Israel Rebels Against Rehoboam
12 Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had gone there to make him king. 2 When Jeroboam son of Nebat heard this (he was still in Egypt, where he had fled from King Solomon), he returned from Egypt. 3 So they sent for Jeroboam, and he and the whole assembly of Israel went to Rehoboam and said to him: 4 “Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but now lighten the harsh labor and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you.”
5 Rehoboam answered, “Go away for three days and then come back to me.” So the people went away.
6 Then King Rehoboam consulted the elders who had served his father Solomon during his lifetime. “How would you advise me to answer these people?” he asked.
7 They replied, “If today you will be a servant to these people and serve them and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your servants.” (NIV)
The difference between our words “ferment” and “foment” isn’t always easy to figure out from context. Both can be used when you’re talking about a rebellion. The difference is this: A rebellion ferments when then there is excitement in a crowd; all they need is a leader or an excuse to push them over the edge (just as when juices ferment because they’re being excited by something). When things get going, then a rebellion foments, which means to stir up or instigate something. As Rehoboam came out for the first time as the King, both things happened. The people were fermenting, and at first it seems as if Rehoboam himself did the fomenting.
Let’s be careful about that assessment.
Jeroboam was Solomon’s manager for the millo project that united upper and lower Jerusalem. Now God used the same man to divide northern and southern Israel. Jeroboam reminds me of the old English word cleave, which can mean opposite things depending on how it’s used. Cleave is what a husband and wife are supposed to do when they marry: they cleave together so that nothing can separate them (Matthew 19:6). But if a cleaver is used on meat, it separates something that used to be inseparable. Jeroboam was used for one, but now he was going to be used for the other.
Solomon had put the Israelites to work on the temple project, and the work had been hard. (Jeroboam himself had been one of the men who worked the Israelites so hard!) They did it because Solomon was a strong ruler. His son Rehoboam doesn’t seem to have understood what he was up against. His older counselors advised him to listen to his people and act wisely, but he wasn’t going to listen to them. The writer of Kings lets us in on that fact from the very beginning. The Lord had already chosen to tear the kingdom away from Rehoboam, and Jeroboam, who had cloven Jerusalem together, was now going to cleave Israel apart. The rebellion was fermenting, but it was God himself doing the fomenting.
Do we call this a case of unavoidable destiny? Was there no way for Rehoboam to answer the people and prevent what was in motion? After all, it was Jeroboam, the rebel returned from Egypt, at the head of the delegation. What we need to remember is that our lives are not foreordained. The fact that God knows our future sins is not the same as God forcing us to sin. Our sins are still our own, whether God knew ahead of time or whether everybody knew ahead of time.
The “what ifs” that we might ask about Rehoboam aren’t the reason God has given us this account. This is about what God did, and if there are any “what ifs” to be asked, they aren’t about Rehoboam in the past. They’re all about us, and our own futures. What are the ways we can be faithful servants of our God? We have his forgiveness. We ask his blessing.
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. His wife, Kathryn, attended Chapel from 1987-1990 while studying Secondary Education (Theater and Math) at UW-Madison. Kathryn’s father, John Meyer, was also the first man to serve as a Vicar at Chapel.
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