1 And Rehoboam goeth to Shechem, for to Shechem hath all Israel come to make him king.
2 And it cometh to pass, at Jeroboam son of Nebat's hearing (and he `is' yet in Egypt where he hath fled from the presence of Solomon the king, and Jeroboam dwelleth in Egypt),
3 that they send and call for him; and they come -- Jeroboam and all the assembly of Israel -- and speak unto Rehoboam, saying,
4 `Thy father made hard our yoke, and thou, now, make light `some' of the hard service of thy father, and his heavy yoke that he put upon us, and we serve thee.'
5 And he saith unto them, `Go -- yet three days, and come back unto me;' and the people go.
6 And king Rehoboam consulteth with the elders who have been standing in the presence of Solomon his father, in his being alive, saying, `How are ye counselling to answer this people?'
7 And they speak unto him, saying, `If, to-day, thou art servant to this people, and hast served them, and answered them, and spoken unto them good words, then they have been to thee servants all the days.'
8 And he forsaketh the counsel of the elders which they counselled him, and consulteth with the lads who have grown up with him, who are standing before him;
9 and he saith unto them, `What are ye counselling, and we answer this people, who have spoken unto me, saying, Lighten `somewhat' of the yoke that thy father put upon us?'
10 And they speak unto him -- the lads who had grown up with him -- saying, `Thus dost thou say to this people who have spoken unto thee, saying, Thy father made our yoke heavy, and thou, make `it' light upon us; thus dost thou speak unto them, My little `finger' is thicker than the loins of my father;
11 and now, my father laid on you a heavy yoke, and I add to your yoke; my father chastised you with whips, and I -- I chastise you with scorpions.'
12 And they come -- Jeroboam and all the people -- unto Rehoboam, on the third day, as the king had spoken, saying, `Come back unto me on the third day.'
13 And the king answereth the people sharply, and forsaketh the counsel of the elders which they counselled him,
14 and speaketh unto them, according to the counsel of the lads, saying, `My father made your yoke heavy, and I add to your yoke; my father chastised you with whips, and I -- I chastise you with scorpions;'
15 and the king hearkened not unto the people, for the revolution was from Jehovah, in order to establish His word that Jehovah spake by the hand of Ahijah the Shilonite unto Jeroboam son of Nebat.
16 And all Israel see that the king hath not hearkened unto them, and the people send the king back word, saying, `What portion have we in David? yea, there is no inheritance in the son of Jesse; to thy tents, O Israel; now see thy house, O David!' and Israel goeth to its tents.
17 As to the sons of Israel, those dwelling in the cities of Judah -- over them reign doth Rehoboam.
18 And king Rehoboam sendeth Adoram who `is' over the tribute, and all Israel cast at him stones, and he dieth; and king Rehoboam hath strengthened himself to go up into a chariot to flee to Jerusalem;
19 and Israel transgresseth against the house of David unto this day.
20 And it cometh to pass, at all Israel's hearing that Jeroboam hath returned, that they send and call him unto the company, and cause him to reign over all Israel; none hath been after the house of David save the tribe of Judah alone.
21 And Rehoboam cometh to Jerusalem, and assembleth all the house of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin, a hundred and eighty thousand chosen warriors, to fight with the house of Israel, to bring back the kingdom to Rehoboam son of Solomon.
22 And the word of God is unto Shemaiah a man of God, saying,
23 `Speak unto Rehoboam son of Solomon, king of Judah, and unto all the house of Judah and Benjamin, and the rest of the people, saying,
24 Thus said Jehovah, Ye do not go up nor fight with your brethren the sons of Israel; turn back each to his house, for from Me hath this thing been;' and they hear the word of Jehovah, and turn back to go according to the word of Jehovah.
25 And Jeroboam buildeth Shechem in the hill-country of Ephraim, and dwelleth in it, and goeth out thence, and buildeth Penuel;
26 and Jeroboam saith in his heart, `Now doth the kingdom turn back to the house of David --
27 if this people go up to make sacrifices in the house of Jehovah in Jerusalem, then hath the heart of this people turned back unto their lord, unto Rehoboam king of Judah, and they have slain me, and turned back unto Rehoboam king of Judah.'
28 And the king taketh counsel, and maketh two calves of gold, and saith unto them, `Enough to you of going up to Jerusalem; lo, thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.'
29 And he setteth the one in Beth-El, and the other he hath put in Dan,
30 and this thing becometh a sin, and the people go before the one -- unto Dan.
31 And he maketh the house of high places, and maketh priests of the extremities of the people, who were not of the sons of Levi;
32 and Jeroboam maketh a festival in the eighth month, in the fifteenth day of the month, like the festival that `is' in Judah, and he offereth on the altar -- so did he in Beth-El -- to sacrifice to the calves which he made, and he hath appointed in Beth-El the priests of the high places that he made.
33 And he offereth up on the altar that he made in Beth-El, on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, in the month that he devised of his own heart, and he maketh a festival to the sons of Israel, and offereth on the altar -- to make perfume.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on 1 Kings 12
Commentary on 1 Kings 12 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 12
1Ki 12:1-5. Refusing the Old Men's Counsel.
1. Rehoboam went to Shechem—He was the oldest, and perhaps the only son of Solomon, and had been, doubtless, designated by his father heir to the throne, as Solomon had been by David. The incident here related took place after the funeral obsequies of the late king and the period for public mourning had past. When all Israel came to make him king, it was not to exercise their old right of election (1Sa 10:19-21), for, after God's promise of the perpetual sovereignty to David's posterity, their duty was submission to the authority of the rightful heir; but their object was, when making him king, to renew the conditions and stipulations to which their constitutional kings were subject (1Sa 10:25). To the omission of such rehearsing which, under the peculiar circumstances in which Solomon was made king, they were disposed to ascribe the absolutism of his government.
Shechem—This ancient, venerable, and central town was the place of convocation; and it is evident, if not from the appointment of that place, at least from the tenor of their language, and the concerted presence of Jeroboam [1Ki 12:3], that the people were determined on revolt.
4. Thy father made our yoke grievous—The splendor of Solomon's court and the magnitude of his undertakings being such, that neither the tribute of dependent states, nor the presents of foreign princes, nor the profits of his commercial enterprises, were adequate to carry them on, he had been obliged, for obtaining the necessary revenue, to begin a system of heavy taxation. The people looked only to the burdens, not to the benefits they derived from Solomon's peaceful and prosperous reign—and the evils from which they demanded deliverance were civil oppressions, not idolatry, to which they appear to have been indifferent or approving.
5-8. he said … Depart yet for three days—It was prudent to take the people's demand into calm and deliberate consideration. Whether, had the advice of the sage and experienced counsellors been followed, any good result would have followed, it is impossible to say. It would at least have removed all pretext for the separation. [See on 2Ch 10:7.] But he preferred the counsel of his young companions (not in age, for they were all about forty-one, but inexperienced), who recommended prompt and decisive measures to quell the malcontents.
11. whips … scorpions—The latter [instruments], as contrasted with the former, are supposed to mean thongs thickly set with sharp iron points, used in the castigation of slaves.
15-18. the king hearkened not unto the people, for the cause was from the Lord—That was the overruling cause. Rehoboam's weakness (Ec 2:18, 19) and inexperience in public affairs has given rise to the probable conjecture, that, like many other princes in the East, he had been kept secluded in the harem till the period of his accession (Ec 4:14), his father being either afraid of his aspiring to the sovereignty, like the two sons of David, or, which is more probable, afraid of prematurely exposing his imbecility. The king's haughty and violent answer to a people already filled with a spirit of discontent and exasperation, indicated so great an incapacity to appreciate the gravity of the crisis, so utter a want of common sense, as to create a belief that he was struck with judicial blindness. It was received with mingled scorn and derision. The revolt was accomplished, and yet so quietly, that Rehoboam remained in Shechem, fancying himself the sovereign of a united kingdom, until his chief tax gatherer, who had been most imprudently sent to treat with the people, had been stoned to death. This opened his eyes, and he fled for security to Jerusalem.
1Ki 12:20-33. Jeroboam Made King over Them.
20-24. when all Israel heard that Jeroboam was come again—This verse closes the parenthetical narrative begun at 1Ki 12:2, and 1Ki 12:21-24 resume the history from 1Ki 12:1. Rehoboam determined to assert his authority by leading a large force into the disaffected provinces. But the revolt of the ten tribes was completed when the prophet Shemaiah ordered, in the Lord's name, an abandonment of any hostile measures against the revolutionists. The army, overawed by the divine prohibition, dispersed, and the king was obliged to submit.
25. Jeroboam built Shechem—destroyed by Abimelech (Jud 9:1-49). It was rebuilt, and perhaps fortified, by Jeroboam, as a royal residence.
built Penuel—a ruined city with a tower (Jud 8:9), east of Jordan, on the north bank of the Jabbok. It was an object of importance to restore this fortress (as it lay on the caravan road from Gilead to Damascus and Palmyra) and to secure his frontier on that quarter.
26-32. Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David—Having received the kingdom from God, he should have relied on the divine protection. But he did not. With a view to withdraw the people from the temple and destroy the sacred associations connected with Jerusalem, he made serious and unwarranted innovations on the religious observances of the country, on pretext of saving the people the trouble and expense of a distant journey. First, he erected two golden calves—the young bulls, Apis and Mnevis, as symbols (in the Egyptian fashion) of the true God, and the nearest, according to his fancy, to the figures of the cherubim. The one was placed at Dan, in the northern part of his kingdom; the other at Beth-el, the southern extremity, in sight of Jerusalem, and in which place he probably thought God was as likely to manifest Himself as at Jerusalem (Ge 32:1-32; 2Ki 2:2). The latter place was the most frequented—for the words (1Ki 12:30) should be rendered, "the people even to Dan went to worship before the one" (Jer 48:13; Am 4:4, 5; 5:5; Ho 5:8; 10:8). The innovation was a sin because it was setting up the worship of God by symbols and images and departing from the place where He had chosen to put His name. Secondly, he changed the feast of tabernacles from the fifteenth of the seventh to the fifteenth of the eighth month. The ostensible reason might be, that the ingathering or harvest was later in the northern parts of the kingdom; but the real reason was to eradicate the old association with this, the most welcome and joyous festival of the year.
31. made priests of the lowest of the people—literally, "out of all the people," the Levites refusing to act. He himself assumed to himself the functions of the high priest, at least, at the great festival, probably from seeing the king of Egypt conjoin the royal and sacred offices, and deeming the office of the high priest too great to be vested in a subject.