Politically it is easy to see that one cause of the revolt lay in the too great rapidity in which kings, who, as it was assumed, were to be elective, or at least to depend on the willing obedience of the people, had transformed themselves into hereditary despots. Judah might still accept the sway of a king of her own tribe; but the powerful and jealous Ephraimites, at the head of the Northern Confederation, refused to regard themselves as the destined footstool for a single family. As in the case of Saul and of David, they determined once more to accept no king who did not owe his sovereignty to their own free choice. FOOTNOTES: [443] "Rehoboam" means "enlarger of the people" (comp. Eurudemos); Jeroboam, "whose people is many" (Poludemos; comp. Thiodric, Thierry). But Cheyne makes it mean "the kingdom contendeth" (Kleinert, _Volkstreiter_). [444] So we read in the LXX. Cod. Vat., and (partly) in the Vulgate (see Robertson Smith, _The Old Testament_, p. 117). Unless Jeroboam had spontaneously returned from Egypt on hearing of the death of Solomon, there would hardly have been time to summon him thence. 2 Chron. x. 2 represents the matter thus. Possibly his name has crept by error into 1 Kings xii. 3. See Wellhausen-Bleek's _Einleitung_, p. 243. [445] In the LXX. the Ephraimites complain of the expensive provision for Solomon's table. "Thy father made his yoke grievous upon us, and made grievous to us the meats of his table." LXX. (Cod. Vat.), καὶ ἐβάρυνε τὰ βρώματα τῆς τραπέζης αὐτοῦ. [446] Dante, _Inferno_, Cant. xxvii. [447] They are called _yeladim_, which surely cannot apply to men of forty, so that Rehoboam was probably little more than a youth, _na'ar_ (2 Chron. xiii. 7; comp. Gen. xxxiii. 13). [448] Herod., ii. 124-28. [449] "My little finger." Heb., "my littleness"; LXX., ἡ μικρότης μου. But the paraphrase is perfectly correct (Vulg., Pesh., Josephus, and the Rabbis). [450] "Virga si est nodosa et aculeata scorpios vocatur, quia arcuato vulnere in corpus infigitur" (Isodore., _Orig._, i. 175). [451] 2 Sam. xx. 1. [452] Or, "Now feed thine own house" (LXX., βόσκε, reading רעה for ראה); and the LXX. adds, "For this man is not (fit) to be a ruler, nor to be a prince." Evidently the revolt was the culmination of those jealousies which the haughty tribe of Ephraim had already manifested in the lives of Gideon, Abimelech, and David. [453] Heb., "strengthened himself." [454] In fact, the δωδεκάφυλον became more of a reminiscence than anything else. Simeon, for instance, practically disappeared (1 Chron. iv. 24-43). [455] 1 Kings xii. 17. CHAPTER XXV. _THE DISRUPTION._ 1 KINGS xii. 6-20.