Thoughts on 1 Kings 12

Today's reading: 1 Kings 12; 2 Thessalonians 1-2

I want to talk about Jeroboam a bit today.

I used to feel like Jeroboam maybe gets a worse rap than he really deserves. If you're not familiar with the rest of the books of Kings, Jeroboam's name will come up a lot, and he is essentially the baseline for a bad king of the Northern Kingdom. Over and over we will read statements like, "He did not depart from the sin of Jeroboam the son of Nebat," referring to the ongoing idolatry that Jeroboam introduces here in our chapter today. But was what Jeroboam introduced really all that bad?

To some extent, I used to think that Jeroboam was justified in his concern and maybe just a little misguided in his execution. I mean, if you look at what he says when he dedicates the calves, he refers to them as the gods who brought Israel up out of Egypt. Clearly he is not trying to lead Israel to worship another god, he is just trying to provide them the context to continue to worship Yahweh without access to the temple in Jerusalem, and makes these calves to accomplish that. And while making an image is clearly a violation of God's instructions on how He was to be worshipped, could this have just been a bit of ignorance on Jeroboam's part?

In case anybody else has been tempted to think about Jeroboam this way, I want to take a look at a few key details that clue us in to the fact that Jeroboam was truly not concerned about faithfulness to Yahweh.

To begin with, I have to grant that I agree with Jeroboam that he has cause for concern. If people are traveling to the capital city of a different empire to worship, that legitimizes Rehoboam's throne in a way that Jeroboam doesn't have available to him. Plus, if Rehoboam wants to press things further, he could just refuse to allow people from the northern tribes to worship Yahweh unless they pledge loyalty to him. However, as legitimate of a concern as this was, things could have looked very different if he was actually concerned about God. Jeroboam could have sought out a prophet, for example, to seek counsel from the Lord on the issue and get His direction and input. Baring that, if he truly, in full integrity of heart, felt that the only way to protect his people was the provide the means for them to worship somewhere other than Jerusalem, why would he not have setup the same structures in the north? Even if not a second temple, he could have, relatively cheaply/easily constructed a second tabernacle, and sought the priests and Levites to work it. I'm not suggesting that this would have been God's direction to Jeroboam had he asked Him, merely that if he actually cared at all about the worship of Yahweh in his new kingdom, he could have accomplished his purposes in ways that looked a lot more faithful to Yahweh's commands.

Jeroboam not only made idols for the northern tribes to worship instead of Yahweh, he expressly appointed non-Levitical priests from among all the people, likely to ensure all the people had a stake in the worship of these new gods and would be less inclined to travel to Jerusalem. He was not at all concerned about the faithful worship of Yahweh, he was only concerned about protecting his own throne, and readily threw out the worship of Yahweh to try to protect it.

All that to say, Jeroboam fully deserves the reputation he has throughout the books of Kings as the one who led the Northern Kingdom into an apostasy that would hold on for centuries until they were eventually carried off into exile for their infidelity to God.