Verse 17. - To the tribe of Judah the family of David belonged. There was less inclination on this ground, to begin with, among them to go to the length of revolting. Though they too are pressed with burden and taxation, yet royal expenditure, residence, magnificence, are all near them, and are some solarium doubtless to them. God said that this tribe and (as is abundantly evident from Ahijah's forcibly dramatic parable of the rent garment) Benjamin also should be saved to Rehoboam and for ever to David's line, and again it is evident that he works in the midst of human event, and moral cause and effect. Israel would not have revolted but that Jeroboam was of Ephraim, and Judah would not have remained steadfast but that, with other determining influences also, to Judah belonged Rehoboam and Solomon and David.

10:1-19 The ten tribes revolt from Rehoboam. - Moderate counsels are wisest and best. Gentleness will do what violence will not do. Most people like to be accosted mildly. Good words cost only a little self-denial, yet they purchase great things. No more needs to be done to ruin men, than to leave them to their own pride and passion. Thus, whatever are the devices of men, God is doing his own work by all, and fulfilling the word which he has spoken. No man can bequeath his prosperity to his heirs any more than his wisdom; though our children will generally be affected by our conduct, whether good or bad. Let us then seek those good things which will be our own for ever; and crave the blessing of God upon our posterity, in preference to wealth or worldly exaltation.See Introduction to Chapter 9