used- because one of them spoke in the name of the whole), “If thou wilt be subservient to this people to-day (now), and servest them, and hearkenest to them, ... they will serve thee for ever.”
Verses 8-14
But Rehoboam forsook this advice, and asked the younger ministers who had grown up with him. They advised him to overawe the people by harsh threats. “My little finger is stronger than my father's loins.” קטי, from קטן, littleness, i.e., the little finger (for the form, see Ewald, §255, b.), - a figurative expression in the sense of, I possess much greater might than my father. “And now, my father laid a heavy yoke upon you, and I will still further add to your yoke (lay still more upon you): my father chastised you with whips, I will chastise you with scorpions.” עקרבּים, scorpiones, are whips with barbed points like the point of a scorpion's sting.[1]
This advice was not only imprudent, “considering all the circumstances” (Seb. Schmidt), but it was unwise in itself, and could only accelerate the secession of the discontented. It was the language of a tyrant, and not of a ruler whom God had placed over His people. This is shown in 1Ki 12:13, 1Ki 12:14 : “The king answered the people harshly, and forsook the counsel of the old men,” i.e., the counsellors who were rich in experience, and spoke according to the counsels of the young men, who flattered his ambition. It is very doubtful, indeed, whether the advice of the old men would have been followed by so favourable a result; it might probably have been so for the moment, but not for a permanency. For the king could not become the עגלים of the people, serve the people, without prejudicing the authority entrusted to him by God; though there is no doubt that if he had consented to such condescension, he would have deprived the discontented tribes of all pretext for rebellion, and not have shared in the sin of their secession.
Verse 15
1Ki 12:15 “And the king hearkened not to the people (to their request for their burdens to be reduced), for it was יהוה מעם סבּה, a turning from the Lord, that He might establish His word” (1Ki 11:31.), i.e., by a divine decree, that Rehoboam
- ↑ The Rabbins give this explanation: virgae spinis instructae. Isidor. HisPal. Origg. v. c. 27, explains it in a similar manner: virga si est nodosa vel aculeata, scorpio vocatur. The Targ. and Syr., on the other hand, מרגגין, Syr. ma ̄ rgana ̄ ', i.e., the Greek μάραγνα, a whip. See the various explanations in Bochart, Hieroz. iii. p. 554f. ed. Ros.
