BSN: The Divided Kingdom

• 1 Kgs 11:9-13, the Lord pronounced His judgment on Solomon that as a result of his divided heart, his kingdom would be divided – but not until after his death.
• In 1 Kgs 11:29-40, the Lord spoke of the same judgment through Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam.
• In 1 Kgs 12:1-19, the division took place as Solomon’s servant Jeroboam led the nation to reject Solomon’s son Rehoboam. Only the tribe of Judah remained loyal to Rehoboam, though it was soon joined by the tribe of Benjamin. The split occurred about 975 BC. The two kingdoms co-existed for about 250 years.

The Split

• Israel (the northern kingdom) was based on a false religion established by its first king, Jeroboam. The false religion was not entirely new, but rather a corruption of the true religion. The foundational components of this false religion were that the temple in Jerusalem didn’t matter and that the Messiah, if he was coming at all, would not be coming through the house of David, which was of the tribe of Judah. King Jeroboam had to corrupt the biblical faith at least to this extent because if his subjects knew the truth, they would go to Jerusalem for the three annual feasts (Passover, Pentecost, and Booths) and they would also look to the house of David for their king – which would, of course, delegitimize, weaken, and ultimately lead the northern kingdom (Israel) to extinction. Jeroboam sought to solidify his corruption of biblical doctrine by placing a golden calf at both the northernmost and southernmost points of his kingdom for “worship” in order to keep his subjects spiritually “hemmed in.” The golden calf at Israel’s (the northern kingdom’s) southern border was particularly important in this regard because it was to block people from going to Jerusalem to worship. All the kings that succeeded Jeroboam kept this religious system in place. This is why we see this phrased repeated for the northern kings: “he did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam.”
• Both kingdoms were ultimately destroyed by foreign armies – Israel in 722 BC by the Assyrians and Judah in 586 BC by the Babylonians. (Key Dates for Ancient Israel)
  • Israel (the Northern Kingdom) was never rebuilt. Its people were called “the ten lost tribes.” However, there were remnants of this kingdom that survived, intermarried with Canaanites, and coalesced into a people called Samaritans. That said, many if not most of these descendants were scattered to the four winds and were thus an early part of the Jewish Diaspora.
  • Judah (the Southern Kingdom) was rebuilt by Ezra, Nehemiah, and others returning from exile in Babylon. This rebuilt Judah became known as Israel and there was never again a northern kingdom to challenge it. The Samaritans lived in tension with the Jews but never successfully rivaled them – being considered “half-breeds” by the true Jews who, regardless of tribe, worshiped in Jerusalem.
• Some of the kings of Judah (the Southern Kingdom) were considered bad while others were considered good; however, all the king of Israel (the Northern Kingdom) were considered bad because, among other things, they stuck to Jeroboam’s corruption of the nation’s faith and worship with respect to the temple in Jerusalem and God’s anointing on the house of David for leadership.
• We first see Israel (the Northern Kingdom) called Samaria in 1 Kgs 13:32.
• King Omri of Israel (the Northern Kingdom, Samaria) built a capital city for his nation and named it Samaria (1 Kgs 16:24). Thus we now have city as well as the larger region called Samaria.