel would not have come to this sad state.)

JEROBOAM LEADS ISRAEL INTO IDOLATRY

²⁵Then Jeroboam built Shechem in Mount Ephraim, and dwelt therein; and went out from thence, and built Penuel (Jeroboam made Shechem the capital of the northern kingdom).

²⁶And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David (Jeroboam saw that fortresses and armies would be of no avail for the defense of his realm, so long as Jerusalem remained the one Sanctuary of the land; so he would do something about this):

²⁷If this people go up to do sacrifice in the House of the LORD at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah, and they shall kill me, and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah.

²⁸Whereupon the king took counsel (but not from God), and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold your gods, O Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.

²⁹And he set the one in Beth-el, and the other put he in Dan. (The great Redemption given to Israel by God concerning their deliverance from Egypt was now attributed to a golden calf. I wonder if we are doing any differently today in the modern Church, when we attribute the help that God gives us to humanistic psychology?)

³⁰And this thing became a sin: for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan. (The expression concerning Jeroboam, made Israel to sin, is used twenty-three times. This sin was idolatry, which led to all other types of sin.)

³¹And he made an house of high places, and made Priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi (the Levites had all migrated to Jerusalem; so, Jeroboam selected the base and the vile to be his priests; to be sure, this would suffice for the worship of golden calves).

³²And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he offered upon the Altar. So did he in Beth-el, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made: and he placed in Beth-el the priests of the high places which he had made (he conducted his feasts at the same time that Judah conducted the Feasts of the Lord).

³³So he offered upon the Altar which he had made in Beth-el the fifteenth day of the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised of his own heart; and ordained a feast unto the Children of Israel: and he offered upon the Altar, and burnt incense. (We may perhaps see in Jeroboams ministering and person not only the design to invest the new ordinance with exceptional interest and splendor, but also the idea of encouraging his new priests to enter on their unauthorized functions without fear. The history, or even the traditions, of Nadab and Abihu [Lev., Chpt. 10] and of Korah and his company [Num. 16:40] may very well have made them hesitate. And that their fears of a Divine interposition were not groundless, the sequel shows Spence.)