1 Kings 12:16-24--The Kingdom Divided

1 Kings 12:16-24
English Standard Version

The Kingdom Divided
16 And when all Israel saw that the king did not listen to them, the people answered the king, “What portion 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, David.” So Israel went to their tents. 17 But Rehoboam reigned over the people of Israel who lived in the cities of Judah. 18 Then King Rehoboam sent Adoram, who was taskmaster over the forced labor, and all Israel stoned him to death with stones. And King Rehoboam hurried to mount his chariot to flee to Jerusalem. 19 So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day. 20 And 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 none that followed the house of David but the tribe of Judah only.

21 When Rehoboam came to Jerusalem, he assembled all the house of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin, 180,000 chosen warriors, to fight against the house of Israel, to restore the kingdom to Rehoboam the son of Solomon. 22 But the word of God came to Shemaiah the man of God: 23 “Say to Rehoboam the son of Solomon, king of Judah, 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 relatives the people of Israel. Every man return to his home, for this thing is from me.’” So they listened to the word of the LORD and went home again, according to the word of the LORD.

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Rehoboam's foolishness will quickly lead to a divided nation in juxtaposition to how his father's wisdom had resulted in a united kingdom full of growth and prosperity.  Only Judah would follow after him at this time (though Benjamin would ally itself with the southern kingdom in due time, and the priests that served in the Temple would still live in the southern kingdom, though their allegiance was to the LORD).  He tried to force the northern ten tribes to be slaves for him, but the people stoned the taskmaster to death, and Rehoboam fled to the safety of his palace in Jerusalem.

This is how the rebellion of the northern ten tribes started and why they followed after Jeroboam.  We'll see next time that Jeroboam will not follow the advice the LORD had given to him and will be afraid that if the people of the northern kingdom have to go to the Temple which is in the southern kingdom, then they might change their allegiance.

Once Rehoboam returned to Jerusalem, both the tribes of Judah and Benjamin provided him with warriors, so Benjamin must have joined the southern kingdom between verse 20 and verse 21.  Rehoboam prepared for war against the northern ten tribes without consulting the LORD first, so the LORD had to send a prophet to Rehoboam and to all the people of Judah and Benjamin to tell them that they were not to go to war against their fellow Israelites and that it was the LORD's will for the nation to be divided like this (as punishment for the sins of Solomon and now of Rehoboam who was following in Solomon's footsteps).  So all the people that had prepared for war listened to the LORD and went home.

Next time we'll see how the rebellion of the northern tribes quickly turns to apostacy and idolatry.  Since worshiping the LORD is part of their identity and they have lost access to the Temple by separating themselves from Jerusalem, they will now try to invent new gods and new religion that will be accepting of their rebellion against the LORD.  They will return to the golden calf that they made when coming out of Egypt and once again proclaim that this idol was the LORD--but the LORD has no form that can be cast into an idol.  He is spirit.  The northern kingdom will also build their own version of the Temple in what we later know to be Samaria (another name that the northern kingdom of Israel will go by).  This will be the theological debate that the woman at the well wants to have with Jesus in John 4 about if the Jews of the southern kingdom or the Samaritans who were the descendants of the ten northern tribes were right in how they worshiped the LORD.  Jesus didn't play that game but said there would be a day that true worshipers of the LORD would worship neither in Jerusalem nor in Samaria, but that they would worship Him in spirit and in truth wherever they were, for the LORD is not contained by Temples like pagan gods (this was one of the first things Solomon realized when the glory of the LORD filled the Temple after he built it--even though it was large and beautiful, not even the entire universe could contain God, not even if we also added in the spiritual dimension of heaven.  Heaven is simply His throne and the earth is His footstool.).