For Teaching

1 Kings 11: What the Passage Says

147 claims across 43 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What 1 Kings 11 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

Solomon marries many foreign women, and in his old age they turn his heart to worship their gods, including Ashtoreth, Chemosh, and Molech. Because Solomon breaks the covenant, the LORD tells him the kingdom will be torn away and given to a servant, though not in Solomon's lifetime and not the whole of it, for David's sake. Three opponents rise against him: Hadad of Edom, Rezon of Damascus, and his own official Jeroboam, to whom the prophet Ahijah promises ten tribes. The chapter closes with Solomon's forty-year reign, his death, and Rehoboam taking the throne.

Claim by Claim

11:1
- King Solomon loved many foreign women.
- Among the women Solomon loved was the daughter of Pharaoh.
- The foreign women Solomon loved included Moabite women.
- The foreign women Solomon loved included Ammonite women.
- The foreign women Solomon loved included Edomite women.
- The foreign women Solomon loved included Sidonian women.
- The foreign women Solomon loved included Hittite women.
11:2
- These women were from the nations about which the LORD had spoken to the children of Israel.
- The LORD had told Israel not to go in to those nations.
- The LORD had told Israel that those nations should not come in to them.
- The LORD said that those nations would surely turn Israel's heart after their gods.
- Solomon clung to these women in love.
11:3
- Solomon had seven hundred wives who were princesses.
- Solomon had three hundred concubines.
- Solomon's wives turned his heart away.
11:4
- When Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart after other gods.
- Solomon's heart was not wholly with the LORD his God.
- David his father's heart had been wholly with the LORD.
11:5
- Solomon went after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians.
- Solomon went after Milcom, the detestable thing of the Ammonites.
11:6
- Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the LORD.
- Solomon did not fully follow after the LORD.
- David his father had fully followed after the LORD.
11:7
- Solomon built a high place for Chemosh, the detestable thing of Moab.
- The high place was on the hill that faces Jerusalem.
- Solomon built a high place for Molech, the detestable thing of the children of Ammon.
11:8
- Solomon did the same for all his foreign wives.
- His foreign wives burned incense to their gods.
- His foreign wives sacrificed to their gods.
11:9
- The LORD was angry with Solomon.
- The LORD was angry because Solomon's heart had turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel.
- The LORD had appeared to Solomon twice.
11:10
- The LORD had commanded Solomon concerning this matter, that he should not go after other gods.
- Solomon did not keep what the LORD commanded.
11:11
- The LORD said to Solomon that because this was so with him, and because he had not kept the LORD's covenant and statutes which the LORD commanded him, the LORD would surely tear the kingdom away from him.
- The LORD said he would give the kingdom to Solomon's servant.
11:12
- The LORD said he would not do it in Solomon's days.
- The LORD said this was for the sake of David, Solomon's father.
- The LORD said he would tear the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon's son.
11:13
- The LORD said he would not tear away all the kingdom.
- The LORD said he would give one tribe to Solomon's son.
- The LORD said this was for the sake of David his servant.
- The LORD said this was for the sake of Jerusalem, which he had chosen.
11:14
- The LORD raised up an adversary against Solomon.
- The adversary was Hadad the Edomite.
- Hadad was of the royal seed in Edom.
11:15
- Earlier, David was in Edom.
- Joab the commander of the army had gone up to bury the slain.
- Joab struck down every male in Edom.
11:16
- Joab and all Israel remained in Edom six months.
- They remained until Joab had cut off every male in Edom.
11:17
- Hadad fled to go into Egypt.
- Certain Edomite men from his father's servants fled with him.
- Hadad was then a little boy.
11:18
- They set out from Midian.
- They came to Paran.
- They took men with them out of Paran.
- They came to Egypt, to Pharaoh king of Egypt.
- Pharaoh gave Hadad a house.
- Pharaoh assigned him food.
- Pharaoh gave him land.
11:19
- Hadad found great favor in Pharaoh's sight.
- Pharaoh gave Hadad a wife, the sister of Pharaoh's own wife.
- The wife given was the sister of Tahpenes the queen.
11:20
- The sister of Tahpenes bore Hadad a son named Genubath.
- Tahpenes weaned Genubath in Pharaoh's house.
- Genubath was in Pharaoh's household among the sons of Pharaoh.
11:21
- Hadad heard in Egypt that David had slept with his fathers.
- Hadad heard that Joab the commander of the army was dead.
- Hadad said to Pharaoh to let him depart.
- Hadad said he wished to go to his own country.
11:22
- Pharaoh asked Hadad what he lacked with him.
- Pharaoh said that Hadad was seeking to go to his own country.
- Hadad answered that he lacked nothing.
- Hadad insisted that Pharaoh let him go.
11:23
- God raised up another adversary against Solomon.
- The adversary was Rezon son of Eliada.
- Rezon had fled from Hadadezer king of Zobah, his master.
11:24
- Rezon gathered men to himself.
- Rezon became captain of a raiding band.
- This happened when David killed them.
- They went to Damascus.
- They settled in Damascus.
- They reigned in Damascus.
11:25
- Rezon was an adversary to Israel all the days of Solomon.
- This was in addition to the harm that Hadad did.
- He loathed Israel.
- He reigned over Aram.
11:26
- Jeroboam was the son of Nebat.
- Jeroboam was an Ephrathite from Zeredah.
- Jeroboam's mother's name was Zeruah.
- Jeroboam's mother was a widow.
- Jeroboam was a servant of Solomon.
- Jeroboam lifted up his hand against the king.
11:27
- This is the account of why Jeroboam lifted up his hand against the king.
- Solomon built the Millo.
- Solomon closed up the breach of the city of David his father.
11:28
- Jeroboam was a mighty man of valor.
- Solomon saw that the young man was a doer of work.
- Solomon appointed him over all the forced labor of the house of Joseph.
11:29
- At that time Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem.
- Ahijah the Shilonite the prophet found him on the road.
- Ahijah had covered himself with a new garment.
- The two of them were alone in the field.
11:30
- Ahijah seized the new garment that was on him.
- Ahijah tore the garment into twelve pieces.
11:31
- Ahijah told Jeroboam to take ten pieces for himself.
- Ahijah said this was because the LORD, the God of Israel, spoke thus.
- The LORD said he was tearing the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon.
- The LORD said he would give ten tribes to Jeroboam.
11:32
- The LORD said one tribe would remain his.
- This was for the sake of the LORD's servant David.
- This was for the sake of Jerusalem, the city the LORD had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel.
11:33
- The LORD said they had forsaken him.
- The LORD said they had bowed down to Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians.
- The LORD said they had bowed down to Chemosh the god of Moab.
- The LORD said they had bowed down to Milcom the god of the children of Ammon.
- The LORD said they had not walked in his ways.
- The LORD said they had not done what is right in his eyes.
- The LORD said they had not kept his statutes and judgments as David his father did.
11:34
- The LORD said he would not take the whole kingdom out of his hand.
- The LORD said he would make him prince all the days of his life.
- This was for the sake of David the LORD's servant.
- The LORD chose David.
- David kept the LORD's commandments and statutes.
11:35
- The LORD said he would take the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon's son.
- The LORD said he would give it to Jeroboam.
- The portion given would be ten tribes.
11:36
- The LORD said he would give one tribe to Solomon's son.
- This was so that David the LORD's servant would have a lamp always before the LORD in Jerusalem.
- Jerusalem is the city the LORD chose for himself to put his name there.
11:37
- The LORD said he would take Jeroboam.
- The LORD said Jeroboam would reign over all that his soul desires.
- The LORD said Jeroboam would be king over Israel.
11:38
- The LORD said that if Jeroboam listened to all he commanded him, walked in his ways, did what is right in his sight, and kept his statutes and commandments as David his servant did, then the LORD would be with him.
- The LORD said he would build Jeroboam a sure house, as he built for David.
- The LORD said he would give Israel to Jeroboam.
11:39
- The LORD said he would afflict the seed of David because of this.
- The LORD said the affliction would not be for all time.
11:40
- Solomon sought to kill Jeroboam.
- Jeroboam arose and fled to Egypt, to Shishak king of Egypt.
- Jeroboam remained in Egypt until the death of Solomon.
11:41
- The rest of the acts of Solomon, all that he did, and his wisdom are written in the book of the acts of Solomon.
11:42
- Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel forty years.
11:43
- Solomon slept with his fathers.
- Solomon was buried in the city of David his father.
- Rehoboam his son reigned in his place.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

11:1: "Foreign" means from outside Israel. In the ancient Near East a royal marriage was normally a treaty: a king took the daughter of a neighboring ruler as a wife to seal an alliance, so a list of a king's wives is also a list of the states he had agreements with. Moab, Ammon and Edom were small kingdoms east and south-east of Israel; Sidon was a Phoenician port city on the coast to the north-west; the Hittites were a people whose old empire lay in Asia Minor and whose descendants held small states in Syria and Canaan.
11:2: The command referred to is the one in Deuteronomy 7:3–4 and Exodus 34:15–16, which forbade marriage with the surrounding peoples on the stated ground that it would draw Israelites into their worship.
11:3: A concubine was a recognized secondary wife, legally attached to the household but of lower rank than a full wife, and her children usually had weaker claims on inheritance. "Wives who were of royal families" marks them as daughters of ruling houses, i.e. marriages made as alliances.
11:4: In Hebrew the "heart" is the seat of thought, decision and loyalty rather than of feeling; a heart "not fully committed" means divided allegiance, not cooling affection.
11:5: Ashtoreth (Astarte) was the chief goddess of the Phoenician cities, associated with love, fertility and war. Milcom was the national god of Ammon. "Detestable" translates a standard Hebrew word used for another nation's god and its images.
11:6: "Evil in the sight of the LORD" is a Bible way of speaking. It means God saw what he did and it was wrong.
11:7: A "high place" was an open-air worship site, usually on a hilltop or raised platform, with an altar and often a standing stone or wooden pole; it was the ordinary form of a local shrine in that world. The hill east of Jerusalem, across the Kidron valley, is the ridge later called the Mount of Olives. Chemosh was the national god of Moab; Molech (a name closely related to Milcom in verse 5) the god of Ammon.
11:8: Burning incense and offering animal sacrifice were the two basic acts of worship at any shrine in the region, not practices peculiar to one religion.
11:9: The two appearances are the dream at Gibeon early in Solomon's reign and the second appearance after the temple was finished, both narrated earlier in 1 Kings.
11:11: A "covenant" was a formal binding agreement setting out obligations and consequences, of the kind kings made with each other or with their subjects. "Servant" here means a man in the king's service, an official, not a slave; the point is that the kingdom will go to a subordinate rather than to a son.
11:13: "One tribe" means Judah, with the small territory of Benjamin attached to it. Ten and one do not add up to twelve: Levi held no territory of its own, and the round numbers function as "nearly all" and "the remainder" rather than as an exact count.
11:14: The word translated "enemy" is the Hebrew *satan*, at this period an ordinary noun meaning an opponent or accuser, in war or in a lawsuit. It is not used here as a personal name. Edom lay south-east of the Dead Sea.
11:15: Joab was David's army commander (and his nephew), the most powerful man in the kingdom after David himself. The campaign referred to is the one recorded in 2 Samuel 8. Going up "to bury the dead" means returning to the battlefield afterwards to bury Israel's own fallen. "Every male" is the sweeping formula of ancient war reports for the destruction of a defeated people's fighting men.
11:17: Wiping out the royal males of a conquered kingdom was standard practice precisely because a surviving heir could return and claim the throne. Hadad is that surviving heir, and the story is told here to explain how a boy who escaped becomes Solomon's problem forty years later.
11:18: Midian and Paran were desert regions south and south-east of Canaan, on the overland route from Edom down into Egypt.
11:19: Marrying the queen's own sister placed Hadad, a foreign refugee, inside the Egyptian royal family, an extraordinary mark of standing, and one that bound him to the Egyptian court.
11:20: Children were nursed until about the age of three, and weaning was a household milestone. To be weaned in the palace and then brought up among Pharaoh's own sons meant Genubath was raised as a royal ward, with the education and connections of an Egyptian prince.
11:21: "Died and been buried with his ancestors" is the standard Hebrew way of reporting the peaceful death of a king; the family tomb held the bones of earlier generations.
11:23: Zobah was an Aramean kingdom north of Damascus, defeated by David (2 Samuel 8:3–8). Rezon was one of its officers who broke away from his own king.
11:24: Damascus became the capital of Aram, which would be Israel's most persistent northern enemy for the next two centuries. Solomon's father had controlled this region; losing it is a real reduction of the empire.
11:25: Aram was the Aramean kingdom centered on Damascus, north-east of Israel and its chief rival on that border for the next two centuries. "Syria" is the later Greek name for the same region, which is why older English Bibles use it.
11:26: Ephraim was the largest tribal territory in the hill country north of Jerusalem, and the leading power among the northern tribes. "Official" translates the word for "servant", which in a royal context means a man holding office under the king. The King James phrase "lifted up his hand against the king" is a Hebrew idiom for open rebellion.
11:27: "Millo" is a Hebrew name meaning roughly "the filling": the stepped stone terracing that held up buildings on the steep eastern slope of the old city. The "gap" was a breach left in the city wall David had fortified. Building projects like these were carried out by conscripted labor, which is the grievance behind what follows.
11:28: The "house of Joseph" means the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, descended from Joseph's two sons, the main northern bloc. The "labor crews" were the forced-labor levy: men conscripted in rotation for the king's building works. Jeroboam was therefore put in charge of the very system the northern tribes most resented.
11:29: Shiloh was the town where the tent-sanctuary had stood for generations before Jerusalem became the center of worship, so a prophet from Shiloh carried old northern authority. Prophets in Israel often delivered a message by performing it as a physical action rather than only speaking it; what follows is such a performed sign.
11:30: Twelve pieces for the twelve tribes. Tearing a garment was in ordinary life a gesture of grief or outrage; here it is used deliberately as an enacted picture of a kingdom being torn apart.
11:32: "One tribe" again means Judah with Benjamin attached; see the note on verse 13.
11:33: The Hebrew verbs in this verse are plural ("they have abandoned"), although verse 31 speaks of Solomon alone; some ancient manuscripts and versions read the singular throughout. The plain rendering keeps the plural. "As David his father did" refers to Solomon's father, David.
11:36: "A lamp" is an idiom for a surviving descendant who keeps the family line alight, as a lamp kept burning in a house marks it as still occupied. For God to "put his name" in a place is the standard phrase for claiming it as his own and being present there, a name marked ownership.
11:38: "A lasting family line" translates "a sure house": in this idiom a "house" is a dynasty, the promise being that his descendants will keep the throne.
11:39: "Bring low" means humble or reduce in status; the Hebrew word does not specify how, and the sentence deliberately leaves the duration open, "but not forever".
11:40: Shishak is the Egyptian pharaoh Shoshenq I, founder of a new dynasty, who had reason to shelter an enemy of Solomon. He later invaded Judah in Rehoboam's reign (1 Kings 14:25–26).
11:41: The book of the acts of Solomon was an official written record the writer expects his readers to be able to consult; it has not survived. The King James form, "are they not written...?", is a set formula meaning "you can find the full account there", the writer is citing a source, not asking a question.
11:42: Forty years is used throughout these books for a full generation, and David is credited with the same length of reign. It may be an exact figure or a round one.
11:43: The "city of David" is the original fortified ridge of Jerusalem that David captured and where the kings of his line were buried. Rehoboam was Solomon's son by an Ammonite mother (1 Kings 14:21).

Read 1 Kings 11