Jeroboam

“ But Jeroboam, the king of the ten tribes, died when he had governed them two and twenty years; whose son Nadab succeeded him, in the second year of the reign of Asa. Now Jeroboam's son governed two years, and resembled his father in impiety and wickedness. In these two years he made an expedition against Gibbethon, a city of the Philistines, and continued the siege in order to take it; but he was conspired against while he was there by a friend of his, whose name was Baasha, the son of Ahijah, and was slain ”

“ Those that are good in bad times and places shine very brightly in the eyes of God. A good child in the house of Jeroboam is a miracle of divine grace: to be there untainted is like being in the fiery furnace unhurt, unsinged. Observe the care taken of him: he only, of all Jeroboam's family, shall die in honour, shall be buried, and shall be lamented as one that lived desired. Note, Those that are distinguished by divine grace shall be distinguished by divine providence. This hopeful child dies first of all the family, for God often takes those soonest whom he loves best. ”

“ Yet Jeroboam had by this time gained all his victories, and never before had the King of Samaria appeared to be more firmly seated on the throne: what, then, did this intruder mean by introducing himself as a messenger of wrath in the name of Jahveh, at the very moment when Jahveh was furnishing His worshippers with abundant signs of His favour? Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, interrupted him as he went on to declare that “Jeroboam should die by the sword, and Israel should surely be led away captive out of his land.” ”

“ Chapter 10
1 And Rehoboam went to Shechem: for to Shechem were all Israel come to make him king.
2 And it came to pass, when Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who was in Egypt, whither he had fled from the presence of Solomon the king, heard it, that Jeroboam returned out of Egypt.
3 And they sent and called him. So Jeroboam and all Israel came and spake to Rehoboam, saying,
4 Thy father made our yoke grievous: now therefore ease thou somewhat the grievous servitude of thy father, and his heavy yoke that he put upon us, and we will serve thee. ”

“ There seems to have been but little religion in Jeroboam's temperament. In every other great national gathering at Shechem and other sacred places we read of religious rites. [480] No mention is made of them, no allusion occurs respecting them, in the assembly to which Jeroboam owed his throne. He might at least have consulted Ahijah, who had given him, when he was still a subject, the Divine promise and sanction of royalty. He might, had he chosen, have followed a higher and purer guidance than that of his own personal misgiving and his own arbitrary will. ”

“ This was fulfilled in Baasha of Issachar, who conspired against Nadab the son of Jeroboam, in the second year of his reign, murdered him and all his family. " But what? Even now. Why do I speak of it as a thing at a distance? It is at the door. It shall be done even now." Sometimes God makes quick work with sinners; he did so with the house of Jeroboam. It was not twenty-four years from his first elevation to the final extirpation of his family.
7. He foretels the judgments which should come upon the people of Israel for conforming to the worship which Jeroboam had established. ”

“ Misfortune had not chilled their zeal: they rallied round Rehoboam and his race with such a persistency that they were enabled to maintain their ground when their richer rivals had squandered their energies and fallen away before their eyes. Jeroboam, indeed, and his successors had never obtained from their people more than a precarious support and a lukewarm devotion: their authority was continually coming into conflict with a tendency to disintegration among the tribes, and they could only maintain their rule by the constant employment of force. ”

“ The king having lost the respect and affection of the nation, the rebellion of Jeroboam was a logical sequence.
I have not read of any king who so belied the promises of his early days, and on whom prosperity produced so fatal an apostasy as Solomon. With all his wisdom and early piety, he became an egotist, a sensualist, and a tyrant. What vanity he displayed before the Queen of Sheba! What a slave he became to wicked women! How disgraceful was his toleration of the gods of Phoenicia and Egypt! ”

“ After he had thought this matter over for some time, Jeroboam took some of his friends and counselers into the secret of his reflections, and they agreed with him. Thereupon he proceeded to establish home rule in religion as in everything else, and his whole course is an exhibition of great shrewdness. It is a pity that so bright an intellect had not been united with a better heart.
He set up objects of worship and established shrines for them at two places in his kingdom, Bethel and Dan. ”

“ When those that set up idols, and keep them up, go to enquire of the Lord, he determines to answer them, not according to the pretensions of their enquiry, but according to the multitude of their idols, Ezek. xiv. 4. So Jeroboam is answered here.
I. The prophet anticipates the enquiry concerning the child, and foretels the ruin of Jeroboam's house for the wickedness of it. No one else durst have carried such a message: a servant would have smothered it, but his own wife cannot be suspected of ill-will to him.
1. God calls himself the Lord God of Israel. ”

“ But Jeroboam, whose name perhaps indicates that he was born in the golden days of Solomon's prosperity, was a youth of vigour and capacity. He made his way from the wretched clay fields of Zeredah to Jerusalem, and there became one of the vast undistinguished gang who were known as "slaves of Solomon." The corvée of many thousands from all parts of Palestine was then engaged in building the Millo and the huge walls and causeway in the valley between Zion and Moriah, which was afterwards known as the Valley of the Cheesemongers (Tyropœon) . ”

“ Jeroboam had a new mantle on, and the prophet took it and tore it into twelve pieces, and gave Jeroboam ten of them.
Then the prophet said this was to show how God was going to tear away ten tribes from Rehoboam, the grandson of David, and give them to Jeroboam, because Solomon was bringing idols in to be worshipped. And he told Jeroboam that all should go well with him, and he would be a great king, and his sons after him, if he would go on serving the Lord, and the Lord only, and would keep from idols.
QUESTIONS.
1. ”

“ He did a great deal of mischief to the multitude, and was injurious to God, who sent the prophet Jehu, and told him beforehand that his whole family should be destroyed, and that he would bring the same miseries on his house which had brought that of Jeroboam to ruin; because when he had been made king by him, he had not requited his kindness, by governing the multitude righteously and religiously; which things, in the first place, tended to their own happiness, and, in the next place, were pleasing to God: that he had imitated this very wicked king Jeroboam ”

“ But tho’ God might appoint Jeroboam to be King, (that is to say, of ten Tribes,) yet God did not appoint him to set up the two Calves in [Pg 185] the two extreme Parts of the Land, viz. in Dan, and in Bethel; that was Jeroboam’s own doing, and done on purpose to keep the People from falling back to Rehoboam, by being obliged to go to Jerusalem to the publick Worship: And the Text adds, Jeroboam made Israel to sin. This was indeed a Master-piece of the Devil’s Policy, and it was effectual to answer the End, nothing could have been more to the Purpose ”

“ But Rehoboam refused to depart from Solomon’s despotic rule, and was tactless enough to send Adoniram, the overseer of the corvée. He was stoned to death, and Rehoboam realizing the temper of the people fled to Jerusalem and prepared for war. Jeroboam became the recognized leader of the northern tribes. ”

“ He did it himself, to make himself look great among the people and to get the reputation of a devout man, also to grace the solemnity of his new festival, with which, it is likely, at this time he joined the feast of the dedication of his altar. 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. ”

“ Jeroboam II. was an evil king, but as a soldier he was one of the greatest in the history of Israel. He extended the territory of the people in every direction. The country was prosperous in a commercial sense as it never had been before. The rich people lived in the most luxurious houses and spent their time in idleness and dissipation. But there was another side to the picture. The poor were terribly oppressed, and there was no such thing as justice. The people worshiped idols and indulged in all kinds of evil practices. ”

“ Rehoboam was a self-willed, godless king who, like some other kings, learned nothing by experience. His kingdom was nearly wrecked at the very beginning of his reign, and was saved much more by the folly of his rival than by his own wisdom. Jeroboam's religious revolution drove all the worshippers of God among the northern kingdom into flight. ”

“ There is nothing improbable in admitting that the tribes should split into two kingdoms, and have different rulers. This has often been the case; but the only way to account for the conduct of Jeroboam is, by concluding that he knew, the whole to be a trick, and that neither Jehovah, nor any other God, had a hand in the putting up or dethroning of Kings. This being admitted, we can see clearly through the whole matter. Jeroboam then would, from policy, set up a new religion, or revive an old one, so as to keep his subjects from mixing with their old acquaintances of the kingdom of Judah. ”

“ Others think it describes the state of the ten tribes (who were now properly called Israel) in the days of Asa. " Now, since Jeroboam set up the calves, though he pretended to honour the God that brought them out of Egypt, yet his idolatry has brought them to downright infidelity; they are without the true God," and no marvel when they were without teaching priests. Jeroboam's priests were not teachers, and thus they came to be without law. It is next to impossible that any thing of religion should be kept up without a preaching ministry. ”

“ Verses 37-39Verses 37-39
The condition on which the kingdom of Jeroboam was to last was the same as that on which Solomon had also been promised the continuance of his throne in 1Ki 3:14; 1Ki 6:12; 1Ki 9:4, namely, faithful observance of the commandments of God. The expression, “be king over all that thy soul desireth,” is explained in what follows by “all Israel.” It is evident from this that Jeroboam had aspired after the throne. On the condition named, the Lord would build him a lasting house, as He had done for David (see at 2Sa 7:16) . ”

“ Ye shall not go up, nor fight against your brethren the children of Israel; return every man to his house; for this thing is of Me.' So they hearkened unto the word of the Lord, and returned and went their way, according to the word of the Lord.
25Then Jeroboam built Shechem in the hill-country of Ephraim, and dwelt therein; and he went out from thence, and built Penuel. 26And Jeroboam said in his heart: 'Now will the kingdom return to the house of David. ”

“ It is true that later prophets and poets, like Hosea and the Psalmist, spoke in scorn of his images as mere "calves," and spoke of him as likening his Maker to "an ox that eateth hay." [477] They even came in due time to regard them as figures of Baal and Astarte, [478] but this view is falsified by the entire annals of the Northern Kingdom from its commencement to its close. Jeroboam was, and always regarded himself as, a worshipper of Jehovah. ”

“ In our own filth drop our clear judgments; make us
Adore our errors; laugh at us while we strut
To our confusion."
The priest tried further to inflame the king's anger by telling him two more of Amos's supposed predictions. He had prophesied (which was a false inference) that Israel should be led away captive out of their own land, [329] and had also prophesied (which was a perversion of the fact) "that Jeroboam should die by the sword."
At the first prophecy Jeroboam probably smiled. It might indeed come true in the long-run. ”

“ He only wishes to put our loyalty to the test." Through such machinations he succeeded in obtaining the signatures of the most pious, even the signature of the prophet Ahijah. Now Jeroboam had the people is his power. He could exact the vilest deeds from them. (9)
So entrenched, Jeroboam brought about the division between Judah and Israel, a consummation which his father, Sheba the son of Bichri, had not been able to compass under David, because God desired to have the Temple erected before the split occurred. ”

“ Entreat - the face of the Lord thy God - The face of God is his favor, as we see in many parts of the sacred writings. He says, thy God; for Jeroboam knew that he was not his God, for he was now in the very act of acknowledging other gods, and had no portion in the God of Jacob.
And the king's hand was restored - Both miracles were wrought to show the truth of the Jewish religion, and to convince this bold innovator of his wickedness, and to reclaim him from the folly and ruinous tendency of his idolatry. ”