Commentaria in III Regum
Moreover Pineda, book 7, chapter 18, number 7, thinks that these threats of God of the rending of the kingdom were hurled at Solomon in the 32nd year of his reign, that in the remaining eight years he might endure very great troubles both of mind and body. The same, however, in his Chronology refers this rebuke to the end of the 37th year of Solomon. In the thirty-eighth he will have it that adversaries were raised up against Solomon, in the thirty-ninth that he came to himself, and in the fortieth that he died: which seems a distribution highly consonant with reason, says Salianus.
15. AND JOAB WAS GONE UP TO BURY THEM THAT WERE SLAIN.—What Cajetan thinks is probable, that it then happened that the garrisons of David left in Edom, subdued by him, were slain by the Edomites after his departure: and so Joab went there to bury them, and to avenge their slaughter: whence he killed all the males of the Edomites, except perhaps little children, who are excepted by the law of Deuteronomy 20:14.
21. HE SAID TO PHARAO: LET ME DEPART THAT I MAY GO INTO MY OWN COUNTRY.—This seems to have been the course of the history which Scripture here rolls up in a few words. Adad, of the royal seed of Edom, fled as a boy, or rather was carried off by servants into Egypt, when David was laying waste Edom. In Egypt he found favour with Pharao, so that Pharao gave him in marriage the sister of his own wife. Hearing that David, the devastator of Edom, was dead, he asked Pharao for leave to return to his kingdom of Edom, which Pharao at length granted. In the third year of Solomon, therefore, he returned to Edom, being about thirty years old, as Abulensis says, where with the good leave of Solomon, by the intervention of Pharao, who had joined both to himself by affinity, he seems to have reigned in Edom as tributary on the same law and condition of tribute which David had imposed; for nothing is found changed or disturbed in Edom from that time. In the last years of Solomon, seeing him grown effeminate, infatuated and contemptible, he refused him tribute, and rebelling vindicated himself and his Edom into liberty. So Abulensis, Salianus and others.
23. GOD ALSO RAISED UP AN ADVERSARY AGAINST HIM, Razon,—who, as follows, having become a captain of robbers, made himself king of Damascus. Just and fitting was this punishment, that as Solomon rebelled against God, so too his subjects, as well as those subdued in war, should rebel against him. So God raises up adversaries for a sinner, to goad him and force him to return to God.
25. AND HE (Razon) WAS AN ADVERSARY TO ISRAEL ALL THE DAYS OF SOLOMON: AND THIS IS THE MISCHIEF OF ADAD, AND HIS HATRED AGAINST ISRAEL: AND HE REIGNED IN SYRIA.—Josephus, Cajetan and others explain thus, as if to say: Adad joined himself with Razon, and strengthened by his help rebelled against Solomon, and made himself king of the Syrians. But they err: for Razon made himself king of Syria, that is, of Damascus, as was said in the preceding verse. Adad, however, as son of the king of Edom, reigned in his own Edom. The sense, therefore, is as if to say: Razon was an adversary of Israel and Solomon, and so increased the mischief of Adad’s hostility against Israel, “and he reigned in Syria,” namely Razon himself, not Adad. Whence the Chaldee translates: and he (Razon) was an adversary to Israel all the days of Solomon, and with the mischief which Hadad did, he rebelled against Israel, and reigned over Aram, that is, Syria; as if to say: Razon with Hadad rebelled against Solomon, and afflicted Israel, and made himself king of Syria. So Vatablus, Pineda and Salianus. The Roman Septuagint signify this clearly, which transpose these words and join them to verse 22, where they read thus: And Ader returned into his own land, this is the mischief which Ader did, and he oppressed, or afflicted, Israel, and reigned in the land of Edom: for instead of Aram they read Edom: for the letters resh and daleth are very like, so that one is often substituted for the other; as here for Adad the Septuagint read Ader. Scripture concludes, therefore, by joining two enemies of Solomon, Adad and Razon, and adding a third and greatest in the following verse, namely Jeroboam. Finally, both opinions can be reconciled by saying that Adad first reigned in Edom, then migrated from it, as being mountainous and barren, into Syria, as rich and fertile, and on the death of Razon, his companion in rebellion, succeeded him in the kingdom of Syria. For his son Benadad was king of Syria, as is plain from 3 Kings 20:1, nay from Adad the other kings of Syria after him were called Benadad, that is, sons and successors of Adad, and therefore hostile to Israel. So St. Jerome on chapter 1 of Amos, the Rabbis and Vatablus, book 4 of Kings chapter 8.
26. JEROBOAM ALSO THE SON OF NABAT, AN EPHRATHITE.—This was the third enemy of Solomon. The Hebrews in St. Jerome’s Traditions think that “Nabat” is Semei, who cursed David, and was therefore killed by Solomon, so that his son Jeroboam conceived a grave hatred against David and Solomon, as if inborn from his father, and therefore rebelled against him. But they err: for Semei was of the tribe of Benjamin, whereas Jeroboam was an “Ephrathite,” that is, of the tribe of Ephraim, which tribe was arrogant, emulous of Juda, and greedy of empire. Whence in Jeroboam it seized it, and held it almost the whole time of the kings of Israel. Salianus shows the arrogance of the Ephraimites by many examples and their turbulent temper.
A WIDOW WOMAN.—So the Hebrew, Chaldee and Septuagint here; but in the following chapter the Roman Septuagint have, a fornicating woman, or harlot: and so Lucifer of Cagliari reads, book On Apostatic Kings.
LIFTED UP HIS HAND AGAINST THE KING,—after he received from Ahias the prophet the ten pieces of the cloak, and by them the promise of God of the kingdom of the ten tribes, as follows; for then he seems to have solicited the ten tribes by revealing this prophecy, that they might revolt from Solomon, so harsh an exactor of tributes, to himself as one who would be milder: perhaps also he openly rebelled against Solomon, and invaded the kingdom, as these words hint. So Josephus, Pineda and Salianus; although Abulensis and Tornielli think that Jeroboam rebelled even before the prophecy of Ahias.
In which matter he sinned: for God here only promised him by Ahias the kingdom of the ten tribes, but did not actually give it to him now, but only after the death of Solomon under Roboam. Wherefore Jeroboam rose against Solomon his king wrongfully and unjustly. So Abulensis. As when Samuel secretly anointed David king, he did not by that give him a right to the kingdom, but that he should reign after the death of Saul: whence David, while Saul lived, attempted nothing about the kingdom.
Finally Salianus is of opinion that Jeroboam likewise attempted nothing against Solomon, but is only said to have “lifted up his hand against the king,” because he was designated king against Solomon by Ahias, and accepted this designation of Ahias. For in the common speech, he who accepts the kingdom of another, though offered to himself, is said to rebel against the king; Serarius, however, says that he “lifted up his hand” against Solomon, because he lifted it against Roboam, Solomon’s son. But that he soon plotted something against Solomon, Scripture signifies properly by this phrase, and confirms it by adding: “And this is the cause of his rebellion against him.” He rebelled, then, against Solomon. Whence Josephus, book 8, chapter 2: “Jeroboam,” he says, “raised to great hopes by these words of the Prophet, being otherwise of a restless and ambitious temper, as soon as he came into his province, not unmindful of the prophetic presage, began to solicit the people to revolt from Solomon and to confer the chief power on himself.” Josephus is followed by Tornielli, Pineda, Abulensis and others.
31. TAKE TO THEE TEN PIECES,—that by this thou mayest know that under Roboam thou wilt take away from the kingdom of Solomon ten of the twelve tribes, and arrogate to thyself the ten tribes of Israel, as Ahias presently explains.
Symbolically, these ten pieces signified that the kingdom of the ten tribes, in ten families succeeding one another, would be rent and divided ten times, says Rupert. For this was the order and succession of the kings of Israel, or of the ten tribes. The first rending of the ten tribes from the two Jeroboam made. “His son,” says Rupert, book 5, chapter 4, “named Nadab, Baasa struck. This is the second rending of the kingdom of Israel. Baasa’s son Ela Zambri killed, and reigned in his stead. Zambri burnt himself in the palace while Amri besieged it, who also reigned in his stead. After him reigned Achab, and after him his son Ochozias, and after him his brother Joram. But Jehu killed him, and reigned in his stead to the fourth generation. The fifth from him struck Sellum, and reigned in his stead. But him too Manahem struck, and reigned in his stead. His son also Phaceias, Phacee son of Romelias struck, and reigned in his stead, but against him too Osee conspired, and struck and killed him, and reigned in his stead. Against him the king of the Assyrians went up and transferred Israel to the Assyrians. This was the tenth rending. For in Jeroboam was the first, in Baasa the second, in Zambri the third, in Amri the fourth, in Jehu the fifth, in Sellum the sixth, in Manahem the seventh, in Phacee son of Romelias the eighth, in Osee the ninth, in the king of the Assyrians, who divided those divided from God and David their king also in place, by transferring them to the Assyrians, is rightly counted the tenth.”