1 Kings 12:2

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹Then Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had gone there to make him king. ²When Jeroboam son of Nebat heard about this, he was still in Egypt where he had fled from King Solomon and had been living ever since.³So they sent for Jeroboam, and he and the whole assembly of Israel came to Rehoboam and said, ⁴"Your father put a heavy yoke on us. But now you should lighten the burden of your father's service and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you." ⁵Rehoboam answered, "Go away for three days and then return to me." So the people departed. ⁶Then King Rehoboam consulted with the elders who had served his father Solomon during his lifetime. "How do you advise me to respond to these people?" he asked. ⁷They replied, "If you will be a servant to these people and serve them this day, and if you will respond by speaking kind words to them, they will be your servants forever." ⁸But Rehoboam rejected the advice of the elders; instead, he consulted the young men who had grown up with him and served him. ⁹He asked them, "What message do you advise that we send back to these people who have spoken to me, saying, 'Lighten the yoke your father put on us'?" ¹⁰The young men who had grown up with him replied, "This is how you should answer these people who said to you, 'Your father made our yoke heavy, but you should make it lighter.' This is what you should tell them: 'My little finger is thicker than my father's waist!

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Jeroboam the son of Nebat: 1 Kings 11:26-31, 1 Kings 11:40, 2 Chronicles 10:2, 2 Chronicles 10:3

Reciprocal: Proverbs 26:21 - General

Cross-References

Genesis 12:3
I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you; and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you."

Genesis 12:4
So Abram departed, as the LORD had directed him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran.

Genesis 12:6
Abram traveled through the land to the site of the Oak of Moreh at Shechem. And at that time the Canaanites were in the land.

Genesis 12:8
From there Abram moved on to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. There he built an altar to the LORD, and he called on the name of the LORD.

Genesis 12:9
And Abram journeyed on toward the Negev.

Genesis 12:10
Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe.

Genesis 12:14
So when Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful.

Genesis 12:16
He treated Abram well on her account, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, menservants and maidservants, and camels.

Genesis 12:17
The LORD, however, afflicted Pharaoh and his household with severe plagues because of Abram's wife Sarai.

Genesis 12:18
So Pharaoh summoned Abram and asked, "What have you done to me? Why did you not tell me she was your wife?

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And it came to pass, when Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who was yet in Egypt, heard of it,.... Of the death of Solomon, and of the meeting of the Israelites at Shechem:

(for he was fled from the presence of King Solomon; see 1 Kings 11:40

and Jeroboam dwelt in Egypt;) until the death of Solomon; some render the words, "Jeroboam, returned out of Egypt" d, which agrees with

2 Chronicles 10:2, this he did on hearing the above news, and on being sent for by some of his friends, as follows.

d וישב-במצרים "reversus est de Aegypto", V. L. Ex Egypto, ב pro מן, Vatablus.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Heard of it - i. e., of the death of Solomon and accession of Rehoboam. This would be more clear without the division into chapters; which division, it must be remembered, is without authority.

Dwelt in Egypt - By a change of the pointing of one word, and of one letter in another, the Hebrew text here will read as in 2 Chronicles 10:2, “returned out of Egypt; and they sent and called him.”

In the Septuagint Version the story of Jeroboam is told in two different ways. The general narrative agrees closely with the Hebrew text; but an insertion into the body of 1 Kings 12:0 - remarkable for its minuteness and circumstantiality - at once deranges the order of the events, and gives to the history in many respects a new aspect and coloring. This section of the Septuagint, though regarded by some as thoroughly authentic, absolutely conflicts with the Hebrew text in many important particulars. In its general outline it is wholly irreconcileable with the other narrative; and, if both stood on the same footing, and we were free to choose between them, there could be no question about preferring the history as given in our Version.