Digging Deeper for such a time as this: - from "The greater men and women of the Bible: Ruth–Naaman, by Hastings, J. (Ed.). (1914), Edinburgh: T&T Clark. JEROBOAM The man Jeroboam was a mighty man of valour.—1 Kings 11:28. 1. THERE were three occasions in the history of Israel when the people took a great share in changing their rulers; not acting in any case altogether alone, but in each case exercising a powerful, and in the end a decisive, voice. One of these was when the form of government was changed to a monarchy and Saul was made king; another was when the house of Saul was finally removed from power and that of David succeeded; the third was when the people split into two parts, and the tribe of Judah remained under the dominion of Rehoboam, while the ten tribes set up Jeroboam, and formed a people by themselves. Jeroboam was put forward, in some respects, just as Saul had been, just as David had been. He had been told by a prophet that he was to be the future king of ten tribes, and therefore might plead a Divine warrant for all that he did. But as we read the history, the difference between him and either Saul or David is visible at a glance. Saul kept in the background when he was chosen, and even after the election went quickly home to wait till the need of him should be felt. David made no effort to possess himself of the throne till he was regularly invited. But from the first mention of him, Jeroboam appears as a mere demagogue. He stands forward at once as the leader; and when he has gained his end, and sits on the throne, he thinks above everything else of his own security. No religious consideration stands in his way. In fact, Jeroboam is represented throughout Scripture as simply the man who made Israel to sin. David and Jeroboam stand side by side at the head of the Chronicles of the two kingdoms. Both are looked back to at every turn. The kingdom of Judah which David founded was at its worst a chequered course of good and bad, happiness and grief; the kingdom of Israel was almost uninterruptedly bad and miserable. Israel is soon carried away captive, never to return. Judah is long spared, and, after all, its captivity is not a perpetual, though a long one. At every stage of either series we are referred now to David and now to Jeroboam. David is the good example, after whom not a few kings “did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that their father David had done”; and they prospered, and their people had peace and prosperity. Jeroboam is the great warning. Like the tolling of the bell in the village, which strikes the years of the dead as they are borne to their burial, so tolls this refrain of the scribe, from chapter to chapter, until twenty-three times it is repeated of king after king in the Chronicles of the Northern Kingdom: “He walked in the ways of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin,” and then he is “buried in the sepulchre of his fathers,” and the son reigns in his stead. Frequently, indeed, this is the only history we have—the sad brief summary of the whole reign; as though the historian were weary of the same story repeated over and over again, and thought it needless to say more than that the story was repeated. 2. The history of the ten tribes is a record of continually deepening degeneracy. From this time, too, all the brilliancy passes away from the house of David. His grand anticipations of what should come to pass in after-times, if they had a partial accomplishment in the days of his son, seemed to be belied by the history of the son’s sons. Prophets mourn over a land devoured by strangers, a land which might be described in the language of Isaiah: “Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves; every one loveth gifts and followeth after rewards; they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.” The noblest specimens of the royal race were men the main business of whose reigns was to remove the corruptions of their predecessors. The last and most zealous of all was unable, by his reforms, to avert the downfall and captivity of his people. All these evils were evidently connected in the minds of the prophets with the schism of the tribes. They look upon their division as containing the principle, and illustrating the effects of all divisions which should happen in all nations in times to come. Their belief that unity would some day be restored to their land is identified with the hope of peace and righteousness for the whole earth. I THE DIVIDED KINGDOM 1. Jeroboam appears to have been a man of lowly origin. Of his father Nebat, whose name is so often linked with his own, we know nothing, although an old Jewish tradition, preserved by Jerome, identifies him with Shimei, who was the first to insult David in his flight, and the first of all the house of Joseph to congratulate him on his return. All we know with certainty is that he belonged to the powerful tribe of Ephraim, which was always jealous of the supremacy of Judah, and therefore hated David, Solomon, and Rehoboam. It was this feeling of which Jeroboam skilfully availed himself when he split the kingdom of David in twain. In the Book of Kings, this remarkable man first appears as an ordinary workman, or possibly as a foreman of the masons who were engaged in building Fort Millo, one of the chief defences of the citadel of Zion, guarding its weakest point, and making it almost impregnable. Solomon, the king, “seeing the young man that he was industrious,” assigned to him the oversight of the forced labour of the house of Joseph—the very best opportunity for becoming acquainted with the complaints of the people and turning them to advantage. 2. In 1 Kings 10:1, we are distinctly told that a prophet stirred up in the mind of Jeroboam those thoughts which led him to rise against Solomon. Either Ahijah or Shemaiah met Jeroboam in the way outside Jerusalem, and, leading him to a solitary spot, by the symbolic act of tearing in twelve pieces Jeroboam’s new garment, and giving him ten pieces back, showed that he could read the young man’s secret ambitions, and predicted that after Solomon’s death the kingdom would be divided as a punishment for the king’s apostasy, that Jeroboam would reign over ten of the tribes, and that his kingdom would have the promise of continuance, if he himself were loyal to Jehovah. The promise to David, however, could not be entirely broken; his grandson would still have one tribe (counting Judah and Benjamin together)—“that David my servant may have a lamp alway before me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen me to put my name there.” Jeroboam apparently could not keep silence about this audacious prophecy, and the news of it came to the ears of Solomon. The aspirant had to flee for his life, and took refuge in Egypt, where he met with a good reception from the Pharaoh Shishak, the Sheshonk who founded the twenty-second dynasty of Manetho. Like his illustrious ancestor Joseph, Jeroboam soon became a favourite, acquired much influence, and ultimately married Ano, the eldest sister of the Egyptian queen. ¶ In the Septuagint there are two accounts of the way in which Jeroboam became king. The first agrees substantially with the Hebrew, when the contradictions of the text of 1 Kings 12 (cf. vv. 2, 3, with 20) are removed. As soon as Jeroboam heard of the death of Solomon, he returned from Egypt; he did not attend the conference between Rehoboam and the people at Shechem, but he kept within reach, and came when he was sent for. The other account is inserted at 12:24. It covers the same ground as the first, but with considerable additions and variations. On hearing of Solomon’s death, Jeroboam returned from Egypt, where he had found a patron in Shishak and an Egyptian princess for a wife (12:24 c), mustered his tribe at Shechem, and so gave the immediate occasion for the revolt. The most important divergence, however, between the two Greek accounts is found in the prophecies which promise Jeroboam the leadership of the ten tribes. In the first we have the prophecy of Ahijah delivered to Jeroboam at Jerusalem at the time of Solomon; in the second a similar prophecy is put into the mouth of Shemaiah at Shechem in the time of Rehoboam. Both accounts are clearly translated from Hebrew originals, which must have existed when the Septuagint translation was made. The Hebrew text was not fixed, and the tradition was fluctuating; we cannot feel certain as to what was the actual course of events. With regard to Ahijah a similar uncertainty exists. The prophecy in 1 Kings 11:29–39 appears to be an interpolation, for it interrupts the account of Jeroboam’s rebellion, which is expected after ver. 28 and implied by ver. 40. It could not have been Ahijah’s prophecy which aroused Solomon’s suspicions, for it was a private communication, addressed to Jeroboam alone, as is expressly stated; no third party was aware of it. We find, then, two different traditions of Jeroboam’s accession to the sovereignty; the correct history of it must remain uncertain. 3. The revolt which led to the division of the kingdom and the elevation of Jeroboam was a revolt against the government of Solomon and the heavy burdens which it laid upon the people. The empire of Solomon was too swift in its development, and too ambitious, to last. It is quite likely that Ahijah, in his justifiable antagonism to Solomon’s erection of the high places to the gods of his foreign wives, may have urged Jeroboam to rebel against the king. But it is not said or even hinted that Jeroboam felt the horror which Ahijah felt of Solomon’s superstition. The king might have worshipped Chemosh and Milcom without exciting any indignation in the son of Nebat. He appears as the spokesman and representative of those who were oppressed by Solomon’s exactions for building Millo and repairing the breaches in the city of David. The tyranny grew out of the idolatry. Though Jeroboam might not perceive the root, he could perceive the evil fruit, which deserved to be hated for its own sake; he was therefore qualified to execute Ahijah’s prophecy, not merely as a dull instrument, but as one who had, to a certain extent, a righteous purpose. ¶ Jeroboam was a born king and statesman; and both Israel and Egypt, both heaven and earth, confessed it to be so. And if only Jeroboam had tarried the Lord’s leisure, and had kept his heart clean and humble, Jeroboam would soon have been king over all Israel, he and his sons, till the Messiah came Himself to sit down on David’s undivided throne. 4. It is impossible to state accurately what occurred immediately after Solomon’s death. His son and successor, Rehoboam, was not able to assume the crown at Jerusalem, but had to assemble the tribes at Shechem, the capital of the haughty tribe of Ephraim, and listen to their grievances. They offered him the kingdom if he would pledge himself to abolish, or at any rate to relax, the claim to demand compulsory service from his subjects, so rigidly enforced by Solomon. In all this the guiding hand of the prophets is clearly recognizable. The wise old counsellors of Solomon advised moderation. They said it was a case for concessions; let the king give way gracefully at this juncture and bide his time, and he would be as powerful as ever Solomon had been. But a man who has waited too long for a position of responsibility is sometimes as disqualified to exercise it as the merest youth; and Rehoboam had evidently cherished high ideas of his royal prerogative. His companions advised him to insist upon his rights, and he forsook the counsel of the old men, that had stood before Solomon his father, and at the suggestion of his friends, who knew nothing of the practice of authority, told his petitioners bluntly, “My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins. And now whereas my father did lade you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke: my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.” Jeroboam’s experiences in the days of Solomon had taught him caution. He returned from Egypt, but did not apparently go to Shechem till he knew how Rehoboam would act. Throughout his career he seems to have shown himself a clever, if unscrupulous, politician. It needed no agitator to increase the effect of Rehoboam’s foolish reply to the reasonable demands of his subjects. No sooner was it made than all the tribes save Judah repudiated his authority, and the answer of the delegates at Shechem found an echo throughout the land: “What portion have we in David? neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse: to your tents, O Israel now see to thine own house, David.” Jeroboam became the champion of the new cause. Rehoboam received the deserts of his mad folly in a speedy defeat. He fled to Jerusalem, to reign over a dismembered country. The kingdom of David and of Solomon was henceforth divided into Israel and Judah, and was never united again. Rehoboam reigned in Jerusalem. Jeroboam set up his throne as king of the land variously spoken of in Scripture as “Israel,” “Samaria,” or “Ephraim.” ¶ The besetting sin of strong minds is despotism; his strength naturally gives the strong man the feeling that he has a right to dominate, but no right in this complex world is absolute; every right demands a qualification from some counter right, besides being subject to the general law of moderation. The moment he forgets this the strong man becomes a despot. Despotism in common parlance is a political word, but there is a despotism of beauty, of generosity, of any strong passion or high ideal, as well as of power, which the more readily masters a strong man because its character is unselfish. Government of men or of beasts must always be with a strong hand first, with a kind hand afterwards, but with a strong hand always in the background. II JEROBOAM’S IDOLATRY 1. Regarding Jeroboam’s reign of twenty-two years (937–915) we have little trustworthy information. How far he was able to maintain Solomon’s authority we can only conjecture. At first, no doubt, he would have had a considerable struggle to maintain himself against his rival. But no decisive victory or success on Jeroboam’s side is recorded; he seems even to have retired from Shechem to Penuel beyond the Jordan (1 Kings 12:25). When the Pharaoh Shishak made a plundering expedition into Judah, he certainly did not spare the territory of his former protégé, as appears from his triumphal inscription at Karnak; but we are not told that Jeroboam made any attempt at resistance. Perhaps he was more a politician than a warrior. There is one measure, however, which is ever after referred back in the most emphatic way to Jeroboam. Realizing the hypnotizing power which the national worship and festivals of Jerusalem would exercise upon the mind and heart in restoring the tribes to the sovereignty of the house of David, he established national sanctuaries at the ancient shrines of Dan on the north and at Bethel on the south, and in each he set up the golden image of a bull, with imposing rites of dedication, in order to wean the hearts of Israel from the altars of Jerusalem. He then proceeded to ordain his own priests from the ranks of the common people—doubtless a measure of necessity, as in the rending of the kingdom the Levites had flocked to the Temple of Judah. Later on he instituted the great yearly festivals with unusual splendour, and so satisfied the social hunger of the tribes. Thus by a single coup d’état he broke the continuity of the national worship and introduced, perhaps unwillingly, the idolatry of Egypt. As we read the abbreviated record of these acts of the new king and recognize the political ability with which he initiated the new kingdom, we are impressed by a double consciousness—that of the splendid chance which Jehovah put in the way of this man to retrieve the spiritual and civic fortunes of Israel, and also that of the tremendous difficulty of measuring a man’s sin. This king of Israel, who is first in order of time, is also first in guilt, memorable for nothing but making his people sin. From the first he seems to have been an irreligious man. He regarded religion as a kind of restraint on the lower orders, and therefore useful in government. In Egypt he had become accustomed to the ritual of Apis and Mnevis, which was by no means so gross and demoralizing as the idolatry of the Canaanites, and he evidently could not see why the worship of Jehovah could not be carried on by those who believed in Him through the use of emblems, and, if need be, of idols. Therefore he set about the establishment of the cult of Apis, and “made two calves of gold. And he set the one in Beth-el, and the other put he in Dan.” This was the sin for which he was condemned again and again with almost wearisome iteration. 2. But the charge which is brought against Jeroboam is scarcely intelligible if we forget that his kingdom stood, like that which was in Jerusalem, upon the promise and covenant of God. He had a right to believe that the God of Abraham and of Isaac, of David and of Solomon, would be with him, and would establish for him a sure house. He had a right to live and act upon this conviction. His sin was that he did not act upon it. He 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. He wanted a God as the support of his authority; what God he cared very little. The question was soon settled. It was on the senses and on the terrors of his subjects that he worked. Something visible and tangible served best for that purpose—visible and tangible, and yet invested with an awe and a mystery which were borrowed from that which was invisible and intangible. This would be enough to explain the calves in Bethel and Dan. And his crime was all the greater that he, as king of Israel, did not treat the Temple with respect. For political separatist interests he had lightly sacrificed what was a vital interest for Israel as a whole. We may hold what opinion we choose regarding the Deuteronomic redactor of the Book of Kings in his character as historian, but nothing witnesses so strongly to his deep religious insight as the fact that he cannot sufficiently censure Jeroboam’s abandonment of the Temple, and his falling away into the worship of Jehovah under the form of an image. For the sake of political security Jeroboam deliberately sacrificed the higher religious interests of Israel; and there can be no doubt that the sacred writer was fully justified in his unsparing verdict upon him as the man “who made Israel to sin.” ¶ Jeroboam’s calves remain in the world for ever, until the Last Day; for whatever a man places his confidence and trust in, setting God aside, that is to him like Jeroboam’s calves, which he worships and invokes instead of the only true, living, eternal God, who alone can and will give counsel and help in all need. 3. As Jeroboam’s sin was great in the sight of Heaven, so was his punishment. Twice was he warned in a signal manner. (1) As he and his unconsecrated priests were at the altar in Bethel sacrificing and burning incense, a prophet from Judah (unnamed and unknown), Divinely sent, came into their midst and cried against the altar, i.e. against the whole system of idolatry set up in Israel, saying, “O altar, altar, thus saith the Lord; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men’s bones shall be burnt upon thee.” To show his Divine commission, the prophet gave the word, and the altar was miraculously rent in twain, and the ashes of the sacrifice were scattered on the ground. Jeroboam stretched forth his hand to seize the prophet; it was instantly shrivelled up, so that he could not pull it to him again. At the prophet’s prayer, it was restored. ¶ This narrative belongs to a much later time, when the names of “the man of God from Judah” and of “the old prophet” were forgotten. Some critics think that it is founded upon 2 Kings 23:15–20; others, that the latter passage, apparently foreign to the context where it stands, was added by the same hand which inserted the story here. (2) Again the Lord spoke to Jeroboam, and tried to reach him on that side of his nature most of all susceptible to influence—through the death of his child. When Abijah fell sick Jeroboam sent his wife in disguise to inquire of the prophet Ahijah what would become of the child. Heavy, said the blind prophet, recognizing the disguised queen—for he had been Divinely forewarned—heavy were the tidings he had for her. The idolatrous apostasy of her husband Jeroboam would not go unpunished. Evil would come upon his house, and every man of it would be ignominiously cut off by a king yet to come, all but her innocent child, who would soon die and be buried in peace. The people would be swept away into exile for the idolatry into which Jeroboam had led them. Then we are told that “Jeroboam’s wife arose, and departed, and came to Tirzah: and when she came to the threshold of the door, the child died; and they buried him; and all Israel mourned for him, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by the hand of his servant Ahijah the prophet.” ¶ We are only on the threshold of knowledge as to the significance of the doctrines of heredity, but we know enough to deepen our sense of debt to the past and of duty to the future. We are what our forefathers made us, plus the action of circumstances on ourselves; and in like manner our children inherit the good and evil both of body and mind that is in us. Upon us, therefore, rests the duty of the cultivation of the best, and of the suppression of the worst, so that the future of the race suffers not at our hands. More imperious is that duty since nothing—not omnipotence itself—can step in between us and the consequences of our acts. The “forgiveness” of which men talk shows the charity of the injured, but the thing “forgiven”—who can undo its effects? 4. At the close of his reign, Jeroboam lost even his earthly prosperity. “The Lord struck him, and he died.” Such was his end. Jeroboam’s personal career was inglorious; he could lay no claim to distinguished success in war. Nor did he derive any advantage from the invasion of the rival kingdom by Shishak, his former protector. From the first the curse of instability rested upon a throne which had been founded in rebellion. He had successfully managed a revolt, but he did not succeed in establishing a dynasty. If the revolt was part of the Divine plan, Jeroboam proved himself unequal to the greatness of his opportunity; and, so far from advancing the higher interests of his people, did not rise above the popular standards, and bequeathed to posterity the reputation of an apostate and a succession of endless revolutions. ¶ Turnaway, once a townsman of Apostasy, appears but for a moment, and Christian catches only a glimpse of his hanging head as he is hurried past, in the grasp of “seven devils,” and bound with “seven strong cords,” to that awful side-door of the abode of woe. He is identified, beyond much likelihood of mistake; for the placard on his back is legible enough even to an eye that has little of learning—“Wanton professor and damnable apostate.” The inscription is probably judicial, and the characterization is no doubt as accurate as it is emphatic and without appeal. His is a pronounced case of the violation of all the most sacred laws which govern the Pilgrimage. Dark wickedness combined with religious sham, and implacable hatred to religion engendered when the mask could no longer be worn—this is the double indictment under which the man passes, constabled by fiends, to his doom. Great-heart, at “the place where Christian met with one Turnaway,” gives us somewhat more “concerning this man.” “Once falling, persuasion could not stop him,”—as the experience of Evangelist proved. It seems he went no farther than the Cross, where he “gnashed with his teeth, and stamped, and said he was resolved to go back to his own town.” How he comes to be met with, even as a bound culprit, so far on in the heavenward road, we can only guess; but having escaped from Evangelist “over the wall” near the Wicket-gate, he must have found pilgrimage more attractive along the Devil’s territory, and have pushed his unholy way even beyond the advanced stage at which we encounter him. In any case he “went back to” apostasy with a will; and there is no healthy-hearted reader who can quarrel with his fate. - via Logos 5
Posted on: Sun, 14 Jul 2013 17:36:22 +0000
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