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Jeroboam
The man Jeroboam was a mighty man of valour.- 1Ki_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.
