1 Kings 11–12

Solomon’s Many Wives

11King Solomon loved many women who were not from Israel. He loved the daughter of the king of Egypt, as well as women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites. ²The Lord had told the Israelites, “You must not marry people of other nations. If you do, they will cause you to follow their gods.” But Solomon fell in love with these women. ³He had seven hundred wives who were from royal families and three hundred slave women who gave birth to his children. His wives caused him to turn away from God. ⁴As Solomon grew old, his wives caused him to follow other gods. He did not follow the Lord completely as his father David had done. ⁵Solomon worshiped Ashtoreth, the goddess of the people of Sidon, and Molech, the hated god of the Ammonites. ⁶So Solomon did what the Lord said was wrong and did not follow the Lord completely as his father David had done.

⁷On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built two places for worship. One was a place to worship Chemosh, the hated god of the Moabites, and the other was a place to worship Molech, the hated god of the Ammonites. ⁸Solomon did the same thing for all his foreign wives so they could burn incense and offer sacrifices to their gods.

⁹The Lord had appeared to Solomon twice, but the king turned away from following the Lord, the God of Israel. The Lord was angry with Solomon, ¹⁰because he had commanded Solomon not to follow other gods. But Solomon did not obey the Lord’s command. ¹¹So the Lord said to Solomon, “Because you have chosen to break your agreement with me and have not obeyed my commands, I will tear your kingdom away from you and give it to one of your officers. ¹²But I will not take it away while you are alive because of my love for your father David. I will tear it away from your son when he becomes king. ¹³I will not tear away all the kingdom from him, but I will leave him one tribe to rule. I will do this because of David, my servant, and because of Jerusalem, the city I have chosen.”

Solomon’s Enemies

¹⁴The Lord caused Hadad the Edomite, a member of the family of the king of Edom, to become Solomon’s enemy. ¹⁵Earlier, David had defeated Edom. When Joab, the commander of David’s army, went into Edom to bury the dead, he killed all the males. ¹⁶Joab and all the Israelites stayed in Edom for six months and killed every male in Edom. ¹⁷At that time Hadad was only a young boy, so he ran away to Egypt with some of his father’s officers. ¹⁸They left Midian and went to Paran, where they were joined by other men. Then they all went to Egypt to see the king, who gave Hadad a house, some food, and some land.

¹⁹The king liked Hadad so much he gave Hadad a wife—the sister of Tahpenes, the king’s wife. ²⁰They had a son named Genubath. Queen Tahpenes brought him up in the royal palace with the king’s own children.

²¹While he was in Egypt, Hadad heard that David had died and that Joab, the commander of the army, was dead also. So Hadad said to the king, “Let me go; I will return to my own country.”

²²“Why do you want to go back to your own country?” the king asked. “What haven’t I given you here?”

“Nothing,” Hadad answered, “but please, let me go.”

²³God also caused another man to be Solomon’s enemy—Rezon son of Eliada. Rezon had run away from his master, Hadadezer king of Zobah. ²⁴After David defeated the army of Zobah, Rezon gathered some men and became the leader of a small army. They went to Damascus and settled there, and Rezon became king of Damascus. ²⁵Rezon ruled Aram, and he hated Israel. So he was an enemy of Israel all the time Solomon was alive. Both Rezon and Hadad made trouble for Israel.

²⁶Jeroboam son of Nebat was one of Solomon’s officers. He was an Ephraimite from the town of Zeredah, and he was the son of a widow named Zeruah. Jeroboam turned against the king.

²⁷This is the story of how Jeroboam turned against the king. Solomon was filling in the land and repairing the wall of Jerusalem, the city of David, his father. ²⁸Jeroboam was a capable man, and Solomon saw that this young man was a good worker. So Solomon put him over all the workers from the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh.

²⁹One day as Jeroboam was leaving Jerusalem, Ahijah, the prophet from Shiloh, who was wearing a new coat, met him on the road. The two men were alone out in the country. ³⁰Ahijah took his new coat and tore it into twelve pieces. ³¹Then he said to Jeroboam, “Take ten pieces of this coat for yourself. The Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I will tear the kingdom away from Solomon and give you ten tribes. ³²But I will allow him to control one tribe. I will do this for the sake of my servant David and for Jerusalem, the city I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel. ³³I will do this because Solomon has stopped following me and has worshiped the Sidonian god Ashtoreth, the Moabite god Chemosh, and the Ammonite god Molech. Solomon has not obeyed me by doing what I said is right and obeying my laws and commands, as his father David did.

³⁴“ ‘But I will not take all the kingdom away from Solomon. I will let him rule all his life because of my servant David, whom I chose, who obeyed all my commands and laws. ³⁵But I will take the kingdom away from his son, and I will allow you to rule over the ten tribes. ³⁶I will allow Solomon’s son to continue to rule over one tribe so that there will always be a descendant of David, my servant, in Jerusalem, the city where I chose to be worshiped. ³⁷But I will make you rule over everything you want. You will rule over all of Israel, ³⁸and I will always be with you if you do what I say is right. You must obey all my commands. If you obey my laws and commands as David did, I will be with you. I will make your family a lasting family of kings, as I did for David, and give Israel to you. ³⁹I will punish David’s children because of this, but I will not punish them forever.’ ”

Solomon’s Death

⁴⁰Solomon tried to kill Jeroboam, but he ran away to Egypt, to Shishak king of Egypt, where he stayed until Solomon died.

⁴¹Everything else King Solomon did, and the wisdom he showed, is written in the book of the history of Solomon. ⁴²Solomon ruled in Jerusalem over all Israel for forty years. ⁴³Then he died and was buried in Jerusalem, the city of David, his father. And his son Rehoboam became king in his place.

Israel Turns Against Rehoboam

12Rehoboam went to Shechem, where all the Israelites had gone to make him king. ²Jeroboam son of Nebat was still in Egypt, where he had gone to escape from Solomon. When Jeroboam heard about Rehoboam being made king, he was living in Egypt. ³After the people sent for him, he and the people went to Rehoboam and said to him, ⁴“Your father forced us to work very hard. Now, make it easier for us, and don’t make us work as hard as he did. Then we will serve you.”

⁵Rehoboam answered, “Go away for three days, and then come back to me.” So the people left.

⁶King Rehoboam asked the elders who had advised Solomon during his lifetime, “How do you think I should answer these people?”

⁷They said, “You should be like a servant to them today. If you serve them and give them a kind answer, they will serve you always.”

⁸But Rehoboam rejected this advice. Instead, he asked the young men who had grown up with him and who served as his advisers. ⁹Rehoboam asked them, “What is your advice? How should we answer these people who said, ‘Don’t make us work as hard as your father did’?”

¹⁰The young men who had grown up with him answered, “Those people said to you, ‘Your father forced us to work very hard. Now make our work easier.’ You should tell them, ‘My little finger is bigger than my father’s legs. ¹¹He forced you to work hard, but I will make you work even harder. My father beat you with whips, but I will beat you with whips that have sharp points.’ ”

¹²Rehoboam had told the people, “Come back to me in three days.” So after three days Jeroboam and all the people returned to Rehoboam. ¹³King Rehoboam spoke cruel words to them, because he had rejected the advice the elders had given him. ¹⁴He followed the advice of the young men and said to the people, “My father forced you to work hard, but I will make you work even harder. My father beat you with whips, but I will beat you with whips that have sharp points.” ¹⁵So the king did not listen to the people. The Lord caused this to happen to keep the promise he had made to Jeroboam son of Nebat through Ahijah, a prophet from Shiloh.

¹⁶When all the Israelites saw that the new king refused to listen to them, they said to the king,

“We have no share in David!

We have no part in the son of Jesse!

People of Israel, let’s go to our own homes!

Let David’s son rule his own people!”

So the Israelites went home. ¹⁷But Rehoboam still ruled over the Israelites who lived in the towns of Judah.

¹⁸Adoniram was in charge of the forced labor. When Rehoboam sent him to the people of Israel, they threw stones at him until he died. But King Rehoboam ran to his chariot and escaped to Jerusalem. ¹⁹Since then, Israel has been against the family of David.

²⁰When all the Israelites heard that Jeroboam had returned, they called him to a meeting and made him king over all Israel. Only the tribe of Judah continued to follow the family of David.

²¹When Rehoboam arrived in Jerusalem, he gathered one hundred eighty thousand of the best soldiers from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. As son of Solomon, Rehoboam wanted to fight the people of Israel to take back his kingdom.

²²But God spoke his word to Shemaiah, a man of God, saying, ²³“Speak to Solomon’s son Rehoboam, the king of Judah, and to all the people of Judah and Benjamin and the rest of the people. Say to them, ²⁴‘The Lord says you must not go to war against your brothers, the Israelites. Every one of you should go home, because I made all these things happen.’ ” So they obeyed the Lord’s command and went home as the Lord had commanded.

²⁵Then Jeroboam made Shechem in the mountains of Ephraim a very strong…