1 Kings 12 Devotional
By Pastor Lawrence

In Proverbs 13:20 Solomon wrote “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.” Sayings such as these were collected and recorded to be given to his sons as well as to all God’s people. Sadly, his son Rehoboam didn’t pay them any regard, and his kingdom would suffer much harm as a result. His rival, Jeroboam, also did not walk with the wise, thus he and his companions would split the kingdom of Israel and defile the Promised Land with all sorts of heinous deeds.

In the previous chapter we learned that God had called upon Jeroboam to take ten of the tribes of Israel away from the kings of Judah because of the idolatry and sins of King Solomon. And when Solomon had heard that a prophet had made this unfavorable prediction, he sought to kill Jeroboam, but Jeroboam escaped and fled to Egypt. It is only after the death of King Solomon that Jeroboam reemerges in the land of Israel to challenge the authority of his son Rehoboam. Under Solomon’s reign, Jeroboam had been appointed to oversee the forced labor of the house of Joseph, and using his knowledge of the harsh working conditions, he bemoans the heavy yoke that Solomon had placed upon his own people and demands that Rehoboam lighten that yoke.

With Rehoboam being a new king, at least he has the wherewithal to ask for time before responding to this complaint and direct challenge to his authority. Rightly, he asks his elder advisors on how to respond to his uprising, and they give him sound wisdom encouraging him to exhibit servant leadership to win the people back to him and to undermine the rabble-rouser Jeroboam. But the young king rejects their counsel and goes to his peers asking them what he should do. Notice in v.9 that he phrases the question differently than he had to the elder counselors. Previously he had asked the advisors, “How do you advise me to answer this people,” but in this latter case he says, “What do you advise that we answer this people.” Even before they give their counsel, he has already aligned himself with them determined to walk with them regardless of the outcome. It is also interesting that Rehoboam doesn’t refer to these complainants as “his people,” but as “these people.” Clearly, he has no desire to serve “these people,” which becomes all the more obvious by his response.

His foolish peers encourage him to speak harshly to his people threatening them with whips and scorpions and boasting of how he will add to their already heavy yoke, which he does gladly. Unsurprisingly, Jeroboam and the rest of those challenging the authority of the king are not impressed and immediately leave threatening secession. Again, the foolish king sends his big stick, one of his taskmasters, to rein them in but he is killed by the mob. As a result, Rehoboam is preparing to institute a civil war in Israel, but the Lord sends his prophet to put a stop to it, surely out of mercy for the tribe of Judah since it would be far outnumbered, but also because this chain of events is a direct fulfillment of the Lord’s Word given through the prophet Ahijah in the previous chapter.

This particular revelation brings up a very important question that is often asked in reference to God’s sovereign will. If this set of events occurred because the Lord was disciplining the house of Solomon, was Rehoboam still responsible for his foolish decisions, and was Jeroboam responsible for his rebellion? Absolutely! God did not make Rehoboam listen to his peers rather than his elders; he did that naturally, but God worked through his foolishness. Likewise, God did not tell Jeroboam to raise his voice and later his hand against God’s anointed king, he did that willingly and gladly out of his own evil devices. God merely told him that he would inherit ten of the tribes of Israel; he did not say how this would occur. If you think about it, God had said something very similar to David when Saul was still the king, but David refused to lay his hand upon God’s anointed one. He waited for the Lord to bring about his good will. Jeroboam was not so careful. He plotted and threatened, then rebelled and killed a royal official all the while intending to kill anyone else who got in his way. The Lord did not make him do it; that evil was already in his heart, but God used it for his own purposes.

In the decisions that are made by both men who would be kings, not once do we see either one of them going to the Lord in prayer and ask Him for counsel. Instead, in both kingdoms these men ask their foolish advisors for counsel. In order to solidify his new portion in Israel, Jeroboam asks for counsel on how to break the loyalty of the tribes to Jerusalem since all of God’s people were called to gather in the region of Judah in order to attend festivals at the temple, and his advisors counsel him to make golden calves to lead them away from worshipping the Lord on Mt. Zion, which he does gladly. Surely, the Lord did not make Jeroboam worship other gods. No, this too was already in the heart of this wicked man. The author of 1 Kings states that plainly in v.33 when he says that Jeroboam even conjured up his own holiday on the fifteenth day of the eight month in “the month that he had devised from his own heart.” To say that the Lord made him do this would be to attribute evil unto God, for God does not forbid such things then command people to do the very thing which he forbids.

Nevertheless, God’s wisdom and power are so far above what we can think or even imagine, that he is able to work through the foolish choices of Rehoboam and the wicked desires of Jeroboam to carry out his perfect will. Assuredly, he does this in our own lives as well, working through our own foolish and sinful choices to bring about the good, even if that good includes his loving discipline in our lives. For we have the same foolish tendencies as Rehoboam and the same rebellious nature as Jeroboam in seeking to overthrow God’s anointed king as our rightful ruler. When Jesus came to this earth, he came as a servant-king but his own people still rejected his right to reign. It would only be through God’s sovereign and good will that he would use our own foolish and rebellious acts against his one-and-only son to save us from our sin.