>> Jen: Well, hello and good morning, friends and faithful listeners. Thanks for tuning into the Bible Explained podcast with me and sharing a delicious cup of coffee as we discuss how God is choosing a new king for Israel today and punishing Solomon for the sins that he committed. So it's going to be a really fascinating episode. Stay tuned. Well, faithful listeners, another episode of
Discussions is up. My sister and I talked about Rob, the Christian polygamist guy, and, uh, the crazy things that he believes that the Bible says about polygamy. And we also noticed something real weird, real weird in his videos that I don't think anybody else caught. And when my sister and I saw it, we just, like, started screaming. We were like, what did we just look at? So that episode of discussions is up now, but you have to be a member over on Ko Fi to be able to view it.
If you want to see it, click the Ko Fi link in the description and sign up for the tea tier or the Ko Fi tier over on Ko Fi and you'll immediately gain access to the discussions episodes that I do for the members over on YouTube. Let's go ahead and read First Kings 11:26 through 43. Speaking of polygamy, actually, because King Solomon was a huge polygamist, like the most notorious polygamist of all the
polygamists in the Old Testament. He had 700 wives that were princesses and then 300 concubines, because those women weren't princesses, weren't good enough to be his wives. And these wives and concubines that he had just caused his heart to go astray later on in his life. And he started, uh, worshiping other gods with his wives. So let's read 1 Kings 11:26 through 43, the end of this chapter, and see how God responds to Solomon's blatant disobedience and worship of these other idols.
Jeroboam, the son of Nabat, an Ephraimite of Zereda, a servant of Solomon, whose mother's name was Zerua, a widow, also lifted up his hand against the king. This was the reason why he lifted up his hand against the king. Solomon built Milo and repaired the breach of his father David's city. The man Jeroboam was a mighty man of valor. And Solomon saw the young man that he was industrious, and he put him in charge of all the labor of
the house of Joseph. At that time, when Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem, the prophet Ahijah, uh, the Shilanite, found him on the way. Now, Ahijah had clad himself with a new garment, and the two of them were alone in a field. Ahijah, uh, took the new garment that was on him and tore it into 12 pieces. He said to Jeroboam, Take 10 pieces for Yahweh. The God of Israel says, behold, I will tear the kingdom out of Solomon's hand
and will give 10 tribes to you. But he shall have one tribefor my servant David's sake, and for Jerusalem's sake, the city which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, because they have forsaken me and have worshiped Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemesh, the god of Moab, and Milcom um, the god of the children of Ammon. They have not walked in my ways to do that which is right in my eyes and to keep my statutes and my ordinances, as David his father
did. However, I will not take the whole kingdom out of his hand, but I will make him prince all the days of his life for David my servant's sake, whom I chose, who kept my commandments and my statutes. But I will take the kingdom out of his son's hand, and I will give it to you. Even 10
tribes, I will give one tribe to his son. That David my servant may have a lamp always before me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen for myself to put my name there I will take you, and you shall reign according to all that your soul desires, and shall be
king over Israel. It shall be if you will listen to all that I command you, and will walk in my ways and do that which is right in my eyes, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as David my servant did that I will be with you and will build you a sure house, as I built for David, and will give Israel to you. I will afflict the offspring of David for this, but not forever.
Therefore Solomon sought to kill Jeroboam, but Jeroboam arose and fled into Egypt to Shishak king of Egypt, and was in Egypt until the death of Solomon. Now the rest of the Acts of Solomon and all that he did and his wisdom, aren't they written in the book of the Acts of Solomon? The time that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all of Israel was 40 years. Solomon slept with his fathers and was buried in his father David's city, and Rehoboam his son, reigned in his place.
So, as you know, at the beginning of this chapter, Solomon started building temples to other gods. And to make matters worse, not only was he building these temples to other gods. But he was going and worshiping these gods himself, very publicly with his wives, and allowing his wives to do this very publicly. And this was causing Israel to fall into the sin of idolatry. Because now the temple to Yahweh is not the only temple
that the people of Israel can go to. They can go to any number of temples that Solomon had built and worship whatever god they want to worship instead of just worshiping Yahweh at the temple to Yahweh. So Solomon caused a lot of problems in Israel. And God obviously was very angry with Solomon because he's like, why did you do this? You know, I appeared to you
twice and told you what to do. You know, I granted you with wisdom and with riches and with a long life and all of these wonderful things, and yet you have abandoned me later on in your life. So right after all of this happens, god again appears to Solomon, angry at him, and he says, because you've done this, I'm ripping the kingdom out of your hands. Your children no longer are going to reign in Israel anymore. Instead, I'm going to give it to somebody else.
And then right after all this happens, Israel starts experiencing some trouble from these different kings around the Middle East. So the first guy we talked about on Monday, his name was Hadad the Edomite. And Hadad the Edomite, had a real problem with King David, actually, because David had gone and killed a ton of Edomite men who were like the soldiers of Edom. And Hadad happened to be one of the royal
princes who escaped at a very young age. So Hadad had a huge problem with David, and he found solitude in Egypt with the king there. The king actually loved Hadad and was offended when Hadad wanted to go back home to fight against Solomon. But the king, of course, let him go. And so Hadad begins targeting Israel from the south. So he was the first guy that caused problems for Israel in Solomon's time period. And then the second guy was this man named Rezin, or
Reason, I'm not really sure what his. How to pronounce his name. I'm just going with Rezin. So Rezin was another guy who had a problem with King David and absolutely hated the Israelites because King David was very successful and Rezin was targeting Israel from the north. So he was in Damascus, which is in Syria. So he had gotten very close to Israel and was
causing a lot of trouble from the north. So these were two issues that Solomon begins to expand experience right after he starts building these temples to other gods. He has an antagonist in the north and one in the south as well. But then the third and worst antagonist is actually an Israelite himself. And this guy was named Jeroboam, who was one of Solomon's servants. And this is
exactly what god said would happen. So if you go back up to the top of this, this chapter and read verses 11, 12, and 13, here's what Yahweh says to Solomon. At the very beginning of all of this, Yahweh said to Solomon, because this is done by you, meaning the temples built to the other gods and the worship of these other gods, and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes which I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and give it to your
servant. So Solomon knew that something was going to happen. God told him directly, solomon, there is a man who is your servant who is going to rise up against you and take the kingdom from you. Not the entire kingdom, but most of the kingdom. And that man happened to be Jeroboam, which his story is found in verses 26 to the end of the chapter. Jeroboam, the son of Nabat, an Ephraimite of Zereda, a servant of Solomon, whose mother's name was Zerua, not
Zeruiah, which was David's sister. This is a different lady, but she was a widow and the mother of Jeroboam. Jeroboam also lifted up his hand against the king. And this is the reason why, so you'll remember in the last couple chapters, all these amazing achievements Solomon did for Israel. He brought a lot of prosperity and wealth to Israel. He was building up fortified cities. He had an entire city just for chariots and just for horses and things like
that. And he put roads in place. He really did a lot to make Israel just like beyond its time period. One of the cities that he built up was called Milo, which was likely a fortified city. And what happened was Jeroboam started working on that project. He was so good at his job, working on this Milo project, that Solomon took notice of him. It says the man
Jeroboam was a mighty man of valor. And Solomon saw the young man that he was industrious, and he put him in charge of all the labor of the house of Joseph. So Jeroboam starts out working on some of these projects that Solomon is doing, specifically Milo, and also building up Jerusalem. And Solomon takes notice of how good of a worker Jeroboam really is. So he puts Jeroboam, after a while, he puts Jeroboam in charge of the entire labor force of the house of Joseph.
And that's because Jeroboam was from the tribe of Ephraim. And Ephraim and Manasseh were the two tribes that were part of the house of Joseph. Joseph was split into two half tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh, and they were both together considered the tribe of Joseph. So because Jeroboam is from the half tribe of Ephraim, or the tribe of Joseph, Solomon puts him in charge of all the labor force of the house of Joseph, the tribe of Joseph. So Jeroboam, you know,
he's in this new role. He's being noticed by the king. He's probably very excited about all of this. It says soon after this, Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem, and the prophet Ahijah, uh, the Shilanite found him on the way. So Ahijah is one of the minor prophets that we read about. And what's really interesting is that the prophets in this day and age start out pretty normal. Mostly they just come and talk to people and tell people
what god has to say to them. Maybe they'll do, you know, some sort of, um, analogy or something. For example, we'll talk about how Ahijah rips up a new coat that he has. But as we move on through the prophets, you're going to notice that they get weirder and weirder. And that's because as Israel continues to go down a wrong path, God is using the prophets to try to get the attention of the people. Talking
was not getting the attention of the people. So God would have the prophets perform miracles or do these really crazy things. For example, Isaiah had to go streak in the streets. So, um, that's why the prophets get kind of interesting as we move on. But in this day and age, in Solomon's day, the prophets are still basically just kind of coming to people and talking to them about what God wants them to do. And so Ahijah is one of these particular prophets. It says he was a Shilonite, meaning
he was from the city of Shiloh. It says Ahijah found Jeroboam on the way. So Ahijah clearly knew that Jeroboam was going to be traveling out of Jerusalem at this time. It says Ahijah had clad himself with a new garment and the two of them were alone in the field. So Ahijah finds Jeroboam, gets him alone, and starts ripping up this brand new coat that
he's wearing. He starts ripping it up. At this point in time, a new piece of clothing was pretty expensive because clothing wasn't made industrially back in the days of Solomon. You know, people had to do it by hand. So clothing was expensive. So this would really get Jeroboam's attention, that this guy that came up to him was like, hey, I'm a prophet. Starts ripping up his brand new coat that he had just bought. He rips it up into 12 pieces and tells Jeroboam, Take
10 pieces for Yahweh. The God of Israel says, behold, I will tear the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon and will give 10 tribes to you. So he gives Jeroboam 10 of the 12 pieces of this brand new coat that he had just ripped up. And the prophet keeps the other two pieces because he says that God ordains that Solomon will keep one tribe. Now, at this point, you might be wondering, why did the prophet keep two of the pieces of the coat?
If Solomon was only going to get one tribe, why did he only give 10 pieces to Jeroboam? Well, once again, like I talked about at the beginning of this episode, you can count Manasseh and Ephraim as one tribe, the tribe of Joseph. So technically, yes, Jeroboam would be getting 10 tribes if you count Ephraim and Manasseh together as the tribe of Joseph. So it's accurate for Jeroboam to get 10 pieces of this new coat. But the other two, you might be wondering, well, where do these other two
come from? Because, you know, Solomon's only supposed to get one tribe. Well, it turns out later on in Israel's history, the tribe of Benjamin actually gets integrated into the tribe of Judah and they become like one big tribe. Now, the tribe of Judah was the tribe that Solomon's family was going to maintain, and it happened to be the largest tribe of all the tribes of Israel. The tribe of Benjamin assimilates into Judah because Jerusalem
was in the tribe of Benjamin. So Benjamin and Judah become one tribe together. So the prophet was not inaccurate in keeping two of the pieces of this garment, and he was also not inaccurate for giving Jeroboam 10 pieces of this garment. So that's kind of interesting. But anyway, he says to Jeroboam, take these 10 pieces for Yahweh. The God of Israel says, behold, I will tear the kingdom out of
hand of Solomon and give 10 tribes to you. But he shall have one tribe for my servant David's sake, and for Jerusalem's sake, the city which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel. Because they have forsaken me and have worshiped Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemesh, the god of Moab, and Milcom, the god of the children of Ammon. They have not walked in my ways to do that which is right in my eyes, to keep my statutes and my ordinances, as David
his father did. Notice that God is putting blame on both Israel and Solomon just with that last line. He says, they have not walked in my ways as David his father did. So God puts the blame on both Israel and Solomon in that one sentence. But you would think, being Jeroboam, that you'd be like, okay, maybe I shouldn't worship other gods, because clearly God doesn't like this. And because he's tearing the kingdom out of Solomon and David's hand because they worshiped other gods,
maybe I shouldn't do that in the future. You would think Jeroboam would think that. But as we're going to find out, he doesn't think that. And even God gives him this warning here in verse 38. And it's a really nice warning.
God says to Jeroboam, it shall be, if you will listen to all that I command you and walk in my ways and do that which is right in my eyes, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as David my servant did that I will be with you, and I will build you a sure house as I built for David, and I will give Israel to you. I will afflict the offspring of David for this, but not forever. So once again, the condition is exactly the same. Do what I tell you to do and things will go well for you.
Don't do what I tell you to do and things will go badly for you. Same condition he gives to Jeroboam here. And man, this is a really nice offer that God is giving Jeroboam. He's giving the entire kingdom of Israel to him out of the blue. You know, Jeroboam was a servant. He was not anybody in line for the throne, yet God chose him and gave him
this really sweet deal. And you would think that Jeroboam would, like, jump on that, but of course he doesn't, because right after Ahijah, uh, you know, finishes explaining the whole story to him and leaves, Jeroboam immediately instigates a rebellion against Solomon. And that's not stated here in Scripture. Um, that is, uh, written about in Josephus works, the Antiquity of the Jews, where it talks about how right after Jeroboam receives this message
from the Prophet. He basically starts trying to make people unhappy with Solomon and turning people against Solomon and Solomon. When he figures out that Jeroboam is the servant that god was talking about, the servant that is going to take the kingdom from him, Solomon tries to kill Jeroboam. Solomon was a very smart man, extremely intelligent, and he probably figured it out very quickly that Jeroboam was the guy that God was talking about. Jeroboam gets ahead of it, though.
Before Solomon is able to kill him, he runs away to Egypt and stays with King Shishak. It's really sad because all of these enemies of Israel find comfort in Egypt. So Egypt was not friends with Israel, even though Solomon kind of cozied up with Egypt in his
lifetime. You can see here that Egypt really was not a good friend to Israel because they're constantly accepting these rebellious people that hate Israel and are, uh, trying to destroy Israel and giving them comfort and solitude in Egypt, which is where Jeroboam stays until the death of Solomon. Now, people don't know exactly how old Solomon was when he died, but going back to Josephus, the historian, he believes that Solomon was 94 years old and reigned in Israel for 80 years.
Because it does say at the beginning when God first granted Solomon wisdom, that he would give him a long life as well. So I would imagine that, yes, Solomon did die at a very old age. So it makes sense to me that he would have been an older man when he died. But it mentions here in verse 41 now, the rest of the Acts of Solomon and all that he did and his wisdom, aren't they written in the book of the Acts of Solomon? Now this book, the Acts of Solomon, is a lost text. We don't know what exactly
it is. And a lot of people will, you know, see scripture, mention these books that are lost texts and they'll be like, oh, you know, that means the Bible is not complete because it doesn't have have every single book in it. And I've told you before how much I hate that argument and I'll explain it again.
Why I dislike that argument so much is because if you're reading any other book, any other book on the planet and it references another book or it talks about, oh, you know, you can learn more about this topic in such and such book. You would never say that that book you were reading was not complete because it references another book. You m wouldn't do that. So the Bible is complete and it happens to mention these other texts that have been lost to history. And one of These texts is the Acts of
Solomon. We don't know what happened to that particular book, but regardless, this is the end of Solomon's life. He died as somebody who started out with so much promise, who started out loving God, but then as his life continued on, he started filling the void he clearly felt with things like women and lust and idolatry instead of clinging to God in his last days the same way that David did in his last days. So Solomon started out with so much promise, but then ended as somebody who in a way,
rejected God. And once we read the book of Ecclesiastes, which is one of the books that Solomon wrote in his later days, we're going to see how bitter he kind of became, because the entire book is basically warning people not to make the same mistakes that he made. But unfortunately, even though he knew he made so many mistakes, he never really turned from those
mistakes. So verse 43 says, Solomon slept with his fathers and was buried in his father David's city, and Rehoboam, his son, reigned in his place. I've been very much enjoying the Book of First Kings so far because I just love stories. And some of my favorite books are in the Old Testament. I absolutely love the Old Testament. There's so much wisdom and so much
knowledge, the Old Testament scriptures. And unfortunately, in today's day and age, I think Christians kind of reject the Old Testament as if it's just outdated and not really what Christianity is about. But today we saw evidence of how the Old Testament is so relevant, because God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He's the same God in the New Testament as he is in the Old Testament. And what did he say to Jeroboam in today's scripture that we read? If you walk in my ways, I will
be with you. That is the same exact premise that has existed from the dawn of humanity. If you obey God, He will be with you. And then what did Jesus say in the New Testament? If you love Me, then keep my commandments. In other words, obey Me. If you love Me, obey me. Same exact story from the beginning of the Bible to the end of the Bible. So the Old Testament is very relative. And I love the Old Testament. I hope you guys have been loving it as well and enjoying our, uh,
time in the Old Testament. But faithful listeners, I will see you guys tomorrow as we discuss first uh, Corinthians, chapter 12. And then soon we're going to be in the famous Love chapter, which is First uh, Corinthians, chapter 13. So I'm definitely excited about what's going on in the New Testament as well. Anyway, faithful listeners, have a fantastic and wonderful rest of your day. I'll see you guys tomorrow morning. Happy listening and God bless.