40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 1 Kings 11:9-33 (Episode 306)

Episode Date: March 1, 2022

God addresses the idolatry that Solomon has allowed into Israel, and He is not pleased. God raises adversaries against Solomon but promises the kingdom won't completely fall in Solomon's life. Chad and Daniel discuss all of this. Have a listen! HWSS Regional Conference 1517 Podcast Network 1517 YouTube Donate

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast and check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. while you're over there, make sure that you register for the Here We Still Stand regional event in Bentonville, Arkansas, April 22nd and 23rd. You want to come hang out with Chad Bird and me and a whole bunch of other people.

You can get the whole roster of people over on the website. It's going to be a good time. It's only $99 to hang out with us for two days. Tons of music, speaking, food, fellowship. It's going to be a lot of fun. We'd love to see you there. So wherever you're at, make sure on April 22nd 22nd you are in Bentonville

Arkansas hanging out with us those conferences are always a blast Chad I don't know how many people that listen to this show know but you have just returned from this land that we're going to be talking about this land of Israel that's where you've been for a while we had to record some episodes

in advance because you were going to be out in the Holy Land and so this is the first time that we've recorded in a little bit yeah that's why my face is glowing people can't see that of course dude looks like Moses coming down from the mountain I've got a veil on right now

because it's just too bright for Dan to look at on our Zoom meeting yeah it was great we were there for we were gone for about a week and a half and then in country for about seven days fantastic, had a great time in fact I was

just looking here at verse seven that we finished up with last time and it mentioned Solomon building these abominations on the mountain east of jerusalem and i was thinking myself yeah i i sat in that mountain just a few just a few days ago i've been on that mount of olives uh where solomon established all his all his abominations so my my wife stacy and i have just i both realized this we were in church on sunday and pastor was teaching bible class about the transfiguration and he was mentioning

you know this and that and every time every time a a geographical name would come up we'd look at each other with like this knowing expression like oh yeah we remember sitting in that there you go chad chad coming back to the podcast with secret knowledge yeah i got the gnosis going on here that's right no it really is it's like one of those you it's not discourse the the holy land but once you've been to a place you know when you when you hear it you're like oh your mind like immediately rushes back then you're like oh yeah i remember i was the grand canyon it was really cool this great vista and it's like that with other stuff too so i think it'll be like that reading through the scriptures too every time one of these names come can't name comes up and be

like oh yeah i remember i was standing there and looking at it and so that in and of itself is a pretty cool different perspective your perspective to have yeah it's right it's kind of like that i've i've always thought this uh every any anytime i think things get built up in your mind i've lived in a bunch of different cities and uh i remember when i moved i moved to seattle and i remember i've made this i drove 32 hours uh when we moved there and we had all our stuff and driving there and i remember when i came up on the city it was cool because you were finally there but it was like man this is much smaller than it was in my mind i think i think i know israel is that way but i think kind of most things are that way the grand canyon might not be that way but but a lot

of a lot of things of unless you've been there they don't seem necessarily real and then once you get there you're like oh these are just these are it's a real place with real streets and real real buildings and and in that way it's it's not fictional anymore so you you can't embellish it anymore because you have now experienced the thing for what it is yeah yeah that's that's very true and very applicable to uh to israel too i was mentioning before we started recording that the kidron valley is like that you know the kidron quote-unquote valley is it's like a big ditch yeah you know between the temple mount and the mount of olives so it's not like if you're living the rocky mountains and you're thinking of valleys some vast expanse of

of space between the two mountains no it's just like you go down you go up it's a pretty pretty small area so yeah all that helped to put things into perspective uh but beautiful country a lot of diversity in the landscapes there as you as most people probably know from just reading the bible so it was a great great trip great to be home though yeah good to have you back well we uh we left off in first kings chapter 11 we uh we've been you know for a couple weeks uh along with the queen of sheba we've been just so impressed with the work that solomon's doing how much how much peace he has and therefore this has afforded him to just build all kinds of things and bring in exotic animals and how the buildings are incredible the the gold is

everywhere where everywhere uh silver doesn't matter at all and then we find out he you know takes 700 wives and 300 concubines but they got some gods that they're going to bring with them and and uh you know under maybe he gets a little pressure and doesn't think it's a big deal if he lets some of his foreign wives worship some of their foreign gods what's the harm in that and that's kind of where we left it and it turns out a lot of harm in that and that's what we're going to get into today yeah it turns out that yahweh is not too happy about just being the king of solomon's pantheon no he's he's not uh not cool with that so verse nine actually begins that way it says the lord was angry with solomon angry why he says because his heart had turned away from the

lord the god of israel who had appeared to him twice and it commanded him concerning this thing what thing that he should not go after other gods but he did not keep what the lord commanded I mean, that pretty much sums up everything right there. Yeah, and we talked about this a little bit beforehand, and I won't go on and on about it, but I do think it's interesting that right before this, we did get these insane numbers that Solomon had 700 wives, 300 concubines. And you might think that God, we're not saying that's a good idea

or that God's giving that the thumbs up. However, this is just to make this point, and we've made this point over and over again because the scriptures make this point over and over again. That wasn't the thing. That number, those numbers seem crazy to us, and you would think that maybe you'd have a line in here where God was really, really upset about him multiplying wives in that way.

That's a lot of wives. That wasn't the thing, though. The thing was what that came along with, which was bringing in other gods that then Solomon ends up at least be giving permission for his wives to worship. Maybe he's got to attend some of these worship things with them. And this sort of Solomon's heart had turned away. I don't even know if that means that Solomon is now like a believer in loads and loads of gods and no longer believes in Yahweh. I don't know that that's what it's saying as much as it's saying is that he's become uh lazy in the worship

life of israel he has put the worship life of israel in extreme jeopardy and so he has not feared loved trusted god above all things and has actually jeopardized other people's worship he's brought he's allowed foreign gods to come in on you know with his with all these wives and this is the thing that God cannot tolerate? Yeah, I mean, the minimum we can say is he's aiding and abetting idolatry. I mean, like, where exactly his heart was, it's, you know, it's difficult to say. I mean, did he actually believe in a pantheon of gods, or was he just permitting that? It is hard to say, but it really, in the end, it doesn't matter, because what he did was basically in practice to establish idolatry in the city. And of course, the great irony here

is that solomon is this the son of david and he's the one who builds this grand temple for for yahweh so you think man this guy he's got his act together i mean he knows the way to go his heart is completely set on uh on monotheism on yahweh alone because he's done these grand grandiose things for for the lord well then you turn right around of course and he's he's the temple builder There's also the idolater shrine builder all over, not even just in the far reaches of his kingdom, but smack dab in the heart of Israel. In fact, that one I mentioned where he built something for Molech, the abomination of the Ammonites on the mountain east of Jerusalem. Well, keep in mind that the temple faces east. so like if you're looking straight at the altar and then the entrance to the temple your back

is is is to the east and you're you're looking in the temple but it's because the the the temple opens up to and faces east so it faces faces toward the mount of olives and that means that the face of the lord is facing east which means that god is as it were looking straight across the valley at the mount of olives where you have these idols set up i mean it's just that it is literally in god's face where he sets where he sets these up so that explains why god is as verse nine says angry angry with solomon because as we mentioned multiple times uh other gods might be fine with with you sleeping around spiritually but not yahweh he's he wants you and all of you and just to clarify it not because he is some sort of you know crazy jealous husband uh who's

kind of a you know control freak or something the reason god is jealous is because he realizes that he he wants all of us and and and he wants us to want all of him because that's what's best for us well yeah he wanted any other any other way as a path of destruction well he's he's the only god And so you've abandoned him for things that aren't God. Don't exist. Yeah, and things that are, while not God, are extremely dangerous and that can lead to destruction. And, I mean, we talked a little bit about some of the worship practices of other gods, but things that are horrible are going to end up being horrible for the people of Israel.

I mean, it'd be like if your wife, like, was going to leave you and go to this guy that you knew for sure was going to beat her up every day. And you might say, well, that's not really exactly a husband. It's not good for you. In fact, why are you getting so jealous about this, man? Like, why are you so concerned about your wife running around with that guy? Oh, you mean that guy that gives her black eyes all the time and, like, you know, got her hooked on meth? That's the kind of thing it is. Like, these aren't good things to worship.

and so God is certainly looking out for the people of Israel whom he loves. I also think that—I didn't notice this until we've kind of been going through this, but Solomon does—God speaks to Solomon in a way that he did not speak to David and Saul, where you sort of have what it appears like is sort of direct speech to Solomon, which sort of makes some of this even more surprising. I mean, so David and certainly Saul had Samuel, and then David had Nathan and stuff. But here with Solomon, you get sort of these direct interactions where God's asking, hey, I'll give you anything you want, and Solomon asks for wisdom.

And then other times where God tells him, hey, I like this thing that you did, that's great. And then this time God comes into him and tells him, and he's angry. I guess maybe this is through a prophet, but we don't have it said that that's the case where we do have it said that that's the case with earlier kings like with David and Saul which sort of makes it even more surprising you're like man this guy seems to be in like sort of direct communication with God why was he why was it so easy for him to make these mistakes and I think what it shows you is that you know people are like well if God would just talk to me then I would know and then I everything would be better I don't that's not the evidence we have

at all. No, we have multiple examples in the scriptures where if God appears to you and speaks to you, that is absolutely no guarantee of your continued fidelity. No. I mean, you could go all the way back. I mean, I'm glad you brought that up. It's kind of a throwback to the Pentateuch days, right? When God was always appearing to people, he appeared to Abraham, he appeared to Jacob, he appeared to Isaac, he appeared to Joseph in his dreams. And so, I mean, God hanging out with people was not that weird if you're reading genesis now it begins to disappear the farther you go along the scriptures and then yeah you can hear solomon's like wow this is happening again yeah god is speaking directly to him but as with those earlier guys so with solomon too yeah i mean

if god appeared to me right now here in my study and uh told me to do something or not to do something or gave me a promise or whatever well that would be a remarkable epiphany theophany but it would in no way guarantee that i wouldn't i would carry that out or i wouldn't screw up or along the way so uh yeah people put way too much stock in visions like that experiencing god directly yeah like that's that's the key to obedience right there uh no if you read the bible you realize that is utterly false yeah utterly false read the book of exodus look what happened to the israelites god was always appearing to them and yet you know you can't get much more fantastic than god appearing on mount sinai to all the israelites yeah and the very first thing

they do is build a golden calf right right yeah so anyway uh back to so back to god's anger and what solomon does and what how god responds to it so verse 11 therefore the lord said to solomon Um, since this has been your practice and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I've commanded you, here's what I'm gonna do. I will surely tear the kingdom from you and give it to your servant. We'll find out who that is in just a minute. Yet for the sake of David, your father, not listen to all these for sakes of yet for the sake of David, your father, I will not do it in your days, but I will tear it out of the hand of your son. However, I will not tear away all the kingdom, but I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of David, my servant,

and for the sake of Jerusalem that I have chosen. So here we have basically God laying out what's going to happen. It's not going to happen directly to Solomon. It's going to happen to his son. We actually see things like that happening in the rest of the scriptures as well, where it's the son who ends up, you know, either really going down the wrong path or being the one who's in some way bearing the sins of his father or his or his grandfather so in this case what's going to happen is god's going to tear the kingdom away from solomon and give it to his servant this if this sounds familiar to you that's because this is exactly the kind of language that we have encountered back in first samuel so first samuel 15 this is when saul the first king is still around

and his prophet is samuel and if you remember the whole story saul has not obeyed completely what god had said to do and so through samuel here's what what we hear this is first samuel 15 26 or 15 20 28 samuel says to says to saul oh no excuse me let me back up verse 27 samuel turns away from saul and saul reaches out and grabs his rope and it tears and samuel said to him, the Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day and has given it to a neighbor of yours who is better than you. Of course, we know that neighbor ends up being David. So the same thing, the same Hebrew verb is used here, and it's basically the same thing. So God is going to tear away the kingdom from Solomon, at least most of it, and is going to give it to

his servant. And we'll find out later in the chapter that servant's name is Jeroboam. But I love this language in verse 12 and 13. Three times we hear, for the sake of, for the sake of, for the sake of. So for the sake of David, your father, for the sake of David, my servant, and for the sake of Jerusalem that I have chosen, God is not going to completely tear away all 12 tribes from Solomon, meaning that grace prevails in the end. Solomon screws up in a major way.

He's going to suffer the consequences, especially his son, and the rest of his sons are going to suffer the consequences yet for the sake of david for the sake of jerusalem because of what god has sworn to david and because he's chosen jerusalem on account of so on account of god's fidelity he is going to make sure that there remains this lamp in jerusalem this ongoing dynasty of david because it's the dynasty of david that's going to perpetuate the promise of the messianic seed the son of david who who is who is to come isn't it wild how david well being a notorious sinner that that david's fidelity or we would say faith i guess uh in yahweh alone colors the way that god speaks of him for for all all time going all time going forward

that he doesn't bring up a lot of like there's lots of things you could bring up they don't come up like what ends up mattering when god speaks of david what he's speaking about is someone who was not faithful in the way that he necessarily did everything uh but the thing you can say about david is he didn't he did not go worship other gods that was not something that he did uh therefore david god can speak of david as uh as somebody who uh who is who like he can speak to him as someone who is righteous because he was a man of faith even though he was most certainly a sinner it i i think that's i just think it's interesting as we've gone through the life of david that that's how it comes so like for the sake of david is obviously for the

sake of the promises i made to david and stuff but also but is that hey your father was faithful in his worship of me uh so i made and i made him a promise and therefore i'm going to not do this thing this punishment is not going to be what it could be it there's no way to like get through judges and you know first second samuel and first second kings and not realize that the first commandment is is the whole deal there's just no way to do it man it's like it's the whole thing to god yeah yeah it is everything everything everything flows from it all the commandments are but but uh extensions and app and and uh applications of the first commandment yeah they all lead back to that like that's the source of the the tent the other nine streams if you will

that flow from it everything everything goes back to that uh because well the first commandment is is all about fearing loving trusting god above all things basically being all gods and and god all yours and if you know if that's the case then you're exactly where god wants you to be you're at complete uh fellowship fellowship with him and if you have that you've got it all yeah so i was looking up by the way this uh this phrase for the sake of and it occurs not just here but But several other times, we're going to see it in 2 Kings, where we read 2 Kings 8-19, the Lord was not willing to destroy Judah for the sake of David, his servant. 2 Kings 19, God says he's going to defend the city for the sake of my servant, David.

2 Kings 20, God is once more going to defend this city, he says, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant, David. And then Isaiah 37 repeats that as well. so over and over and over we hear that kind of language and when i hear it uh with one ear yeah i hear for the sake of david my servant with my other ear i hear for the sake of christ yeah absolutely i mean that really is to put it new testament language you know why are we not destroyed uh why are we okay with god why are we at peace with him for the sake of the son of david yeah it all goes it all goes back to to him when you when you're reading this kind of stuff too

as God goes to Solomon and is telling him, hey, I'm about to do some things that you're really not like because of this idolatry. I hear back to Hebrews where it says

without faith it is impossible to please God. And every time that God is displeased, it's because... This is all we're talking about here, is that you're starting to believe in other gods, right? Worshiping other gods is to believe in other gods. is to worship Yahweh alone, is to believe in Yahweh alone. This is all a matter of faith.

Not faithfulness in every way, but faith in God. And you do see that exemplified that God is pleased with David because David believes in God, and God is displeased in Solomon because he doesn't believe in him alone. And faith is sort of the whole thing. It is, yeah. That's what this all boils down to, basically. Because that's what the First Commandment is really all about.

When God says, you shall have no other gods, he's basically saying, hey, believe only in me. Make me your trust. So trust not in princes. Don't trust in this or that. Certainly don't trust other gods. Trust in me. Because, of course, God is the only one who is going to be faithful to us. Do you think that these conversations that God has with Solomon are weird, too?

Because Solomon usually doesn't get a chance to reply. it's like this valve gets shut off as soon as God says whatever it is that he has to say there's no like and then Solomon you know Solomon said we don't know if he's is he mad is he sad is he scared like we don't know what's going on

because God's like I got something to say to you says it and then that conversation's over apparently this is going to be a monologue it's not going to be a dialogue probably best because chances are unless there's a confession of sin afterward anything else solomon says ain't gonna be good right

so probably silence is the is the best response so that uh that takes us through verse 13 uh now we're going to hear more about kind of how this all plays out uh we're going to encounter jeroboam that servant to whom god is going to give the the 10 northern tribes in a minute but before we get there. We have to deal with two other adversaries as it's translated here by the ESV that God raises up. Both these guys, one is named Hadad. We hear about him in verse 14 and the other's named Rezon or Rezin. And we hear about him in verse 23. Both these guys are referred to as an adversary. In Hebrew, that is a Satan. We've talked about that word before. We get our word capital S, Satan, from that but very often in the old testament a satan is basically a troublemaker someone who

makes trouble for you someone who stands against you david complains often about the satan who opposes him he's basically talking about his adversaries his foes people who make trouble trouble for him over time that came to the uh the the the name of the deceiver the liar the troublemaker Satan. But often we have it just referred to as a human adversary. And both these guys are interesting. In fact, all three of them are interesting because we'll see this as we go through here. There's all sorts of, how best to put this? It's almost like each of these guys in some way embodies or replicates something that happened to Israel as a nation. Like they go into Egypt and they're befriended by Pharaoh and they marry into the family and then later they leave

egypt so it's kind of a you have exodus motifs happening here and uh the second one resin has some kind of parallels thematically at least with the life of david where he has to flee from someone who's persecuting him then he comes back as a as someone who makes trouble for for the king so it's really it's interesting how each of these stories is interwoven with the life of israel and especially we're going to see in in the first one it's almost like there's a reversal here where hadad is almost a moses figure who comes to have trouble with solomon who was an egyptian figure so i think that kind of the the overall impact of this is it shows that things have come so topsy become so topsy-turvy in egypt i mean excuse me in israel under solomon that he's

acting like a pharaoh he's got all these riches all these wives uh all these horses so acting very egyptian like that god brings against him an adversary who is sort of a semi-israelite if you will so it's like god takes the story of of israel and he mixes it all up here to show that everything has become mixed up in the life of israel on account of the idol the true solomon so let's go through the details first guy lord raises up a satan and adversary against solomon hadad the edomite now bear in mind edom is also the edom is named after or is is traced back to esau so esau brother of jacob and so hadad is from kind of the the brother family if you will of of the israelites so hadad the edomite he was of the royal house in edom so it wasn't just kind of a guy but

he was of royal stock there in Edom. And then we have a reference back to David. So when David was in Edom, and that is referred to back in 2 Samuel chapter 8, David went down there and he killed a bunch of Edomites in the Valley of Salt. He established some garrisons there and whatnot. So back in David's day, when David was in Edom and Joab was the commander of the army, they go, they strike down all the males in Edom, stay there for a long time. Well, in the midst of all of this happening they don't kill everybody because we're told that verse 17 that hadad fled to egypt so he gets away he's of royal stock but they don't get him so he runs off and he goes with some other edomites when he was just a little so he's a little kid he's not even a warrior he just he's

he's a child they go to midian they go to paran which is kind of a way station between where uh the edomites lived in egypt and they came we're told in verse 18 they came to egypt to pharaoh king of egypt who gave him a house so who gave hadad a house and assigned him an allowance of food and gave him land and that's not it he also uh was was so favored in the side to pharaoh that he gave him he gave hadad uh the wife the the sister of his wife so his his his his wife is named uh topanese she's the queen so this guy this guy who comes from royal edomite stock he flees from solomon flees from david rather ends up in egypt he's taken care of by pharaoh basically like adopted into the family ends up marrying a princess and then they have a child

together whose name is gnu voth and uh they kind of kind of grew up there now why is this important well this is what i was talking about earlier this is kind of a a replication what happened to to joseph and to jacob and the rest of his family so this guy isn't ends up in egypt is taken in by pharaoh's house same thing happens with joseph and then when jacob and his family gets down there they're given land so you have pharaoh and the egyptians welcoming these people from edom just like pharaoh and the egyptians had initially welcomed joseph and jacob and all the all the family of israel down there well what happens eventually is that after this fella hears that david has died and joab has died that he says to pharaoh let me go by the way that's the same

verb shalach that is used in Exodus 5-1, where Moses says to Pharaoh, let my people go. So let me go, let me depart, that I may go back to my own country. Pharaoh doesn't want to let him go, but he says, fine, eventually, let me go and let me go back. So he does, and he becomes an adversary to Solomon on the south side of the country. So it is kind of this reversal taking place where you have hadad from edom a brother country to israel who ends up experiences his own kind of exodus comes back and now he becomes a troubler of solomon in israel almost like solomon is his own egyptian or or is a canaanite he's he's he's acting in a way that is anti-israelite and so god raises up an adversary to afflict afflict him because of that yeah it's uh i think

it's interesting that he hears that david is dead and that joab is dead and he is suddenly feeling very emboldened to go back into israel especially when joab dies yeah he's like david's one thing especially in his older days but joab is something completely different you don't want to mess with joab yeah so those are the guys that obviously he was not interested in tangling with but he's like oh those guys are dead i i will solomon seems kind of soft to me i'm gonna go uh because you You know, Solomon's fame is spread all over the world, no doubt. On hearing that David and Joab are dead, he's probably also hearing things about Solomon. He's like, oh, man, he's got the finest couches, and he speaks such wise words.

And this guy's like, that's not the kind of guy I'm afraid of. David and Joab, a little bit afraid of that. This guy sounds weak. He sounds like he's had it too easy for too long. I think I'm going to go cause some trouble. Yeah, Solomon never comes across as the warrior. He's not another David in that way, certainly not a Joab. No experience, zero experience in it.

Yeah, there's no mention whatsoever of any kind of military experience. By the way, kind of interesting name on his son. When he has a son with this Egyptian princess, they name him Genuvoth. Now, that comes from the Hebrew verb ganav, which means to steal. so it's kind of this idea of you david stole the lives of my countrymen when you attacked us in edom and so i'm going to name my son that as a reminder of what you what you've taken away from us so even the name of the son is suggestive of his desire to to get revenge which he gets revenge by then being an adversary to solomon on the south so this is one problem that solomon begins

to have but as we'll hear in the next example he also has a problem with the north so this guy is from edom he comes from egypt so he's troubling the the southern part of the territory of solomon now we're introduced to a guy named resin who's going to be a problem in the north verse 23 god also raised up another satan another adversary named resin the son of Eliadah, who had fled from his master Hadadezer, king of Zovah. This also takes us back, by the way, to the time of David in 1 Samuel 14. We're told that David conducted some wars against this guy. So he had been a servant of that king of Zovah. He gathers about him a kind of a marauding band the the hebrew there can mean either just a band of soldiers or kind of ruffians uh people

who are out causing trouble no doubt stealing pillaging things like that so this guy gets around him these these ne'er-do-wells this marauding band uh after david had done all of this killing what do they do they go to damascus which of course is north of israel to damascus and lived there and they made him king in damascus and he was an adversary a satan of israel all the days of solomon doing harm as hadad did and he loathed israel and reigned over syria or aram however you want to translate that so you've got one guy in the south causing problems now you got a guy in the north also causing problems and they're together going to make problems for for the rest of solomon's reign and as we as we'll hear much more as we go through the rest

of first kings the second kings it's the northern northern country of aram aram or syria that really becomes a problem for for the israelites as time goes on so this is not just kind of a one-off thing this is going to be an ongoing ongoing irritation sometimes a violent irritation for for the israelites and it begins begins here yeah it's sort of the this is the end of of all that piece that we were talking about there even even if it's not an overt conflict that you're dealing with you know like you're out fighting a war right against someone did you this sounds like you got like this dude on the north it's just like a real nuisance like he just pops up and and you know raid some village or you know that that kind of thing and so it definitely um is a disturbance

and the tranquility that Solomon has become accustomed to at this point. Yeah, the peaceful days that we were exposed to in those first few chapters about Solomon's reign are over. And just one more sign of everything beginning to fall apart. And as we'll see in the section that's coming up now, it's for sure going to fall apart. In fact, this is a case where you have kind of accelerations. You've got three adversaries, and there's an intensification between each of these.

So you go from one to the second, and the third is going to be worse than the other two. It's a pretty common theme that you see in literature. So the third of these is going to be the biggest problem. In fact, the third of these is going to be introduced to us now. We'll hear much more about him in the rest of 1 Kings and 2 Kings. But he becomes, at least in 1 and 2 Kings, he becomes the arch-idolater, Jeroboam. He's the one who becomes associated with the golden calves and Dan and Bethel. We'll hear more about that in the next episode.

But let's introduce him now. And the way he's introduced is kind of fascinating because he's introduced not as a bad character. He's introduced actually as a good guy, a dependable guy, a good overseer, a good worker. and one to whom God makes some great promises. I mean, Jeroboam could have been another David. Let's put it that way. So he's not introduced as someone who's disreputable. He's not introduced as a bad guy whatsoever.

He's introduced as someone who is capable, a good leader, a good worker, and one to whom God, through his prophet, makes some promises, some great promises. So that's how we meet him. He's not a foreigner. He's an Israelite. he's from the tribe of Ephraim. His name is Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and Ephraimite of Zerodah. He's a servant of Solomon. His mom's a widow, so at some point his dad, Nebat, dies. And it says he lifted up his hand against the king. Now we'll see how he lifted up his hand

against the king in a minute, but let's kind of learn who he is first. So Solomon had built the millow. We've talked about that before. It's kind of an embankment there in the southeast side of of uh jerusalem solomon had built the millow closed up the breed to the city of david his father and he found that the man jeroboam was very able and when solomon saw that the young man was industrious he gave him charge over all the forced labor of the house of joseph why the house of joseph because this guy was from the tribe of ephraim and tribe of ephraim is is from is from joseph so he puts him in charge basically he's a good worker he's industrious uh seems to know what what he's doing. And so Solomon recognizes that and says, you know what? That's a guy I want to

be a leader. So Solomon knows Jeroboam. Jeroboam knows Solomon. He's given a position of authority and leadership in Solomon's kingdom. Well, verse 29 tells us that at that time, Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem and this prophet that we never heard about before named Ahijah, we're just introduced to him. He's going to be one of many prophets who appear on the scene as we work our way through first and second kings who predict the future who announce judgments upon various kings so ahijah who is from shiloh found jeroboam on the road the minute that we hear that that ahijah is a shilonite that is from the city of shiloh our our ears ought to perk up because if you remember back at the beginning of first samuel shiloh was a city where eli and his two sons served as priests

that's where the tabernacle was set up it was at Shiloh that you had young Samuel coming to live and Shiloh was later destroyed by the Philistines because of the misbehavior of the sons of Eli so Shiloh becomes especially later in the preaching of Jeremiah Shiloh becomes emblematic of what Shiloh's destruction becomes emblematic of what God does when his people abandon the covenant so he's introduced here as someone from that very town and that very town then is suggestive of what he's about to say so he ahijah finds jeroboam he has dressed himself in a new garment the two of them are alone and the hijab takes this new garment that's on him and he tears it up into 12 pieces and he says to jeroboam you take 10 pieces for thus says the lord god of israel behold i am

about to tear the kingdom from the hand of Solomon, and I'll give you 10 tribes. And Solomon's going to have one tribe for the sake of David, my servant, and for the sake of Jerusalem, the city that I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel. Pause there for a second. So that's the scene. Jeroboam is outside the city. The prophet approaches him, tears his garment into 12 pieces, gives 10 pieces to jeroboam and says hey i'm about to give you that those tribes of of israel and then you know you don't have to be good at math to realize there's a problem here 10 plus 1 is 11 yeah what about well the uh the best way i think too that that's been explained is so the tribe that's not mentioned the 12th tribe is uh the tribe of benjamin so benjamin

has a very small area allocated to it. It borders Judah. It's kind of swallowed up by Judah. So Judah and Benjamin basically kind of become one tribe. And so yeah, the math doesn't work out. Ten tribes in the north, one tribe in the south.

What about the other tribe? Well, you can kind of think it's the tribe in the south of Judah is basically Judah plus Benjamin. So it's included in that. But that's what we're going to We'll have to stop there because we're out of time. But that kind of sets up the stage here as to what's going to happen.

We'll see that God has more to say to Jeroboam in the next few verses. But you can see, basically, here's the peaceful, vast, rich kingdom of Solomon established. Here's what happens when idolatry is embraced. You begin to have adversaries in the south, get adversaries in the north. and now we're going to have an adversary from within one of solomon's one of solomon's own men and god is going to use these to not just create problems but actually to create a a split a split in the kingdom so you might think of it this way solomon's heart was divided between yahweh and all these other gods and so god divided his kingdom as a as a result yeah i mean this is

what it says i mean the reason given right is that hey this is going to happen because they have forsaken me worshiped other gods and they have not walked in my ways doing what is right in my sight and keeping my statues and my rules as david his father did which always jumps out at you because you're like what and you and you realize that this has again everything to do with fidelity and worship yeah everything to do with first commandment stuff all right man well We will get back into it next week, but we'll leave it right there. Make sure you guys register for the conference in April in Northwest Arkansas. I'd love to see you there.

Chad, I will see you next week. All right. See you then. You