which are in Judah and in Benjamin, fenced cities. 11And he fortified the strong holds, and put captains in them, and store of victual, and oil and wine. 12And in every several city he put shields and spears, and made them exceeding strong. And Judah and Benjamin belonged to him. 13And the priests and the Levites that were in all Israel resorted to him out of all their border. 14For the Levites left their suburbs and their possession, and came to Judah and Jerusalem: for Jeroboam and his sons cast them off, that they should not execute the priest's office unto the LORD: 15and he appointed him priests
Aijalon] The modern Yalo, a little north of the Jaffa road about midway between Ramleh and Jerusalem. It is an ancient place mentioned in the Tell el-Amarna letters. Cp. xxviii. 18 and 1 Chr. vi. 69; also Smith, Hist. Geog. pp. 210—213.
and in Benjamin] None of the fifteen cities seems to have been in Benjamin. Zorah and Aijalon were in Dan (Josh. xix. 41, 42, R.V.), while the remaining thirteen were in Judah. Cp. ver. 5.
Benjamin, in reality, belonged to the Northern Kingdom until, after the fall of Samaria, its territory was included in the Judean kingdom (see 1 Kin. xii. 20). Later, the idea prevailed that it had been one with the Southern Kingdom from the beginning—as appears here, and apparently in 1 Kin. xi. 31. At any rate the phrase, Judah and Benjamin, came to be used as a general expression denoting the Southern Kingdom. How long any sense of its partial inaccuracy remained is uncertain.
12. And Judah and Benjamin belonged to him] If the view, discussed in the note on ver. 5, that Rehoboam's military precautions were carried through to suppress or prevent rebellion in Judah, then this phrase should be rendered And so Judah and Benjamin became his.
13. resorted to him] Lit. took their stand by him.
14. suburbs] See note on 1 Chr. v. 16.
cast them off, that they should not execute the priest's office unto the LORD] The point is in the concluding words "unto the LORD" (i.e. Jehovah). Jeroboam did not abandon the worship of Jehovah, although later generations thought so and could not conceive that the famous "calves wherewith he made Israel to sin" were images symbolic of Jehovah. The Chronicler regards him as having lapsed into gross idolatry (see ver. 15) and as having ejected all the Levites from his kingdom. A less stringent opinion as to his treatment of the priests of Jehovah is expressed in 1 Kin. xii. 31, xiii. 33 where it is not said that Jeroboam rejected the tribe of Levi, but only that he allowed men of any tribe to become priests; "he . . . made priests from among all the people" (R.V.). Comparison of Kings and Chron. is here very valuable as an illustration of the care with which the history in Chron. has been adapted to indicate that the Northern Kingdom was wholly wicked and apostate from the start. The Chronicler's hostility
