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God will act as a unifying power for His people until they forsake Him and seek other rulers, be them false gods or earthly kings. The generations that arose after Joshua are characterized by the years of the Judges. Israel’s disunity and disharmony during this time quickens, and results in a people that desire an earthly King.
A King for Israel was not God’s original intent. He was to be their King and unify His people, and define their boundaries, their spiritual lineage, their laws, and fight their wars. But now they wanted an earthly King to unify them, fight their wars, declare their boundaries, and their laws. So the people tell off the prophet Samuel, who warns them against forsaking God in this way. We read in 1 Samuel:
Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah and said to him, “Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.” But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” And Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. According to all the deeds that they have done, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you. Now then, obey their voice; only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them. But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. And they said, “No! But there shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.” And when Samuel had heard all the words of the people, he repeated them in the ears of the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, “Obey their voice and make them a king.” Samuel then said to the men of Israel, “Go every man to his city.”
1 Samuel 8:4-9,19-22 ESV
Saul is then appointed King of Israel. Israel is ruled as 12 tribes among 3 King’s for a time (Saul, David, and Solomon). This reign of these 3 Kings over a unified Israel is quite short lived. The people are unified under David, but then another falling away occurs after Solomon, his son, in 931BC. As Israel forsakes God’s commandments, their earthly Kings fail to unify them.
The 12 tribes first split into two houses, the House of Israel and the House of Judah. The 10 northern tribes are the House of Israel based in Samaria, and the 2 southern tribes are the House of Judah based in Jerusalem. To see this split unfold, we read in 1 Kings 11:31-39, where the 10 northern tribes were torn away from the 3rd King, Solomon, and given to a ruler named Jeroboam. While stripped of a united rule over Israel, one tribe is given to Solomon’s lineage because of God’s promise to bring a savior through the line of David (which is Judah). The last of the 12 tribes, Benjamin, is annexed/assimilated into Judah. We see that this last tribe of Benjamin is not explicitly mentioned in the split, and this may be due to their crimes in Gibeah in Judges 19:21, 20:13 as they refused to turn over criminal offenders. Regardless, Judah and Benjamin come to represent the southern kingdom as the House of Judah, and the remaining 10 northern tribes represent the House of Israel.
After this split, Israel is never reunified. They repeatedly forsake God and His commandments and heap upon themselves disunity.
In essence, Israel sinned, and instead of turning to God for leadership, they try to remedy their issues with their first earthly King, Saul. They treat the symptoms rather than the source of their spiritual infection. They desire earthly rule, not spiritual, and instead of turning to God, they make themselves Kings. This remedy ultimately fails after Solomon. In 1 Kings 11, we read how God outlined the plan to split Israel to Jeroboam.
“And he said to Jeroboam, “Take for yourself ten pieces, for thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Behold, I am about to tear the kingdom from the hand of Solomon and will give you ten tribes (but he shall have one tribe, for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, the city that I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel), because they have forsaken me and worshiped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh the god of Moab, and Milcom the god of the Ammonites, and they have not walked in my ways, doing what is right in my sight and keeping my statutes and my rules, as David his father did. Nevertheless, I will not take the whole kingdom out of his hand, but I will make him ruler all the days of his life, for the sake of David my servant whom I chose, who kept my commandments and my statutes. But I will take the kingdom out of his son’s hand and will give it to you, ten tribes. Yet to his son I will give one tribe, that David my servant may always have a lamp before me in Jerusalem, the city where I have chosen to put my name. And I will take you, and you shall reign over all that your soul desires, and you shall be king over Israel. And if you will listen to all that I command you, and will walk in my ways, and do what is right in my eyes by keeping my statutes and my commandments, as David my servant did, I will be with you and will build you a sure house, as I built for David, and I will give Israel to you. And I will afflict the offspring of David because of this, but not forever.’”
1 Kings 11:31-39 ESV
(As an aside, please note how God describes the House of Judah in Jerusalem as a lamp.)
Despite the split of Israel, once again, God provides paths for unity. God tells Jeroboam that if he keeps His commandments, He will have a sure house. So the two houses (Israel and Judah) live separately for 200 years after Solomon’s rule ends in roughly 931BC.
We see the two houses do not live in harmony. A schism develops between them when the northern house desired grace for a debt to the southern house, and the southern house denies them forgiveness. Interestingly, the north desires mercy on a debt, but is given no mercy, and the south tries to strictly adhere to their statutes and forget God’s law (namely His forgiveness). In essence, one house is too loose with following rules, and the other is too strict. We see this in today’s split between Judaism and Christianity, where Christians have no heed of anything in the law, and Jews heap upon God’s law countless additional laws in the Talmud.
We see this schism develop in 1 Kings 12 after God’s promises are made to Jeroboam. After a time, Jeroboam flees to Egypt and returns to plea with Rehoboam, the king of the south, to ease the taxation yoke that had been placed on the northern house. Rehooboam responds by holding to the south’s statute, and even increasing it.
3 And they sent and called him, and Jeroboam and all the assembly of Israel came and said to Rehoboam, 4 “Your father made our yoke heavy. Now therefore lighten the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke on us, and we will serve you.”
14 he spoke to them according to the counsel of the young men, saying, “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.”
19 So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day.
1 Kings 12:3,14,19 ESV
We see that this north/south schism does not mend, and importantly, that it is a schism between grace and legalism. Interestingly, this grace/legalism schism remains between Messianic Jewish believers and Christian believers, and between various Christian denominations (Catholic vs Protestant, Presbyterian vs Evangelical, etc).
As the rift continues throughout history, the northern tribes are outside Jerusalem, away from their temple and their customs, and fall away from His ways and adopt other gods as their own. Also, throughout this time, the northern tribes generally have evil Kings, while the southern tribes have a mix of good and bad kings.
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