fled from Solomon (1Ki 11:40), and attend this meeting, and that Jeroboam took the lead in the meeting, and no doubt suggested to those assembled the demand which they should lay before Rehoboam (1Ki 12:4).[1]
Verses 2-3
The construction of 1Ki 12:2, 1Ki 12:3 is a complicated one, since it is only in ויּבאוּ in 1Ki 12:3 that the apodosis occurs to the protasis וגו כּשׁמע ויהי, and several circumstantial clauses intervene. “And it came to pass, when Jeroboam the son of Nebat heard, sc., that Solomon was dead and Rehoboam had been made king ... he was still in Egypt, however, whither he had fled from king Solomon; and as Jeroboam was living in Egypt, they had sent and called him ... that Jeroboam came and the whole congregation of Israel,” etc. On the other hand, in 2Ch 10:2 the construction is very much simplified, and is rendered clearer by the alteration of בּמצרים יר ויּשׁב, “and Jeroboam dwelt in Egypt,” into ממּצרים יר ויּשׁב, “that Jeroboam returned from Egypt.”[2]
Verse 4
The persons assembled desired that the burdens which Solomon had laid upon them should be lightened, in which case they would serve Rehoboam, i.e., would yield obedience to him as their king. אביך מעבדת הקל, “make light away from the service of thy father,”
- ↑ “This pretext was no doubt furnished to the people by Jeroboam, who, because he had formerly been placed above Ephraim as superintendent of the works, could most craftily suggest calumnies, from the things which he knew better than others.” - (Seb. Schmidt.
- ↑ At the same time, neither this explanation in the Chronicles, nor the fact that the Vulgate has the same in our text also, warrants our making alterations in the text, for the simple reason that the deviation in the Chronicles and Vulgate is so obviously nothing but an elucidation of our account, which is more obscurely expressed. There is still less ground for the interpolation, which Thenius has proposed, from the clauses contained in the Septuagint partly after 1Ki 11:43, partly in 1 Kings 12 between 1Ki 12:24 and 1Ki 12:25, and in an abbreviated form once more after 1Ki 13:34, so as to obtain the following more precise account of the course of the rebellion which Jeroboam instigated, and of which we have not a very minute description in 1Ki 11:26 : “Solomon having appointed Jeroboam superintendent of the tributary labour in Ephraim, for the purpose of keeping in check the Sichemites, who were probably pre-eminently inclined to rebel, directed him to make a fortress, which already existed upon Mount Gerizim under the name of Millo, into a strong prison (צרירה( ), from which the whole district of Gerizim, the table-land, received the name of the land of Zerirah, and probably made him governor of it and invested him with great power. When holding this post, Jeroboam rebelled against Solomon, but was obliged to flee. Having now returned from Egypt, he assembled the members of his own tribe, and with them he first of all besieged this prison, for the purpose of making himself lord of the surrounding district. Now this castle was the citadel of the city in which Jeroboam was born, to which he had just returned, and from which they fetched him to take part in the negotiations with Rehoboam. Its ruins are still in existence, according to Robinson (Pal. iii. p. 99), and from all that has been said it was not called Zeredah (1Ki 11:26), but (after the castle) Zerira.” This is what Thenius says. But if we read the two longer additions of the lxx quite through, we shall easily see that the words ᾠκοδόμησε τῷ Σαλωμὼν τὴν ἐν ὄρει Ἐφραΐ́μ do not give any more precise historical information concerning the building of the Millo mentioned in 1Ki 11:27, since this verse is repeated immediately afterwards in the following form: οὖτος ᾠκοδόμησε τὴν ἄκραν ἐν ταῖς ἄρσεσιν οἴκου Ἐφραΐ́μ οὖτος συνέκλεισε τὴν πόλιν Δαβίδ, - but are nothing more than a legendary supplement made by an Alexandrian, which has no more value than the statement that Jeroboam's mother was named Sarira and was γυνὴ πόρνη. The name of the city Σαριρά is simply the Greek form of the Hebrew צררה, which the lxx have erroneously adopted in the place of צרדה, as the reading in 1Ki 11:26. But in the additional clauses in question in the Alexandrian version, Σαριρά is made into the residence of king Jeroboam and confounded with Thirza; what took place at Thirza according to 1Ki 14:17 (of the Hebrew text) being transferred to Sarira, and the following account being introduced, viz., that Jeroboam's wife went ἐκ Σαριρά to the prophet Ahijah to consult him concerning her sick son, and on returning heard of the child's death as she was entering the city of Sarira. - These remarks will be quite sufficient to prove that the Alexandrian additions have not the least historical worth.
