Sunday Sermonette: New wine into old bottles

For some reason, the wine industry adopted Jeroboam and Rehoboam as the names for large-size bottles. You can look it up. Anyway, while the division of the Israelites (defined presumably by the Hebrew language) into two kingdoms is probably historically real, the similarity of the names points to the likely fictitious nature of this story about how it happened.  We learned in the previous chapter that Yahweh wanted it to happen because Solomon ' s wives seduced him into promoting the worship of other Gods. Yahweh somehow induces Rehoboam to say exactly what will cause the people to rebel against him, although exactly why Judah and Benjamin put up with it is not explained. It ' s been confusing, but now it turns out that Benjamin is staying with Judah and the line of David which accounts for the missing tribe in the previous chapter. (They really needed an editor.) It ' s also news that Solomon ' s yoke was heavy on the people, but it ' s necessary to make the plot work. It seems rather puzzling that it ' s apparently just fine with Yahweh that Jeroboam sets up two golden calves for the people to worship, which as you may recall from Exodus was just about the worst thing you can do; and that Jeroboam also appoints priests who are not Levites and that seems okay as well. The only logical conclusion is that Yahweh has decided that the northern tribes are apostate so let them go their own way, and Judah + Benjamin will keep faith with the cult and the law. As we shall s...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs