When Jeroboam son of Nebat heard this (he was still in Egypt, where he had fled from King Solomon), he returned from Egypt. – 1 Kings 12:2

Today’s Scripture Reading (November 13, 2019): 1 Kings 12

In 1933, Albert Einstein took a vacation away from his home in Germany, but he never returned home. The newly elected German government (the Nazis) had decided that what Einstein had been teaching in the universities was wrong. This conclusion on Einstein’s teaching was not based on empirical data or experiments that had proved Einstein’s theories incorrect (that is still something that we have not been able to do). The new German government had decided that Einstein was wrong simply because Albert Einstein was a Jew, and Jews couldn’t be right. It is still hard for me to believe that Albert Einstein was the subject of book burnings in Germany in 1933. As they burned his books, all of the scientific contributions that arose from this phenomenal and original mind was lost to a generation of German students.

Albert Einstein was also a noted pacifist. Even with everything that he was watching develop on the world stage, Einstein thought that war was wrong. A group of Hungarian scientists, who happened to be refugees in the United States, had tried to warn the American government in 1939 that the German scientists were working on an Atomic Bomb. Their thought was that the United States needed to turn up their own efforts to develop an Atomic weapon. But the scientists were not taken seriously by the government officials. So they approached Albert Einstein, asking him to join with them in their efforts to convince the President of the danger that was lurking in the not too distant future. Einstein ignored his convictions about war and put his signature on a letter to President Roosevelt concerning the state of German atomic research. Roosevelt took Einstein seriously and started to put more money into what was then being codenamed “The Manhattan Project.” The increased effort resulted in the United States winning the World War II race to the bomb. All of this was made possible because they were willing to listen to the advice of a scientist who the Germans had discredited based on his heritage.

The reality of life is that our decisions and mistakes often come back to haunt us. The horrible World War II reality is that had Einstein been honored in Germany, the renowned pacifist may have never encouraged the United States to develop the Atomic Bomb. And Germany might have won the World War II Atomic race, changing history forever. Our decisions have consequences.

Jeroboam had been an official in King Solomon’s government. But he began to become concerned about the high level of disconnect between the Northern Tribes and King Solomon’s Jerusalem. And he started to believe that he needed to be the voice of that Northern discontentment, speaking truth to power, in King Solomon’s court. But Jeroboam’s actions and sympathies for the North led to a rebellion against Solomon. And Solomon was forced to put down the rebellion. But the reality was that Jeroboam and his compatriots were never really dealt with; the issues that had caused the uprising in the first place were never resolved. The only result of the rebellion was that Jeroboam left Jerusalem and Israel and began to live his life in exile in Egypt.

But when Solomon died, all of the issues surrounding the Northern discontent came back to Jerusalem – including Jeroboam. And what Jeroboam was unable to do under Solomon, he was more than ready to do during the reign of his son, Rehoboam. The problems that had never been dealt with in the past with now caused a significant challenge for the future.

For Nazi Germany, the problem was never Einstein; it was an unhealthy view of foreigners, specifically the Jews of central Europe. For Solomon, the problem was not really Jeroboam, but rather a significant feeling of disconnect that was growing among the Northern tribes, the truth was that the discontent had been present from the beginning of David’s reign, but the Northern feeling of rejection was now coming to a head, possibly because of the massive commitment of resources that had been necessary to build the Temple in Jerusalem in a single generation (Solomon’s Temple was one of a handful of significant structures that was completed by the same ruler who started the process. Usually, these kinds of projects, in the ancient world, took generations to complete.) It was this disconnect between Jerusalem and the North that set the stage for both Jeroboam’s rebellion under Solomon and for his return to Israel to continue the uprising at the beginning of the reign of Solomon’s son.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 1 Kings 13

See 2 Chronicles 10:2