Why did the kingdom of Israel split after Solomon?

A torn cloak

The Bible sets up the split before Solomon dies. Because he turned to other gods in his old age, God tells him, “I will surely tear the kingdom from you,” though not in his lifetime, and not all of it: one tribe will stay with his son, “for David my servant’s sake” (1 Kings 11:11–13). Then the tearing is acted out on a road outside Jerusalem.

Ahijah took the new garment that was on him, and tore it in twelve pieces. He said to Jeroboam, “Take ten pieces; for Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, ‘Behold, I will tear the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon and will give ten tribes to you

Jeroboam son of Nebat was an Ephraimite whom Solomon had noticed as a hard worker and put in charge of the labor gangs of “the house of Joseph” (1 Kings 11:28), the very northern tribes who would rebel. Solomon tried to kill him, and he fled to Pharaoh Shishak in Egypt until Solomon died.

The heavy yoke

The second reason is written into the people’s own words. Solomon’s building cost men as well as gold. He raised a levy of thirty thousand from Israel and sent them to Lebanon to cut timber in shifts, one month away and two at home (1 Kings 5:13–14). Twelve district officers fed the court in turn (1 Kings 4:7), and many scholars think Judah, the king’s own tribe, was spared.

So when Solomon dies, around 931 BC, and his son Rehoboam goes to Shechem to be made king, the north comes with a condition. “Your father made our yoke difficult,” they say; lighten it, “and we will serve you” (1 Kings 12:4). The old men who served Solomon tell him to give way. The young men he grew up with tell him to boast instead: “My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist” (12:10). He takes the young men’s advice.

My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke. My father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.

What were the scorpions? Perhaps a lash with barbed tips, perhaps only a crueler figure of speech. Either way, the message was clear.

An old fault line

The answer that came back was not new. David had ruled Judah alone at Hebron for seven and a half years before the northern tribes accepted him (2 Samuel 5:5). Late in his reign a Benjamite named Sheba blew the trumpet and cried, “We have no portion in David, neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse. Every man to his tents, Israel!” (2 Samuel 20:1). At Shechem the north uses nearly the same words: “What portion have we in David?” and “To your tents, Israel!” (1 Kings 12:16). The union had always been two peoples under one crown, and Rehoboam had to ask for the north’s crown at its own old meeting place.

Two kingdoms

Rehoboam sends Adoram, his chief of forced labor, the worst possible envoy. The crowd stones him, and the king escapes to Jerusalem by chariot. The narrator closes the scene: “So Israel rebelled against David’s house to this day” (12:19).

• Israel, in the north: ten tribes under Jeroboam, with a first capital at Shechem and, later, Samaria. To keep his people away from Jerusalem’s Temple, Jeroboam set up golden calves at Dan and Bethel with the words of Aaron’s calf: “behold your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” (12:28). It fell to Assyria in 722 BC; see what happened to the ten lost tribes.
• Judah, in the south: Judah and Benjamin, with Jerusalem, the Temple and David’s dynasty. It lasted until Babylon took Jerusalem in 586 BC.

Five years later Pharaoh Shishak raided Jerusalem and stripped the Temple’s gold (1 Kings 14:25–26); see Was King Solomon a real person?