The Kingdom Divided

Questions for Thought

1. Why did the Kingdom of Israel divide?
2. Who is in charge of governments?
3. Why do people sometimes ignore the wisdom of the elderly or experienced and favor that of their friends?

In the last blog, God was angry with King Solomon because of his unfaithfulness to God. God had told him He was going to take the kingdom from him and give it to one of his servants. King Solomon died and in 1 Kings 11:43 we read that he was buried in the city of David and his son Rehoboam was the next reigning king.

Beginning in 1 Kings 12, Solomon’s previous servant who had fled, Jeroboam, upon hearing of Rehoboam’s reign came to ask Rehoboam to ease the burdens of the people. Rehoboam consulted with the older men who had worked with Solomon and they recommended he do as the people requested. Rehoboam then consulted with his younger friends who told him to make the work of the Israelites even harder. He listened to the younger men and told the people he would make their life even harder than Solomon had. The people rebelled and Rehoboam was left with only the tribes of Judah and Benjamin under his rule. In fulfillment of the previous prophecy, the other 10 tribes went with Jeroboam as their leader. These 10 tribes became known as Israel while Judah and Benjamin were called Judah.

Remember, previously, Jeroboam had been promised the 10 tribes by God through the prophet Ahijah. Conditional to his being allowed to continue reigning over those tribes though was the requirement he would always walk in the ways God commanded. Almost immediately upon his beginning to reign, Jeroboam chose the wrong path. In 1 Kings 12, beginning in verse 25 we read how Jeroboam was afraid the people who were required to go to Jerusalem to worship would return to Rehoboam. As a solution, Jeroboam made two gold calves and put one in Bethel and one in Dan. He told the people these were the places they should go to worship. He even established new feast days and put into the priesthood men who were not of the tribe of Levi.

God was not happy with Jeroboam’s plan and in 1 Kings 13 we see the results. The account recorded in 1 Kings 13 is very sad and has lessons for us today. God sent a prophet to tell Jeroboam about God being upset with him. This prophet was instructed not to eat bread or drink water while in Bethel and he was to return by a different route from which he came. When the young prophet arrived in Bethel, Jeroboam was standing by the altar ready to offer incense. The young prophet cried against the altar and he prophesied of a young child named Josiah coming to reign. He said this Josiah would offer the priests upon this altar and men’s bones would be burned upon it. As a sign this would happen, the young prophet said the altar was going to be split apart and the ashes on it would be poured outs. After he delivered his message to the king, Jeroboam reached out from the altar against the prophet and told his men to lay hold on the young prophet. Jeroboam’s hand dried up and he could not move it back toward himself. The altar split and the ashes poured out. Jeroboam asked the prophet to pray to God for him that his had would be restored. The prophet prayed and the hand was restored. Then the king tried to get the prophet to go home with him and refresh himself, but the young prophet refused quoting the word of the Lord. The young prophet left by a different route as instructed, but evil was awaiting him.

There was an old prophet in Bethel who when he was told what had happened at the altar, asked which way the young prophet had gone. When the old prophet found out which way the young prophet had gone, he went after him and found him sitting under a tree. The old prophet asked if he was the man of God from Judah. When the young man said he was, the old prophet told him to come home with him and eat bread. When the young man told him he could not because of the words from God, the old prophet lied to him and told him the word of the Lord had come to him telling him to go and get the young prophet and give him bread and drink. The young prophet did not consult God, but believed the lie and went home with the old prophet. While they were sitting at the table eating, the word of the Lord came to the old prophet who then told the young prophet because he had disobeyed the mouth of the Lord and had come back to eat with the old prophet, his bones would not be in the grave with his father’s bones.

Sure enough, as the young man was going back home, a lion met him in the way and killed him. He did not eat him. Some men passed by and saw the dead body and told about it in the city. When the old prophet heard about it, he went and found the body and buried it in his own grave. He told his sons when he died to bury him in the same grave. The words of the young prophet did not change Jeroboam. He continued in his evil ways and God determined to destroy the house of Jeroboam. After reigning 22 years he died and his son, Nadab, became king.

So what is the lesson for us from this young prophet? I am sure there are many but the one I think about the most is how when we know from our reading what God expects of us but we allow others to sway our thinking with their smooth talking, we are in the same situation as this young man. He knew what he had been told to do. He knew the restrictions. He did well in obeying, but then he allowed another to persuade him God had changed his mind. Could the young man have consulted God? I don’t know, but I do know he did not have to go back with the old prophet. Another question that has often bothered me in this account concerns the old prophet. Why did he lie to the young man? Was he jealous because God used this young prophet instead of him to warn Jeroboam? Had he become a false prophet like many false preachers in the religious world? Did he truly think no harm would come and he just wanted to provide this young prophet with food? I do not have the answer to these questions, but it should be very clear to us when God speaks, no one has a right to change what He says.

Over in Judah, King Rehoboam was also not pleasing to God. He led Judah down a path of worshiping false gods and living like the nations the Lord had previously cast out of the land. Rehoboam reigned in Judah for 17 years and upon his death, his son, Abijam became the king of Judah. Over the next approximately 200 years the kingdoms of Israel and Judah changed kings many times with most of the kings failing to obey God’s words. In 721 B.C. the 10 tribes of Israel were taken into captivity by Assyria. Judah remained a kingdom for another 135 years until 586 B.C. when Judah fell to Babylon. There are some interesting accounts of events that happened during this divided period which we will look at beginning with the next blog. Many of these events have lessons for us.