The Kingdom Torn in Two

Jeroboam son of Nebat was still in Egypt when he heard about it. He had been one of Solomon’s officials, but he had turned against the king, and Solomon had tried to kill him. So Jeroboam had fled to Egypt and stayed there until Solomon died. Now the people sent for him, and Jeroboam came with the whole assembly of Israel to speak to Rehoboam.

“Your father made our yoke hard to bear,” they said. “The work he gave us was hard, and the yoke he put on us was heavy. Make them lighter now, and we will serve you.”

“Leave for three days,” Rehoboam told them, “then come back to me.” So the people left.

“If you will be a servant to these people today,” they said, “if you serve them and answer them with kind words, they will be your servants forever.”

In 2 Chronicles, their advice is to be kind to these people and to please them.

But Rehoboam turned away from the old men’s advice. Instead he asked advice from the young men who had grown up with him. They now served him.

“What do you advise?” he asked them. “How should we answer these people? They have told me, ‘Make the yoke your father put on us lighter.’”

The young men he had grown up with said, “These people told you, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, but make it lighter on us.’ Tell them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist! Now, my father loaded you with a heavy yoke, but I will add to it. My father punished you with whips, but I will punish you with scorpions.’”

The king answered the people harshly. He turned away from the advice the old men had given him and spoke the way the young men had told him to. “My father made your yoke heavy,” he said, “but I will add to it. My father punished you with whips, but I will punish you with scorpions.”

So the king didn’t listen to the people. The Lord had brought this about to make his word come true, the word he had spoken through Ahijah of Shiloh to Jeroboam son of Nebat.

The prophet had spoken it while Solomon was still king. One day, as Jeroboam was going out of Jerusalem, Ahijah met him on the road. They were out in the open country, just the two of them. Ahijah had a new cloak on, and he took it and tore it into twelve pieces. “Take ten pieces,” he told Jeroboam, “because the Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘I will tear the kingdom out of Solomon’s hand and give ten tribes to you. But he will still have one tribe, for my servant David’s sake and for the sake of the city I have chosen, Jerusalem.’”

But Rehoboam was king over the Israelites in the towns of Judah.

Then King Rehoboam sent Adoram, the officer in charge of the men doing forced labor, and all Israel stoned him to death. (2 Chronicles calls him Hadoram.) King Rehoboam quickly got up into his chariot and fled to Jerusalem.

So Israel rebelled against David’s family, and they have stayed in rebellion to this day.

When all Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, they sent for him to come to the assembly, and they made him king over all Israel. No one followed David’s family except the tribe of Judah. So now there were two kingdoms: Israel, with Jeroboam as its king, and Judah, with Rehoboam.

But God gave this message to Shemaiah, a man of God: “Speak to Rehoboam the son of Solomon, king of Judah. Speak to everyone in Judah and Benjamin too, and to the rest of the people. Tell them, ‘This is what the Lord says: Don’t go up and fight against your brothers, the people of Israel. Everyone go home, because this comes from me.’”

They listened to the Lord’s word and went back home, as the Lord had said. They did not go against Jeroboam.

Jeroboam thought to himself, “Now the kingdom will go back to David’s family. If these people go up to offer sacrifices in the Lord’s house at Jerusalem, their hearts will turn back to their master, Rehoboam king of Judah. Then they will kill me and go back to Rehoboam king of Judah.”

So the king took advice, and he made two calves of gold. “Going up to Jerusalem is too much for you,” he told the people. “Look, Israel! These are your gods! They brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”

He put one calf in Bethel and the other in Dan. This became a sin, because the people went as far as Dan to worship in front of the calf there.

Jeroboam built houses of worship on the high places, and he made priests from among all the people, men who were not descendants of Levi.

Jeroboam set up a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day, like the feast held in Judah, and he went up to the altar. He did this at Bethel, offering sacrifices to the calves that he had made. At Bethel he also put the priests of the high places that he had made.

On the fifteenth day of the eighth month, the month he had thought up himself, Jeroboam went up to the altar he had made at Bethel. He set up a feast for the Israelites and went up to the altar to burn incense.

He made the strongholds stronger, put captains in charge of them, and stored up food, oil and wine there. In every town he put shields and spears, and he made the towns very strong. Judah and Benjamin belonged to him.

The priests and Levites from every part of Israel came to his side. The Levites left their pasture lands and everything they owned and came to Judah and Jerusalem. Jeroboam and his sons had turned them away and would not let them serve as the Lord’s priests.

Jeroboam himself appointed priests for the high places, for the male goat and calf idols that he had made.

After the priests and Levites, others came from every tribe of Israel. These were people who had made up their minds to seek the Lord, the God of Israel. They came to Jerusalem to sacrifice to the Lord, their ancestors’ God. They made the kingdom of Judah strong, and they kept Rehoboam son of Solomon strong for three years, because for those three years they lived the way David and Solomon had lived.

Rehoboam married Mahalath. Her father was Jerimoth son of David, and her mother was Abihail, the daughter of Eliab son of Jesse. She had three sons. After her he married Maacah, Absalom’s granddaughter, and she had Abijah and three more children. Of all his wives and concubines, Rehoboam loved Maacah the most. He took eighteen wives and sixty concubines, and he had twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters.

Rehoboam made Maacah’s son Abijah chief prince among his brothers, because he meant to make him king. And he acted wisely: he sent some of his sons out through all the lands of Judah and Benjamin, to all the fortified towns. He gave them plenty of food, and he looked for many wives for them.