The chapter turns on its first word, But. Loved is the verb of 3:3, Solomon loved the LORD; now it has other objects. Strange here means foreign. The narrator names the nations, and verse 2 gives the reason it matters: Ye shall not go in to them... for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods (cf. Deuteronomy 7:3-4; Exodus 34:16). The concern is not race but worship — wives who brought their gods with them, and a king who would honour those gods. Solomon clave unto these in love (v. 2).

The Hebrew verb behind clave is the one used of a man who shall cleave unto his wife (Genesis 2:24) and of Israel's call to cleave unto the LORD (Joshua 23:8); Joshua had warned against cleaving to the remaining nations and marrying among them (Joshua 23:12-13). He had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines (v. 3) — many, it seems, marriages of alliance like the first. Deuteronomy 17:17 had said the king must not multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away. And his wives turned away his heart. Nehemiah 13:26 recalls it: even him did outlandish women cause to sin.

When Solomon was old — the drift came late, after the temple, the prayer, the second vision. The words answer Solomon's own charge at the dedication: Let your heart therefore be perfect with the LORD our God (8:61). Perfect means whole; Solomon's heart was divided. David is again the measure: he sinned grievously, but he did not go after other gods. The study notes the sorrow of it: the wisest man of his age was not kept by his wisdom.

Verse 6 gives the verdict plainly: Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD, and went not fully after the LORD, as did David his father. The narrator does not say that Solomon abandoned the LORD entirely; he went not fully after Him — he added other worship to it. That is the danger the chapter shows: not a sudden apostasy but a heart that made room for other loyalties, one marriage and one shrine at a time. Proverbs warns, Keep thy heart with all diligence (Proverbs 4:23). Readers have hoped that Solomon repented at the end; the text does not record it, and the study does not claim it.

Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites (v. 5). The narrator names the gods of neighbouring peoples and uses the Law's word abomination for their worship in Israel. Molech and Milcom are both linked to Ammon, and some take them as one god under two names; elsewhere Molech is tied to the offering of children (Leviticus 18:21). The hill that is before Jerusalem is usually taken as the Mount of Olives, east of the city.

And likewise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods (v. 8). The king who built the house of the LORD built shrines for others within sight of it. They stood for centuries, until Josiah defiled the high places that were before Jerusalem... which Solomon the king of Israel had builded for Ashtoreth... and for Chemosh... and for Milcom (2 Kings 23:13). The study tells this soberly, without mockery of any people's faith; the narrator's concern is Israel's king, to whom the LORD had appeared twice (v. 9), dividing his worship.

The LORD was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned from the LORD God of Israel, which had appeared unto him twice (v. 9) — at Gibeon (3:5) and after the dedication (9:2) — And had commanded him concerning this thing (v. 10; cf. 9:6). I will surely rend the kingdom from thee, and will give it to thy servant. Rend is the word Samuel used to Saul when his mantle tore: The LORD hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day (1 Samuel 15:28). The kingdom of David's son is to be torn as Saul's was, and given to a servant — Jeroboam, as the chapter will show.

Yet the judgment is tempered in two ways for David's sake. Notwithstanding in thy days I will not do it for David thy father's sake: but I will rend it out of the hand of thy son (v. 12). Howbeit I will not rend away all the kingdom; but will give one tribe to thy son for David my servant's sake, and for Jerusalem's sake which I have chosen (v. 13). Here the if of 2:4 and 9:4-6 and the mercy of 2 Samuel 7:15 meet: the kingdom is torn, but not wholly, and not from David's line. God's faithfulness to a dead man shelters his living son.

Adversary is the Hebrew satan, the word Solomon used when he said there was neither adversary nor evil occurrent (5:4). The narrator reaches back into David's reign: when Joab stayed six months in Edom until he had cut off every male (v. 16; cf. 2 Samuel 8:13-14), the boy Hadad escaped with some of his father's servants, by way of Midian and Paran, to Egypt (vv. 17-18). Pharaoh gave him a house, land and food, and the sister of his own queen Tahpenes as wife (vv. 18-19).

Hadad's son Genubath was weaned in Pharaoh's house and raised among the sons of Pharaoh (v. 20). When Hadad heard that David slept with his fathers, and that Joab the captain of the host was dead (v. 21), he asked to go home. What hast thou lacked with me? asked Pharaoh. Nothing: howbeit let me go in any wise (v. 22). The text does not say what he did next, only speaking of the mischief that Hadad did (v. 25). Some readers note the irony that Egypt, whose princess Solomon married, sheltered his enemies — Hadad here and Jeroboam later (v. 40). The narrator's point is that the LORD raised them.

Hadadezer was the Aramean king whom David defeated (2 Samuel 8:3-8). Rezon gathered men unto him, and became captain over a band (v. 24) — words close to those used of David in his outlaw days, when he became a captain over them (1 Samuel 22:2). His band took Damascus and reigned there. Damascus would become the seat of the Syrian kings who trouble Israel through much of Kings (e.g. 15:18; 20:1). The text dates Rezon's rise only loosely, when David slew them of Zobah.

He was an adversary to Israel all the days of Solomon, beside the mischief that Hadad did: and he abhorred Israel, and reigned over Syria (v. 25). Readers will remember Solomon's word to Hiram, there is neither adversary nor evil occurrent (5:4), and the study keeps the tension noted there: perhaps 5:4 speaks of the building years before these threats grew, perhaps of the major powers only. The narrator's placing is the point: the adversaries are told after the heart turned, as the LORD's answer to it. Peace had been a gift; it could be withdrawn.

Jeroboam the son of Nebat, an Ephrathite of Zereda, Solomon's servant, whose mother's name was Zeruah, a widow woman, even he lifted up his hand against the king (v. 26). Ephrathite here means an Ephraimite (cf. Judges 12:5). The cause (v. 27) is tied to building: Solomon built Millo, and repaired the breaches of the city of David his father. Solomon saw that the young man was industrious and set him over all the charge of the house of Joseph. Charge renders a Hebrew word linked with carrying burdens; many take it as the forced labour of the northern tribes.

The narrator does not say exactly how Jeroboam lifted up his hand — by open revolt or by plotting — only that it was connected with the works at Millo. Readers can picture the setting: a capable Ephraimite set over his own people's labour, watching the burden fall on the house of Joseph while the king built in Jerusalem. The grievance of 12:4 is already forming. Solomon promoted him for his diligence, as Proverbs 22:29 says a man diligent in his business... shall stand before kings; God would use that same man to divide the kingdom.

The prophet Ahijah the Shilonite found him in the way; and he had clad himself with a new garment; and they two were alone in the field (v. 29). Ahijah came from Shiloh, where the tabernacle once stood (Joshua 18:1). He had clad himself is usually taken of Ahijah. Ahijah caught the new garment that was on him, and rent it in twelve pieces (v. 30). The torn cloth acts out the word of verse 11, I will surely rend the kingdom, and recalls Saul's torn robe (1 Samuel 15:27-28). A new garment, torn: a kingdom still young, divided.

But he shall have one tribe for my servant David's sake (v. 32). Twelve pieces, ten given to Jeroboam, one tribe promised to David's line — readers have long asked about the twelfth. Many suggest that Benjamin was joined with Judah (12:21 has Rehoboam muster all the house of Judah, with the tribe of Benjamin), so that one tribe means the southern kingdom under Judah; others note that Simeon had long been absorbed into Judah (Joshua 19:1, 9). The study offers these as explanations, not certainties. The purpose is given in verse 36: that David my servant may have a light alway before me in Jerusalem.

Jeroboam is offered what David had: if thou wilt hearken unto all that I command thee, and wilt walk in my ways... as David my servant did; that I will be with thee, and build thee a sure house, as I built for David (v. 38). A sure house is the phrase of 1 Samuel 2:35, the promise of a faithful priest; the offer to Jeroboam is real, and it is conditional. I will take thee, and thou shalt reign according to all that thy soul desireth (v. 37). Chapter 12 will show what he did with the offer, and 14:7-10 the result.

And I will for this afflict the seed of David, but not for ever. The oracle closes with hope. The division is discipline, not rejection; the lamp in Jerusalem (v. 36) will keep burning, as the LORD promised David's line a light (2 Kings 8:19; cf. 2 Samuel 21:17). The prophets later looked for the day when the fallen tabernacle of David would be raised (Amos 9:11) and the two kingdoms made one again (Ezekiel 37:22). But not for ever is the seed of that hope, planted in the very chapter where the kingdom is torn.

Solomon sought therefore to kill Jeroboam. And Jeroboam arose, and fled into Egypt, unto Shishak king of Egypt, and was in Egypt until the death of Solomon (v. 40). The king who began his reign by asking for an understanding heart ends it hunting the man God has named, as Saul once hunted David. Shishak is usually identified with the Egyptian king Shoshenq I, though the study does not press a date. He will come up against Jerusalem in Rehoboam's fifth year (14:25).

The rest of the acts of Solomon... are they not written in the book of the acts of Solomon? (v. 41) — a source the narrator knew and readers no longer have; Kings will cite such records reign after reign. The time that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years (v. 42), the same span as David's (2:11). And Solomon slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David his father: and Rehoboam his son reigned in his stead. The forty years close without a word of praise; the wisest king leaves a divided heart and a kingdom about to divide.