by Brad Boyles
I hate to be pessimistic, but here in Chapter 11, we have bad going to worse. Rehoboam (Solomon’s son) was now the king of the southern tribes of Judah. Jeroboam (Solomon’s former official) was now the king of the northern tribes of Israel. The great divide in Israel’s history proved to be fatal for their spiritual condition. This is because both men decided they were going to do things their own way. First, Rehoboam wanted to go to war. If it hadn’t been for God intervening, a civil war would have broken out. Ironically, though we read many chapters about the violence in the OT, this would be a case where the desire of God was revealed. He did not want His people going to war. Next, we see the Levites choosing to minister to the southern kingdom. This was inevitable because the Levite priests were assigned to serve all the tribes of Israel. Now that they had separated and formed their own authority structures, it would be impossible for the priests to serve both sides. They chose the southern tribe of Judah most likely because Rehoboam was within the bloodline of David but also because Jeroboam directly prohibited them to serve his people. After that, Jeroboam precedes to create false idols and assign his own priests to serve at these pagan sites. The bad decisions were piling up and this one is probably the most disturbing of this chapter. Jeroboam had decided that he was going to change things up. He substituted his own ways for the ways God had commanded for generations. This is a sobering reminder for Christians today. A lot of times we try and find new ways to “fix” things when God has already spoken. God has given us our battleplan in His Word. We don’t need to look anywhere else and we don’t need to substitute our own methods in place of His!