Bible or the New Testament. Here, it appears twice within a few verses. God
chooses a man specifically from the tribe of Ephraim for the job of leading the
ten tribes. Ephraim and Manasseh, sons of Jacob’s most beloved lost son,
Joseph, receive a deathbed blessing from the patriarch. Like Judah, they belong
in the category of “blessed tribes.” But while both of them are blessed, in a
significant dramatic gesture, Jacob crosses his arms and places hisright
(indicating greater blessing) hand on the head of his youngest grandson—
Ephraim.
Ahijah’s prophecy quickly becomes reality. Solomon’s son and successor,
Rehoboam, is far less smart than his father and grandfather. He rules tyranni-
cally and foolishly and abuses the dominion over the rest of the tribes given to
the tribe of Judah. Schisms and unrest spread among the people of the
kingdom. Armed with God’s promise, Jeroboam rebels and leads his tribe of
Ephraim to secede from the united Davidic kingdom, creating a separate
dominion in the northern part of the Holy Land. Nine other tribes follow
him, and the Ephraimite monarchy becomes the kingdom of Israel, home of
the ten tribes. The great united kingdom of Israel no longer exists. Instead,
there are the smaller Israel and Judah. The new Israelite kingdom controls an
expanse of land from a point only a few kilometers north of Jerusalem to the
mountains of Lebanon. In the south, the house of David remains with only two
tribes, Judah and its smaller neighbor, Benjamin, and with the temple in
Jerusalem, which is still the cultural and religious center of all twelve tribes.
But the story does not end there. Fearing that the people of the new
secessionist kingdom might revert to Judah’s dominion when they go to
worship in Jerusalem, Jeroboam decides to build a new center for worship
within the boundaries of his own domain. The Bible tells us that he “took two
calves of gold” and said to the people: “It is too much for you to go up to
Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of
Egypt” ( 1 Kings 12 : 28 ). Jeroboam’s political and cultural shrewdness proves to
be a grave error with everlasting consequences. Worshipping the two calves is
the “original sin” of the ten tribes, and it never leaves them. (Witsius calls the
episode the “separation of the tribes from the House of the Lord.”)^30
In a typical burst of wrath, God vows to destroy not only the clan of
Jeroboam, but his entire kingdom. The same Ahijah the Shilonite delivers
another horrifying prophecy: “For the Lord shall smite Israel as a reed is
shaken in the water and he shall root up Israel out of this good land which
he gave to their fathers and shall scatter them beyond the river because they
have made their graves provoking the Lord to anger” ( 1 Kings 14 : 15 ).
This banishment from the divine domain, perhaps a historical recasting and
transposition of the story of the expulsion from Eden, is crucial in the later
lu
(lu)
#1