21 24<\/strong>. Rehoboam prepares to make war on Israel but this is forbidden by the Prophet Shemaiah (2Ch 11:1-4<\/span>)<\/p>\n 21<\/strong>. all the house of Judah, with the tribe of Benjamin<\/em> ] Called in 2 Chron. ‘the house of Judah and Benjamin.’ Thus Benjamin is shewn to have been, as it were, reckoned with Judah rather than as a separate tribe.<\/p>\n an hundred and fourscore thousand<\/em> ] The LXX. gives the number as 120,000. Though apparently enormous, neither number is excessive when we recall Joab’s numbering (2Sa 24:9<\/span>), at which time the men of Judah were found to be 500,000. But subsistence for so large a population must have been very difficult to find in so small a state.<\/p>\n The adhesion of Benjamin to Judah at this time comes upon us as a surprise. By blood Benjamin was far more closely connected with Ephraim than with Judah. All the traditions of Benjamin were antagonistic to Judah, and hitherto the weak tribe had been accustomed to lean constantly on its strong northern neighhour. But it would seem that, in the half-century which had elapsed since the revolt of Sheba, the son of Bichri 2Sa 20:1<\/span>, the feelings of the Benjamites had undergone a complete change. This is best accounted for by the establishment of the religious and political capital at Jerusalem, on the border line of the two tribes Jos 15:8<\/span>; Jos 18:16<\/span>, from where it resulted that the new metropolis stood partly within the territory of either, and was in a certain sense common to both. One of the gates of Jerusalem was the high gate of Benjamin Jer 20:2<\/span>; and probably Benjamites formed a considerable part of the population. The whole tribe also, we may well believe, was sincerely attached to the temple worship, in which they could participate far more freely and more constantly than the members of remoter tribes, and to which the habits of forty years had now accustomed them.<\/P> On the number of the Israelites, see Exo 12:37<\/span>, notes; and 2Sa 24:9<\/span>, notes. The number mentioned here is moderate, compared with the numbers given both previously and subsequently 2Ch 13:3<\/span>; 2Ch 17:14-18<\/span>.<\/P><\/p>\n With the tribe of Benjamin, <\/B>i.e. that part of it which was next to Judah, and joined with them. See Poole “1Ki 11:13<\/span>“. <\/P> Against the house of Israel, <\/B>i.e. the families or tribes (for these words are promiscuously used one for the other) of Israel. <\/P> <\/p>\n And when Rehoboam was come to Jerusalem<\/strong>, e.] From Shechem, which was forty miles n from Jerusalem:<\/p>\n he assembled all the house of Judah, with the tribe of Benjamin, an hundred and fourscore thousand chosen men, which were warriors, to fight against the house of Israel, to bring the kingdom again to Rehoboam the son of Solomon<\/strong> which not only shows courage reassumed by Rehoboam, now safely home, but the hearty attachment of Judah and Benjamin to him, who raised presently so numerous an army in his favour; and had it not been that the Lord was against their going to battle with Israel, in all probability they might have gained their point, Jeroboam being scarcely settled in his kingdom, and having no forces raised.<\/p>\n n Reland. Palestin. Illustrat. tom. 2. p. 1007.<\/p>\n 1Ki 12:21-24<\/span> AND <\/strong>2Ch 11:1-14<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n War Forbidden, <\/p>\n Upon returning to Jerusalem King Rehoboam still had intentions of compelling the return of the northern tribes to his rule. He had some remarkable advantages. He began by assembling the trained army, consisting of 180,000 very capable warriors. In addition Rehoboam also had the advantage of support on the part of the more godly people. Their allegiance was to the temple and the system of worship established by David and Solomon in the capital, Jerusalem. From material aspects it looked favorable for Rehoboam to force the return of the northern tribes.<\/p>\n But this was not in accord with the Lord’s will, who made His will apparent by sending the prophet Shemaiah to the king with His message. It forbade his going up against the northern tribes, “his brethren”, for the thing was of the Lord, or in accordance with His will. the warriors of Judah and Benjamin were to be sent back to their houses. The peaceful acquiescence of the king and people with the Lord’s command is a measure of the king’s early character, which was nearer to the will of God than later. This may have been because of a felt need for the Lord during these disturbing times more so than in later days.<\/p>\n At this point begins a more detailed accounting in the Scriptures of the things concerning the kingdom of Judah in Chronicles than in Kings. From this point many events of the kingdom of Judah will be related only in Chronicles, while practically nothing of the events of the northern kingdom will be recorded in Chronicles. Because of the Levitical concern for the continuance of the temple service and related things, and for the Messianic kingly line, the Chronicles were written and preserved following the Babylonian captivity of Judah, when the northern kingdom had long before ceased to exist.<\/p>\n Though he could not go to war with the northern tribes by the prohibition of the Lord, Rehoboam did not trust Jeroboam not to attack him. He set about, using some of the country’s great wealth no doubt, to fortify many of the chief cities of his realm. These numbered fifteen scattered all over the land. Two of them, A-alon and Zorah were on the northwestern frontier with Israel, others were in the strategic areas of the Philistine plain and approaches of Egypt, while the majority were in the southern areas. Jerusalem was a formidable obstacle itself in any invasion from the north, and the fortified cities would be in the more likely places the enemy might strike.<\/p>\n Rehoboam staffed the cities with men and captains, and stored for them food supplies and war materiel. These factors, together with the allegiance of the two most outstanding tribes, except Ephraim, placed Rehoboam in an appreciable advantage in any confrontation with Jeroboam. Beside this he might have also. laid claim to having the Lord. on his side. Jeroboam’s new religious organization dispossessed the priests and Levites of the northern area, who then moved in wholesale numbers from their former possessions into Jerusalem and Judah. It was a godly move to disassociate themselves from Jeroboam’s idolatry (2Co 6:17<\/span>).<\/p>\n D. THE RESPONSE OF REHOBOAM 12:2124<\/p>\n TRANSLATION<\/strong><\/p>\n (21) Now Rehoboam came to Jerusalem and assembled the house of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin, a hundred eighty thousand chosen men who were warriors, to fight with the house of Israel, to cause the kingdom to return to Rehoboam the son of Solomon. (22) But the word of God came unto Shemaiah the man of God, saying, (23) Say unto Rehoboam the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and unto all the house of Judah and Benjamin, and the rest of the people, saying, (24) Thus says the LORD: Do not go up and fight with your brethren the house of Israel. Return each one to his house, for this thing has come from Me. And they hearkened to the word of the LORD, and turned, and departed according to the word of the LORD.<\/strong><\/p>\n COMMENTS<\/strong><\/p>\n Rehoboam was determined to crush the Northern uprising with military force. To this end he gathered his forces from Judah and Benjamin. The figure of a hundred eighty thousand men (1Ki. 12:21<\/span>) is not an overstatement in view of the fact that Davids census found some five hundred thousand men in Judah(IIS24:9).[324]<\/p>\n [324] Some commentators have tried to reduce the size of this army by suggesting that the Hebrew word eleph may mean tribal division as well as thousand. Thus Rehoboam mustered a hundred eighty tribal divisions. Calculating two hundred men to a division, he would have had about thirty-six thousand men in his army. See Honor, JCBR, p. 184. This theory regarding the meaning of eleph will not bear the test of careful investigation throughout the Old Testament.<\/p>\n Whereas Rehoboam wanted to fight for the unity of his kingdom, God had other plans. Shemaiah the man of God (1Ki. 12:22<\/span>) was sent to the king and the loyalists with a divine prohibition (1Ki. 12:23<\/span>). The term man of God is a favorite expression of the author of Kings to designate servants of the Lord, particularly prophets. The remnant of the people of 1Ki. 12:23<\/span> are the children of Israel who lived in Judah and remained loyal to the crown. Shemaiah,[325] in the name of the Lord, ordered a halt to the planned invasion of the North, and ordered every soldier to return to his house. Two reasons were cited for this order. The Northern tribes were still the brethren of those who lived in the South. Furthermore, this national disruption was God-ordained. Thus a prophet of Judah (Shemaiah) confirmed what a prophet of Israel (Ahijah) had announced. Because of this prophetic prohibition, the men of Judah called off the planned attack on the North and returned to their homes (1Ki. 12:24<\/span>).[326]<\/p>\n [325] Shemaiah was the historian of Rehoboams reign (2Ch. 12:15<\/span>).<\/p>\n [326] At this point the Septuagint (Greek version) inserts a long addition which differs from and contradicts the Hebrew account in several particulars. Rawlinson (BC, II, S6ff.) has demonstrated conclusively that this Greek addition is a compilation of a later date, is untrustworthy, and certainly has no right to a place in the canonical Scriptures.<\/p>\n 21<\/strong>. <\/strong> With the tribe of Benjamin <\/strong> It was natural that this tribe, lying as it did upon the border of Judah, and having Jerusalem, the royal city of David, even within its own territory, should adhere to the southern kingdom.<\/p>\n (21) And when Rehoboam was come to Jerusalem, he assembled all the house of Judah, with the tribe of Benjamin, an hundred and fourscore thousand chosen men, which were warriors, to fight against the house of Israel, to bring the kingdom again to Rehoboam the son of Solomon. (22) But the word of God came unto Shemaiah the man of God, saying, (23) Speak unto Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and unto all the house of Judah and Benjamin, and to the remnant of the people, saying, (24) Thus saith the LORD, Ye shall not go up, nor fight against your brethren the children of Israel: return every man to his house; for this thing is from me. They hearkened therefore to the word of the LORD, and returned to depart, according to the word of the LORD.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Let the Reader remark also here how the Lord overruled the minds of his people, and kept them from slaughter by the ministry of his servant Shemaiah.<\/p>\n 1Ki 12:21 And when Rehoboam was come to Jerusalem, he assembled all the house of Judah, with the tribe of Benjamin, an hundred and fourscore thousand chosen men, which were warriors, to fight against the house of Israel, to bring the kingdom again to Rehoboam the son of Solomon.<\/p>\n Ver. 21. To fight against the house of Israel.<\/strong> ] But this was not the way now; since the counsel of the Lord, that must stand. Rehoboam should rather have taken up such a motto, as afterwards Otho II. Emperor of Germany did, Pacem cum hominibus, cum vitiis bellum; <\/em> Let us quarrel with our friends, a<\/em> and not with our fellow creatures. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n a<\/em> [Sic. (?) Faults.]<\/p>\n an hundred, &c. 180,000. In David’s time there were 470,000. See note on 2Sa 24:9. <\/p>\n when Rehoboam: 2Ch 11:1-3 <\/p>\n an hundred: 1Ch 21:5, 2Ch 14:8, 2Ch 14:11, 2Ch 17:14-19, Pro 21:30, Pro 21:31 <\/p>\n Reciprocal: Deu 33:12 – The beloved 2Ki 10:3 – fight for<\/p>\n A FUTILE ENDEAVOUR<\/p>\n And when Rehoboam was come to Jerusalem, he assembled all the house of Judah, with the tribe of Benjamin, to bring the kingdom again to Rehoboam the son of Solomon.<\/p>\n 1Ki 12:21-24<\/p>\n I. We must not suppose that the sentence which affirms that this great calamity of the rending of the kingdom was from the Lord is an isolated one, or that it can be explained into some general notion that all mens doings, good or evil, may be attributed to an omnipotent Ruler. In III. The setting up of the calves shows us why the separation of the kingdoms was a thing from the Lord.It asserted the real dignity of Jerusalem as the place in which it had pleased God to put His name; it asserted the real unity of the nation to be, not in a king, but in the King; it showed that the only basis of any political fellowship of the tribes lay in that name which was revealed to the first father of them.<\/p>\n Rev. F. D. Maurice.<\/p>\n Illustrations<\/p>\n (1) Learn the duty of submitting to Divine judgments. The Lord forbade Rehoboam to go to war to crush this rebellion, announcing clearly that this rending of the kingdom was a judgment upon sin. When we have done wrong and are suffering, it is our duty, in patience and humility, to accept the penalty, and submit ourselves to the righteous hand of God.<\/p>\n (2) It is interesting to notice that while the kingdom of David had failed of its best through mans fault and sin, it was not altogether cast off. The vessel had not come out what the potter first intended it to beit had been marred on the wheel; but he made it again another vessel, not so fine as the first would have been, but still a good vessel. The kingdom had a second chance. From the seed of David came at length the Messiah. There is encouragement in this for all who miss their first and best chance. They may try again, and their life may yet realise much honour and beauty. When we think of it, most of the worthy lives of good men in the Bible were second chances. They failed, and then God let them try again. David himself, and Peter and Jonah and Paul are illustrations.<\/p>\n (3) A man succeeding to the throne, in the prime of life, ought to have had clear notions of the policy he meant to pursue, especially as he had been brought up at the court, and in the home, of the wisest king of the age. Instead of this he seemed dazed and helpless, turning hither and thither for advice. Feebleness of character, like that, has serious issues. A well-meaning youth, who adapts himself to the society he happens to fall into, is in moral danger. Gird yourselves early in life to earnest thought and prayerful resolve.<\/p>\n (4) The house of David had already grown corrupt, having passed its splendid prime, and was now about to suffer the fate of corrupt things, to fall in ruins. It is a natural Divine law. The only eternal things are righteousness and love and the worship of the true God, and the only lasting are those in which the Spirit of God is. The revolution sprang, as always, from the people, who suffer most from the weight of a tyranny. The later government of Solomon had apparently been oppressive. The accumulation of wealth and the growth of luxury in the hands of the king and nobles had their usual consequences in heavy burdens and misery upon the common people. Great possessions and vast riches in a nation are signs neither of health nor of progress.<\/p>\n 12:21 And when Rehoboam was come to Jerusalem, he {h} assembled all the house of Judah, with the tribe of Benjamin, an hundred and fourscore thousand chosen men, which were warriors, to fight against the house of Israel, to bring the kingdom again to Rehoboam the son of Solomon.<\/p>\n (h) For as yet he did not realize that the Lord had so appointed it.<\/p>\n Rehoboam’s reprisal 12:21-24<\/span><\/p>\n Rehoboam’s pride led him into further trouble. He wanted to start a civil war to recapture the throne. Benjamin joined with Judah at this time and remained allied from then on (cf. 2Sa 19:16-17). God had to intervene through a prophet to get Rehoboam to turn back (1Ki 12:22-24). The term "man of God" is synonymous with prophet (cf. 1Ki 13:18; 2Ki 5:8; 2Ch 12:5). [Note: See Wiseman, pp. 142-43, for a short note on the term as it appears in Scripture.] <\/span> To his credit Rehoboam obeyed God.<\/p>\n "Shemaiah’s message goes against the perceived national interest, opposes a popular cause, and stifles the impulse to avenge wounded pride. But Shemaiah was a man of God before he was a man of Judah. His loyalty to God transcended that to king and country. His identity came from his relationship to God, not from society. He served God rather than the state. In short, he was a prophet." [Note: Rice, p. 103.] <\/span><\/p>\n "Rehoboam is harsh, despotic, and autocratic, but the worst part is that he is also stupid and incompetent." [Note: DeVries, p. 159.] <\/span><\/p>\n There were several reasons for the division of the kingdom. The primary one was Solomon’s apostasy. However, tribal jealousy, sectionalism, and Solomon’s exploitation of the people were contributing causes. [Note: Wayne Brindle, "The Causes of the Division of Israel’s Kingdom," Bibliotheca Sacra 141:563 (July-September 1984):223-33.] <\/span><\/p>\n “JEROBOAM THE SON OF NEBAT, WHO MADE ISRAEL TO SIN”<\/p>\n 1Ki 12:21-23.<\/p>\n “For from Israel is even this; the workman made it and it is no god: yea, the calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces.”<\/p>\n – Hos 8:6<\/p>\n THE condemnation of the first king of Israel sounds like a melancholy and menacing refrain through the whole history of the Northern Kingdom. Let us consider the extent and nature of his crime; for though the condemnation is most true if we judge merely by the issue of Jeroboams acts a mans guilt cannot always be measured by the immensity of its unforeseen consequences, nor can his actions and intentions be always fairly judged after the lapse of centuries. The moral judgments recorded in the Book of Kings concerning legal and ritual offences are measured by the standard of mens consciences nearly a century after Josiahs Reformation in B.C. 623, not by that which prevailed in B.C. 937, when Jeroboam came to the throne. It seems clear that, even in the opinion of his contemporaries, Jeroboam was unfaithful to the duties of the call which he had received from God; but it would be an error to suppose that his sin was, in itself, so heinous as those of which both Solomon and Rehoboam and other kings of Judah were guilty. “Calf-worship,” as it was contemptuously called in later days, did not present itself as “calf-worship” to Jeroboam or his people. To them it was only the more definite adoration of Jehovah under the guise of the cherubic emblem which Solomon had himself enshrined in the Temple and Moses himself had sanctioned in the Tabernacle. There is not a word to show that they were cognizant of the book which had narrated the fierce reprobation by Moses of Aarons “golden calf” in the wilderness. Jeroboams chief sin was not that as a king he tolerated, or even set up, a sort of idolatry, but that he induced the whole body of his subjects to share in his evil innovations.<\/p>\n The charge brought against him was threefold. First, he set up the golden calves at Dan and Bethel. Secondly, he “made priests from among all the people, which were not of the sons of Levi.” Thirdly, he established his “harvest feast” not on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, which was the Feast of Tabernacles, but on the fifteenth day of the eighth month. In estimating these sins let us endeavor-for it is a sacred duty-to be just.<\/p>\n 1. We read in the Authorized Version that “he made priests of the lowest of the people,” and this tends to increase the prejudice against him. But to have done this willfully would have been entirely against his own interests. The more honorable his priests were, the more was his new worship likely to succeed. The Hebrew only says that “he made priests of all classes of the people,” or, as the Revised Version renders it, “from among all the people.” No doubt this would appear to have been a heinous innovation, judged from the practice of later ages; it is not clear that it was equally so in the days of Jeroboam. If David, unrebuked, made his sons priests; if Ira the Ithrite was a priest; if Solomon, by his own fiat, altered the succession of the priesthood; if Solomon (no less than Jeroboam) arrogated to himself priestly functions on public occasions, the opinion as to priestly rights may not have existed in the days of Jeroboam, or may only have existed in an infinitely weaker form than in the days of the post-exilic chronicler. An incidental notice in another book shows us that in Dan, at any rate, he did not disturb the Levitic ministry. There the descendants of Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the grandson of Moses, continued their priestly functions from the day when that unworthy descendant of the mighty lawgiver was seduced to conduct a grossly irregular cult for a few shillings a year, down to the day when the golden calf at Dan was carried away by Tiglath-Pileser, King of Assyria. If the Levites preferred to abide by the ministrations of Jerusalem, and migrated in large numbers to the south, Jeroboam may have held that necessity compelled him to appoint priests who were not of the House of Levi. Neither for this, nor for his new feast of Tabernacles, nor for the calf-worship, were the kings of Israel condemned (so far as is recorded) even by such mighty prophets as Elijah and Elisha.<\/p>\n In choosing Dan and Bethel as the seats for his new altars, the king was not actuated by purely arbitrary considerations. They were ancient and venerated shrines of pilgrimage and worship {Jdg 18:30; Jdg 20:18; Jdg 20:26 1Sa 10:3} He did not create any sacredness which was not already attached to them in the popular imagination. In point of fact he would have served the ends of a worldly policy much better if he had chosen Shechem; for Dan and Bethel were the two farthest parts of his kingdom. Dan was in constant danger from the Syrians, and Bethel, which is only twelve miles from Jerusalem, more than once fell into the hands of the kings of Judah, though they neither retained possession of it, nor disturbed the shrines, nor threw down the “calf” of the new worship. Jeroboam could not have created the “calf-worship” if he had not found everything prepared for its acceptance. Dan had been, since the earliest days, the seat of a chapelry and ephod served by the lineal descendants of Moses in unbroken succession; Bethel was associated with some of the nations holiest memories since the days of their forefather Israel.<\/p>\n 2. Again, if in Jeroboams day the Priestly Code was in existence, he was clearly guilty of unjustifiable willfulness in altering the time for observing the Feast of Tabernacles from the seventh to the eighth month. But if there be little or no contemporary trace of any observation of the Feast of Tabernacles-if, as Nehemiah tells us, it had not once been properly observed from the days of Joshua to his own, or if Jeroboam was unaware of any sacred legislation on the subject-the writers of the tenth century may have judged too severely the fixing of a date for the Feast of Ingathering, which may have seemed more suitable to the conditions of the northern and western tribes. For in parts of that region the harvest ripens a month earlier than in Judah, and the festival was meant to be kept at the season of harvest.<\/p>\n 3. These, however, were but incidental and subordinate matters compared with the setting up of the golden calves.<\/p>\n Jeroboam felt that if his people flocked to do sacrifice at the new and gorgeous Temple in Jerusalem they would return to their old monarchy and put him to death. He wished to avoid the fate of Ishbosheth {2Sa 4:7} He believed that he should be doing both a popular and a politic act if he saved them from the burden of this long journey and again decentralized the cult which Solomon had so recently centralized. He determined, therefore, to furnish the Ten Tribes with high places, and temples of high places, and objects of worship which might rival the golden cherubim of Zion, and be honored with festal music and royal pomp.<\/p>\n He never dreamed either of apostatizing from Jehovah, or of establishing the worship of idols. He broke the Second Commandment under pretence of helping the people to keep the first. The images which he set up were not meant to be substitutes for the one God, the God of their fathers, the God who had brought them from the land of Egypt; they were regarded as figures of Jehovah under the well understood and universally adopted emblem of a young bull, the symbol of fertility and strength. Some have fancied that he was influenced by his Egyptian reminiscences, and perhaps by Ano, his traditional Egyptian bride. This is an obvious error. In Egypt living bulls were worshipped under the names of Apis and Mnevis, not idol-figures. Egyptian gods would have been strange reminders of Him who delivered His people from Egyptian tyranny. It would have been insensate, by quoting the very words of Aaron, to recall to the minds of the people the disasters which had followed the worship of the golden calf in the wilderness. Beyond all question, Jeroboam neither did nor would have dreamed of bidding his whole people to abandon their faith and worship Egyptian idols, which never found any favor among the Israelites. He only encouraged, them to worship Jehovah under the form of the cherubim. Whatever may have been the aspect of the cherubim in the Oracle of the Temple, cherubic emblems appeared profusely amid its ornamentation, and the most conspicuous object in its courts was the molten sea, supported on the backs of twelve bulls. 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.” They even came in due time to regard them as figures of Baal and Astarte, 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. He named his son and destined successor Abijah (“Jehovah is my Father”). Rehoboam himself was a far worse offender than he was, so far as the sanction of idolatry was concerned. <\/p>\n And yet he sinned, and yet he made Israel to sin. It is true that he did not sin against the full extent of the light and knowledge vouchsafed to men in later days. The sift of which he was guilty was the sin of worldly policy. With professions of religion on his lips he pandered to the rude and sensuous instinct which makes materialism in worship so much more attractive to all weak minds than spirituality. Proclaiming as his motive the rights of the people, he accelerated their religious degeneracy. “The means to strengthen or ruin the civil power,” says Lowth, “is either to establish or destroy the right worship of God. The way to destroy religion is to embrace the dispenser of it. This is to give the royal stamp to a piece of lead.” If we may trust to Jewish tradition, there were some families in Israel who, though they clung to their old homes, and would not migrate to the south, yet refused to worship what is, not quite justly, called “the heifer Baal.” The legendary Tobit (1. 4-7) boasts that “when all the tribes of Naphthali fell from the house of Jerusalem and sacrificed to the heifer Baal I alone went often to Jerusalem at the feasts,” and, in general, observed the provisions of the Levitic law. <\/p>\n There seems to have been but little religion in Jeroboams temperament. In every other great national gathering at Shechem and other sacred places we read of religious rites. {1Sa 10:19; 2Sa 5:1-3; 1Ki 8:1-5} 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 Abijah, 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. The error which he committed was this-he trusted in policy, not in the Living God. “It was,” says Dean Stanley, “precisely the policy of Abder-Rahman, Caliph of Spain, when he arrested the movement of his subjects to Mecca, by the erection of a Holy Place of the Zeca at Cordova, and of Abd-el-Malik when he built the Dome of the Rock at Jerusalem, because of his quarrel with the authorities at Mecca.” He was not guilty of revolt, for he acted under prophetic sanction; nor of idolatry, for he did not abandon the worship of Jehovah; but he broke the unity and tampered with the spiritual conception of the national worship. From worshipping God under a gross material symbol, the Israelites gradually learnt to worship other gods altogether; and the venerable sanctuaries of Dan and Bethel prepared the way for the temples of Ashtaroth and Bethel at Samaria and Jezreel. The religion of the kingdom of Israel at last sank lower than that of the kingdom of Judah against which it had revolted. The sin of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, is the sin again and again repeated in the policy, half-worldly, half religious, which has prevailed through large tracts of ecclesiastical history. Many are the forms of worship which, with high pretensions, have been nothing else but so many various and opposite ways of breaking the Second Commandment. Many a time has the end been held to justify the means, and the Divine character been degraded by the pretence, or even the sincere intention, of upholding His cause, for the sake of secular aggrandizement; for the sake of binding together good systems, which it was feared would otherwise fall to pieces; for the sake of supporting the faith of the multitude for fear they should otherwise fall away to rival sects, or lest the enemy should come and take away their place and nation. False arguments have been used in support of religious truths, false miracles promulgated or tolerated, false readings in the sacred text defended And so the faith of mankind has been undermined by the very means intended to preserve it. The whole subsequent history is a record of the mode by which, with the best intentions, a Church and nation may be corrupted.<\/p>\n This view of Dean Stanley is confirmed by another wise teacher, Professor F.D. Maurice. Jeroboam, he says, <\/p>\n “did not trust the Living God. He thought, not that his kingdom stood upon a Divine foundation, but that it was to be upheld by certain Divine props and sanctions. The two doctrines seem closely akin. Many regard them as identical. In truth there is a whole heaven between them. The king who believes that his kingdom has a Divine foundation confesses his own subjection and responsibility to an actual living ruler. The king who desires to surround himself with Divine sanctions would fain make himself supreme, knows that he cannot, and would therefore seek help from the fear men have of an invisible power in which they have ceased to believe. He wants a God as the support of his authority. What God he cares very little.”<\/p>\n And thus, to quote once more, “The departure from spiritual principles out of political motives surely leads to destruction, and is here portrayed for all times.”<\/p>\n And when Rehoboam was come to Jerusalem, he assembled all the house of Judah, with the tribe of Benjamin, a hundred and fourscore thousand chosen men, which were warriors, to fight against the house of Israel, to bring the kingdom again to Rehoboam the son of Solomon. 21 24. Rehoboam prepares to make war on … Continue reading “Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Kings 12:21”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9184\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"