It had been before this time prophesied to Solomon, though by what prophet we cannot say,7 that at his death his kingdom would be rent in twain, and the greater portion given to one of his “servants,” one tribe only being reserved for his son (1 Kings xi. 11-13). But he had hitherto not known to whom the prophecy pointed, or which of his servants was to be especially feared. Now, however—for it was not long before the transaction between Jeroboam and Ahijah got wind, either from Jeroboam not keeping the secret or from the meeting having been observed—he found that the fated enemy of his house was the man whom he had so greatly favoured, whom he had raised from a lowly station, and set among the princes of the people. Instantly his anger was inflamed. What? Jeroboam the traitor who would rob his son! He had, then, warmed a serpent in his bosom: he had given the high position which could alone render successful treason possible to the very man who was about to use that high position to humiliate and despoil the best beloved of all his offspring. We need not wonder that, with the unpitying sternness of an Oriental despot, he at once formed the determination of taking his enemy’s life (ibid. ver. 40). It is not clear, however, that Jeroboam had been guilty of any overt act of rebellion or treason. One modern writer indeed, tells us that he “openly rose against Solomon’s rule,” took arms, and with a band of adherents began a “contest which was not a very easy one” to put down.8 But no Biblical writer, not even the author of the Septuagint “Additions,” lends any support to this view. Jeroboam, it is probable, had done nothing more than talk of his fine prospects among his friends and followers. But in the East this is quite enough to draw down upon a subject’s head the vengeance of his sovereign, and Solomon would not be shocking his people’s sense of justice in seeking under the circumstances to kill Jeroboam. That he did so is plainly stated. He did not “banish Jeroboam to Egypt,” as has been alleged;9 but formed a determination to put him to death—a determination which, coming to Jeroboam’s knowledge, induced him to fly the country, and become a refugee in the foreign land which was best able to afford him protection.
Egypt, under the twentieth and twenty-first dynasties, had declined from her high estate, and was no longer the power which she had shown herself in the time of the Thothmeses and the Ramessides. Her Asiatic influence had dwindled and disappeared, and when, under the twenty-first dynasty, Solomon proposed to ally himself with a princess of the reigning house the Egyptian sovereign of the time did not regard the marriage as one of disparity. He readily acquiesced in the offer of the Israelite king, and gave his daughter a dowry suitable to her rank (1 Kings ix. 16), thus indicating his full consent to the match and approval of it. But Egypt was still, even under the twenty-first dynasty, the most powerful of all the states that bordered upon Palestine. And when Sheshonk, the founder of the twenty-second dynasty, came to the throne, she began once more, under his guidance and direction, to be something more than this. She resumed the ambitious projects which had been laid aside for three centuries, and at the same time the taste for magnificence and display which had characterized the Ramesside monarchs. Sheshonk adorned the cities of Thebes, Memphis, and Bubastis with architectural works. He held his Court commonly either at Bubastis or at Thebes, and set himself to rival the glories of other days. Egypt had from a remote antiquity been in the habit of receiving with open arms refugees from abroad; and when Jeroboam, threatened with death by his own sovereign, sought an asylum in the valley of the Nile, Sheshonk acted in accordance with Egyptian traditions in receiving him and giving him shelter. It may well be that in course of time the Israelite exile rose in his favour, and acquired an influence over him; but the doubtful tale of his having given Jeroboam an Egyptian princess in marriage seems scarcely entitled to our acceptance.10
In his sojourn at the Egyptian Court, which appears to have been prolonged for some years, Jeroboam would learn many new things. He would become familiar with a religion imposing by its antiquity, striking in many of its manifestations, and regarded by those who presided over it as not incompatible with a profound conviction of the truth of monotheism. He would observe the working of a firm and stable government, to which revolution was unknown, and which owed its permanency in a great measure to its connection with religion, and to the support lent it by a numerous and well-organized hierarchy. He would obtain a knowledge of the great military strength possessed by a kingdom which had maintained a large standing army for centuries, an army inheriting traditions of discipline, honour, and military spirit. He would contract a taste for architectural display, and an imposing religious ceremonial. It is not mere fancy which sees in Jeroboam’s Egyptian sojourn the key to many of those changes which he introduced, at a later date, into the polity and worship of Israel.11
Occupied in observing Egyptian institutions, and in obtaining, so far as he possibly could, influence over the Egyptian monarch, Jeroboam passed, as we have said, some years. The time for a fresh movement came only when news reached Egypt of the death of Solomon, and simultaneously of a desire on the part of his friends in Palestine that Jeroboam should return to his native land, and be ready at hand in case the course of events should be such as to call for his intervention.
Jeroboam responded to the call. When the tribes assembled at Shechem to assist in the coronation of Rehoboam, but hoping at the same time to obtain a redress of grievances at the hands of the new monarch, Jeroboam was there, and acted apparently as the spokesman of the malcontents (1 Kings xii. 3). When the disappointing answer was given to the demands preferred, he was again present (ibid. ver. 12); and it is reasonable to suppose that either from himself or his confederates emanated the cry which was immediately raised—“To your tents, O Israel!” The rebellion broke out at once—Adoniram was murdered—and the Ten Tribes in a formal assembly (ibid. ver. 20) made Jeroboam their king. The sovereignty over Israel, as distinct from Judah, passed once more to Ephraim, and the blessing of Moses upon Joseph (Deut. xxxiii. 13-17) seemed to obtain a fresh accomplishment.
But Jeroboam, though he had now attained the object of his ambitious aims, had not thereby secured himself a bed of roses. “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown” is true of most sovereigns, and especially of usurpers. The immediate danger against which he had to prepare was war. Legitimate monarchs do not commonly allow themselves to be despoiled of two-thirds of their territories without at least an attempt to punish the spoiler, and Rehoboam’s first thought on hearing of the election of the son of Nebat to the Israelite throne was to invade his kingdom with all the troops that he could muster, and to see if he could not stamp out the rebellion which he had wantonly provoked by his foolish menaces. But the prophetical order came to Jeroboam’s relief. Shemaiah, the mouthpiece of the order in Judah, made common cause with Ahijah, its mouthpiece in Israel, and, declaring the disruption of the kingdom of Solomon to have been God’s doing, forbade the prosecution of Rehoboam’s enterprise—“Ye shall not go up,” he said, “nor fight against your brethren the children of Israel: return every man to his house; for this thing is from God” (ibid. ver. 24). Rehoboam did not venture to run counter to the prophet’s word, and his subjects were probably glad to be spared a struggle in which they had nothing to gain, and might lose their liberties or their lives. This peril, therefore, passed off for the time, but only to be succeeded by another, which was more secret and more insidious.
The centre of the national worship had now for seventy years been fixed at Jerusalem. Thither “the tribes had gone up, even the tribes of the Lord, to testify unto Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord” (Psa. cxxii. 4). Frequent pilgrimages to the Davidic sanctuary from all parts of the Holy Land had become an essential element in the religious life of the people; and this was not likely to cease, because the political unity of the people had been broken up, and statesmen saw in continued friendly intercourse a danger to their policy of separatism. The danger must be admitted. “If Jerusalem continued