1 Kings 12:8

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

2 Chronicles 10:8, 2 Chronicles 25:15, 2 Chronicles 25:16, Proverbs 1:2-5, Proverbs 1:25, Proverbs 1:30, Proverbs 19:20, Proverbs 25:12, Ecclesiastes 10:2, Ecclesiastes 10:3

Reciprocal: Genesis 41:46 - he stood 1 Kings 12:28 - took counsel 1 Chronicles 6:32 - and then 1 Chronicles 19:3 - but the princes Proverbs 13:20 - but Hosea 6:10 - there

Cross-References

Genesis 4:26
And to Seth also a son was born, and he called him Enosh. At that time men began to invoke the name of the LORD.

Genesis 12:12
and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, 'This is his wife.' Then they will kill me but will allow you to live.

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

Genesis 12:15
When Pharaoh's officials saw Sarai, they commended her to him, and she was taken into the palace of Pharaoh.

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 13:4
to the site where he had built the altar. And there Abram called on the name of the LORD.

Genesis 21:33
And Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there he called upon the name of the LORD, the Eternal God.

Genesis 28:19
and he called that place Bethel, though previously the city had been named Luz.

Genesis 35:3
Then let us arise and go to Bethel. I will build an altar there to the God who answered me in my day of distress. He has been with me wherever I have gone."

Joshua 7:2
Meanwhile, Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is near Beth-aven to the east of Bethel, and told them, "Go up and spy out the land." So the men went up and spied out Ai.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

But he forsook the counsel of the old men, which they had given him,.... He did not rightly relish it, nor cordially receive it; it did not suit with his haughty temper, he could not brook it, to stoop to his people; he thought it a lessening of his dignity to do anything that looked like courting their favour; and therefore determined not to take the advice given him by the old men, but to seek for other:

and consulted with the men, that were grown up with him, and which stood before him; the sons of nobles, with whom he had his education, and who were his companions from his youth upwards, and who were now officers in his court, and of his privy council, being his favourites, and those he consulted on this occasion; and though they are called young men, as they were in comparison of the old men, yet since they were contemporary with Rehoboam, who was now forty one years of age, they must be about forty, or not much under, and at an age to be wiser than they appeared to be.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The age of Rehoboam at his accession is an interesting and difficult question. According to the formal statement of the present text of 1Ki 14:21; 2 Chronicles 12:13, he had reached the mature age of 41 years, and would therefore be unable to plead youth as an excuse for his conduct. The general narrative, however, seems to assume that he was quite a young man (compare 2 Chronicles 13:7). Perhaps the best way of removing the whole difficulty would be to read in the above text “twenty-one” for “forty-one.” The corruption is one which might easily take place, if letters were used for numerals.