ISRAEL. 
19 
With what a sound of terror must words like these have startled an Eastern king, 
surrounded with all the pomps and pleasures of the stateliest court of mankind: “ Thus 
saith the Lord; Behold, I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon.” A 
tremendous denunciation, scarcely lightened by the promise of the enfeebled throne. 
“ Howbeit, I will not take the whole kingdom out of his hand: but I will make him 
prince all the days of his life, for David my servant’s sake. And unto his son will I 
give one tribe, 1 that David my servant may have a light always before me in Jerusalem.” 2 
This declaration was made to Jeroboam, but evidently communicated to the king, who 
issued an instant order for his death. 
In this simple, but decisive manner, was a great sovereignty broken up, and a throne 
given away, in a conference between two private individuals, without the intervention of 
councils or armies. 
On the revolt of the ten tribes, Rehoboam hastily summons a vast army, and, evidently 
expecting to take the revolters by surprise, is on the point of rushing upon Israel; when the 
prophet Shemaiah stands in his way, forbids the invasion, and commands an impetuous 
monarch, inflamed alike with the sense of wrong and the hope of victory, and at the head of 
a hundred and eighty thousand chosen troops, to stop in his march, and disband his army; 
and is obeyed. 
“ Thus saith the Lord, Ye shall not go up, nor fight against vour brethren, the children 
of Israel: return, every man to his house, for this thing is from me. They hearkened 
therefore to the word of the Lord, and returned to depart, according to the word of 
the Lord.” 3 
But it was in the still more disastrous days of both kingdoms that prophecy and miracle 
shone with still more conspicuous lustre. Yet a striking distinction marks their use. 
Miracle is almost solely directed to the kingdom of Israel, prophecy almost solely to the 
kingdom of Judah.—The deeper guilt and more intractable rebellion of the ten tribes are 
assailed by the terrors and wonders of the senses; the less stubborn infidelity and less 
furious vice of Judah are addressed by the hopes and fears of the heart. Of all the 
prophets, but two, Hosea and Amos, were sent directly to Israel; and their language, 
sharp, wild, and terrible, is like the sound of a trumpet for the assault. 
“ Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel:” is the outcry of Hosea; “ for the 
Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor 
mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. By swearing, and lying, and killing, and 
stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood. Therefore 
shall the land mourn.” 4 
“ Hear this word that the Lord hath spoken against you, O children of Israel,” is the 
outcry of Amos; “ The lion hath roared, who will not fear ? the Lord God hath spoken, 
who can but prophesy? Publish in the palaces at Ashdod, and in the palaces in the land 
of Egypt, and say. Assemble yourselves upon the mountains of Samaria, and behold the 
great tumults in the midst thereof, and the oppressed in the midst thereof. . . . Thus saith 
1 Judali and Benjamin were reckoned as one, the Temple being built on the houndary-line of both. 
2 1 Kings, xi. 31-34, 36. 3 1 Kings, xii. 24. 4 Hosea, iv. 1, 2, 3. 
