relation to David
or his posterity after this day." And they said further, "We only leave
to Rehoboam the temple which his father built;" and they threatened to
forsake him. Nay, they were so bitter, and retained their wrath so long,
that when he sent Adoram, which was over the tribute, that he might
pacify them, and render them milder, and persuade them to forgive him,
if he had said any thing that was rash or grievous to them in his youth,
they would not hear it, but threw stones at him, and killed him. When
Rehoboam saw this, he thought himself aimed at by those stones with
which they had killed his servant, and feared lest he should undergo the
last of punishments in earnest; so he got immediately into his chariot,
and fled to Jerusalem, where the tribe of Judah and that of Benjamin
ordained him king; but the rest of the multitude forsook the sons of
David from that day, and appointed Jeroboam to be the ruler of their
public affairs. Upon this Rehoboam, Solomon's son, assembled a great
congregation of those two tribes that submitted to him, and was ready to
take a hundred and eighty thousand chosen men out of the army, to make
an expedition against Jeroboam and his people, that he might force them
by war to be his servants; but he was forbidden of God by the prophet
[Shemaiah] to go to war, for that it was not just that brethren of the
same country should fight one against another. He also said that this
defection of the multitude was according to the purpose of God. So he
did not proceed in this expedition. And now I will relate first the
actions of Jeroboam the king of Israel, after which we will relate what
are therewith connected, the actions of Rehoboam, the king of the two
tribes; by this means we shall preserve the good order of the history
entire.

4. When therefore Jeroboam had built him a palace in the city Shechem,
he dwelt there. He also built him another at Penuel, a city so called.
And now the feast of tabernacles was approaching in a little time,
Jeroboam considered, that if he should permit the multitude to go to
worship God at Jerusalem, and there to celebrate the festival, they
would probably repent of what they had done, and be enticed by the
temple, and by the worship of God there performed, and would leave him,
and return to their first kings; and if so, he should run the risk of
losing his own life; so he invented this contrivance; He made two golden
heifers, and built two little temples for t