Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Kings 11-12.

The passage tells us that King Solomon had many wives from nations which God had told the Israelites they were not to intermarry.  The passage also tells us that they turned his heart to other gods, in particular, Ashtoreth, Molek, and Chemosh. Worship of the latter two gods involved human sacrifice.  While the worship of Ashtoreth involved sexual actsWhich tells us that when the passage tells us that Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, it was not just referring to the fact that he worshiped other gods.  It is referring to what actions Solomon took as part of that worship.   The result of this behavior was that God allowed opposition to rise against King Solomon, both foreign and domestic.  I am not sure what to make of the fact that Egypt’s Pharaoh supported at least two of Solomon’s opponents even though Solomon was married to Pharaoh’s daughter (although it is likely that the Pharaoh who supported Solomon’s opponents was not the one who was Solomon’s father-in-law).

I find it interesting that the heading the translators gave this section was “Jeroboam Rebels Against Solomon”.  Yet, all the passage tells us is that a prophet told Jeroboam that God would give him ten of the tribes to be ruler over and that because of this Solomon sought to kill Jeroboam.  In addition, before this, King Solomon had put Jeroboam in charge of the labor he levied from the tribes of Joseph (technically, this would mean the tribes of Manasseh and Ephraim, but I suspect it means all of the tribes other than Judah and Benjamin).  This fact about Jeroboam being charge of Solomon’s labor force becomes significant when Jeroboam leads the tribes which ask Rehoboam to reduce the burden which Solomon had placed upon them.  This suggests that Jeroboam was genuinely interested in reaching a deal with Rehoboam, even though he had the message from the prophet telling him that God would take the ten tribes from Solomon’s son.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.