If his mother Naamah was the chief adviser, we can readily understand his character. She was an Ammonitess (I Kings 14:31) one of the foreign princesses whom Solomon took to wife, and who ultimately turned away his heart so that he allowed the worship of false gods even if he himself did not join in such worship. It was for her that he built the High Place to Moloch directly in front of the Temple on the northern coast of Olivet. The strong bearing of Rehoboam towards the worst forms of idolatry is thus understood. III. Solomon's Policy of Indifferentism. Solomon shows the fatal result of what one may call a spirit of dilletantism in religion. He seems to have looked upon these foreign cults or religions as matters of no vital import one way or another. If Naamah desired a temple to her god Moloch, it was perfectly fitting she should have it, and Solomon built it with the same interest with which he would add to the glory of the temple, or plan the erection of a palace. The sin of indifferentism is one that eats the heart out of conviction, and the vigor out of character. Things that make no difference to us have lost their ethical value. The breadth that believes everything generally loses faith in anything. This is the essence of what we commonly call worldliness. Solomon was a worldling. He had lost definiteness, distinctness of conviction. His childhood directness had been lost in the mazes of a mind that welcomed everything, believed in anything, recognized everything as having its own claim, and so had utterly lost all sense of proportion. The influence of such a father is fatal because it has no grip on the ethical and spiritual nature of his boy. Its tendency is to disintegrate and dissolve those very truths which make their appeal and assert their authority. To Rehoboam therefore the solemn teachings of the Temple meant no more than the sensual suggestions of Moloch. Faith therefore broke into fragments and was lost. He lived in an atmosphere where there was nothing positive and constructive. And this brought his manhood only the weakness of self-indulgence and the obstinacy of pride. IV. Rehoboam's Coronation and the People's Appeal. On the occasion of his coronation he went to the ancient and royal city of Shechem. The reason for selecting this place was probably a recognition of its sacredness in the tradition of the natives, and then a matter of policy. He was not unaware of the discontent whose mutterings had even been heard before Solomon's death. Such an act of policy might be evidence of a thoughtful consideration of problems to be met, or it might be merely a skillful move for popularity. If the first, he would have shown a different attitude because he would have seen the justice of their appeal. And we are forced to see in it rather a play for popular effect. He waives off an immediate answer and then brings the matter before the regularly constituted council of the Empire. These men had known the existence of this trouble that was eating at the peace of the Kingdom. Further there could be no necessity for adding to the burdens of the people. Solomon had left the Kingdom so completely furnished and equipped that a period of rest and recuperation was the part of wisdom. They advised conciliation. They knew the force of the protest, and now was the opportunity for putting into shape another policy of constructive statesmanship, the developing of unity and not the straining of already weakened bonds to the breaking point. But Rehoboam was not a statesman, and he could not comprehend any question that ignored, however slightly, the prerogative of absolutism. So it has been again and again. The thoughtful pupil of this history will easily illustrate the condition of the Jewish people at this time by the conditions now existing in Russia. It is the protest of the people against the absolutism of the Czar and the Beaurocracy. Or he will find another illustration in the American Colonies in 1776 and the era of the Magna Charta and King John of England. Rehoboam then turns to the young men of his own following, and their answer is that of a blind despotism, a narrow and exclusive aristocracy. The third day came and audience was given. We do not know who was spokesman for the protestants, though it would seem as if this duty fell to Jeroboam. V. The Rise of Jeroboam. Jeroboam's story is given in I Kings 11: 26-40. He had aroused the jealousy of Solomon because of rumors of his ambitions for power. These rumors took the shape of an astute plot, possibly, against the throne in the interests of the northern tribes. Jeroboam was himself of the tribe of Ephraim, and had developed a remarkable skill in the management of men and the carrying on of great enterprises. He had fled to Egypt, and only now had returned on the death of Solomon. The whole story then seems to indicate his connection with some such political scheme; and his stepping to the front as the representative and leader of a well-organized movement. The answer of Rehoboam was as brutal as it was ignorant and impolitic. And it brought out at once the challenge of the north. I Kings 12: 16. "What portion have we in David? Neither have we inheritance in the Son of Jesse: Now see to thine own house, David!" The matter had gone too far for readjustment. The envoy of Rehoboam-Adoram, the tax-collector, was the worst selection he could have made for so delicate a task. He was himself the incarnation of the very evil under which the land had groaned. The rebels trampled him under foot and stoned him to death, and Rehoboam alarmed at this assassination, fled from Shechem. VI. The Hour and the Man. The tribe of Ephraim was once more master of the north. One man alone stood out as the natural head of the rebellion. Jeroboam was a man of insatiable ambition. He was a great constructive engineer, and built the walls about Jerusalem and strengthened its fortifications. He kept a large establishment, on a grander scale even than that of Absalom, three hundred chariots and horses. He had special charge of the contingent from the tribe of Ephraim and stood at the very center of disaffection. His exile in Egypt only magnified his importance. He became a favorite with Shishak the Egyptian King, and even married Ano, the sister of Queen Tahpenas, and was urged to remain in Egypt. But Solomon's death opened the way for his ambitious intrigues, and he returned with his wife and son Abijah to Sarira (or Zereda) his native place. Here he built a powerful castle fortress, and was then the logical leader in the rapidly developed conspiracy. The selection of Jeroboam for the throne followed. His religious policy proved unacceptable to many of the stricter Jews, who migrated into Judah, and the Levites, attached already so strongly to the temple, moved southward in large numbers. Jeroboam sought to offset this by the establishment of a new priesthood consecrated by peculiar rites of their own. Bethel and Dan he set apart as new seats of the national worship. Then as the result of his long stay in Egypt, he set up at each sanctuary a Golden Calf like that at the Egyptian Temple of Heliopolis, and ordained certain festivals (I Kings 12: 32,33). Chapter 13 (I Kings) tells of the sharp rebuke of this sacrilege by an unknown prophet, coming unheralded out of Judah to Bethel. VII. Summary of Causes leading to Separation. The causes which led to this division of the kingdom have already been outlined. They may be briefly summarized as follows. 1. False economic policies adopted in order to develop the splendor of the royal state, and further extensive schemes of construction. Solomon pushed these far beyond the natural resources of the kingdom. The method of enforced labor, added to the heavy taxes, proved an intolerable burden, and peculiarly hateful to the spirit of a free people. 2. The growth of wealth, the development of an aristocracy and privileged classes, brought increased luxury and corruption of morals. 3. The religious indifference of the king, the growth, under royal recognition, of foreign and sensual types of worship, the corresponding decay of older and simpler religious customs, and the lowered standards of life, far beyond the natural resources of a kingdom having a population estimated to have been but 5,000,000. It is important, in connection with such a history as |