He went to Shechem to receive the welcome of the tribes that looked on Ephraim as their chief, and possibly also to swear to the law as written on Joshua's table on the mountain-side. Thither came the elders and officers of Israel with a petition that the new king would deal more gently with them than his father had done, exact less tribute and service, and be less strict in visiting failures. Rehoboam turned to his counsellors. The elderly men, who might remember Sheba's revolt, saw that the Ephraimites were in a dangerous mood, and advised him to speak them fair; but the younger men, who had come round to flatter the new king, advised him to threaten and frighten them. Rehoboam, whom the son of Sirach calls "the foolishness of the people," attended to them, and in a proverbial form answered that his least displeasure should be weightier than his father's wrath and indignation: if his father "chastised them with whips, he should chastise them with scorpions." The high-spirited people would not brook such an answer, and set up their old war-song, the same as Sheba's had been. Rehoboam sent Adoram, the officer who collected the tribute, to appease the tumult, but he was received with a shower of stones, which killed him, and the king was forced to flee in his chariot to Jerusalem, with no tribe still adhering to him save Judah and Benjamin ! Thus his folly brought about the fulfilment of the

doom pronounced on his father.

LESSON II.

JEROBOAM'S IDOLATRY.

B.C. 979.—I KINGS xii. 20—33 ; xiii. 1—10.

And it came to pass, when all Israel heard that Jeroboam was come again, that they sent and called him unto the congregation, and made him king over all Israel: there was none that followed the house of David, but the tribe of Judah only.

And when Rehoboam was come to Jerusalem, he assembled all the house of Judah, with the tribe of Benjamin, an hundred and fourscore thousand chosen men, which were warriors, to fight against the house of Israel, to bring the kingdom again to Rehoboam the son of Solomon.

But the word of God came unto Shemaiah the man of God, saying, Speak unto Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and unto all the house of Judah and Benjamin, and to the remnant of the people, saying,

Thus saith the LORD, Ye shall not go up, nor fight against your brethren the children of Israel: return every man to his house; for this thing is from me. They hearkened therefore to the word of the LORD, and returned to depart, according to the word of the LORD.

Then Jeroboam built Shechem in Mount Ephraim, and dwelt therein and went out from thence, and built Penuel.

;

And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David:

If this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the LORD at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah, and they shall kill me, and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah.

Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

And he set the one in Beth-el, and the other put he in Dan.

And this thing became a sin: for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan.

And he made an house of high places, and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi.

And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he offered upon the altar. So did he in Beth-el, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made : and he placed in Beth-el the priests of the high places which he had made.

So he offered upon the altar which he had made in Beth-el the fifteenth day of the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised of his own heart and ordained a feast unto the children of Israel: and he offered upon the altar, and burnt incense.

And, behold, there came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the LORD unto Beth-el: and Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense.

And he cried against the altar in the word of the LORD, and said, O altar, altar, thus saith the LORD; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee.

And he gave a sign the same day, saying, This is the sign which the LORD hath spoken; Behold, the altar shall be rent, and the ashes that are upon it shall be poured out.

And it came to pass, when king Jeroboam heard the saying of the man of God, which had cried against the altar in Beth-el, that he put forth his hand from the altar, saying, Lay hold on him. And his hand, which he put forth against him, dried up, so that he could not pull it in again to him.

The altar also was rent, and the ashes poured out from the altar, according to the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the LORD.

And the king answered and said unto the man of God, Intreat now the face of the LORD thy God, and pray for me, that my hand may be restored me again. And the man of God besought the LORD, and the king's hand was restored him again, and became as it was before.

And the king said unto the man of God, Come home with me, and refresh thyself, and I will give thee a reward.

And the man of God said unto the king, If thou wilt give me half thine house, I will not go in with thee, neither will I eat bread nor drink water in this place :

For so was

charged me by the word of the LORD, saying, Eat no bread, nor drink water, nor turn again by the same way that thou camest. So he went another way, and returned not by the way that he came to Beth-el.

COMMENT.-Jeroboam had returned from Egypt on the news of Solomon's death, and the revolted Israelites at once made him king; not anointing him, for the priests had all adhered to Judah. The Levites were not reckoned as a tribe, so that the ten were made up by the division of Joseph into two; but Judah and Benjamin were always the fighting tribes-the lion and wolf; and they had mustered a hundred and eighty thousand men to put down the rebellion, when a command came through Shemaiah the prophet to abstain from war, since the separation was the will of God; and Rehoboam obeyed. Jeroboam was thus a powerful and wealthy prince, reigning by God's own appointment in the richest portions of the land. He rebuilt Shechem, where Joseph was buried, and which had been overthrown by Abimelech, and fortified Penuel on the Jordan, where Jacob had wrestled with the angel. In fact, he seems to have tried to revive the recollections of Jacob and Joseph in opposition to those of Judah. After God's interference on his behalf, he surely might have trusted to His protection, in simple obedience; but the thought of the three yearly feasts that took everyone on pilgrimage to Jerusalem alarmed him, lest the Israelites should be drawn back to their allegiance to the house of David. He would not trust God, but thought for himself, and resolved to have a national religion as well as a separate throne; and thus he won the sad distinctive epithet, "who made Israel to sin," and ruined his dynasty and kingdom, instead of establishing it. He had seen priestly kings in Egypt; he would be a priestly king himself. He would excuse his people the long journey to Jerusalem, and give them two shrines near home instead-one, the old idolatrous temple

at Dan, set up long ago with Micah's teraphim; the other at Bethel, named the "House of God" by Jacob, and consecrated by his vision-that vision which above all taught fearless trust. In both these places Jeroboam meant to adore the true and only God, JEHOVAH; but as there was no Light to betoken His presence, a visible emblem was supplied. There was much to lead Jeroboam to the choice of the calf or ox. He had seen the bulls, Apis and Mnevis, as the emblems of the God of Nature in Egypt, and moreover the ox or unicorn was the ensign of Joseph, besides being one of the four animal forms united to form the cherubic figure. He forgot what had befallen Israel beneath Mount Sinai, when they "turned their glory into the similitude of a calf that eateth hay;" he ordained new priests, and himself the first, and instituted a new feast, probably a harvest feast, as it fell a month later than that of the Tabernacles.

There he stood, himself officiating at his new altar at Bethel, probably for the first time, when in the midst of the festal throng there appeared a man in the rough hairy garment of a prophet, and standing before the altar, but taking no notice of the king, spoke to it his prediction: "O altar, altar, thus saith the Lord; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee." This was the most entire defilement an altar could suffer, and that it should be done by a son of the house of David showed not only that Jeroboam's new form of religion should be overthrown, but that his kingdom should not stand. Three hundred years passed before the fulfilment of this prophecy, but it was minutely carried out; and it is remarkable that the father of the king who fulfilled it was one of the worst of idolaters, and the most unlikely to have named his son Josiah in memory of this prediction. As an immediate token that the message came from God, the altar was at once riven asunder, and all that was on it fell; and Jeroboam, stretching out his hand to seize the prophet, found it paralysed, and could not draw it back. Scarcely a miracle had been worked during the hundred and twenty years of faith, and the shock was all the greater. Jeroboam showed himself subdued, and on the prophet's prayer his hand was restored. He invited the messenger to come home with him, meaning, pro

bably, to win him over to his side; but God had given express commands that the prophet should only deliver his message and then return to Judah, without touching the feast, without converse, without even treading the same path, and, like Balaam, with a dangerous asseveration betraying a secret wish, he refused.

་

LESSON III.

THE DISOBEDIENT PROPHET.

B.C. 975.-I KINGS xiii. 11-32.

Now there dwelt an old prophet in Beth-el; and his sons came and told him all the works that the man of God had done that day in Beth-el : the words which he had spoken unto the king, them they told also to their father.

And their father said unto them, What way went he? For his sons had seen what way the man of God went, which came from Judah.

And he said unto his sons, Saddle me the ass. So they saddled him the ass and he rode thereon,

And went after the man of God, and found him sitting under an oak: and he said unto him, Art thou the man of God that camest from Judah? And he said, I am.

Then he said unto him, Come home with me, and eat bread.

And he said, I may not return with thee, nor go in with thee: neither will I eat bread nor drink water with thee in this place:

For it was said to me by the word of the LORD, Thou shalt eat no bread nor drink water there, nor turn again to go by the way that thou camest.

He said unto him, I am a prophet also as thou art; and an angel spake unto me by the word of the LORD, saying, Bring him back with thee into thine house, that he may eat bread and drink water. But he lied unto him.

So he went back with him, and did eat bread in his house, and drank

water.

And it came to pass, as they sat at the table, that the word of the LORD came unto the prophet that brought him back:

And he cried unto the man of God that came from Judah, saying, Thus saith the LORD, Forasmuch as thou hast disobeyed the mouth of the LORD, and hast not kept the commandment which the LORD thy God commanded thee,

But camest back, and hast eaten bread and drunk water in the place, of the which the LORD did say to thee, Eat no bread, and drink no water; thy carcase shall not come unto the sepulchre of thy fathers.

And it came to pass, after he had eaten bread, and after he had drunk,