Deeper Commentary
1Ki 12:1 Rehoboam went to Shechem: for all Israel had come to Shechem
to make him king-
The LXX addition on :24 adds: "And Jeroboam went to Shechem in mount
Ephraim, and assembled there the tribes of Israel; and Roboam the son of
Solomon went up thither".
This would explain why this gathering to instate Rehoboam as king was
held in Shechem and not in Jerusalem. And yet although Jeroboam was present
with supporters, it appears that "all Israel" favoured the idea of Rehoboam
as king. The old men truly advised him that if he would only ease the
taxation, all Israel would remain loyal to him (:7). It could even be that
the ten tribes had invited Rehoboam from Jerusalem to their great meeting
place in Shechem specifically because they wanted him to be king. But this
had to change, according to God's judgment upon Solomon- the ten tribes had
to be removed from the control of his dynasty.
We enquire why Rehoboam chose Shechem rather than Jerusalem as
the place for his coronation, as it was the leading city of Ephraim. I
suggest he realized how his father had alienated Ephraim and he wanted to
reconcile with them. This points up how his abusive language to the men of
Ephraim was indeed "of the Lord", for it goes against his own intentions.
Likewise Jeroboam came with the rest of Israel to Shechem offering to
serve him (2 Chron. 10:3), as if Jeroboam at that point had no designs on
the throne but was suddenly as it were catapulted onto it- all clearly of
God. It was all "of the Lord" (:15). This is how the Spirit works in our
lives, over and above our own power and conscious intentions, and yet
confirming us in where we really want to go.
1Ki 12:2 It happened, when Jeroboam the son of Nebat heard of it (for he was
still in Egypt, where he had fled from the presence of king Solomon, and
Jeroboam therefore lived in Egypt-
It seems this verse and :3 should follow 1 Kings 11:43 as in LXX and
some Hebrew manuscripts.
1Ki 12:3 and they sent and called him), that Jeroboam and all the assembly
of Israel came and spoke to Rehoboam saying-
We note that Jeroboam didn't immediately begin by demanding the
throne, but rather led the people in asking Rehoboam to reduce his
father's excessive taxation system. But his return from Egypt, and his
awareness of the prophecy about him ruling over Israel, surely meant he
had in view the possibility of Rehoboam rejecting the request.
In a distorted way, Jeroboam was almost a type of Christ; for as made
clear at the end of 1 Kings 11, he could have been the Messianic ruler
over Israel had he chosen Yahweh's way. I'd suggest
that many wicked Old Testament characters could have been types
of Christ if they had lived righteously, and the record indirectly
indicates this. Jeroboam fled to Egypt because of the persecution of Solomon,
as did the Lord. When
Solomon died, "they sent and called him", connecting with the record of
the Lord Jesus going to Egypt and coming back after Herod's death.
Jeroboam came back on the third day (:12) and offered freedom from
bondage to Israel, as did Christ on his resurrection. In 1 Kings 13:10 we
read of the prophet who came to prophesy about Jeroboam; we are told that
he didn't return the way he came, but went back another way. That's an
echo of the wise men, who came to see Jesus, and returned another way.
1Ki 12:4 Your father made our yoke grievous: now therefore make the grievous
service of your father, and his heavy yoke which he put on us, lighter, and
we will serve you-
Ephraim had been specifically targetted as a provider of labour and tax
revenues (1 Kings 11:28). The influence of Egypt upon Solomon is reflected by the way in which he
is described as making the people serve him with "hard bondage" (2 Chron.
10:4; 1 Kings 12:4). This is the very Hebrew phrase used to describe what
the Egyptians did to Israel (Ex. 1:14; 6:9; Dt. 26:6). Solomon put his
people under a yoke (2 Chron. 10:4), just as Egypt did to them (Lev.
26:13). And so we see the progression. Solomon loved an Egyptian woman,
came to serve her gods, traded with Egypt... and the attitude of Egypt to
God's people became Solomon's attitude to them. There is something unique
about God's people; and yet the closer we come to the world, the more we
come to see our own community, God's special family, just as this world
sees us. The world's attitude to us can so easily become our attitude to
our brethren- no longer seeing them as the specially chosen little
children of God, sensitive to them as our very own brothers and sisters.
The very possession of wisdom and teaching of it to others can of
itself make a man or woman demotivated to personally apply it. He foretold
that the people would sign when a wicked man ruled them (Prov. 29:2 RV)-
and they did "sigh" because of the heavy burdens he placed upon them (1
Kings 12:4). He imposed the "yoke" of tribute upon the people (2 Chron.
10:4), whereas he himself had warned that a king that imposes tribute on
his people "overthrows" a country (Prov. 29:4 RV mg.). He saw it all as
true- and yet it was far from him personally.
1Ki 12:5 He said to them, Depart for three days, then come back to
me. The people departed-
The three days may have been in order to allow the advisers to be
summoned from Jerusalem.
1Ki 12:6 King Rehoboam took advice with the old men, who had stood before
Solomon his father while he yet lived, saying, What advice do you give me to
return answer to this people?-
If Solomon was 41 at this time and the "young men" were those who had
grown up with him, these men would have been really quite "old", old
enough to have lived through much of David's reign and to have been
influenced by his spirituality. Or the word may be used here to simply
refer to the elders, whereas Rehoboam had also surrounded himself with his
own peer group as advisers.
In this context, we may consider Solomon's frequent proverbs about the wisdom of having advisors, and his words in Prov. 20:18: "Plans are established by advice". Solomon's advice to his son sounds all well and good; but Rehoboam was given two different paths of advice by his advisors. Again, Solomon's words are true, but simplistic. Because as Rehoboam's case shows, the issue is not so much having advisors per se, but deciding which advisors to listen to. Solomon too had advisors, but did what he wanted, making this Proverb somewhat hollow when applied to himself.
We note Rehoboam's term "this people" (:6,9). He felt a separation between himself and them; they were not 'his people' nor did he see them as Yahweh's people. They were just an entity that disturbed his kingly enjoyment- exactly his father's attitude. And we see lived out the principle that according to how we perceive people, so we treat them.
1Ki 12:7 They said, If you will be a servant to this people this day, and
will serve them, and answer them, and speak good words to them, then they
will be your servants forever-
See on :1. The general will of Israel was for Rehoboam and not
Jeroboam, but the taxation issue was crucial.
The paradox of servant leadership is found here- if Rehoboam had been a servant of his people, then he would have ruled over them. In all ways, the Lord is our pattern. He was a servant of all, and so should we be. His servanthood dominated His consciousness. He said that He came not [so much as] to be ministered unto, but so as to minister, with the end that He gave His life for others (Mk. 10:45).
1Ki 12:8 But he ignored the advice of the old men which they had given
him, and took advice with the young men who had grown up with him, who
stood before him-
Rehoboam didn't like the advice of the older men, and so he
asked advice from his own peer group. Asking advice is so often just a
mask for seeking confirmation in the way we have ourselves already
decided. And we also are reminded here of how strong is our desire to be
seen by our peer group as in line with their thinking. The power of God's
word is negated by all such psychological games.
It is true that as we go through life, we ought to realize that harsh responses and demands upon others are not really the way to go. These "young men" were perhaps the boys he had grown up with in Solomon's harem, his half brothers. They, like him, would not have been pure Israelites as their mothers were Gentiles, and they didn't have the long term well being of the nation at heart. Rehoboam was 41 at this stage. Perhaps then we can understand this as meaning that he had appointed young men as his advisers, who had been raised near him (the Hebrew eth translated "with" is a very wide word). They were young, but the Hebrew doesn't have to mean he had grown up with them. Rather they were young men who had been raised as he had been, in the same harem, which would hardly have been much of a place of wisdom.
1Ki 12:9 He said to them, What advice do you give, that we may return
answer to this people, who have spoken to me saying, ‘Make the yoke that
your father put on us lighter?’-
He had written in his Proverbs that the ruler who lacks wisdom will
oppress his people (Prov. 28:16); and although his wisdom remained with
him right to the end, in terms of knowledge (Ecc. 2:9; 12:10), yet at the
end of his reign Solomon was the ruler who did oppress his people (1
Kings 12:11). And he had gone on in Prov. 28:16 to warn against
covetousness in a ruler, even though he went ahead with practicing every
conceivable form of it in Ecc. 2. “Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart,
and put away evil from thy flesh” (Ecc. 11:10) Solomon taught- and yet
Solomon in Ecclesiastes is the very picture of such a person. Like the experienced pilot who takes off
with frozen wings and then crashes, so Solomon’s very wisdom somehow
disinclined him to living it out in practice. This is the perversity of
our nature- the higher we may rise, the deeper we are inclined to fall.
1Ki 12:10 The young men who had grown up with him spoke to him saying,
Thus you shall tell this people who spoke to you saying, ‘Your father made
our yoke heavy, but make it lighter to us;’ you shall say to them, ‘My
little finger is thicker than my father’s waist-
The Lord appears to allude to this when He invites all those
burdened and heavy laden to come to Him because His yoke is easy and the
burden light (Mt. 11:28). It could be argued that He is thereby
acknowledging that Jeroboam, who offered the easier burden, could have
been as Him, a fulfilment of the promise of the Messianic king (1 Kings
11:38). He saw in those people abused by Solomon the religiously abused
people who were suffering under the burdens placed upon them by their
religious leaders; and He saw those Jews as represented by Solomon, whom
He continually reads in a bad light.
1Ki 12:11 Now whereas my father burdened you with a heavy yoke, I will add
to your yoke: my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you
with scorpions’-
The contrast is not between whips and scorpions, but the idea is
rather than he would use a far heavier whip known as a scorpion. The
Romans had a whip called a "scorpio", used for punishment.
Despite having such knowledge and wisdom with which to rule Israel (for this was the primary purpose of the gift of wisdom to him), Solomon oppressed his people. With evident reference to himself, he commented: “Because the king’s word has power, who may say unto him, What doest thou?” (Ecc. 8:4 RV). It is only God who cannot be questioned in this way. But Solomon felt that because he possessed God’s wisdom, he could therefore act as God: “I counsel you, Keep the King’s command, and that in regard of the oath of God” (Ecc. 8:2) could suggest that he thought that his commandments were in fact God’s. So the possession of Truth, which we too have, can lead to an incredible arrogance, a lack of openness to others’ comments upon us, and a certainty that we are right in all that we do and are beyond criticism. The hardness of a man is changed by true wisdom (Ecc. 8:1 RV), but knowing this, Solomon became hard hearted. He had the wisdom- but as he said, it was far from him personally.
“Surely oppression maketh a wise man foolish” (Ecc. 7:7 RV), he commented at the end of his life- even though right then he was chastising the people with whips, oppressing them (1 Kings 12:11). He knew the true wisdom, he saw his reflection so accurately in the mirror, but resigned from its personal implications. He could even write that “I returned and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun [by himself!]: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power [Solomon was king and had set up the tax system in a clever and biased way]; but they had no comforter” (Ecc. 4:1; 5:8). It was a real case of spiritual schizophrenia- he sorrowed for the people he oppressed. All groups who feature absolute truth claims, considering themselves the one true church and their system of theology to be "the truth" and all others to be without God... run the risk of becoming like Solomon. "The truth" eclipses personal moral obligation, and leads to abuse or abusive positions to those inferior to our level of "truth". The meaning and value of the human person becomes forgotten.
1Ki 12:12 So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third
day, as the king asked, saying, Come to me again the third day-
We the readers are drawn into a sense of expectation; we ourselves
know what Rehoboam is going to say, but we are placed in the position of
the suffering people, who didn't yet know what Rehoboam was going to
answer.
1Ki 12:13 The king answered the people roughly, and forsook the advice of
the old men which they had given him-
"Roughly" is the word used of how the Egyptians treated the
Israelites in whipping them and giving them heavy burdens to carry (Ex.
1:14). This was how he was behaving. It is the word the people have just
used when they complained that Solomon had treated them 'grievously' (:4);
and Rehoboam confirms that he is going to do the same.
Solomon had
frequently warned against forsaking the advice of elders (s.w. Prov. 2:17;
4:2 and especially the warning of Prov. 27:10 not to forsake the advice of
your father's friend). But Rehoboam had probably not even read or heard
all these Proverbs, as Solomon himself had ignored his own Proverbs and
lived quite opposite to them. And so did his son.
1Ki 12:14 and 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 chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions-
Solomon has so much to say about 'chastisement' / "correction" / "instruction" coming
from the possession of wisdom (Prov. 8:10,33; 10:17; 12:1; 13:1,24;
15:5,10,32; 16:22; 19:20,27; 22:15; 23:12,13). But in the end he chastised
or corrected his people by whipping them (s.w. 1 Kings 12:11,14).
Solomon
initially asked for wisdom in order to guide his people, but he ended up
whipping / physically chastising them into conformity with his wishes
rather than allowing wisdom to correct. Again, he was playing God; for it
is God through His wisdom who chastises, and not man. But Solomon thought
he was effectively God to his people. This is why Solomon argues that
servants cannot be corrected by words (Prov. 29:19 s.w.), and a child must
be physically chastised (s.w. Prov. 19:18; 29:17 cp. Prov. 13:24; 23:13),
regardless of his screams of pain. This kind of thing is a denial of his
claims elsewhere that it is Divine wisdom which chastises / corrects, and
such correction is from God and not man. Solomon's final description of
himself as an old and foolish king who refuses to be admonished says it
all (Ecc. 4:13); he admonishes others (s.w. Ecc. 12:12), but refuses to be
admonished or corrected by his own wisdom. He failed to personalize it.
1Ki 12:15 So the king didn’t listen to the people; for it was a thing
brought about of Yahweh, that He might establish His word which Yahweh
spoke by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat-
There are times when God has influenced men not to respond to the
evidently wise words of other men, in order to fulfill His purpose (e.g. 1
Kings 12:15; 2 Chron. 25:20). There are a number of
other passages which mention how "it was of the
Lord" that certain attitudes were adopted by men, resulting in the
sequence of events which He desired (Dt. 2:39; Josh. 11:20; 1 Sam. 2:25; 1
Kings 12:15; 2 Chron. 10:15; 22:7; 25:20). It is tempting to read Jud.
14:4 in this context, meaning that God somehow made Samson desire that
woman in order to bring about His purpose of freeing Israel from
Philistine domination. God through His Spirit works to confirm men in the
path they wish to go. And this is the huge significance of the work of the
Holy Spirit in our lives today.
1Ki 12:16 When all Israel saw that the king didn’t listen to them, the
people answered the king saying, What portion have we in David? Neither do
we have an inheritance in the son of Jesse. To your tents, Israel! Now see
to your own house, David. So Israel departed to their tents-
This was the cry of Sheba in 2 Sam. 20:1. But the promises of 2 Sam.
7 were to David and his seed / house. By resigning from any association
with that house, they were walking out of the hope of Israel which was in
those promises. This has been done so many times by those who
[understandably] become disillusioned with the family of believers, but
their break with them develops into a break with the things of God's
Kingdom.
"See to your own house, David" could be a reference to the house in the sense of the temple. Indeed it reads strangely if it simply refers to 'house' as in a family. The idea would then be that the temple was so deeply associated with David and his line that the people were saying they refused to worship in it. They now considered it was to just be for the house of David. And I have suggested earlier that the temple was little more than the king's chapel, attached by an "ascent" to his palace which was far bigger and more glorious than the temple. And so it often happens, that unreasonable behaviour by religious leadership means the flock don't want to attend church, and are left wide open to being led away by totally non Christian ideas.
LXX gives "Now feed your own house", as if the bitterness arose from decades of the other tribes being taxed in order to feed Solomon's huge royal family, arising from his 1000 wives.
1Ki 12:17 But as for the children of Israel who lived in the cities of
Judah, Rehoboam reigned over them-
This means that there were people from the ten tribes living in
Judah, particularly those who had been transported there by Solomon to
live in the various defensive outpost towns he had built in southern
Judah. And they remained under Rehoboam. See on :23.
1Ki 12:18 Then king Rehoboam sent Adoram, who was over the men subject to
forced labour; and all Israel stoned him to death with stones. King
Rehoboam made speed to get himself up to his chariot, to escape to
Jerusalem-
If the forced labour quotas of Solomon were to now be multiplied,
life would literally be impossible for the ten tribes. It is no surprise
therefore that Adoram was stoned and Rehoboam had to flee for his life
back to Jerusalem- reflecting on the folly of his young advisors.
1Ki 12:19 So Israel rebelled against the house of David to this day-
The same phrase used of Edom in 2 Kings 8:22. The word for "rebelled"
is also translated "transgressed". Their division from the house of David
was a division away from the promises about the eternal establishment of
that house, as noted on :16. In this sense it was therefore sinful.
1Ki 12:20 It happened, when all Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned,
that they sent and called him to the congregation, and made him king over
all Israel: there was none who followed the house of David, but the tribe
of Judah only-
We are given the impression that Jeroboam did not present
himself as king nor seek the throne. He was invited to be king by the
people. This again suggests that the will was there to continue under
Rehoboam; but it was "of the Lord" that Jeroboam became king, almost
against his will. At least, without undue effort on his part to claim the
throne over Israel.
They presumably made him king by anointing him. "All Israel" may therefore imply that those present at the meeting with Rehoboam in Shechem had largely been more local people. The mention of "Judah only" is a nod to the fulfilment of the promise that Rehoboam would be left with but one tribe; but :21 goes on to say that Benjamin were also given to him, by grace. For Benjamin was the tribe of Saul who had for many years been bitterly opposed to David and his tribe of Judah. It was the men of Benjamin who had supported previous revolts against Davidic rulership (2 Sam. 19:17; 20:1). Ahijah had torn the garment into 12 strips and given 10 to Jeroboam. There was one strip or tribe for Rehoboam, and the Levites were God's. But by grace, Rehoboam ended up with Benjamin too, and in fact also half the tribe of Manasseh. Again we see how this too was "of the Lord" and grace was ever present even in judgment. Perhaps they were simply influenced by the fact that Jerusalem was technically in their tribal allotment (Josh. 18:28). If they were not with Judah, then they would apparently have to accept Shechem or some other northern city as their capital and effectively abandon Jerusalem, which Solomon had built up to be the most impressive city of the whole Middle East at the time.
1Ki 12:21 When Rehoboam had come to Jerusalem, he assembled all the house
of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin, a hundred and eighty thousand chosen
men who were warriors, to fight against the house of Israel, to bring the
kingdom again to Rehoboam the son of Solomon-
Benjamin was a small tribe (1 Sam. 9:21; Ps. 68:27). 18 years later,
there were 400,000 warriors in Judah (2 Chron. 13:3), so this was a very
significant proportion of warriors. But in David's time
there had been 470,000 (2 Sam. 24:9). Although "thousand" may refer to a
military division rather than 1,000.
1Ki 12:22 But the word of God came to Shemaiah the man of God saying-
This may be now a quotation from the history written by Shemaiah
about Rehoboam (2 Chron. 12:15).
1Ki 12:23 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-
"The rest of the people" presumably refers to those of the ten tribes
who lived in Judah and were loyal to Rehoboam (:17). The records dovetail
so perfectly, as we would expect of a history written ultimately under
Divine inspiration.
1Ki 12:24 ‘Thus says Yahweh, You shall not go up, nor fight against your
brothers, the children of Israel. Everyone return to his house; for this
thing is of Me’. So they listened to the word of Yahweh, and returned and
went their way, according to the word of Yahweh-
This was significant humility, involving a recognition that what had
happened was "of God", in judgment for Solomon's sins. To fight against
our brothers can never be justified. 1 Kings 14:30 "There was war between
Rehoboam and Jeroboam continually" would indicate disobedience to this
command to Rehoboam not to fight the ten tribes. The Spirit
may lead us against a course of action and we initially accept that, but
over time we can revert to our own way again... for the work of the Spirit
is not to force a man against his genuine freewill.
At this point, LXX adds to the record: "Roboam his son reigned in his
stead in Jerusalem, being sixteen years old when he began to reign, and he
reigned twelve years... And there was a man of mount Ephraim, a servant to
Solomon, and his name was Jeroboam: and the name of his mother was Sarira,
a harlot: and Solomon made him head of the levies of the house of Joseph:
and he built for Solomon Sarira in mount Ephraim; and he had three hundred
chariots of horses: he built the citadel with the levies of the house of
Ephraim; he fortified the city of David, and aspired to the kingdom... ".
1Ki 12:25 Then Jeroboam built Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and
lived in it; and he went out from there, and built Penuel-
Shechem was ideally centrally situated within his territory. Penuel
was on the east side of Jordan, and would consolidate his power there, as
well as controlling the fords of Jordan. The record mirrors how
David had chosen Jerusalem and built it.
1Ki 12:26 Jeroboam said in his heart, Now the kingdom will return to the
house of David-
As noted on :1, the ten tribes had initially welcomed Rehoboam as their
king. Their only issue was with the taxation system. ‘Said in his heart’ is a common Biblical phrase (e.g. Gen. 17:17; 1
Sam. 27:1; 1 Kings 12:26; Esther 6:6). There is a huge importance attached
to self talk and spiritual mindedness. Further, there are many instances
where we read that a person ‘said’ something; but it’s apparent that they
said it to themselves, in their heart. Take Gehazi in 2 Kings 5:20: “But
Gehazi said, Behold, my master has spared Naaman this Syrian, in not
receiving at his hands that which he brought; but, as the Lord lives, I
will run after him, and take somewhat of him”. For sure, Gehazi said this
to nobody but himself. Or Moses – he’s recorded as saying “People have
found out what I have done!” – surely he said this within himself (Ex.
2:14 GNB).
1Ki 12:27 If this people goes up to offer sacrifices in the house of
Yahweh at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will turn again to
their lord, to Rehoboam king of Judah; and they will kill me, and return
to Rehoboam king of Judah-
This reasoning was maybe true enough on a secular level, but it
reflects a lack of faith in the promise made to Jeroboam in 1 Kings 11:38.
Jeroboam simply didn't have the faith to believe in this wonderful grace;
that he, son of a whore (:24 LXX) could be empowered by God to be the
Divinely chosen king of Israel and the fulfilment of the promises to
David. Perhaps Jeroboam was forced into this way of thinking by the
approach of a feast, probably tabernacles (:32), when his people would
usually go up to Jerusalem to worship.
1Ki 12:28 Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold;
and he said to them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Look
and see your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt!-
It's been suggested that theses calves were false cherubim. There is
certainly a connection between the calf and the cherubim. In Ez. 1:10 we
read that the living creatures had "the face of an ox on the left side".
In Ez. 10:14 we learn that this face was that of a cherub. Jeroboam placed
the calves at each end of the land of Israel, as if it was the ark (the
ark had the cherubim at each end of it). By doing so, Jeroboam excluded
Jerusalem, the temple, from God's presence. He excluded others from the
presence of God. The calves were therefore a mixture of true religious
symbolism with gross apostasy. In Hosea 8:2,3 we read a prophecy against
Jeroboam: "Israel shall cry unto me, My God, we know thee. Israel hath
cast off the thing that is good... of their silver and their gold have
they made them idols... thy calf, O Samaria hath cast thee off... (it)
shall be broken in pieces", as they were later by Josiah. So Israel
thought that they knew God at this time, they felt in fellowship with Him,
when actually the anger of God was deeply against them. Jeroboam was the
one on whom the sin of Israel's later idolatry is blamed. But Jeroboam is
not called an idolater. He no doubt had an element of good spiritual
motivation in him. 2 Kings 3:2,3 implies that Jeroboam did not actually
worship Baal. Jehoram put away the image of Baal, but he cleaved to the
sins of Jeroboam. The implication is that Jeroboam was not a Baal
worshipper, which is what the majority of the wicked kings were guilty of.
Jeroboam quotes the words of Ex. 32:4 "These be your gods, O Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt". The connection is conscious and intentional. His argument was presumably that the golden calf was quite legitimate and built by none other than Aaron. What was wrong, so he perhaps reasoned, was that the people had worshipped it as an idol. Whereas Jeroboam was initially arguing that his calves were a legitimate part of Yahweh worship. And Jeroboam is going right against the clear statement that it was Yahweh and not anyone or anything else that brought Israel up from Egypt: "I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt" (Ex. 20:2).
1Ki 12:29 He set the one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan-
These were at the far north and south of his territory. Perhaps if
indeed his calves were alluding to the cherubim (:28), his idea was that
they were as the cherubim overshadowing the land.
1Ki 12:30 This thing became a sin; for the people went to worship before
the one, even to Dan-
This doesn't have to mean that they only went to Dan. Bethel was a
well known sanctuary, but Dan was in a remote northern part of the land.
So I would paraphrase this as meaning 'The people went to worship before
one or the other of them, yes, they even made the journey all the way up
to Dan'. Therefore LXX adds "and they neglected the house of the Lord".
1Ki 12:31 He made houses on high places, and made priests from among all
the people, who were not of the sons of Levi-
The Levites went to Judah (2 Chron. 11:13,14). The migration
of the Levites to Judah may not have been from purely spiritual motives.
Probably Jeroboam confiscated the Levitical lands within his dominions for
the benefit of the new priestly order (2 Chron. 11:13,14). And they were
not very effective, because after three years idolatry became rampant in
Judah and the people turned away from Yahweh.
So Jeroboam allowed the ordinary people to be priests; in Ex. 32 we learn
that the ordinary people offered the sacrifices to the golden calf, not
the priests. Again, it seems that Jeroboam was trying to consciously mimic
the golden calf apostasy, perhaps arguing that Israel were a nation of
priests. It is no accident that Josiah stamped his calves
to powder, just as Moses did to the golden calf. Now why did Jeroboam so consciously lead Israel into the same apostasy which
brought them as it were within a hairs breadth of national rejection in
Ex. 32? Jeroboam wasn't ignorant. Perhaps he had gone down a path of
contorted exposition which made out that Israel didn't really sin by
worshipping the calf. Or perhaps he got so carried away with the idea that
he was like Aaron, the priest, that he thought (like some modern Rabbis)
that Aaron couldn't have done anything wrong, and therefore he consciously
copied Aaron, as he did David, Solomon, Jacob and Samuel. Again, we see
Jeroboam having a familiarity with Scripture, but not pausing to really
meditate upon his actions or upon the real spirit of the word. We see him
failing to analyze why Aaron acted as he did, failing to see that Aaron
acted politically, failing to deeply analyze his own motives. The
character of Jeroboam shines through here. Jeroboam named his sons Abijah
[Abihu] and Nadab- the very names of Aaron's sons. It seems Jeroboam tried
to model himself upon Aaron, and justify the building of the calves by
interpreting what Aaron did as a positive, righteous thing (as some Jewish
expositors do today). He politely overlooked the fact that Aaron was
condemned for making the calf, and that Nadab and Abihu were slain for
unacceptable worship (Lev. 10:1,2). We too can justify outright wrong
behaviour in the name of superficial allusion to Scripture, willfully
failing to see the similarities between our actions and those of men who
were condemned for doing in essence the things which we seek to justify.
1Ki 12:32 Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth
day of the month, like the feast that is in Judah, and he went up to the
altar; he did so in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves that he had made:
and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places that he had made-
Jeroboam was full of works, of activity in fighting the Lord's battles.
He was active in the Truth, as we would say. He ordained a feast "Like the feast which was
in Judah". He ordained a new feast on the 15th day of the 8th month, no
doubt copying the feast of tabernacles, on the 15th of the 7th month. See
on :27. So
Jeroboam lacked an attention to detail, despite an appearance of
spirituality. 1 Chron. 5:17 says that in Jeroboam's reign, the genealogies
we read in the early chapters of Chronicles were written. So in some ways,
he gave great attention to detail- when it suited him.
The feast of tabernacles was on the 15th day of the seventh month, but Jeroboam announced a feast on the 15th day of the eighth month. Perhaps he argued that as harvest came a month later in northern Israel, then this was acceptable. Perhaps he alluded to the way that a second passover could be kept a month after the prescribed date for those impure or otherwise unable to keep it on that date (Num. 9:6-12). So he may have presented this as a feast of tabernacles- "like the feast which was in Judah". He was clearly making vague allusions to spiritual reasoning and out of context Biblical precedent- just as so many do today.
Jeroboam's building of an altar for the calves as well as a proclamation of a feast is another similarity with Aaron, who built the golden calf, with an altar for it, and then proclaimed a feast to Yahweh (Ex. 32:5). Jeroboam is so carefully copying a Biblical example- but a bad one. The connection between Aaron and Jeroboam is confirmed by the record describing both as 'making Israel to sin' ["What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?" (Ex. 32:21). And the desecration and destruction of their altars, and judgment upon the priests, is again so similar (Ex. 32:20; Dt. 9:21 = 2 Kings 23:15 and 1 Kings 13:2 = 2 Kings 23:16-20). The irony is that it was the Levites who were appointed priests because of their faithfulness at the time of the golden calf apostasy; whereas Jeroboam is careful to do the very opposite, appointing non Levites as priests.
1Ki 12:33 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
of his own heart: and he ordained a feast for the children of Israel, and
went up to the altar, to burn incense-
He went up to the altar, making himself the priest. It seems that he was
copying David and Solomon, who did just this. But he lacked David's
motivation and spirituality. Another example of his mixture of truth and error is shown
by the way he built an altar at Bethel. Now this had many
religious associations; Jacob offered there, Samuel held regular
gatherings there; and as with trying to be like David and Solomon, it
seems that Jeroboam went in for even more self-conscious spiritual
exhibitionism and seeking to publicly associate himself with righteous
men. In :28 we read that the idea of the calves was a result of taking
counsel with others; but the idea of ordaining an alternative feast of
tabernacles, picking a random date near enough to the Mosaic one, was
purely "devised of his own heart". We can ask others for
advice when really we are intent on following our own narrative of what we
anyway want to do. He has to take much personal
responsibility, and so "Jeroboam the son of Nebat who made Israel to sin"
is the continual judgment of the records upon him personally.
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