Jeroboam, king of the northern kingdom of Israel, was practicing idolatry at Bethel, acting as priest as he prepared to offer incense on the altar, when God sent a prophet from Judah to denounce him. The prophet foretold that a child named Josiah, of David's house, would sacrifice the priests of the high places on that altar and burn men's bones there, and he gave a sign: the altar would split and its ashes pour out. God wanted Jeroboam and all Israel to know how displeased He was with their idolatry. Furious, Jeroboam raised his arm and ordered the prophet arrested, but his arm withered and froze in place, and the altar cracked open exactly as foretold. His attitude changed suddenly, and he begged the prophet to intercede for him. After the prophet prayed, the king's arm was restored. Grateful, Jeroboam invited the prophet to dine with him, but the prophet refused, holding to God's command not to eat, drink, or return by the same way. Jeroboam's encounter thus showed God's power and displeasure toward the false worship of the northern kingdom, and the prophet's later failure to keep that command, when deceived by an old Bethel prophet, teaches that God means exactly what He says (I Kings 13).

Jeroboam, a capable and industrious man whom Solomon promoted over the labor force of Joseph, received God's promise through Ahijah of ten tribes and an enduring house like David's if he obeyed. When Rehoboam rejected the people's plea for relief, Israel seceded and made Jeroboam king. Fearing that pilgrimages to the Temple in Jerusalem would turn the people's loyalty back to Rehoboam, he acted from selfishness and unbelief, disregarding God's promise. A politically astute, pragmatic practitioner of situation ethics, he introduced false worship gradually, over months or years, until it became orthodoxy. He set up worship centers at Bethel and Dan, replaced the Levites with priests from other tribes, and did away with the Feast of Tabernacles in favor of a feast of his own devising on the fifteenth day of the eighth month. His method began with an appeal to convenience: "It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem." He also tied his innovations to Israel's history: Bethel, where God met Jacob, and Dan, where Moses' grandson had served as priest. He even quoted Exodus 32 in presenting golden calves as the gods who brought Israel out of Egypt. The people accepted it because they love to be lied to and find convenience easier than changing their lives. Later kings, such as Jehu, still walked in the sins of Jeroboam. His story shows how Satan covertly leads people from truth inch by inch, and that nothing from paganism may be used in worshipping God.

God, having responded to Solomon's apostasy by committing Himself to ripping a part of His kingdom from His descendants, sought a suitable ruler for the remaining tribes. He found Jeroboam, a talented and ambitious Ephraimite whom Solomon had placed in charge of Joseph's labor force. God, recognizing potential in Jeroboam, made him two promises through the prophet Ahijah: one conditional and the other unconditional. Upon Solomon's death, Jeroboam seized upon the people's unrest over heavy taxation and forced labor. Just before the coronation of Solomon's son, Rehoboam, Jeroboam challenged him to lighten the burdensome service and heavy yoke imposed by Solomon, promising loyalty in return. When Rehoboam refused and threatened to increase the burden, certain tribes rebelled against the house of David. Jeroboam's kingdom, called the Kingdom of Israel, consisted of ten tribes and lay to the north of Judah, often referred to as the northern kingdom.

Jeroboam, the first king of the northern ten tribes, set the stage for Israel's idolatrous worship. After the God-inspired separation from the house of David, he built high places, created his own profane priesthood, and moved the Feast of Tabernacles back one month. Every king of Israel after him followed suit, so the high places became a permanent feature of the northern kingdom until Assyria carried Israel into captivity. Although Israel seems to have been more idolatrous than Judah, and its kings worse, Jeroboam's pattern of paganism shaped the whole line of northern rulers. Judah, by contrast, had a love-hate relationship with its high places, and God spends more time detailing the spiritual highs and lows of its leadership, since much had been given to the royal line of David and much was required of it.

Jeroboam stands among the kings who cast off all restraint and built idolatrous places that became stumbling blocks to Israel. The primal sin of Northern Israel was the establishment of high places (I Kings 12:31-33; 13:2, 33), and their continuance was a chief cause of the evils that came upon the nation (II Kings 17:10 f). God's assessments of the kings of Israel and Judah turn on whether a ruler remained true to Him or allowed and encouraged His people to follow the idolatrous practices of surrounding nations, and Jeroboam's high places placed him firmly on the wrong side of that measure. Many kings who followed him in the north are condemned as walking in the sins of their predecessors, and his example set a pattern of corruption that persisted until Assyria's conquest. His rule exists because Solomon turned to the high-place paganism of the heathens, which led God to tear the ten northern tribes from the line of David in Judah, a division that has yet to be healed.