1 Kings 12:1-14:20
New Catholic Bible
The Reign of Jeroboam[a][b]
Chapter 12
Revolt against Rehoboam. 1 Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all of Israel had gone to Shechem to make him king. 2 When Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, heard about this in Egypt where he had fled from King Solomon, he returned from Egypt.
3 They sent for Jeroboam, and when he arrived, he and the whole assembly of Israel spoke to Rehoboam, saying, 4 “Your father made our yoke heavy. If you make our service and our heavy yoke lighter than the heavy load your father laid on us, then we will serve you.” 5 Rehoboam answered, “Go away for three days, and then come back to me.” So the people departed.
6 King Rehoboam consulted with the elders who had stood before Solomon, his father, during his lifetime. He said, “How do you advise me to answer this people, so that I can give them an answer?” 7 They answered him, “If you become a servant to this people today and you serve them and you give them a favorable answer, then they will be your servants forever.”
8 But he ignored the advice that the elders had given him, and instead, he consulted with the young men who had grown up with him and who stood before him. 9 He asked them, “What advice do you give me so that we can give an answer to this people who have spoken to me, saying, ‘Make the yoke lighter than that which your father laid upon us?’ ”
10 The young men who had grown up with him answered, “Say the following to the people who said to you, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy; will you lighten it for us?’ Say this to them: ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist! 11 My father laid a heavy yoke on you, but I will add to your yoke. My father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.’ ”
12 Three days later Jeroboam and all of the people returned to Rehoboam as the king had decreed when he said, “Come back to me in three days.” 13 The king responded harshly to the people. He ignored the counsel that the elders had given him. 14 He said to them what the young men had advised him saying, “My father laid a heavy yoke on you, but I will add to your yoke. My father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.”
15 Thus the king would not listen to the people, for the Lord had brought this about to fulfill what he said when the Lord spoke through Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. 16 When all of Israel realized that the king would not listen to them, the people answered the king, “What share do we have in David? What inheritance do we have in the son of Jesse? To your own tents, O Israel. Look after your own house, O David.” So the people of Israel returned to their homes.[c]
17 Rehoboam still ruled over those Israelites who were living in the cities of Judah. 18 King Rehoboam sent out Adoniram who was in charge of the forced labor, but all of Israel stoned him to death. King Rehoboam, however, mounted his chariot and fled to Jerusalem. 19 Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David up to the present day.
20 When all of Israel heard that Jeroboam had come back, they sent for him and summoned him to an assembly. They made him king over all of Israel. No one followed the house of David except for the tribe of Judah.
21 When Rehoboam arrived in Jerusalem, he assembled the entire house of Judah along with the tribe of Benjamin, one hundred and eighty thousand fighting men to battle against the house of Israel and to restore the kingdom to Rehoboam, the son of Solomon. 22 But the word of God came to Shemaiah, the man of God, saying, 23 “Speak to Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, the king of Judah, and to all of the house of Judah and Benjamin, and to the rest of the people, saying, 24 ‘Thus says the Lord, You are not to go up or fight against your brothers, the Israelites. Let each man return home, for this thing is from me.’ ” They obeyed the word of the Lord, and they turned around and left, as the Lord had instructed.
25 Jeroboam built Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim and he dwelt there. He went out from there and built Penuel.
26 Jeroboam’s Idolatry. Jeroboam said to himself, “The kingdom is going to return to the house of David. 27 If this people goes up to sacrifice in the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, the heart of this people will return to their lord, to Rehoboam, the king of Judah. They will kill me and they will return to Rehoboam, the king of Judah.”
28 The king sought counsel, and so he made two golden calves.[d] He said to them, “It is too difficult for you to go up to Jerusalem. Behold, your gods, O Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” 29 He placed one in Bethel, and he placed the other in Dan.[e] 30 This thing became a sin, for the people went to worship before one of them, even to Dan.
31 He built shrines upon the high places, and he appointed priests from the lowliest of people who were not Levites.
32 He established a festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth month like the one that was celebrated in Judah, and he offered sacrifices upon the altar. He did this in Bethel, offering sacrifices to the calves that he had made. In Bethel he also appointed priests for the high places that he had made.
33 And so he established a festival for the Israelites on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, a date of his own choosing, and he offered up a sacrifice on the altar he had built in Bethel. He offered up a sacrifice and burned incense on the altar.
Chapter 13
Prophetic Disobedience. 1 A man of God came from Judah and went to Bethel, led by the word of the Lord, and Jeroboam was standing by the altar offering incense. 2 He cried out the word of the Lord against the altar saying, “O altar, O altar, thus says the Lord, ‘A son will be born to the house of David by the name of Josiah. On you he will sacrifice the priests of the high places who now burn incense upon you. Human bones will be burnt upon you.’ ”[f]
3 That same day he gave a sign saying, “This is a sign of what the Lord has proclaimed: The altar will be split in two and the ashes on it will be poured out.”
4 When the king heard the man of God speaking against the altar in Bethel, Jeroboam stretched out his hand from the altar proclaiming, “Seize him!” The hand that he stretched out toward him shriveled up, and he could not pull it back again. 5 The altar split apart and its ashes spilt out from the altar, fulfilling the sign that the man of God had proclaimed through the word of the Lord.
6 The king said to the man of God, “Intercede now to the Lord, your God, and pray for me so that my hand might be made well.” The man of God interceded with the Lord, and the king’s hand was made well, just like it was before.
7 The king said to the man of God, “Come home with me and have something to eat, and I will give you a gift.” 8 But the man of God said to the king, “Even if you were to give me half of what belongs to you, I would not go with you, nor would I eat bread or drink water in this place.” 9 I received a command by the word of the Lord, “Do not eat bread or drink water or return by the way you came.” 10 He returned by another way, and did not go back by the way that he had come to Bethel.
11 Fate of a Disobedient Prophet.[g] Now there was an old prophet who lived in Bethel whose sons came and told him all about the things that the man of God had done in Bethel that day. 12 They also told their father what he had said to the king. Their father asked them, “Which way did he go?” His sons showed him the way on which the man of God from Judah had gone. 13 He said to his sons, “Saddle up the donkey for me.” They saddled up the donkey, and he rode on it.
14 He rode after the man of God and found him sitting under an oak tree and said to him, “Are you the man of God who came from Judah?” He answered, “I am.” 15 So he said to him, “Come home and eat with me.” 16 He answered, “I cannot return nor can I go with you. I cannot eat bread with you nor drink water with you in that place. 17 The word of the Lord told me, ‘Do not eat bread nor drink water there. Do not return by the way which you came.’ ”
18 He said, “I am also a prophet like you. An angel spoke the word of the Lord to me, saying, ‘Bring him back with you into your house so that he can eat bread and drink water.’ ” But he was lying.
19 The man of God returned with him and he ate bread and drank water in his house. 20 While they were sitting at the table, the word of the Lord came to the prophet who brought him back. 21 He cried out to the man of God who had come from Judah, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Because you defied the mouth of the Lord and have not observed the command that the Lord, your God, commanded you, 22 but you came back and ate bread and drank water in the place that I told you not to eat bread nor drink water, therefore your body will not be buried in the tomb of your fathers.’ ”
23 When he had finished eating bread and drinking, the prophet who had brought him back saddled his donkey up for him. 24 On the way, a lion came upon him and killed him, and his body was thrown down upon the road, with both the donkey and the lion standing alongside of him.
25 Some of those who were passing by on the road saw his body tossed down there, and there was a lion standing by the body. They came and reported it in the city where the old prophet was living. 26 When the prophet who had brought him back while he was on his way heard about it, he said, “It is the man of God who disobeyed the word of the Lord. The Lord has delivered him over to the lion who tore him to pieces and killed him, just as the word of the Lord had declared to him.”
27 The prophet said to his sons, “Saddle up the donkey for me,” and they saddled it up. 28 They went out and found the body that had been thrown down along the way, and the donkey and the lion were standing alongside of it. The lion had not eaten the body nor had it attacked the donkey. 29 The prophet picked up the body of the man of God and put it upon the donkey. He brought it back to the old prophet’s city to mourn for him and bury him. 30 Then he laid the body in his own grave. They mourned over him saying, “Oh, my brother!”
31 After he buried him, he said to his sons, “When I die, bury me in the grave where the man of God is buried. Lay my bones alongside of his. 32 The thing that he proclaimed by the word of the Lord against the altar in Bethel and against all of the shrines on the high places throughout the cities of Samaria will certainly be fulfilled.”
33 Even after this, though, Jeroboam did not turn away from his evil ways. Once again he appointed priests for the high places from the lowliest of people. He consecrated as priests for the high places anyone who wanted to be consecrated. 34 This was the sin of the house of Jeroboam[h] that caused it to be cut off and wiped out from the face of the earth.
Chapter 14
The Lord Condemns Jeroboam.[i]1 It was at that time that Abijah, the son of Jeroboam, fell ill. 2 Jeroboam said to his wife, “Get up and disguise yourself so that they cannot tell that you are Jeroboam’s wife, and then go to Shiloh. Ahijah, the prophet, is there, the one who told me that I would be king over this people. 3 Take ten loaves of bread with you along with some cakes and a jar of honey and go to him. He will tell you what will happen to the child.”
4 Jeroboam’s wife did this. She got up and went to Shiloh and entered the house of Ahijah. Ahijah could no longer see, for his eyes had grown dim because of his age. 5 But the Lord said to Ahijah, “Behold, the wife of Jeroboam is coming to ask something from you concerning her son who is sick. This is what you are to say to her.”
When she arrived, she pretended she was someone else. 6 When Ahijah heard the sound of her feet as she came through the door, he said, “Enter, O wife of Jeroboam. Why do you pretend to be someone else? I have been sent to you with heavy tidings. 7 Go tell Jeroboam, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I have exalted you from among the people, and I have made you the leader over my people Israel. 8 I tore the kingdom away from the house of David and gave it to you. Yet, you have not been like my servant David who observed my commandments and who followed me with all of his heart, doing what is right in my sight. 9 You have done more evil than those who preceded you. You have gone after and made other gods, molten images, enraging me and casting me behind your back. 10 Behold, I will bring evil down upon the house of Jeroboam. I will cut off from Jeroboam everyone who pees against the wall, every bondsman and everyone who is free in Israel. I will wipe out the remnant of the house of Jeroboam as one burns up dung until it is completely consumed. 11 Those who belong to Jeroboam and who die in the city will be eaten by the dogs; those who die in the fields will be eaten by the birds of the air. The Lord has spoken.’
12 “As for you, get up and go home. The moment that your feet enter the city, your child will die. 13 All of Israel will mourn for him and bury him. He is the only one who comes from Jeroboam who will be placed in a grave because he is the only one in the house of Jeroboam in whom the Lord, the God of Israel, has found anything good.
14 “The Lord will raise up a king over Israel for himself who on that day will cut off the house of Jeroboam. What? Even now! 15 The Lord will strike down Israel, just as a reed is shaken in the water. He will uproot Israel from out of this good land that he gave to their fathers. He will scatter them beyond the river because they have made their wooden images, provoking the Lord to anger. 16 He will give up Israel because of the sins of Jeroboam, for he sinned and he caused Israel to sin.”
17 Jeroboam’s wife then got up and left and came to Tirzah. When she arrived at the threshold of the house, the child died. 18 They buried him, and all of Israel mourned for him, according to the word of the Lord that he had spoken through Ahijah the prophet, his servant.
19 The rest of the deeds of Jeroboam, how he made war and how he reigned, are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel. 20 Jeroboam reigned for twenty-two years, and then he slept with his fathers, and his son Nadab reigned in his stead.
Footnotes
- 1 Kings 12:1 This section is continued in the second Book of Kings, down to chapter 17.
- 1 Kings 12:1 The division of the two kingdoms is represented as a judgment of God, but this is regularly the way the Bible speaks of every revolution and every war. Everything has to be paid for. The sins of Solomon, who had become a proud despot, and the ineptitude of his sons made the schism inevitable. After the division the two kingdoms had to reorganize, but the northern kingdom took a wrong path. The Books of Kings, however, are interested in the political history of the northern kingdom only to the extent that it influenced the religious history of the Israelite people.
- 1 Kings 12:16 The kingdoms did not divide immediately, but between Solomon’s demise and the actions of both Rehoboam and Jeroboam, the people do not have a leader strong or wise enough to keep them united.
- 1 Kings 12:28 Two golden calves: by setting up a new place of worship outside of Jerusalem, Jeroboam disregards God’s rules of worship and starts his own religion separating the people both physically and spiritually from their true home. His efforts are doomed as were previous generations that worshiped golden calves (Ex 32).
- 1 Kings 12:29 That is, at the two opposite ends of the new state: Dan was near the headwaters of the Jordan; Bethel was on the road to Jerusalem.
- 1 Kings 13:2 This prophecy is fulfilled in exactly the way it is given when Josiah kills the pagan priests on their altars (2 Ki 23:1-20).
- 1 Kings 13:11 This popular anecdote, which is part of the stories about the prophets, contains a lesson that goes beyond the incident itself: one must never disobey an order from God.
- 1 Kings 13:34 Sin of the house of Jeroboam: appointing his own priests for worship was a serious sin—only those from the tribe of Levi could serve (Num 3:10). There could be no true worship for the people in the northern kingdom under these circumstances.
- 1 Kings 14:1 An elderly, blind prophet is compelled to curse the man whom he had chosen to be king at the Lord’s order (see 11:29); this is the beginning of the henceforth frequent conflicts between men of God and the rulers of Israel. Jeroboam will serve, in the stories about his successors, as the example of a wicked king.
