The Dividing Of The Kingdom

by Chris Simmons

David was indeed a man after God’s own heart but his reign of forty years was filled with war and both internal and external conflict. Solomon his son also reigned forty years and was noted for his great wisdom and wealth that God had blessed him with. But Solomon was also noted for the fact that his multiple wives had turned his heart away from following God and he was no longer “wholly devoted to the Lord” (I Kings 11:4). Solomon had compromised his faith in God and had accommodated all of his foreign wives by building places of worship for all of their idolatrous gods (I Kings 11:5-8). For this reason, God was angry with Solomon (I Kings 11:9) and told him that the price for failing to keep God’s covenant and statutes was that He would tear the kingdom away from him and give it to one of his servants. However, because of David and the promises God made to him (II Samuel 7:13-14), God told Solomon that He would not “tear away all the kingdom” but that He would leave one tribe under the leadership of his son. God said in I Kings 11:36, “But to his son I will give one tribe, that My servant David may have a lamp always before Me in Jerusalem, the city where I have chosen for Myself to put My name.”

This servant of Solomon who would receive the kingdom was named Jeroboam. The prophet Ahijah found Jeroboam and, taking a new cloak, tore it into twelve pieces. He then told Jeroboam to “take for yourself ten pieces” and told him God’s message, “I will tear the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon and give you ten tribes (but he will have one tribe, for the sake of My servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel)” (I Kings 11:31-32). The reasons cited by God included the fact that they had “forsaken” Him, they had worshipped foreign idols, and they had rejected God’s ways and refused to do what was right in God’s eyes (verse 33). A door of opportunity was now open before Jeroboam to provide the type of godly leadership that God desired. We read of God’s promise to him in I Kings 11:37-38, “And I will take you, and you shall reign over whatever you desire, and you shall be king over Israel. Then it will be, that if you listen to all that I command you and walk in My ways, and do what is right in My sight by observing My statutes and My commandments, as My servant David did, then I will be with you and build you an enduring house as I built for David, and I will give Israel to you.” The choice and responsibility belonged to Jeroboam.

After Solomon had died, Rehoboam went to Shechem to be crowned king over all Israel. It was Jeroboam that actually presented a request to Rehoboam at the coronation that if he would ease the burden his father Solomon had placed on the people of Israel, then the nation would gladly serve under him (verses 3-4). Rehoboam then “consulted with the elders that had served his father Solomon” (verse 6) who gave him the advice “if you will be a servant to this people today, will serve them, grant them their petition, and speak good words to them, then they will be your servants forever” (verse 7). But Rehoboam rejected their advice and went to his contemporaries, the young men he grew up with, and asked for their opinion. They advised that he reply to the people by saying, “whereas my father loaded you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke; my father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions” (verse 11). Rehoboam’s decision was to reject the wisdom of the elders and the people and follow the advice of his friends by making their burden even more difficult. When facing important decisions in our lives, we need to seek and listen to wise counsel. Solomon his father wrote in Proverbs 12:15, “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man is he who listens to counsel” (cf. Proverbs 1:5). Not all advice is equal and we need the courage and conviction to seek it only from those who will impart to us the “wisdom from above” (James 3:17) rather than the wisdom of men.

After hearing the decision from Rehoboam, the ten tribes decided to follow after Jeroboam (verse 20). The Lord warned Jeroboam not to fight against them because “this thing has come from me” (verse 24). As noted earlier, God had promised to bless Jeroboam, and be with him, if he would walk in God’s ways and do what was right. But no sooner had Jeroboam taken control that he began to turn against serving God. Concerned that the heart of the Israelites would go back to Rehoboam when they returned to worship God in Jerusalem, Jeroboam decided to establish a more convenient form of worship by erecting golden calves in Dan and Bethel declaring “behold your gods, O Israel, that brought you up from the land of Egypt” (verse 28). He changed the place of worship and he changed the priesthood by making priests of men who were not from the tribe of Levi (verse 31). He also changed the substance of the worship by establishing feasts that were “like” the feasts that God had ordained. Because of Jeroboam, Israel now had a new place to worship, a new priesthood and new feasts – all which the scriptures say Jeroboam had “devised in his own heart” (verse 33). Worship that we devise in our own hearts and worship or service of God that is at best “like” what God has specified is simply sinful (verse 30) and will never be accepted by God.

We read then in chapter 13 of a “man of God” who went to Jeroboam and cried against the altars that he had established (verses 2-3). Angered by this, Jeroboam sought to seize this man of God and God caused his hand to be “dried up” so that he could not draw it back to himself (verse 4). Humbled by this miracle, King Jeroboam asked the man of God to entreat the Lord that his hand might be restored – which it was. The king then asked the man of God to return with him to his home in order to reward him but the man of God had already been told by God “you shall eat no bread, nor drink water, nor return by the way which you came” (verse 9) and thus he declined and returned to his own home by another way. While on his way home, an old prophet living in Bethel heard of this man of God and went to intercept him on his journey home. Having found the man of God, the old prophet invited him to come home with him and eat bread. Once again, the man of God recited the Lord’s instructions and declined. But the old prophet then replied that he also was a prophet and that an angel of God had told him to bring him back with him, followed by five critical words – “but he lied to him” (verse 18). The man of God believed the lie, returned with the old prophet and paid with his life (verses 23-25). We must learn from this man of God and learn to love the truth (II Thessalonians 2:10-11) and guard against trusting in what is a lie (Jeremiah 29:31-32). Our life depends on it.

The dividing of the kingdom of Israel teaches us and reminds us of the dangers of:

1. Not being wholly devoted to the Lord,
2. Not having divine authority for our worship because we have devised it in our own hearts,
3. Forsaking wise and godly counsel in our lives, and
4. Not being diligent to search the scriptures daily to see if that which someone is teaching is the truth of God or a lie.