997 B.C. God's people fall apart into two separate nations: Israel and Judah

Because he was afraid of Solomon, the rebel Jerobeam had fled to Egypt. When he heard that Solomon had died, he returned to his tribe Ephraim and became the leader of the northern tribes. At first, these northern tribes did not want to separate from the southern tribes. They just wanted to urge Solomon’s successor Rehabeam to lighten their burden since they had to supply the king with everything he wanted from them. Instigated by his rather reckless companions, Rehabeam ignored the advice of his older counselors. Instead of decreasing the contribution which the other tribes had to pay for his exuberant lifestyle, he made them pay more.

After this, the northern ten tribes split off and did not want to have anything to do any more with Rehabeam and the tribes of Judah and Benjamin.

In the centuries during which the northern and southern kingdom lived side by side, they were not only threatened by neighboring nations like Assyria and Babylonia. They also formed a constant threat to each other.

Immediately after the northern ten tribes had separated, Rehabeam mustered an army to restore order. But JHWH forbade Judah to go to war against their Israelite brothers.

Jerobeam understood that if his people would frequently have to travel to Jerusalem to visit the temple and celebrate the annual festivities for JHWH, there was a good chance that they would try to reunite the two new nations with Rehabeam as the king.

Therefore, he put up idols in two places of his kingdom. He placed images of calves in Dan and Bethel. He also created a new class of priests who were not men of the tribe of Levi like JHWH had commanded, but people from other tribes.

It was not long before the Canaanite idol Baal was worshipped on a massive scale, both in the northern and southern kingdom.

During the 22 years of his reign, Jerobeam was an idol-worshipper. Furthermore, most of the people of the ten-tribe kingdom followed him.

On one occasion, when Jerobeam was offering a sacrifice to the image of the calf in Bethel, a prophet of JHWH pointed out the sinfulness of his conduct. JHWH tore the altar into pieces. But this did not change the way Jerobeam thought and acted. Neither did Jerobeam alter his ways when JHWH caused one of his children to die. Jerobeam did not change even when JHWH told him that in His eyes, idolatry was the worst kind of sin that a man could commit and that He would punish him severely by exterminating his entire family.

(If you want to read how God’s nation fell apart into two separate kingdoms in 997 B.C., you can find the story in 1 Kings 12: 1 to 1 Kings 14:20 of the Bible.)