1 Kings 12:6

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

consulted: 2 Samuel 16:20, 2 Samuel 17:5, Job 12:12, Job 32:7, Proverbs 27:10, Jeremiah 42:2-5, Jeremiah 43:2

Reciprocal: Genesis 41:46 - he stood 1 Samuel 8:3 - his sons 1 Kings 12:23 - General 1 Chronicles 6:32 - and then Psalms 119:100 - understand

Cross-References

Genesis 10:15
Canaan was the father of Sidon his firstborn, and of the Hittites,

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?

Genesis 12:19
Why did you say, 'She is my sister,' so that I took her as my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!"

Genesis 13:7
And there was discord between the herdsmen of Abram and the herdsmen of Lot. At that time the Canaanites and the Perizzites were also living in the land.

Genesis 33:18
After Jacob had come from Paddan-aram, he arrived safely at the city of Shechem in the land of Canaan, and he camped just outside the city.

Genesis 34:2
When Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the region, saw her, he took her and lay with her by force.

Genesis 35:4
So they gave Jacob all their foreign gods and all their earrings, and Jacob buried them under the oak near Shechem.

Deuteronomy 11:30
Are not these mountains across the Jordan, west of the road toward the sunset, in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Arabah opposite Gilgal, near the Oak of Moreh?

Joshua 20:7
So they set apart Kedesh in Galilee in the hill country of Naphtali, Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) in the hill country of Judah.

Joshua 24:32
Also, the bones of Joseph, which the Israelites had brought up out of Egypt, were buried at Shechem in the plot of land that Jacob had purchased from the sons of Hamor, Shechem's father, for a hundred pieces of silver. So it became an inheritance for Joseph's descendants.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And King Rehoboam consulted with the old men that stood before Solomon his father, while he yet lived,.... Which was very prudently done; for as these were men in years, and had been his father's counsellors, from whom, do doubt, they had learnt much wisdom, being often in cabinet council with him, they were capable of giving him the best advice:

and said, how do you advise, that I may answer this people? what answer would you advise me to give to them, and in what manner?

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The old men, that stood before Solomon his father - Perhaps “the princes” of 1 Kings 4:2. Solomon placed great value upon good advisers Proverbs 11:14; Proverbs 15:22; Proverbs 24:6.