1 Kings 11:31

1Ki 11:31 And he said to Jeroboam, Take thee ten pieces: for thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, Behold, I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to thee:

Ver. 31. I will rend the kingdom.] I who am the absolute disposer of the kingdom newly erected in the house of David, as is signified by my new garment now rent.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Ki_11:31-33

Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Behold I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon.

The purpose of God

Nothing, we are told, succeeds like success. It is the sign of a man of transcendent genius and power that he is able to carry through all his projects, and bring his schemes to a successful issue. And yet God seems to fail. What could be a greater failure than this world, if it was made by a beneficent God, says the average observer? Why are evil, misfortune, pain, and failure so obvious in its history, and so marked upon its operations? So with Christianity itself; it is the commonplace of missionary meetings that only a small fraction of the world has as yet become Christian, after centuries of preaching and earnest effort. Even where the Church has spread, and fixed her seat, how many schisms and controversies rend her unity, how imperfect is the faith of professing Christians, how unworthy their lives, how poor the realisation of those promises to which they cling. Before we can criticise anything we must know the facts. Before we can give a worthy judgment we must be in a position to judge, and in pronouncing on the great work of God in the universe, we may well ask ourselves, are we in a position during our short visit, which we call life, when we know so imperfectly what came before, when we know absolutely nothing of what comes after--are we in a position to judge? There we stand with the vast ocean before us. Here the wave has receded and left a bare patch of sand, there it is thundering with overwhelming catastrophe against some crumbling barrier. Is the tide coming in, or is it receding? Is there a progress or a steady shrinking back? Before we can decide we have to move away. Has God failed? Is this world in any sense a mistake? Are the Chronicles of Israel and Judah an uninteresting record of a monotonous disaster, unedifying to the soul, and powerless to amuse any attention, or fire our enthusiasm? Is Christianity to alter its name to Civilisation T and to substitute the worship of the beautiful for the service of the sanctuary, the book of science for the Book of God? Is the Church to be carted away in its crumbling masses to the lumber room, where lie now covered with the dust of ages the mouldering forms of Utopias, Republics, and Cities of God, in the model room, where repose the unattainable visions of unpractical men?

I. The plan of God, regarded from the side of His wise omnipotence. Is this world a failure? Does it whirl unchecked and uncontrolled along an aimless path, where luck and fortune and chance are the apparent and only guide to its caprice? Is life a game of chess with an unknown adversary, whom we neither see nor hear--where a mistake on our part is followed by a blow, and that a blow without a word? Have vice and violence and cunning, on the whole, the upper hand in the control of the world? Have all the improvements, the luxuries, the refinements of life, only crushed off in their path a wider and a more sordid fringe of poverty, a moraine of misery, and secured the greatest happiness of the few at the expense of the happiness of the greater number? No! Just remember that God is dealing with a fallen world, a world not as He made it, but as man marred it. A child no doubt, as he lies on his bed, powerless, faint, and ill, crippled by an accident, thinks the doctor cruel as he handles his aching limb, and probes the dangerous wound, and prescribes the bitter medicine; he wishes to be free, to be active, to be playing with his fellows, to feel life in his limbs and health in his frame, to eat what is pleasant, to taste what is sweet, and to fill his life with joy. But the father or the mother, and those who have at heart his welfare, marvel the rather at the skill, the nerve, the resource of the careful physician who is bringing health out of sickness, and a wholesome life out of deformity and mishap. An orchard of trees pruned and cut back is a sorry sight to one, who does not understand the secrets of fruit-bearing, and will not be there to see the golden clusters in the rich autumn. God is dealing with a fallen world, where the measures must be largely remedial, and tending towards a future, rather than self-sufficient in the present. The world is better than it was, it has advanced, and is advancing. Although here and there men sigh over the barren sand, as the wave sighs off with a gasp and a groan, and a sound of falling and disaster. Look out over the world and you will see progress--you cannot deny it--a tending towards a renewal of that time, when in the beginning God saw everything that He had made, and behold it was very good; while by the side of progress we see the unerring punishment which overtakes sin and evil; retribution we call it; a sign that God has given us a law, which cannot be broken.

II. Equally shallow is the criticism which would believe the purpose of God to have failed in His church. The Church is Gods Kingdom set up for the better management of the world. And most emphatically the Church has not been a failure. We have the strange spectacle of lands, once covered with its beneficent richness, now barren and dry, and in the hands of the infidel. We see large fields of the Church, once covered with ripe grain, and rippled with the breath of Heaven, now lying fallow, untilled, apparently uncared for, and yet all waiting on the good purpose of God. If we refuse to despair of the world, much more do we refuse to despair of the Church. The purpose of God in spite of drawbacks is being worked out here. Who can deny it?

III. But there is another region where we are apt to charge God with failure. I mean the region of our own soul. God has called us through the Red Sea, and, we say, would God we had stayed in Egypt. God has led us into the promised land, and we say it is no land of milk and honey. Men turn round on the old Bible and say it has failed; on the simple life of prayer and devotion; and say that it has proved powerless to effect its purpose. It is a bitter thing, dear brethren, to look back on life and say that it has fared. To look back on a pure home and careful training only to deride it, and get away from it. To have that bitter severance in life, which owes no piety to the past, which has lost all sense of vocation, or duty, or mission, and simply lives on from day to day a life which would be bearable were it not for its pleasures, and hopeful were it not for its ambitions. It is a terrible verdict which the world records of a man when it says, He has thrown himself away. It is a terrible sense of failure, when a man owns to himself, I am not what I used to be. It is sad for the returning prodigal to think of a large portion of his life, of which the most hopeful wish would be, that it might remain a blank. It is a more awful thing for a man to feel that his early hopes and aspirations have failed, and that a brilliant morning is likely to be obliterated in a stormy sunset. What can be more sad than the complete breakdown of the moral sense in the heart once alive unto God? Wise Solomon sunk in sensuality; David, whose heart was responsive to every ripple of the Divine breath, dull and insensate; the altar of God spurned, Sunday desecrated; evil eagerly followed; the shame of vice causing no blush, the meanness of it no compunction? And yet Gods purpose survives in another way. Magdalen stands before the world to cheer it with the sight of penitent love, more deep, more utter, because like a precious flower, it has been snatched out of the abyss of sin. An Augustine stands before the world, stored with an experience written in letters of blood, and burned in with horror into his soul, invites those who have made shipwreck of youth, to hope to revive and seek Him ten times the more. Ah! my brethren, believe in the inherent vitality of all Gods good gifts to you. If ever you have been religious, when you now are cold and dead, cherish that seed of life. God means yet again to revive it if you will let Him. If ever your heart was open and responsive before sin blinded your eyes, and the ways of the world made you hard, put yourself back before the first wilful sin, and know and believe that God wishes to revive in you the promise of a better past. (W. C. E. Newbolt, M. A.)

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The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Verse 31. Take thee ten pieces] The garment was the symbol of the kingdom of Israel; the twelve pieces the symbol of the twelve tribes; the ten pieces given to Jeroboam, of the ten tribes which should be given to him, and afterwards form the kingdom of Israel, ruling in Samaria, to distinguish it from the kingdom of Judah, ruling in Jerusalem.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(31, 39) Take thee ten pieces.—The message delivered by Ahijah first repeats exactly the former warning to Solomon (1Ki_11:9-13), marking, by the two reserved pieces of the garment, the duality of the “one tribe” reserved for the house of David; next, it conveys to Jeroboam a promise like that given to David (so far as it was a temporal promise), “to build thee a sure house, as I built for David,” on condition of the obedience which David, with all his weakness and sin, had shown, and from which Solomon, in spite of all his wisdom, had fallen away; and lastly, declares, in accordance with the famous declaration of 2Sa_7:14-16, that sin in the house of David should bring with it severe chastisement, but not final rejection. In estimating the “sin of Jeroboam,” the existence of this promise of security and blessing to his kingdom must be always taken into consideration.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

31. Take thee ten pieces] With this symbolical action of Ahijah may be compared the ‘horns of iron’ which Zedekiah made (1Ki_22:11) to express most significantly the way in which he prophesied that Ahab should repulse the Syrians.

out of the hand of Solomon] i.e. Of his immediate successor, as is explained in 1Ki_11:34.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

But he shall have one tribe for my servant David's sake,.... See Gill on Kg1 11:13.

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1 Kings 11:33

kg1 11:33

kg1 11:33

kg1 11:33Because that they have forsaken me,.... My worship, as the Targum; both Solomon and the children of Israel following his example; which is not to be wondered at, considering how prone they always were to idolatry:

and have worshipped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moabites, and Milcom the god of the children of Ammon; of which deities; see Gill on Kg1 11:5, Kg1 11:7.

and have not walked in my ways, to do that which is right in mine eyes, and to keep my statutes and my judgments, as did David his father; the several laws of God relating to religious worship especially, which David was a strict observer of; and therefore Solomon, having such a pattern before him, was the more blameworthy.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Take thee ten pieces; whence the kingdom of Israel is oft called the kingdom of the ten tribes; by which expression it may seem that David’s posterity should have one tribe reserved out of the kingdom of Israel besides that of Judah, which because of its greatness and eminency, is commonly distinguished from Israel, and that not only after the division of the two kingdoms, but even before it, as 1Sa 11:8; 2Sa 5:5.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

And he said to Jeroboam, Take thee ten pieces: for thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, Behold, I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes Keil insists that "ten" is here mentioned merely as the number of completeness; that, in fact, it is to be understood symbolically and not arithmetically. He further states that in point of fact the kingdom of Jeroboam only consisted of nine tribes, that of Simeon being practically surrounded by the territory of Judah, and so becoming incorporated in the southern kingdom. But surely, if that had been the idea in the prophet"s mind, it would have been better expressed had he torn off one piece from the garment and given the rest, undivided, to Jeroboam (Bahr). And the reference to the number of the tribes is unmistakable. As to Simeon, we have no means of knowing what part that tribe, if it still existed, took at the division of the kingdom. See on 1Ki_19:3. Its members had long been scattered, (Gen_49:7) and it gradually dwindled away, and has already disappeared from the history. But even if it had a corporate existence and did follow the lead of Judah, still that is not con. clusive on the question, for we know not only that the historian uses round numbers, but also that we are not to look for exact statements, as the next verse proves to thee.

HOMILETICS.

Vers. 31-35.

The Punishment of Solomon"s Sin.

We have lately traced the gradual declension in piety of this most puissant prince; we have seen him steadily sowing to the wind. The next thing Scripture records concerning him is the retribution which befel him. It is now for us to see him reaping to the whirlwind.

But in considering the recompenses of his sin, it is essential to remember

1. That we can only speak, because we only know, of the temporal punishment which attended him. It may be that was all. Possibly the flesh was destroyed that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord. (1Co_6:5) It may be that, foully as he fell, he did not fail finally, but of this no man can be certain. There is every reason to think that the question has been "left in designed obscurity" (Keble, "Occasional Papers," pp. 392-434, where the subject is discussed at considerable length), that no one might presume. It may be, therefore, that he still awaits the just recompense of wrath in the day of wrath. (Rom_2:5)

2. That if this temporal punishment does not strike us as severe considering the enormity of his sin and the greatness of the gifts and privileges he had abused it is partly because the temporal punishment was mitigated for his father"s sake. The avenging hand could not smite Solomon without at the same time hurting David. We are expressly told that Solomon was maintained on the throne all his life, and that one tribe was given the word implies that the gift was unmerited to his son, for David"s sake (vers. 34-36). If, therefore, we are tempted to think that the punishment was not exemplary, let us see in it an instance of God"s "showing mercy unto thousands" (sc., of generations, Exo_20:6) a proof of the Infinite Love which "remembered David and all his afflictions". (Psa_132:1) But such as it was, it was sufficient to teach us these two lessons at least.

1. "Be sure your sin will find you out". (Num_32:23)

2. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap". (Gal_6:7)

For this retribution was of two kinds. There was

I THAT WHICH SOLOMON SUFFERED IN HIS OWN PERSON; and,

II THAT WHICH HE SUFFERED IN HIS FAMILY AND KINGDOM. Under the first of these categories the following penalties are to be ranked:

1. His life was shortened. Probably by the operation of natural laws. It is not suggested that he was directly smitten of God; it is quite possible that his rank voluptuousness destroyed his energies and induced premature decay. But all the same his days were cut short. Not only was long life the principal sanction of the dispensation under which he lived, but it had been expressly promised him as the reward of piety. (1Ki_3:14) But his sun went down while it was yet noon. He was not sixty when the mandate went forth, "Remove the diadem, and take off the crown". (Eze_21:26) And if it be true, what Dr. Johnson said to David Garrick when the latter showed him his elegant house at Richmond, that great and rare earthly possessions "make deathbeds miserable," it must have cost Solomon a sharp pang to leave so soon his cedar palace and his chryselephantine throne.

2. His life was embittered. If, as is most probable, we have in the book of Ecclesiastes a chapter of his autobiography, it is clear that his glory brought him little satisfaction (ch. 3. passim; 5:13; 6:12; 7:26); there was a worm at the root of all his pleasures. Of what avail were his houses, his gardens, his pools of water, etc., so long as he had not the heart to enjoy them?

It is the mind that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch"d or happy, rich or poor, For some, that hath abundance at his will, Hath not enough, but seeks a greater store.

He knew nothing of "the royalty of inward happiness." How different St. Paul, "Having nothing, yet possessing all things," etc.. (2Co_6:10) What a commentary on the "confessions" of Solomon, as they have been called, with their everlasting refrain, their vanitas vanitatum, is that confession of a man who suffered one long martyrdom of pain the Baptist minister, Robert Hall enjoy everything.

1. He was tortured by remorse. This is not expressly stated, but surely it may with good reason be inferred. For the wisest of men could not be so insensate, when he heard the message of doom, (1Ki_12:2) as not to reflect how different his end was to be from his beginning; how fair the flower, and how bitter the fruit. Surely the cry he has put into others" lips

2. would often rise from his own, "How have I hated instruction," etc. (Pro_5:12)

3. He was haunted by forebodings. "This great Babylon" which he had builded, how soon should it be destroyed. The empire which he had consolidated should barely last his life. "One tribe how those words would ring in his ears! Then he had good reason, too, to fear that his son was one of the class he had himself described, (Pro_10:1 Pro_15:20 Pro_17:25 Pro_19:18. Cf. Ecc_2:19) and no match for Jeroboam, of whose designs upon the throne he cannot have been ignorant. (1Ki_11:26, 1Ki_11:27) He had the mortification of knowing that his "servant" would enter into his labours. And to the prospect of dissensions within, was added the certainty of disaffection without. Hadad and Rezon were already on his border, and were only biding their time. The political horizon was indeed black and lowering.

4. He was harassed by adversaries. For it is clear from verses 14, 28, 26, that Solomon"s enemies were not content to wait for his death. Damascus was a thorn in his side. Egypt was a hotbed of intrigues. The profound peace which he once enjoyed he had lost. The clouds of war were not only gathering, but some of them had burst. His throne of ivory and gold can have been but an insecure and uncomfortable seat for some time before he vacated it.

II But men like Solomon think of posterity and of posthumous fame as much as of themselves. If every father has "given hostages to fortune," how much more vulnerable is a king in the person of his successor. Let us now trace the calamities which betel Solomon"s house and kingdom.

1. In the infatuation of his son. Was there ever a political crisis so wofully mismanaged as that which marked Rehoboam"s accession? A few pacific words, a graceful concession, and all would have gone well. But his brutal non possumus precipitated his downfall. It was enough to make Solomon turn in his grave. But it is for us to remember that "his mother"s name was Naamah, an Ammonitess". (1Ki_14:21, 1Ki_14:31) And this is the result of multiplying wives.

2. In the dismemberment of his kingdom. The vast empire which Solomon had founded with so much care and pains, how short a time sufficed to tear it asunder. What a contrast between the "one tribe" with its barren territory, and the description of 1Ki_4:20, 1Ki_4:21. How had he spent his strength for naught, or rather for his slave Jeroboam, who inherited all the fairest and wealthiest portions of the realm. And this was the end of his land hunger that he was left with the desert of Judah.

3. In the invasion of Shishak. For he had not long slept with his fathers when the vast treasures which he had lavished on the palace of the Lord and his own palaces were carried away to Egypt. All the precious metals which David had accumulated, all the acquisitions of Solomon"s fleets, all the royal offerings of the queen of Sheba and of tributary kings gone to the sons of the stranger, to the swart children of Ham. He had amassed prodigious wealth, but it was for aliens and enemies. Not only the shields and drinking vessels, but the candlesticks, bowls, and the very laminae which had glorified the sanctuary, all fell to the invader. What a case of Sic vos non vobis! What would Solomon have said could he have foreseen Rehoboam"s "Brummagem" shields, and the punctilious ceremony with which they were paraded and preserved? And this was the end of multiplying silver and gold to himself. He had put it all into a bag with. (Hag_1:6)

4. In the demoralization of his people. For the idolatries of Judah, the images, the groves, the Sodomites, (1Ki_14:23) were but the continuation and development of the idolatries which Solomon had inaugurated. His son did but reap the crop which himself had sown. Nay, so exact is the lex talionis that we presently find a queen of Judah erecting a "horror" for the most shameful of rites. (see note on 1Ki_15:13) And this was the result of building altars for his queens and princesses "on the hill that is before Jerusalem," that within a few years the Lord"s people, whose was the law and the temple, etc., built them high places, etc., "on every high hill and under every green tree". (1Ki_14:23)

1. In the captivity of the nation. For the dispersion and enslavement of the Jewish people, though only consummated some four centuries later, and though it was the retribution of a long series of sins, was nevertheless, in a sense, the result of Solomon"s sin. That is to say, his sin was (as ch. 9. vers. 6, 7 show) the first beginning of that ever deepening apostasy from the Lord, of which the captivity was, from the first, denounced as the punishment. Other princes no doubt followed in his steps and filled up the measure of iniquity, but the Grand Monarque of their race had first showed them the way. And so the people who had held sway even to the Euphrates were carried beyond the Euphrates, and those who had seen subject kings in their land became subjects in a foreign land. (cf. Jer_5:19) How full of instruction and warning is it that the

2. captivity which Solomon foretold (1Ki_8:46) he should have done so much to precipitate. He predicted, i.e. , both his own and his nation"s downfall.

3. But the multiplication of horses, that too, like the other sins, seems to have brought its own peculiar Nemesis. For whence, let us ask, came the army that pillaged Jerusalem, and carried off the treasures of the temple? It came in the footprints of the horses. First, the invasion of Solomon, and then the invasion of Shishak, "with twelve hundred chariots and threescore thousand horsemen". (2Ch_12:8) And what came of the horses supplied to the Tyrians and Hittites? See 1Ki_20:1 ("horses and chariots;" cf. ver. 25); 1Ki_22:31; 2Ki_6:15 2Ki_7:6, etc. It is extremely probable that the cavalry he supplied to foreign kings became an instrument in their hands to scourge his own people. Nor is it wholly unworthy of notice that the murderer Zimri was "captain of half the chariots". (1Ki_16:9) Assuredly, that unhallowed trade did not go unpunished.

Such, then, is the principal moral of this history: "Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god". (Psa_16:4) And among the additional lessons which this subject teaches are these:

(1) That where much is given, much will be required;

(2) That judgment begins at the house of God;

(3) "He that knew his lord"s will and did it not shall be beaten with many stripes;

(4) "Every transgression and disobedience shall receive its just recompense of reward;

(5) "If God spared not the natural branches," etc.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

He said

Here the word "He" refers to Ahijah.

tear the kingdom out

Here "tear ... out" is a metaphor that refers to the action of forcefully removing. This is like a person tears apart a piece of cloth. See how you translated this phrase in 1 Kings 11:11. AT: "forcefully take the kingdom out" (See: Metaphor)

the hand of Solomon

Here "hand" is a metonym that refers to a person's authority, control and power. AT: "Solomon's control" (See: Metonymy)

Solomon will have

The name "Solomon" here is a metonym referring to his descendants. AT: "Solomon's sons will have" or "Solomon's descendants will have" (See: Metonymy)

Ashtoreth ... Chemosh ... Molech

These are the names of false gods. (See: How to Translate Names)

Sidonians ... Moab ... Ammon

These are the names of locations and the people groups that live there. (See: How to Translate Names)

what is right in my eyes

"Eyes" here is a metonym for someone's opinion or idea. This is a commonly used idiom. AT: "what I consider to be right" (See: Metonymy and Idiom)

translationWords

Yahweh

God

Israel

kingdom

tribe

servant

Jerusalem

forsake

worship

Sidon

Moab

Ammon

walk

statute

decree

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.