1 Kings 12:27

If this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem,.... In the temple there, three times in the year, which all the males were obliged to, besides other times, when they had

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,

This in itself might seem a prudent conjecture; for this would give Rehoboam, and the priests and Levites, the sure and faithful friends of David’ s house, many opportunities of alienating their minds from him, and of reducing them to their former allegiance. But considering God’ s providence, by which the hearts of all men, and the affairs of all kings and kingdoms, are governed, and of which he had lately seen so eminent an instance, it was a foolish as well as wicked course.

1 Kings 12:27 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.Ver. 27. If this people go up to do sacrifice in the house.] The temple, that proper place of God’ s true, doth accidentally become an occasion, through men’ s corruption, of setting up of false, worship: so doth, at this day, the holy eucharist, of disunion and dissension; Hinc bellum illud Sacramentarium.

(27, 28) In these verses is recorded the adoption of the fatal policy which has caused Jeroboam to be handed down in the sacred record as “the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.” Hitherto his new royalty had been inaugurated under a Divine sanction, both as receiving distinct promise of permanence and blessing (1 Kings 11:37-38), and as protected by open prophetic interference, at the critical moment when its ill-consolidated force might have been crushed. Nor is it unlikely that it may have been supported by a wholesome reaction against the idolatry, as well as against the despotism, of Solomon. Now, unsatisfied with these securities of his kingdom, and desirous to strengthen it by a bold stroke of policy, he takes the step which mars the bright promise of his accession. Yet the policy was exceedingly natural. In Israel, beyond all other nations, civil and religious allegiance were indissolubly united; it was almost impossible to see how separate national existence could have been sustained without the creation, or (as it might seem) the revival, of local sanctuaries to rival the sacredness of Jerusalem. Nor was the breach of Divine law apparently a serious one. The worship at Dan and Bethel was not the bloody and sensual worship of false gods, but the worship of the Lord Jehovah under the form of a visible emblem, meant to be a substitute for the ark and the overshadowing cherubim. It might have been plausibly urged that, to wean Israel from all temptation to the abominations which Solomon had introduced, it was necessary to give their faith the visible support of these great local sanctuaries, and the lesser “high places” which would naturally follow. But the occasion was the critical moment of choice between a worldly policy—“doing evil that good might come”—and the higher and more arduous path of simple faith in God’s promise, and obedience to the command designed to protect the purity and spirituality of His worship. The step, once taken, was never retraced. Eminently successful in its immediate object of making the separation irreparable, it purchased success at the price, first, of destruction of all religious unity in Israel, and next, of a natural corruption, opening the door at once to idolatry, and hereafter to the grosser apostasy, against which it professed to guard. It needed the faith of David—as shown, for example, in the patient acquiescence in the prohibition of the erection of a Temple to be the spiritual glory of his kingdom—to secure the promise of “a sure house, as for David.” That promise was now forfeited for ever.

Verse 27. And they shall kill me] He found he had little cause to trust this fickle people; though they had declared for him it was more from caprice, desire of change, and novelty, than from any regular and praiseworthy principle.

27. if this people go up to do sacrifice] There appears to have been no thought in the popular mind that the choice of a different ruler for the ten tribes would break their connexion with the worship at the Temple. So that we must judge the Temple to have now become the one recognised place for worship. The R.V. represents the Hebrew more closely by rendering to offer sacrifices. then shall the heart of this people turn] After the first excitement of the revolt was over, and Jeroboam had begun to exercise lordship in his turn, the attraction of the Temple, and the prestige of the older family, and especially the glories attaching to the house of David would begin to reassert their power. Jeroboam expresses this feeling when he still calls Rehoboam ‘their lord.’ they shall kill me] When they have begun to repent of the step which they have taken at my leading. Such reaction of feeling is more common in Eastern than in Western minds. and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah] The LXX. omits these words. The title ‘king of Judah’ is first used in this chapter, here and above in 1 Kings 12:23.

Kill me - In case his subjects desired a reconciliation with Rehoboam, Jeroboam’s death would at once facilitate the re-establishment of a single kingdom, and obtain favor with the legitimate monarch.