1 Kings 12:1

"Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had come to Shechem to make him king." The very first word shows the state of the king and the state of the people. Why to Shechem? What brought them there? What business had they there? Why not come to Jerusalem? When David was coming to the throne the tribes of Israel came to Hebron, because Hebron was where the king lived. Hebron was the king's chief city. He had reigned there before he reigned in Jerusalem. The people came to the king, as was fitting. Rehoboam heard that the foundations were being loosened and about to be destroyed, and the king goes to Shechem. It was there that the people chose to go, and there the king has to follow. He was a fool; he did not understand how to reign; he did not own his place from God.

The first city of Canaan visited by Abram, Genesis 12:6, where it is called Sichem. When Jacob returned to Palestine, Hamor the Hivite was its king. The bones of Joseph were buried there. When the land was divided it fell to the lot of Ephraim, and became a Levitical city and a city of refuge. It was there that Joshua delivered his last address to the people. Under the Judges the city was taken by Abimelech... The tribes assembled there to crown Rehoboam, and, when the kingdom divided, it became the headquarters of Jeroboam.

God had not made Shechem the centre or the right place for king or people. The people chose to go there, and Rehoboam followed them. That was how his reign began. It was an ominous beginning, but it was a beginning that suited the character of Rehoboam. Where Rehoboam ought to have been firm, he was loose. Where he ought to have been yielding, he was stubborn. These two things unfit any man to govern. The great secret of governing well is to know when to be firm and when to yield, and to do it in the fear of God: to be as firm as a rock about what is a divine principle, and as yielding as possible about what is merely an indifferent thing.

No one knows how long Jeroboam stayed in Egypt. But we read that he returned when Solomon died, and was there at Rehoboam's coronation, where the rebellion was completed... The time was ripe. Solomon's incompetent son and successor did not take to heart his father's sound proverb, "A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." He showed his lack of wisdom and fitness to govern a freedom-loving people. As a result he brought on the separation of the already alienated northern tribes. He weakened and almost ruined a kingdom that had recently stretched from the Nile to the Euphrates.

This explains how it was that ten tribes with one mind so suddenly shook off their loyalty to the house of David. A runaway servant no sooner blows his trumpet than they follow him. It was the judgment of the Lord, pronounced in Solomon's day, carried out in the days of his son. "But I will take the kingdom out of his son's [Rehoboam's] hand and will give it to you [Jeroboam], ten tribes" (1 Kings 11:35).

Here again the root of division is worldliness that turns aside to other gods, and disobedience to the Word of God. But now it is found in the people. By itself, the folly and failure of the leaders — however great — would not cause division. It causes division because the people of God as a whole are in such a low condition.