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. Jump to: Barnes • Benson • BI • Cambridge • Clarke • Darby • Ellicott • Expositor's • Exp Dct • Gaebelein • GSB • Gill • Gray • Guzik • Haydock • Hastings • Homiletics • JFB • KD • King • Lange • MacLaren • MHC • MHCW • Parker • Poole • Pulpit • Sermon • SCO • TTB • WES • TSK EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE) 11:9-13 The Lord told Solomon, it is likely by a prophet, what he must expect for his apostacy. Though we have reason to hope that he repented, and found mercy, yet the Holy Ghost did not expressly record it, but left it doubtful, as a warning to others not to sin. The guilt may be taken away, but not the reproach; that will remain. Thus it must remain uncertain to us till the day of judgment, whether or not Solomon was left to suffer the everlasting displeasure of an offended God.One tribe - i. e., (marginal reference) the tribe of Judah. Benjamin was looked upon as absorbed in Judah, so as not to be really a tribe in the same sense as the others. Still, in memory of the fact that the existing tribe of Judah was a double one 1 Kings 12:2 l, the prophet Ahijah tore his garment into twelve parts, and kept back two from Jeroboam 1 Kings 11:30-31. 13. I will give one tribe to thy son—There were left to Rehoboam the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi (2Ch 11:12, 13); and multitudes of Israelites, who, after the schism of the kingdom, established their residence within the territory of Judah to enjoy the privileges of the true religion (1Ki 12:17). These are all reckoned as one tribe. How but one tribe, when he had both Judah and Benjamin, 2 Chronicles 11:12? Answ. Either Benjamin is swallowed up in Judah, because it was comparatively very small, and their habitation much intermixed with that of Judah: or one, to wit, of that kingdom which he here threatens to rend away from him, i.e. of the kingdom of Israel, and that was Benjamin; one beside Judah, which was his own tribe: or but one, because Benjamin was not entirely his, but part of it adhered to Jeroboam, as Beth-el, 1 Kings 12:29, and Ephrain, 2 Chronicles 13:19, both which were towns of Benjamin, Joshua 18:22. Or if God promised to give one, and gave him two, I suppose that was no great injury to him. For Jerusalem’s sake; not, surely, for its merits; but because he had chosen it, as it follows, to be the seat of his temple and worship; it being God’s usual method to give to him that hath, and to continue and multiply favours to them whom he hath begun to favour. Howbeit, I will not rend away all the kingdom,.... The whole kingdom of Israel: but will give one tribe to thy son; but it seems he had both Benjamin and Judah, and only ten tribes were rent from him; the reason of this mode of expression may be, either because he gave him one of the tribes of Israel, besides that of Judah, which was his own tribe; or only the tribe of Judah is meant, the whole tribe of Benjamin not being his, since Bethel, and some other places in that tribe, were in the possession of Jeroboam; or rather both these are called but one, because their inheritances lay together, and were mixed with one another; and particularly both had a share in the city of Jerusalem, and the kingdom always after the division went by the name of Judah only: and this tribe was given for David my servant's sake; because of the promise to him, that there should not want one of his seed to sit on his throne, 1 Kings 9:5. and for Jerusalem's sake, whom I have chosen; to have the house of his sanctuary and worship in, and therefore thought fit to have one rule there, that, would have a regard to his service in it. Howbeit I will not rend away all the kingdom; but will give one {g} tribe to thy son for David my servant's sake, and for Jerusalem's sake which I have chosen.(g) Because the tribes of Judah and Benjamin had their possessions mixed, they are here taken as one tribe. EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES) 13. but will give one tribe] The reference is to the tribe of Judah from which the southern kingdom took its name. Benjamin which went with Judah was so small as to be hardly worth accounting of, and Simeon was also absorbed in Judah. The same form of words is used below (1 Kings 11:32) in the account of Ahijah’s action, though it is expressly said in a previous verse ‘Take thee ten pieces.’ One reason for the close union of Benjamin with Judah was that the territorial division between the two tribes was such as to make the Temple the common property of both. The city of the Jebusite, which David conquered, and all the ground north of the valley of Hinnom was in the tribe of Benjamin.for Jerusalem’s sake, which I have chosen] In Deuteronomy 12:5 it is signified that God will choose some place out of all the tribes ‘to place His name there,’ and in 1 Kings 14:21 Jerusalem is expressly called ‘the city which the Lord did choose out of all the tribes of Israel to put His name there.’ Hence the place was an object of Jehovah’s unchanging regard. Verse 13. - Howbeit I win not rend away all the kingdom; but will give one tribe [viz., Judah (1 Kings 12:20, "the tribe of Judah only"). "Even the reservation of one tribe is called a gift" (Wordsworth) to thy son for David my servant's sake, and for Jerusalem's sake which I have chosen. [But for this provision, Jerusalem would have ceased to be the religious capital. When the sceptre departed from Judah, we may be sure that the "envy of Ephraim" would have demanded that the city of their solemnities should be placed elsewhere - at Shiloh, which for 400 years had been God's "bright sanctuary," or at Bethel, which from far earlier times had been a holy place. See on 1 Kings 12:29, 32.] CHAPTER 11:14-43. SOLOMON'S ADVERSARIES. - As the historian has collected together in chs. 6, 7, 8. all the information he can convey respecting the temple, and in chs. 9, 10. all the scattered notices respecting Solomon's power and greatness, so here he arranges in one section the history of Solomon's adversaries. It must not be supposed that the following records stand in due chronological order. The enmities here mentioned did not date from the delivery of the message of which we have just heard; on the contrary, the hatred and opposition of Hadad and Rezon began at an early period, though not the earliest (1 Kings 5:4), of Solomon's reign. It was only in his later life, however, that they materially affected his position and rule; hence it is that they are brought before us at this stage of the history, and also because they are manifestly regarded as chastisements for Solomon's sin. 1 Kings 11:13Through this apostasy from the Lord his God, who had appeared to him twice (1 Kings 3:5. and 1 Kings 9:2.) and had warned him against idolatry (וצוּה is a continuation of the participle הנּראה), Solomon drew down upon himself the anger of Jehovah. The emphasis lies upon the fact that God had appeared to him Himself for the purpose of warning him, and had not merely caused him to be warned by prophets, as Theodoret has explained. In consequence of this, the following announcement is made to him, no doubt through the medium of a prophet, possibly Ahijah (1 Kings 11:29): "Because this has come into thy mind, and thou hast not kept my covenant, ... I will tear the kingdom from thee and give it to thy servant; nevertheless I will not do it in thy lifetime for thy father David's sake: howbeit I will not tear away the whole kingdom; one tribe I will give to thy son." In this double limitation of the threatened forfeiture of the kingdom there is clearly manifested the goodness of God (δείκνυσι τὴν ἄμετρον ἀγαθότητα - Theodoret); not, however, with reference to Solomon, who had forfeited the divine mercy through his idolatry, but with regard to David and the selection of Jerusalem: that is to say, not from any special preference for David and Jerusalem, but in order that the promise made to David (2 Samuel 7), and the choice of Jerusalem as the place where His name should be revealed which was connected with that promise, might stand immoveably as an act of grace, which no sin of men could overturn (vid., 1 Kings 11:36). For אחד שׁבט see the Comm. on 1 Kings 11:31, 1 Kings 11:32. 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