God does not limit Himself to revealing to Solomon the judgment which out of regard for David his father would fall upon Rehoboam his son instead of upon himself; but the king’s unfaithfulness would also bring down on himself the Lord’s discipline during the last years of his reign. Peace, that fruit characteristic of this reign, is destroyed; Solomon goes through a period abounding in troubles, seditions, and plots against his throne; nations such as Egypt who had in former times deemed being allied with him an honor, now nourish, raise to honor, and support his worst enemies. All kinds of ties are weakened. The yoke of the king weighs heavily upon the people in order to avoid internal sedition. This results only in poorly repressed discontentment which breaks out from time to time (1 Kings 12:4).
God stirs up enemies against Solomon from among those nations toward whom his lusts had drawn him. Edom was filled with deadly hatred against Israel because David, by the hand of Joab, had cut off all the males of that land (2 Sam. 8:13, 14; 1 Chron. 18:12; Psa. 60, heading). Hadad had escaped with a few servants. But had his hatred lessened because Solomon had taken Edomite women as wives? Hadad had fled to Egypt, had been welcomed at Pharaoh’s court, had become his brother-in-law, and his son had been brought up among the heirs to the throne. Where do the sympathies and favors of the world go? Not to David, but to David’s enemy. One emotion in the heart of Hadad speaks more loudly than all the honors and delights of Egypt’s court: hatred, hatred against Solomon. He gives up all his advantages to satisfy this hatred. Doubtless the conduct of David’s companions had provided the motive for it, but Joab and David were dead: the hatred continued. Underneath it all, the world always hates the Lord’s anointed, and conduct of believers, whether more or less blameable, only serves as a pretext for this hatred.
Rezon, the servant of Hadadezer, king of Zobah, whom David had smitten (2 Sam. 8:3-8; 10:6), is a second adversary. Rezon becomes king in Damascus and reigns over Syria. “He abhorred Israel” (1 Kings 11:23-25).
The world is like Hadad and Rezon. As long as we maintain the place relative to it that the cross of Christ authorizes us to take — the cross by which the world is crucified to us and we to the world (Gal. 6:14) — as long as we consider the world as a defeated enemy (John. 16:33), it does not make a move. But let us make alliance with it, then it cannot forget its defeat, and though it may perhaps maintain an appearance of indifference, it will not hate us any less.
The last, the most dangerous enemy of Solomon’s, is the enemy from within, Jeroboam (1 Kings 11:26-40). He was “Solomon’s servant,” an Ephrathite or Ephraimite. Solomon had set him over Ephraim for the work of the fortification of Millo, which was the defense of Jerusalem against enemies from the north. It was a most dangerous kind of move, but what was Solomon able to foresee? God alone knew.
Through his duties Jeroboam knew all the secrets of the stronghold, and he gained the sympathes of his own tribe as well. In the same way, when difficulties arise among God’s people, the greatest danger comes from those who by their activity have appropriated the principles of their brethren and have succeeded in substituting themselves for Christ in winning the sympathies of the many. Such are the weapons they use to make a breach among the people of God. Their motives seem to be unselfish; like Jeroboam, they would deliver the people from a yoke that is difficult to bear; in reality they are Satan’s instruments to destroy the testimony of God, as we shall soon see. And yet they are servants of Christ, as Jeroboam was of Solomon!
Now a prophet appears. Just as Samuel at the time of the ruin of the priesthood, so the fall of the kingship now raises up a prophet. He becomes, as we shall see so strikingly in the course of these books, the bond between the people and God when kingship in responsibility has failed. Ahijah the prophet meets Jeroboam outside Jerusalem. He rends the new garment with which he is clothed (indeed, the kingdom was still quite new), and gives ten parts to Jeroboam. At that very moment the kingdom is torn out of the hands of Solomon, although this fact is only realized later. One tribe is left to the house of David on account of the free choice of grace with regard to David and Jerusalem. “They have forsaken Me,” says the Lord, “and have worshipped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moabites, and Milcom the god of the children of Ammon, and have not walked in My ways, to do that which is right in My sight, and My statutes and Mine ordinances, as David his father” (1 Kings 11:33). “They” was Solomon, the king! No doubt, all the people later followed that same path, but at this moment one man had sinned — the king. Set before God in a position of responsibility for all the people, his unfaithfulness brought judgment upon Israel. What a severe punishment Solomon had incurred.
In 1 Kings 11:34 God, ever coming back to the grace he had shown to David, adds: “And unto his son will I give one tribe, that David My servant may have a lamp always before Me in Jerusalem, the city that I have chosen for Myself to put My name there” (1 Kings 11:36). Grace is more in God’s eyes than all glory, or rather, grace is the most precious part of glory, for it is, so to speak, at the head of all divine perfections.
“And it shall be,” says Ahijah to Jeroboam, “if thou wilt hearken unto all that I command thee, and wilt walk in My ways, and do that which is right in My sight, in keeping My statutes and My commandments, as David My servant did, that I will be with thee, and build thee a lasting house, as I built for David, and will give Israel unto thee” (1 Kings 11:38). A new responsibility now devolves upon Jeroboam. God was giving him a privileged position. His house was to be as sure as that of David, if he would hearken to the commandments of the Lord. But God makes one reservation: “And I will for this afflict the seed of David, but not forever” (1 Kings 11:39). In due time that grace upon which David’s kingdom was founded would again assert its rights, for it was not upon grace, but upon responsibility that Jeroboam’s kingdom and that of Solomon itself were established. The promises of God are without repentance; He delights in grace. Thus the future kingdom of the true King of Glory will be based upon a new covenant, a covenant of grace where God alone is under obligation, upon a new creation — that which was not the case with Solomon’s kingdom.
“But not forever”: one finds in the ways of God, periods where judgment, so to say, eclipses grace. It is not that grace no longer exists — it remains absolutely the same, but it ceases to shine out so that other perfections of divine glory, such as righteousness and judgment, can be manifested. So too the sun which is more than one hundred times the diameter of the earth is eclipsed by the shadow of the latter. When the eclipse is over, the enormous star appears again in all its brightness, for the shadow that covered it has taken away none of its splendor, except to the eyes of men.
Solomon seeks to kill Jeroboam (1 Kings 11:40). Such are the feelings produced in his heart by this discipline! Instead of bringing him into God’s presence bowed, humbly submitting to the chastening, the obstacle God had raised up to him only irritates him and provokes him to seek to free himself of it. How sad the heart that has lost its communion with God and that does not judge itself. What has Solomon, the king of righteousness, come to? His heart is no longer upright before God. How far he is from his beginnings!
Jeroboam flees to Egypt, remaining there until Solomon’s death.
All the events related in this eleventh chapter are missing in 2 Chronicles, but two expressions in 2 Chronicles 9 give us to know that they are omitted by design. “And the rest of the acts of Solomon first and last, are they not written in the words of Nathan the prophet, and in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, and in the visions of Iddo the seer concerning Jeroboam the son of Nebat?” (2 Chron. 9:29). An omission in the Word of God always has its reason, and we have so often called attention to this one that there is no need to repeat it.