The Sins of the Father
The division of Israel happens soon after Solomon. Evidently, the extraordinary cost of the temple and the excesses of the kingdom cost the people greatly and they came to Solomon's son, Rehoboam with a request... to lighten their load.
2 Chronicles 10:4 (ESV) “Your father made our yoke heavy. Now therefore lighten the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke on us, and we will serve you.”
The first step of Rehoboam's response is a good one. He consults the older men of the kingdom:
2 Chronicles 10:6–7 (ESV) Then King Rehoboam took counsel with the old men, who had stood before Solomon his father while he was yet alive, saying, “How do you advise me to answer this people?” 7 And they said to him, “If you will be good to this people and please them and speak good words to them, then they will be your servants forever.”
Sadly, he rejects their advice, turns to his young contemporaries and accepts their infamous counsel:
2 Chronicles 10:10–11 (ESV) And the young men who had grown up with him said to him, “Thus shall you speak to the people who said to you, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, but you lighten it for us’; thus shall you say to them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s thighs. 11 And now, whereas my father laid on you a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.’ ”
The people hear Rehoboam's response and the kingdom is instantly divided. But there's a commentary on this moment in 2 Chronicles that we should pay close attention to:
2 Chronicles 10:15 (ESV) So the king did not listen to the people, for it was a turn of affairs brought about by God that the LORD might fulfill his word, which he spoke by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat.
In the 1 Kings 11 account of this story, we read about the prophecy from Ahijah about Jeroboam. Jeroboam was a gifted man who was exiled into Egypt for unknown reasons. He is met by Ahijah who tells him the kingdom will be divided with Jeroboam getting 10 of the 12 tribes to rule. The reason? Solomon's wickedness at the end of his life had plagued the rest of the people.
1 Kings 11:33 (ESV) because they have forsaken me and worshiped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh the god of Moab, and Milcom the god of the Ammonites, and they have not walked in my ways, doing what is right in my sight and keeping my statutes and my rules, as David his father did.
Remember, it was Solomon who introduced pagan worship to Israel.
1 Kings 11:7–8 (ESV) Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem. 8 And so he did for all his foreign wives, who made offerings and sacrificed to their gods.
How incredibly confusing for us to see this man so wholly committed to the Lord at one moment and so sold out to sin in the next. Solomon was wise to rule but not prudent to run his own life. Eventually, he turned to political maneuvering to establish the kingdom and the nation paid for it dearly.
The lesson for us is simple. We must seek God's guidance over our lives for as long as we live and no matter how successful we become. Further, we must consider that none of us are immune to temptations of great disaster for our lives. Finally, we see how Solomon's sin infected those he led - including his own family. He might have considered his decisions to be a simple affair but it cost him and his sons great success.
So too, when we compromise the standards of the Lord, we are often forgetting the resultant cost such decisions have not just for us but for those who come after us. Instead of just fantasizing about adultery, fantasize about telling your kids you won't be living with them. Instead of fantasizing about getting rich, fantasize about the cost of losing true interpersonal relationships. Instead of fantasizing a career at the top, fantasize about the destructive and questionable things you may have to do and live with having done to get there. Solomon's closing statement in life is the fulfillment of God's commandment concerning idolatry...
Exodus 20:5–6 (ESV) You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Turn to God and keep His commandments, your grandchildren will thank you.
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