“So the king did not listen to the people; for the turn of events was from the LORD, that He might fulfill His word, which the LORD had spoken by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat" (1 Kings 11:11:12).
After King Solomon died, the people of Israel approached Rehoboam, Solomon’s son and heir, and asked him to alleviate the taxation, forced labor and expanded military call-up that characterized Solomon's rule. It was a reasonable request.
Rehoboam responded by seeking wisdom from the elders who counseled him to show leniency.
Rehoboam then sought counsel from the young Turks that made up his inner circle, whose harsh, uncompromising answer swayed Rehoboam to increase his father’s state-imposed burdens, with the result that ten of the tribes of Israel rebelled and established a separate kingdom, a division that lasted for 200 years until Israel fell to the Assyrian Empire.
All of this reads like a straight-forward historical account and a polemic, perhaps, to teach respect for elders, but the historian throws us a curve: He understands that these wholly human actions were ordained by God to bring about his will: “The king did not listen…for the turn of events was from the LORD."
Rehoboam acted in full and responsible freedom, but God's will was done—an antinomy in logical terms, a paradox, “a thing too loving deep, too lofty wise, for me, poor child, to understand (its) laws” (George MacDonald).
The biblical writers were not unaware of the contradiction in tracing all human activity directly to the hand of God, but they understood the dynamic involved and were invested in our spiritual and emotional well-being. Both our actions and God’s actions are consonant and meaningful, but focusing solely on our activity leads us to work the system and produces the anxiety that accompanies unaided, human effort. Focusing on the activity of God calls us to tranquility and the confidence of faith.
The Heidelberg Catechism asks, "What do you understand by the providence of God?"
The answer:
The almighty and ever present power of God by which he upholds, as with his hand, heaven and earth and all creatures, and so rules them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and lean years, food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty—all things, come to us not by chance but by his fatherly hand.
“Chance is holy chance,” someone has said. And so, though I will vote my mind and conscience next month, the outcome is of the Lord. “‘Tis Mystery all,” but a mystery I find very comforting.
David Roper
10.9.20
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