1 Kingschapter 12
33 verses · Jeremiah, by tradition · 6th century BC · History
And Rehoboam went to Shechem: for all Israel were come to Shechem to make him king.
Introduction
Jeremiah, by tradition, History, 1 Kings Overview.
The writer of Kings is not named, and Jewish tradition gives the book to Jeremiah. He wrote for Judah in exile, a people whose whole history had been lived in a land split into two kingdoms. This chapter tells them where that split began. It is a narrative of a public assembly and of a new religion built to protect a border. Listen for who gives advice and who takes it, and for the single line that says the LORD stood behind the turn of events. Every northern king after this is measured against the choice made here.
Context
- Who
- Israelites living in two kingdoms who traced the split to this one meeting
- What
- An account of how ten tribes left the house of David and how their new king set up his own shrines, feast and priests.
- Where
- Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, then Jerusalem, then the new shrines at Bethel near the southern border and at Dan in the far north.
- When
- About 931 BC, the first year after Solomon's death; the chapter gives no date, so the year is a reckoning.
- Why
- To show that the division of the kingdom came through a king's folly and by the word of the LORD, and to name the sin that marked the north from then on.
Historical context
The chapter belongs to two men. Rehoboam was Solomon's son and heir, and Jeroboam son of Nebat had been an officer over Solomon's forced labour before fleeing to Egypt.
Show the rest of the historical context, 6 more paragraphs
Shechem is the first thing that needs explaining. It sat in the pass between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, and Israel had renewed its covenant there under Joshua. Rehoboam had to travel north to that ground to be made king, which tells a reader that the northern tribes did not treat the succession as automatic.
The occasion is a bill coming due. The congregation asked for the hard service and the heavy yoke of Solomon's reign to be lightened, and the demand was about the corvée and the tax quota rather than about religion.
A first hearer knew what scorpions were in this sentence. They were whips fitted with metal barbs, so the young men's answer promised a heavier instrument rather than a figure of speech.
A first hearer also recognised the rally cry. The words the north shouted were the slogan Sheba had used a generation earlier, which shows an old grievance with a fixed formula behind it.
He would have read Jeroboam's calves as politics before theology. In the ancient Near East a bull figure often served as the pedestal a god was pictured standing on, and the placing at Bethel and Dan put a shrine within reach of every subject.
The rest of the programme worked the same way. Jeroboam moved the autumn festival one month later than the law fixed and appointed priests from outside the tribe of Levi, so that nobody needed to walk south to Jerusalem three times a year.
Significance
The first hearers held both halves of the account at once. It was a young king's arrogance, and the text says the turn of events came from the LORD to fulfil the word Ahijah had carried.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
They also knew the phrase that follows Jeroboam through the rest of Kings, the sin of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin. Every northern king after him is measured against a decision taken in this chapter for political convenience.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
Rashi reads the assembly at Shechem as a quarrel about what one king had inherited and whether he could hold it. On the young men's answer about the little finger he carries Ralbag's arithmetic. Rehoboam was 41 years old at the beginning of his reign, while Solomon had been 12 when he became king. Rashi points the reader to the regnal notice later in the book and to the dream at Gibeon (Rashi on I Kings 12:10:1, The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J, CC-BY). On the threat that follows he leaves Hebrew altogether and glosses the word with one word of old French, Aiguillon, explaining the goads as those "That sting like scorpions" (Rashi on I Kings 12:11:1).
At the people's answer Rashi gives two readings of the same short sentence and keeps both. The first takes the house as the temple: "The Beis Hamikdosh that you built, will be for you alone." (Rashi on I Kings 12:16:1). The second he carries from Radak: "see who is left with you", and rule over them, since the speaker will not reign over Israel as a whole. The division is therefore read in the corpus as a sentence about the house in both senses at once, the building and the dynasty. That is the reading the man sent north tests first. Rashi identifies that man: "He was Adoniram", the officer of the levy named earlier in the book and in II Samuel. The king sent him "to speak gently to the people and to calm their anger" (Rashi on I Kings 12:18:1). On the one tribe that stayed Rashi gives a plain geographical reason, that the tribe of Benjamin held with Judah because "the boundaries of Yehudah and Binyomin were adjacent" (Rashi on I Kings 12:21:1).
Radak, Metzudat David and Malbim comment across this chapter as well, and the corpus carries their refs with the reason that Sefaria holds no English version of them, so they stand here cited and unquoted. Radak is the fullest of the three, at Radak on I Kings 12:1:1, 12:3:1, 12:4:1, 12:6:1, 12:7:1, 12:8:1, 12:12:1, 12:15:1, 12:17:1, 12:20:1 and 12:25:1. Beside him stand Metzudat David on I Kings 12:2:1, 12:5:1, 12:23:1 and 12:24:1, and Malbim on I Kings 12:9:1, 12:13:1, 12:14:1 and 12:19:1. Malbim's four sit on the taking of the counsel, the king's answer, the hardening of it and the verse that states the revolt. That is the run of verses a reader most wants a commentator on.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators for this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. The heaviest cluster stands on the counsel, where the rabbis read the choice of advisers as a case in the law of taking advice. On the sixth verse the corpus carries Avot DeRabbi Natan, Recension B 22:3. Ein Yaakov, Horayot 3:1 stands across the sixth and seventh, and Nedarim 40a:6 across the whole span of the sixth to the nineteenth. On the seventh verse alone it carries Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Horayot 3:1, Horayot 10b:1 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 469:24, and on the eighth, Midrash Lekach Tov, Exodus 4:29:2. On the first verse it carries Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 11:71 and Sanhedrin 102a:6. On the second it carries Sifrei Devarim 342:6, and on the third, Tractate Soferim 7:1.
Three locators stand on the people's answer at the sixteenth verse. All three are places where the same words are read as a set piece of Israel's speech. They are Avot DeRabbi Natan, Recension B 47:3, Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 15:1 and Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Shirah 1:5. Three more stand on the stoning of the officer at the eighteenth, Bamidbar Rabbah 23:13 with Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 6:19 and Ein Yaakov, Sanhedrin 6:19 beside it. On the twentieth the corpus carries Jerusalem Talmud Yevamot 16:3:3, and on the twenty-first, where Judah musters for war against its own kin, Megillah 31b:12, Nedarim 40a:7 and Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 38:24. On Shemaiah the man of God at the twenty-second it carries Avot DeRabbi Natan, Recension B 37:7, Midrash Lekach Tov, Deuteronomy 33:1:2 and Midrash Tannaim on Deuteronomy 33:1:18. On the twenty-third it carries Ein Yaakov, Nedarim 4:11, and on the twenty-fourth, Seder Olam Rabbah 20:2.
The calves carry a run of their own. On the building of Shechem at the twenty-fifth the corpus carries Bereshit Rabbah 34:10 and Midrash Tanchuma, Vayeshev 2:3. On the king's reasoning at the twenty-sixth it carries Bereshit Rabbah 67:8 and Bereshit Rabbah 75:9, with Eikhah Rabbah 1:23 set across the twenty-sixth to the thirtieth. On the making of the calves at the twenty-eighth it carries Aggadat Bereshit 5:2, with Bamidbar Rabbah 2:10 across the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth. On the twenty-ninth, where the two are set at Bethel and at Dan, it carries Aggadat Bereshit 13:3 and Bereshit Rabbah 65:20. The priesthood of the high places at the thirty-first carries Jerusalem Talmud Gittin 1:4:4. The feast invented in the eighth month carries the most of all. Bamidbar Rabbah 21:25 stands on the thirty-second, and Bamidbar Rabbah 21:26 across the thirty-second and thirty-third. Eikhah Rabbah 2:10 and Kohelet Rabbah 1:16:1 stand on the thirty-third, where the king goes up to the altar on a date he had devised himself. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on I Kings 12:10:1, 12:11:1, 12:16:1, 12:18:1 and 12:21:1, The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J, CC-BY; Radak, Radak on I Kings 12:1:1, 12:3:1, 12:4:1, 12:6:1, 12:7:1, 12:8:1, 12:12:1, 12:15:1, 12:17:1, 12:20:1 and 12:25:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on I Kings 12:2:1, 12:5:1, 12:23:1 and 12:24:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Malbim, Malbim on I Kings 12:9:1, 12:13:1, 12:14:1 and 12:19:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/1-kings/12.json, the 40 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
My little finger is thicker than my father's loins
1 Kings 12:1-2
Rehoboam went to Shechem: Solomon's son goes not to Jerusalem but to Shechem to be made king, the city where Abraham first built an altar in the land and where Joshua renewed the covenant, and the choice of ground says the tribes still expect a covenant, not merely a coronation. Jeroboam is already back from Egypt before the meeting is announced, which the text records without explaining who sent for him first. He had fled Solomon's court after Ahijah the Shilonite tore a new garment into twelve pieces and gave him ten, the word that stands behind everything the rest of this chapter narrates.
1 Kings 12:1
“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).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
1 Kings 12:1
“The first step taken by the new king was a most judicious one. If anything could have removed the disaffection of the Ephraimites, and caused them to submit to the ascendancy of Judah, it would have been the honor done to their capital by its selection as the scene of the coronation. Shechem (now Nablous) lay on the flank of Mount Gerizim, directly opposite to Mount Ebal, in a position second to none in all Palestine.”
Solomon had sought to kill Jeroboam, so he fled to Shishak king of Egypt at 11:40. Albert Barnes notes that a small change in the Hebrew gives the reading he returned from Egypt, the wording of 2 Chronicles 10:2. John Gill reads the verse the same way.
1 Kings 12:2
“And it came to pass, when Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who was yet in Egypt, heard of it,.... Of the death of Solomon, and of the meeting of the Israelites at Shechem: (for he was fled from the presence of King Solomon; see 1Ki 11:40. and Jeroboam dwelt in Egypt;) until the death of Solomon; some render the words, "Jeroboam, returned out of Egypt" (d), which agrees with 2Ch 10:2, this he did on hearing the above news, and on being sent for by some of his friends, as follows. (d) וישב־במצרים "reversus est de Aegypto", V. L.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 12:2
“Heard of it - i. e., of the death of Solomon and accession of Rehoboam. This would be more clear without the division into chapters; which division, it must be remembered, is without authority. Dwelt in Egypt - By a change of the pointing of one word, and of one letter in another, the Hebrew text here will read as in 2Ch 10:2, “returned out of Egypt; and they sent and called him.” In the Septuagint Version the story of Jeroboam is told in two different ways.”
1 Kings 12:3-5
all the congregation of Israel: The whole congregation, not a faction, brings one grievance: lighten the yoke and the heavy service Solomon laid on us, and we will serve thee. The complaint names no idol and asks for no new god, only relief from labor and taxation spent on a court, a temple, and a harem the text has already itemized in the chapters before this one. Rehoboam's three-day delay is itself sound counsel, taken from the old men, before it is thrown away.
Solomon raised a labor force of 30,000 men from all Israel at 5:13, though 9:22 says he made none of them slaves. Adam Clarke hears two complaints in the yoke, hard labor and heavy taxes. John Wesley adds the cost of Solomon's large court.
1 Kings 12:4
“The grievous service - and - heavy yoke - They seem here to complain of two things - excessively laborious service, and a heavy taxation. At first it is supposed Solomon employed no Israelite in drudgery: afterwards, when he forsook the God of compassion, he seems to have used them as slaves, and to have revived the Egyptian bondage.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 12:4
“Grievous - By heavy taxes and impositions, not only for the temple and his magnificent buildings, but for the expenses of his numerous court, and of so many wives and concubines. And Solomon having so grossly forsaken God, it is no wonder if he oppressed the people.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Rehoboam asks for three days before he gives his answer. In that time he hears the elders at verse 6 and the young men at verse 8. The people return on the third day, at verse 12, to hear which counsel he took.
1 Kings 12:5
“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.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 Kings 12:6-7
consulted with the old men: The old men who had stood before Solomon give counsel in one sentence: be a servant to this people today, and they will serve you forever. It is the same principle Solomon himself asked for at Gibeon, a heart to judge the people, offered back to his son by the men who watched him govern. The chapter records the advice before it records its rejection, so the reader weighs the wisdom on offer against what Rehoboam actually chooses.
1 Kings 12:6
“The old men, that stood before Solomon his father - Perhaps “the princes” of 1Ki 4:2. Solomon placed great value upon good advisers Pro 11:14; Pro 15:22; Pro 24:6.”
Albert Barnes reads the counsel as a call to yield to the people on this one occasion, with the throne kept. Matthew Henry notes that the elders gave Rehoboam no script, only the charge to speak kind words. The young men will hand him clever phrases instead.
1 Kings 12:7
“The old men did not undertake to put words into Rehoboam's mouth, only counselled him to speak good words; but the young men will furnish him with very quaint and pretty phrases, with pointed and pert similitudes: My little finger shall be thicker than my father's loins, &c. That is not always the best sense that is best worded.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 12:7
“The advice was not that the king should permanently resign the office of ruler, but that he should “for once” be ruled by his people.”
1 Kings 12:8-11
he forsook the counsel of the old men: Rehoboam turns to the young men raised beside him, and their answer is a boast dressed as policy: my little finger shall be thicker than my father's loins, whips traded for scorpions. The line only lands as an insult because Solomon's reign was already remembered as heavy, so the young men escalate a real complaint into a threat rather than answering it. Matthew Henry's comment on this pairing stands without needing improvement: that is not always the best sense that is best worded.
1 Kings 12:8
“The age of Rehoboam at his accession is an interesting and difficult question. According to the formal statement of the present text of 1Ki 14:21; 2Ch 12:13, he had reached the mature age of 41 years, and would therefore be unable to plead youth as an excuse for his conduct. The general narrative, however, seems to assume that he was quite a young man (compare 2Ch 13:7).”
At verse 6 Rehoboam asked the elders how to answer the people. Here he asks the young men what message to send, and he counts them in with himself. They had grown up with him and served him.
1 Kings 12:9
“And he said unto them, what counsel give ye, that we may answer this people, saying,.... See Gill on 1Ki 12:4.”
The waist was counted the seat of a man's strength, so the boast makes the son's smallest finger stronger than his father's body. John Wesley reads the words as a threat to crush the people if they press their demands. It answers a plea for relief with force.
1 Kings 12:10
“Shall be thicker - Or rather, is thicker, and therefore stronger, and more able to crush you, if you proceed in these mutinous demands, than his loins, in which is the principal seat of strength.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Albert Barnes records two old readings of scorpions, whips with hooks on the lashes and a thorny plant. He takes the word as a figure of speech for a heavier scourge than his father used. The king promises to add to the yoke.
1 Kings 12:11
“Scorpions - By this word some understand whips having leaden balls at the ends of their lashes with hooks projecting from them; others the thorny stem of the eggplant, or “the scorpion plant.” But it seems best to regard the expression as a figure of speech.”
1 Kings 12:12-14
came to Rehoboam the third day: The third day arrives exactly as appointed, and Rehoboam repeats the young men's words to the letter, whips for scorpions included, choosing their language over any of his own. The old men's counsel is named a second time only to be set aside a second time, so the narrator makes plain this was not a lapse but a decision, held and confirmed across three days. A king given a week to reconsider gives the people the same answer he was warned against on day one.
1 Kings 12:12
“So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third day,.... Jeroboam came to him at the head of the people, being the head of the faction, and designed for their king: as the king had appointed, saying, come to me again the third day; see 1Ki 12:5.”
Solomon had written at Proverbs 15:1 that a gentle answer turns away wrath and a harsh word stirs up anger. His son gives the harsh word. Matthew Henry calls the choice the blindness of pride.
1 Kings 12:13
“And the king answered the people roughly,.... In a blustering manner, gave them hard words and severe menaces, being worked up to such a spirit by his young counsellors: and forsook the old men's counsel that they gave him: to give them good words and kind promises.”
Matthew Henry sees a king blinded by pride and a hunger for power without limits. In the same act he sees God's counsel coming to pass. Verse 15 names that word, spoken through Ahijah the Shilonite.
1 Kings 12:14
“Never, surely, was man so blinded by pride and affectation of arbitrary power, than which nothing is more fatal. How God's counsels were hereby fulfilled.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
the cause was from the Lord: The narrator interrupts the political story to name its true cause: the king's stubbornness serves a word already spoken, that the Lord had told Ahijah the Shilonite to give ten tribes to Jeroboam and one to David's house for David's servant's sake and for Jerusalem's sake. Rehoboam's pride and the young men's folly are real and are never excused by this verse, yet they are also the means by which a promise made a chapter earlier reaches the ground. Albert Barnes states the balance plainly: without interfering with man's free will, God guides the course of events and accomplishes his purposes.
1 Kings 12:15
“The cause was from the Lord - i. e., “the turn of events was from the Lord.” Human passions, anger, pride, and insolence, worked out the accomplishment of the divine designs. Without interfering with man’s free will, God guides the course of events, and accomplishes His purposes.”
2 more voices on this verse
1 Kings 12:15
“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. Note, God serves his own wise and righteous purposes by the imprudences and iniquities of men, and snares sinners in the work of their own hands.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Kings 12:15
“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.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
To your tents, O Israel: ten tribes walk away
What portion have we in David?: Israel's cry repeats Sheba the son of Bichri's trumpet call from 2 Sam 20:1 almost word for word, every man to his tents, O Israel, and this time the cry is not put down by Joab's sword but becomes the kingdom's actual and permanent division. Calling David the son of Jesse is deliberate contempt, the name used to strip him of his royal title and remind the north that his own house began as obscurely as theirs. What was a lone man's rebellion fifty years earlier is now the whole of ten tribes speaking as one voice.
1 Kings 12:16
“They named David, rather than Rehoboam; to signify, that they renounced not Rehoboam only, but all David's family. Son of Jesse - So they call David in contempt; as if they had said, Rehoboam hath no reason to carry himself with such pride and contempt toward his people; for if we trace his original, it was as mean and obscure as any of ours.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 12:16
“So Israel departed unto their tents - That is, the ten tribes withdrew their allegiance from Rehoboam; only Judah and Benjamin, frequently reckoned one tribe, remaining with him.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Kings 12:17-19
dwelt in the cities of Judah: Judah's own Israelites stay under Rehoboam, the tribe the Lord had reserved for David's house at 11:13 and 11:32 taking visible shape as the chapter closes its first half. Rehoboam then compounds the crisis by sending Adoram, the very officer over forced labor, to a population that has just named forced labor its whole complaint, and the people stone him. The narrator's closing sentence, so Israel rebelled against the house of David unto this day, is written from later in the story, a standing wound the writer says is still open in his own time.
1 Kings 12:17
“But as for the children of Israel which dwelt in the cities of Judah,.... Either such Israelites of the ten tribes that had before dwelt, or now upon this removed, for the sake of worship, to dwell in the tribe of Judah; or else that part of Israel, the tribe of Judah, which dwelt in the cities belonging to it: Rehoboam reigned over them; they owned him to be their king, and submitted to his government.”
Adoram held the office over forced labor that Adoniram held under Solomon at 4:6 and 5:14. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that Rehoboam still thought himself king of a united land until this stoning. His flight to Jerusalem ends the talks at Shechem.
1 Kings 12:18
“The tribute was the thing, and, for the sake of that, Adoram was the person, they most complained of. The very sight of him, whose name was odious among them, exasperated them, and made them outrageous.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Albert Barnes reads to this day as words copied from an older record, set down while the northern kingdom still stood. John Gill calls the break a rebellion against a lawful prince, done without asking God, even though God had purposed it. Verse 15 names that purpose.
1 Kings 12:19
“So Israel rebelled against the house of David unto this day. In which the writer of this book lived, and so continued until their captivity by the king of Assyria. Their revolt is called a rebellion; for though it was according to the purpose and will of God, yet the people had no command or order from God for it, and was done without consulting him, and was a rejection of their lawful prince.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 12:19
“Unto this day - This expression shows that the writer, who lived during the captivity, and consequently long after the rebellion of Israel had come to an end, is embodying in his history the exact words of an ancient document. His source, whatever it was, appears to have been also followed by the writer of Chronicles. (See 2Ch 10:19.)”
made him king over all Israel: Jeroboam is crowned the moment the congregation hears he has returned, and the text is careful to say the tribe of Judah alone follows the house of David. Jeroboam has no royal blood and no tribal claim beyond Ahijah's prophecy, which is the only ground the text gives for a kingship that would otherwise have none. The ten tribes act on the news of a man's presence, not on any deliberation the narrator records.
1 Kings 12:20
“Made him king over all Israel - What is called Israel here, was ten-twelfths of the whole nation; and had they a right to call another person to the throne? They had not, - they had neither legal nor constitutional right. Jeroboam was not of the blood royal; he had no affinity to the kingdom. Nothing could justify this act, but the just judgment of God. God thus punished a disobedient and gainsaying people; and especially Solomon’s family, whose sins against the Lord were of no ordinary magnitude.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
1 Kings 12:20
“Was come - From Egypt; which was known to them before who met at Shechem, and now by all the people. Was none - That is, no entire tribe.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 Kings 12:20
“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.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ye shall not fight against your brethren
1 Kings 12:21-24
an hundred and fourscore thousand: Rehoboam raises Judah and Benjamin, a hundred and eighty thousand chosen warriors, to force the ten tribes back under him by the sword, and civil war stands one march away from beginning. Shemaiah the man of God stops it with a single sentence carrying the Lord's own name on it, this thing is from me, and Rehoboam obeys a prophet's word over a standing army's advantage. The word is the same one already announced at verse 15, now spoken directly to the king rather than narrated about him, and Judah's whole host turns for home without a battle fought.
Rehoboam comes home and raises 180,000 chosen warriors from Judah and Benjamin to fight the house of Israel. Albert Barnes finds Benjamin's place beside Judah a surprise, because by blood and old tradition the tribe stood closer to Ephraim. He dates the change to the half century after Sheba's revolt.
1 Kings 12:21
“And when Rehoboam was come to Jerusalem, From Shechem, which was forty miles (n) from 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; which not only shows courage reassumed by Rehoboam, now safely home, but the hearty attachment of Judah and Benjamin to him, who raised presently so numerous an army in his favour; and had it not been that the Lord was against their going to…”
2 more voices on this verse
1 Kings 12:21
“The adhesion of Benjamin to Judah at this time comes upon us as a surprise. By blood Benjamin was far more closely connected with Ephraim than with Judah. All the traditions of Benjamin were antagonistic to Judah, and hitherto the weak tribe had been accustomed to lean constantly on its strong northern neighhour. But it would seem that, in the half-century which had elapsed since the revolt of Sheba, the son of Bichri 2Sa 20:1, the feelings of the Benjamites had undergone a complete change.”
1 Kings 12:21
“It as more brave in Rehoboam to desist when God, by a prophet, ordered him to lay down his arms. He would not lose a kingdom tamely, for then he would have been unworthy the title of a prince; and yet he would not contend for it in opposition to God, for then he would have been unworthy the title of an Israelite.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Albert Barnes names Shemaiah the chief prophet of Judah under Rehoboam, as Ahijah was in Israel. John Gill points to 2 Chronicles 12:15, where the records of Shemaiah hold the acts of Rehoboam. Shemaiah speaks again at 2 Chronicles 12:5, when Shishak invades.
1 Kings 12:22
“But the word of God came unto Shemaiah the man of God,.... A prophet in those days, see 2Ch 12:15 and the word that came to him, as in the Targum, is called the word of prophecy: saying; as follows.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 12:22
“Shemaiah was the chief prophet in Judah during the reign of Rehoboam, as Ahijah was in Israel. See the marginal references.”
The word of the LORD names Rehoboam king of Judah, the title verse 17 had already made true. John Gill takes the rest of the people as members of other tribes living in Judah, above all Simeon. Simeon's inheritance lay within Judah's portion, at Joshua 19:9.
1 Kings 12:23
“Speak unto Rehoboam the son of Solomon king of Judah,.... He is called king before, but of what tribe or tribes is not expressly said, only it is implied in 1Ki 12:17 and he is only acknowledged king of Judah by the Lord himself: and unto all the house of Judah and Benjamin; which made but one house, as before but one tribe, 1Ki 11:36. and to the remnant of the people; of the other tribes that might dwell among them at Jerusalem, and especially Simeon, whose inheritance was within the tribe of Judah, Jos 19:1. saying: as follows.”
The LORD calls the ten tribes brothers, the same people Rehoboam had raised 180,000 warriors to crush. Adam Clarke notes how much it cost the king and his officers to drop a war they thought just, and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown record the army scattering home. War came later, at 14:30.
1 Kings 12:24
“For this thing is from me - That is, the separation of the ten tribes from the house of David. They - returned to depart - This was great deference, both in Rehoboam and his officers, to relinquish, at the demand of the prophet, a war which they thought they had good grounds to undertake. The remnant of the people heard the Divine command gratefully, for the mass of mankind are averse from war. No nations would ever rise up against each other, were they not instigated to it or compelled by the rulers.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Behold thy gods: golden calves at Bethel and at Dan
built Shechem in mount Ephraim: Jeroboam fortifies Shechem for his capital and then Penuel, on the far side of Jordan, to secure his eastern frontier. Penuel carries its own history: Jacob named the place Peniel, the face of God, after wrestling there and seeing God face to face and living, and it is Penuel by the next verse of that same account in Genesis. The king who is about to invent a religion of his own fortifies the very spot where an ancestor once met the true God directly, and the text lets the location speak without comment.
1 Kings 12:25
“Built Shechem - In the sense of “enlarged and fortified.” See Dan 4:30. The first intention of Jeroboam seems to have been to make Shechem his capital, and therefore he immediately set about its fortification. So also he seems to have fortified Penuel for the better security of his Trans-Jordanic possessions (marginal reference).”
3 more voices on this verse
1 Kings 12:25
“We have learned in the books of Kings that under Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, Jeroboam, the son of Nabat, made a division among the people and led ten tribes into Samaria. The tribes of Judah and Benjamin, however, remained under the rule of Rehoboam; and many likewise from the tribe of Levi who were dwelling in Jerusalem as priests and Levites—as it is written in Paralipomenon—returned to the temple of God, that is, to Jerusalem.”
Jerome · written before 420 · HOMILIES ON THE PSALMS 11 (PS 77 [78])patristic
1 Kings 12:25
“Shechem - He repaired, and enlarged, and fortified it; for it had been ruined long since, Judg. ix, 45. He might chuse it as a place both auspicious, because here the foundation of his monarchy was laid; and commodious, as being near the frontiers of his kingdom.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 Kings 12:25
“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.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 Kings 12:26-27
Now shall the kingdom return: Jeroboam reasons within himself rather than inquiring of the Lord who had just given him the kingdom, and his fear is that pilgrimage to Jerusalem's temple will pull the people's hearts back to Rehoboam and cost him his life. The reasoning is the forfeiture of thread two in real time: at 11:38 the Lord had offered Jeroboam the same sure house built for David, on the condition that he keep the statutes as David did, and here in his own heart he trades that promise for a policy he can control himself. Matthew Henry names the root of it directly: a practical disbelief of God's all-sufficiency is at the bottom of all our treacherous departures from him.
1 Kings 12:26
“Jeroboam’s fear was lest a reaction should set in, and a desire for reunion manifest itself. He was not a man content to remain quiet, trusting simply to the promise made him 1Ki 11:38. Hence, he gave way to the temptation of helping forward the plans of Providence by the crooked devices of a merely human policy. His measures, like all measures which involve a dereliction of principle, brought certain evils in their train, and drew down divine judgment on himself. But they fully secured the object at which he aimed.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 12:26
“He was distrustful of the promise of God, could not take his word that, if he would keep close to his duty, God would build him a sure house ( ch. xi. 38 ); but 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 treacherous departures from him.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Albert Barnes explains the fear of death: killing Jeroboam would reunite the kingdom and win the favor of Rehoboam. He compares 2 Samuel 4:7, where two of Saul's own men killed Ish-bosheth and carried his head to David. Jeroboam fears the same end.
1 Kings 12:27
“Kill me - In case his subjects desired a reconciliation with Rehoboam, Jeroboam’s death would at once facilitate the re-establishment of a single kingdom, and obtain favor with the legitimate monarch. (Compare 2Sa 4:7.)”
1 Kings 12:28-30
made two calves of gold: Jeroboam's proclamation repeats Aaron's sentence at Ex 32:4 almost to the word, behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, only now a king speaks it and two calves stand where Aaron's one stood. One calf goes to Bethel, the house of God where Jacob had met the Lord, and one to Dan at the northern edge, so that neither end of the kingdom is left without a shrine of its own. The narrator's verdict is short and final: this thing became a sin, and the people traveled as far as Dan to keep it.
1 Kings 12:28
“Made two calves of gold - He invented a political religion, instituted feasts in his own times different from those appointed by the Lord, gave the people certain objects of devotion, and pretended to think it would be both inconvenient and oppressive to them to have to go up to Jerusalem to worship. This was not the last time that religion was made a state engine to serve political purposes.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
1 Kings 12:28
“And that God would dispense with them also in that matter; because going to Jerusalem was dangerous to them at this time; and God would have mercy, rather than sacrifice.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 Kings 12:28
“He set up these two at Dan and Beth-el (one the utmost border of his country northward), the other southward, as if they were the guardians and protectors of the kingdom. Beth-el lay close to Judah. He set up one there, to tempt those of Rehoboam's subjects over to him who were inclined to image-worship, in lieu of those of his subjects that would continue to go to Jerusalem.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Albert Barnes notes that two calves in two places kept the people from being reminded that they had no ark. John Gill recalls that Dan already had an idol shrine, the one the Danites set up at Judges 18:30. Both places carried old religious weight.
1 Kings 12:29
“And he set the one in Bethel,.... In the southern part of the land, on the border of Ephraim and Benjamin; and the rather he chose this place, because its name signifies the house of God, and had been a sacred place, where Jacob more than once enjoyed the divine Presence: and the other put he in Dan: in the northern part of the land, for the convenience of the inhabitants of those parts; and the rather, since it had been a place resorted to in former times, because of the teraphim of Micah there.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 12:29
“In the first place, Jeroboam consulted the convenience of his subjects, who would thus in no case have very far to go in order to reach one or the other sanctuary. Further, he avoided the danger of reminding them continually that they had no ark - a danger which would have been imminent, had the two cherubs been placed together in one shrine. He selected Bethel (in the south) for one of his seats of worship, on account of its pre-eminent sanctity. (See the marginal reference; Jdg 20:26-28; 1Sa 7:16.)”
And this thing became a sin: Albert Barnes reads the calves as a snare for the people. John Wesley traces where it led, to the worship of Baal and a full turning from God. Hosea 8:5 later declares that God has rejected the calf of Samaria.
1 Kings 12:30
This thing became a sin - i. e., this act of Jeroboam’s became an occasion of sin to the people. The author perhaps wrote the following words thus: “The people went to worship before the one to Bethel and before the other to Dan.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 12:30
“A sin - That is, an occasion of great wickedness, not only of idolatry, which is called sin by way of eminency; nor only of the worship of the calves, wherein they pretended to worship the true God; but also of the worship of Baal, and of the utter desertion of the true God; and of all sorts of impiety.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
priests of the lowest of the people: Jeroboam builds houses of high places and staffs them with priests who are not of the sons of Levi, closing off the one tribe still loyal to Jerusalem's temple from any office in his new system. John Wesley notes that the fault was never the social rank of the men chosen, since some Levites themselves came from humble means, but the office itself claimed by hands the Lord had never given it to. A kingdom built on a stolen prophecy now builds a priesthood on a stolen office.
1 Kings 12:31
“He made an house of high places - i. e., “He built a temple, or sanctuary, at each of the two cities where the calves were set up.” The writer uses the expression “house of high places” in contempt, meaning that the buildings were not real temples, or houses of God, like that at Jerusalem, but only on a par with the temples upon high places which had long existed in various parts of the land.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 12:31
“And that indeed was Jeroboam's sin; not that he chose mean persons, for some of the Levites were such; and his sin had not been less, if he had chosen the noblest and greatest persons; as we see in the example of Uzziah.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 Kings 12:32-33
like unto the feast that is in Judah: Jeroboam sets his feast on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, one month later than the feast of tabernacles the law fixed for the seventh, close enough to feel familiar and different enough to mark his subjects as his own. He offers on the altar at Bethel himself, priest and king together, a combination Uzziah will later be struck with leprosy for attempting in Judah. The chapter's last clause names the whole project for what it is, a feast which he had devised of his own heart, no word of the Lord behind any part of it.
1 Kings 12:32
“Ordained a feast - The Jews held their feast of tabernacles on the fifteenth day of the seventh month; Jeroboam, who would meet the prejudices of the people as far as he could, appointed a similar feast on the fifteenth of the eighth month; thus appearing to hold the thing while he subverted the ordinance.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
1 Kings 12:32
“So he would keep God's feast, not in God's time, which was the fifteenth day of the seventh month, and so onward, Levit xxiii, 34, but on the fifteenth day of the eighth month. And this alteration he made, either, 1. to keep up the difference between his subjects, and those of Judah as by the differing manners, so by the distinct times of their worship.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 Kings 12:32
“And thus, [1.] Jeroboam sinned himself, yet perhaps excused himself to the world and his own conscience with this, that he did not do so ill as Solomon did, who worshipped other gods. [2.] He made Israel to sin, drew them off from the worship of God and entailed idolatry upon their seed.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Albert Barnes takes a month of his own choosing as the verdict on the whole system: Jeroboam left a worship God had ordered for one he made up. Matthew Henry adds that he sinned himself and made Israel sin. The altar he stands at here is the one chapter 13 condemns.
1 Kings 12:33
“This verse belongs to 1 Kings 13 rather than to 1 Kings 12, being intended as an introduction to what follows. Which he had devised of his own heart - The entire system of Jeroboam receives its condemnation in these words. His main fault was that he left a ritual and a worship where all was divinely authorized, for ceremonies and services which were wholly of his own devising. Not being a prophet, he had no authority to introduce religious innovations.”
How this psalm is built
The form: Narrative of a revolt: a coronation assembly that turns into the permanent secession of ten tribes, as Jamieson, Fausset and Brown classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Two counsels, weighed and then set aside | Verses 6 and 7 give the old men's counsel in one sentence, and verses 8 to 11 give the young men's in a boast. The narrator records the wise advice first, so the reader weighs what was on offer against what was chosen. Matthew Henry's line on the pairing is that it is not always the best sense that is best worded, which the site's published exposition of verses 8 to 11 carries.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on 1 Kings 12:8. | 1 Kings 12:6, 1 Kings 12:7, 1 Kings 12:8, 1 Kings 12:11 |
| Whips traded for scorpions, said twice | The young men put the line in Rehoboam's mouth at verse 11, and Rehoboam repeats it to the assembly at verse 14 in the same words. The repetition is what makes the answer a decision rather than a slip, since three days stand between the two sayings. The site's published exposition of verses 12 to 14 marks that the old men's counsel is named a second time only to be set aside a second time.This site's published exposition of 1 Kings 12, the note on verses 12 to 14, data/commentary/1-kings-12-exposition.json. | 1 Kings 12:11, 1 Kings 12:14 |
| Sheba's cry, taken up by ten tribes | Israel's answer at verse 16 repeats the words Sheba son of Bichri shouted at 2 Samuel 20:1, and this time the cry carries the kingdom with it. John Wesley reads the naming of David as deliberate contempt, holding that they called him the son of Jesse to say his origin was as mean and obscure as any of theirs. Albert Barnes reads the last clause as a warning against interference rather than a threat of war.John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765, on 1 Kings 12:16. | 1 Kings 12:16, 2 Samuel 20:1 |
| Shechem at the opening and Shechem at the close | Rehoboam goes to Shechem at verse 1 to be made king over Israel, and at verse 25 Jeroboam builds Shechem and dwells there as the capital of the ten tribes. The same city frames the chapter under two kings, and the one who travelled to it loses it to the one who fortifies it. The site's published exposition of verse 25 adds that Jeroboam then fortified Penuel, the place Jacob named for seeing God face to face.This site's published exposition of 1 Kings 12, the notes on verses 1 to 2 and verse 25, data/commentary/1-kings-12-exposition.json. | 1 Kings 12:1, 1 Kings 12:25 |
| Aaron's sentence in a king's mouth | Jeroboam's proclamation at verse 28 repeats what Israel said over the calf at Exodus 32:4, with the plural kept and two calves standing where Aaron's one stood. Adam Clarke reads the whole arrangement as an invented political religion, with feasts of the king's own times and objects of devotion supplied to spare the people the road to Jerusalem. Matthew Henry notes the placing, one calf at each end of the kingdom, with Bethel set close to Judah to draw Rehoboam's own subjects across.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 1 Kings 12:28. | 1 Kings 12:28, Exodus 32:4 |
| What Jeroboam devised, item by item | Verses 31 to 33 list the new system in order. It runs houses of high places, priests taken from outside the sons of Levi, a feast in the eighth month on its fifteenth day, and the king himself offering at the altar. John Wesley holds that the fault lay in the office being claimed by hands the LORD had never given it to rather than in the social rank of the men chosen. The chapter's last clause names the feast one Jeroboam had devised in his own heart.John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765, on 1 Kings 12:31. | 1 Kings 12:31, 1 Kings 12:32, 1 Kings 12:33 |
The historical value
12 more paragraphs on the patterns
The split this chapter records is the frame of the rest of the Old Testament's history, and the two kingdoms it creates are the subject of the next book. The site's published historical layer for this chapter, drawing on the IVP Bible Background Commentary of John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas, records three details of the period behind the narrative. Scorpions were whips fitted with metal barbs. Sending Adoram, the officer over the forced labour, to negotiate with a population whose whole complaint was forced labour was the worst available choice. Jeroboam's festival was moved one month later than the seventh-month feast the law fixed, which kept worshippers at home in the season they would otherwise have travelled.
The same layer, drawing on Roland de Vaux's Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions, records why Bethel and Dan were placed where they were. The aim was to stop three pilgrimages a year to Jerusalem, and with them the memory of whose house the north had left.
The debated concept: what the two calves were meant to be
The first position reads them as idols and takes the narrator's own verdict as the ruling. Verse 30 says the thing became a sin, and Jeroboam's words repeat what was said over Aaron's calf at Exodus 32:4. Adam Clarke holds the whole scheme to be an invented political religion, with objects of devotion supplied and feasts set in the king's own times. He adds that this was not the last time religion served a political purpose. The strength of the position is that the chapter grades the project itself and never grades it kindly.
The second position reads the calves as pedestals rather than as gods. The site's published historical layer for this chapter records the convention behind it. In the ancient Near East a bull figure often served as the platform a god was pictured standing on. On that convention Jeroboam's claim is a claim about where the LORD of the exodus could be met. On that reading the sin is a rival sanctuary and an unauthorised priesthood rather than a new deity. The strongest objection is the wording Jeroboam chose, since a plural sentence borrowed from Sinai invites the reading the narrator gives it.
The page states no verdict between the two. What both positions agree on is the political motive the text supplies at verses 26 and 27, and the result the rest of Kings records.
The debated concept: the Greek arrangement of Jeroboam's rise
The Septuagint calls this book 3 Reigns and carries the Solomon and Jeroboam material in a different order from the Hebrew. This site's published manuscripts section for 1 Kings states that the Greek preserves an alternative account of Jeroboam's rise attached to chapter 12. The same section records that several of its readings run shorter than the Hebrew and several run longer. The section holds that for this book the Greek is a witness to a genuinely different arrangement of the same history, which translators weigh case by case.
The weight of the question is raised by what the same section records about the Hebrew evidence. Three caves at Qumran yielded small pieces of Kings, from chapters 3, 7, 8, 12 and 22 among others, and one of them is written on papyrus. The section states plainly that Kings has no early Hebrew manuscript of substance to check the Masoretic Text against.
Where the New Testament reaches
The New Testament nowhere cites 1 Kings 12. The nearest line of contact runs through the sentence Jeroboam borrowed. Stephen reaches the calf Aaron made at Acts 7:41, and the site's published exposition of verses 28 to 30 marks that Jeroboam's proclamation repeats Exodus 32:4 almost to the word.
The chapter's own prophecy is answered inside the Old Testament. The altar Jeroboam built at Bethel is the altar Josiah pulls down at 2 Kings 23:15, three centuries later, which is the sentence chapter 13 delivers at that altar.
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 1 Kings 12:28; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832 to 1869, on 1 Kings 12:15; Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, on 1 Kings 12:15 and This site's published guide to 1 Kings, src/components/book/guides/1-kings/Book1KingsGuide.tsx, the chapter table at chapter 12 and the era Whips and Scorpions at 12:1 to 13:34.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.