Jeroboam I

Jeroboam, son of Nebat, was an Ephraimite servant of Solomon whom the prophet Ahijah of Shiloh marked out as the man God would give the ten northern tribes (1 Kings 11:29-39). Solomon tried to kill him, so he fled to Egypt under Pharaoh Shishak. When Solomon died and Rehoboam refused to lighten the people's burden, the northern tribes called Jeroboam back and made him king (1 Kings 12:20). Fearing his subjects would defect if they kept going up to the temple in Jerusalem, he built two royal sanctuaries — one at Bethel in the south, one at Dan in the far north — and set up golden calves at each, saying, 'Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt' (1 Kings 12:28). He also appointed non-Levitical priests and altered the feast calendar. An unnamed prophet from Judah denounced the Bethel altar and predicted that a future king named Josiah would defile it (1 Kings 13:2) — a prophecy fulfilled three centuries later (2 Kings 23:15-16). After Jeroboam's son fell ill, Ahijah pronounced doom on his whole house (1 Kings 14). Jeroboam reigned twenty-two years and warred continually with Rehoboam; he was succeeded by his son Nadab, who was killed within two years. Scripture remembers him as 'Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin' — the formula used twenty-one times across 1 and 2 Kings.