Explore the compelling narrative of Rehoboam’s rejection of wise counsel and Jeroboam’s ill-fated choices. Gain valuable lessons on the importance of discerning God’s voice in the face of deception, as illustrated by the story of the Man of God from Judah. Alan J. Huth provides thoughtful commentary on how we can apply these biblical lessons to our own lives, encouraging us to stay faithful to divine guidance amidst the clamor of worldly voices.
Welcome to Add Bible, an audio daily devotion from the Israel Project. Allen J. Huth shares a Bible passage with comments from over 35 years of his personal Bible reading journals and applies the Word of God to our daily lives.
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Today we will listen to 1 Kings chapters 12 and 13, the beginning of the fall of the United Kingdom of Israel. Let’s listen in to Faith Comes By Hearing’s reading of 1 Kings 12 and 13.
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1 Kings 12 Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had come to Shechem to make him king. And as soon as Jeroboam the son of Nebat heard of it, for he was still in Egypt, where he had fled from King Solomon, then Jeroboam returned from Egypt. And they sent and called him. And Jeroboam and all the assembly of Israel came and said to Rehoboam,
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Your father made our yoke heavy. Now therefore lighten the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke on us, and we will serve you.
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He said to them, Go away for three days, then come again to me.
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So the people went away. Then King Rehoboam took counsel with the old men who had stood before Solomon his father while he was yet alive, saying, How do you advise me to answer this people? And they said to him,
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If you will be a servant to this people today and serve them and speak good words to them when you answer them, then they will be your servants forever.
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But he abandoned the counsel that the old men gave him and took counsel with the young men who had grown up with him and stood before him.
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And he said to them, What do you advise that we answer this people who have said to me, Lighten the yoke that your father put on us?
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And the young men who had grown up with him said to him, Thus shall you speak to this people who said to you, Your father made our yoke heavy, but you lighten it for us. Thus shall you say to them, My little finger is thicker than my father’s thighs. And now, whereas my father laid on you a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.
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So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third day, as the king said, Come to me again the third day. And the king answered the people harshly, and forsaking the counsel that the old men had given him, he spoke to them according to the counsel of the young men, saying, My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke.
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My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.
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So the king did not listen to the people, for it was a turn of affairs brought about by the Lord that he might fulfill his word, which the Lord spoke by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat. And when all Israel saw that the king did not listen to them, the people answered the king, What portion do we have in David?
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We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse. To your tents, O Israel! Look now to your own house, David!
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So Israel went to their tents, but Rehoboam reigned over the people of Israel who lived in the cities of Judah. Then King Rehoboam sent Adoram, who was taskmaster over the forced labor, and all Israel stoned him to death with stones. And King Rehoboam hurried to mount his chariot to flee to Jerusalem. So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day. And when all Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, they sent and called him to the assembly and made him king over all Israel. There was none that followed the house of David but the tribe of Judah only. When Rehoboam came to Jerusalem, he assembled all the house of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin, 180,000 chosen warriors to fight against the house of Israel to restore the kingdom to Rehoboam the son of Solomon. But the word of God came to Shimea the man of God.
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Say to Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all the house of Judah and Benjamin, and to the rest of the people, Thus says the Lord, You shall not go up or fight against your relatives, the people of Israel. Every man return to his home. For this thing is from me.
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So they listened to the word of the Lord and went home again, according to the word of the Lord. Then Jeroboam built Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim and lived there. And he went out from there and built Penuel.
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And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now the kingdom will turn back to the house of David. If this people go up to offer sacrifices in the temple of the Lord at Jerusalem… Then the heart of this people will turn again to their lord, to Rehoboam king of Judah. And they will kill me and return to Rehoboam king of Judah.
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So the king took counsel and made two calves of gold. And he said to the people,
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You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
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And he set one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan. Then this thing became a sin, for the people went as far as Dan to be before one. He also made temples on high places, and appointed priests from among all the people who were not of the Levites. And Jeroboam appointed a feast on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, like the feast that was in Judah, and he offered sacrifices on the altar. So he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves that he made. And he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places that he had made. He went up to the altar that he had made in Bethel on the fifteenth day in the eighth month, in the month that he had devised from his own heart. And he instituted a feast for the people of Israel, and went up to the altar to make offerings. 1 Kings 13 And behold, a man of God came out of Judah by the word of the Lord to Bethel. Jeroboam was standing by the altar to make offerings. And the man cried against the altar by the word of the Lord, and said,
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O altar, altar, thus says the Lord, Behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name, and he shall sacrifice on you the priests of the high places who make offerings on you, and human bones shall be burned on you.
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And he gave a sign the same day, saying,
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This is the sign that the Lord has spoken. Behold, the altar shall be torn down, and the ashes that are on it shall be poured out.
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And when the king heard the saying of the man of God, which he cried against the altar at Bethel, Jeroboam stretched out his hand from the altar, saying, Seize him. And his hand, which he stretched out against him, dried up so that he could not draw it back to himself. The altar also was torn down, and the ashes poured out from the altar according to the sign that the man of God had given by the word of the Lord.
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And the king said to the man of God, Entreat now the favor of the Lord your God, and pray for me, that my hand may be restored to me.
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And the man of God entreated the Lord, and the king’s hand was restored to him and became as it was before. And the king said to the man of God, And the man of God said to the king,
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If you give me half your house, I will not go in with you, and I will not eat bread or drink water in this place. For so it was commanded me by the word of the Lord, saying, You shall neither eat bread nor drink water nor return by the way that you came.
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So he went another way and did not return by the way that he came to Bethel. Now an old prophet lived in Bethel, and his sons came and told him all that the man of God had done that day in Bethel. They also told to their father the words that he had spoken to the king. And their father said to them, Which way did he go? And his sons showed him the way that the man of God who came from Judah had gone. And he said to his sons, Saddle the donkey for me. So they saddled the donkey for him and he mounted it. And he went after the man of God and found him sitting under an oak. And he said to him,
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Are you the man of God who came from Judah? And he said, I am. Then he said to him, Come home with me and eat bread. And he said, And he said to him, I also am a prophet as you are. And an angel spoke to me by the word of the Lord, saying, Bring him back with you into your house that he may eat bread and drink water.
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But he lied to him. So he went back with him and ate bread in his house and drank water. And as they sat at the table, the word of the Lord came to the prophet who had brought him back, and he cried to the man of God who came from Judah, Thus says the Lord,
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Because you have disobeyed the word of the Lord and have not kept the command that the Lord your God commanded you, but have come back and have eaten bread and drunk water in the place of which he said to you, Eat no bread and drink no water. Your body shall not come to the tomb of your fathers.
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And after he had eaten bread and drunk, he saddled the donkey for the prophet whom he had brought back. And as he went away, a lion met him on the road and killed him. And his body was thrown in the road, and the donkey stood beside it. The lion also stood beside the body. And behold, men passed by and saw the body thrown in the road and the lion standing by the body. And they came and told it in the city where the old prophet lived. And when the prophet who had brought him back from the way heard of it, he said, It is the man of God who disobeyed the word of the Lord.
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Therefore the Lord has given him to the lion, which has torn him and killed him according to the word that the Lord spoke to him. And he said to his sons, Saddle the donkey for me.
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and they saddled it. And he went and found his body thrown in the road, and the donkey and the lion standing beside the body. The lion had not eaten the body or torn the donkey. And the prophet took up the body of the man of God and laid it on the donkey and brought it back to the city to mourn and to bury him. And he laid the body in his own grave, and they mourned over him, saying, Alas, my brother!
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And after he had buried him, he said to his sons, When I die, bury me in the grave in which the man of God is buried. Lay my bones beside his bones. For the saying that he called out by the word of the Lord against the altar in Bethel and against all the houses of the high places that are in the cities of Samaria shall surely come to pass.
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After this thing, Jeroboam did not turn from his evil way, but made priests for the high places again from among all the people. Any who would, he ordained to be priests of the high places. And this thing became sin to the house of Jeroboam, so as to cut it off and to destroy it from the face of the earth.
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Due to the length of the readings, I will refer briefly to my journals. In 1997, I wrote, Kingdom divided between Judah and rest of Israel. Jeroboam makes false gods and people follow leader into idolatry. Even after his hand withers and is restored, he still rejects God. And then I wrote the man of God story. Stay true to the word of God, not the word of men. In 2011, concerning these chapters, I wrote, What is chapter 13 about? Be clear, you hear from God, even if others say they do, and it conflicts with what you heard. For clarification, Rehoboam is the son of Solomon. Jeroboam was a servant of Solomon. According to chapter 11, verse 28, the man Jeroboam was very able, and when Solomon saw that the young man was industrious, he gave him charge over all the forced labor of the house of Joseph. he is the one who hears from the prophet ahijah in chapter eleven verse thirty one and he said to jeroboam for thus says the lord the god of israel behold i am about to tear the kingdom from the hand of solomon and will give you ten tribes but he shall have one tribe for the sake of my servant david and for the sake of jerusalem the city that i have chosen out of all the tribes of israel these two now square off in shechem in chapter twelve verse three jeroboam says to rehoboam your father made our yoke heavy now therefore lighten the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke on us and we will serve you But Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, takes the advice of the young men instead of the old men and makes the yoke harder. So the ten northern tribes flee from the reign of Rehoboam. Look at verse 15. So the king did not listen to the people, for it was a turn of affairs brought about by the Lord that he might fulfill his word. Let’s not forget, all this is happening because of the sin of Solomon. And then there’s chapter 13. And what is the lesson out of chapter 13 for us? It is to be sure that when you hear the voice of the Lord, do not confuse it with the voice of men. Men lie, even religious leaders. Verse 18, And he said to him, I also am a prophet, as you are. And an angel spoke to me by the word of the Lord, saying, Bring him back with you into your house, that he may eat bread and drink water. But he lied to him. We must be able to discern the voice of God from the voice of men. It wasn’t easy for this prophet. It will not be easy for us either. But listening to the voice of a man cost this prophet his life. Father, help us be able to discern your voice from the voices of men. You say in the New Testament that your sheep hear your voice. We want to be in tune with your voice. Make your voice so clear that we will never confuse your voice with the voices of men. Almighty God, give us ears to hear. You and you only. Amen. I know you’re going to enjoy it.
