1 Kings 12:1-19

REVOLT OF THE TEN TRIBES, 1 Kings 12:1-19.

Feelings of jealous rivalry had long prevailed between the tribe of Judah and the rest of Israel. The unwise action of the tribe of Judah in making David king without the concurrent action of the other tribes (2 Samuel 2:4, note) was perhaps still remembered, and the fierce contention between Judah and the ten tribes about bringing David back to Jerusalem, (2 Samuel 19:41-43,) and the rebellion of Sheba that sprang from that feud, all intensified the previous bitterness. The strong governments of David and Solomon made it impossible for sedition or revolt to be successful in their day; but the old feeling of bitterness and jealousy was only slumbering, and ready at any moment of fair opportunity to burst out, and in defiance of the throne assert its power. The continual levies of men which Solomon demanded for his public works, and the burdens imposed on them, seemed to grow more oppressive as he advanced in years; and his adversaries Hadad, Rezon, and Jeroboam, who so greatly troubled his last days, received, probably, no small encouragement and support from the large number of disaffected Israelites among the northern tribes. So when Rehoboam succeeded to the throne the opportune moment had come for the disaffected tribes to make their demands and seek redress. It is likely, too, that Ahijah’s prophecy that Jeroboam should become king of ten tribes (1 Kings 11:29-39) had not been kept a secret thing, but had rather led the elders of the people to take some measures for its accomplishment.

The prominence of Ephraim, too, in this revolt, deserves particular notice. “To the house of Joseph that is, to Ephraim and Manasseh, with its adjacent tribe of Benjamin had belonged, down to the time of David, all the chief rulers of Israel; Joshua the conqueror; Deborah, the one prophetic, Gideon, the one regal, spirit of the judges; Abimelech and Saul, the first kings; Samuel, the restorer of the state after the fall of Shiloh. It was natural that, with such an inheritance of glory, Ephraim always chafed under any rival supremacy. Even against the impartial sway of its own Joshua, or of its kindred heroes, Gideon or Jephthah, its proud spirit was always in revolt; how much more when the blessing of Joseph seemed to be altogether merged in the blessing of the rival Judah; when the Lord ‘ refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim, but chose the tribe of Judah, the Mount Zion which he loved.’ Psalms 78:67. All these embers of disaffection, which had well nigh burst into a general conflagration in the revolt of Sheba, were still glowing; it needed but a breath to blow them into a flame.” Stanley.