"Your father [Solomon] had put 'a heavy yoke on us' [Israel] but now lighten the harsh labor and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you”, said Jeroboam and the whole assembly of Israel. 1 Kings 12:4
Before Rehoboam ascended to the throne his father Solomon had implemented forced labor and heavy taxation to pay for projects that Solomon had initiated. The people of Israel had had enough and Jeroboam and the whole assembly of Israel felt and advised likewise asking Rehoboam to lighten their yoke. Rehoboam consulted with the elders who had served Solomon. They advised him to be a servant leader to the people and agree to what was being requested. Rehoboam appears to have flatly and foolishly rejected all sound consuls.
He then moves on to peers he had grown up with and subsequently forges ahead with the plan that comes from this consultation of friends. He tells the people of Israel in no uncertain terms.
"My father made your yoke heavy; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions." 1 Kings 12:11
Rehoboam did not listen to the people, for this turn of events was from the Lord, to fulfill the word the Lord had spoken to Jeroboam son of Nebat through Ahijah the Shilonite. I think this is another case of God working directly through peoples actions as stated in Genesis 50:20 (what you meant for evil, God means for good). Although the decision to rule with an iron fist was entirely Rehoboam’s bad decision but it coincides decidedly well with God’s plan of predetermined judgment. (Courson 994). To see the judgment we must turn to the previous chapter in 1 Kings and reread the statement of judgment from God to Solomon before his death.
"Therefore the LORD said to Solomon, "Since this has been your practice and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant. Yet for the sake of David your father I will not do it in your days, but I will tear it out of the hand of your son. However, I will not tear away all the kingdom, but I will give one tribe to your son, for the sake of David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem that I have chosen." ~1 Kings 11:11-13
The tribes inevitably split, ten to the Northern kingdom and two to the Southern (Benjamin/Judah). This incident is a good example of a man failing to get on his knees to supplicate before the one Being/Person that can actually give him good advise and effect a positive change. We see Rehoboam consulting everyone but God and like his father Solomon and grandfather David he suffered the negative consequences of not consulting with God first when dealing with Israel, God’s chosen people.
David and Solomon had both run into serious trouble when they drifted from the consul of the Lord and failed to obey basic principles laid out by God. The kingship itself is really just an encapsulation or cross-section of the nation of Israel at large or more specifically a cross-sectioned examination of the sins of man and the effects of that sin in a person’s and a nation’s lifetime/longevity. A pattern individually and nationally of: disobedience-punishment-repentence-forgiveness-disobedience-punishment-repenetence-forgiveness...blah blah blah blah
…if there is no repentance, eventual destruction or total annihilation descends on a people. The remainder of Rehoboam’s seventeen year reign is marked by turmoil or as the Bible states, “So Israel rebelled against the house of David until this day” (the time of writing of 1 Kings).
God doesn’t play games and man has a repeated track record of either disregarding this fact or not understanding it. Because God is ultimately just, He must judge and pass a verdict on sin (disobedience). We know from Paul in Romans 3:10-11 that, “As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.” As it is written? Who wrote it? Solomon, Rehoboam’s father of course, in Ecclesiastes 7:20, “There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins.”
Courson, Jon. Jon Courson's Application Commentary: Old Testament, Volume I (Genesis-Job) (Jon Courson's Application Commentary). Nashville, Tennessee: Nelson Reference, 2006. 994. Print.
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