Глава 12

1–25. Division of the Jewish kingdom into two: Judah (southern) and Israel (northern), 26–33. The cult of golden calves introduced by Jeroboam into the kingdom of Israel and his arbitrary change in the order of worship. 1 Kings 12:1. And Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had come to Shechem to make him king. 1 Kings 12:2. And Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, heard about this while he was still in Egypt, where he fled from King Solomon, and Jeroboam returned from Egypt; 1 Kings 12:3. and they sent for him and called him. Then Jeroboam and the whole congregation of Israel came and spoke to [king] Rehoboam and said: “Shechem” is a city in the tribe of Ephraim, at the foot of the city of Gerizim (Onomast. 895), known from ancient times from sacred memories (cf. Gen. 12:6; Josh. 24:1), and from the division of the Jewish kingdom into two, which was one of the capitals of the northern kingdom of Israel before the construction of Samaria. To “reign” Rehoboam - after he had already reigned (1 Kings 11:43), that is, to confirm Rehoboam’s reign over the other tribes, and not just over the tribe of Judah, gathered, no doubt, representatives of these other tribes - the “Israelites”, and not the Judah tribe, which had already recognized Rehoboam as a king. “Jeroboam, summoned from Egypt by his like-minded people, was the soul of this meeting,” and the very place – Shechem – was “chosen for the meeting, probably because the people could act more freely here than in Jerusalem” (Metropolitan Philaret. Outline of Church Biblical History, p. 231). 1 Kings 12:4. Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but you make it easier for us the cruel work of your father and the heavy yoke that he put on us, and then we will serve you. The words of the people's representatives of the 10 tribes express the reverse or shadow side of the brilliant reign of Solomon: this brilliance required for its maintenance a great tension of the people's strength: “a heavy yoke” (Heb.: sot, Greek: κλοιός, Vulg.: jugum - the yoke of animals (Num. 19:2; Deut. 21:3; 1 Sam. 6:7), and then - slave labor, forced labor (Deut. 28:48; Lev. 26:13) and cruel work became the lot of the people. In this case, the prophetic word of Samuel about the painful consequences for the people’s well-being from the despotic organized royal government was fulfilled (1 Sam. 8:11-17). However, when judging the complaints of the representatives of the 10 tribes, it should be borne in mind that these complaints were coming from the lips of a crowd that was jealous of them. the royal tribe of Judah (cf. 2 Kings 19:41–43), led by the rebel Jeroboam and already ready to fall away, could greatly exaggerate the actual state of duties: from (1 Kings 9:21–22, cf. 2 Chronicles 8:9), it is known that Solomon, when distributing government work, made a distinction between natural Jews and Canaanites; In general, there is no talk about the oppression of the people through conscription in the entire previous narrative. The true motive of the present demand was, as can be seen from Art. 16, in the long-standing discord and alienation of “Israel,” i.e., the 10 northern tribes, from Judah, i.e., the population of the southern part of the Palestinian territory: the tribes of Judah and Benjamin with the addition of some elements from other tribes (Simeon, Levi, etc.). This discord was the real reason Israel fell away from the house of David (v. 19). Wed. Philaret, Outline of Church Biblical History, p. 231; prof. Ya. A. Bogorodsky, Jewish kings, Kazan, 1834, p. 423 words ; prof. F. Ya. Pokrovsky, Division of the Jewish Kingdom, p. 280 words 1 Kings 12:5. And he said to them: Go and in three days come to me again. And the people went. 1 Kings 12:6. King Rehoboam consulted with the elders who stood before Solomon his father during his lifetime, and said: How do you advise me to answer this people? 1 Kings 12:7. They spoke to him and said: If you will be a servant of this people this day and serve them, and satisfy them and speak kindly to them, then they will be your slaves forever. 1 Kings 12:8. But he neglected the advice of the elders that they advised him, and consulted with the young people who had grown up with him and who stood before him, 1 Kings 12:9. and he said to them, “How do you advise me to answer this people, who spoke to me and said, ‘Easy the yoke that your father has laid on us’?” 1 Kings 12:10. And the young men who grew up with him spoke to him and said, “Tell this to this people who spoke to you and said, “Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but make it easier for us.” So say to them: “My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins; 1 Kings 12:11. So, if my father burdened you with a heavy yoke, then I will increase your yoke; my father punished you with whips, but I will punish you with scorpions.” 1 Kings 12:12. Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day, as the king commanded, saying, Come to me on the third day. 1 Kings 12:13. And the king answered the people sternly and disregarded the advice of the elders that they advised him; 1 Kings 12:14. and he spoke according to the advice of the young men and said: My father has placed a heavy yoke on you, but I will increase your yoke; my father punished you with whips, but I will punish you with scorpions. 1 Kings 12:15. And the king did not listen to the people, for so it was destined by the Lord, that His word might be fulfilled, which the Lord spoke through Ahijah the Shilohite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat. Rehoboam's foolish response to the representatives (v. 14), cf. (Sir.47:28), which irritated them and prompted them to decide to break away from the house of David (v. 16), is, therefore, nothing more than a reason for the discovery and resolution of the long-standing hostility of the 10 tribes towards the tribe of Judah and the dynasty of David. However, the behavior of Rehoboam cannot be justified: he neglected the prudent advice of the elders, “who stood before Solomon” (vv. 6, 8), i.e., Solomon’s true advisers, members of his court college (cf. 1 Kings 4: 2–6), and listened to the arrogant advice of his young advisers, “who grew up with him” (v. 8: in the eastern courts of the royal courts, the crown princes were brought up in a circle court youths of the same age). The latter “are called youths (1 Kings 12:8), just as Rehoboam himself is called the youngest (2 Chronicles 13:7), not so much by age (for he was already 41 years old at that time), but by immaturity of mind and inexperience” (Filaret, op. cit. 232, note). The extreme blindness of Rehoboam with pride, in which he exalts himself so much before his father, is simply incomprehensible (vv. 10, 14). To explain this, one can cite the thought of St. writer: “so it was destined by the Lord” (Hebrew sibba meim Jehovah, LXX: μεταστροφὴ ή παρὰ τοῦ Κυρίου, glor.: “transformation from the Lord”, v. 15), as after Jehovah through the prophet Samey declared to Rehoboam and his kingdom that the fall of Israel occurred by the will of God; but, of course, the will of God only did not constrain the natural, in this case, evil movements of the human will - Rehoboam, Jeroboam and the rebels from the 10 tribes. Here the same action of God took place as in the hardening of the heart of Pharaoh (Ex. 14:4; cf. Rom. 9:17). The purpose of divine permission for the sad disintegration of God's chosen people into two hostile kingdoms, obviously, is to punish the dynasty of David and the people for the facts of infidelity of Solomon and the people to Jehovah. Wed. Blessed Theodoret, vopr. 40. 1 Kings 12:16. And all the Israelites saw that the king did not listen to them. And the people answered the king and said, What portion have we in David? We have no share in the son of Jesse; to your tents, O Israel! now know your home, David! And Israel dispersed to their tents. The words: “What part do we have in David?” , - the old revolutionary cry of those dissatisfied with the dynasty of David, heard even during the indignation of Sheba under David (cf. 2 Samuel 20: 1), now pronounced with all decisiveness and irrevocability. Regarding the expression “in their tents” (Hebrew ohalekha, ohalav), some believe that its original reading was different: “to their gods” (elohekha, elogav) and that the present reading, obtained through the rearrangement of one letter in place of another (חלא and אחל), was a proofreading of the text, since this proclamation was found to be in disagreement with the general opinion that the Israelites at the time of Solomon were pure worshipers of Jehovah (Prof. D. A. Khvolson. History of the Old Testament text and an outline of its oldest translations in relation to the original and among themselves. Christ. Reading. 1874, May, pp. 50–53; Prof. F. Ya. Pokrovsky, Division of the Jewish Kingdom, p. 239 note). In the present reading, the proclamation (“according to their tents”) refers to the time of the Jews’ wanderings in the desert, when the camp of the people was arranged according to tribes. 1 Kings 12:17. Only Rehoboam reigned over the children of Israel who lived in the cities of Judah. In addition to the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, Rehoboam was also joined by the Israelites of the tribe of Simeon, who lived within the tribe of Judah (Joshua 19:1–9), as well as many from Levi and other tribes (2 Chron. 10:12–16). Still, the kingdom of Judah was equal to no more than 1/4 of Solomon’s possessions. Transjordan also belonged to the kingdom of Israel (v. 25). 1 Kings 12:18. And King Rehoboam sent Adoniram, the tax chief; but all the Israelites stoned him, and he died; King Rehoboam hastily mounted his chariot to escape to Jerusalem. Rehoboam, however, apparently did not lose hope of convincing the Israelites to submit and for this purpose sends the tax chief Adoniram (Heb.: Adoram, cf. (1 Kings 4:6) and (2 Kings 20:24) to them for admonitions and negotiations); but the sight of an official they hated by the very nature of his service enraged them, and they stoned Adoniram, and Rehoboam had to hastily flee to Jerusalem. 1 Kings 12:19. And Israel revolted from the house of David to this day. “Israel set aside from the house of David”: set aside, Hebrew: “sinned” (the verb pasha has the same root as pesha, sin), - since it abandoned the God-chosen house of David, and at the same time the temple of Jerusalem (cf. vv. 26-27) and in general the general theocratic organization. “Until this day” is an expression that could not be used by a writer who survived the fall of the Kingdom of Israel, the taking of the Israelites into Assyrian captivity and the fall of the Kingdom of Judah (2 Kings 17:1–6, 25:1–21), but only by a person who did not live to see the fall of both kingdoms, i.e. one of the compilers of the “Annals of the Kings of Judah and Israel” (Prof. Yungerov. Law. Sobes. 1905, July-Aug. 418 pp.). 1 Kings 12:20. When all the Israelites heard that Jeroboam had returned [from Egypt], they sent and called him into the assembly, and made him king over all the Israelites. There was no one left behind the house of David except the tribe of Judah [and Benjamin]. The Israelites could not remain without a king, and the tribe of Ephraim, the dominant tribe among them, nominated the Ephraimite Jeroboam as the only candidate for the throne, for whom his past liberation (from the point of view of the Ephraimites) aspirations spoke; he became king over 10 tribes. Rehoboam retained the tribe of Judah and Benjamin (LXX glory), with the above additions from other tribes. 1 Kings 12:21. Rehoboam, having arrived in Jerusalem, gathered one hundred and eighty thousand chosen soldiers from the entire house of Judah and from the tribe of Benjamin to fight against the house of Israel in order to return the kingdom to Rehoboam the son of Solomon. 1 Kings 12:22. And the word of God came to Samey, the man of God, and said: 1 Kings 12:23. Say to Rehoboam the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all the house of Judah and Benjamin and the rest of the people: 1 Kings 12:24. Thus says the Lord: Do not go and make war with your brothers the children of Israel; return every one to his own house, for it was from Me. And they obeyed the word of the Lord and went back according to the word of the Lord. Rehoboam decided on the last resort - to annex the rebellious Israelites to his kingdom: he gathered a significant army from the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and others - 180 thousand (he could easily and quickly do this: in one tribe of Judah, according to the census that took place under David, there were 500,000 people capable of bearing arms) (2 Samuel 24:9). But this time the fratricidal war was prevented by the prophet Samei or Semaia (who probably lived in Jerusalem), who in the name of Jehovah once again testified that the disintegration of the united Jewish kingdom was accomplished by the will of God, and that the struggle was pointless (cf. 2 Chronicles 11: 2-5). In the Vatican Codex Greek. translation after Art. 24 follows an insert composed of various biblical remarks about the reign of Jeroboam. 1 Kings 12:25. And Jeroboam built Shechem on Mount Ephraim and dwelt in it; From there he went and built Penuil. Jeroboam's first task was the external strengthening of his state: the construction and strengthening of the most important cities in any respect, Shechem and Penuel. Both cities existed for a long time - from patriarchal times: Shechem is known from the history of Abraham (Gen.12:6), Jacob (Gen.33:18,34:1-31) and Joshua (Josh.20:7,24:1); it was destroyed by Gideon's son Abimelech (Judges 9:45), but was then restored (v. 1 of this chapter), and Jeroboam had only to strengthen and build Shechem as a capital at the beginning of his reign. Penuil, at LXX glory. Φανουήλ, "Phanuel", found in the history of Patr. Jacob (Gen. 32:30), (Onomast. 918), was located at the stream of Jabbok in Transjordan (now close to the ruins of El-Maar). Gideon was subsequently destroyed (Judges 8:9,17). Jeroboam strengthens it partly against the attacks of the Moabites, partly from the kingdom of Judah. According to the assumption of Stada (Gesch. I, 351), Jeroboam even moved his residence beyond the Jordan to Penuel on the occasion of the destruction of Shechem during the invasion of Shusakim (1 Kings 14:25). 1 Kings 12:26. And Jeroboam said in his heart: The kingdom may again pass to the house of David; 1 Kings 12:27. If this people go to Jerusalem to sacrifice in the house of the Lord, then the heart of this people will turn to their sovereign, to Rehoboam, king of Judah, and they will kill me and return to Rehoboam, king of Judah. Jeroboam feels danger for his kingdom and, on the other hand, from the intimate religious connection of the Israelites with Jerusalem and the church: by the division of the kingdom into two, only the dynastic connection between both kingdoms was broken, but Israel’s religious attraction to Solomon’s temple remained in full force, expressed in the Israelis’ frequent visits to the Jerusalem temple for sacrifices (v. 27), ( 2 Chronicles 11:16). This, according to Jeroboam’s fair fear, could eventually lead to the merger of both kingdoms, and, of course, under the scepter of David’s descendant, Rehoboam. And so, to prevent this outcome, undesirable for Jeroboam, he deepens the resulting division of the same-tribal people with a religious split between the two kingdoms - the introduction of a new liturgical cult for his own, Israelite, kingdom. “So he thanks God, who gave him the kingdom! So he believes in God, who promised to preserve it!” (Filaret, p. 233, note). 1 Kings 12:28. And after consulting, the king made two golden calves and said [to the people], “You do not need to go to Jerusalem; These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. 1 Kings 12:29. And he placed one in Bethel, and the other in Dan. 1 Kings 12:30. And this led to sin, for the people began to go to one of them, even to Dan, [and they left the church of the Lord]. 1 Kings 12:31. And he built a high place on high, and appointed priests from among the people, who were not of the sons of Levi. 1 Kings 12:32. And Jeroboam instituted a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, similar to the feast that was in Judah, and he offered sacrifices on the altar; He did the same at Bethel to sacrifice the bulls which he had made. And he appointed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had built, 1 Kings 12:33. and he offered sacrifices on the altar which he had made at Bethel on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, the month which he had arbitrarily appointed; and he instituted a feast for the children of Israel, and went up to the altar to burn incense. The essence of Jeroboam's religious reform, conceived and carried out for the indicated political reasons, was that, having consulted, perhaps, with the heads of state, he merged (1 Kings 14:9) two golden calves (according to LXX: δύο δαμάλεις, so did blessed Theodoret, question 42; glav.: “two golden youths”), placed them at opposite ends of his kingdom - the south - in Bethel (Heb.: Beth-el - on the border of the tribes of Ephraim and Benjamin), (Josh. 8:9; Gen. 28:19,35:15); (Onomast. 205, now Betin) and the north - in Dan (formerly Lachish), (Josh. 19:47; Judges 18:29; Jer. 4:15), received the name "Dan" from the tribe of this name; according to I. Flav. Judean Ancients VIII, 3, 4, cf. V, 3, 1, lay at the sources of the Little Jordan, near Sidon; according Eusebius and Jerome, the very name “Jordan” comes from the word “Dan”, Onomast 308; now Dan - Tell-el-Kadi; placed “on the borders of the kingdom, so that some, coming to one (youth), and others to another, and not having difficulty in this because of the proximity, willingly agreed not to go to the capital” (Blessed Theodoret, question 42). Although both of these points could have previously been considered sacred, at least this is known about Bethel, when designating the central points of worship, Jeroboam was apparently guided by considerations of the convenience of visiting these shrines and the greatest possible decentralization of the cult. According to Jeroboam, the image of the true God, Jehovah, was represented in his calves (according to I. Flav., Jewish Ancients VIII, 8, 4, Jeroboam built “two calves in the form of symbolic representatives of the Lord God”), which is why he assimilates to them the expulsion of Israel from Egypt (v. 28), (cf. Ex. 32: 4,8) and then builds churches for them (v. 31) and establishes a cult on the model of Jerusalem (vv. 31-32), with the two changes that he introduced the universal priesthood, with the destruction of the exclusive rights of the tribe of Levi to it (vv. 31), (2 Chron. 11:14); “In this one thing,” notes Blessed Theodoret, “he acted wisely, because the priests of God should not serve those who are not gods,” and the Feast of Tabernacles (not directly named in the text), cf. (Judges 21:19; Ezek.45:25) moved from the seventh month to the 15th day of the eighth month - due to the climatic conditions of the northern kingdom (due to the later ripening of grain here), as some believe, or simply to distinguish it from the kingdom of Judah. And the sacred writer recognizes the calf service introduced by Jeroboam as less hateful to God than pure paganism (1 Kings 16:31–33; 2 Kings 3:2–3, 10:30–31). However, the incarnation of Jehovah in the sensual image of a calf was a direct and gross violation of the second commandment of the decalogue and trampling on the basic spirit of the Old Testament with its requirement without figurative service to Jehovah (Ex. 20: 4–5; Lev. 26: 1; Deut. 4: 15–19, 23, 5: 8–9, etc.); was precisely the grave “sin” (v. 30) of Jeroboam and the people, who discovered in this a purely pagan mood, seeking their satisfaction in the sensual image of the invisible, indescribable God. “This is the circumstance,” says I. Josephus, “became the beginning of all disasters for the Jews, and was the reason that they were subsequently defeated in the war with foreign peoples and fell under their yoke,” and in the end the kingdom of Israel ceased to exist. On the essence, character, origin and structure of the cult of Taurus, see the detailed dissertation by P. M. Krasin, State Cult of the Kingdom of Israel (ten-tribes), Kyiv, 1904, as well as by prof. F. Ya. Pokrovsky, cit. cit., p. 299–331. You might be interested in: