Lesson 1 – The Kingdom Divides

  • Read the Bible Background
  • Material skipped –
    • We are picking up the story with Solomon’s worship of other gods, God’s oracle against Solomon stating the Kingdom will be taken from him and his family. The story tells of Solomon’s death and the taking of the throne by Rehoboam.

 

  • Reading the story
    • Read – 1 Kings 12:1-30
    • This session's Bible story explains the division between the South­ern Kingdom, called Judah, and the Northern Kingdom, called Israel. Check in the back of your Bible for a map of the Divided Kingdoms and the Twelve Tribes. Note which tribes make up each kingdom. Notice the disputed territory of Benjamin on the border. It took several generations to set this border. Israel is north of Benjamin and Judah is to the south.

 

    • Questions to consider

Read 1 Kings 12:1-30. Identify what is happening in this story by use of some or all of these questions:

• At the beginning of the story, Israel gathered at Shechem.
Find the town on the Bible map.
What did they plan to do?

• Compare and contrast the different advice that Rehoboam re­ceived. '
What are the similarities and differences in the content? the reasoning? the motivation?

• What caused the revolt of Israel (the northern tribes)?

• What verses use the phrase "house of David" ? What is being said there by the phrase?

• Why does Jeroboam build a sanctuary at Bethel?

• What are the underlying causes of the division of the kingdom?

Read the additional interpretation of the story from the "Bible Background," beginning at paragraph 4. What new insights do you gain about the story?

 

    • Making the story your own

Ø     Solomon worshipped other gods.  How can we protect ourselves from worshipping other things in a world where so many things compete for our loyalty?

Memory verse: Psalm 127:1

“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.  Unless the Lord guards the city, the guard keeps watch in vain.”

 

Bible Background (taken from Journey through the Bible Book 2, Christian Board of Publications, 1995, p. 9)

Solomon's enterprises were very costly, and the people had to pay for all his luxury. When Solomon died, his son Rehoboam came to the throne. That would have been a perfect time for Rehoboam to ease the tax burden of both the north­ern tribes and the tribes of Benjamin and Judah in the south. If Rehoboam had done so, then the kingdom may have been secure for some time.

2It appears that Rehoboam had intended to take seriously the concerns of the northern tribes, since he had accepted the idea of being designated king in the old tribal center of the north, the city of Shechem. The tribes gathered to designate him king, and his rival, Jeroboam, quickly came to Shechem and urged Rehoboam to ease the burdens of the people. But Rehoboam foolishly listened to the opposite counsel given by some of his advisers. They encouraged the king to show the complainers who was in charge. Jeroboam and his followers were clearly in the right, but Rehoboam said to them, "My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions!" Immediately, the northern tribes went their own way, and a civil war broke out—something that would have been unthinkable during Solomon's day, for he knew how to maintain the peace. Solomon's name means something like "the peaceful one."

3From this point in the books of 1 and 2 Kings, the historian responsible for the story of Israel's life during the time of the divided kingdom works out a system of helping readers to see how unfortunate and destructive this division- of the kingdom actu­ally was. The historian keeps the life of the people of Israel woven together by correlating the history of the two kingdoms. The historian, for example, now turns to the history of Jeroboam's kingdom in the north, and follows that story for a while. But then the historian will pick up the story of the southern kingdom, being careful to tell us who was ruling as king in the north at that time. For Israel's religious leaders, the people of God are one people, though because of their sin they might temporarily be living a divided political and religious life.

4Rehoboam refuses to hear the just complaints of the people, and his kingdom is soon aflame with dissension. Jeroboam is clearly a very talented leader. He has to find some way to keep the north­ern tribes from still going for worship to Jerusalem, so he builds up the sanctuary at Bethel and makes

it a rival place of worship to Jerusalem. He does not have an ark of the covenant like that in Jerusalem, so he uses the powerful image of the young bull, a sign of strength and fertility, as the focus for wor­ship in Bethel and also in the far north at the site named Dan. Jeroboam probably does not intend that the bulls be identified as images of God; they are rather thought of as the pedestal on top of which the invisible deity takes a stand during the central acts of worship. But for the religious leaders of Jerusalem, this bull is a dangerous idol, a represen­tative of God like those the Canaanites use, and to be rejected, just as the golden calf had been rejected at Mount Sinai in the days of Moses and Aaron.

5Jeroboam may have intended that the worship of the God of Israel at Bethel and at Dan would be faithful and authentic. But the use of the fertility image of the young bull was a dangerous practice. It encouraged the people to accept into their wor­ship the idea of a family of gods, like those wor­shiped in the Canaanite towns. The Canaanites worshiped the high god El and his wife Asherah, and their son Baal. In time, the male god Baal and the female deity Asherah became the most impor­tant rivals to the God of Israel, Yahweh, as we will see when we look at the story of Elijah. And this form of worship could easily turn into corrupt and orgiastic religious practices, far removed from the moral demands of faithfulness to God’s covenant, which Israel's religious leaders sought to uphold.

6It is for this reason that the historian who tells us the story of the two kingdoms makes it clear that none of the kings of the north act faithfully to God. What Jeroboam began with the house of worship at Bethel, with its fertility images, becomes a snare to the Israelites, keeping them from the faithful wor­ship of God. This historian also points out that the kings of the Southern Kingdom do not do much better, even though they have the temple of Solomon, the ark of the covenant, and the sacred memory of God's covenant demands and prom­ises. The southern tribes also turn their backs upon God, do not remember to care for the poor or deliver those who are in distress, but amass goods and fortunes for themselves.

7It was a fateful day when Rehoboam turned his back upon the advisers who urged him to be fair and just in his dealings with the people. And it was a fateful day when Jeroboam, in the north, chose the dangerous emblem of the young bull or calf to represent God in the place of worship. It was a terrible day when the people of Israel were divided into two parts. How could their witness to God's justice and love be strong and clear before the nations, if they could not even live with one an­other as one people of God?

 

 

 

 Scripture

1 Kings 11-13          1 Kings 12:1-30 below in yellow 

1 King Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh:

Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women,

2 from the nations concerning which the LORD had said to the Israelites, "You

shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you; for they

will surely incline your heart to follow their gods"; Solomon clung to these in

love.

3 Among his wives were seven hundred princesses and three hundred concubines;

and his wives turned away his heart.

4 For when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods;

and his heart was not true to the LORD his God, as was the heart of his father

David.

5 For Solomon followed Astarte the goddess of the Sidonians, and Milcom the

abomination of the Ammonites.

6 So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and did not completely

follow the LORD, as his father David had done.

7 Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for

Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem.

8 He did the same for all his foreign wives, who offered incense and sacrificed

to their gods.

9 Then the LORD was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from

the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice,

10 and had commanded him concerning this matter, that he should not follow other

gods; but he did not observe what the LORD commanded.

11 Therefore the LORD said to Solomon, "Since this has been your mind and you

have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you, I will

surely tear the kingdom from you and give it to your servant.

12 Yet for the sake of your father David I will not do it in your lifetime; I

will tear it out of the hand of your son.

13 I will not, however, tear away the entire kingdom; I will give one tribe to

your son, for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, which

I have chosen."

14 Then the LORD raised up an adversary against Solomon, Hadad the Edomite; he

was of the royal house in Edom.

15 For when David was in Edom, and Joab the commander of the army went up to

bury the dead, he killed every male in Edom

16 (for Joab and all Israel remained there six months, until he had eliminated

every male in Edom);

17 but Hadad fled to Egypt with some Edomites who were servants of his father.

He was a young boy at that time.

18 They set out from Midian and came to Paran; they took people with them from

Paran and came to Egypt, to Pharaoh king of Egypt, who gave him a house,

assigned him an allowance of food, and gave him land.

19 Hadad found great favor in the sight of Pharaoh, so that he gave him his

sister-in-law for a wife, the sister of Queen Tahpenes.

20 The sister of Tahpenes gave birth by him to his son Genubath, whom Tahpenes

weaned in Pharaoh's house; Genubath was in Pharaoh's house among the children of

Pharaoh.

21 When Hadad heard in Egypt that David slept with his ancestors and that Joab

the commander of the army was dead, Hadad said to Pharaoh, "Let me depart, that

I may go to my own country."

22 But Pharaoh said to him, "What do you lack with me that you now seek to go to

your own country?" And he said, "No, do let me go."

23 God raised up another adversary against Solomon, Rezon son of Eliada, who had

fled from his master, King Hadadezer of Zobah.

24 He gathered followers around him and became leader of a marauding band, after

the slaughter by David; they went to Damascus, settled there, and made him king

in Damascus.

25 He was an adversary of Israel all the days of Solomon, making trouble as

Hadad did; he despised Israel and reigned over Aram.

26 Jeroboam son of Nebat, an Ephraimite of Zeredah, a servant of Solomon, whose

mother's name was Zeruah, a widow, rebelled against the king.

27 The following was the reason he rebelled against the king. Solomon built the

Millo, and closed up the gap in the wall of the city of his father David.

28 The man Jeroboam was very able, and when Solomon saw that the young man was

industrious he gave him charge over all the forced labor of the house of Joseph.

29 About that time, when Jeroboam was leaving Jerusalem, the prophet Ahijah the

Shilonite found him on the road. Ahijah had clothed himself with a new garment.

The two of them were alone in the open country

30 when Ahijah laid hold of the new garment he was wearing and tore it into

twelve pieces.

31 He then said to Jeroboam: Take for yourself ten pieces; for thus says the

LORD, the God of Israel, "See, I am about to tear the kingdom from the hand of

Solomon, and will give you ten tribes.

32 One tribe will remain his, for the sake of my servant David and for the sake

of Jerusalem, the city that I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel.

33 This is because he has forsaken me, worshiped Astarte the goddess of the

Sidonians, Chemosh the god of Moab, and Milcom the god of the Ammonites, and has

not walked in my ways, doing what is right in my sight and keeping my statutes

and my ordinances, as his father David did.

34 Nevertheless I will not take the whole kingdom away from him but will make

him ruler all the days of his life, for the sake of my servant David whom I

chose and who did keep my commandments and my statutes;

35 but I will take the kingdom away from his son and give it to you--that is,

the ten tribes.

36 Yet to his son I will give one tribe, so that my servant David may always

have a lamp before me in Jerusalem, the city where I have chosen to put my name.

37 I will take you, and you shall reign over all that your soul desires; you

shall be king over Israel.

38 If you will listen to all that I command you, walk in my ways, and do what is

right in my sight by keeping my statutes and my commandments, as David my

servant did, I will be with you, and will build you an enduring house, as I

built for David, and I will give Israel to you.

39 For this reason I will punish the descendants of David, but not forever."

40 Solomon sought therefore to kill Jeroboam; but Jeroboam promptly fled to

Egypt, to King Shishak of Egypt, and remained in Egypt until the death of

Solomon.

41 Now the rest of the acts of Solomon, all that he did as well as his wisdom,

are they not written in the Book of the Acts of Solomon?

42 The time that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years.

43 Solomon slept with his ancestors and was buried in the city of his father

David; and his son Rehoboam succeeded him.

 

 

 

 

(1 Kings 12:1-33)

1 Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had come to Shechem to make him king.

2 When Jeroboam son of Nebat heard of it (for he was still in Egypt, where he

had fled from King Solomon), then Jeroboam returned from Egypt.

3 And they sent and called him; and Jeroboam and all the assembly of Israel came

and said to Rehoboam,

4 "Your father made our yoke heavy. Now therefore lighten the hard service of

your father and his heavy yoke that he placed on us, and we will serve you."

5 He said to them, "Go away for three days, then come again to me." So the

people went away.

6 Then King Rehoboam took counsel with the older men who had attended his father

Solomon while he was still alive, saying, "How do you advise me to answer this

people?"

7 They answered him, "If you will be a servant to this people today and serve

them, and speak good words to them when you answer them, then they will be your

servants forever."

8 But he disregarded the advice that the older men gave him, and consulted with

the young men who had grown up with him and now attended him.

9 He said to them, "What do you advise that we answer this people who have said

to me, 'Lighten the yoke that your father put on us'?"

10 The young men who had grown up with him said to him, "Thus you should say to

this people who spoke to you, 'Your father made our yoke heavy, but you must

lighten it for us'; thus you should say to them, 'My little finger is thicker

than my father's loins.

11 Now, whereas my father laid on you a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. My

father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.'"

12 So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third day, as the king

had said, "Come to me again the third day."

13 The king answered the people harshly. He disregarded the advice that the

older men had given him

14 and spoke to them according to the advice of the young men, "My father made

your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke; my father disciplined you with

whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions."

15 So the king did not listen to the people, because it was a turn of affairs

brought about by the LORD that he might fulfill his word, which the LORD had

spoken by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam son of Nebat.

16 When all Israel saw that the king would not listen to them, the people

answered the king, "What share do we have in David? We have no inheritance in

the son of Jesse. To your tents, O Israel! Look now to your own house, O David."

So Israel went away to their tents.

17 But Rehoboam reigned over the Israelites who were living in the towns of

Judah.

18 When King Rehoboam sent Adoram, who was taskmaster over the forced labor, all

Israel stoned him to death. King Rehoboam then hurriedly mounted his chariot to

flee to Jerusalem.

19 So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day.

20 When all Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, they sent and called him to

the assembly and made him king over all Israel. There was no one who followed

the house of David, except the tribe of Judah alone.

21 When Rehoboam came to Jerusalem, he assembled all the house of Judah and the

tribe of Benjamin, one hundred eighty thousand chosen troops to fight against

the house of Israel, to restore the kingdom to Rehoboam son of Solomon.

22 But the word of God came to Shemaiah the man of God:

23 Say to King Rehoboam of Judah, son of Solomon, and to all the house of Judah

and Benjamin, and to the rest of the people,

24 "Thus says the LORD, You shall not go up or fight against your kindred the

people of Israel. Let everyone go home, for this thing is from me." So they

heeded the word of the LORD and went home again, according to the word of the

LORD.

25 Then Jeroboam built Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and resided

there; he went out from there and built Penuel.

26 Then Jeroboam said to himself, "Now the kingdom may well revert to the house

of David.

27 If this people continues to go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the

LORD at Jerusalem, the heart of this people will turn again to their master,

King Rehoboam of Judah; they will kill me and return to King Rehoboam of Judah."

28 So the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold. He said to the people,

"You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Here are your gods, Oisrael, who

brought you up out of the land of Egypt."

29 He set one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan.

30 And this thing became a sin, for the people went to worship before the one at

Bethel and before the other as far as Dan.

31 He also made houses on high places, and appointed priests from among all the

people, who were not Levites.

32 Jeroboam appointed a festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth month like

the festival that was in Judah, and he offered sacrifices on the altar; so he

did 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.

33 He went up to the altar that he had made in Bethel on the fifteenth day in

the eighth month, in the month that he alone had devised; he appointed a

festival for the people of Israel, and he went up to the altar to offer incense.

 

 

 

(1 Kings 13:1-34)

1 While Jeroboam was standing by the altar to offer incense, a man of God came

out of Judah by the word of the LORD to Bethel

2 and proclaimed against the altar by the word of the LORD, and said, "O altar,

altar, thus says the LORD: 'A son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by

name; and he shall sacrifice on you the priests of the high places who offer

incense on you, and human bones shall be burned on you.'"

3 He gave a sign the same day, saying, "This is the sign that the LORD has

spoken: 'The altar shall be torn down, and the ashes that are on it shall be

poured out.'"

4 When the king heard what the man of God cried out against the altar at Bethel,

Jeroboam stretched out his hand from the altar, saying, "Seize him!" But the

hand that he stretched out against him withered so that he could not draw it

back to himself.

5 The altar also was torn down, and the ashes poured out from the altar,

according to the sign that the man of God had given by the word of the LORD.

6 The king said to the man of God, "Entreat now the favor of the LORD your God,

and pray for me, so that my hand may be restored to me.  " So the man of God

entreated the LORD; and the king's hand was restored to him, and became as it

was before.

7 Then the king said to the man of God, "Come home with me and dine, and I will

give you a gift."

8 But the man of God said to the king, "If you give me half your kingdom, I will

not go in with you; nor will I eat food or drink water in this place.

9 For thus I was commanded by the word of the LORD: You shall not eat food, or

drink water, or return by the way that you came."

10 So he went another way, and did not return by the way that he had come to

Bethel.

11 Now there lived an old prophet in Bethel. One of his sons came and told him

all that the man of God had done that day in Bethel; the words also that he had

spoken to the king, they told to their father.

12 Their father said to them, "Which way did he go?" And his sons showed him the

way that the man of God who came from Judah had gone.

13 Then he said to his sons, "Saddle a donkey for me." So they saddled a donkey

for him, and he mounted it.

14 He went after the man of God, and found him sitting under an oak tree. He

said to him, "Are you the man of God who came from Judah?" He answered, "I am."

15 Then he said to him, "Come home with me and eat some food."

16 But he said, "I cannot return with you, or go in with you; nor will I eat

food or drink water with you in this place;

17 for it was said to me by the word of the LORD: You shall not eat food or

drink water there, or return by the way that you came."

18 Then the other said to him, "I also am a prophet as you are, and an angel

spoke to me by the word of the LORD: Bring him back with you into your house so

that he may eat food and drink water." But he was deceiving him.

19 Then the man of God went back with him, and ate food and drank water in his

house.

20 As they were sitting at the table, the word of the LORD came to the prophet

who had brought him back;

21 and he proclaimed to the man of God who came from Judah, "Thus says the LORD:

Because you have disobeyed the word of the LORD, and have not kept the

commandment that the LORD your God commanded you,

22 but have come back and have eaten food and drunk water in the place of which

he said to you, 'Eat no food, and drink no water,' your body shall not come to

your ancestral tomb."

23 After the man of God had eaten food and had drunk, they saddled for him a

donkey belonging to the prophet who had brought him back.

24 Then as he went away, a lion met him on the road and killed him. His body was

thrown in the road, and the donkey stood beside it; the lion also stood beside

the body.

25 People passed by and saw the body thrown in the road, with the lion standing

by the body. And they came and told it in the town where the old prophet lived.

26 When the prophet who had brought him back from the way heard of it, he said,

"It is the man of God who disobeyed the word of the LORD;  therefore the LORD

has given him to the lion, which has torn him and killed him according to the

word that the LORD spoke to him."

27 Then he said to his sons, "Saddle a donkey for me." So they saddled one,

28 and he went and found the body thrown in the road, with the donkey and the

lion standing beside the body. The lion had not eaten the body or attacked the

donkey.

29 The prophet took up the body of the man of God, laid it on the donkey, and

brought it back to the city, to mourn and to bury him.

30 He laid the body in his own grave; and they mourned over him, saying, "Alas,

my brother!"

31 After he had buried him, he said to his sons, "When I die, bury me in the

grave in which the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones.

32 For the saying that he proclaimed by the word of the LORD against the altar

in Bethel, and against all the houses of the high places that are in the cities

of Samaria, shall surely come to pass."

33 Even after this event Jeroboam did not turn from his evil way, but made

priests for the high places again from among all the people;  any who wanted to

be priests he consecrated for the high places.

34 This matter became sin to the house of Jeroboam, so as to cut it off and to

destroy it from the face of the earth.

 

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